Spiralus PBW discussion thread. - Page 3

Dragonlord · #21 July 26th, 2001, 02:00 AM

Beedee, I understand what you mean about the ancient galaxy, though I'm not entirely convinced yet. Let's see what the others have to say about it.

Newsflash: there *are* ruins in the Spiralus game, even though I pre-generated the map.
There are about 20 planets with ruins, although for some reason almost all of them are scattered around the southern half of the galaxy.
I don't go for the unique tech in ruins, I never us it. But I do like the occasional find, if you are real lucky you'll get colonisation tech or something else that's both expensive and useful. Although I usually get tech that is medium-expensive but that I would not normally research, such as Satellites II. Still, it's nice to have slightly better sats, or troops, or resource extraction.

Rollo · #22 July 26th, 2001, 02:09 AM

I like ancient maps. Makes the exploration stage so much fun. (Maybe you should turn off your ancient trait to fully enjoy them

). BeeDee is right about the AI not able to handle them. But since it's a humans only game that doesn't matter.

Rollo · #23 July 26th, 2001, 02:15 AM

Heh, I just saw that everybody but one has their turn done already. Maybe I should stay up half an hour longer before going to bed and see if I can send in another one.

BeeDee10 · #24 July 26th, 2001, 04:29 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Dragonlord:
Newsflash: there *are* ruins in the Spiralus game, even though I pre-generated the map.

Interesting. I never actually confirmed that bug myself, since I tend not to pre-generate maps when playing single-player. Wonder if it's sporadic and we just got lucky...

Dragonlord · #25 July 26th, 2001, 04:52 AM

I just generated a map with the ancient galaxy setting, and it looked horrible ! Fully 50 to 60% of the systems are either black holes, nebulae, or asteroid fields.
Please explain this to me again: why is that good?

BeeDee10 · #26 July 26th, 2001, 08:08 AM

It's good because it adds a lot of interesting buffer space between your valuable systems. Nebulas and black holes have strategic value for attack and defence, and the distances involved force you to think about supply lines and things like that when you send your fleets out. Since systems with useable planets are rarer, they become a lot more valuable; this changes the strategy too (you can't have "throwaway" colonies out on the border to slow down an enemy advance, for example). Remote mining can become actually significant to your economy, and then you have to defend all those remote mining satellites strewn about in the asteroid systems too.

With standard mid-life maps, for example, you can almost always avoid the black hole systems. But what if you _had_ to transit one in order to reach enemy territory?

Of course, this isn't necessarily a "better" way to play, just different.

Rollo · #27 July 26th, 2001, 08:22 AM

BeeDee, we both agree on this (You just make a much better point than I do, thanks

). This is what I meant with military campaigns being more difficult to prepare and needing actual task forces.
I think we should give it a try with an ancient map. Maybe just a few players for a test. I also suggest not to allow ancient race special traits (sorry, Dragonlord), because this spoils most of the fun.

Rollo

[This message has been edited by Rollo (edited 26 July 2001).]

Dragonlord · #28 July 26th, 2001, 08:46 AM

Hmm yes maybe we should try this with 4 players or so. And yes, ancient race would not be a fun trait to have on such a map.

Im still a little puzzled about black holes though...always have been. What's the big deal with them? My ships always safely make it past a black hole, it just takes a little bit longer to traverse the systems because you get sucked towards the black hole for 2 sectors worth of movement, but since ships have a speed of 6 to 12, they never actually get sucked into the thing.

Nebuleas I can understand, good to make resupply stations in or for forcing combat with no shields. (or was that black holes again, the no shields thing?)

BeeDee10 · #29 July 26th, 2001, 09:51 AM

quote:
Originally posted by Dragonlord:
Hmm yes maybe we should try this with 4 players or so. And yes, ancient race would not be a fun trait to have on such a map.

Well, I don't have anything against ancient race myself; you pay your points and you get your maps.

quote:
Im still a little puzzled about black holes though...always have been. What's the big deal with them?

Well, for starters black holes tend to be associated with corrupted warp points. They're like unsweepable minefields, and if they happen to cripple your engines you can still lose ships to the hole. But even if the warp points are normal, you just can't station a fleet in a black hole system for an extended period; eventually they run out of supplies and die. You can't put in sentry satellites or minefields either, they get sucked in too. And if your fleet is low on supplies, be very careful before sending them through. Remember also that combat consumes supplies, so fighting inside a black hole system could doom you even if you win the battle resoundingly.

Basically, it's a major pain to _hold_ a black hole system. They're natural no-man's lands.

Note that I haven't actually had much _experience_ with the strategic implications of these things; I've mostly played against the AI so far. But it all seems to make sense inside my head at the moment.

quote:
Nebuleas I can understand, good to make resupply stations in or for forcing combat with no shields. (or was that black holes again, the no shields thing?)

Black holes are the no-shield systems, nebulas are merely naturally cloaked (though one of the red nebula types cloaks better than any sensor can overcome, and ships in such a nebula are _invulnerable_. Invest in stellar manipulation.

.

(I came across a mod that added a wide variety of new nebulas with all sorts of effects borrowed from the storms, but the name is slipping my mind.)

Oh, and the usual disclaimer applies; different people have different playing styles and enjoy different sorts of maps. I wouldn't want to play _every_ game in an Ancient quadrant, that would get tedious.

Rollo · #30 July 26th, 2001, 10:23 AM

Yeah, let's give it a try on a small ancient map with 4 or 5 players and no AI. If you don't mind, I could gamemaster that. I don't want to take away your idea, but since we are moving away from it anyway it will be in addition to that, not replacing it.
I don't actually care who gamemasters it, but I have not done it yet, so I could learn it.

About Black Holes: In one of my games with the demo I had my one of my explorers getting sucked into them, because it ran out of fuel. It already had solar collectors on, but had to travel through a couple of nebulae (sorry, no fuel here

). Already low on fuel they had high hopes of finding a sun at the other end of an unexplored warp point only to find a black hole... Well, the good thing about those is that you don't have to pay maintenance for stranded scouts

. In order to reach the other end of this nebulae/black hole cluster I had to develop better solar collectors, wait a few turns just outside the first nebula to refuel and then make the run (the Kessel run?). But it was worth it: On the other side, I found a really nice system with at least one breathable planet (cannot recall exactly). While the scout waited in the system to refuel and watch the system, I had to put together an actual colonization fleet (Colonizer, 2 Refuel ships with solar collectors, warships (just to make sure

)). That really gave a "Battlestar Galactica" feeling, if you know what I mean.
This little tale might illustrate best, what I mean with the fun of exploring and planning task forces. Playing in ancient maps gives you some other problems to deal with. Some might argue that playing with ancient maps in PBW can be a drag (in the boring sense), but I say we try it anyway and find out ourselves...

Just my 0.02
Rollo