I am not too concerned with how it will work on a larger scale as frankly I was thinking of at maybe 8 to 12 people. However, if you want to be more dynamic you don't need negative or decay just use an average, but in tiers, so for example you have net score, number of games, and average score/game. Maybe your ranking is like average score + number of games/4 or something - or you are in ladders based on number of games we have played.

Scrangos wrote:
Is there a way to do 70 pt sowers? :P



I'm a newb but I'd be willing to commit to doing ladder for at least 5-10 full games depending on how often their held.



Holding the possibility of alliances is interesting though since it might get people to drop the endless war trait.

Unless 2 of them have it and they're the most advanced races currently? :P Troll them by winning but being ally-less permanently :P



70 point sowers? more like 100 pt

I've been meaning to ask.. what is the standard galaxy shape?

Scrangos wrote:
I've been meaning to ask.. what is the standard galaxy shape?

Disk or Ovoid is the most balanced shapes I believe with Many Constellations. I'd be fine with either.



@All

I think we should start doing polls to decide things like (bidding vs. not bidding) for the ladder.



I think the following polls should be made:

1) Bidding vs. Not Bidding

2) Hero Balance Mod vs. No Mod

3) House Rules Acceptable As Is

4) House Settings Acceptable As Is



Sound good?

Yes - and Ovoid I think is the most interesting for 8 players. There are 9 constellations. 8 for players and an empty one in the middle. You have 2 neighbors + the middle connected by wormholes.



The bidding idea would need to be tried and tested. No reason someone has to pick sowers there are 9 factions. Still 20 points higher and they may be better, you don't know for sure. We could do more (or less) points by modding, otherwise you can't. I don't think that kind of modding is very hard to do, but it will take some time so if you want to do that it may be good to run the bids then create the mod to play next week, where all of the affinities have been adjusted to the appropriate points.

I'd rather just put it to a poll, I've had about half of the people I talked to about this tell me bidding and the house diplomacy rules was why they weren't interested. That and the 'score makes people crazy' thing.



Ultimately, for something like this to work we really need a stable stable (yes, that was intentional. Ah, English. Verbs and nouns oh my! :P) of players.

I agree, to have a stable stable there should be some freedom for players. After all, the goal is to do what you find fun.



However, everyone and their mother would agree that not all factions are created equal (Ima craver lawwwwwwwwwwl)



instead of bidding, you could create an incentive with different point gains for each faction. That is, winning with a bad faction is worth more points than winning with derp-phons or 23 CP craver fleets.



something like this: split the factions into 3 (or maybe 4) tiers. Each tier gets a different point value for winning.

Sowers, Amoeba, Automatons, Pilgrims (tier 3): 12 pts

Horatio, UE, Hissho (tier 2): 10 pts

Cravers, Sophons (tier 1): 8 pts



or something like that. Have the point values degrade for 2nd place, etc

for 2nd place:

tier 3: 10 pts

tier 2: 8 pts

tier 1: 6 pts



So with this, a 2nd place sowers would actually get more points than a first place craver or derp-phons

This would at least encourage some variety, and allow a crappy race to remain somewhat competitive in a ladder situation.

That sounds like a better idea than bidding to me.

Not a bad idea - suggestion as follows:



Affinity 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th Total

Sophons 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 36

Cravers 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 36

Hissho 9 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 37

United Empire 10 8 6 5 4 3 2 1 39

Horatio 10 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 45

Atomatons 11 9 7 6 5 4 3 2 47

Amoeba 12 10 8 6 5 4 3 2 50

Pilgrims 13 11 9 7 5 4 3 2 54

Sowers 14 12 10 8 6 4 3 2 59



+1 point for 2nd place and after if you survive to end of game. No points needed for allies etc. since the benefit there is it can help you to survive.



sorry the matrix does not properly work. We can discuss, just throwing it out there. I am not really certain what the results would be. I suspect we could come up with a swag and then vote for changes.

Another thing to consider is....when and how are matches made?



Is it once a week at a specific time? If so, what happens if people are unavailable.



Is there a sign up sheet, meaning you can play as often as you want? If so, players should get negative points for placing in the bottom half of the game. Otherwise it would always be whoever played the most is at the top. (minimum of 0 points, of course)



Perhaps have one "ladder" game per week. Players sign up, and request a time slot, expecting a 3hr+ game. The problem here is you'd end up with the same players in the same time slots every week.



