Cheeseball System

RE: Cheeseball System

Whow... Interesting concept! Will the game drop to less than a turn per day after some time?

2741 days, 5 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Yes, it has a 30 turn fast start running every day and then will drop to 3 turns/week.

2741 days, 5 hours, 30 minutes ago

stenweb

RE: Cheeseball System

Amazing concept... looking forward to getting my butt kicked (as usual!)

2741 days, 5 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Is the ship cap 500?

2741 days, 4 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

As I look into my xtal ball, I foresee huge web minefields for the oh so close neighbors!

2741 days, 4 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

lol.. lots of privateers !!!!

2741 days, 3 hours, 49 minutes ago

jkovalainen

RE: Cheeseball System

hehe, funny concept indeed!

will be even more funny if I can't find a way to see data on the starmap (ref. latest post in bugs)

2741 days, 3 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Let it be known to all: I am very brave. Perhaps foolhardy at times.

2741 days, 2 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

yar! already found a bug haha :P

2740 days, 23 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Wow, all is squezzed together in this cluster.
Even the torpedos! My Opal holds 30 in it's 19 KT cargo room. :)

2740 days, 23 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

There seems to be a bug with taxation. According to the UI, I'm receiving only 1 MC per clan instead of 2 MCs.

2740 days, 22 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

This is how the races break down:

Feds: 0

Lizards: 4

Romulans: 4

Klingons: 2

Pirates: 4

Borg: 2

Crystals: 5

Empire: 2

Robots: 3

Rebels: 1

Colonies: 3

2740 days, 19 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Umm... i reset my turn to get my 10 tritanium back and all my ships are gone now.

2740 days, 16 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I don't regard this as a real competition but a test game to find the major bugs. We'll experience lot of strange things, I'm sure. So I don't invest much time. Just building ships and sending them in all directions with mission "kill" ( = "lay webs" for the Crystal).

2740 days, 15 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

The game engine itself is the same. There won't be many bugs except with the startup.

I plan to win. Looks like Emork is an easy place to start. ;)

2740 days, 15 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

All visitors are welcome in the Crystal salon ... just be aware that you have to leave your weapons at the entrance.

2740 days, 11 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I want some Cheese!

2740 days, 10 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Last transmission from rebel space
"Sir? Whats this big red button...."

2740 days, 9 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Webs may be useless in the long run with 5 crystals in play. Minefields may be useless in the medium term with 3 colonies. Expanding may be impossible with 4 lizards, 4 pirates and 4 romulans. For those who want to win be sure to ally with an end-game race guys, like oh say, the borg.
I want to see how many turns I last...

seveiht still has no ships it seems.

2740 days, 8 hours, 9 minutes ago

jkovalainen

RE: Cheeseball System

hmm. something doesn't add up here.

2/10/2012 2:18:34 AM	Turn 1	Game started.
2/10/2012 4:29:33 PM	Turn 1	jkovalainen has been dropped from The Privateer Bands after missing three turns.
2/10/2012 4:29:34 PM	Turn 1	deano has been dropped from The Cyborg after missing three turns.

2740 days, 7 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

You get dropped if you miss the first turn of any game. The message is wrong.

2740 days, 7 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

haha, bugs all around.

"Sir! testing of the new cloaking systems was a success, the new cloaking technology was so strong that even communications systems were unable to penetrate the cloak. Unfortunately that also means the ships were unable to receive their orders. The cloaking prototypes were all burnt out, we anticipate some time before they can be reconstructed."

My ships reappeared this turn :P

2740 days, 7 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

This game is going to be a riot!

Going to be interesting to see how many races are wiped out by turn 10/15 or 20. :-)

2740 days, 7 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

@seveiht, thats good to hear. I couldn't figure out how they could actually have been gone. Now it explains a couple things.

2740 days, 7 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

glad to hear ;)

should those races that were dropped have been race killed by the rules? or was an exception made because it was the first turn?

2740 days, 6 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Yes, they should have. We've just fixed that too. But no harm in it for this moment.

2739 days, 15 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Looks like Killrace is working (sorry sjharley). The message is still not right. The official rule for all games is: If you miss one of the first 3 turns you are out automatically. In games without killrace this means you can join back in. But with Killrace on, it means your empire is killed.

2739 days, 11 hours, 9 minutes ago

sjharley

RE: Cheeseball System

No worries, my bad for missing the turn.

2739 days, 6 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I am also curious: what is the ship limit? 500 ?!

2739 days, 4 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Gents, make sure your turn is in today or you're dead.

Joshua, I think with kill race on it doesn't make sense a race should die after missing one turn. The idea in a regular game for resigning a player after a turn is that someone else could take it over sooner before it becomes a big handicap but that clearly doesn't apply if you kill the race. In fact it creates an imbalance because there's a larger empty space around somebody else.

Also if this mode is targetted especially for beginners, they might be unpleasantly surprised to find themselves dead if they couldn't make a turn one day.

2739 days, 1 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

@suntzu: Yep, 500. You can expect to build another 10 maybe 12 ships before ship limit. My suggestion: go quality!

2738 days, 20 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

It would be great to set PE=pirates. All of them. Not that I dislike you guys, we can be good friends. It's just right now we're not...

2738 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Dungeonmaster is right. The PE setting loses a lot of it's efficency with 29 enemies. But I think one can live with that. You have to decide if you know who is the possible enemy and if you don't you have to use kill mission.

But there is one thing that should be fixed: When setting PE I get a long list that has no scrolling mechanism. So I can't set PE to the players in the higher slots at all.

2738 days, 7 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Haha! I didn't notice so that means you can't intercept and attack one of my fireclouds?
In the words of Simpsons' Mr.Burns: I AM INVINCIBLE!
This is exactly the sort of firecloud upgrade I've always wanted.

2738 days, 2 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

How about letting primary enemy be a race, as that would somehow make having a primary enemy useful again.

Best wishes,

JoeSnoffy

2737 days, 9 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I got the full PE list if i switch to browser full screen mode (F11). Maybe it help you too. But of cause i also like DM have no problem if some people cannot set PE to higher slots 8)

@JoeSnoffy: As all races are not automatic allied the actual setup is also useful. E.g. if you'r in war with one Fed and not with the other 10 ...
But of cause there are also good reasons for a PE race version.

2737 days, 9 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hi,

I can select all races ... maybe it has been fixed ... or it is browser/resolution dependent?

As a side note it would be nice if one could select oneself as PE as one could do in the old VGAP.

2736 days, 15 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I'm loving the 3 players with the most starbases are lizards lizards lizards. Hisssssss my brothers :)

2735 days, 5 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

How come planets are not kill raced when a player resign? The planets belonging to the resigning players should be stripped of clans, factories, mines, defense post, and minerals, otherwise it will be a huge advantage to find the homeplanets of a resigned player.

Am I the only who cannot see the logic of removing only ships and starbases?

Best wishes,

JoeSnoffy

2734 days, 16 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

The PE problem is fixed!

So I can post a new one :) Can I use 'gsh' to give a ship to player 17?

2734 days, 16 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Yes. I think it runs all the way to GSU

2734 days, 12 hours, 0 minutes ago

veldan

RE: Cheeseball System

Might be time to revisit the use of friendly codes. There was a nice discussion on it several months ago. But for the life of me I can't find the posts. There's been discussion of secondary ship missions, keeping the traditional fcode as just a means to determine battle order, etc... with 30 players in a game ((and apparently a strict limit of 36 players based on the numbers 0-9 and letters a-z, unless we get some case sensitivitiy in fcodes)). Not intending to turn this thread into a discussion about fcodes, but it seems the more players you add to the game the more the old fcode straight jacket seems to restrict new features. Plus primary enemy seems to be losing its effect. It makes defending against multiple enemies at the same near impossible w/o using the kill mission.

2734 days, 9 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

RAWR!!

2733 days, 19 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Well it would seem that the kill race option is not working?

2733 days, 19 hours, 39 minutes ago

halion

RE: Cheeseball System

Joshua posted somewhere else that the kill race feature runs during host so if someone leaves and a replacement jumps in before host run then they are ok to take over the race (as it stands)

It might be worth a section on the help to list the functionality of kill race. I asked a different question about the behviour of kill race in later stages of the game which will determent crystal/priv pl;ayers as all ships are lost instantly, even if they were caught in web/robbed and about to be captured after some hard/cunning planning.

But seriously the more important thing to say is obviously...... who thinks they can give Thinlizzy some of the same treatment he gave the poor borg in the emperor game? ;)

2733 days, 18 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

" Joshua posted somewhere else that the kill race feature runs during host so if someone leaves and a replacement jumps in before host run then they are ok to take over the race (as it stands)"

That's a good implementation because if there's a replacement immediately then presumably no advantage was gained by someone not playing.

2733 days, 18 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

We've actually made a small change on the rules around Killrace.

After looking at it for a few turns here we have decided that Killrace will actually take effect 3 turns after a player drops/resigns if no replacement arrives. The primary purpose of killrace is to open up ship slots and prevent huge advantages for privateers particularly in games where many players may be dropping.

But if a privateer is attacking a player and about to capture a big ship or two we don't want to allow that player to just resign and take the prize away from the attacker. So this way there are 3 turns for attackers to take what they can get before those ships and bases self destruct.

2733 days, 16 hours, 57 minutes ago

halion

RE: Cheeseball System

Seems a sensible adjustment Joshua.

Thinking about it more. yes it is more of a problem for crystal/priv players in the mid/end game.

But the original approach of next turn kill race for someone resigning would also hamper any race who was lucky enough to encounter a frieghter early in the game and wanted to steal using ntp etc.

Thanks for the change, nice and fast.

2733 days, 16 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Crystals need more than three turn to drain this Virgo!!!

:) Just a joke. No problem with the 3 turns until killrace. Time will show what exploits of the melee format are found by the creative players. I wouldn't be surprised if some more small adjustments will be needed.

2733 days, 6 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Bug Alert: Just had 600KT Moly disappear from a LDSF (+ other minerals)....

I am now totally stuff as that is pretty much my supply of Moly gone.... That sucks ...

It was there earlier (when checking on my iPhone)

2733 days, 6 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Maybe you can try to reset your turn and see if it re-appears?

2733 days, 6 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Worth a try .. I had a look .. where's the reset turn option?

Thx

2733 days, 6 hours, 0 minutes ago

veldan

RE: Cheeseball System

On the settings tab (the one where you can customize your color options) from the dashboard. scroll all the way to the bottom.

2733 days, 6 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Go to dashboard -> settings

You'll find it on the lower right. I have never tried it, though.

2733 days, 5 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Thx all... yeah my minerals are back....

Sweet .. though there is a bug there.. maybe as I viewed on my iPhone & then used my laptop to play?

sorted now... on with eating the Cheese .. :)

2733 days, 5 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I would guess that the iPhone interface is buggy... Glad to hear it worked!

2733 days, 5 hours, 52 minutes ago

veldan

RE: Cheeseball System

Probably just the same old problem of losing connection to the db when a transfer command is getting processed, half of the command is processed.

2733 days, 5 hours, 50 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Sometimes also happens if you have connectivity issues with WiFi devices.
Then the cargo suddenly is outta here..

--------
Hehe - Veldan was faster..

2729 days, 20 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

wow, people dropping from the game pretty quickly.... :(

2729 days, 20 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I know you're hoping for the third colonies player to drop, but he isn't...

2729 days, 20 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

heh, if i needed people to drop it'd be the privateer players followed by the xtal players :P
throw in the lizard players for good measure ;)

Honestly, I'm surprised i'm still alive with the large number of those players haha

2729 days, 20 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Jadefire had the top military too? Very odd. I suspect pirate. Always. Pirate. Has nothing to do with borg. Ignore the borg. We are weak, late game race.

2729 days, 20 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I dropped because the game was advertised as killrace with specific parameters (miss a turn, race is killed) as per the announcement and was changed while the game was running without proper play testing. I joined the game to test how it would work. Now if Joshua and his development team figure out how to properly play test I may try another beta in the future until then it seems like amateur hour at the playground. I truly hate snap changes to games based on no empirical process, take for example World of Warcraft. An awesome game when it first came out, now you cant log in without some change that effects game play all for the sake of the vocal minority or someone close to the developers. Anyhow I wish you all well in the beta.

