It really needs "alliance" mechanic, it shouldn't be shown to enemy players, but what it means is that you temporarily make an "open borders" agreement - either for your whole space empire of for specific stars... It'd be risky tough, since you could just send a massive fleet into the other guy's territory and then break the agreement with no penalties and attack his star... Still, for coordinating massive attacks when everyone has limited range, it'd be awesome to be able to set up a "hub" planet without needing to give it up.
Also, 2 allies sending a ship to an unclaimed planet at the same time, unknowingly, will end up having their fleets fight eachother, which isn't exactly what 2 allies would do in that case...
It really needs "alliance" mechanic, it shouldn't be shown to enemy players, but what it means is that you temporarily make an "open borders" agreement - either for your whole space empire of for specific stars... It'd be risky tough, since you could just send a massive fleet into the other guy's territory and then break the agreement with no penalties and attack his star... Still, for coordinating massive attacks when everyone has limited range, it'd be awesome to be able to set up a "hub" planet without needing to give it up.
Also, 2 allies sending a ship to an unclaimed planet at the same time, unknowingly, will end up having their fleets fight eachother, which isn't exactly what 2 allies would do in that case...
This game is too fun. My last game I started off making an alliance with a fellow in the corner in the map (I was in the middle). The agreement was that I would run interference for him while he grew unmolested. In exchange for defence, he'd feed me tech. When he got big enough we would CONQUER THE UNIVERSE TOGETHER!
It worked alright for the first week or so but then he got ambitious and too big, gave me a day of warning and attacked. I made peace with a couple guys and countered him pretty effectively to the point where, even though he was twice as big as me, my greater concentration of ships/worlds (and emphasis on weapons tech research) gave me a great advantage. We were stalemated when one of my former enemies and I made a new alliance. In exchange for all my tech, he'd reinforce me.
It worked beautifully! We wiped the game clean together and stopped without finishing each other off, he in first place and I in second. Good times.
It really needs "alliance" mechanic, it shouldn't be shown to enemy players, but what it means is that you temporarily make an "open borders" agreement - either for your whole space empire of for specific stars... It'd be risky tough, since you could just send a massive fleet into the other guy's territory and then break the agreement with no penalties and attack his star... Still, for coordinating massive attacks when everyone has limited range, it'd be awesome to be able to set up a "hub" planet without needing to give it up.
Also, 2 allies sending a ship to an unclaimed planet at the same time, unknowingly, will end up having their fleets fight eachother, which isn't exactly what 2 allies would do in that case...
You can ally with players in the premium (paid) games, though I think it's not secret information. Team games are much more fun.
It really needs "alliance" mechanic, it shouldn't be shown to enemy players, but what it means is that you temporarily make an "open borders" agreement - either for your whole space empire of for specific stars... It'd be risky tough, since you could just send a massive fleet into the other guy's territory and then break the agreement with no penalties and attack his star... Still, for coordinating massive attacks when everyone has limited range, it'd be awesome to be able to set up a "hub" planet without needing to give it up.
Also, 2 allies sending a ship to an unclaimed planet at the same time, unknowingly, will end up having their fleets fight eachother, which isn't exactly what 2 allies would do in that case...
You can ally with players in the premium (paid) games, though I think it's not secret information. Team games are much more fun.
Oh. Well, I think something that this game has that makes it amazing is the "no rules". Alliances are made and broken every minute, without any kind of penalties... Backstabbing is kind of a must. Of course we make exceptions when our ally is a fellow PA forumer since we must show the might of our forum! We don't betray one another (at least not until we're the last two players in-game :P), we stick together and pwn the rest of the galaxy!
I think that in free games something like what I said should at least be possible...
Alliances aren't permanent. It just means you can move through their space without attacking their planets.
The reason it's not available in free games is because it makes it too easy to collude (not that it's difficult now). Games are won and lost by secret alliances, team games are much more about the strategy than the diplomacy.
zilo on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
You don't need a mechanic to support alliances with people. God forbid you actually speak and interact with folks.
I just doubled my military power in my second game and helped my potential ally with his weapons tech. Meanwhile, my first game is still painfully slower (somehow) and I'm eagerly awaiting my opponent's next dispatch of his carrier.
You don't need a mechanic to support alliances with people. God forbid you actually speak and interact with folks.
I just doubled my military power in my second game and helped my potential ally with his weapons tech. Meanwhile, my first game is still painfully slower (somehow) and I'm eagerly awaiting my opponent's next dispatch of his carrier.
The game Gravewish and I are in is quickly becoming very political and will be decided by alliances.
