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Post by Evan on Apr 5, 2012 10:51:13 GMT -6
What is it?IDK! Why Galactic Gods?Because it was fun, original, and... fun. Lots of creativity came out in folks I think and, if we managed to remake it or something similar, while retaining that level of simplicity, I think we could achieve a nice little time-waster for those of us still interested in the occasional roleplay. How will it be?Personally, I want it to be simple (that is, as simple or simpler than the original GG). Things should be more focused on the roleplaying aspect and less-so on the combat/accounting/formulas. As Carlos suggested, A few possibilities: - Some kind of "mutual enemy". I threw this idea around for GG 2.0, which never was finished, as a story element a few weeks into the game. Kind of an "RP Event" that in this RPG could encompass it. - Nations may war, but still meet regularly for the purpose of galactic politics. This is also kind of what I wanted for one of GG 2.0. - Pure roleplaying. But at that point it'd become more a space-age politics RPG than one about war. Which actually may be appetizing in some ways, but I don't know how it'd work unless there was some kind of underlying, scripted plot. How to balance?Again, quoting Carlos, I agree, that's a start. But I also worry about things becoming very wargame-y and that one faction just stocking up money and territory while everyone else dukes it out. Meanwhile, they come crashing down with a million pea-shooters and overpower everyone else. Random (Somewhat Unrelated) Ideas: This is just random stuff that popped into my head as I was thinking about all this. 1. As I was writing this I sort of thought to myself, it'd be cool to try something more along the lines of traditional RPGs, where one or two people served as GMs and each player was actually a ship with crew and characters therein. "Skills", "Items" would translate to abilities of the ship itself and upgrades to armor, shields, weapons, etc. for the ship. Nifty. 2. Each player exists as a single mothership that can house various modules and production facilities, building their fighters, frigates, etc. directly from there without having to land (something like Homeworld 1/2) I don't know how it'd play out really. 3. An RPG centralized almost entirely about the battles and battle scenarios, meaning all the rules and gameplay would be the actual battles and maybe some IC roleplaying. But, there would be no accounting beyond maybe assigning points to units you want (like you would for a tabletop WH40k game or something) and then duke it out. It'd be more lenient in any other out-of-combat rules like creating a nation and all that jazz. I think this because I remember some of the detailed ideas I had for GG 2.0, which I better go check if I have any images for. Be prepared for me to get sidetracked. Concepts: Short answer: Really complicated battles, extremely simple everything else. Only hard part would be creating and regulating the units to point values. And when I say "complicated" I probably just mean dice rolls for a few different things and multiple regions within a single "territory", which makes battling over one planet significant, and having a moon/defense satellites playing into defense a lot more, but accepting their limitations. For example, attacking a planet on the side of the moon means it can act as defense (if it has anything to help) or hindrance (if enemies can occupy the dark side of it).
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Richter
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Post by Richter on Apr 5, 2012 14:05:26 GMT -6
I'd rather have an emphasis on RPfagging than just battling it up all the time. I could go play any amount of vidya for that without having to deal with complaints of power gaming (whether real or not) or people being dicks in general. That's not to say I don't like the option of it, mind, just any combat heavy rp here seems to tank pretty fast.
Having some kinda greater enemy like one of the ideas up there was, sounds pretty nice. Plenty of room for politicking around and backroom dealing and such to try and come out ahead at the end of whatever's happening. I don't think we have enough people for two factions though, so whatever baddies are around would probably have to solely be NPC's. I'm kinda thinking of something like the Alliance of Free Stars from Star Control 2 vs the Ur Quan, which is neat.
This is an interesting angle but I'm not sure how it'd play out either. So it'd be like Battle Star Galactica or something?
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Post by Evan on Apr 5, 2012 14:39:53 GMT -6
I'd rather have an emphasis on RPfagging than just battling it up all the time. I could go play any amount of vidya for that without having to deal with complaints of power gaming (whether real or not) or people being dicks in general. That's not to say I don't like the option of it, mind, just any combat heavy rp here seems to tank pretty fast. Yeah I agree. Figured I'd throw out the idea anyway though. I'm definitely leaning more toward an RP angle. That's kind of what I was going for, and thought of Star Control 2 when I was writing this up. Which kind of led me to the idea of a single ship as well... Yeah, I guess so.
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Richter
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Post by Richter on Apr 8, 2012 11:02:33 GMT -6
Sounds good to me then. Kinda think I'd rather planets than singular ships though, just seems it'd be more fun and interesting that way. But then again I'm a sucker for the management stuff so that's probably biased for me.
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Post by Evan on Apr 8, 2012 12:21:53 GMT -6
Sounds good to me then. Kinda think I'd rather planets than singular ships though, just seems it'd be more fun and interesting that way. But then again I'm a sucker for the management stuff so that's probably biased for me. The singular ships was just a random idea. I think if I did do something it'd be like the old school one with normal planets and all.