Some other method? Getting 6-8 players together for long periods of time is difficult. Especially if that group changes with each game.



Any ideas that would be fair? =/

Personally, I think it should be a sign-up, play as often as you want, but with negative points for placing in the bottom half. Of course, the major downside here is you might discourage some players who are stuck at 0 points.



Should games have a minimum number of players? 6-8 player games only, or can we allow 4 player rated games? Should we ban players who quit before turn 20? or just put them in last place for that match?



What about matchmaking? Should we try to pair players of a higher rating together? or just have it be random?



Sorry for throwing out so many things at once, just trying to foresee potential problems

Its why I went with 5-6 & medium with the option for larger games. :P



I think any sign up process, play as often as you want, will work. But I think we may want to do some kind of weighted average if it is an at-will system.



e.g. Score Decay (every time you play a game, you have to wager a point) or something. Maybe toss in a 'only your average score for the week, counts'.



I'm not really considered with optimal score performance for high activity vs. low activity players, honestly. Just more reliable and balanced ES play. I'm sick of beating on newbs and/or quitters.

I really like the idea of a score average for the week. That way players can play as much as they want, but playing more doesn't instantly mean more points.

Not a bad idea - suggestion as follows:



Affinity 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th Total

Sophons 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 36

Cravers 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 36

Hissho 9 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 37

United Empire 10 8 6 5 4 3 2 1 39

Horatio 10 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 45

Atomatons 11 9 7 6 5 4 3 2 47

Amoeba 12 10 8 6 5 4 3 2 50

Pilgrims 13 11 9 7 5 4 3 2 54

Sowers 14 12 10 8 6 4 3 2 59

I think it'd be alright to just lump them into tiers like I did. it'd make things much easier than having to look up a table every time.



I think for each game, there should be a host that posts a sign up thread. In this thread, the host should specify the galaxy shape and size, and number of players. I don't think we should limit the map to a single type and size.



More importantly, the host specifies a play start time, and a stop time (probably 3 hours minimum). And it would be a good idea to set up a time to continue play if the game is not finished.



Since ES has pretty bad multiplayer support, we should have guidelines for dealing with situations:



In the event of a desync, which must be confirmed by at least 2 players, the game should be reloaded 2 turns prior. If the game gets to an unplayable state even after a reload, the game can nullified by a majority vote.



If the host leaves, or is just a really really bad host, he should be reported and not allowed to host again. The remaining players can either finish the game, nullify it, or take their scores at the end.



Anyway, in the interest of getting this started, we should nail down a final set of guidelines and open a sign up thread. Hosts can start setting up games when there is a decent sized player pool.

Is there a way to do 70 pt sowers? :P



I'm a newb but I'd be willing to commit to doing ladder for at least 5-10 full games depending on how often their held.



Holding the possibility of alliances is interesting though since it might get people to drop the endless war trait.

I'm no longer interested in this.



Thanks.

I am not sure why you felt the need to personally attack me for a game, but if you feel that way no problem. I am sorry to cause you any grief best wishes.

Whatever you say buddy.



You didn't cause me any grief, you were just annoying, refused to stop talking to me until I blocked you, and then you quit.



I won't be responding further.

Feel free not to, because that was not normal behavior. We had no deals and I was playing an aggressive race. I have been attacked immediately by many people (in fact, that happened to Dave and I tonight in the game I just finished). I don't start with condescending insults and swearing everlasting vengeance on them.



If you change your mind, let me know. And yes, the game experience is not enjoyable under those circumstances so I saw no reason to continue.

I think this is a cool idea, I would also like to participate in whatever you guys decide.

The bidding does make me a bit apprehensive, perhaps we can all agree beforehand certain advantages and disadvantages point wise for different races.



Like -10 for Sophons maybe.

bidding = no go for me



However, you could use a draft instead. Play a initiation round with the same custom faction (differing appearances) and the worst player gets first pick etc. and then it continues in the next round, with the lowest scoring player getting first draft. With this, you could keep the scoring system the same.

That is an interesting idea, though it sounds like it would take too many games. Let me think about how that might work, and another issue is "worst player" which may make it a benefit to lose. Or, is it more of a player balance thing? First game = anything goes and you start scoring. Next game, and subsequent games, lowest rank picks first, and so on, only 1 affinity per player.