We're forming an alliance and a secret alliance on our side of the galaxy. Meanwhile, the forces on the other side are, no doubt, doing the same. The next week or so is going to be a real mess. :P
A Flock of Walrus on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
My first game is disappointing me but I now have hope for it; the guy that's aggressive with me hasn't responded to me, but he has sent his battered fleet into my home star. My home star is defended by a number of ships that dwarf his carrier. Meanwhile, thanks to lengthened scanning range, I see that he has a stronger carrier coming into that direction as well to one of my stars. I've dispatched a fleet which holds 41 ships (I thought there was a limit!) to defend that star, which dwarfs his incoming fleet. Thing is, his ETA is in 11 hours and 40 minutes; I dispatched and will arrive in 11 hours and 30 minutes. Ten minutes to spare. This is exactly how tight I was expecting some things to get, but not this soon.
My second game, however, is exciting the hell out of me. The guy I aided sent me a speed tech, and let his plans known two me; the player that sits between him and I are allied to assault someone, and he also has someone else allied with him for the same purpose.
The player between him and I captured a star I had already dispatched to and I had to send him a message about how my incoming carrier isn't intended to be an assault, so hopefully that clears up (especially with our mutual alliance). Meanwhile, the second player I know of that's in on this grand scheme has been contacted as well, since he tried to initiate a tech exchange with me earlier. So the player involvement is ramping up a lot.
Just started my first game. Dude proposed an NAP due to our starting position. I assume that means I should not hit him?
It means you should act like you're not going to hit him, then take all his homeworld stars in one fell swoop.
Darkewolfe on
What is this I don't even.
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
It means you either backstab him at a critical moment, or you make arrangements to split the galaxy with one of you taking second place.
The guy whose star I'm about to capture on accident responded reasonably about the situation, but staked his claim territory-wise to all stars south of the same one I'm inbound for. Which means this route into the galaxy is completely cut off from me without my declaring war on him. The path up north is my only way into the bigger playing field, but I need to research range to make it actually usable, range being like the slowest upgrade tech. When my space-taxes come in, I think I'll invest some of it into another science facility to boost things along.
Edit - Probably going to setup another science facility in my first game too; now that I have a strong economy and a bolstered industry, I might change my strategy to be like that of my second game - a bigger, stronger fleet of carriers.
In the game I started, we're now about 24h in. My global chat has gone un-recognized, my two private emails have not been replied to, and I'm pretty sure my closest neighbor is AFK.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
I might end up that way myself Michael, if I ended up getting creamed game after game. But I'll wait to see with regard to playing with people I know. If that turns out to be a hoot, then I'm in for the long run.
Imperfect, if your closest neighbor is AFK and ends up being a no-show, don't conquer him right away. For some reason, in both my games, people have avoided the AFK people (one in each game), as well as their general initial-claim territory.
Well, he's gonna be stocking up ships while mine are spread about conquering territory. So for that reason alone, I'm staying away from his home planets. I'm still going expand-crazy though.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
First game is progressing slowly, though my weapons tech outdoes everybody else that's a threat. Building up my armada. The guy who attacked me hasn't built up too well, but his scanning range increased over night. He can see a lot of my stuff now. I've got fleets dispatched to take care of that.
My second game is wrought with betrayal. The guy who had an allied effort with me and two other people has been betrayed by the two others; they've snatched up a noticeable amount of his territory over the last half-day. So I don't trust the guy who I just made a pact with to respect his claim of territory to the south. I've prepped some fleet moves to get some defense setup at the possible entry points he has into my territory (the one route is no longer the only one for him; he expanded his range for jumps, and I did the same at the same time it seems). I'm considering allying with the two other guys across the other side of the galaxy to help take out this duo.
I'm in a new game where I'm in this sort of tiny hallway. There's the guy (blue) at the very end who has no choice but to go through me, and on my other side is red, who I have no choice but to go through to reach everyone else. But he's got many fronts other than myself.
The whole map is kind of penis shaped.
Should I bother making alliances? The two closest people seem to be inevitable confrontations.
Lux on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
If I was in that situation, I'd ceasefire with the red guy and pick on blue. Sucks for him, if he has no other route. But you can't risk just letting him sit there powering up while you're dealing with everyone else (potentially). As for red, I'd make an alliance with someone else bordering him.
My two games are shifting in perspectives. In my first game, the guy that's been picking fights with me has been losing power to my reclaiming (and then some) of a few stars, and a couple other people are picking on him as well. He's mustered up one more power-driven fleet to send my way, so while it's heading to a star I've avoided building on (I knew he'd do it, it's high natural resources but I couldn't muster defenses for it in time in re-taking it) I'm prepping up a couple / few fleets on nearby stars with ships to send his way to cause him trouble. His fleet power is already less than my home star, and by the time he gets to other valuable stars their defenses will be heavily reinforced by their own virtue.