2729 days, 20 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I don't get it? You wanted people who miss a turn to drop instantly? I think the spirit of the game is a grand melee and the killrace is really just another experimental feature. It has limited impact on the flow of the grand melee, surely. If anyone thinks they're winning at this stage, they're sorely wrong.

"It's the spirit of the game, not the rules that matter."
-- E.G. Gygax

2729 days, 19 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

@dungeonmaster

You don't get it? Have you read the post for "Giant Melee" game format? Like the part that says when a player resigns kill race is executed and all ships and starbase are destroyed, or how about Joshua's post in this very thread, "You get dropped if you miss the first turn of any game. The message is wrong.".

My issue is only this. If you beta/playtest a game you should make changes after the game is completed so you have a full picture of how changes may impact future test games. You repeat the process until a vast majority of testers are satisfied with gameplay. Product development, check it out on the interwebz ;)

2728 days, 5 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Interesting that alliances are being shown :o

2/22/2012 3:38:49 AM

Turn 13

An alliance has formed between The Lizard Alliance (darvster) and The Crystal Confederation (timestaller).

2727 days, 4 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

@ Crackpot, Haha. I don't think it really matters anymore as I really have nothing to hide. :-(

So far in this game I have been severly probed with Dark Sense, Lizard GA'd multiple times, RGA'd x 2, Pillaged x 2 (incl. my HW), HW attacked x 2 and all in the space of 14 turns. :-((

Still well in the game though. Now I'm just waiting to be SSD'd, Robbed, Super Spy'd and what the hell, why don't we get some Colonial sweeping in as well. :-) Any takers?

2727 days, 4 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hey Darvster, send me your HW coordinates and I'll send a Virgo to do some sweeping.

p.s. that might work out to your advantage if you get Robot-mined first

2727 days, 4 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Darvster, send coordinates and we can work on assimilation to round it all out.
Does your homeworld still have clans? -120 happiness does not count.

2727 days, 3 hours, 32 minutes ago

zelrik

RE: Cheeseball System

@darvster, Dont complain, if my vikies didnt hit 4 mines before landing, you would have lost your HW. By the way, why was there an MBR on your HW when my ships popped? Collateral damage?

2727 days, 1 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

@Darvster .. I can send my ships over & Hissss you back into bliss !

2727 days, 0 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

ouchie.. if you rather wish to come home into the borg hive, just let me know ;)

2726 days, 17 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Thanks for the offers guys. I can't wait. :-)

@ Zelrik. Not complaining at all. I got real lucky against your attack force and honestly expected to lose my HW to all those ships.

2726 days, 11 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Evil scoring system, I'm last place :o

2725 days, 14 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hi players,

the benefit of improvement

Show score changes

would be great in melee. Maybe you consider give it a vote.

CU in space, Emork

2712 days, 19 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Just a reminder, this game has a 30 turn fast start. So now it drops to 3 turns per week.

2705 days, 20 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

This is a 1 ally game people. I frankly am getting tired of seeing multiple races working together and not fighting, even on a 1 ally melee map. Border agreements, sure thing but all the layers of diplomacy with Nu treaties have gotten out of hand and there is far too much direct cooperation. Some portions of this map have not seen a single damn explosion and you people should be ashamed.

This game is exposing front and center many serious flaws with the NU diplomacy system. At the very least the label "max allies=1" needs to be changed because that's damn well not what's happening. I think of someone who is playing VGA planets for the first time, as this melee game format is intended, and enters a game labeled "max allies =1" with 3 people working against him would have a lot to complain about and would probably drop the game and never return.

For all the stink that was made about killrace not allowing pirates to loot the corpses of their defeated enemy there is definitely not enough discussion about people just flat out giving their ships away to their neighbors or cooperating on many levels.

2705 days, 20 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

To be fair though, I'm pretty sure I checked early on and it had said 2 allies then. Not sure when this changed.

2705 days, 20 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

true, with more players, more alliances and borders need to be negotiated..
i like :D

2705 days, 20 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I see your ships lizzy. Should I? This is dumb.
That I can form a coalition to crush you in a game labeled "1 ally" is likewise dumb.

Don't make light of it, this is a big problem. There are 40 votes here:
http://planets.uservoice.com/forums/136520-general/suggestions/2502025-max-allies-needs-to-include-intel-agreements

2705 days, 20 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Actually it makes a lot of sense to me why this happens. There is a lot to gain by working with other people beyond the 1 ally constraint, and the ones that don't will get destroyed by the ones that do. In the Emperor game that only allows 1 victor you see this happening too. This is fundamentally a diplomacy game and short of playing gunboat and forbiding ingame communication, there will always be informal alliances and coalitions.

2705 days, 20 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

@ coldsteel

dungeonmasters point is that the "rules" for the game states one alliance. In his mind what you refer to as "informal" alliances are also alliances. and therefore they are breaking the rules of the game.

Yes its a diplomatic game. But the diplomatic rules should be clear. Does one alliance mean that can only work with one other player at a time? Or does it mean that you can work with as many as you want, but only pair with one for victory?

This is not clear in the rules. Some people take it to be one, some take it to be the other.

2705 days, 20 hours, 8 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Word, Coldsteel

Some sneaky cloaker told for example the empire to show up at a fully defended star base of mine with only a super star destroyer and leave the gorbie at home.

Meister, it's still a game... Come on over and we form a gang of Borg vs all those Lizards hanging around here ... (If you can live with several chunnel rollercoasters ending up in the wrong position)
They are all against us, because we are the Borg.

But resistance is... a hot dog (or so)

-----------------------
Ah, seveiht was faster... There is a clear distinction between Full Alliance (Win condition), Shared Intel (No win condition) and Safe Passage (No win condition)

2705 days, 20 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I think I may be soon "allying" with one crystal or privateer player or another :P

Edit:
Calling the status FULL alliance implies that the simply "1 ally" restriction may not be restricted to one full ally but one partial ally

I don't care either way, i just would like it to be more clear ;)

2705 days, 19 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

No, that's forbidden :D

I think somewhere in the rules is stated that:

"Seveiht is not allowed to ally or form peace treaties with other players"

--------------
agree

2705 days, 19 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

hurray! hopefully that rules makes it impossible to steal my rushes =D

2705 days, 19 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

@ seveiht

The rules are pretty clear. You can win but with only one ally. Other than that, there is no set restriction.

How do you intend to legislate for no cooperation with other people? Once you get an ally you ban communication with other people? Any solution to this "problem" seems very artificial.

I do agree with DM that something funky is going on with intel-sharing though. I see a lot more than I think I should be able to.

2705 days, 19 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

As stated by seveiht, I think there is a place for coalitions, backstabs and everything in between.
The problem is the explicit label - particularly for new players - of "max allies" and as a corollary the desire from a non-negligible portion of the NU players to have games with clear, restricted, diplomatic options. That feedback thread is 12th from the top in popularity, it's a real issue. I for one do want to play in games with vibrant free flow diplomacy AND games where everyone actually has just 1 ally and not "1 guy I share final stats with + 10 others I don't ". They are not mutually exclusive nor should they be. We need clear groundrules.

I'm sure I can manage a large coalition in this game thin if I really want one. It'll get really ugly, really fast. :P

2705 days, 19 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

@ coldsteel

do you have a link where it states what max allies : 1 means?

are you just assuming? because without that link it could be either scenario i posted.

edit: i checked under the diplomacy rules and there is nothing there that i found

2705 days, 19 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

So it's not an assumption, I know from previous experience that max allies: 1 refers to 1 full alliance but that you can have multiple intel sharing. I do agree that this could and should be clarified on the how to page (I think, in general, more documentation would be very nice).

I think you could also make it such that you only have intel sharing being the same as max allies although I don't necessarily think this is needed, but I don't think you could forbid "informal" coalitions or alliances.

2705 days, 18 hours, 51 minutes ago

halion

RE: Cheeseball System

Yes Max Allies -1 means only 2 people can be on the winning team (and get bonus points) at game end. those people could have numerous other share intel agreements with others but those would not benefit in the end game win points.

I have always been uneasy about this as really you can operate a perfectly good alliance using share intel. often people do that until they are ready to formally 'declare'. this can lead to messy situations as descibed in this thread.

However having said that it is feasible for a player to have agreed safe borders with neighbours which leaves them with only one viable expansion route where they are agressive. If that route (and target) is the same as one currnetly targeted by another unconnected alliance it can seem like ganging up.

There is a fine line here as it is strategically beneficial to attack someone already engaged elsewhere. We also wouldnt want to stop these complex diplomacy discussions but i fnd it hard ot draw the line as inevitably there will be some ganging up in some circumstances.

What is important though is once that target race is defeated those victors should not hapiliy co-exist then all turn against another race in co-ordinated fashion....

2705 days, 11 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I think my point is that currently it is your interpretation that
Max allies : 1 means that.
Thats an assumption until we get clarification on the site.
New people coming into the game may not draw the same conclusion. This is obvious since others have also not drawn that conclusion.

My conclusion when I saw a stipulation of max allies : 1 meant that I'm only allowed to work with 1 player period. That other people have drawn a different conclusion is not surprising though. My point however is that there is no clarification on the site as to which is correct and therefore different people could be playing by different rules.

And yes, even if it meant 1 ally was working with 1 person only, there is no way we can enforce out of game communication and collusion. However, if it was clarified I would hope that MOST people would honour the rules as they are laid out. This is like the crazy game of 'one ship' where everyone agreed to kill everyone elses diplomat and there would be no communication or cooperation at all. There is no way to enforce it, but i trust everyone is behaving ;)

So... I'm not arguing one way or the other. I just want it clear on the site, in the rules section, so that this discussion can end :P

So...the confusion is[for the moderators of this awesome game ;) ]:
Does max allies 1 mean : you can work with as many allies as you want in a fluid system BUT only win with 1 other person.
OR
Does max allies 1 mean : You can only work with one ally, temporary or not, at a time AND only win with 1 other person

Once this is clarified by the host, then we can discuss whether the other option should be made available as a different type of game or if a third option in between the two should somehow be made available.

2705 days, 11 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I'm also thinking of this scenario. There's a Borg player and his Privateer ally who are at 200 planets and 40% military score on turn 50. I think it doesn't make sense to say there is an unenforceable rule that prevents the other players from trying to form a coalition to stop them.

Also, since you can have multiple share intel agreements and peace treaties there is not much interpretation necessary to see that you can work with whoever you want and make whatever agreements you want for any period of time but at the end of the day you can only declare victory with one other person.

2705 days, 11 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Just to put this to rest and clarify as Seveiht has requested. The answer is:

Max allies means : you can work with as many allies as you want in a fluid system BUT only win with 1 other person.

We do agree with the feedback request of the number of intel agreements also being equal to the max allies (but not safe passage). We have that on our to-do list. So consider that accepted and it will be implemented soon.

2705 days, 9 hours, 38 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Thanks joshua.
Sometimes i feel i should have been a lawyer haha.

@coldsteel : i understand you can make more intel agreements than the max allies now, but until recently I had not tried because I assumed you could not and therefore did not try.
..
actually i still haven't tried, I don't like giving out too much intel and only do so with people i trust.

2705 days, 3 hours, 50 minutes ago

mjs68508

RE: Cheeseball System

Folks, this is a multi-player game. There are only 2 rules I recognize:

1. Don't play with 2 accounts.

2. Don't hack the system.

Anything else goes. When someone says, "Proper play . . .," or "To behave . . . ," I hear, "I am your God and will decide what is morally correct for you. Bow down and kiss my ass."

Someone who says that negotiations should be limited in a multi-player game is like someone saying they should be able to move your pieces in a two-player games because you are making bad moves and keep beating them.

ALL multiplayer games with 3 to a million players involve diplomacy with EVERY other player. Even if you don't talk with someone, you are negotiating with them by telling them they are not important enough to talk to.