Vypuero wrote:
That is an interesting idea, though it sounds like it would take too many games. Let me think about how that might work, and another issue is "worst player" which may make it a benefit to lose. Or, is it more of a player balance thing? First game = anything goes and you start scoring. Next game, and subsequent games, lowest rank picks first, and so on, only 1 affinity per player.

Example:



1st game the loser picks which faction they want for the next game. However, the winner still has 8 "ladder points" to the loser's 1 point. So it would still be beneficial to win the first match. Especially if you make the stakes double the normal amount.

Have you guys seen the new dev post with balance changes? Might just be what MP needs.

thanks for pointing that out, those changes definitely help balance things out.

Yeah we are thinking about modding some of those things. I am now leaning towards that vs. bidding - in fact, doing away with affinities (except for some unique techs) and putting it all out there as traits. That basically solves the issue. I think there is a huge variety available as it stands just by choosing and "bidding" the traits for your race!

As long as ES fan group expands, more play groups will be made

You forgot to mention victory condition

Just an outline - I am thinking probably every one but the Wonder victory? I have to think about exactly how to set up the game.

Sounds interesting...

Sounds interesting for the most part, except the cease-fire things. Not all populations tire of war. Cravers and hissho certainatly don't, and neither would sowers likely 'tire' of war due to them being machines. Ceasefire's should mostly be kept rule-free IMO, because honestly being forced to not be at war with someone can be very annoying for a cravers or hissho player.

I definitely prefer playing ES multi player with a group of friends, without all the rules and things. Sorry.

The ceasefire rule could be something that any Endless War faction does not have to deal with.



Sure Stealth but do you mean friends IRL or those you meet on steam multiplayer? A quick game is always great but how many times do you finish, or do you have people dropping, etc? The idea here is to do something different in addition to your usual casual games. Some extra House rules I think could make it interesting. I am trying to address these issues:



1 - Secret behind the scenes alliances

2 - Make tech trading a bit harder

3 - Make peace and war slightly more gradual and realistic

4 - Allow for playing losing positions longer, i.e. the scoring system (so even when behind, being a smaller part of a winning team or surviving matters) and the ability to get a cease fire

5 - More variety and balance in races

Vypuero wrote:
T



Sure Stealth but do you mean friends IRL or those you meet on steam multiplayer? A quick game is always great but how many times do you finish, or do you have people dropping, etc? The idea here is to do something different in addition to your usual casual games. Some extra House rules I think could make it interesting. I am trying to address these issues:

Neither, actually. None of my friends IRL play ES, but I play with a solid group of active community member. And they do not drop out of games. In fact, since I semi-created the group, if you drop without reason you can't play in the group anymore. But no one drops, because we talk with each other and take food breaks etc. etc. Its really nice.



So its much more solid than Steam Multi Player (which is not good for your health)



Although, If I didn't have such a great group of people to play ES with, your system would be my choice.

so wait, how do you play MP then? And, I would be interested.

I just play with friends that I have made on these forums. We just decide on a time to play and go from there. It started as a way to figure out exactly how the sowers were under powered, but now its all for fun.



Wait, Interested in what?

Interested in playing with your group, if I have not already done so (your name might be different on Steam). Maybe we could join up and start experimenting with some of the ideas. Or not, if you would prefer not to.

Hmmmm. Our group could not play this Saturday (the day we normally play) because several members are out of town. You and I might be able to experiment with some MP ideas tommorow, though.



And our games are 100% private, so you haven't played with us as a group. And I only play invite games so we probably never have played together.

New Longer Term Game Proposal

Rationale: A series of games in a Huge Galaxy with dedicated players willing to play to the end game. Placing will also matter, so points can be scored for an ongoing leader board:

Winner: 10 Points

Allied with Winner: Place +2 Points

Open Borders with Winner: Place +1 Point

Other Places (Survival/Death)

2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Place: 7 (4) Points

3[SUP]rd[/SUP] Place: 6 (3) Points

4[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 5 (2) Points

5[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 4 (2) Points

6[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 3 (1) Points

7[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 2 (1) Points

8[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 1 (0) Points



From a gaming perspective, a time will be established to regularly meet and/or set up at the end of each session. If someone does not show up they forfeit their position and another player who was eliminated or who has joined may take your place and gain points. If no one is available then you will be AI and can take your position back next session if you wish to.



