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.