My second game is just fucked. I had an alliance with blue, who claimed to have an alliance with purple and orange; purple and orange turned on him in the meantime and blue is just fucked. Meanwhile, I'm directly bordering orange who I made a ceasefire and territory border agreement with. But I don't trust him for shit. He and purple are trading back tech (this is a common tactic by the way; ally with people, you all research different techs, and you can share the techs among each other) so they're powerful as all hell. For now I'm building up defenses on stars orange will have to pass through to start eating away at me. I'm finally about to breach into the galaxy's main area though. And my tech levels almost rival orange and purple.
Henroid on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, the two guys in my second game are starting to grow exponentially. And my land-grab for some unclaimed stars has been interrupted by the presence of the one guy's fleets flying in to claim some, goddamn it. At least I claimed the good star in the bunch, lotsa resources!
Every star with industry creates 2 ships per industry point per cycle, right? What's the difference between that and manually building a "super carrier"?
Supercarriers don't come with ships, I don't think.
And even if they do, they don't CONTINUE to build ships over time.
BTW, what's the "production cycle" in this game, anyway? I know payday is 1/day, but "production cycles" where new ships come out seem shorter.
Imperfect on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
Super carriers are the only way you can move in this game. Ships without a super carrier remain planet-side, as a defense. Ships on a super carrier are your offensive muscle.
The production cycle confuses me too, Imperfect. I thought it was a 24 hour period, but I think it might be a 12 hour period. This is something I imagine you can change in private games.
Anyway, important note to folks; watch out for when you establish a garrison and have a ship pass through for the purpose of picking up ships. I accidentally dicked myself over twice in my first game where I thought the number of ships on two stars were on board the carriers I had docked at each star; I moved each carrier, checked a few hours later, and realized they were not carrying much.
The garrison function lets you set how many ships stay on the planet before they start automatically moving up to carriers in orbit. Its a useful function, but you have to remember you're using it. Unlike me. There's also a "ship transfer" function when you're on a carrier's menu that lets you shift ships to and from the carrier to the star.
As for my games, my first game is still wrought with fighting with this one dude, who is still losing territory all around. I updated my scanning range and am able to see deeper into his territory, along with a carrier he's had docked for a day massing up ships. He's set it up for dispatch in the last half hour and have dispatched my own super-carrier in response. My industry across my border worlds was beefed up over the last couple of days, massing up a lot of ships for defensive purposes.
My second game has been relatively slow. I'm about to claim the last couple of stars that have gone unclaimed in my territory, and that'll be it; then I have to worry about this guy neighboring me punching into my territory and ripping me open a new one. I've made two tentative alliances with two different players, one of whom I've already exchanged some tech with and the other we're arranging for a tech exchange next pay cycle. Aside from a couple other players (one of whom is AI), I've made deals with every player in this game and only a couple know about previous deals I've made (at my discretion). If I really, really wanted to, I could setup an alliance with my neighbor to establish a military front to take out the others. And I'm considering it; better than trying to fight the two super-powers and losing.
Henroid on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
Oh snap.
In my first game, I took one of my enemy's stars and had a waypoint jump set to go further into his territory blindly, and it happened to be a good call; I just captured the star, and the guy had a science facility on it. He's got his fleets scrambling back into his territory to defend, while I'm making my way out because I don't want to lose my battered fleet. But for the next 8 hours, I have an extra science facility doing research (and he has one less), which is fucking great. My speed tech will be done during that time and I'll have a head-start on some badly needed weapons tech. I can also see his home planet right now, which I can make plans to assault (granting me a science facility, a bunch of industry, and toppling the economy will get me immediate cash flow).
My second game is starting to look a little stark; my neighbor is massing fleets on our border, which carry more ships and have stronger weapon systems than I'm prepared to fight with.
My first game is kind of rough because I'm surrounded on all sides, although I have an alliance with at least one of them. I'm working the technology trade, though, which is nice.
My second game, I'm on and off in 2nd and 3rd place because the two guys I'm stuck in the star-corridor with are nearly AFK. But no one is trading with me. They agree to it, and I tell them I'm doing speed and ask what they're doing, and I get no reply.
I'm suspicious about my nearest blue opponent, though. He has stayed on his 4 starting stars, but isn't AFK enough for the AI to take over. Is he just massing a huge defense? Waiting for me to attack then spring a trap? I can only see one star, and its got 15 ships on it...
Lux on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
Things have heated up in both my games.
