Will there be something like Telepathy again?

[gramians]

Two things:

First the "plausibility" of having a race mind control another. If you assume it takes 1 telepath his or her full concentration to control 1 slave, then you have two people doing the work of one. The work of the slave has to feed the telepath, who sits on the sofa and controls the slave, but would rather be out doing something else. Considering you would then need a night-shift mind controller, so your slave doesnt wake up in the middle of the night and whoop you for making him clean out the garage... and you have a really sorry state. A bunch of blue people sitting around doing nothing while watching the slave work. Reminds me of a job I had when I was younger.

Secondly... I forgot about secondly....

Oh yeah, As far as losing the cheezy aliens and new-found realism goes, I don't find that to be very important or a selling factor. The cheeziest star trek franchise (the original series) still has the biggest appeal over it's more serious progeny does it not? (I'm guessing here.) That's likely due to the cheeze: the low cut dresses, green women, Kirk's double handed axe punch... how many times did they go to an ancient rome or nazi germany alternate universe anyway? Realistic? Hell no. Fun? Hell yes.

Not that I'm a cheesie poof eating, klingon speaking, trekkie fanatic or anything.

[wervdon]

Heh, seriously, yall are assuming that 100% of the population needs to be mind controlled.

Lets say I have a planet with 5 million psilon living on it, and along comes an elarion battle cruiser with 30,000 crew members. Now lets say these 30, 000 crew members can each mind control 1 psilon...... It can't work you say! Well....what if they decide to conveniently mind control the 30,000 psilon which just happen to be the ones who own the plasma rifles....

I agree its still implausible And it should be fairly in effective in on a society armed to the teeth or one that is a hive mind (unless you can mind control the mass consciousness) On the basis of it being hard to find a small segment of the population that if mind controlled can control the rest


What would of been real cool though is if instead of instant assimilation, the mind control actually did take control of some of the enemies garisoned defensive units, and the controlled ones fought it out with the non-controlled ones

[wervdon]

Oh while we're at it lets take this hypothetical psilon/elarian example out a few more turns

Lets say that of our 5 million psilon, 500, 000 (10%) are in the defense corp and are heavily armed.

On turn 1 we mind control 30,000 of them and turn them on their friends. They lose horribly due to being out numbered, lets assume a 10:1 slaughter meaning they all die and only inflict 3,000 casaulties in the confusion. Leaving us with 467,000 psilon with guns

Turn 2: We take 30,000 more! They only get slaughtered 10:1, leaving us with only 434,000 psilon...

Turn 3: We take another 30,000, by now the kill ratio is getting a bit better cause the numbers are dwindling, lets say only 8:1 now.... That only leaves about 400,000

Repeat enough, and the only army left on the planet is the one we control...

----
So the only real issue with mind control if you ask me is how its implimented in moo2. Its instantanous, produces no resentment in the population as a whole, and even gives instant 100% assimilation :P

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Ozymandous


And then suddenly the hypnosis wears off and you have a huge amount of pissed off entities on your hands. Or maybe the strain of trying to mentally control billions of people would make your race have a chance of their heads exploding and you instantly losing the game, now that would be balabced. :P



Boring or balanced? lol, let me guess, you always used mass missle boats early on, and had telepathy and creative as your racial picks, every-single-game, right? rofl!

No, I used Telepathy with Unification, because that would be my designer race, could I create one. I didn´t use Creative at all. It´s all about style and role-play with me, not Utilitarianism.

Your other idea was actually quite good: Mass Hypnosis sometimes to back-fire, now that would be cool. We are witnessing that in the real world just now, people start to get annoyed about PC speech codes, and they do backfire.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by gramians
Two things:

First the "plausibility" of having a race mind control another. If you assume it takes 1 telepath his or her full concentration to control 1 slave, then you have two people doing the work of one. The work of the slave has to feed the telepath, who sits on the sofa and controls the slave, but would rather be out doing something else. Considering you would then need a night-shift mind controller, so your slave doesnt wake up in the middle of the night and whoop you for making him clean out the garage... and you have a really sorry state. A bunch of blue people sitting around doing nothing while watching the slave work. Reminds me of a job I had when I was younger.

Secondly... I forgot about secondly....

