PlanetsCentral

Hi,

this game nears its end, so let me tell a few words about the end condition.

Starting with the next host run, the server will start rolling dice. For the first turn, the game will end with 5% probability. Each turn, this probability will be increased by 2.5%. Therefore, the game will probably continue for 5 or 10 turns, but there's no way for you or me to know when exactly the curtain drops. The idea is to capture, for the final scoring, alive empires -- not empires that built useless structures as if there's no tomorrow, just for the score. Thus, I hope you don't build useless structures as if there's no tomorrow, just for the score :)

That aside, I thank everyone for taking part in the test and helping verify the software, and for taking the game more serious than I intended it to be.

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Das Spiel nähert sich dem Ende, daher hier einmal ein paar Anmerkungen zur Endebedingung.

Beginnend mit dem nächsten Hostlauf beginnt der Host mit Würfeln. Im ersten Zug liegt die Wahrscheinlichkeit für ein Ende des Spiels bei 5%. Jeden weiteren Zug wird sie um 2,5% erhöht. Damit geht's wohl noch so für 5 oder 10 Züge weiter, aber es ist weder für euch noch für mich möglich vorherzusehen, wie lange genau. Die Idee ist, für den letzten Punktestand lebende Imperien zu haben, und keine, wo einfach nur für den Punktestand sinnlose Dinge gebaut wurden, als ob's kein morgen gäbe. Also baut bitte nicht einfach nur für den Punktestand sinnlose Dinge, als ob's kein morgen gäbe :)

Davon abgesehen bedanke ich mich bei allen, die am Test teilgenommen haben und somit geholfen haben, die Software schön zu machen. Und insbesondere auch dafür, dass ihr das Spiel ernster genommen habt, als ich ursprünglich plante.

--Stefan

streu: this game nears its end, so let me tell a few words about the end condition.

Stefan, will this also apply to Just a Second?

thanks in advance,

GhostWriter

streu: this game nears its end, so let me tell a few words about the end condition.

Stefan, will this also apply to Just a Second?

Yes, I described the "approximately turn 80" ending condition.

--Stefan

Can' we boost it to 25% per turn? I'm getting slaughtered by the priv/empire/cylon combo. :(

I guess that's what you get for sending your fleet away from your home region. Did not expect the firecloud 40 ship at once though :P

Can' we boost it to 25% per turn? I'm getting slaughtered by the priv/empire/cylon combo. :(

I guess that's what you get for sending your fleet away from your home region. Did not expect the firecloud 40 ship at once though :P

Don't you just love multi-race alliances. That is why I love the Host One Ally add-on. It doesn't totally eliminate mega alliances, but it makes it harder for them.

Don't you just love multi-race alliances. That is why I love the Host One Ally add-on. It doesn't totally eliminate mega alliances, but it makes it harder for them.

Well, I've been in a multi-race alliance before, and that was not the best either. Because if you want to do it right, it adds more to the communication. Already 1-1 alliance increases the time to make a turn. I'll never play in a mult-rae alliance again as it results in: - The game becoming too easy - Players dropping out as they stand no chance. - Too much time expenditure. - No clear winner.

Fighting a multi-race alliance I don't mind so much, makes it more challenging. I just did not expect them to pop up only at turn 78 :). That's my own mistake, and I'll eat the cookies that come out of the oven.

Can' we boost it to 25% per turn? I'm getting slaughtered by the priv/empire/cylon combo. :(

I guess that's what you get for sending your fleet away from your home region. Did not expect the firecloud 40 ship at once though :P

This is a test game, if you no longer have fun, you can just resign at any time. There's no penalty for it. (And there's no shiny medal for surviving or taking first place.)

--Stefan

This is a test game, if you no longer have fun, you can just resign at any time. There's no penalty for it. (And there's no shiny medal for surviving or taking first place.)