In my first game my back and forth with blue is finally coming to a close as he's taken a beating, and I allied with green (one of the two top players) in taking blue and cyan out. Cyan has finally reacted to me and blue fighting and has his carriers lining up. The other player I allied with, dark red, might attack cyan too if I have problems with it. Question is, I'll have to choose red or green by the end of things.
In my second game I've been cut off from the galaxy. So I sent a message to the orange player, who is huge and could crush the shit out of me, letting him know that I certainly don't want to lose but I don't want to sit on my hands in the game, so I may as well help him. So we've put a plan in motion. I've been trading tech with yellow and my carriers are on the way to pretty much backstab that alliance. In a few hours I'll have to hear about it. I don't feel bad.
Henroid on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
Game 1 is progressing slowly still and alliances are shifting.
Game 2 is about to end already though! Orange accepted my help so that he and purple can take 1st and 2nd place in the game and he promised me 3rd place. The plan was for me to slip into yellow's territory, purple would assault cyan, and orange would back both of us up in our mega-assault. And it worked. Like, in 12 hours cyan and yellow were crushed hard (the other players not mentioned were already consumed). We were keeping pace with our fleet dispatches so we wouldn't collide with each other, and I sent my communication to orange about my next plans (not realizing things were about to wrap up with cyan). I came back the next morning and saw he had barred my way. When I looked at the map, it became apparent that the whole game was pretty much over; all that's left is for purple or orange to claim enough territory to hit 90 stars.
I checked out my border with him a few minutes ago and the carriers are already on their way. GG
Sweet, so if you buy credits to create a premium game, you can do all kinds of neat shit like have more pays/day, different build costs, starting $$$, starting tech, all kinds of shit.
Okay, so then.
On or about Friday, I'm going to create a free-to-join Premium game for PA gamers only.
The password will be "wang", of course, but before then, I'd like your opinions on how to set up the universe.
Key Questions:
1) How many pays/day? (1, 2, or 4.)
2) Stars per player (Total universe size = this # * number of players. This is NOT starting stars. 8, 16, 24, or 32.)
3) Starting $? ($100, $250, $500, $100.)
Playing with higher starting tech or cheaper research cost seems a little silly to me, given nobody has enough experience with the game so far that it'll do anything other than mess up the balance.
Also, if you're interested in playing, please put a !signup at the top of your post so I know how many people to expect.
Imperfect on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
There's two ways to start a premium game. One is you can make it free to join for people who know your password for the game. The other costs you less credits for the site and people pay credits to join in (aside from knowing the password). Which one are you doing? If the former, !signup.
My input on questions:
1) Leave it at 1, maybe 2, but no more than that. I'd prefer 1.
2) Wait, so the more stars you give people to start with, the more stars there are in the game total or no? Start with 8 (game default is 4, for the record).
3) Starting cash I'd say make scale with stars starting. $250 for 4 or 8 starting stars, $500 for 16 or 24 stars.
Leave the tech at the default 0 level or whatever. We just need to make sure people understand the tech before the game starts.
Unrelated to our pending starting game:
My first game is putting pressure on me. Everyone wants me to ally with them to backstab everyone else. Though, this kinda puts me in a good position.
My second game, as I noted, is coming to a close. Orange is devastating me taking my territory, purple is eating up what he can of cyan on his end of the map. I'll still finish out 3rd place, and apparently finishing in the top 3 in a game gives you credits for the site so YAY!
Edited my post to clear up your questions. To reiterate though:
This will be a free-to-join game, the more expensive option. I don't imagine many others here are premium, and I don't intend for people to have to drop $20 just so I can create a game for $3 cheaper.
2) This isn't starting stars, but relates to the total size of the universe, in stars. This # * the # of players = the # of stars in the universe. Default is 16, I think.
EDIT: Oh, hey TOTP. Lemme just quote myself here a bit:
Sweet, so if you buy credits to create a premium game, you can do all kinds of neat shit like have more pays/day, different build costs, starting $$$, starting tech, all kinds of shit.
Okay, so then.
On or about Friday, I'm going to create a free-to-join Premium game for PA gamers only.
The password will be "wang", of course, but before then, I'd like your opinions on how to set up the universe.
Key Questions:
1) How many pays/day? (1, 2, or 4.)
2) Stars per player (Total universe size = this # * number of players. This is NOT starting stars. 8, 16, 24, or 32.)
3) Starting $? ($100, $250, $500, $100.)
Playing with higher starting tech or cheaper research cost seems a little silly to me, given nobody has enough experience with the game so far that it'll do anything other than mess up the balance.
Also, if you're interested in playing, please put a !signup at the top of your post so I know how many people to expect.