Oh yeah, As far as losing the cheezy aliens and new-found realism goes, I don't find that to be very important or a selling factor. The cheeziest star trek franchise (the original series) still has the biggest appeal over it's more serious progeny does it not? (I'm guessing here.) That's likely due to the cheeze: the low cut dresses, green women, Kirk's double handed axe punch... how many times did they go to an ancient rome or nazi germany alternate universe anyway? Realistic? Hell no. Fun? Hell yes.

Not that I'm a cheesie poof eating, klingon speaking, trekkie fanatic or anything.

#1: Not so. The Telepaths would go for your government and the mass media. More is not needed. Case in point: Americans now happily preparing for a totally unjustified War of Aggression against Iraq. It works.

#2: Agreed.

[Comrade Tribune]

Btw, have none of you ever watched (or read) 'The Puppet Masters'? A very convincing story about one possible Alien strategy.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppet_Masters

[gramians]

As wervdon and comrade tribune have pointed out, you only need to control the fraction with power - be it government, media, guns... or whatever. But let me assure you that that control would only be temporary. A few dozen cycles.

To return to Comrade's example, look again at America. They have more guns than they know what to do with, they own the media, and their government is so strong it makes the UN, NATO, and any international convention redundant.

But do they have complete global control?
No.
Are they maintaining the control they have?
No.

Anyway. I'm rambling...

Did I mention telepathic women are hoooooooooooooooot?

---------------------------------------
Lock up SLOBO, lock up KISSENGER, kick DUBYA in the ballsack and elect ME as world ruler!

"If killing hundreds of thousands of innocent peasants by dropping million of tons of bombs on undefended civilian targets is not a war crime, then there are no war crimes. If Kissinger is not responsible for these crimes, then there are no war criminals."
--- Fred Branfman on Kissenger. for more, look here...

http://dir.salon.com/books/feature/2001/05/18/kissinger/index.html

[moomin]

Weather telepathic races are plausible or not is quite beside the point. Telepathic races are fun. They seriously reduce MM. I can't remeber last time I used troop transports in Moo2 - if I am telepathic, I can bother to conquer and "auto build" in the late game, if I'm not, I jsut bomb away.

I too feel its to bad this pick was left out. I really think the notion of ground combat is plain stupid - once you've beaten the fleet in space, the planet should surrender automatically.

[Ozymandous]

Originally posted by moomin
Weather telepathic races are plausible or not is quite beside the point. Telepathic races are fun. They seriously reduce MM. I can't remeber last time I used troop transports in Moo2 - if I am telepathic, I can bother to conquer and "auto build" in the late game, if I'm not, I jsut bomb away.

Telepathic races, as implemented in MOO2 are OVERPOWERED as well. The pick in MOO2 should cost double what it does simply because it is much too powerful. When fun and unbalance collide fun loses, unlike fun vs. reality, where fun usually win's (at least in PC games) and is one reason why we won't have a "galaxy simulator" as Alan initially wanted but instead a space empire game.

I too feel its to bad this pick was left out. I really think the notion of ground combat is plain stupid - once you've beaten the fleet in space, the planet should surrender automatically.

Just like the Allies and Axis ground troops surrendered automatically once they lost air superiority in WW2? Just like any of the rebel groups around the world automatically surrendered when fighting against supreior odds?

Yeah, right, that's realistic. Not everyone will meekly lie down to die at the mere thought of having to fight for what they believe in, but depending on your culture, people may or may not understand that philopsphy.

[gramians]

Originally posted by Ozymandous


Telepathic races, as implemented in MOO2 are OVERPOWERED as well. The pick in MOO2 should cost double what it does simply because it is much too powerful. When fun and unbalance collide fun loses, unlike fun vs. reality, where fun usually win's (at least in PC games) and is one reason why we won't have a "galaxy simulator" as Alan initially wanted but instead a space empire game.

Just like the Allies and Axis ground troops surrendered automatically once they lost air superiority in WW2? Just like any of the rebel groups around the world automatically surrendered when fighting against supreior odds?

Yeah, right, that's realistic.

Putting a price tag on Telepathy is difficult, though making it cost double is not the answer. The problem is, it is powerful later in the game but absolutely useless in the first phase of empire building. If it cost double, you would be so weak at production you would never have the opportunity to enslave anyone.