I laugh at people who say, "I am better than these other players but they keep ganging up on me." What they are really saying is, "I suck at VGA Planets. We need to fix it so I can win."

I agree with seveiht, there should be a big warning on the front page:

WARNING!!! THIS IS A MULTIPLAYER GAME. PEOPLE HERE WILL INDIVIDUALLY AND COLLECTIVELY TRY TO GUT YOU AND CUT YOUR HEART OUT. UNTIL YOU CONTROL ALL 500 PLANETS AND 500 SHIPS, ASSUME EVERYONE ELSE IS OUT TO GET YOU - THEY PROBABLY ARE. IF YOU CANNOT HANDLE THIS, YOU BEST GO ELSEWHERE.

Even in a 2-player game there is diplomacy. Watch, "Searching For Bobby Fischer," and listen hard to the teacher, Lawrence Fishburn. Even in the ultimate, 2-player game, Chess, you "play the player, not the game."

2705 days, 3 hours, 27 minutes ago

sjharley

RE: Cheeseball System

Mjs68508 +1

2705 days, 3 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Thanks Joshua, much appreciated.

mjs68508 you take a particular interest in this game - but you're not actually playing in it? Are you breaking either of your own rules?

I do in fact believe very strongly in proper play, sportsmanship, integrity and honor. Many here have won repeatedly respecting the ally "restriction" it its literal sense.
It can in fact be done and does not detriment the quality of play, quite the contrary it improves it.
It's not to be high and mighty, I took the posted "max allies" at face value and played by it.
Since the discussion here is closed in this respect that is my last word on this matter here, we can continue discussion in the appropriate thread.

2705 days, 2 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

-1

Clearly this host need games with no diplomacy at all, if not, I fear that a lot of players become tired of having to fight multiple races at the same time and will stop playing.

Best wishes,

JoeSnoffy

2705 days, 1 hours, 38 minutes ago

mjs68508

RE: Cheeseball System

Yes, dungeonmaster, I do take a particular interest in this thread. This is the ONLY thread where Joshua lists the changes to the Melee game rules. I am not going to apologize for keeping up with the rule changes for Melee games.

joesnoffy, I agree with you in the sense that a game with diplomacy and a game without diplomacy are different. And, fortunately, we have some of those already: 2-player blitz games, 6 vs 6 team games, and private games that people make for 2 players. Hopefully, as the site grows and matures, there will be official 2-player large games and maybe even a ladder. The site is still young.

But, a multiplayer game with no diplomacy? Think what that would mean. If you have 3 neighbors and don't attack all 3 equally, that is diplomacy. So, if you have 3 neighbors, you must send an identical ship against each neighbor so you won't be guilty of diplomacy. You must also lay the exact same mines vs each neighbor, or you are conducting diplomacy. Got the Privateer attacking on one side and the Colonies on the other? No fair laying a minefield vs the Privateer until you can afford to waste a minefield vs. the Colonies. Likewise, Starbases must be of equal strength on each border. This would become a boring game if we can't attack who we want.

2704 days, 9 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I don't agree regarding the multiplayer games without diplomacy.
You decide how you will play depending on the race of your neighbour, location of planets, the race next the your neighbours on the other side and so forth.

What you don't have is the security that will allow you to hit one neighbour with full strength without taken any risk yourself. In my opinion, this makes no-diplomacy games more interesting.

Best wishes,

JoeSnoffy

2693 days, 18 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Did the kill race feature get changed? In Gotti's Hideout we have a dead race since 12 turns and they still have ships...

2693 days, 14 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Same issue in Cheeseball System where killrace seems to have stopped working?

2668 days, 17 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

i need to resign from the cyborg in this game here due to lack of time...

if anyone would like to join: slot 17 is open now.
it's not the worst position, the fleet is nice and strong, and you have a pretty good ally.

thanks for the game and see you next time!

2665 days, 10 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

When setting primary enemy to a dead race....
how do you tell which of two dead(or open) races is the one you want?

2665 days, 9 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

You make a qualified guess and hope that you remember just a little bit about the position, of the race in mind, on the specific web page for that game. This is my solution, but if anyone have a better solution I would like to know.

Best wishes,

JoeSnoffy

2665 days, 9 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I'm looking it up manually and also compare by going back to previous turns.

But I believe there is also a utility script that might add more information to the PE field. Haven't tried it though...

2663 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Here are some interesting numbers, I honestly did not expect them to work out like this when the game started. Will be interesting to compile these with the other games.

But from Our starting numbers I compiled a table of what we started with, who is dead, open races and who is on an obvious decline at the moment. I found the results a little surprising.

	Starting	Dead	Open	Dying(subjective)	Total	Percent success
Fed	0				0	N/A
Liz	5	2			2	60%
bird	4	1			1	75%
fascists	2			1	1	50%
priv	3	1		2	3	0%
borg	2		1		1	50%
crystal	5	2		1	3	40%
empire	2			1	1	50%
robot	3	1		1	2	33%
rebel	1				0	100%
colony	3	2			2	33%

Now we can ignore the rebel outlier ;) Especially since I don't see myself being able to expand much in the future with it expecting to rain webs and lizards for the foreseeable future.
But I did manage to claim two of those race deaths for my own ;)

And no one is playing the federation at all.

But races like the robots and crystals i had expected to fair better but overall have faired rather poorly. With the exception of Emork who has now taken first place. The lizards are also on the decline, there is another out there on the downward trend, but i haven't included them in the dying column yet because they still have a showing of strength.
Dying for me meant low military percent AND low planet count.

2663 days, 4 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Must be friday, I got bored with reading this thesis so took a break to compile more numbers :P

	Starting	Dead	Open	Dying(subjective)	Total	Percent success
Fed	20	12	1	3	16	20%
Liz	30	10	2	4	16	47%
bird	20	10	4	0	14	30%
fascists	11	3	0	3	6	45%
priv	32	13	0	5	18	44%
borg	24	8	1	7	16	33%
crystal	26	8	1	2	11	58%
empire	24	13	1	3	17	29%
robot	26	5	0	1	6	77%
rebel	6	2	0	1	3	50%
colony	16	11	0	0	11	31%

These are compiled from most of the 30 player games.
With a better statistical sample, the robots are now in number 1 place for being able to survive.
Its interesting the the feds are quite a popular choice to play, but have the lowest survivability percentage. Rebels are by far the least popular choice for this game ;)

2652 days, 20 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

don't suppose there is any chance the recent rash of bugs messed with the percent chance to hit a web mine? Or am i just this unlucky that all my ships seem to hit the first mine they come across three turns running?

2652 days, 2 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Sorry Seveiht, just bad luck. I was actually thinking how lucky I've been the last couple turns in this game.

2651 days, 20 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

haha thats ok, i went out and bought a lottery ticket, i assume the odds will balance out ;)

2650 days, 10 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

should be an interesting show over the next 40 or so turns :)

Maybe i'll jump into deep space and watch haha

2648 days, 20 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

out of curiousity, was the maximum 500 minefield limit put in?

2648 days, 20 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

out of curiosity, was the maximum 500 minefield limit put in?

2648 days, 10 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I think so. Emork is only at about 350 at this point. Soon we will hit the minefield queue and that will be a big surprise for our resident web nazi.
"What do you mean they just sailed right in?! Where is the web?!"

2648 days, 5 hours, 22 minutes ago

mjs68508

RE: Cheeseball System

We are at 1350+ minefields in Fornax.

2648 days, 2 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

are there actually 1350+ minefields in Fornax? or to the minefield ids simply go higher than 1350?

2639 days, 11 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

DM, I'm sorry, there is no mine field limit in the NUniverse. I can have more webs than you clans.

2639 days, 11 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Dwarvster, you destroyed 3 Gorbies with minimal losses?!? Tell us the story!

2639 days, 7 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

We see... an undocumented Tim Host vs. Nu Host variance. Webmines are irrelevant. Lizards are irrelevant. Webmines + lizards are irrelevant.

2639 days, 5 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

* Irrelevance is irrelevant *

Best wishes, Emork

2639 days, 4 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

@ Emork, ha ha, the three Gorbies looked good but unfortunately it's not all as it seems. :-)

May take out a few more ships but my days are numbered in this game. :-(

2639 days, 4 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I assumed something like that. Nevertheless you were my hero of the day :)

2639 days, 3 hours, 31 minutes ago

zelrik

RE: Cheeseball System

It's quite amazing that darvster survived that long after being hit so hard (by me and others :p) early on. I guess allies help.

2638 days, 8 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I have mixed feelings about the minefield limit being removed.
Of course this may be biased by my current predicament ;)

But it certainly gives more of an advantage to the crystals and robots.

2638 days, 8 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Seveith, I agree this has a theoretical impact. But more for the Robots than for the Crystals. 10 other players are competing with the Robots for mine field slots but none competes with the Crystals for web field slots. Giant meele is an exception of course.

Up to now I have never hit the mine field limit of TimHost in a regular game. Anyone did?

2638 days, 7 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Actually in timhost the web mines and regular mines shared the id queue. so filling the map with regular mines would limit the web mines being layed.
I drove a game, once, to the limit by sending out a large number of cygnuses to force the limit to be reached. more out of curiosity as to whether it could be done. A very cheap move ;)

But according to some posters in the forums the limit seems to be reached fairly frequently here, not sure why this should be different. But I suspect they aren't actually reaching the limit, the id is simply surpassing 500 when some fields are eliminated the lower ids simply aren't filled again.

The giant melee brings out another point, if there were a limit and we have a game with 30 players..should that limit be increased? And with the lack of a mine laying queueing system, as i cheaply did in that one game, you can essentially take control of all minefields by use of low id torpedo ships laying many small minefields.

So...while I do feel it gives advantage to robots and crystals, I also feel it is a system that can be abused and it is better to allow unlimited minefields.

Edit: Mind you if i get starbase minesweeping this would offset the crystal and robot ability to have unlimited mines :)

2638 days, 6 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hi Seveith, thx for the info. I wasn't aware that in TimHost both mine categories share the same queue. That allows for an quite effective web counter strategy as you described it. Mabye ... if I should stumble in a TimHost game again :)

2634 days, 20 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Kill race oddity. We just saw 40 ship slots open up but no one built anything. Game is stuck at 460 ships. Give me my 10 more biocides! :P

2634 days, 17 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Don't tell everybody... now they are all prepared... ;)

That is actually the right behavior. Killrace happens after everything else including ship building. This allow a last tow capture/fight with the ships. And yes, it is missing in the host order documentation.

2617 days, 14 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Can anybody tell me why we have a dead Birdmen position with 1.24% military score?

It would be nice with some consistency regarding open positions and killrace.

Could we have the Birdmen position killed before it destroyes any more of my ships, please.

Best wishes,

JoeSnoffy

2617 days, 10 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

it would be nice if i didn't have to deal with hundreds of minefields over the minefield limit.
no sympathy here

2617 days, 10 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hello JoeSnoffy,

well there are two points (as far as I know):

1) first killrace waits 3 turns, whether the race is just dead (because of low percent) or still another new player can join instead of the old player. So you should wait the 3 turns even with a "dead race" until really all remains (except the pure planets with their defence) are gone.

2) killrace changed a bit after the early phase of the game. So there can be still "forgotten remains" of old races. Because of this I also had to take care of 2 starbases and attack some ships in this game that where still alive. Thus all of us have the same problems.

Othrym

2617 days, 9 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hi,

So far no dead race has been removed by kill race AFAIK.

A race becomes dead when the military score is below 1% according to Joshua in another tread. Two Lizard positions has been removed by killrace when they had been vacant for 3 turns,so why keep the Birdmen position when it has been vacant for more than 3 turns.

Anyway I just need to know whether I have to transfer clans to capture those starbases or wait for killrace and don't capture the starbases.

I do not wish to transport clans for numerous turns and then suddenly by some random chance the starbases are gone because someone suddenly decided to apply killrace.

All I'm asking for is some kind of consistency.