Also, please use your Forum name when joining the game. Keeping track of people in Solium Infernum was always fucked up. You had to match Forum Name -> Google Wave Name -> Demon Name and that was tedious.
EDIT: Please try to make sure you have a free game slot open! The game I make will count as one of your FREE games and unless you want to make a Google account just for this game, try to keep a slot open.
I wanna join. I'm about to get wrecked in one of my games, so I'm open. Or I'll just use my other google account.
In game 1, I've lost my home star after sacrificing many ships. I just didn't have enough speed to get reinforcements there, and the guy has waaaay more ships than I.
In game 2, It is down to two of us, only because everyone else dropped out of AI. He even asked that I let him be 2nd place, even though it's really up in the air. We're grabbing up any stars we can and avoiding contact, and I assume we're both building up massive fleets behind our scan range border.
I don't know how everyone else gets so many more fleets and industry and science than I do. I'm starting to get paranoid that people are joining games under two google accounts and sending themselves money before dropping one out to AI.
Lux on
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HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
One of my alias' is indeed Henroid so no problem on that one. I'll PM the OP to get him to change the thread title to attract more attention to the game you're starting Imperfect.
If we don't get enough people, we could always just make it open to strangers and then team up against them.
Until the inevitable backstab when we are the only 3 left.
POLL:
In my first game, I am definitely going to lose. I've lost my main star and a couple of my important stars, my pursuer has 500 ships to my 200 and now I'm hunkered down with about 80 ships far away at my last high-resource star. Should I: 1) Dig my heels in and keep heavy defenses around the area to do maximum damage to the inevitable attacker or 2) Gather about 200 ships and go out in one final blaze of glory into the enemy's heart?
If we don't get enough people, we could always just make it open to strangers and then team up against them.
Until the inevitable backstab when we are the only 3 left.
POLL:
In my first game, I am definitely going to lose. I've lost my main star and a couple of my important stars, my pursuer has 500 ships to my 200 and now I'm hunkered down with about 80 ships far away at my last high-resource star. Should I: 1) Dig my heels in and keep heavy defenses around the area to do maximum damage to the inevitable attacker or 2) Gather about 200 ships and go out in one final blaze of glory into the enemy's heart?
One of the best lessons I've learned in chess is that if you're way down on pieces or it's an endgame where you look like you're beat, play the move that you know your opponent will hate the most. Even if you're totally sunk, play aggressively and do what you can to hamstring his attempts instead of turtling and letting him have total control of the endgame. Sometimes they can get flustered and make a huge blunder. As such I would recommend 2.
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
edited September 2010
My 2nd game officially ended and I did get 3rd place.
Heads up to folks; 1st place you win 10 Galactic Credits (the stuff you pay real money for), 2nd you win 5, and 3rd you win 1. So I'm living in poverty in the realm of NP.
My first game is probably going to start sinking into betrayal town. And at the moment it is starting with me; I've got alliances with 2 people who hold the biggest empires in the game, and they're on opposite ends of the galaxy. I am in the middle. A third player, who has an equally large empire as the other two, attempted an alliance with me but he played his hand a bit too early and I knew him to be a back-stabber. Needless to say, my carriers are on the way and one has already crushed a star's defenses, and then the 3 fleets he sent as backup (holy shit I can't believe I won against all that). Now I'm cleaning up house to be the official border between the two guys I have alliances with. And they don't know I'm allied with each of them so I'll have to make a choice soon. Until then, I'm trying to coax each of them into assaulting other players.
Posts
I appreciate that the defining characteristic of Neptune’s Pride is that everyone becomes an unforgivably merciless two-faced cunt, (RPS)
Doesn't sound like fun
It really needs "alliance" mechanic, it shouldn't be shown to enemy players, but what it means is that you temporarily make an "open borders" agreement - either for your whole space empire of for specific stars... It'd be risky tough, since you could just send a massive fleet into the other guy's territory and then break the agreement with no penalties and attack his star... Still, for coordinating massive attacks when everyone has limited range, it'd be awesome to be able to set up a "hub" planet without needing to give it up.
Also, 2 allies sending a ship to an unclaimed planet at the same time, unknowingly, will end up having their fleets fight eachother, which isn't exactly what 2 allies would do in that case...
Xfire: lordgravewish
Steam: LordGravewish
Bartlebe here! Were in a game together.
Cheers and down with the Red Menace!
It worked alright for the first week or so but then he got ambitious and too big, gave me a day of warning and attacked. I made peace with a couple guys and countered him pretty effectively to the point where, even though he was twice as big as me, my greater concentration of ships/worlds (and emphasis on weapons tech research) gave me a great advantage. We were stalemated when one of my former enemies and I made a new alliance. In exchange for all my tech, he'd reinforce me.
