Game Idea--Capitals

[Jmenschenfresser]

I've mentioned this idea in another thread, and since then, I've more or less have a working mod to start a PBW game of capitals.

How it works is that on turn one, all empires will scrap on facility on one of their 5 or 10 starting homeworlds, and in its place build a Palace; thus signifying that world as a capital.

The general gist of the rules I've written down forbid the moving of this Palace for the entire game. No exceptions.

The winner is he who captures a given number of the total capitals. I like the idea because if the number of capitals needed to win is set at the right number, the game has a chance to end before it degenerates into one massive empire or coalition cleaning up the galaxy. But you needn't worry about the game being short. If one empire is about to claim the final capital he needs, he'll probably find himself short on friends.

The game cannot be won through an alliance, whose total capitals are over the number.

The question is how many would be willing, within the next week, of starting a game like this? I have to do a bit of final testing on the mod tonight...then I will put it up on PBW, and maybe here.

Here's a basic list of the changes I've made. They are few in number. And I am thinking about lowering the ground combat turns to 5 and possibly lowering the space combat turns as well. Not sure about that though.

Changes in CapitalMod:
-Upped the "to kill one Pop." to 1000.
-added the Palace facility
-added the Facility #2 file with palace costs upped to 100,000 of each resource.
-Small troop and Troop weapons tech are available on startup
-Medium troops are now reached with troop level 1
-Large troops are now reached with trool level 2
-New massive troops (25k) are reached on level 3
-Taken out the Puppet Political Party intel op.
-Max # of sats per sector = 200 (up from 100)
-Max # of systems = 150

One final thing to keep in mind. This game will rely heavily on people's honor. I am not going to even attempt to stop you from building palaces on all your worlds through my mod, but I hope that all who respond want a fair, fun game.

[Jmenschenfresser]

Hmmm...no takers as of yet. Well, not to be discouraged, I've put the mod up on PBW, and am waiting for it to be added before I open the actual game.

I didn't change the number of ground or space combat turns. I figure to let it go vanilla for the time being. The same with components. I was going to add a slew of weapons platform guns and what not for planet defense, but decided against adding it for this Version as I need more time to perfect them all.

I guess this will really be a beta test game, but to see if the whole concept works with SE4.

I am not sure if I should set a max number of players. If I only get 4 players, you'll have to capture 3 capitals.
5 players = 3
6 players = 3
7 players = 4
8 players = 4
9 players = 5
10 players = 5

not sure where to go from there.

[Skulky]

Hey, i thought i said i would be in if you decided to play it on PBW. whatever, could we play like 5-6 turns wihtout the mod colonizing a little doing a little research like a pregame turn or several?

[Jmenschenfresser]

Sorry for the long wait. Hopefully for those interested the game will open up by the end of the week. First come first serve.

[Jmenschenfresser]

It's here! It's here!

I've set up a game on PBW. Feel free to join. Just read the entry and the Mod's READ ME.

If you've ever wished that SE4 empires had meaningful focal points, if ground combat is your specialty, if you despise those who mindlessly glass worlds, if you think planetary defense (rather than system defense) in SE4 is entirely an art waiting to be discovered, this is the game for you.

Join your local space marines and request to be put on the front lines!...to protect your empire's glorious, illustrious, magnanimous, wondermous, age old CAPTIAL!

Role players welcome, but the game has definite goals. One idea I had, if enough role players sign up and want some back story, is this:

The Galactic Republic has decentigrated. Every where emperors, senators, queens and kings vie for the title of Chairman of the Galactic Republic. The galaxy's empires have to subdue X number of votes (ie capitals) to reinstate the Republic (bent to their will of course) and have themself elected to that grand position.

[Batman]

Ok, I applied to join the game, but can't post to the forum yet.

I did have a couple of suggestions:

1) Increase the # of ships allowed. If we are starting with 5 or 10 worlds then we will have a large industrial base. Gotta have something to spend it on. Plus, if you allow tons and tons of units, and only a few ships, then any incoming fleet will get shot down well short of the capital by the hoardes of fighters and drones that everyone will put on their planets.

2) Tech Level & Tech Costs. Since the thrust of this game is on diplomacy etc, and since we are supposed to be commanding fragments of a large and long-lived galactic empire, I don't think it makes too much sense to start us at the lowest tech level. Instead, what about starting at medium tech level but making the tech cost high. That would act to make research happen at a more reasonable pace (especially since our inital research levels will be high) and also allow us to field good tech ships from the start.

3) Quadrant type. I feel that cluster would be bad. I think that the Capital mod would suffer from having too many chokepoints in the warp chain; ideally everyone should be able to attack lots of people, and be vulnerable to attack on all sides. This should keep the politics and diplomacy more knife-edge and chaotic. I think that ancient might be bad for similar reasons.

4) Quadrant size. Small or medium, depending on the # of players. Or Large, but only if you take ancient as a galaxy type. The game feels like it should explode into conflict almost immediately (which was another reason I suggested medium starting tech)

That's about it I think. Sorry if a lot of this sounded like I was giving orders rather than suggestions; it's your show, and I'd like to give the mod a try no matter what you choose.

[geoschmo]

F.Y.I., Mensch is out of town for a week, so don't expect an answer right back on this.

Geoschmo

[Batman]

Oh, forgot to add something. If you do make starting tech medium instead, it may be a good idea to disallow the racial techs. It might be too much of an advantage to start the game with, say, organic armor.

Does anyone know what racial techs you start with when using Medium tech?

[Krsqk]

Medium tech start does not give any racial techs in Gold v1.67.

[ELN-Gustyboy]

Hi.

This mod interest me. Where can i download it?
And is the IA has been modified to be playable alone against computer?
Thanks.