Races & Bidding

Rationale: In order to make a more interesting and balanced game, the affinities will be auctioned off at the start of each game. The bidding starts in order of current point standings, with ties determined by first position (i.e. if you had X points first, and someone matches you, you are still ahead) then by seniority. Bidding continues until everyone passes, and each person own their latest bid. Bids are done in terms of the lowest number of points for each affinity. Only your last bid counts and you must bid lower than the previous player. Only one affinity is therefore available per game (no multiple Sophon affinities – only 1 player can win the bid on Sophons). The affinities are as follows:

United Empire

Sophons

Hissho

Pilgrims

Automatons

Sowers

Cravers

Amoeba

Horatio

Once the bid is won, you may create any race you choose using those points. So if the winning bid for Cravers is 47, you can create any type of race using the Cravers affinity but a maximum of 47 points. Points can be assigned on anything at all without any restrictions.





House Rules for Diplomacy in Endless Space

Rationale: The purpose of these rules is to bring some semblance of what true diplomacy is often like between nations, and to reflect the fact that even despots are not truly in complete control of an entire race or nation of people. Instead, politics makes things more complicated:

Peace Treaty – No changes here except when combined with other treaties below.

Open Borders – This Treaty is required in order to exchange Technology or Dust (or border systems). Systems that are Colonies cannot be exchanged any longer, only Outposts. Think of this as a general cooperation and trade treaty. It allows for more control of where trades take place and how, and less of the Wild West I traded it and you traded it to the next guy and so on. Now you need to choose your trading partners wisely.

Announcement: It should be announced in the game when a treaty is made.

Termination: A termination is also announced. At the same time, the Peace Treaty should be cancelled and re-offered in order to allow for a 10 Turn period of Peace, so war can’t happen until the time has passed. It is permissible for the offer to be refused, meaning both parties are likely interested in war.

Alliance: Alliances are also announced and must be terminated with a re-entry into Open Borders and a Peace Treaty, so they are a step up from the previous Open Borders agreement. In this case, the Open Borders can be refused but not the Peace. The reason is it will take time for citizens and sentiment, propaganda, etc. to change attitudes.

AI Diplomacy: Since the AI has such strange tendencies in the game that can be abused, all players are forbidden from any offers to/from the AI at all times. The intention is not to play this with AI but sometimes that may happen.

Declarations of War: These must be announced from a state of Peace or Cold War and announced to all of the Players. If an Alliance is involved and you leave it, then the requirements above still apply.

Cease Fire: To reflect the fact that populations grow tired of war, some rules will be applied here as well. If either side asks for a Cease Fire, under certain conditions it must be accepted. If the offer is refused, then the opponent can ask for a demand, which if accepted requires the Cease Fire to be accepted. The demand is limited to:

1 – Dust per Turn equal to 10% of the Empire’s Income (can I get this? Must be some way) or a flat fee equal to 10 turns of income (or a combination – say the fee is 10 dust/Turn, you can ask for 5 dust/turn and 50 dust (10 turn’s worth).

2 – Any Tech (is that possible?) the opponent wishes.

3 – Any number of Outposts the opponent wishes that the player has a clear path to – i.e. he must be able to get to it without passing through any influence area that is not open to him.

4 – Any one Colony the opponent wishes, except for the Home System, that the player has a clear path into (you can pass through influence to get to just THAT Colony, so you can’t pick a system that requires you to jump through another Colony you don’t have permission to.

Endless War has to abide by the same restrictions above, but that also means the same rules apply for them as well.

This may make wars more grueling or create a series of wars. It also allows for shifting of alliances between cease fires and other fun possibilities.

Well, I am a serious player and would make a good edition. Look me up on steam if you want me to join send me a private invitation.

The main problems I see is:



[LIST=1]

House Rules - The house rules, as they are, are simply unworkable because you cannot prove (one way or the other) that someone broke them in many cases. Trust in a competitive game is all well and good, but someone is going to break them...even if it is just because they forgot...at some point.

Hero Balance - A competitive game needs balance. ES, at present, has a massive balance problem with Heroes. Admins are very, very strong compared to Econs (to the point, that for some of the races I've made an Admin on turn 1 literally will double the size of the colonization-phase Empire I end up with. That is not counting Legendary Heroes since I think its a waste of points. The unbalanced advantage stems from having that +20 food/+15 production during the colonization phase to pump colony ships fast, not from getting part of that bonus on Turn 1.). Pilots? That accuracy penalty has a massive effect on combat results compared to an equivalent level Hero of any other type.