It worked beautifully! We wiped the game clean together and stopped without finishing each other off, he in first place and I in second. Good times.
You can ally with players in the premium (paid) games, though I think it's not secret information. Team games are much more fun.
Oh. Well, I think something that this game has that makes it amazing is the "no rules". Alliances are made and broken every minute, without any kind of penalties... Backstabbing is kind of a must. Of course we make exceptions when our ally is a fellow PA forumer since we must show the might of our forum! We don't betray one another (at least not until we're the last two players in-game :P), we stick together and pwn the rest of the galaxy!
I think that in free games something like what I said should at least be possible...
Xfire: lordgravewish
Steam: LordGravewish
The reason it's not available in free games is because it makes it too easy to collude (not that it's difficult now). Games are won and lost by secret alliances, team games are much more about the strategy than the diplomacy.
I just doubled my military power in my second game and helped my potential ally with his weapons tech. Meanwhile, my first game is still painfully slower (somehow) and I'm eagerly awaiting my opponent's next dispatch of his carrier.
The game Gravewish and I are in is quickly becoming very political and will be decided by alliances.
We're forming an alliance and a secret alliance on our side of the galaxy. Meanwhile, the forces on the other side are, no doubt, doing the same. The next week or so is going to be a real mess. :P
My second game, however, is exciting the hell out of me. The guy I aided sent me a speed tech, and let his plans known two me; the player that sits between him and I are allied to assault someone, and he also has someone else allied with him for the same purpose.
The player between him and I captured a star I had already dispatched to and I had to send him a message about how my incoming carrier isn't intended to be an assault, so hopefully that clears up (especially with our mutual alliance). Meanwhile, the second player I know of that's in on this grand scheme has been contacted as well, since he tried to initiate a tech exchange with me earlier. So the player involvement is ramping up a lot.
It means you should act like you're not going to hit him, then take all his homeworld stars in one fell swoop.
The guy whose star I'm about to capture on accident responded reasonably about the situation, but staked his claim territory-wise to all stars south of the same one I'm inbound for. Which means this route into the galaxy is completely cut off from me without my declaring war on him. The path up north is my only way into the bigger playing field, but I need to research range to make it actually usable, range being like the slowest upgrade tech. When my space-taxes come in, I think I'll invest some of it into another science facility to boost things along.
Edit - Probably going to setup another science facility in my first game too; now that I have a strong economy and a bolstered industry, I might change my strategy to be like that of my second game - a bigger, stronger fleet of carriers.
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
Imperfect, if your closest neighbor is AFK and ends up being a no-show, don't conquer him right away. For some reason, in both my games, people have avoided the AFK people (one in each game), as well as their general initial-claim territory.
My second game is wrought with betrayal. The guy who had an allied effort with me and two other people has been betrayed by the two others; they've snatched up a noticeable amount of his territory over the last half-day. So I don't trust the guy who I just made a pact with to respect his claim of territory to the south. I've prepped some fleet moves to get some defense setup at the possible entry points he has into my territory (the one route is no longer the only one for him; he expanded his range for jumps, and I did the same at the same time it seems). I'm considering allying with the two other guys across the other side of the galaxy to help take out this duo.
The whole map is kind of penis shaped.
Should I bother making alliances? The two closest people seem to be inevitable confrontations.
My two games are shifting in perspectives. In my first game, the guy that's been picking fights with me has been losing power to my reclaiming (and then some) of a few stars, and a couple other people are picking on him as well. He's mustered up one more power-driven fleet to send my way, so while it's heading to a star I've avoided building on (I knew he'd do it, it's high natural resources but I couldn't muster defenses for it in time in re-taking it) I'm prepping up a couple / few fleets on nearby stars with ships to send his way to cause him trouble. His fleet power is already less than my home star, and by the time he gets to other valuable stars their defenses will be heavily reinforced by their own virtue.
My second game is just fucked. I had an alliance with blue, who claimed to have an alliance with purple and orange; purple and orange turned on him in the meantime and blue is just fucked. Meanwhile, I'm directly bordering orange who I made a ceasefire and territory border agreement with. But I don't trust him for shit. He and purple are trading back tech (this is a common tactic by the way; ally with people, you all research different techs, and you can share the techs among each other) so they're powerful as all hell. For now I'm building up defenses on stars orange will have to pass through to start eating away at me. I'm finally about to breach into the galaxy's main area though. And my tech levels almost rival orange and purple.
And even if they do, they don't CONTINUE to build ships over time.
BTW, what's the "production cycle" in this game, anyway? I know payday is 1/day, but "production cycles" where new ships come out seem shorter.
