Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

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1789 days, 22 hours, 27 minutes ago

Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will make a few comments that relate to other threads that have been popping up recently.

1. The smaller cluster planet numbers is a very real reduction in commitment for one game ie; there is less stress and the game lasts less turns (even thought he one I am in is turn restricted). I find it so much more relaxing than a larger game. This may be an opportunity for beginners to learn.

2. There is a greater opportunity to trade ships and clone them (this may take some strength away from the privateers and crystals). This is partly due to the smaller map, but mainly as the ship limit is rarely reached quickly and there are more often ship slots available for the builds. Yes it devalues advanced cloning so don't take that option.

3. It allows players to develop their economic skill set more as an empire can get by with just one starbase (maybe not the empire or for defensive purposes).

4. In theory it should promote a more aggressive sector as players have no fear of not being able to replace lost ships. Also, the distance between newly built ships and the combat area is reduced.

5. It removes the production queue and build queue problems that some people have with planets play. Even though for me they are part of the game I am really enjoying a low stress alternative.

I am sure I have missed points that relate to this topic, but feel free to point out any I have missed. I for one am enjoying the game and would like to see it as an option for new game types. I am aware that I can set up a private game for this.

1788 days, 21 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Well said... if I end up not liking the PQ system, I know PLS will be my fall back.

1786 days, 4 hours, 55 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

And I'm thinking PQ-PLS-70. :)

1786 days, 4 hours, 0 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

I too think very highly of the PLS-70 game approach. A remarkably different game, and indeed so relaxing.

1786 days, 2 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

@Mule What is PQ-PLS-70?

1785 days, 21 hours, 36 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Hey robodoc, the PQ-PLS-70 game is one where we are trying out an alternative to the build queue. Basically the players are allowed one ship slot for every planet they control, the minimum ship slot maximum is 70. So, I have 42 planets I can have up to 70 ships, I have 100 planets I can have up to 100 ships. Very easy to play and I basically build ships at one starbase, not all the time but for most of it.

1785 days, 14 hours, 16 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

So you really mean Mule's NQ-PLS-70 game? *confused*

1785 days, 13 hours, 2 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

I was making a joke. I included a smiley.

I'm thinking neither NQ-PLS-70 or PLS-70 should care if PQ is checked. But, I haven't given it a great deal of thought. Maybe I'm wrong.

1785 days, 12 hours, 42 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Oh OK. I just thought you were happy about PQ-PLS-70. ;)

Actually, I think it may be better (from a theoretical perspective) if PQ is checked.

Assuming a 999 limit, I think PQ would have zero impact on a PLS-70 game. Without PQ, PBP's would start to become a factor once you reach 949 ships (unlikely, but theoretically possible in PLS-70). So PQ would be a little cleaner, I think.

1785 days, 12 hours, 26 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

The production queue would add flexibility for the pls number. For example, 120 planet cluster and pls 90= massive combat game. 500 planet cluster and pls-40= will there ever be a ship sighted. Each of these examples are the extreme cases so the games minerals levels would have to be changed too. Overall I think the ship number for the game I am playing in is OK. I am not a fan of the turn limit (just because I am playing the empire, so slow, hold, hold, hold) but these two games are just a test case (one by MJS and the other by mule, one has NQ in the name the other does not).

1785 days, 12 hours, 18 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Rod, MJS set up his PLS-70 game to give joining preference to higher ranking players that had to "qualify," which I barely managed to sneak into. So I named my hosted game Non-Qualifying PLS-70 (NQ-PLS-70) to distinguish it from his.

Going forward I would like to think there will be no more "qualifying" with PLS games than with any other game, therefore the NQ can just drop off. But, I suppose some player/hosts could disagree.

1785 days, 11 hours, 51 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

@Rod I don't think PLS-40 would be extreme. The original PLS (PHost) addon was (by default) more-or-less equivalent to "PLS-10," and it was usual to have close to 500 ships in the game.

I believe it was Anaconda that recommended that PLS-40 or PLS-50 be used in the future.