Start System Balance - As above, so below. A really bad result with systems in the home constellation is a problem. It delays critical things (e.g. Casmir) to the point you may not be able to grab any systems out of your home constellation which is crippling unless there is a major skill/racial strategy gap between you and another player.

Desyncs - The game state has to be carefully watched as long periods of desyncs (e.g. 10 turns) completely ruin games when they happen (e.g. Someone who was 4th or 5th, sometimes jumps to 1st and vice versa).

Some of these can be easily fixed (house mod for balancing Heroes & Stars), removing the House Rules to things other players can verify, and carefully monitoring the desyncs. However, I've not seen anyone able to get a large pool of players (say 20) that play ES MP to all agree to use a mod. Most people think the random heroes/stars is 'fine'. Which, for the average game, it is. But if you are making it into a ladder where people are going to be even more emotionally invested in winning than normal...I can easily see most players quitting after a couple bad games (through bad luck, such as no admin and/or bad systems). A number of players (I won't mention who) will quit when their score is eclipsed [ashost,basicallywreckingthegamesincealmostnoonerejoinstheremakeafterthehostquits], when they lose a couple fleets [ashostagain] or refuse to reload a desynced game so they can 'win' because I can't see their ship designs (since their ships don't show up in battles) and/or their fleets 'appear' to only have like 5k MP when they really have like 12k MP so I send the wrong fleet to engage the 'small' fleet that turns out to be a full 16-20CP fleet instead of just like 6 CP. And these are relatively 'popular' players in the sense they regularly host games that are that sort of sore loser AKA the most active ones.

[/LIST]



I guess what I'm saying is the only way I see this working is this:

[LIST=1]

House Rules must all be verifiable by all players at the game at the time of the action being taken. (e.g. Affinity bidding is fine. Announcing war is an easy one since everyone can see. Trading with the AI? Not so much.)

There needs to be a basic balance mod in use that either removes Admins/Pilots or makes all heroes Admin/Pilots. System generation can be left alone since the 'game breaking' bad luck is rare (maybe 10% of the time) but still probably should be done anyway if this is meant to be a competitive scoring system. The rest of the game should be left alone (despite the imbalances, since they are all relatively minor since everyone has equal access to the same imbalances).

Every X [lessthan10,morethan5?] turns, we need to do our best to verify the game hasn't desynced. And maybe reload every 3X-5X anyway just to be safe.

The scoring system should be based around relatively small and/or fast games with standard settings (e.g. Always young galaxy would be enough the system gen mod wouldn't be needed, for instance). We'd need to play smaller galaxies so we could get games to end in reasonable amounts of time (e.g. no more than two sittings should be needed to play to the end, so like an 8p Medium).

We'd need trusted score keepers and seasonal resets of the ladder [toallowforrulechanges,togivepeopleachancetostartoveriftheyfeeltheyfelltoofarbehind].

[/LIST]



Thoughts?

My suggested changes should be in Italics:



New Longer Term Game Proposal

Rationale: A series of games in a Medium Galaxy with dedicated players willing to play to the end game. Placing will also matter, so points can be scored for an ongoing leader board:

Winner: 10 Points



Allied with Winner: Place +4 Points

Alive At End: Place +2 Points

Other Places (Survival/Death)

2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Place: 7 Points

3[SUP]rd[/SUP] Place: 6 Points

4[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 5 Points

5[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 4 Points

6[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 3 Points

7[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 2 Points

8[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 1 Points





From a gaming perspective, a time will be established to regularly meet and/or set up at the end of each session. If someone does not show up they forfeit their position and another player who was eliminated or who has joined may take your place and gain points. If no one is available then you will be AI and can take your position back next session if you wish to.



Races & Bidding

Rationale: In order to make a more interesting and balanced game, the affinities will be auctioned off at the start of each game. The bidding starts in order of current point standings, with ties determined by first position (i.e. if you had X points first, and someone matches you, you are still ahead) then by seniority. Bidding continues until everyone passes, and each person own their latest bid. Bids are done in terms of the lowest number of points for each affinity. Only your last bid counts and you must bid lower than the previous player. Only one affinity is therefore available per game (no multiple Sophon affinities – only 1 player can win the bid on Sophons). The affinities are as follows:

United Empire

Sophons

Hissho

Pilgrims

Automatons

Sowers

Cravers

Amoeba

Horatio

Once the bid is won, you may create any race you choose using those points. So if the winning bid for Cravers is 47, you can create any type of race using the Cravers affinity but a maximum of 47 points. Points can be assigned on anything at all without any restrictions.





