I'm feeling ambitious...

[General Woundwort]

I was going to do this as a poll, but I can't adequately explain how the two options would work in the limited space there, so I'm going to a full post.

I've been toying with two ideas lately. Which would you guys rather see done?

1) A pre-generated game for PBW. How I think it would work is this. I get 6-7 players to sign on ahead of time and submit empires (2000 point vanilla humans for scenario purposes). I would enter them and play them out personally on my PC until they filled the quadrant, deliberately under-researching to allow for player flexibility once the game starts. I would have each empire make contact with and trade technologies with all the others so that they would have a level playing field; and I would attempt to have each empire within 5-10% of each other as far as resources, storage, etc. Then I would set all treaties down to non-aggression and turn the game over to the players. The idea behind this is that an established empire just split into competing factions, with conquering the neutral homeworld and X% victory points over the second-place empire/team leading to victory. I would set the game up, but only remain in as a one-planet "neutral" player for observation purposes.

2) A super-mod (tenatively titled MOAM [Mother Of All Mods] Mod). This would incorporate Hypermod, FQM, Krsqk System Mod, PvK Balance, neo-shipsets, EKolis Colony Mod, Quasi-Newtonian movement, Deathstalker Mount Mod, souped-up AI's, Univesral Strategies Mod, space monsters, and whatever else I can beg, borrow, or steal from other modders.

So, am I just nuts, or what?

EDIT - spellcheck in reverse

[ April 25, 2004, 16:03: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]

[Spoo]

#2. And don't forget Devnull mod and Proportions

[Baal]

I like it. Option A sounds like a really fun idea. Start with a developed empire rather than having to build up from scratch. I always kind want to start with a few borders so I know where I stand in the universe.

[Loser]

I dig number one. But they should all be the same race, Oxy-Rockers I think, with the same empire build-out, or very, very close to the same.

Actually, in the interest of making the various succession states especially equivelent, you could start them as unattended empires and make the centrally located old-homeworld empire fill out all of space and then 'gift' the various pie-slices to the unattended little empires, which then may or may not get to keep their homeworlds.

You need not fill all the facility slots on all the colonial worlds, leave that for later development.

The old-homeworld should be absolutly badass: many, many Large Plats, Fighters, Troops, defensive Star Bases.

And then all that's left is to make empire protraits of Kurita, Marik, Davion, Liao, and Steiner.

[kerensky]

...you could start them as unattended empires and make the centrally located old-homeworld empire fill out all of space and then 'gift' the various pie-slices to the unattended little empires, which then may or may not get to keep their homeworlds.
You need not fill all the facility slots on all the colonial worlds, leave that for later development.
The old-homeworld should be absolutly badass: many, many Large Plats, Fighters, Troops, defensive Star Bases.

This idea sounds like it would be easier than trying to create several parralell empires. Never done a PBW but I would be willing to try.

[PvK]

Option B is more desire-able, but a Herculean task. P&N and Devnull are already pretty huge and complete, and not necessarily compatible, no?

Option A is more do-able, but personally I recommend just taking over an available slot from a PBW in progress. I find starting with a real (and not "balanced") game history quite interesting and more desirable than balance (achieve balance through skill, cunning, and diplomacy), but that's just me.

Having the AI run the first turns is also an initially fair, even if the results won't be necessarily balanced.

PvK