--Stefan

Hah, are you kidding me! Of course I still have fun. And even if I didn't I would continue to play, as I have never dropped out of a game in my life. When you are loosing the least you can do is just give the victors the chance to enjoy the victory.

I was just joking about the 25%, but without smileys, it's hard to convey :P

hi,

as a member of this multi-race alliance I think it's fair if I state my point of view, too. ;)

Don't you just love multi-race alliances. That is why I love the Host One Ally add-on. It doesn't totally eliminate mega alliances, but it makes it harder for them.

I don't think there is need for a host side tool if there are clear rules concerning ally conglomeration. First Steps does not include any rules, so no rules were broken.

Your comment bears some sort of reproach. IMO, there is no reason to make anyone look bad only for acting within the rules.

I'm getting slaughtered by the priv/empire/cylon combo. :(

According to the PTScore table, you were the obvious choice. For 70 turns, I only could watch and see your PTScore rise and rise. There was not any chance to hinder you. After all, our homeworlds were about 1.200 LY apart from each other.

The cylon was my ally until then and I think that would have been enough, but we needed a transport to your region. The privateer had the means: two Bridgekeepers. So we joined forces, but we could not simply exclude the privateer from our plans by then. After all, you were going for his cluster at that time.

So, I had to do damage to your economy in order to be able to cover the PTScore gap. The privateer needed that attack to prevent you from concentrating on him. And the cylon was near at hand and wanted to be part of the fun.

Fighting a multi-race alliance I don't mind so much, makes it more challenging. I just did not expect them to pop up only at turn 78 :). That's my own mistake, and I'll eat the cookies that come out of the oven.

Hah, are you kidding me! Of course I still have fun.

I'm glad you're not taking it too seriously.

When you are loosing the least you can do is just give the victors the chance to enjoy the victory.

That's the part many gamers fail to understand. It's real fun to drop 7 Death Stars with 350 Fighters each just in your front door. And it's even more fun if the privateer offers to provide a cloaked Buccaneer for each DS. Thank you for not spoiling this by dropping out. :D

But please take my apologies, nevertheless. You were the only reasonable choice. It would've been lame simply to stop moving ships around at Turn 73 only because there were no more enemies within any reasonable distance. And to simply wait and hope and see if your PTScore would decrease alone for mystical reasons.

I think this game cannot be a good indicator for it's players capabilities. In a wrap-around map, I would have had an earlier contact with the Privateer and with the Crystals. And you would have had to make early contact with the Cylon and maybe the Crystals. No matter if we bash our heads in the end-game and who wins: the players had very different starting conditions, some (few) players not taking this game seriously at all. That's even more to the balance than a multi-race alliance going for the player with the most points. IMO, it's invalidating our PTScore position at all.

Best Regards Wormflush

But, where is the fun, for every one else when a 3 or 4 member alliance already have the top 3 or 4 scores and everyone know about the alliance? Don't get me wrong, I'm a stubborn, thick-headed @$$, you will have to take my last ship and planet.

Say, I'm the 5th highest score in a game and a 3 or 4 member alliance with at least 2 of the top 4 scores comes knocking on my front door. What are the chances of me stopping them? Sure, I can slow them down take out some of their ships, but stop them, very, very unlikely. So, where is the fun in that?

That is why I quit playing several years ago, because it quit being fun to play.

cherek: That is why I quit playing several years ago, because it quit being fun to play.

i know what you mean. Just a Second is the first game i entered into at the start, since Spring of 2000 !

GhostWriter

Cherek: I think you're not looking for an answer to your post, but for an audience. Why don't you bother dealing with my explanations? I think we had valid reasons to do what we did. And all within the rules of the game "First Steps". Tell me why they are not valid, in your opinion. Stop whining about how unfair the world has become. Even the affected player does not complain.

I don't understand the point of your example. We're not talking about a 3 or 4 member alliance, but about 3 races, two of them having been the second and the third. And the player in question was the first, not, "say", the 5th.