The bid works as follows:

No bid can be higher than 60pts (since some affinities can't go over 60pts).



To avoid people being screwed (e.g. their affinity comes up last, and two players are voting on it, and only the weakest affinities are left if they lose the one they wanted...), everyone bids on 3 affinities in the first round. e.g. Cravers 58, Sophon 58, Hissho 60

The lowest bidders for the races get their Affinity.

Players who win multiple auctions may pick which auction they win.

Bids are resolved in the order of most affinities won to least affinities won. (e.g. The guy who wins 3 goes first, the guy who wins 2 goes next, etc.)

Repeats until all players have an affinity (affinities that have been picked cannot be bid on again)



Example

Player A bids Craver 58, Hissho 58, Sophon 58

Player B bids Craver 57, Amoeba 60, Sophon 60

Player C bids Pilgrim 60, Sophon 55, Hissho 60



Player C - Wins Pilgrims & Sophons, picks Sophons

Player B - Wins Amoeba & Craver, picks Amoeba. [Heisn'ttoobright]

Player A - Wins Hissho and Craver [sinceplayerBdoesn'twantCravero.O] - picks Craver





House Rules for Diplomacy in Endless Space

Rationale: The purpose of these rules is to bring some semblance of what true diplomacy is often like between nations, and to reflect the fact that even despots are not truly in complete control of an entire race or nation of people. Instead, politics makes things more complicated:

Peace Treaty – No changes here except when combined with other treaties below.

Announcement: It should be announced in the game when a treaty is made.

Termination: A termination is also announced. At the same time, the Peace Treaty should be cancelled and re-offered in order to allow for a 10 Turn period of Peace, so war can’t happen until the time has passed. It is permissible for the offer to be refused, meaning both parties are likely interested in war.

Alliances: Alliances can only have 2 players, ever.

AI Diplomacy: Since the AI has such strange tendencies in the game that can be abused, all players are forbidden from any offers to/from the AI that last longer than the current turn with the exception of Cease Fire/Peace/Cooperation Agreements. The intention is not to play this with AI but sometimes that may happen.

Declarations of War: These must be announced from a state of Peace or Cold War and announced to all of the Players. If an Alliance is involved and you leave it, then the requirements above still apply.

Game Times: Announced in advance publicly, must have enough players agree to it to make a game (5). Each ladder player cannot be in more than 2(3?) ongoing games at a given time.



House Settings

All games will be Medium & 8 players [48stars,6perplayer] OR Small & 5-6 players [5-6systems/player]

Galaxy will always be Young.

AI difficult will always be Impossible.

Speed will always be Normal.

System Balancing Perfect & Many Planets Per System

All victory conditions except Wonder Victory.

Pirates and Random Events Off (Exploration Events can be on or off, goal is to avoid the 'HAHA YOU LOSE' events that break your economy for 20 turns only affecting one player)

Other options are optional.

A hero balance Mod that either removes Pilot/Admin classes or makes all heroes Pilot/Admin must be in use.

I feel a great idea for maps for long term games (but will probably require research to be on slow or an extension to the tree) is this map from Sword of the stars, you'd have to play a galaxy for a certain amount of turns then it changes and you have to try again...

stasik28 wrote:
I feel a great idea for maps for long term games (but will probably require research to be on slow or an extension to the tree) is this map from Sword of the stars, you'd have to play a galaxy for a certain amount of turns then it changes and you have to try again...

You can't change the map mid game in ES tho o.O

Response to suggestions:



Medium Galaxy - your settings are good but I would also add Many Constellations as a requirement



Points - My issue is being allied with the winner and being 2nd gives you MORE points than the winner, so to me that is a fail. It should be +2 points. I like the original idea of being dead at the end being 1/2 the value of your position.





On the bidding would it be blind bidding? Also, I don't see why you would ever get screwed. If your affinity, say Sophons, is bidded by 7 players from 60 down to 54, you just bid 53 and if you don't, well you pick something else... Remember there would be a LOT of bidding rounds until no one wants to change (hence my suggestion it can be done quickly on skype - though you could probably do it almost as fast on chat). You just write a list of the affinities and points and who had the last bid. So my idea was a round robin that continues until no one bids for an entire round (all 8 players). At most being last costs 1 point.