1785 days, 11 hours, 41 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

I hosted a series of games we called Micro something or other and we had a much lower individual ship maximum that was the same for everyone regardless of planet count. We had smaller maps to accommodate the fewer ships. The whole idea was to provide a game for players that didn't want to spend hours doing their turns.

Most players felt they were were a success until we stopped getting any achievement points.
But, my point is, although having a quite different "feel" they were very fun and playable.

So, if we were to have PLS-40 games, I feel SURE they would be a success as well. Maybe not to everyone's liking, but others might prefer them. One size does NOT fit all.

1785 days, 9 hours, 45 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Mule and I have agreed to continue hosting PLS games. We will probably each host a game twice a year. Mule prefers Classic and I prefer Campaign. I will go first and try to get a game set up in the next week. It will be a 12-Player Choose-your-own-race Campaign game (500 Advantage). Also, I prefer PLS-70 and Mule prefers PLS-50. The only qualifying will be 90% Tenacity in my games. I will preface the game announcement with some observations about my current PLS game. Like the Die Hard games, if you drop w/o notice, say good-bye forever. Also, I plan to take advantage of the main benefit of a Private game: If someone drops, the game will be paused until the position is filled. It will be FoF = 10 after 30 turns. Also, it will be Diplomatic Victory, Max Ally = 1.

1785 days, 8 hours, 58 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Regarding whether to turn on PQ in a PLS game, I think the main result would be to randomize the build order and therefore randomize the assignment of ship IDs, so that certain map analysis tricks could no longer be used to find homeworlds. While I have used such tricks myself, I feel like the game would be a little better if they did not exist.

1785 days, 8 hours, 33 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Mule's current PLS game is by far the most fun I've had in a planets game, so I would definitely like to play in another. (After a break for a month or so... I'm still new to this game, and find daily turns with so many ships rather exhausting.)

1785 days, 5 hours, 21 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

As MJS says, I'll be following in his PLS wake.

Soon after he starts his next PLS-70 game, I will open a PLS-50 game as he has described. So, if you prefer a Classic game to a Campaign game, just exercise a little patience.

My biggest question is if we need to wait until current games finish, (ie: is there sufficient interest to run multiple PLS games at once, like the DH series.:) and if our Classic PLS-50 game should also go to the Diplomatic format instead of the current fixed turns. I would appreciate a little feedback on this from those actually planned to play.

1785 days, 3 hours, 32 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

@mule My interest in a classic PLS game starts about a month after the current game finishes (definitely can't handle two at once). I don't feel strongly about fixed vs diplomatic, but prefer whichever would lead to a shorter game. (I wish it were possible to select both options, so that the game would end early if someone captures enough planets, but would definitely stop by turn 100.)

1785 days, 1 hours, 38 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Eric, Thanks for the feedback.

I tend to agree with you. I prefer a game goal over a fixed turn, but I abhor games that reach stalemate or just a very slow progress and just idle along seemingly forever. With fixed turns the players and host can at least make their own selection.

As it stands right now, any other victory condition seems locked in place unless we can get some Joshua help in there someplace. I can visualize a game set up box where we could input some other diplomatic % in Custom games. Or, even as you suggest, an either/or choice.

I'm thinking the introduction of Fight or Fail might change the dynamic if we placed a higher trip point - say 50% of PLS value after turn 30. Thus in a PLS-50 game, come turn 30 anyone with less than 25 planets is gone - in a PLS-70 game the cutoff would be 35. If you can force a neighbor from the game, you are in a good position to capitalize on his now undefended planets, build more ships, force the next neighbor from the game, etc.. etc.. and make it into something more like a Risk end game. It seems to me this would work well to keep a diplomatic game moving on. Maybe worth considering...

1785 days, 0 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Raising FoF to 25-35 later in the game sounds like an improvement. It's still no guarantee, since you could end up with three strong pairs of players in which no pair can obtain the 250 planets required for diplomatic victory. Too bad we can't gradually raise the FoF threshold later in the game.

