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

[Fyron]

FQM, Krsqk System Mod

Unless you want to abandon the larger sizes of planets in FQM, this will be a huge undertaking.

Originally posted by Spoo:
#2. And don't forget Devnull mod and Proportions

If you want PBW use of the mod, I suggest not incorporating Proportions, unless you want to limit the number of ways to play games to a very small selection (eg: small map with 10 planets, no huge galaxy 20 player games, etc.), or have games take far to long for 90% of the PBW populace...

P&N and Devnull are already pretty huge and complete, and not necessarily compatible, no?

No, they are fairly compatible. Neither one makes a huge number of changes to the game. Both make a relatively small number of changes, though they are changes in areas that drastically affect gameplay. Combining them would not be too hard. You would definitely have a few choices to make here and there as to which mod's Version of various items you want to pick, but there are not many of those.

[ April 25, 2004, 19:46: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[QuarianRex]

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

Ha! Ahh... Batletech flashbacks. So many memories.

As far as the race setup goes I agree that all the races should be human dirivatives (a.k.a. Oxy/Rock) but the rest of the setup should be as diverse as 2000 will allow. Empires usually war/break-up due to their differences, not their similarities. Having a segment of the empire succede due to industial-level-genetic-engineering/reckless-manipulation-of-the-temporal-continuum/economically-unbalancing-reliance-upon-crystaline-technology/ultraorthodox-devotion-to-an-outdat ed-faith/the-emergence-of-the-mentally-gifted-next-stage-of-humanity is far more likely (and more interesting) scenario than a litteral war of the clones.

Granted, since this is the first generation seperation of humanity it may be prudent to have a max limit of one racial tech per race so it doesn't get goofy. This could be a very interesting game.

[Spoo]

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

If you want PBW use of the mod, I suggest not incorporating Proportions, unless you want to limit the number of ways to play games to a very small selection (eg: small map with 10 planets, no huge galaxy 20 player games, etc.), or have games take far to long for 90% of the PBW populace...

There was a mod that did this several patches ago. Derick's Mod or something. IIRC, it wasn't as extreme as Proportions. Population wasn't as massive and reproduced faster.

[General Woundwort]

Originally posted by 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.

You read my mind. Human oxy-rockers, definitely, perhaps even using the same shipset, but with the players sumitting their own Main and Racial pics.

Originally posted by Loser:
You need not fill all the facility slots on all the colonial worlds, leave that for later development.

An excellent idea.

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

Again, you read my mind.

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

That's up to the players.

Originally posted by QuarianRex:
As far as the race setup goes I agree that all the races should be human dirivatives (a.k.a. Oxy/Rock) but the rest of the setup should be as diverse as 2000 will allow. Empires usually war/break-up due to their differences, not their similarities. Having a segment of the empire succede due to industial-level-genetic-engineering/reckless-manipulation-of-the-temporal-continuum/economically-unbalancing-reliance-upon-crystaline-technology/ultraorthodox-devotion-to-an-outdat ed-faith/the-emergence-of-the-mentally-gifted-next-stage-of-humanity is far more likely (and more interesting) scenario than a litteral war of the clones.

Granted, since this is the first generation seperation of humanity it may be prudent to have a max limit of one racial tech per race so it doesn't get goofy. This could be a very interesting game.

Another excellent idea.

RE: MOAM Mod, the idea was to gather all the general mods into one package, with a seasoning of ideas from the more "comprehensive" mods like Proportions, P&N, and Star Trek. I just liked the idea of having all the major improvements and options available for basic SEIV available in one mod. But, as PvK noted, it's shaping up to be a Herculean task.

Keep the feedback coming, I'm moving closer to a decision...