And after all, it's only a test game. I explained that I don't think the PTScore value is an indicator for player success, in this particular game. With me being the one with the most points, you could at least acknowledge that there must be some honesty behind my words.

Please stop complaining about things that don't even affect you directly.

And I'd suggest you don't stop playing VGA Planets because of it's cruel community. Instead, look for games with rules that satisfy your needs and skip those that don't.

wormflush: ...Instead, look for games with rules that satisfy your needs and skip those that don't.

that is a very small set of games for me to pick from. Even Just a Second did not meet the criteria...

that said, it is my bad: i forgot why i had not played in a game that required fuel to move a ship for at least 15 years...

that is a very small set of games for me to pick from. Even Just a Second did not meet the criteria...

that said, it is my bad: i forgot why i had not played in a game that required fuel to move a ship for at least 15 years...

Stefan explicitly asked if there are any wishes for custom games. If the fuel criterium does not weigh too much, this could be your chance. ;)

I personally even prefer games with an ally restriction. In fact, in "First Steps", I rejected several propositions made by the Cylon before I had proof that my first enemy, the Rebel, had an ongoing and more than friendly interaction with the Borg (a Borg Bridgekeeper in my very neighborhood must be deemed very dangerous!). Until that, our cooperation was restricted to the casual exchange of "hardware". (Believe that or not, whoever suspects meanness in my alliances' recent advance.)

Cherek: I think you're not looking for an answer to your post, but for an audience. Why don't you bother dealing with my explanations? I think we had valid reasons to do what we did. And all within the rules of the game "First Steps". Tell me why they are not valid, in your opinion. Stop whining about how unfair the world has become. Even the affected player does not complain.

I don't understand the point of your example. We're not talking about a 3 or 4 member alliance, but about 3 races, two of them having been the second and the third. And the player in question was the first, not, "say", the 5th.

And after all, it's only a test game. I explained that I don't think the PTScore value is an indicator for player success, in this particular game. With me being the one with the most points, you could at least acknowledge that there must be some honesty behind my words.

Please stop complaining about things that don't even affect you directly.

And I'd suggest you don't stop playing VGA Planets because of it's cruel community. Instead, look for games with rules that satisfy your needs and skip those that don't.

I forgot it was a test game and started before I came here.

I'm referring to non test and non team games. A Mega-alliance may or not come together to take out or at least weaken the top player. In the past, I have seen too many games where the same players play the same games and have the same alliances. Can you guess who the top scores in those games were?

As far as me stopping "...complaining about things that don't even affect you directly." maybe I will, maybe I won't, time will tell.

A cruel game, it can be. The cruel part is can be fun. playing a game that is lop-sided, that is not fun

wormflush: Stefan explicitly asked... If the fuel criterium does not weigh too much, this could be your chance. ;)

this is moot. i am already in Just a Second.

wormflush: (Believe that or not, whoever suspects meanness in my alliances' recent advance.)

personally, i did not detect any meanness in any of your posts.

Wow, lots of posts :)

I completely understand the attack in the final phase of the game. I mainly battled against the Fed/Bird/Borg combo, or as it seems the Fed/Bird/Borg/Rebel combo :P

And I was getting bored, as after the main assault of the Fed into my territory was dealt with, there was nothing left to do but slowly polish them out of the universe. So I took all of my fuel and all of my ships and went east.

In the west/south of my Empire I was messing around with a few ships, just annoying the Privs a bit, dropping some clans, taking some bases. Nothing serious.

I shouldn't have committed quite so much to wiping our the Fed/Borg/Bird, then we could have seen some nice death star destruction animations. But I did, so now my goal is to at least wipe two of them out. Only reason I can keep my score still up a bit, is because I am raking in planets and ships in the east, while losing in the west :)

So for me, no harm no faul, just another day in the echo cluster. Game on.

