The problem of too few players

[King Thor]

In my opinion and past experience I've noticed that its not as much about too few players as it is about balance. I used to play TW2002 back in the BBS days and all three places I played the game at had the same bunch of folks. a total of about 8 active players. The thing that made those games fun was the balance. In one game it was a perfect balance.. there were 4 corps, 2 with 1 player in each, 1 with 4 players and the last with 2 players. The 2 smaller corps (ironically the ones with more than 1 player) allied themselves with one of the bigger corps (the 2 corps with 1 player each). - By bigger and smaller I am reffering to strenght and number of planets.

Anyway, my point is that we dont need more than 8 to 10 players to achieve a balanced game that can be fun. That is why I used to always advocate larger universes because they allowed the game balance to continue for longer periods of time.

Once there is game balance, there remains a challenge. But as soon as one corp/player becomes immensely stronger the balance breaks and its time for a rebang.

So on that note, I am willing to corp up with anyone other than Xentropy and Aeturneus (they are doing well enough already).

[Urban Ranger]

So what are good ways to maintain game balance?

[King Thor]

Large Universes

Game settings that make it difficult to amass strength rapidly and give the weaker trader better chance at survival.

Weaker traders ganging up on the stronger trader instead of going their own seperate way, and trying to buddy up with the big guy.

But apart from that, its pretty much achieved naturally. Its just luck I guess. However, you do need more active players than we have now.

[Xentropy]

My universe is as small as it is simply because there are so few people. I originally expected three, and now I have about eight, though only maybe three of those are particularly active.

If I got a good 8-10 active players, I'd call for a vote for rebang, and bang the universe with (probably) 5000 sectors. I'd also go with 600 turns, 20% regen, and only 3000 Terran regen and a max of 10000. All those things contribute to balance. Games with thousands of turns and tens of thousands of colonists every day almost guarantee someone to pull out way ahead early and stay there.

Aeturneus and I are mostly only ahead in the game on my server because we're the only people playing our turns every day, it seems. Until Kropotkin and Prophet Als, lately, Wittlich was the only other player who I saw on the login log every day. I haven't seen Burbel in the log for a whole week now. Baddabing wasn't on until today in a while. And far as I can tell, Thor himself hasn't been on since his first nasty run-in with Wittlich's mines.

I'm working on developing a game with some alien races, which should hopefully spice things up even with few players. It's a Babylon 5 themed game, complete with a lot of custom ships and races straight from www.b5tech.com, plus an Alien Traders race and players who fly the standard Tradewars ships (those custom alien ships will be capturable, but not buyable). This will be a 20000 sector universe, as much because players will need as big a buffer as possible between they and the Shadows as anything else. Ether probes are disabled to encourage manual exploration and hopefully decrease the use of those toll fighter clouds so many of you have complained about. Turns will be 600/day despite the large universal size. Should make the game last quite a while and be quite fun, and provided everyone play every day, everyone should have fairly equal chances. (Or equally bad chances, perhaps ;>)

Gold aliens are quite a bit more fleshed out than their standard counterparts, and these alien races will actively trade, buy fighters/holds/shields/etc, and will even mount assaults on planets, as well as very aggressively recapture their own homeworld if it is captured. It should be a much more "lively" universe to explore, and I will probably play in it myself, just to see what the alien balance is like. In this game, player vs. player combat should probably be limited, since you'll have enough to worry about with the aliens. I'm considering a very high (perhaps unlimited) corporate size limit, to highly encourage everyone work together. That should be interesting, no?

Any feedback is appreciated, and keep up the work on trying to get new players. And please, anyone currently playing, play every day! :>

[King Thor]

Hey Xentropy, I know why you kept the universe small and I agree with your reasoning. I dont think you should reband until we have 8-10 'active players' .

I myself haven't really been an active player since I haven't really gotten the chance to play. However, its not like I've forgotten about this game.

[Kropotkin]

I second Thors statement. Might not be an idea to rebang until we've got at least 6-8 pretty active players. As a total newbie I do know that I would do a better job after a rebang but I'm stil learning much of the basics so game balance and such is not that important for me at the moment since I don't expect to win.

i find the babylon 5 talk somewhat distrubing since I think that's probably the worst SF ever aired on TV, it even makes "lost in Space" look like a quality TV-show. But as long as the verion isn't that bad I think I can accept it

[King Thor]

hehe.. I'm more of a 'Trekkie' myself. I agree.. B5 is a terrible terrible show

[Xentropy]

Spoken like true people who only watched two or three first season episodes and gave up on it

[King Thor]

You managed to SURVIVE those episodes without poking your eyes out?!?!? I have new found respect for you.

[Xentropy]

Babylon 5 is the best television that has ever been, sci-fi or no sci-fi. I have yet to see another television series that so closely resembles a book in its character development, depth, cohesive storyline, and overarching plot.

But then, I'm not much of a TV watcher, I'm mostly a reader, so that impressed me.

Season one was pitiful, but so have the season ones of every Trek series been. Seasons two through five were a masterpiece.

[King Thor]

relax Xen. I was just pulling your leg. Boy, you do love your B5

[Wittlich]

Actually, when B5 first aired, I too thought the show lacked....a lot. I had to stop trying to compare it to StarTrek (even though I found myself doing just that [yes, I'm a Trekkie/Trekker myself])But from the second season on, the series was EXCELLENT

Ok, getting back to the subject, a rebang with a larger universe, B5 theme, ect. I'm all for when ever everyone (mainly Xentropy, as the host) decides it's time.

[King Thor]

I think the WotW has a pretty balanced game system. Yes, it lets people amass strength really fast, but it also lets the weaker players amass money and survive, also letting them hide in an enormous universe.

[Xentropy]

Hehe okay you talk about letting weaker players amass...

...until in about a week when I have StarDock blockaded with 50k figs and 250 mines per sector

And the large universe thing, o-KAY, I *GET* it, you hate my tiny ass game. You don't have to keep rubbing it in I'd prefer 5000 sectors, myself, but didn't even expect more than half of the 8 or so players I have now I did increase warp distances and one-ways a bit in an attempt to at least make my 999 sectors FEEL bigger. Oh well.

[King Thor]

oh no.. you cant blockage Stardock. ITs connected directly to fedspace. now if you blockaded all of fedspace.. well now that is a different story.