New Default Win Conditions

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

After a lot of thinking and a long discussion amongst the players (see here: http://vgaplanets.nu/discussion/race-statistics-something-to-talk-about) we have decided to change the default win conditions so that the focus is on capturing planets to achieve victory. This change will only affect new games going forward.

The new win conditions for a standard game are as follows: The winner of a game is the first player or alliance to capture 250 planets and hold them for 5 consecutive turns.

Three additional host rules go along with this:

Each player can have a maximum of 2 full allies (but as many safe passage peace agreements as you like).
When full alliances are formed or broken all players will be notified.
When a player or alliance reaches 250 planets a "Victory Countdown" will begin and all players in the game will know they have 5 turns to change the outcome.

Reasoning

There are several reasons why we are changing the default win conditions to the above:

After looking at the all the games currently on this site and reviewing the statistics from the over 800 historical games from the RCC ladder we have determined this is the simplest and most accurate way to score a game. Players with more planets are usually winning the game.
Capturing planets is a very clear path to victory which is easy for both old and new players to understand.
Regardless of how big your military is if you can't capture or defend planets with it, whats the point? This scoring system should promote combat.
Alliances can enjoy a clear victory together.
By allowing alliances to end a game together the end of the game can be controlled by the major players in the game. If two opponents decide they no longer wish to fight in a long running game they may choose to form a winning alliance ending the game diplomatically.
Games should run slightly shorter.
The name of this game is Planets!

Affect on the Leaderboard

Players in games with the new "Diplomatic Planets" win condition will receive achievement differently than the current Military Score games. Experience points will continue to be calculated in the same way. Achievement will be calculated as follows:

Each game will have a game difficulty multiplier which is a number between 1 and 3 based on the quality of the players who join the game. 1 being all new players (easy) and 3 being equal to all the top players playing against each other (the hardest).
For running games (Current Public Opinion) the amount of achievement will be calculated as (number of Planets * Game Difficulty Multiplier).
When a game ends because an alliance has achieved the victory condition the members of the alliance will be awarded (number of planets * game difficulty * 2) achievement points. This is called a Diplomatic Victory.
When a game ends because a single player has achieved the victory condition that player will be awarded (number of planets * game difficulty * 3) achievement points. This is called a Total Victory.
When a game ends all non-winning players will be awarded (number of Planets * Game Difficulty Multiplier) achievement points.
Players resigning from a game will simply lose their planets.
New players joining a game late will require 20 turns before they get the full achievement value for their planets.

This should result in roughly the same number of achievement points being awarded as the current system but with a more fair distribution based on the end result.

Summary

We hope you enjoy the new win conditions and that you find it to be more fun, fast, accurate and lead to more action in your games. As always feedback is welcome, if you see a hole or missing piece in the above detailed logic please let us know.

Comments

There are 41 comments - add your comment

challengespaceyard - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 1:55 AM

I wonder what would happen if two seperate alliances/players happened to get 250 planets on the same turn...

Also. Does this preclude a 5v5 team game?

joshua - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 2:05 AM

We're setting the stage for some team games for sure. Though 5v5 and 1 on 1 blitz games will require a bit more than 50% of the planets.

marklein - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 2:08 AM

I'm willing to give this win condition a try, but let's make sure it's the *default* win condition and not the only win condition that can be used.

I have two reservations about this.
1) The Borg. 'nuff said.
2) It would be nearly impossible to win without the help of an alliance. While this might be true about any game, I'd like to see us award the win to only a player instead of an alliance. The most likely and most useful allies are your neighbors and sometimes your neighbors just make crappy allies. This gives you an automatic handicap against "that other" alliance on the other side of the map.

I don't want to sound like I'm complaining because I think this could work and it sounds like fun... as long as I'm the Borg.

kedalion - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 2:54 AM

When is this affecting the running games? Next host run? I'm asking because the planet limit is pretty close in one of my games and we are just getting started on the last fights... would be a shame to stop it right now...

kedalion - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 3:18 AM

Nevermind, just saw that the winning condition has only been changed for games that haven't started yet... Good :)

edidbeduid15 - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 3:24 AM

I like this idea. the Borg (or any race with a ship that can Hyperjump) really do have an unfair advantage over others that do not. This does seem like a much more fun way to play. I always play with my roommate and we are always allied so now I dont have to worry about fighting him at some point.
Also, the blitz games would be fun with more to them. Such as the 5v5 or 3v3. promotes how to work with allies for this 'nu' way to play.

kissofpain - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 5:41 AM

I am having concerns about the 3 player alliance and also the planet cap.