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Post by Carlos on Apr 9, 2012 11:45:06 GMT -6
Well I think the idea with the ship is interesting. But then don't we have the same problem of no reason to interact?
If we each are from a different planet. I think we have reason to represent our factions at some kind of UN.
One thing that keeps people from going to war. Hell, it's part of why we aren't at war now, is the economy. But in most RPs we have a regular supply of free money that isn't used for anything but buying arms. So of course we would go to war.
In playing Civ 5. Many times I've had to turn down going to war alongside an ally. Simply because all of my production was tied up in building a wonder or improving my cities. I was saving this for AUC2. But I thought about using "goods". Based on your population you have to produce goods. Otherwise unhappiness sets in. And perhaps unhappiness can gathers points. We can have negative effects that scale with the unhappiness.
That's just a vague interpretation of what I had mind. I also had various city structures in mind and production points. But that's a lot of stuff to work on. I think a simplified version of that idea might help to slow the warmongering.
I also think having a maintenance fee for every unit will cap the total number of armies we can field. Because otherwise people just keep hoarding troops.
And lastly. People need to accept that they might lose or be at a disadvantage at some point. We can't all win. And we shouldn't just quit when we start to lose. If pitman started to lose, he'd just splinter it off, make up a huge story about how they're refugees or something. We should just try to have fun with it.
Edit: Had another thought. Perhaps we should have "Crisis Moments". Some issue that our "UN" has to deal. Like drug/slave trafficking. Perhaps some of us are involved in that and are trying to hide it. Or there's some warlord NPC invading a lesser country. ;o
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Post by Evan on Apr 10, 2012 8:03:38 GMT -6
Well I think the idea with the ship is interesting. But then don't we have the same problem of no reason to interact? Unless... I dunno. Unless folks were part of a fleet together or something. But otherwise they'd have no reason to interact with one another outside of combat. Yes. And I'm thinking there needs to be some kind of benefit of being in the UN, like promoting trade or even being able to trade with some kind of NPC "United Nations" group. Maybe you can even buy UN assistance for defensive purposes. Who knows. I'll have to ponder this. Paychecks of "goods" instead of cash, maybe? Or small amounts of cash, but mostly goods? Perhaps structures that improve good-production? My initial thoughts are that you can switch your economy to "military" which gives you 100% cash, but the exchange isn't as profitable as you would get by peacefully trading. Simple is best. I think there should be a maximum limit of units before you have to start paying any kind of maintenance, so once you break that you have to start paying in and it'll help shrink giant armies. A thought: Alternatively maybe you only have to pay for offensive forces, so the instant you take them out of defense at a base it's going to be costing you. This way you can't just buy a big army and leave instantly to somewhere else without risking your ships shutting down because you can't pay the upkeep. Yeah, I agree. In the last game I was always open to the idea of being killed off, and at that point I'd probably just come in as a new character in some other faction, PC or NPC. At some point people need to realize the point of the game is to play not to win. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I sort of referred to them as "events" that would occur that people would be inclined to be involved in. I think folks need to also make sure to stay in character. And that means staying in character with how their whole nation is meant to operate as well. It helps keep things more interesting.
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Richter
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Post by Richter on Apr 11, 2012 1:36:55 GMT -6
I like the idea of goods rather than flat cash and buildings/trade that could work to improve that. But what would these 'goods' do, really? Would you need, say, X to keep your happy, Y to supply forces, and then everything left in Z gets converted to cash to spend on buildings and research and such?
If so that'd work, and doesn't seem too complex at a glance.
I'm wary of any sort of caps, hard or soft, on units, though. Yeah, it'd stop army hoarding but the flip side is also true and you'll have people afraid to act and lose their precious units and thus be weaker to anyone else who might want to be opportunistic. Evan's idea of units only costing upkeep when off planet/orbit sounds like a good solution to that though.
That all said, how big are we all going to be in this game, exactly? Beginning with a single planet, or more? Could some leverage be allowed on that for interesting ideas?
My secondary idea for the last GG, other than plant people, was to be less of a single nation and more a loose confederation of states, with each one being a single moon orbiting a gas giant. Of course they'd have a unified government for dealing with foreign powers (the UN, other players, etc) and for matters of research. Not quite sure how that'd work out different, if at all, other than for simple cosmetic purposes unless someone came to attack me for the obvious reason of needing to capture multiple places rather than just storming one entire planet. Unless planets end up having limited 'land' or something like AUC had, but I guess then they could just be divvied up over the various moons rather than condensed on one planet? Might even help to RP their cultural differences if that's the case come to think of it. Would that be workable or does it break from the simplistic mold too much?