Lower X values in PLS-X will also tend to bring the game to a close faster, because players who are close to FoF won't be able to defend their remaining planets with 50-70 ships.

1784 days, 23 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

I think we are getting to the crux of the issue that joshua is trying to balance, playability and economic development. Players tend to not like the economic development side of planets but love combat. Those that play planets well however manage the economic side of play very well as it is a means to win, it is one of the most important aspects of the game. Good discussion everyone. Don't get me wrong I love all the options for play here at Nu and do not want to see any game types removed, even the experimental game types, it will just take me a few years to get around to trying them all.

1784 days, 22 hours, 10 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Rod, You are of course welcome to your opinion, but I suggest you actually try a PLS game before you decide the difference between it and a PBP game is one of economics. OR that the difference in players is how well they are capable of handling economics.

1784 days, 22 hours, 3 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Rod: OK, I see you are in one of the PLS games. What I don't understand is your comment. Perhaps you will expand on it?

1784 days, 21 hours, 53 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Mainly it was in relation to eric's last post (and your discussion with him) about the FoF limit increases. As this point approaches the weaker players will be forced into their homeworld clusters and then their economic development will decide if they can survive or not (to some extent I guess their diplomatic connections also ie; ship trades, mutual aggression pacts etc). Basically, I just think that a good game reflects the cornerstones of planets and as such should result in a win, or at least survival.

1784 days, 21 hours, 47 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

The pls-X number would have to be adjusted for the production points system so as to not have too many ships in the cluster. A pls-70 game with 11 players could have up to 770 ships before every planet is colonised.

1784 days, 20 hours, 57 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

I am thinking of hosting a team of 2 PLS-X game. 5 teams of 2 with PLS-70 would work and potentially not break the 999 limit.

But in this format the team has a limit of 140 ships. So some teams will be one player heavy on ships (as is the normal dynamic in most team games).

But if one of the team dies or FoF happens the team reverts to 70 limit.

A different dynamic to the PLX-X games.

1784 days, 12 hours, 30 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Yes, I think a lower PLS-X number could make the game end faster. Also, consider that a low PLS+X number ("plus" instead of "minus," e.g. PLS+20) could have a similar or even greater effect, because empires with a larger number of planets can have even more ships than under a "minus" scenario. For example, under PLS+20, and empire with 100 planets (limit = 120) would have a large advantage over an empire with 20 planets (limit = 40).

I would be interesting to look at the data for the two current PLS games to see how many players would have bumped into their limits so far with the PLS-70, PLS-50, PLS-40 and PLS+20 scenarios.

I personally don't like having a large number of ships because, as a perfectionist, I feel compelled to get the maximum possible performance out of my ships. With 120 ships, for example, that takes more time than I'm comfortable with. But I think one nice thing about PLS is that you don't necessarily need to use all of your ship slots (unlike a regular game, where you need to grab ship slots in order to keep your enemies from using them).

So for me, I'm still not sure whether I would prefer something like PLS-70 (fewer ships if you are successful) or PLS+20 (more ships if you are successful). :p

@Rod I did a mathematical analysis of the relationship between PLS-X number and maximum possible ships in the PLS addon thread:
planets.nu/#/activity/1234434
(second comment after the OP)

1784 days, 12 hours, 20 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

As I just completed one of my PLS game turns, I can say I don't see any difference economically from any other game. I am scraping the bottom in some areas for one mineral resource and wondering how to move my stuff around while fighting battles at the same time.

Perhaps it is the nature of the enemy and combat I have going on right now, but I'm just not seeing what Rod suggested.

The ONLY difference if that I don't need to worry about ship slots on top of it all. I could build more ships than I have right now, but I am thankful I can use the resources for other needs instead.

1784 days, 12 hours, 14 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

@Martinr I believe it was the "VGAPlanets Ship Limits Addon" that I mentioned in the other thread that had ship limits for teams. You might look at the docs for that addon to get ideas for how to run your game. :)

1784 days, 12 hours, 6 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

@Robodoc yes a very interesting addon.

