FG: Galactic Overloard 18: Sign-up Thread.

[Ljube]

In.

[Hercules]

Count me in too as the usual.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Proposal:

Change hitpoints of ships to encourage/reward folks to build more bases.

Name                Old          New
Frigate              3            3
Crusier              6            7
Battleship           9            11
Dreadnought          12           15
Titan                15           20

[GeneralTacticus]

Emphatically against. The system works fine right now; a radical change like that will complicate and unbalance things, and I really don't see the point. People with lots of home bases are already rewarded, as they get a much higher production rate, and, IMO, the current benefit of having larger ships is quite sufficient to make using them a good idea.

[Kassiopeia]

GT If you want to insist on people building new bases, you should lower their price or increase their production. A homebase that costs 16 BP currently pays itself back on the fourth round of production.

[Spaced Cowboy]

Given that it might make things a bit different, but noting that very few players in the last few games built more than 3 bases.

"Remember the Titans"

I do from games before the current ruleset and starting production numbers.

[snoopy369]

We had titans not that many games ago ... what's changed, largely, is that people have become much more aggressive and willing to attack; in GO 9-GO Gold how many attacks were had on the first five turns? I'd bet we had more attacks on turns 2-4 than in turns 2-6 in most games not counting the last 3 games or so ... I think people are just a lot more concerned that they'll be attacked and thus less likely to build up (and more likely to attack).

I think if we do anything to increase 'building', we'd want to figure some way to give people more security [ie, less likelihood of dying immediately]. IE, either give some reason NOT to fight to the death (such as by eliminating the possibility thereto and/or raising the advantages of not doing so), or give some significant advantage to the defense - such as providing a shield or making AD easier.

Were we to want GO to become a builder game, then certainly eliminating TTD would be the way to go. For some reason I doubt many would support either proposition

On the other hand, perhaps strengthening Allied Defense would be a more interesting proposal, one that wouldn't shift the balance very far but might temper the uberquick overaggressiveness that is currently the norm ...

Possible changes:

1. Allow ADers to choose whether they will AD regardless of home attacks, or if they'll zip home if attacked. AD's biggest weakness right now is the frigate ping - if a 3 party alliance attacks a 2 party alliance, it's simple to have the weakest of the 3 send a frigate ping to hold back the AD possibliity ...

2. Instead (or in addition to) of AD, what about "attack X's Fleet" rather than attack X's bases? The use in this, is that you would be able to attack X's fleet no matter where it was. You would not gain bases, this being the disadvantage; if X attacked someone, and won, that person would keep their bases if you destroyed X's fleet, just as in a mutual destruction. You could say either that a Fleet Attack always occurs last, or first, or you could say it occurs in the inverse order of sending in orders, or in the direct order.
This is convenient because, if two players aren't sure where they're going to be attacked, but ARE sure they're going to be attacked, they can avoid the frigate ping problem by leaving a couple of frigates each behind (or whatever) to keep their bases safe, and then send their massed allied fleets at one of the likely attackers. This would've been useful in the most recent game, as Chaunk and I could have mutually attacked Jaguar, ensuring we'd meet him (wherever he is). This would've discouraged the kind of attack Jag took - singling me out, and allowing Joncha et al. to keep Chaunk busy; in this situation we'd have still lost Chaunk's bases, but Jaguar wouldn't have been able to single me out.
Of course, he and joncha could have attacked MY fleet, meaning Chaunk/I vs Jaguar/Joncha/Kenobi ... of course likely still a massacre, but perhaps a more interesting massacre.
The 'fleet attack' would have to face any allies the fleet kept, either AD if the fleet was being AD'd and/or AD'd someone else, or on attack ... but it would allow for more interesting fleet combat situations, and decrease the number of 2v1 and 3v1 situations [which are bad for the game].

After all, what more can we ask for than more LAZORGEDDONS?

[Whoha]

in, Danz.

[joncha]

I vote for leaving the rules as-is.

[Ben Kenobi]

This would've discouraged the kind of attack Jag took - singling me out, and allowing Joncha et al. to keep Chaunk busy; in this situation we'd have still lost Chaunk's bases, but Jaguar wouldn't have been able to single me out.

Of course, he and joncha could have attacked MY fleet, meaning Chaunk/I vs Jaguar/Joncha/Kenobi ... of course likely still a massacre, but perhaps a more interesting massacre.

There were a whole slew of possibilities.

Jag and I vs You and Jon vs Chaunk

Jag vs you and Jon and I vs Chaunk

All three of us take on you and hope to fight the allies against allies.

Finally, the decision we did do, Jag vs you and Jon vs Chaunk while I stayed home. The reason we did things this way is that we knew you both had one more special, and we anticipated that you would shield rather then allied defend. This is the reason why we did not send the three way alliance to take you out, we could only burn off one shield that way.

[snoopy369]

Oh, i'm not saying it was the only way it could have been nor that the new method would necessarily have changed things. Just that it would have added an interesting twist to it, and that the current method allowed what you did to be the clearly optimal path - and allowed chaunk and I no realistic counter option.

[Ben Kenobi]

Well I'm trying to say is that the reason we rejected the allied attack on you had nothing to do with the rule you cited. Changing the rules wouldn't have made us choose a three way alliance attack on you, which was actually MORE in our favour then the result we obtained. We wanted a 3 vs 2 battle, that would have been way better then losing jon.

[:) Smiley]

Originally posted by snoopy369
BLASPHEMER!!

Smiley created all of his characters entirely out of his own creativity and took nothing from famous scifi/fantasy epics nor from these forums!

all characters are based purely on the tarot deck, really. that was, of course, before localization got a crack at it.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Well I'm trying to say is that the reason we rejected the allied attack on you had nothing to do with the rule you cited. Changing the rules wouldn't have made us choose a three way alliance attack on you, which was actually MORE in our favour then the result we obtained. We wanted a 3 vs 2 battle, that would have been way better then losing jon.

Except you're pretty much wrong ... yes, losing jon was bad for jon, but that's not the point ...

Chaunk and I, under the current rules, had a very low chance of winning (we'd have to have perfect OOBs more than once) ... and had you played it safe, we'd have had essentially no chance (if jaguar+ben or jaguar+jon had attacked me, and the other player frigatepinged chaunk).

My point is that the current rules pretty much guarantee that any given set of allies can attack another player alone with no defensive allies. This means that in the late game, a larger alliance (as in more members) will always beat a smaller alliance so long as the larger alliance has maybe 60-70% of the ship totals per player ... as they can isolate one member of the smaller alliance at a time. [This presumes the smaller alliance doesn't have a superior number of spies, which is the sole differencemaker here.]

The late game in GO sucks, about as much as the late game in Civ. We just don't have the massive alliance battles that would be interesting and cool; a 3v2 combat leaves some chance for the 2 to win due to good OOB or superior fleet composition (I don't recall the shipping totals, but I do recall feeling that if chaunk and I ended up defending together that we'd have a chance). Not to mention a much more interesting game than the 1v1 mopups ...

[joncha]

I think you had a very good shot at winning, you just sat back when you should have kept up the offensive.