Best wishes,

JoeSnoffy

2617 days, 8 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hi JoeSnoffy,

i have seen it in another giant melee too. There is a special date (which I do not remember in detail). The races where the players drop before the date did not self-destruct their starbases and ships. The races that get playerless after that date destruct themselves after 3 turns (independant whether they are just dead because of that 1% rule, that i can confirm from other games, or whether they are open for new players for the 3 turns).

The same in this game sternwebs ships and starbases remained in game, while the stuff of thinlizzy e.g. destroyes itself after the 3 turns.

Thus you only most realize whether the player dropped the last 1-3 turns or before. If before the stuff will remain until the last turn, else it will destroy itself after the last 3rd turn unplayed.

Othrym

2617 days, 8 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I've seen cases where killrace didn't seem to work for a long time, but recently it seems ok. In my giant melee I have seen some races been killed by killrace. I observed the behavior very closely as it deprived me of my loot as Crystals. Very annoying when webbed battleships disappear before they are completely drained.

Here is what I observed:

When a player gets dropped after missing 3 turns or resign,

he will be dead if his military percentage is <1%
he will be open for 3 turns, the declared dead if nobody joins in (only in Giant Melee).

Once the race is dead it takes 3 turns until killrace removes starships and bases. The actual removal happens after the whole host queue. (So you will see <500 total ships in the stats for the next turn.)

So that dead Bird player likely got declared as dead in turn 70, so you have 2 more turns to steal or destroy something. (Btw. developers, once a race actually gets declared dead should be put into the events.)

2617 days, 7 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hi Kedalion,

Thank you for trying to explain the killrace mechanism. It may be that your explanation may explain most killrace actions, but unfortunately the mechanism you describe does not fit the killrace behaviour in Cheeseball. In turn 60 Crackpot dropped a position with a fairly high military percentage and the position was removed by killrace after three turns. The Birdmen position, also with a military position above 1% have not been removed by killrace after 4 turns, but on the game page it has been declared dead, but within the game the status of the position is open.

Best wishes,

JoeSnoffy

2616 days, 20 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Ok, so there is this bug that I can't put my finger on. And it has cost me repeatedly, this last turn once again.
When I submit my turns late, near the hostrun, ships DO NOT DO what I order them to do.
I am NOT crazy. I have specifically gone out of my way to input the move, opened, closed the turn and checked that the move is specifically input correctly.
This happened TWICE this past cycle, once in Taurus and once in cheese and in both cases it was important.
I then load the turn and it's as though the DB loaded moves from a save state hours earlier.

Joshua should NOT have been able to tow my fireclouds, period. The firecloud with lower ID was towing and should have simply moved away before tow-lock could occur.
In Taurus I have a very special probe in a very special position which has now had his cover blown because its warp setting was changed.
In BOTH CASES I CHECKED, RE-CHECKED, TRIPLE CHECKED. SPECIFICALLY. These were both critical moves and I am really not pleased. These were the LAST things I checked, the LAST things I input in both cases with extreme care and they both %^&# up. When I load the turn those moves in time machine appear to not have been input, they just "didn't happen".
Something is wrong with the way the client processes moves near host-run and I am almost 100% certain that the time machine has something to do with it as well. Every time this happens I have been checking time machine several times in rapid succession at some point in the evening.

This is the most frustrating bug you could imagine because I don't have the ability to pin it down, I can't manually run the host to figure out what the hell is triggering it. It happens near hostrun, it is related to time machine function. It is driving me mad. These examples are clear cut.
I have talked to Zelrik about this bug in the past, I don't know what else to do because I don't have the luxury of being able to always play my turns days in advance.

2616 days, 18 hours, 10 minutes ago

metadan

RE: Cheeseball System

+1 DM. This has happened to me and several of my friends. It's most noticable if you're the last to submit your turn, making late turn submissions a gamble. This should be moved up in the priority list of bugs to fix, but I can see it being really difficult to track down.

2616 days, 17 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

If you are still submitting when host runs your orders would be lost.

2616 days, 17 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

In cheese I submitted the turn well before. At least within the half hour before hostrun. Taurus I can't remember if I was last or not, but again it was fairly close.
I've mentioned this bug several times before on this forum, zelrik knows about it, but there's just no way for me to track it down to give you more meaningful input. It's so random, sometimes it's fine to submit late and then sometimes I get burned. Those were two examples of very purposeful moves, I did not "screw up" (admittedly a lower id cloaker of yours could have nailed me irrespective).
Is there any way for me to keep a log of client-side input? Only way I can think of to help nail this one for good.

2614 days, 18 hours, 47 minutes ago

jobo

RE: Cheeseball System

I've just encountered the same bug :(

The previous turn, one of my probes did not hyperjump, even though it was part of a coordinated move - I assumed that I had messed up, so I took care to ensure that my probe now jumped to the correct coordinates and double checked everything.

This turn my probe hyperjumped, but in another direction... in fact it jumped in a direction that I remember checking using the probe (setting the waypoint to check the distance to another ship... but this was BEFORE setting the actual waypoint and double checking everything.

It seems that the client/host did not save all the changes I made to my probe after the first waypoint was set - even though they client keeps telling me that I have changed the waypoint :(

This bug has now set me back 2 turns regarding an attack that the probe has resources for!

2614 days, 12 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hello all,

by luck I have found the thread http://planets.nu/discussion/minefield-limit

At it regards this game and there was no post in this game i add this message.

@Joshua: As there are changes that effect only new but also others that effect all games we would really need something like a changelog (or a special news category ) and/or a search function in the forum. I know from my job that it is hard to keep in a running project the documentation update, but so the changelog would help much.

2614 days, 11 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I happily use Othrym's comment for saying this once again:

+ 1 for release notes and a change log

Will save so much time for players (avoid writing unneccessary bug reports) and developpers (avoid reading unneccessary bug reports).

2614 days, 11 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Or just the new remarks on: http://planets.nu/discussion/bug-tow-run-out-of-fuel-and-chunnel-on-same-turn. There is from somewhere the rumor that the tow-drop-chunnel is removed. But no way to search a log or news category.
So I write this in this game thread because Joshua is in this game. But if he writes an answer here, someone should also copy it to the other thread.
I know the internet is a gathering of shared informations. But without a search function or only one page with all changes so that you can use the browser ctrl+F you will find nothing.

2614 days, 10 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Tow-drop-chunnel was only removed for Cheeseball to compensate for my many lost webs. It was done without announcement to avoid getting (mail-)bombed by our dear Borg.

2614 days, 9 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I think you are wrong Emork, tow-drop chunnel is still active in Cheeseball and any other game that had it initially (Taurus!).
Joshua agreed that this is a major change and left it untouched for active games.
I'm surprised we're only barely at the ~500 minefields in this map, those are some crazy webs you've woven. Irrelevant to me but very crazy. ;)

@jobo: were you checking timemachine? Using the "i" and "o" keys? Again impossible to figure the bug out without the ability to run the host but I feel there's a time-machine link.

2614 days, 9 hours, 22 minutes ago

jobo

RE: Cheeseball System

I use the time machine all the time, but I do not think it is time machine related. Rather I assume it to be related to the client/server communications.

The client works in a semi-offline way, which is very handy when you are connected through a spotty wifi or just on a 3G connection when traveling. The client pulls all the data from the server when you enter the game, and then you work on your turn inside the client. The client then syncs with the server (quite often as far as I can see), but somehow some orders never gets synced :(

I assume there is already a dirty-flag system in place, so the client knows if there are uncommitted data (at least I've tried ending my turn and getting a message telling me I might lose some orders or something like that). Perhaps that bit is faulty, and perhaps it might actually have something to do with the time-machine. A combination of a spotty wifi/3G connection, and the use of the time machine - some orders might get flagged as committed even though they are not?

Just guessing ;)

Regards

2614 days, 8 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

True? Joke? I get crazy and bite into my keyboard. Changes without announcement .... argl. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX .... sorry. Keyboard was blocked after the bite ...

I have no problems with important changes in a running game - even if changes balance (everyone has another view on what is balance...) But _please_ some announcements, small but not hidden hints. "Joshua agreed?" Where? We are moving toward the situation that it is not important how good the player is but how many time you have to check the forum for news or hidden update hints or whether you only trust the right rumors... Has anyone a spare crystal ball ? No, Emork, not a web mine, a crystal ball for second sight ...

2614 days, 6 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hi Othrym,

don't worry, this was just a joke to test Borg humour. I'm glad it developed very well since the Borg assimilated that funny guy in the Taurus cluster.

Best regards to our awesome Borg&Bird enemies!

2613 days, 22 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Emork: You're taking down seveiht whom I have an immense amount of respect for as a VGA player, and Zelrik who is my VGAp protege. So best regards to you as well, we should however leave the mind games to diplomacy and preferably only state fact in the cheeseball forum - lest we confuse the hell out of everyone. Taurus forum is a circus as we all know.

DM

2613 days, 22 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

So will the Bird clans disappear or not? I need to know within the next 54 minutes please :)

2613 days, 19 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

time machine is not agreeing with events. It doesn't really matter at this point in this game, but I have cargo which the time machine says i have...and then the next turn its just gone.

2612 days, 18 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

This is ridiculous. Why do I have to kill every single last goddamn ship and planet for my enemies to accept death in a killrace game?! I've not had one SOB *LEAVE*. Not one. Emork had a pirate #$^&* donate his fleet to him. Grrr....
Yo! the return: it's hopeless. Shoo.

That's it. No more Mr Nice Borg.

2612 days, 18 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I just joined another melee (Orkney World) as Crystals. It's becoming obvious who has the advantage with all this random stuff floating out there :)

2611 days, 20 hours, 17 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Now I'm playing all my turns twice because moves are getting lost .... :(

2611 days, 14 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I consider it a matter of principle to stay in games I start.

Also, I did have a plan there to try and get an additional kill so that I could produce another gorby, and I (maybe luckily) managed a kill with it.

2611 days, 12 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

That's fine, I'm only joking. It's a game, I treat it as such.
I am mildly irritated that as soon as one opponent drops a former ally of our dear comedian spontaneously pops in to fill the spot.
This has happened 2, 3 times now? Oh the allegations! ;)

Yeah you got to down that cube jm because of the intercept mission not resetting. I did have intent to fight over the starbase so it was marked as a sacrifice I just didn't want it in the specific order it occurred.

DM

2611 days, 10 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

What? DM, you don't speak of me, or? I'm irritated because of the mentioning of a comedian.
But if you do, then tell us all which of my former allies have filled which slot of a dropped player.

2611 days, 8 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

That's how I felt when Finjurri took over for Veldan... and Abhi... talk about a guy who just wouldn't quit.

2611 days, 6 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Veldan? Oops! I should also start to do permanent backround checks as most others ... In the other game his name sounds familiar ... but as he droped from this game, this game was not in his stats. Looks like I have a too short memory... should extend it by a database ...

Anyway. I have great respect, if one does not drop from a game (like Abhi in this game) if it looks worse. That takes care that there is no sudden gap that one can fill and get an advantage. I have seen this in another giant melee that will be over in 2 turn. There many people drop as soon as they saw some small problems. And this makes the game a bit boring (only gathering planets in some regions) and not balanced.

Thus joining to a game where one player drops is also basically good. As then there is not such a gab. There is "only" a problem, if the new player has his own ideas and does not follow the politics of the former player. But that is like in real live. If the government changes than the direction of a whole country can go toward other priorities.

Of cause i am also a bit grumpy as Darksunny got a replacement in this game. And even if "the return" would give all informations he got to Emork ... well - who cares. That has darksunny maybe already made ... the enemy of my enemy may be my friend ...

Let`s see it as challenge 8P

2611 days, 5 hours, 39 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Ah, now I see. I hadn't noticed that "the return" has joined.

Now I have to ask myself if you are serious. I hardly remembered the name and had to look in my record. We both were in game http://planets.nu/games/11080 that ended 9 month ago, not allied, none of us victorious. I thought trashtalking to this extent is a sole right for Magic players ;)

2611 days, 3 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Ha! I was in that game- it was pretty nice. I can confidently say that there were absolutely no signs of 'the return' playing for Emork. In fact, if that was the case, then he did an absolutely miserable job... :D

2611 days, 2 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

hey ! I resemble that remark.