The production cycle confuses me too, Imperfect. I thought it was a 24 hour period, but I think it might be a 12 hour period. This is something I imagine you can change in private games.
Anyway, important note to folks; watch out for when you establish a garrison and have a ship pass through for the purpose of picking up ships. I accidentally dicked myself over twice in my first game where I thought the number of ships on two stars were on board the carriers I had docked at each star; I moved each carrier, checked a few hours later, and realized they were not carrying much.
The garrison function lets you set how many ships stay on the planet before they start automatically moving up to carriers in orbit. Its a useful function, but you have to remember you're using it. Unlike me. There's also a "ship transfer" function when you're on a carrier's menu that lets you shift ships to and from the carrier to the star.
As for my games, my first game is still wrought with fighting with this one dude, who is still losing territory all around. I updated my scanning range and am able to see deeper into his territory, along with a carrier he's had docked for a day massing up ships. He's set it up for dispatch in the last half hour and have dispatched my own super-carrier in response. My industry across my border worlds was beefed up over the last couple of days, massing up a lot of ships for defensive purposes.
My second game has been relatively slow. I'm about to claim the last couple of stars that have gone unclaimed in my territory, and that'll be it; then I have to worry about this guy neighboring me punching into my territory and ripping me open a new one. I've made two tentative alliances with two different players, one of whom I've already exchanged some tech with and the other we're arranging for a tech exchange next pay cycle. Aside from a couple other players (one of whom is AI), I've made deals with every player in this game and only a couple know about previous deals I've made (at my discretion). If I really, really wanted to, I could setup an alliance with my neighbor to establish a military front to take out the others. And I'm considering it; better than trying to fight the two super-powers and losing.
In my first game, I took one of my enemy's stars and had a waypoint jump set to go further into his territory blindly, and it happened to be a good call; I just captured the star, and the guy had a science facility on it. He's got his fleets scrambling back into his territory to defend, while I'm making my way out because I don't want to lose my battered fleet. But for the next 8 hours, I have an extra science facility doing research (and he has one less), which is fucking great. My speed tech will be done during that time and I'll have a head-start on some badly needed weapons tech. I can also see his home planet right now, which I can make plans to assault (granting me a science facility, a bunch of industry, and toppling the economy will get me immediate cash flow).
My second game is starting to look a little stark; my neighbor is massing fleets on our border, which carry more ships and have stronger weapon systems than I'm prepared to fight with.
My first game is kind of rough because I'm surrounded on all sides, although I have an alliance with at least one of them. I'm working the technology trade, though, which is nice.
My second game, I'm on and off in 2nd and 3rd place because the two guys I'm stuck in the star-corridor with are nearly AFK. But no one is trading with me. They agree to it, and I tell them I'm doing speed and ask what they're doing, and I get no reply.
I'm suspicious about my nearest blue opponent, though. He has stayed on his 4 starting stars, but isn't AFK enough for the AI to take over. Is he just massing a huge defense? Waiting for me to attack then spring a trap? I can only see one star, and its got 15 ships on it...
In my first game my back and forth with blue is finally coming to a close as he's taken a beating, and I allied with green (one of the two top players) in taking blue and cyan out. Cyan has finally reacted to me and blue fighting and has his carriers lining up. The other player I allied with, dark red, might attack cyan too if I have problems with it. Question is, I'll have to choose red or green by the end of things.
In my second game I've been cut off from the galaxy. So I sent a message to the orange player, who is huge and could crush the shit out of me, letting him know that I certainly don't want to lose but I don't want to sit on my hands in the game, so I may as well help him. So we've put a plan in motion. I've been trading tech with yellow and my carriers are on the way to pretty much backstab that alliance. In a few hours I'll have to hear about it. I don't feel bad.
Game 2 is about to end already though! Orange accepted my help so that he and purple can take 1st and 2nd place in the game and he promised me 3rd place. The plan was for me to slip into yellow's territory, purple would assault cyan, and orange would back both of us up in our mega-assault. And it worked. Like, in 12 hours cyan and yellow were crushed hard (the other players not mentioned were already consumed). We were keeping pace with our fleet dispatches so we wouldn't collide with each other, and I sent my communication to orange about my next plans (not realizing things were about to wrap up with cyan). I came back the next morning and saw he had barred my way. When I looked at the map, it became apparent that the whole game was pretty much over; all that's left is for purple or orange to claim enough territory to hit 90 stars.
I checked out my border with him a few minutes ago and the carriers are already on their way. GG
I'd love to play a PA game. But paying for it? Ehhh...
Okay, so then.
On or about Friday, I'm going to create a free-to-join Premium game for PA gamers only.