A good mod may be an excellent idea. However there may be a lot of fighting over it. Perhaps each change requires a vote, gets tested, and then voted on again. Majority has to approve it to test, and then approve it again after playing it.

Vypuero wrote:
Response to suggestions:



Medium Galaxy - your settings are good but I would also add Many Constellations as a requirement

Works for me.

Points - My issue is being allied with the winner and being 2nd gives you MORE points than the winner, so to me that is a fail. It should be +2 points. I like the original idea of being dead at the end being 1/2 the value of your position.

Yes. The second place thing was intentional. It encourages the 1st place player to ally with someone else (or he still effectively loses the game since the 2nd player will get more points). This encourages 1st and 2nd place players to be in separate alliances for purposes of alliance balance (which is also why I want it limited to 1 ally.). So the alliances are usually going to be between the 1st place player and the 4th if they first player wants to 'win' the game [getthemostpointsontheladder]. This makes it much, much harder to build an invincible alliance (which in a 5-6p game, a 2p team of the 1st & 2nd often is). It also just generally kills the permanent alliances since 'winning' with an ally results in teh ally getting the most points if you eliminate the other players.



I suppose we could artificially induce it by requiring the players in the top half for score (e.g. 1st & 2nd) to ally with those in the lower half (3,4,5 in a 5p, 4,5,6 in a 6p, etc). The goal isn't to eliminate alliances, just prevent overwhelming ones.



I'm against the death being half points because it encourages one player to eliminate other players based on their score on the ladder rather than other factors. (e.g. If the guy ahead of me on the ladder is in the game...eliminating him will likely guarantee I move up). I guess I prefer a lack of metagaming-caused-by-scores bit unless its for balance reasons. Half-on-death also double penalizes dying since you get stuck in the last place possible at the time of your death AND you only get half the points. But if you really want to adjust things maybe....



Winner (triggers victory condition) - 10 points

Death - 50% of the points, round up. (You round inconsistently in the OP so its best just to stick with rounding up since it is the normal order at .5)

Players in 1st place cannot ally with anyone above 4th place at the time of the alliance.

place - survived,died

2nd - 7,4

3rd - 6,3

4th - 5,3

5th - 4,2

6th - 3,2

7th - 2,1

8th - 1,1

On the bidding would it be blind bidding? Also, I don't see why you would ever get screwed. If your affinity, say Sophons, is bidded by 7 players from 60 down to 54, you just bid 53 and if you don't, well you pick something else... Remember there would be a LOT of bidding rounds until no one wants to change (hence my suggestion it can be done quickly on skype - though you could probably do it almost as fast on chat). You just write a list of the affinities and points and who had the last bid. So my idea was a round robin that continues until no one bids for an entire round (all 8 players). At most being last costs 1 point.

0) Nope. Goal is to complete bidding in at most 3 rounds.

1) Alot of bidding rounds is not quick. Ever. With 8 players.

2) Lets say, for the sake of argument, the following happens:

I want Sophons, I lose Sophons ('cause it goes down to something dumb like 30pts).

Everyone else bids sanely and UE ends up being bid at like 55.

I want Cravers, but its next to last to be bid on. So I wait. Its only me and one other guy. And he is willing to go down to like 30 pts too.

So I get stuck with Affinities I hate like Amoeba or Sowers and a 5pt advantage over the UE player (whose Affinity is mechanically stronger than a 5pt gap). I'd be screwed.



Honestly, I'd rather just let players create their races rather than do the bidding. I understand you are trying to balance the bad Affinities. But a game where everyone plays Craver, Sophon, UE, or Hissho is fine...honestly. Someone, with guaranteed admin, might even play a Pilgrim. But Sowers, Amoeba, Horatio, and Automatons [withoutbeingabletomicrothemingameswithtimedturns] are all objectively weaker affinities (except in unusual situations like Old galaxies, Sowers might switch categories or in 3+ man alliances games where an Amoeba can scout for their allies from the start).

A good mod may be an excellent idea. However there may be a lot of fighting over it. Perhaps each change requires a vote, gets tested, and then voted on again. Majority has to approve it to test, and then approve it again after playing it.