Again on realism: No matter how much more complex this game gets, with ground battles etc. it is hardly realistic. So there is no point saying that it is unrealistic for the game to progress with automatic control over the colonies. Hell, if you want realism you would never be able to obtain complete control of a planet, and what control you do achieve would slip away.

...Like the once great British Empire, who lost all it's colonies.
...Like the USSR, now fragmented.
...Like Israel, who dispite rediculous armament and an army so large it could not support it without foreign intervention - is in the midst of the worst crisis it has faced since the 70's.

So I say to heck with realism - we're looking for fun here. I want to see yellow unhappy workers slowly turning blue. Adding too much realism would make the game depressing. Besides, a game does not need to be realistic to be great - like chess.

P.S. That was the last time I mention real-world issures in a space game forum. Sorry.

[moomin]

Originally posted by Ozymandous
Telepathic races, as implemented in MOO2 are OVERPOWERED as well. The pick in MOO2 should cost double what it does simply because it is much too powerful. When fun and unbalance collide fun loses, unlike fun vs. reality, where fun usually win's (at least in PC games) and is one reason why we won't have a "galaxy simulator" as Alan initially wanted but instead a space empire game.

I disagree. Since I cannot be bothered to MM the late game conquest w/out tele the game loses a lot of its appeal. It's reduced to a long, tedious genocide bombing run. Lately, I can't even be bothered with that - I just build the gate and go to Antares when I'm ready.

Just like the Allies and Axis ground troops surrendered automatically once they lost air superiority in WW2? Just like any of the rebel groups around the world automatically surrendered when fighting against supreior odds?

Yeah, right, that's realistic. Not everyone will meekly lie down to die at the mere thought of having to fight for what they believe in, but depending on your culture, people may or may not understand that philopsphy.

Bollocks. This is not the choice between occupation and noble resistance - it's between surrender and total extermination of your race. The Japanese where pretty darn fanatic about the Empire and the Emperor and they found it in them to surrendor to the much lesser threat of US nukes. Anybody not urging surrender when an interstellar fleet with planet-busting weapons in orbit demands it ought to be shot. By his own.

[Straybow]

I agree with Comrade T. Sean Penn has gone to Iraq and personally seen that Iraq doesn't have any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons programs and materials. The world is safe.

Next, we should send the Baldwins to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Why don't all the world's leaders realize how easy this is? Oh, of course! They've all been mind-controlled! See, telepathy is totally realistic and fun.

[Dry]

Originally posted by moomin
Weather telepathic races are plausible or not is quite beside the point. Telepathic races are fun. They seriously reduce MM. I can't remeber last time I used troop transports in Moo2 - if I am telepathic, I can bother to conquer and "auto build" in the late game, if I'm not, I jsut bomb away.

It all depends on how you have fun.
I have tried telepathic races and they bored me to death.
Go to system, control planet. Done. No risk of revolt. Too easy. Where is the fun?
If I want that type of game, I just play at 'easy' level.

Telepathic trait may be fun only when used AGAINST you.
One of the most exciting game I had was indeed against the Elerians. They won the elections and I decided to fight them.

OK, I must confess I like the management side of those games. So reduce the management of moo, civ and other smac and I'll get bored.

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by Straybow
I agree with Comrade T. Sean Penn has gone to Iraq and personally seen that Iraq doesn't have any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons programs and materials. The world is safe.

Next, we should send the Baldwins to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Why don't all the world's leaders realize how easy this is? Oh, of course! They've all been mind-controlled! See, telepathy is totally realistic and fun.

The proof for mind control consists in the fact that no one is concerned with the chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons that the United States have (not: are trying to have).

Comparing the United States to Iraq, it is clear who is a threat, and who isn´t.

[Kc7mxo]

Comparing the United States to Iraq, it is clear who is a threat, and who isn´t.

Oh its quite obvious. We're always using nerve gas on our dissidents aren't we?

I hear that the republicans are going to put through a bill to have all democrats rounded up and shot too.

And then, our national guard is always running around looting our neighboring countries. Got to keep them dang canadians under the gun, right?