2611 days, 1 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I joined this cluster. so I could have a look at the way its played. i dont have any allies. or owe favours. as 9 months ago i was learning , nothings changed. i still am. and no matter how long i last. i will enjoy it. but thanks for the welcome

2611 days, 1 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Return, I hope you don't mean my comment. Obviously I'm not commenting on your playing skill. Just saying that IF you were an agent for Emork, THEN you had done a horrible job in that.

2610 days, 23 hours, 34 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Everything points to him being a sleeping agent. It's a variant of the sleeper agent, they just never wake up. Your deep cover has been blown the return.

2609 days, 6 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

paranoia helps in this game. just not in this case.

2609 days, 6 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

hello kedalion. in that game 9 months ago. i set out to stay alive. just to see if i could. that game was tight. and this is worse. ope i last a few more turns. this dungmaster fella is another player i can learn from. cheers

2607 days, 10 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hail surviving commanders of Cheesball sector!

The borg is unfortunately stuck playing two excellent games against stiff opposition where he did not outright die and will instead persist.
Furthermore my work life enters a new phase and I am tossed around with lots of travel and bad hours.

I humbly request that we migrate cheeseball system towards a 2/week schedule. Please speak your peace here, hopefully in the affirmative.

DM

2607 days, 10 hours, 3 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

+1 to DM`s request toward 2 turns/week

2607 days, 6 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

+1 thats fine with me, i'm the walking dead...
on another note, fuel prices in the rebel empire have skyrocketted for an as yet unknown reason

2607 days, 6 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

+1 and affirmative to DM. Congrats on your new phase of work life (assuming that's good news).

2607 days, 2 hours, 50 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

sure 2 a week is good. more time fishing the return

2606 days, 4 hours, 55 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

2605 days, 4 hours, 28 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

+- from the Crystals on slowing down. We follow the vote of the majority.

2605 days, 0 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

+-, I'm ok with the change to. I'd much prefer to see Taurus continue at 3 turns a week so we can get an Emperor before 2020. ;)

2604 days, 6 hours, 52 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

+- from Empire on slow down.

2603 days, 3 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Thanks guys, anyone else speak up or forever hold your peace!

If we could please adjust the schedule so that both Taurus and Cheeseball turns land on the same day. One turn right before the weekend (so I have the week to run through it) and one right after the weekend (where I have the most spare time, in theory) that would be most beneficial to me.

No guarantee on seeing an emperor before 2013, but 2020 I'm sure we will manage.
A lot of good players in both this game and the taurus championship.

Not so sure about scorpius ;)
Seriously a lizard/crystal/fed/empire battle is like watching tar flow. Uphill.

DM

2602 days, 7 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

After today's turn run we'll reset the schedule to 2 turns/week.

2601 days, 20 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Thanks Joshua, much appreciated. You have to adjust it by hand right?

2600 days, 23 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Joshua, why did ion storm 88 disappear? That was a tactically very significant ion storm and I see no reason for why the code would make it evaporate.
It is almost as though ion storm 14 reaching the edge of the map made it run through a line of code that it shouldn't have. Can you re-instate it if this is a bug?

2600 days, 16 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

We have a 4 storm limit here, or? A new tiny storm was born this turn. It had more power than storm 88. As storm 14 is still existing the weakest storm disappeared - which was storm 88.

2600 days, 9 hours, 46 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I yield. The whiners did in fact get the default changed to 4 storms. Some people have the luck of the gods.

2596 days, 20 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Very nice Emork & Joe. You got out of that, and even avoided the minefield damage trap. Not that hard the last one considering it's a stone's throw away from your core.
Joshua: the minesweeping messages are very buggy. I don't even know if they swept my mines or just blew them up.

From: Scanner Report
We are detecting minefield detonations around ( 1552, 2239 ). Explosions detected: 0

....

2572 days, 7 hours, 27 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

News travels quickly. Apparently Joshua & Suntzu broker a deal with Emork and Joe. This smells like desperation, and by score and actions there is no need for it. Do you fear me that much? I am honoured but irritated.
I have restrained my use of other parties in this game, keep in mind.
This is the first and last melee I will ever play incidentally, the format does not appeal to me any longer.

2572 days, 7 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Looks like we're finally getting to DM... ;)

2572 days, 7 hours, 4 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Aha! The truth cometh to light!

Let no man use the dirty C word! (collusion)

Make no mistake about the nature of this intergalactic war! Two teams against two teams!

Defend well, dear Lizard/Crystal/Empire/Bird colleagues, as you will soon face utter destruction by cubes filled with free fighters.

After the superior team emergeth victorious, the Robots and Colonies shall ultimately prevail over our former collaborators, the Cyborg and Birds! Now the true battle for the Cheeseball System hath begun.

2572 days, 6 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

That's my DM! Moaning long before anything happened.

But you are so right as this is totally unfair! Please drop your complaint at p98. You know, this is our planet under heavy Colonial attack where some FCC and Biocides chunneled in ... by accident I strongly assume. Btw: For how long is Veteran producing fighters for you now? Of course it's a shame that other teams beside yours have a temporarily agreement - even if it's to a small extent.

And no, Veteran, this is no 2:2 teams competition. I know at least 3 teams that still want to win. My team needs no vassals.

2572 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I hope you are sitting on an office swivel chair, stroking a long haired white cat.

2572 days, 2 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Oh Emork! You are sorely mistaken. There are at least four teams competing for the win and mine is certainly one of them. Given our outstanding position of strength and our unmatched firepower, I am utterly convinced that the Colony+Robot alliance will ultimately triumph! Let no one claim that that I do not play to win!

(ECV solemnly whispers something to Pureblade. Pureblade nods his Robotic head in faithful agreement.)

Now allow me to step out of character for a moment. Emork, I like you very much as a person and I have tremendous respect for your skills as a player. However, please do not for a second pretend that the normal course of diplomacy here in Cheeseball is "totally unfair". You, my friend, are the one who exploited the non-functionality of killrace and webbed a bunch of Bird ships, and are now webbing my space with those ships which, according to the game's description page, you should not have. Moreover, need we mention what happened between turns 43 and 48? I wasn't even playing in Cheeseball at that time, but looking at the logs it's awfully clear how you got all those beautiful cloakers. I certainly don't fault you for any of this – heck, I would do exactly the same thing. But when other players turn on you because you got an undeserved advantage, don't claim that it's "totally unfair".

2572 days, 1 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hey Veteran, I had hoped my irony was clear. I don't say there is any unfairness in this game, I just wanted to answer DM's complaints.
I'm happy to hear your team is still fighting seriously. Forgive me assuming other but take into account that you told me some turns ago that you want to end your participation with a firework and an all-in-attack.
I like this game as it is now. I made a not so nice experience in another game recently where the over-all fun suffered because of too much trash talking. So I better focus on the battlefield and write here only once in a while.

C U there, Emork.

2572 days, 1 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Emork,

My apologies for misunderstanding that your words were intended as irony. And yes, I want to end my participation with a bang! Now that I have unwittingly revealed to the entire forum the terms of my team's agreement with our collaborators, let's hope that everyone understands the true nature of these relationships. Of course it wasn't made clear to all players earlier, nor should it have been. As I posted in another forum yesterday, the ancient Chinese military general Sun-Tzu's words that 兵者，詭道也 (all war is deception) rings true here as well. In war, honesty is not the same thing as honor. Honesty gets you killed; honor earns you victory whether or not you end up in first place.

Emork, I agree, let's all do our best to keep the game fun by avoiding trash-talking and stick to rôle playing. Being underhanded, making and breaking agreements, exploiting others, sneaking behind each other's back ..... it's all part of the game and the game is fun.

I try not to take any of this personally and I hope others share the same approach. It's an awesome experience to have a part in this first 30-player game in VGA Planets history – an experience I will remember forever! I thank both my allies and my enemies for the pleasure it has brought, and I hope there will be many more challenging games with you extraordinarily talented players in the future.

2571 days, 22 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Aye ya ya. "joshua and suntzu are not my vassals" sounds a lot like Bill Clinton on the stand.
I've barely begun to attack you pansies and I can almost feel the fear radiating from the monitor.

2571 days, 8 hours, 35 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

WOW . You have a lizard !

2562 days, 2 hours, 10 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I can't manage it guys. The turn quality is just disintegrating. Even on a normal schedule 5 borg turns a week is too much.
I *have* to play my taurus turn and so it's like 90% vs. 10% to this game.
If even some small thing shows up (like say a martial arts tournament) cheeseball gets essentially no time at all and the mistakes are piling up.
I try my best to never play 2 borg at the same time, and even then 2/week for my borg game because I know my life.

I was doing "ok" until all hell broke loose and Taurus saw ship count more than double. If I spend 1 min on every ship, just 1 min, it's 120 min in Taurus right now. And realistically I know my average and it's more like 1.5 min per ship + 30 sec per planet + 1 min per starbase. Doing that 3/week means I lose 3 evenings outright to VGAp. I saw my Taurus time double and it's the one at 3/week so it really hit's the free-time balance sheet.
Suggestions? I don't want to drop but I'm clearly not able to give my all. Pause until championship is over? I definitely don't want to leave othrym hanging but at this stage I'm a disservice to all (save perhaps my opponents).

2562 days, 1 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Perhaps slow down Cheeseball to once a week and Taurus to twice a week?
Presumably, nobody knows when Taurus is ending and pausing Cheeseball until Taurus is finished seems a bit drastic.

Best wishes,

JoeSnoffy

2561 days, 22 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

+1 to Joe.

2561 days, 18 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I don't like 1 turn / week games at all but I understand DM's troubles. So I agree to slowing this Cheeseball down to snail speed. Pausing it until Taurus ends woud mean death for this game.

2561 days, 16 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I fully understand DM's problem. I quit playing the Borg because they are too much work ...

However, like Emork, I am strongly against stopping this game. I will loose interest and in a few months time, I will not remember what was going on!

As far as going to one turn per week is concerned - that is a tough one. I am glad that we went to two turns per week as turns have become rather long. Going to one turn per week sounds rather extreme, however. Looking at the current situation, we will need another 90 turns to finish. That is almost 2 years with one turn per week. Also, with so many players, getting in an early host run is not very likely.

So a definite NO for putting cheeseball on hold and I abstain regarding 1 turn per week.

2561 days, 10 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I'm just a player here... not an admin. As a player I'd definitely prefer to keep it at two turns per week, otherwise it will pretty much never end. This is a long game already. I'm ok if you formally surrender. ;)

2561 days, 8 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I want to add that I would be very sad losing DM because of chunnel overload. A formidable opponent like him is hard to find. Nevertheless Othrym & DM could try to find a sufficient replacement (Jobo or a good German compatriot of Othrym?) as an alternative solution if this discussion leads to no acceptable solution for DM.

BR, Emork

Ceterum censeo Chunneling esse delendam.

2561 days, 6 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Taurus right now is a 5 hour turn, 3x week that's 15 hours a week. For most people that's a part-time job, to make real money, not merely virtual status. A cheeseball turn, a good one not the half-assed stuff I've been doing, is ~3 hours. 15+6 = 21 hours. If my wife invites friends over randomly, aka last night, or something similar the turn suffers. If I had a 9-to-5 job, it would passable, but I don't, my job is a totally random affair that can have me doing nothing for weeks and then suddenly boom it's 12 hour shifts. Othrym knows I've been completing turns at 3AM as recently as last week.
It was "ok" when Taurus was only 9 hours/week, the turns were not fantastic but still passable.
All indications are that Taurus is merely going to go up, not down in time commitment.

I am ok with any resolution we can come up with, I just can't make more time out of thin air. 1 turn per week I can do. Jobo has already declined, I asked him.

2561 days, 5 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

DM, may I provide a master plan that kills two birds with one stone: Give half of your Cheeseball fleet to your ally and make him commander of the attacking department. Saves a lot of time for you and probably also softens the Taurus demands a bit.