Not that this really has to do with balance but I like to brainstorm interesting faction concepts. One of the most fun parts IMO.
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Post by Carlos on Apr 11, 2012 13:43:28 GMT -6
I was thinking Production based on city size. Money would be used to purchase the materials for whatever you're building. But I think Buildings should require production as well. That way, if you're choosing to build an army, you're stopping your economic growth to some degree.
I do like the idea of upkeep when not in friendly territory. Perhaps even a supply line consisting of transport ships to remove the upkeep cost would be interesting option for strategy.
I think trade should play a big part. The trade between your cities should be a small impact. But trade between planets, especially foreign planets, should have a larger effect on economy. So if you're going to war with your neighbor, it's having an economic effect on you as well. Your enemy having the option of raiding your trade lanes would make for another interesting strategic option. And trade income doesn't effect production unless you simply can't afford to build anymore.
I was thinking about infantry. I don't think that we'll see anything like WWII with massive infantry armies clashing. Considering it's the far flung future. It seems more likely smaller units of advanced infantry would be more prominent. But infantry as an important part of the RP really changes the face of how battles carry out.
In any case. I was thinking if instead of just outright purchasing infantry. You had to "raise them" from the civilian population. So every week you got an allotment of troops, based on how they are chosen. So conscripts would be larger pools of them, but would generate unhappiness. Volunteer would be smaller, but have no effect on happiness. Then their equipment is decided by how much you're willing to pay out.
We could even have "Recruitment centers" be a building option. The more you have, the more you can get from volunteers, I suppose you could also offer more pay ;p
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Post by Evan on Apr 12, 2012 8:22:15 GMT -6
That all said, how big are we all going to be in this game, exactly? Beginning with a single planet, or more? Could some leverage be allowed on that for interesting ideas? This is when things get complicated. Some races/factions a person can come up with can be very "interesting", but then it starts to mess with defined rules. But... Short answer, I was thinking everyone would start with a planet and maybe a moon. Not sure. Depends how many people we get playing, honestly. If it's going to be a small handful then we may as well let people do custom things. Being able to have that freedom and "brainstorm" is always fun. - - - I was thinking Production based on city size. Money would be used to purchase the materials for whatever you're building. But I think Buildings should require production as well. That way, if you're choosing to build an army, you're stopping your economic growth to some degree. So you mean making a building takes away production that could otherwise be training soldiers/units? Agreed. How would this work in gameplay? Agreed. Yes. Realistically, we'd probably see very advanced infantry and no other land vehicles - Infantry would essentially be replacing the roles tanks and other things played before. That makes sense. Would it include "pilots" for ships?
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Post by Carlos on Apr 12, 2012 12:36:12 GMT -6
We could have a transport carry some units of supply. Depending on the size of your ship. It requires X amount of supplies per week to function without upkeep costs. If an enemy sinks your supply ships, then you'll end up paying upkeep costs. I suppose.
For what Richter was saying. If we have it so a planet supports only X amount of cities. Perhaps assigning a land space limit to regulate the number of cities it can have. Then I don't see why he can't be moons as long as it's not greater to the allotment of space a planet gets.
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Post by Evan on Apr 12, 2012 13:58:25 GMT -6
Only disagreement I have about moons instead of a planet is tactically. Even if you have the same amount of land-space, you have a tactical advantage of having your forces spread out more across multiple moons, as opposed to being (relatively) accessible on the same planet. Like taking one city and just walking over to the next one without having to fly over to an entire new moon and start a space-siege again.
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Richter
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Post by Richter on Apr 12, 2012 15:13:38 GMT -6
The same could be said for an island planet however, or even one with any amount of troublesome conditions separating other cities (large mountain chains, huge expanses of open desert, the sorta thing). The flip side is its easier to blockade a solitary moon than a single chunk of airspace.
How would trade work, exactly? You and someone else swap a predetermined amount of goods and just get a payout of a few times more than you would from intraplanetary trade.
I actually really like this idea. Would bigger cities provide more troop pools, or would it be a flat rate per settlement? Come to think of it...will settlement size even be an issue here? Pretty sure with Pitman's new Rp you can buy up bigger cities, for instance, that the kind of thing this will have or do you just plop down a few and call it done for the sake of simplicity?
True as that might be I wouldn't mind seeing other stuff if only for the sake of diversity, besides troops and air support and what-have-you.
This would certainly make tactical strikes more appealing than just all out clashes of armies.
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Post by Evan on Apr 15, 2012 14:21:47 GMT -6
Quite a busy weekend for me.
So, I'm wondering what the chances of this actually coming about are.
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Richter
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Post by Richter on Apr 16, 2012 19:58:11 GMT -6
Well I'd probably be in, so atleast 3 since I assume you and carlos would be.
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