For instance I am in a game where I am allied with a new player to help him learn the game. I also have an alliance with a vet player, but he is also allied with a new player helping him learning the game. This means we are a 4 player alliance, where however only 2 players make a difference.

Just compare 4 bases and 40 ships to 1 base and 9 ships in turn 28 (where some of his ships are still ru25 gunboat)...

So the alliance system has to be tweaked.

Also the planet requirement could use an increase. Imagine the scenario where 2 alliances are approaching the planet win condition, each with almost 200 planets. And they haven't fought yet... Is it ok to win by reaching 200 planets?

Perhaps should we increase this to 300?

marklein - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 5:50 AM

Kissofpain's comment gave me a great idea. Perhaps the win condition for a single player could be 150 planets, but an alliance would require 150 planets per member. I just pulled those numbers out of the air, they might need tweaking. I like the idea of the win number being kind of high thereby forcing large alliances to disband and start fighting each other at some point in order to reach the win condition.

valhalla - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 5:55 AM

This new system is a huge improvement and is much more balanced. Thank you so much for listening to the nu community. The races all have different abilities but the currency of the realm and name of the game is planets.

As far as the borg go, yes they and other races with HYP ships can expand fast. I seriously doubt a borg player can *easily* hold all those planets into the mid and mature phases of the game. Players worth their salt that see a borg expanding quickly band together to crush the borg player. A borg that doesn't expand to quickly gets crushed too. . . It simply ain't easy being the borg - your public enemy #2, right after the privateers. If your playing the borg and your my neighbor, I'll kill you or alie with you - there is no middle ground. This is the only race I'm 100% black and white about. Fireclouds are very poor ships to go to battle with in the early and mid game and Biocides are very expensive and take a while to produce. I believe that this concern is a non-issue.

valhalla - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 6:05 AM

The idea that the victory conditions scale with the alliance size has merit.

Also, I assume points are awarded to players in the winning alliance based on the number of planets they have, not the number the alliance has. That would allow old hands to work with newer players and not be penalized for it.

admiral_thrain - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 7:08 AM

Excellent, now Romulans have a chance to win, solo. :) Planet count is MUCH better than Autoscore's military strength. Maybe the planet count should be atleast 251 so there will NEVER be a chance that two sides have 250 planets for 5 turns.

kissofpain - don't ally with someone who has allies you don't want/can't ally with. Simple?

mjs68508 - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 7:26 AM

I like the change from Military Score to Planet number.

However, do you plan on offering a non-alliance version later?

I might try the Alliance game in a year or 2 when I am done with my 2 games. In that case, I will start with 2 allies, already. those types of alliance games are fun.

However, when starting by myself, I prefer non-alliance victory conditions.

Dungeonmaster - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 8:01 AM

This is a much better win condition and should make the games more strategic rather than pure economy.

kissofpain - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 8:26 AM

Admiral, I will never refuse to ally with a new player. It just doesn't feel honorable to crush a newby.

If for instance I am surrounded by 3 new players I would offer them all alliance and work from there. If they refuse it's their choice.

So an alliance with a strong player - which in many cases is a must - and with 2 newcomers is a scenario that may occur often, at least in my book.

Well, at least at low level games. Once I'll get to play only with vets, in senior officer quarters and above, things will change.

admiral_thrain - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 10:05 AM

Trying to keep in topic... Achieving the victory condition most likely requires an alliance, but allying and/or NAPping "everyone" is a way to a very boring game. So it's good that the number of allies is limited. I would prefer only one ally, but two makes the game shorter.

