What Rules Do You Use For Multiplayer?

SamuraiProgrammer · #1 October 5th, 2002, 05:55 AM

A group of friends have been playing SEIV Gold PBEM. We have been been voting for rules each game we play. We are looking for a game that has no 'secret knock' to victory.

What rules and settings do you play with?

Fyron · #2 October 5th, 2002, 10:14 AM

Disabling Surrender is a must. It is a very unbalancing option.

The SE4 Intel system is really, really poorly implemented, and I like to have it disabled.

Try playing with 0 racial points for some really interesting empire designs.

SamuraiProgrammer · #3 October 6th, 2002, 10:56 PM

That seems reasonable... more ideas anyone?

PvK · #4 October 6th, 2002, 11:17 PM

I would recommend using High research costs, because it means that you "get to use" more of the tech tree, instead of bLasting through to the highest levels of every tech area.

If you want to "get to high tech faster," and choose Low reasearch costs, then I'd suggest either disallowing Religious tech, modding out the Talisman component, or at least pointing out to all players before play, that the Talisman is a very powerful component, and any player attaining it will be very hard to stop.

PvK

Arkcon · #5 October 7th, 2002, 01:35 AM

Not exactly SE4 rules, but worth deciding anyway, is what time limit to use on turns, and what to do for skipped turns. Say you suggest 48 hrs, and one person misses every turn. You all wait the very maximum time you set up, waiting for one race, which either does nothing, or is played by the A.I.

This is a tough part of PBW. You might not always be availible, but some ground rules are nice. Such as "Three consecutive missed turns, without an advance warning for the group, will allow the game owner to boot you from the game" or some such.

PvK · #6 October 7th, 2002, 01:59 AM

Oh, another good thing to determine, is what should happen if someone has a problem for some reason. As in, they forget a turn, or some event beyond their controls makes them miss a turn, or a file doesn't load correctly, or some bug causes a problem that could be solved by re-executing the turn.

Personally, in such cases, I'd rather proceed with play IF fixing it would mean that other players would have to re-do their turns.

Other players would rather re-do the turns to make sure everyone's turn goes smoothly, even if it means all the other players have to re-do their turns.

PvK

spoon · #7 October 7th, 2002, 06:42 AM

In the group I've been playing with, we've tried the following:

- Rush Prevention: Can't attack another homeworld for x turns (10-20)

- Lame Start Prevention: If any player starts with his homesystem blocked in by other players and/or black holes, then he can call for a restart by turn 10. (for our latest map, we had someone make a map for us, to ensure no players started in adjacent postitions. Very nice change from what we had in past maps - if you want, I can make a map for your next game...

- Low tech start / high tech cost -- lets you play with tech longer before needing to upgrade, makes racial techs less powerful (which can be a negative point, depending on how you look at it)

- Medium sized galaxy for 8 players (meet sooner with less chance of someone already being an unstoppable powerhouse. again,weakens racial techs, which may be good or bad...)
- Ban Intelligence (too all-or-nothing)

- Ban Surrender (and ban the work-around for surrendering (giving away all your planets...)

- Ban Tech Trading -- the only way to trade tech is by giving another player a ship, and having him scrap and analyze it. Slows the speed of tech developement down by quite a bit, which we all liked.

- Ban gifting colony ships (this is a biggie - prevents someone from getting all the colonization techs by virtue of his location to players with different starting colony tech...)

- Turn off events and ruins (too potentially unbalancing).

- Decide on how many players can be declared the "Victor". This was in response to our first game, where a coalition of 3 players ended up winning the game against the other coalition of 4 players. We now prefer "only one shall reign!" You can still make alliances, of course, but like in Risk, there can only be one winner. This makes the political side of the game more interesting, in my opinion. More intrigue. And no one gets too mad at the backstab, since you knew it had to be coming at some point...

- Decide what to do if someone quits. Getting a replacement player can sometimes take forever. gifting away planets can be unbalancing. This happened in our most recent game (on turn 20) so we just split his empire up amongst the two newbies...

Good luck with your next game!
-Spoon

Stone Mill · #8 October 7th, 2002, 05:18 PM

I agree that the Intel model has it's "conceptual" problems...

But it does work the way it is designed. Once you have figured out how it works, it is quite fun. In the two current games I am playing, intel is on, and (1) Offensive Intel domination is quite staggering in the late game (2) Intel really isn't a factor, and I'm playing Intel defensively

So I would disagree- If you are playing among friends leave intel on! Nothing like running intel against your buddies.

[ October 07, 2002, 16:19: Message edited by: Stone Mill ]