Just joking of course ... couldn't resist. :)

2560 days, 22 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Wow, my Cheeseball turns only take like 10 minutes.

Mission=minesweep, fcode=lfm, enemy=emork, build=virgo, point and shoot.

That's all it takes to be a Colony player ... well, that and a tolerance for boredom :)

2560 days, 16 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Heyho Veteran, I'm glad you keep playing!

My turns also are quite fast to make so I have time to deal with your riddles. But I still can't explain 54 KT of the 159 KT mass change of your northern Cobol/Virgo-pair. You jettisoned something just to confuse me? Or I overlooked something? Hmmmm ... I love this game. :)

2560 days, 16 hours, 13 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Yes you overlooked something ...

Hint: web mine?!

2560 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Ok, shame on me!

Donovan says: "Any ship that hits a web mine first loses the total amount of fuel it would use to complete it's journey (if a ship hits a webmine while it has only moved two of it's planned 80 lightyears, it will first burn fuel as if it had moved the full 80 lightyears)."

I was never aware of this bonus feature. A little excuse: I'm quite new to the race.

Another insight: What's as valuable as Donovan's? An ally who reads Donovan's carefully. Thanks, Joe! :)

2560 days, 8 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hehehe.

You got it. The remaining 5kt that disappeared was a few supplies I had in the Cobol and automatically repaired damage. I'm impressed at your astute math!

Ahh, wouldn't it be terrific if I had distinguished and learnèd enemies like Emork in every game. Instead, in my other games I'm fighting against dead dropouts.

2560 days, 3 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hello DM,

sorry for the late answer, but I wanted to give me 2 days to think about it. There is a lot of effort in every game thus I think it is good to take oneself the time to think about it.

I wanted to think about it first from a objective and then a subjective point of view. Also there have been some "insights" during the last weeks and month that may have changed my point of view a bit:

Objective one:
1) VGAP is a game. Real Life has priority.
2) One should only start as much games as one can handle
3) In a game goverments or politics of a government can change
4) Changing the turns per week is in general no good option.

Point 4 i should declare a bit more as it is the point where I have changed my mind. Let us see Taurus. 3 turns/week where announced. At the very beginning some people where asked to join but they said "sorry, i can not handle that game at the moment". Maybe they would have joined with 2/week? Later some have also (but I think not only) dropped because they have some issues in real life. Maybe they would have not dropped with 2/week? I do not know, but I believe that then some decisions would have been different. Because of this I think the conditions should not change.

Now the subjective point of view:
a) I know and understand your situation. I also have at the moment a bit to much running games (@Joshua: Do you have a planets.nu drug prevention specialist in your team?)
b) We both know that we have in Cheeseball a strong alliance and that my ships are far spread thus and because of the money transport I am very dependant on your transportation system. Without that and the addition cubes my position in the center will be overran far more quicker.
c) Of cause if there is not enough time for the turns, there will be many mistakes and that will also not help.
d) Pausing a game is a bad idea. Even 1/week can be a problem as if you play only 1/week then you have to invest more time in that single turn as one cannot remember all "plans" - i have had the problem in a privat game that runs for about a year.

Nevertheless i would say all together:
* Taurus should run as it is
* Cheeseball: In order to not throw away the invested time, I would give a +emork, but as there is a veto from at least one player it will stay at the actual 2/week.

8(

But well you asked for a solution. Maybe I can offer you my solution that I use if I have to much to do:
In a midgame you need not to check every turn your starbases and your planets. Checking more then 100 planets and a couple of starbases eats two hours a turn. But if the build queue is slow and the planets develop on your own, then it is enough if you check it every 3 turns (e.g.) Just concentrate on the ships and the planets which the ships visit. Use the check boxes. That also helps. With that I managed to reduce 6h midgame turns to 2-3h.
Of cause the turns are then not as perfect as they could be, but it is better then to drop from a game (which would hit me harder in cheeseball than in taurus ;)

Ah.... and another time safing technique. If I have less time, I do contribute less to the forum and write less in game messages. But I think you have realized this already...

A better solution I have not. Still working myself on a time machine ...

2560 days, 2 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

In my defence, the schedule for Taurus was not announced until well after the game started. The very first post after Joshua's inaugural address is me asking for 2/week. I knew way back then that if I were successful in that game it would be a huge time drain. It got set to 3/week I believe due to the exceedingly slow progress of the crystal/lizard in Scorpius equivalent to watching paint dry.
I was however not planning on 100+ ships quite so fast, I have no crystal ball to predict the pandemonium.

I asked Joshua if Nu tracks the number of commands, in the old host it was in fact logged, it seems not for Nu. The number of commands that have to be issued as the borg is crazy, but that's not the killer - it's the thinking and planning. Every other race's ships have about 3 things they can do and a limited scope in space as to where they can be in the next few turns. Not so with the borg.
What kills the race is when the thinking and planning go out the window, and that's raw time. I can't replace it with time saving tips, I'm already using all of those.

I will now publicly ask for a replacement, but I will continue my half-assed efforts as long as possible. Sorry guys, particularly othrym, this wasn't part of my plans.

2559 days, 16 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Othrym, that was profound argumentation. I very much agree what you say about changing the schedule of an invitation game. I haven't realized up to now that such a change also "affects" players who had to decline the invitation.

I'm sure DM is using all possible shortcuts to do a turn. I do the same and especially the "ready/always ready"-mechanic in combination with auto-build targets and multi-turn ship routes is a blessing. I cover not more than 5% of my bases, 10% of my planets and 80% of my ships every turn.
For the Borg it's a little bit more difficult because he has to cover more planets. There are always many clans dying in the Borg empire due to bad temperature and this makes their planets "not ready". But the main time eater is of course the chunnel ...
On the other hand you can decide how perfect you want to make your turn. For an area with 3 web layers, 3 enemy ships and some planets/bases I can easily spend 1 hour to think about all possibilities. Or I spend less than ten minutes. The quality of the result normally differs not more then 10% in such a case. These 10% can make the difference of course but mostly they don't.

Anyway, thx for hanging on to this game until a replacement is found, DM.

2556 days, 1 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Oh Seveiht, what happened to the two Rushes at Tniacth! They were fully armed and fueled the last time I saw them. What will the Rebel commander tell the families of the crew members of these proud ships?

2556 days, 1 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Btw, Joshua, maybe the soft 500 minefield limit counts allied ships as enemy ships? I have a lot of tiny fields where my ally does hissing service. But I don't know if we're under the limit now so maybe this is the reason.

2554 days, 6 hours, 22 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I don't think we are under any limit seeing as I just laid minefield #1547... I'll swear I see a lot more than 500 out there. I'm pretty sure at least half of them are Emork's...

(and I think somewhere I read that the soft 500 limit only applies to games newer than Cheeseball)

(oh I just realized that is not exactly what you asked – it's the 200LY issue)

Is it just me or is Cheeseball particularly chaotic?

2554 days, 2 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

There are currently 506 minefields. (this is normal, it will go over and then remove a few to keep it under 500)

2526 days, 20 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Happy 100th birthday, Cheeseball! This sector certainly has tenacious players. Fight to the death!

2526 days, 4 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Congrats to all survivors!

2498 days, 10 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

ok, the alliance escalation is getting a little rediculous now :P

2498 days, 10 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

ok, the alliance escalation is getting a little ridiculous now :P

2498 days, 10 hours, 23 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

ok, the alliance escalation is getting a little ridiculous now :P

2498 days, 7 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

No alliance. It is one borrowed ship. We paid 5 planets and an enemy area just for the rent.

Btw: I've heared "Please try to end this soon!" from more than one corner here. But when we try we are blamed for. Maybe we get more recognition if we reach out for the ultimate Crystalline win condition - 500 ships? I assume this isn't implemented yet but Joshua wouldn't have to hurry ;)

2498 days, 5 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

it was more the bird owned webmines that i noticed this turn.
which would make it a 5 way "alliance" at this point.

On my end I have no stake in the game, and since it takes me a whole 10 seconds to do the turn it can go on for months and i don't care ;)

I don't know how your allies would feel about the 500 ship limit...unless you plan to backstab them all and take their ships too :P

2498 days, 4 hours, 18 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Ah, you meant the other side. Well, I like web mines no matter who laid them in whose name :)

Of course I meant me and my most efficient ally to have all the ships. But this task is better delayed until I a have retired and a little more time.

2497 days, 11 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Maybe a heretical question, but what about just voting Joe and Emork as winner team in this game? I know they still miss 64 planets, but the advance of this game is obvious:

- DM has less time for complex moves
- Joe/Emork proceed continuously but slow ... 1 planet per turn?
- Emork has not the time to accelerate the progress
- Joshua and Suntzu continue to acquire DM`s and my planets
- I think I will try only to slow the advance of the frontier from Emork and Joe and send my warships south ... the only point where they have a change to cause something.

Thus this game will end about between turn 170 to 180, Joshua/Suntzu will have about 10 more planets, Joe/Emork will have the needed remaining 64 planets, seveiht and jason will lose everyone let me say 4 to 5 planets, ECV 15, DM and I together 50 planets (thus together still 70 planets left to keep up our own supply lines for the defence). That would be a good challenge, if the (from my point of view) infrastucture of Emork and Joe would not be as good as it is. But as it is as it is (?) I wonder whether it makes sense to "block" a game slot for more then half a year, if noone sees a change to change the fate?

I know that I still have some nice ideas that i would try, thus if all want to proceed then I will also contunie.
And maybe J/S plan to suddenly turn against J/E ... but I would not believe this 8)

What do you think appreciated teammates (on all sides)?

2497 days, 10 hours, 9 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Here is my veto against an early end.

I agreed once to this and found out afterwards that the winners don't get achievements if a game isn't ended by victory condition. Othrym, in case you don't have fun here and don't want to spend more time in a hopeless case (I agree to your analysis) you could set your bases to att/nuk and your ships to kill and do quick turns. Or make an all-in attack or what ever ...

As an alternative I suggest that we go back to 3 turns a week. I'd say my alliance will make a 2 planets per turn gain so with 3 turns a week we could find our medals under the christmas tree.

Btw: There is only one point where I don't agree to your analysis:
- Emork has not the time to accelerate the progress
That's not the case. I just have to make the 400 LJ to my new battlefield. My first ships arrived last turn.

2497 days, 9 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Guys, I have not been able to give cheeseball any real thought or time since my last request when quality was already suffering.
I'll give my comments on cheeseball at game's end, whatever manner you guys choose to end it, I suspect few of those comments will be positive for this first beta-test of the melee format to be honest (not simply because I end up losing) but I need to review everyone's turns before analysis and passing judgement.

2497 days, 8 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

> I agreed once to this and found out afterwards that the winners don't get achievements if a game isn't ended by victory condition.

Well ok, that is bad. Then we should indeed not vote to end.

> Othrym, in case you don't have fun here

No fun problem on my side. As I wrote there are still some nice ideas and I have reduced my turn time by building "fleets" instead of single ships.

2495 days, 18 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Um, how exactly would it help to set planets to att/nuk????

You never land on planets except with cloakers....

2487 days, 20 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Oh look another 0/0/0/0 turn ... spoiler alert!

2438 days, 20 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

And as we wrap up this sector, we observe some Schneepflugs...

2438 days, 14 hours, 24 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Haha ... our snowplows clear the way through enemy minefields.

2437 days, 23 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Well, this has been a pretty interesting game. I don't think Suntzu and I ever really had a chance. We just didn't get enough ships produced before the super fast ship limit... and didn't protect our fleet enough over time. We made several tactical errors each.

Eventually we had to make a choice on which side to help to victory, Emork and Joe or DM and Othrym. The contested Thin Lizzy space eventually made the decision for us. Despite killing two neighbors (Timestaller Privateers and Veldan Birdmen) I don't think I ever had more than about 35 ships at one time in this game. From my spot on the map I feel like I barely even came in contact with the big winners. One thing is certain, there is a big trail of wrecked empires all over this map.