It should just be limited to fixing the random element that causes a rapid shift in effective power in a game (Heroes). The goal is to avoid randomness from screwing people over, not to seriously change game balance. I don't think we should do more than that because of the fighting issue.

New Longer Term Game Proposal

Rationale: A series of games in a Medium Galaxy with dedicated players willing to play to the end game. Placing will also matter, so points can be scored for an ongoing leader board:

Winner: 10 Points

Other Places (Survival/Death)

2[SUP]nd[/SUP] Place: 7/4 Points

3[SUP]rd[/SUP] Place: 6/3 Points

4[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 5/3 Points

5[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 4/2 Points

6[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 3/2 Points

7[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 2/1 Points

8[SUP]th[/SUP] Place: 1/1 Points





From a gaming perspective, a time will be established to regularly meet and/or set up at the end of each session. If someone does not show up they forfeit their position and another player who was eliminated or who has joined may take your place and gain points. If no one is available then you will be AI and can take your position back next session if you wish to.



House Rules for Diplomacy in Endless Space

Rationale: The purpose of these rules is to bring some semblance of what true diplomacy is often like between nations, and to reflect the fact that even despots are not truly in complete control of an entire race or nation of people. Instead, politics makes things more complicated:

Peace Treaty – No changes here except when combined with other treaties below.

Announcement: It should be announced in the game when a treaty is made.

Termination: A termination is also announced. At the same time, the Peace Treaty should be cancelled and re-offered in order to allow for a 10 Turn period of Peace, so war can’t happen until the time has passed. It is permissible for the offer to be refused, meaning both parties are likely interested in war.

Alliances: Alliances can only have 2 players, ever. Alliances cannot be between the 1st player and anyone ranked higher than 4th at the time of the Alliance.

AI Diplomacy: Since the AI has such strange tendencies in the game that can be abused, all players are forbidden from any offers to/from the AI that last longer than the current turn with the exception of Cease Fire/Peace/Cooperation Agreements. The intention is not to play this with AI but sometimes that may happen.

Declarations of War: These must be announced from a state of Peace or Cold War and announced to all of the Players. If an Alliance is involved and you leave it, then the requirements above still apply.

Game Times: Announced in advance publicly, must have enough players agree to it to make a game (5). Each ladder player cannot be in more than 3 ongoing ladder games at a given time.



House Settings

All games will be Medium & 8 players [48stars,6perplayer] OR Small & 5-6 players [5-6systems/player]

Galaxy will always be Young.

AI difficult will always be Impossible.

Speed will always be Normal.

System Balancing Perfect & Many Planets Per System & Many Constellations

All victory conditions except Wonder Victory.

Pirates and Random Events Off (Exploration Events can be on or off, goal is to avoid the 'HAHA YOU LOSE' events that break your economy for 20 turns only affecting one player)

Other options are optional.

A hero balance Mod that either removes Pilot/Admin classes or makes all heroes Pilot/Admin must be in use. For clarity, nothing else will be changed with the mod.

Im sorta new to multiplayer but I'm wondering if the galaxy age/planets per system/constelation amount are strongly biased towards certain affinities/defaultrace. As I played on my own I always thought the game was balanced around the default settings.



Edit: I suppose the bidding takes care of it.

Ok some more responses:



1 - I like the idea of not having such unbeatable alliances. So I am not sure I don't like your idea as it stands. One thing is what happens when as a result of an alliance positions change? Interesting - you may decide to break it? What about doing so at last minute to change game? We have to consider that too. Both ideas could work, have to think it through. It also might mean less support in an alliance so you don't let the junior partner get too strong, i.e. balance it - give them stuff to help, but not so much that they catch up to you.



2 - I didn't consider meta gaming points. That may be an issue.



3 - I am still thinking you misunderstand bidding. It is not we all bid on each race but we all bid on ANY race. So I can choose sophons but you can pick cravers next and so on. The poorer affinites will all end up with more points than the good ones, balancing it out. Does that make sense? So if right at the top I pick automatons 60 I don't have to bother bidding again unless someone else bids under it.

Honestly, if we limit games to 5p...we could just ban alliances comfortably and call it a day which might be simplest. Getting a reliable pool of more than 5 players around is difficult.



With the bidding, we can try it if you really want but I don't see the practical value in it since the bad affinities we already know are bad. I wouldn't take Sowers at max points. I'd just concede :P