Some Information about the Halcyon Game

[aeturneus]

Well, the the Alternative Apolyton BBS game is now rolling quite smoothly, and I thought I would post this message to answer some questions I have been getting.

----------------------------------

Will Dan be offended/unhappy because people are leaving his game to a new one? No, I don't think so. In the first place, people aren't leaving his game, they are either getting eliminated or playing both. The game is getting a little old, and will probably be rebanged eventually, after the two main corps sort it out. May as well have a different game going that is new, in order for the people that are getting squeezed in the other game to have a chance to learn some more about playing.

Also, Dan has suggested in the past that apolyton buy its own license since the popularity of TW is putting some stress on the firaxis server and he has had to severely limit time (3 hours) and turns (400, which is ridiculously low for tradewars).

All in all, I think it is great for the game to have 2 games going, since it staggers them a bit, and while one game is old and inacessible to new players, the other one is new. Eventually it will be the other way around.

---------------------------------

Why 1000 turns? Isn't that ridiculously huge? No, it isn't... on most bbs's the turns start at 1000 for the slow games, and the fast games have about 20,000-40,000 turns. Definitely still on the low side.

--------------------------------

What difference do the halcyon settings make? Well, planetary trade now negotiates at 90% of the normal value, compared to 60% on the Apolyton server, which means that planet farming is far more profitable than on the last game. Also, ports regenerate at 33%, so a port pair will fully regenerate every 3 days. While this definitely makes trading simpler, it also means far more profit for people who take the time to upgrade organics ports with millions of credits over their organics producing planets. This means that you will basically have to be planet farming if you are good in order to stay in this game, since the goods will eventually be making more money than evil that way. Trading should now be relegated to a startup strategy for goods, just to get you into an ISS and to buy figs and goods for your embryonic bubbles.

Also, while planet trading has been strengthened, evil play has been made possible by adding enough turns to make the 100 turn or so setup fee a reasonable investment. Evils should be able to make 8 million per day or so, if they are sst'ing in a fully equipped colonial transport. This means that goods will really have to watch out in the early stages of the game, before they get their planets going, because evil will have so much money.

So, to summarize, more strategies for making money are possible in the new game. Trading has been relegated to a startup tactic for good, and evil is now a real threat. I highly recommend this game to everyone as a learning experience, and I hope everyone will try out new strategies and tactics here so that this bbs will become better and more competitive.

Eventually, we may be able to start a real team and take on some of the other bbs's like fament, or participate, even as minor players, in the World Tradewars Championships. They will start in a month, I think, and that would be a huge step... we need to do a lot of training, or trading, before then but might be something to think about for the future.

So let petty rivalries cease and lets all enjoy tw.

-aeturneus

[Zealot]

Boy, am I going to need some teaching! I don't even know what bubbles are!

[Swissy]

Yes, 1000 turns is on the low side. I played a couple of unlimited turns/6 hour limit games. It is scary seeing Interdictor Cruiser with 70K+ fighters just two days after the bang. And me cruising around in my ISS max shields/fighter and feeling overmatched.

[Zealot]

Originally posted by Swissy
Yes, 1000 turns is on the low side. I played a couple of unlimited turns/6 hour limit games. It is scary seeing Interdictor Cruiser with 70K+ fighters just two days after the bang. And me cruising around in my ISS max shields/fighter and feeling overmatched.

wow!

[Urban Ranger]

It doesn't matter. The playing field is the same regardless number of turns in a game, with umlimited turns the only exception. It breaks the game.

Why? When turns are limited, it is a precious resource just like colonists and credits. It forces a player to make careful tradeoffs which are inherent part of the game. When this limit is removed, there is no longer such a need. A player can simply fly in an Interdiction Cruiser - who cares if it takes 30000 turns to get anywhere?

Anybody who spends 6 hours to play an online game everyday has no life, frankly.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Zealot
Boy, am I going to need some teaching! I don't even know what bubbles are!

Check out some of the webpages listed in the "Useful URLs" thread. Lots of info there.

[aeturneus]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Anybody who spends 6 hours to play an online game everyday has no life, frankly.

Lol I think I am going to have to cut back... I am starting to approach this number...

[Shadowstrike]

I vaguely remember thinking "Boy, how the heck am I going to use up 400 turns a day?" Then I realized everyone else was using a script. Anyhow, I stopped playing... it got to be too big of a drain on my time. If this was the only game I played at that time on the Internet, that would make sense, but now.... oh well, maybe someday if someone makes a really slow game that we can play in less then 30 min a day.