2437 days, 13 hours, 20 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

For me this was game had very exciting phases. The most critical point was the invasion of DM/Othrym in the 80ies. I have to admit that in this battle I was mostly watching and reviewing Joe's excellent defensive plans. He had to make some extremly diffcult decisions, see below T87.

Here are some highlight situations:

T24-43, around p244: The battle against Joe! It ended T43 because my former ally was leaving. As Joe and I meanwhile knew that the other is a quite skilled leader we decided to make a 180 degree turn in our relationship.
T65, south of p72: Web the all-in Rebel/Klingon fleet of Seveith/Zelrik.
T79, east of p385: Cube time! Watch this big "Who's towing who?".
T88, cluster of p197: The Colonies joined the Dark Side - a bit too enthusiastic about their carriers. Cobol-Virgo-pairs flying off-map still need full attention.
T88, messages to Suntzu: After long negotiations a very detailed peace treaty with Suntzu/Joshua is sealed. We give up some territory for getting a SSD temporarily.

After then there was little action on my side. My next battleground was hundreds of LJ away so it took a long time to reach it and then conquer a few planets against little defense. The fade-out of DM was another big factor but I understand his reasons. Anyway, this just made the inevitable happen earlier. :)

I learned to like the giant melee format very much. A great invention, Joshua! In a melee the devasting influence of droppers is much smaller. In my other melee we are in turn 78 and there a 3 strong two-player alliances and single 3 players of signficant strength left. Compare this to the standard game where at turn 30 half of the players dropped or totally failed - even on commander level. I regard a melee as a standard planets game with a prior qualifying phase to sort out the ones who have no time, skill or dedication. And for a veteran planets player it's great fun to reevaluate all races, ships and strategies for this format.

Thanks to all living or dead opponents for the great fun I had here and a special thank to Joe who was the best and skilled ally I ever had.

2437 days, 13 hours, 15 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

One additional question to Othrym/DM: We always feared that a MBR could tow a FCC out of sight and then round the map in our undefended backlands. That's why I webbed our homelands for the last 30 turns. Did you ever discuss such a maneuver?

2437 days, 12 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Here's my assessment. I started as a replacement player around turn 50, so alliances were established and things were well underway. I was very glad to get the opportunity to play alongside Nu's best players! It was quite a stroke of luck that I happened to see this game and join it the very day I joined Nu, not knowing that you folks are the cream of the crop here. I knew that it was not a winnable position but enjoyed the fight nonetheless.

I learned some interesting lessons. My predecessor had built a nice fleet but had economized on beam weapons. That was a very big mistake. Overall, the firepower of Colonies alone is nothing compared to a Lizard+Crystal alliance with Privateer fleet. I built Geminis to stock up starbases and that was useless because the fighters all got stolen anyway. The Iron Lady was a good investment late in the game, as a light torpedo ship with 8 beam weapons. I would have done better building Cobols and Iron Ladys all the way through rather than carriers. Fighters proved worthless, worthless, worthless, in every single case.

I also found some of the inter-personal diplomatic dialog to be quite engaging. Expert players know how to turn their enemies against each other in various ways. That's a dynamic that not everybody likes, but it works .. sometimes.

After I joined the "dark side", to borrow a pejorative term from the victorious Crystal, there was still obviously no way to be offensive, although I did think I might make more of a dent than I did. Attacking a base means getting towed into the web. Landing on your own planet even .... get towed into the web. Moving off the map with no beams means getting stolen due to the MBR moving faster than the Cobol. No way to offend, no way to defend, no future. Even after I inherited some Cyborg ships, the MBR still moves faster than the firecloud...

The single best combat I saw was an LCC almost destroy a Virgo. The LCC was on the right with the mass bonus, and if just a couple more torpedoes had hit, it would have won. I was also surprised to see a Lizard-driven Sky Garnet Class Destroyer take out a partially-stocked starbase.

Regarding the "big trail of wrecked empires" ... no joke. Chaos!

I very much enjoyed collaborating with Othrym and with my unofficial ally Jason. It was also great to fight alongside an expert Borg player. Emork is a genius and it's awesome to see you play but also I've enjoyed getting to know you as a person, and I'll be looking you up the next time I'm in München :) Joe is definitely an expert player also, particularly in the area of advanced combat. We had our differences, resulting in his decision to be "merciless" in the endgame, but hey, the countdown may have begun but the game's not over yet. You might discover more surprises than just the fact that half my fleet surrendered to my dead ally :P

The other folks I've not had much contact with due to distance, although I've had enough intel around the map to see some fun things. My very favorite moment was around turn 75 seeing a Darkwing chasing a Gorbie chasing a Biocide (and there was something else in the mix also) all the way across the bottom of the map. That was a laugh-out-loud moment.

Good game and good job to all!

2437 days, 11 hours, 7 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Yes, this game was indeed very interesting with many ups and downs. To have one of the center positions in this game and one crystal, one empire and 2 cyborgs as neighbors was also a challenge.
Because of the fast ship limit I believe the heavy races have the best chances - if they manage to build some big warships before the limit is reached.

Even if there were some droppers their number was not to much to make the game too fast instabil. I have had played another giant mellee that has ended much earlier because there more players drop faster.

The less private time of DM of cause was a great factor as it was in a critical phase where we tried to "break though". After this there was after all not any change against Emork/Joe as they have the best economy (HISSS), defence (webmines), attack (Lizard Ground attack) and a fleet of MBR on their side.

I think it was an error from myself that I did not asked DM earlier to transfer all his ships. But this transfer was nevertheless complex enough if one still want to keep the presence and fight at all that borders.

Emork: of cause I have had ideas like this, but my problem was, that we have had no MBR ;) Luckily I have got an early BR4, but when Joshua and Suntzu also started to attack, I needed this ship to take over positions from DM. Thus the BR was bound for a long time.
Thus this 2 alliances alliance/agreement was a good favor for you ;)

After all I had learnt a lot in this game. Formerly I believed that if there are 3 forces in a game that the 2 weaker ones would try to prevent that the stronger one wins. But that is not true. I also have had learnt this now in another game ;)
As soon as one strong force establishs itself the others only try to keep their own strength and hope that the stronger one first eats the other weaker one.

Maybe that is also a result of the no/only one ally games. If there would have been the change of 2 allies, maybe - as soon as DMs time for this game was not enough - I would have taken his ships and joined Joshua/Suntzu for a last try to change the fate. Who knows ...

After all it was a great game, and I thank you all for the time we shared each other.

2436 days, 19 hours, 50 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Definitely congratulations is due to Emork and Joe, who played an excellent game start to finish.

This game was unfortunately marred and overshadowed by the Taurus war as we all well know, I really would have enjoyed playing through it to the end even though in my opinion my with the combined Emork+Joe+Suntzu+Joshua+thereturn we could not win.

I'm still waiting for it to end and view everyone's turns before I give my full comments though I'll make a few now. If they appear tinged with negativity, please don't read them as such, they're merely analytical and I don't want to diminish the good play all around.

We had many things to frustrate our efforts and make life hard, for no real reason, you roll the dice and well, that's what happened. I fully accept it, it happens, part of the game, so be it.
The map is very heavy on resources. This has many consequences not the least of which is that starbases are plentiful and even a novice can build a decent fleet, a small empire and move within and without with little restriction. I understand these games are intended for newbies but we had a LOT of talented players in this first ever melee. My race, the borg, specifically hate a mineral and fuel rich universe. Ideally I want the map mineral and fuel poor as church-mice and lots of natives.
Neither of us started on the edge of the map and we had opponents packing heat early. Although I haven't seen Emork and Joe's turns I don't think they were ever seriously threatened by anything other than themselves. This sort of melee scenario really needs a map-wrap addon like sphere to balance out positions. Furthermore Joe's space is such that there's this massive gap, again for no reason, that means he had even less threats. I could be wrong but that's the way it looks.
Our own numerous opponents NEVER dropped. We were constantly fighting resisting opponents to the last damn ship. In several cases they had no damn ships left and instead just improved bases to make life hard.
When the normal queue finally came to rest, the planet distribution was such that I specifically got few planets within range of those IDs. They were all on the other sides of the map. When Thin lizzy dropped, as I was preparing my invasion of Joshua, killrace jumped Joshua's warship count from ~15 to ~35. Really frustrating.
Similarly when musso dropped killrace was not applied and this was likewise, no real reason, just give our opponents ships at opportune moments.
When Zelrik and Seveiht made their push into Emork's territory they got struck by the "slow moving gentle ion storm" of complete screw-over. It is not to say that Emork and Joe would not have won that engagement, I'm confident they would have, but at some loss, definitely not zero. It was simply another random donation. On the other hand I wanted just such a storm for a variety of reasons and it never materialized or better yet disappeared just to taunt me.
The mega alliance was merely the capstone, giving Emork and Joe the SSD means surrender to them without firing a shot, even when they have a boy toy more than capable of inflicting real and quick damage, well so be it.
Those are the dice.

2436 days, 19 hours, 11 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Quick response to DM's thoughtful analysis:

Your post did not sound negative, just honest. I think I agree with the heavy-resource assessment and it's not just the Borg that can benefit from a lighter distribution. I'm curious as to whether the map generation deliberately makes the Grand Melee format super-duper heavy in resources. I had way too much stuff all the way through.

One thing that we should never overlook is luck. (Side note: I'm playing Crystals in a game right now [Orkney world] that is winding down and I'm going to win, but only because of luck, in spite of the fact that some of my opponents are extremely skilled. Honestly, I would feel terrible about it if I didn't know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the skill to luck ratio in VGA Planets is, at best, about 80:20...)

I don't deny that Emork and Joe deserve the win, but as DM mentioned, their position seems to have been terrific from the outset. Othrym started in an awful position (he may disagree but he was certainly not where I'd want to start as a Bird – I'd want to find a nice quiet corner to build up in and then go spy on everybody). Othrym succeeded because of raw skill and persistence and good collaboration. I still don't understand how those gravitronics got dispersed early in the game, but I do know that Emork and Joe got VERY lucky in the north by claiming Resolutes etc. from the dead Bird Man whose military score was low enough that his ships did not disappear due to killrace. I could have claimed some of those if I had the ability to capture ships, but as a Colony without beams there was no way to do so.

There's nothing inherently wrong with inheriting fleet, but you must admit that it was lucky. If DM had stayed fully in the game and Joe+Emork hadn't had such great position and gotten so much material due to all those cloakers they got, I'm convinced they still would have won because of Lizard economy, however it would have been a 200-turn game.

2436 days, 3 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

thank you all, for the lessons. i have learnt a little more.

2435 days, 5 hours, 12 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I want to add my compliments to Emork and Joe for winning this game. Great job done!

For myself I had a very interesting time in this game. The giant meelee had it's ups and downs for me. While on the one side I enjoyed having several races showing up multiple times - with all the implications (how do you fight your own race?!) the giant meelee map sometimes felt just too big. Even with hyperjumping probes I couldn't even proberly figure out what was going on on the other side of the map.

In the beginning I found myself at the lower left of the map with a small cluster of planets and some natural voids all around. The gaps were huge for a fuel-guzzling empire race but on the other hand I had two nice Bovi planets right there so the start was not too bad.. With the birds on one side and the rebels on the other side accross a huge open space plus lizard/crystalline accross another void the choice for ally was easy. I am glad Joshua accepted the offer. Knowing that I had to fight the crystalline I spend a lot of resources on good beams early on. This lead to myself being starved for resources from the beginning - quite the contrary what others wrote here. Also I was always too short on fuel for a big invasion early on.

By the time I was ready to attack, the progress was very slow and the super fast ship limit was extra hard for the empire. On the other hand, I have played my first few empire games here at planets.nu and I might have made several strategic mistakes. The evil empire does not appear to be well suited for the giant meelee - this I felt several times.

Once we had defeated darwster and timestaller there was nowhere to go except attacking Emork. And quite frankly I was in no position to attack yet another crystalline. Fuel was ever so scarce. I do believe that you cannot win giant meelee without the crystalline. Maybe as the borg if the situation is right. But maybe I only get that impression being empire and having been starved for fuel for 100+ turns!