...or as it seems the Fed/Bird/Borg/Rebel combo :P

well, that at least explains why the cooperation between Rebel and Borg proved to be less dangerous than there was potential. According to the Rebel, the communication and coordination went awry. Maybe there was too much communication to handle? :D

...then we could have seen some nice death star destruction animations. But I did, so now my goal is to at least wipe two of them out.

And I wish you the best of luck with this (honest!). But please understand that I'm doing my best to prevent this. While mopping away your bases, that is. And maybe some Godzies, who knows? :D

Yeah I guess the borg was fighting on two fronts :)

And it's quite painful to see how my Godzilla die without making a scratch on a Gorbie. Or my starbases for that matter...

Can I buy one, I'll pay you 200.000 MC... I think you know where you can come to collect :P

Hi everyone,

what I distilled out of this longish thread is that some of you prefer games with alliance restrictions.

So, what are the options? There's POneAlly which has been used quite often, which allows one ally and that's it. There's cmlimit to allow more fine-grained control, but I'm not aware of anyone having used it. Finally, it's possible to make games for lone warriors by disabling communication and alliances altogether; as far as I remember this used to be popular on the Blutmagie host.

All of these options need a few rules in the host server. If you allow allies, it makes sense to allow an alliance to win. If you make the game anonymous, the server must be able to hide the players' names from each other. Thus, none of these options is just flipping a switch. In particular the "allow an alliance to win" thing needs well thought-out rules.

So, for the mean-time, you could make use of the "only one player can win" rule. A four-player alliance cannot be too durable. It has to break someday if of the allies one wants to win.

Of course this is less important with the current "about turn 80" ending condition. Probably a different condition would work better, like "own 125 planets for 10 turns". And of course nothing of this is important for "First Steps", which doesn't take part in ranking.

For the shorter term, I'll definitely try to get POneAlly to work. However, I believe this was never standard in any host's "bread&butter" games, and we're still a little too small to have one game that perfectly suits everyone (500/999 ships x no-fuel-movement on/off x ally restriction on/off x PList/standard list x ...) ☻.

--Stefan

I do not think it is such a big deal. Right now I am part of a three party alliance which came together quite spontaneously, as FireAge wrote. In other games I have been clobbered or held my own against such an alliance. For me, this is part of the game. (And the large alliance which started quite early in this game does not appear to be doing so well) And 99% of the things our current alliance does would not be hindered by addons such as POneAlly.

Of course there are those people who stick together right from the start, and I find this annoying too. But only that. The only solution in my opinion are Blutmagie style anonymous games, but this server is set up more public, which is ok. (Stefan: Why do you say Blutmagie "used to" offer these games? Is it inactive for good?)

Concerning "winning" alliances: I do not think that an alliance needs to win as one.

I do not think it is such a big deal. Right now I am part of a three party alliance which came together quite spontaneously, as FireAge wrote. In other games I have been clobbered or held my own against such an alliance. For me, this is part of the game. (And the large alliance which started quite early in this game does not appear to be doing so well) And 99% of the things our current alliance does would not be hindered by addons such as POneAlly.

Of course there are those people who stick together right from the start, and I find this annoying too. But only that. The only solution in my opinion are Blutmagie style anonymous games, but this server is set up more public, which is ok.

The server has pretty elaborate permission management. (You should know, I uploaded your private game which nobody else can see :-) Plus, it's fully automated. So it's well-suited to anonymous games. It just has to be done.

(Stefan: Why do you say Blutmagie "used to" offer these games? Is it inactive for good?)

"Currently, there is no active game. Autohost closed!"

I don't know whether it's closed for good. On the other hand, PlanetsServer people told me more than once that they planned to re-open, but haven't done so for, what, 2 or 3 years now?

Concerning "winning" alliances: I do not think that an alliance needs to win as one.

If only one player can win, the alliance has to break someday.

--Stefan

If only one player can win, the alliance has to break someday.

Or they sort it out for themselves as in our case. Either is fine for me.