The password will be "wang", of course, but before then, I'd like your opinions on how to set up the universe.
Key Questions:
1) How many pays/day? (1, 2, or 4.)
2) Stars per player (Total universe size = this # * number of players. This is NOT starting stars. 8, 16, 24, or 32.)
3) Starting $? ($100, $250, $500, $100.)
Playing with higher starting tech or cheaper research cost seems a little silly to me, given nobody has enough experience with the game so far that it'll do anything other than mess up the balance.
Also, if you're interested in playing, please put a !signup at the top of your post so I know how many people to expect.
My input on questions:
1) Leave it at 1, maybe 2, but no more than that. I'd prefer 1.
2) Wait, so the more stars you give people to start with, the more stars there are in the game total or no? Start with 8 (game default is 4, for the record).
3) Starting cash I'd say make scale with stars starting. $250 for 4 or 8 starting stars, $500 for 16 or 24 stars.
Leave the tech at the default 0 level or whatever. We just need to make sure people understand the tech before the game starts.
Unrelated to our pending starting game:
My first game is putting pressure on me. Everyone wants me to ally with them to backstab everyone else. Though, this kinda puts me in a good position.
My second game, as I noted, is coming to a close. Orange is devastating me taking my territory, purple is eating up what he can of cyan on his end of the map. I'll still finish out 3rd place, and apparently finishing in the top 3 in a game gives you credits for the site so YAY!
This will be a free-to-join game, the more expensive option. I don't imagine many others here are premium, and I don't intend for people to have to drop $20 just so I can create a game for $3 cheaper.
2) This isn't starting stars, but relates to the total size of the universe, in stars. This # * the # of players = the # of stars in the universe. Default is 16, I think.
EDIT: Oh, hey TOTP. Lemme just quote myself here a bit:
This now becomes the official post for this game.
Currently signed up:
1. Imperfect
2. Henroid
3. Lux
4. Blurbl
5. TheOtherHorseman
6. LordGravewish
7. stopgap
8. Elvenshae
9. Reasonable Hobo
10. Mifio
Also, please use your Forum name when joining the game. Keeping track of people in Solium Infernum was always fucked up. You had to match Forum Name -> Google Wave Name -> Demon Name and that was tedious.
EDIT: Please try to make sure you have a free game slot open! The game I make will count as one of your FREE games and unless you want to make a Google account just for this game, try to keep a slot open.
In game 1, I've lost my home star after sacrificing many ships. I just didn't have enough speed to get reinforcements there, and the guy has waaaay more ships than I.
In game 2, It is down to two of us, only because everyone else dropped out of AI. He even asked that I let him be 2nd place, even though it's really up in the air. We're grabbing up any stars we can and avoiding contact, and I assume we're both building up massive fleets behind our scan range border.
I don't know how everyone else gets so many more fleets and industry and science than I do. I'm starting to get paranoid that people are joining games under two google accounts and sending themselves money before dropping one out to AI.
Until the inevitable backstab when we are the only 3 left.
POLL:
In my first game, I am definitely going to lose. I've lost my main star and a couple of my important stars, my pursuer has 500 ships to my 200 and now I'm hunkered down with about 80 ships far away at my last high-resource star. Should I: 1) Dig my heels in and keep heavy defenses around the area to do maximum damage to the inevitable attacker or 2) Gather about 200 ships and go out in one final blaze of glory into the enemy's heart?
One of the best lessons I've learned in chess is that if you're way down on pieces or it's an endgame where you look like you're beat, play the move that you know your opponent will hate the most. Even if you're totally sunk, play aggressively and do what you can to hamstring his attempts instead of turtling and letting him have total control of the endgame. Sometimes they can get flustered and make a huge blunder. As such I would recommend 2.
Robots Will Be Our Superiors (Blog)
http://michaelhermes.com
Heads up to folks; 1st place you win 10 Galactic Credits (the stuff you pay real money for), 2nd you win 5, and 3rd you win 1. So I'm living in poverty in the realm of NP.
My first game is probably going to start sinking into betrayal town. And at the moment it is starting with me; I've got alliances with 2 people who hold the biggest empires in the game, and they're on opposite ends of the galaxy. I am in the middle. A third player, who has an equally large empire as the other two, attempted an alliance with me but he played his hand a bit too early and I knew him to be a back-stabber. Needless to say, my carriers are on the way and one has already crushed a star's defenses, and then the 3 fleets he sent as backup (holy shit I can't believe I won against all that). Now I'm cleaning up house to be the official border between the two guys I have alliances with. And they don't know I'm allied with each of them so I'll have to make a choice soon. Until then, I'm trying to coax each of them into assaulting other players.
I enjoy this game.