So the decision was made to do a peace treaty with Emork and to go for the long way north-east to attack DM and Othrym. So the first fight in that direction took a long time.

So all in all, even though it looks like we will end 2nd, I always had the feeling of being a side-player without a proper chance to win. Even at the end I have a tiny ship list and the queue has been stuck since the beginning and nothing I could do about it!

Nevertheless, it was all great fun to play with a bunch of such excellent players!

2431 days, 5 hours, 29 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Thanks for finally showing up, Othrym! I was so sure that this manoveur is going on ;)
Good to see that all the moeny for homeland security was spent well. Additionally this is a nice example why the chunneling concept doesn't fit well into a positional game like planets.

For the ones who can't see it: The long awaited suprise chunnel fleet arrived in the very west of the map. Maybe one turn too late ...

2431 days, 0 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Come now Emork, chunneling is fine and balanced, you're going to win Cheeseball despite Othrym's final jab-cross-hook. The borg sacrifice a huge fraction of their fleet towards positional supremacy, almost every cruiser and destroyer will paste one.
Much of the success of VGA planets is that most races successfully achieve their circa 1993 racial paradigm, the borg should be damn scary in a "resistance is futile" way. Positional supremacy gives them that. My opinion, which I'll detail more at the end of Taurus.

2431 days, 0 hours, 5 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I can't agree, DM. Compensating an early weakness with a late superpower is often bad for the average fun level. Especially if this superpower breaks a very basic principle of how a game works. But hey, that's my personal opinion and despite of it I play planets like hell. So planets must be GREAT fun - even with the Borg around. :)

Mabye we talk again if you played more games with other races. If your alliance has a big territory and fights against an alliance with a Borg you'll see what I mean. Of course you'll win against the average Borg because you're excellent but with best players on both sides it feels like a 20:80 chance. Well, at least there's this little chance.

2430 days, 23 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I may merely have traumatized you with the borg. ;)
The best players always, eventually, turn into borg. They skip around pirates, crystals, but after the dabbling is done and the push comes to shove they all eventually become one with us.
The assimilation process is slow, you still dabble for the moment, but you too will become borg Emork. As will othrym. ecv. joesnoffy. joshua.
Strength is irrelevant. Freedom is irrelevant. Self determination is irrelevant. Position is everything.
You must comply. Your resistance is hopeless, number 1.

2430 days, 14 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

You are not completely wrong, DM.

Tonight I dreamed of a future campaign mode where the Borg got a REAL assimilation which makes them get the abilities of a race when destroying a homeworld. The Echo Cluster was swarmed by robbing, fighter-mine-sweeping, planet immun, best refitted Biocides with fast beams, engine shield-bonus, 150% shield, 150% damage, 13 bays and 25% shield regeneration which always fights with maximum beams and bays and can do super spy, pillage, dark sense and RGA. In my dream I was the commander of transwarp Ruby with 300 Mark 4 and my task was to stop the Borg. Somehow I succeeded ... I just can't remember what was the trick.

2426 days, 13 hours, 25 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Nice. The end of this game will lay under the xmas tree ;)
Have all nice and restorative xmas days and/or holidays!

2426 days, 12 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Yeah, that's a good time to finish a game.

Othrym, seems you defended well during the last turns so you end with a considerable number of planets. Maybe you get enough campain points for Super Spy Command? This ability is what the Birdmen needed for the time after the ship limit. Terrific!

2426 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Emork, I have already bought this ablility ;) I am testing at the moment the new Bird Men features in a campain game. In about 1 turn the ship limit is reached and then it will become very interesting ... Also very interesting in that game is the war between the Klingons and the Robots. Since the last 5 or 6 turns there are always about 2 explosions of destroyed instrumentalies. It looks as if the new saber class shield ships are also doing a good job.

2426 days, 10 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Do you guys know of a list of the possible campaign abilities anywhere?

2426 days, 10 hours, 54 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

http://planets.nu/ships

2426 days, 10 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Thank you!! I've been looking for that but did not think it would be on the ship page.

2424 days, 11 hours, 1 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Ok, I have now just finished my last turn in this game. Grats again to Emork and JoeSnoffy, good work done!
Have all nice xmas days and we will see us in space ;)

2424 days, 6 hours, 2 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hi Fellow Gamers,

Thank you for a great game.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

JoeSnoffy

P.S. The NU host really should consider games with fixed ending at some turn and/or a voting system where player have votes according to there score and then it requires a certain percentages to end the game.

P.P.S. Another much needed improvement to a otherwise great host would be to have some games without diplomacy at all. To me it seems that at the moment the games are more often than not decided by diplomacy rather than skill. This also includes Cheeseball. It is my impression that diplomacy sometimes makes playing a game almost dispensable, e.g. The Taurus War.

2424 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

+1 (again) for the voted end idea.

-1 for the "game without diplomacy". First of all VGAP consists of 3 skills: warfare, economy and diplomacy. Without diplomacy to take 1/3 away from the game. At the moment I am playing in a test game without diplomacy. That is not funny. Far away there are two players with many planets. My direct neighbors are good players but we three have all less planets then the 2 leading ones. Without diplomacy I cannot make a deal with my neighbors that we do not attack each other but head against the 2 leading ones. Thus there is the risk, that that game is going to become boring. I and my neighbors are sending ships against each other ... but we all 3 know that we have no change to win.

2423 days, 14 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

By removing diplomacy you increase the importance of warfare and economy. Some will find that the game becomes boring, but other find that the gaming experience improves. I postulate that at the moment warfare and economy is not important compared to diplomacy.

The host should try to look at some of the played games and estimate the percentage of players who never enters an alliance. These players are just cannon fodder for the players being part of an alliance.

In Cheeseball 18 players were without an alliance. To me this suggests that approximately 60% of players at NU would gain an improved gaming experience by playing in a no diplomacy game.

JoeSnoffy

2423 days, 12 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I think diplomacy on/off makes a big difference. I'd like to try a pure warfare&economy game of planets. Such a game would be less time consuming and worrying. Unlike the ship limit there is no limit for diplomatic effort and against very dedicated players you have to constantly spend a lot of time for diplomacy. Otherwise all weak minded players will join their side sooner or later. I write long messages sometimes but this is nothing compared to others ... including some Cheeseballers. :) So I think I'd enjoy very much a game without diplomacy especially to try out races I'm not used to and want to focus on their racial abilities in a time efficient way.

For a game of such kind it would be nessecary to have anonymous players - maybe even the game thread should be disabled. It will be nice to discover after the game against whom you played and if your skill judgement was correct.

2423 days, 6 hours, 41 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Joes, if 18 players have not been in official alliances this says not that:
1) they have no diplomatic communication and/or trades
2) they have no "alliance" like status with someone. In most of my games the people wait to declare an "official alliance" because of tractical reasons.

In addition - from my point of view - the different races have different advantages from diplomacy. Races that are strong at the beginning of a game need less diplomacy at the beginning. Others need some kind of diplomacy to have a good chance to reach the later game.

Emork, of cause you can spend a lot of time with diplomacy. I recall myself e.g. in this game to times where DM and I exchanged 2-4 messages in the hours before the host run. That was of cause to much. But in other (newer) games my communication with my ally is reduced to some status reports and a general planing.
You also can spend a lot of time for checking your planets and ships. Indeed I need even in games with a lot of dimomacy more time for my ships or planets then my messages. The extreme was a friend of me when we played vgap 20 years ago. Once I visited him, I discovered stacks of papers with strange calculations and tables. When I asked him what these papers are for he answered me that that are his calculations of the development of his planets and starbases for his future turns ...

2423 days, 1 hours, 56 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I personally am on the receiving end of a mega-alliance every game. Every game I'm attacked by 3+ races so it's well known that I do enjoy a no-alliance, no-diplomacy game. I think seveiht and I have both advocated a subset of games exactly like you suggest here Emork, where the opponents are completely hidden and only at the end do you have any idea who you were playing against. I would love to play in that style of game and frankly like Joe says many players would greatly benefit from the experience (and I would add many seasoned veterans, not simply beginners).
That being said a no diplomacy game is a style of VGA planets which is not for everyone and othrym is correct that diplomacy is 1/3rd of the VGA planets equation. It would be a grave error to say Taurus for instance was won purely through diplomacy, or cheeseball for that matter despite there being sweeping diplomatic shifts that changed the nature of the board at several points. Those are part and parcel of the dynamic of nation states and that's simply what you see reflected in the dynamic of the game. Humans are tribal creatures, ultimately.

2422 days, 16 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hi Othrym!

> Emork, of cause you can spend a lot of time with diplomacy. I recall myself e.g. in this game to times where DM and I exchanged 2-4 messages in the hours before the host run. That was of cause to much. But in other (newer) games my communication with my ally is reduced to some status reports and a general planing.

I don't mind the communication with my ally. It's mainly the constant effort to hinder that neutral races are talked into a big alliance against you. Diplomancy is a big part of this game and I like it. I just would also like a no-diplomacy-game for the sake of variety.
In this game Joe and I had a regular and somethimes lengthy mail exchange to coordinate our operations. It felt like scientific work when we discussed how we could make a LCC stick to a base and in fact defend it: cloak, uncloak, which primary enemy, stay or constantly arrive? The danger of tow-drop-chunnel into ion storms and Cubes & Darkwings (cloaked attack!) with various owners created so many possible scenarios. It was a pleasure to discuss this with a very competent partner.

2420 days, 8 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

If I look at the data sheet of the last turn, I would guess that there are some errors in the calculation. Especially the robots before and after joes are interesting ;)

2415 days, 7 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Hi, can anyone enlighten me how you can hide your turns after finishing a public game? I was disappointed to find that not all players' games can be viewed and I could not figure out how to do it (while I am not planning to hide mine...).

2415 days, 7 hours, 43 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Some people may be under the illusion that they can actually keep secrets ;)

2415 days, 7 hours, 31 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

There was a very long discussion about this over a year ago. Essentially you need to petition Joshua to keep your turns secret.
There are a handful of players that have done so, some players whom I think are totally legitimate, like say Jobo, and some players who are definitely NOT legitimate like humanlightningrod/riley. I am still a strong advocate of showing all turns for all players once games are complete but the discussion is dead. Feel free to revive it ;)

I am STILL sifting through Taurus off and on, once done I'll look through cheeseball in detail.

2415 days, 1 hours, 19 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Btw. hiding turns will also prevent things like timelapse videos/ NuReplayer... Just leaves a gap in there as one cannot get that data. :(

2414 days, 8 hours, 36 minutes ago

challengespaceyard

RE: Cheeseball System

Speaking of holes reminds me, "non-existant" accounts also seem to create holes.

2412 days, 2 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

I still haven't the time to take a look. Nevertheless I want to thank all for the great game!

DM, your ability of tow-drop-chunneling caused so many headaches for Joe and me. If we just had known that you reserved this golden move for the championship match! :)))

Another question to all: Can someone confirm that he got achievement points at the end of the game? The regular message didn't arrive and I'm unsure about my Crystal points before the game.
There is some discussion in the forum about a bug with the end-game-achievements around X-mas.

BR, Emork

2412 days, 0 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System

Well we'll never know the details since Joe keeps his turns hidden and you both took your diplomacy off the record! Grrrr....
I spent an hour today looking at this game from many angles, from what I can reconstruct it's pretty much what I guessed. Very difficult to reconstruct who's who with the labelled dead and multiple entries and exits.
Joe's homeworld was 600 ly from the nearest threat, and that was Emork. It would have been nice to see you two fight it out, it was looking like a good war but I give Emork the edge in it and that's probably what broke Joe's determination to go without ally.
Mildly amusing that the central lizard jereonb did absolutely nothing and kept his intel sharing with Joe as Joe invaded.
You both got meteors and free planets from your nearby pirate nests and in an extremely ship limited game, well, we all know.

A good game regardless, glad to have participated in the first ever giant melee, I wish I could see more of it! ;)

2411 days, 23 hours, 40 minutes ago

RE: Cheeseball System