And I wish you the best of luck with this (honest!). But please understand that I'm doing my best to prevent this. While mopping away your bases, that is. And maybe some Godzies, who knows? :D

Stop putting Super Class Star Destroyers in front of your Gorbies! It's cheating! Also, attacking Gorbies without torps is cheating too!

Well let's see if you manage to take P355 and P407 without losing a Gorbie (or two, or three >:-) )!

Stop putting Super Class Star Destroyers in front of your Gorbies! It's cheating!

Ah sorry, my bad!

I must've mixed up all those friendly codes! Twice, actually. :D

Also, attacking Gorbies without torps is cheating too!/

That was a pretty easy guess. I might've taken another decision if your ships would not've been (too obviously) empty.

Well let's see if you manage to take P355 and P407 without losing a Gorbie (or two, or three >:-) )!

Even if you're right (and chances are good this time), it will take some turns to get my ships in position. I don't think we will see that showdown coming.

FireAge in Re: End Condition:

Also, attacking Gorbies without torps is cheating too!/

That was a pretty easy guess. I might've taken another decision if your ships would not've been (too obviously) empty.

True, somehow, I moved one gorbie with 300 fuel to the planet the turn before and left 2 gorbies with 10 fuel behind... Doh! That could have been my first Sony, eh... Gorbie.

FireAge in Re: End Condition:

Well let's see if you manage to take P355 and P407 without losing a Gorbie (or two, or three >:-) )!

Even if you're right (and chances are good this time), it will take some turns to get my ships in position. I don't think we will see that showdown coming.

You never know, we still have only 17.5% chance of finishing the game next turn. :P

You never know, we still have only 17.5% chance of finishing the game next turn. :P

Here's my probability table:

    / turns after turn 80
   /       / probability for finishing exactly this turn
  /       /         / probability for finishing until this turn
  0     5.00%     5.00%
  1     7.12%    12.12%
  2     8.79%    20.91%
  3     9.89%    30.80%
  4    10.38%    41.18%
  5    10.29%    51.47%
  6     9.71%    61.18%
  7     8.73%    69.91%
  8     7.52%    77.43%
  9     6.21%    83.64%
 10     4.91%    88.55%
 11     3.72%    92.27%
 12     2.71%    94.98%
 13     1.88%    96.86%
 14     1.26%    98.12%
 15     0.80%    98.92%

So half of all games will finish in turn 85 or earlier :-)

--Stefan

Since we are already in turn 85, this information is quite useless :-) the current table reads:

Turn    Probability to reach this turn
86      0.825
87      0.66
88      0.5115
89      0.383625
90      0.278128125
91      0.194689688
92      0.131415539
93      0.0854201
94      0.053387563
95      0.032032538

Still a few turns to go it would seem.

edit: WTF is up with this forums software, messing up (i.e. ignoring) line breaks and white space formatting?

Since we are already in turn 85, this information is quite useless :-) the current table reads:

Turn    Probability to reach this turn
86      0.825
87      0.66
88      0.5115
89      0.383625
90      0.278128125
91      0.194689688
92      0.131415539
93      0.0854201
94      0.053387563
95      0.032032538

Still a few turns to go it would seem.

Human brains are pretty easy to confuse by conditional or "ex-post" probabilities. In turn 80, the probability to reach turn 88 was 23%. Today, the probability to reach turn 88 is 51%. But if we reach turn 87, it will be 75%.

edit: WTF is up with this forums software, messing up (i.e. ignoring) line breaks and white space formatting?

This forum software only interprets double-newline as a paragraph break, and it produces a HTML "<p>". There isn't yet anything to produce a HTML "<br>" (which is what other forum software does with single-newline), but I'll probably add that.

I don't plan to add whitespace formatting, which is pointless with variable-width fonts (other than within a [code] tag of course). I believe this to be consistent with other software as well. At least, my habit of signing with "--Stefan" comes from forum software that strips whitespace :-)

--Stefan