Unfortunately I run IE and do not think it works in IE.

1784 days, 12 hours, 4 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

@martinr: Just curious... Your proposed team PLS game - Campaign or Classic?

The reason I ask is that recently all the team games I have seen seem to be using nebs/clusters/debris which are campaign features, even when they are not totally campaign games.

The answer to this would determine my interest above and beyond if it is as PLS game.

1784 days, 11 hours, 49 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

I had planned on nebs / cluster / debris as I like the options for a bit a change (but not to an excess).

Still deciding on campaign or not (totally personal as my favourite race has only ion storm and super refit and with PLS it should not be needed).

But as you are the first person to show any interest I am open to suggestions.

If we have 5 teams and only want to play vanilla or 5 teams wanting campaign cartographer or 5 teams wanted totally campaign mode it could push me in a certain direction.

:-)

Also need a suitable team mate as my current one is a bit busy.

With 140 ships a team and instant potential replacement it would most probably be a long game for dedicated players.

But if we have lots of all three I may be willing just to host all three and play in one.

Early days yet and just finding if any one is interested (also need possibly need one game to finish).

1784 days, 11 hours, 18 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

I was planning to host a Classic PLS game as an alternative to the MJS Campaign PLS game. Right now we still don't know exactly how big a PLS player base we have, but we do know there are players that only play Classic games. And because it seems to be difficult to find a Classic (I prefer that term to vanilla for some reason :) team game, I was hoping for that.

Then I would wait starting a individual Classic PLS game until after yours starts to make sure we are not competing for the same players.

Besides, as a personal preference, I won't play in a game with those features. And let me explain that just a little. I was given the opportunity to see the map of a neb/cluster/debris game recently and I observed that at least in that game, all these features were on one side of the map and none on the other. That seems to introduce more luck of position into the game that IMO already has enough. If such features were evenly distributed around the map, I might change my mind on them.

1784 days, 10 hours, 59 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

And I am sure there are maps where they are evenly distributed over a map.

You have to play with the set up you start with.

Sometimes you get a good set up. Sometimes bad.

One game I started with 10 / 11 Amorph within 3 moves of my home world.

Some Privs will curse if they start stuck between the Crystaline and Robots (or Feds or Lizards for Lokis).

1784 days, 10 hours, 2 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Martin: RE: "Some Privs will curse if they start stuck between the Crystaline and Robots (or Feds or Lizards for Lokis)." - You make my point!

Add to that, if an Ion Storm rolls across you at just the wrong time or if every planet within your little corner of space only has Worms and are barren lumps of stone and there is already enough "luck of placement" in the game. IMO, we don't need to add more. At least Ions move and eventually get around to everyone.

Therefore, if your game includes these campaign features, I will pass. If this ever becomes the default I will probably decide to just go play dice somewhere and save my few pennies for something else to do with my time. :)

1784 days, 10 hours, 0 minutes ago

mule

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

Oh... And I will be offering my Classic PLS game on schedule.

1784 days, 9 hours, 37 minutes ago

RE: Having played now a few turns in MJS's pls-70 game I will...

I can only handle one game at a time, but I want my next game to be PLS. I might be able to start later this Fall (my current game is ending soon, but I'm feeling a little burned out and wouldn't mind some weeks off).

My preferences:
* no campaign
* max allies = 1
* stellar cartography? I don't mind either way.
* Joshua mentioned that he will look into adding a "sudden death fixed turn" victory option (planets.nu/#/activity/1575808). I would prefer that a game use that if it becomes available soon enough.
* FoF? I don't like the idea of it, but I could be a good sport and play with it anyway.
* Slowing to 2 turns per week would be nice once things get heated up, like maybe after turn 30. ;)

Also, I'm interested in using a userscript to simulate rule enforcement by a NuHost addon. I'm working on some tweaks to my script and the included rule sets...

So I may be looking to either join or host a PLS game this Fall.