I'm ruthless, I live from the destruction points, I'll crush my neighbours if they don't/can't/won't help me on my way to victory. In some cases, I do send my crushed enemies (especially if they are noobs) message(s) how they can improve their gameplay for the next time. Getting your ass kicked is a very good way to learn (and can be really fast way as well).

Now that the default victory condition has changed, I can see myself joining a new game in the future. Need to finish some games first though.

---

Conan, what's the meaning of life? "Crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women."

mjs68508 - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 10:34 AM

It seems with emphasis on planets, we could get rid of the ship limit.

Any plans?

draven - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 10:39 AM

I can imagine the universal messages in turn 1 in the future games as the following commercial:

"Single Lizards looking for an ally. I offer hissing planets and double mining. Gravitonics and free fighter services would be appreciated."

XDDDDDDDDD

It will be very interesting. Probably it is a better way to score the game than the one we had now, so I totally agree with the new score. But I still do not know if the way the winner alliance is going to share the victory points is the right one: after all if you are in an alliance it is possible that you take the role of conquering planets asap, but you might be in charge of mining the borders or robbing the enemy instead of conquering planets. So maybe the allies should share the victory points equally. We should think about it.

admiral_thrain - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 10:39 AM

Taking off the ship limit changes the game A LOT. It could be possible for some games, but definately not by default.

draven - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 10:42 AM

I totally agree with the Admiral: the ship limit has to be respected. If you want to build up more ships, fight your enemies and earn PP's.

mjs68508 - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 12:16 PM

Fight your enemies?

O.K., I took 20 of his planets and got, er, zero PBP's.

I captured 6 of his freighters and got, er, zero PBP's.

I would have more ships if I instead concentrated on building Starbases.

The ship limit inhibits fighting.

If you lose 10 ships in a battle and your opponent loses 10 ships, you may get 2 or 3 builds max. So will everyone else and they lost nothing.

And, if you are a small ship race and have to trade 3 ships for 1 enemy, you are really hurt. You only had to spend the same amount of money, but you have to make 3 builds to make up for it.

After the ship limit is reached, it is almost as easy to build 10 Biocides as 10 Darkwings.

The ship limit favors stronger races. After the ship limit is reached, 10 Biocides take the same number of slots as 10 Darkwings.

Getting rid of the ship limit will mean fewer useless ships built mainly to take up a ship slot.

And, I'll up the ante. To increase the quality of ships I would make fuel consumption doubled when towing, maybe even limit the distance to 49 LY's.

I have never read of any Navies in history use destroyers to tow their Battleships into battle. I have never read a sci-fi book or seen a movie where this was a standard battle tactic.

Now, excuse while I hide behind my desk.

admiral_thrain - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 12:42 PM

Hehheh, I should stay in topic, but...

Ok, you took 20 planets (lost zero ships I hope or did you attack with scouts?), captured 6 freighters (why capture? Kill them!).

You lose 10 ships, but get only a few builds. Sure but, others fight as well and you get builds when they lose ships.

1 Biocide kills two Darkwings (third DW survives unharmed) => 10 PBPs to Borg and 9 to Romulans => Romulans are 1 PBP short from building a DW, Borg requires 8 PBPs more to build Biocide => Romulans should lose only 1 DW (because they kill all the FCCs, LDSFs and STFs) and Borg loses 1 Biocide (he can only kill planets/bases or get attacked by DWs). Unfair? With Anni, it's 1 killed DW and other is damaged => 10 PBPs to Romulan and 5 to Borg, Romulan builds 1 DW and Borg is 15 PBPs short for a new Anni => Romulans lose nothing, Borg -1 Anni. Unfair?

No comments on towing...

toredeloro - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 1:44 PM

and what about the shield bonus
the default is off, but some games we can use 25% or so

the default settings are not the only settings we can use

draven - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 2:34 PM

If you capture a ship you already have a new ship, so there is no need for more PBP's. You gain a ship and your opponent loses one.

Regarding the towing... You have never heard of a destroyer towing a battleship into battle probably because no army has fuel shortage nowadays.

Unfortunately the neutronium runs out sooner or later in the cluster, so even with transwarps you will need to tow in long games.

Anyway different configs should be stablished and probably Joshua will prepare in future games with different combinations. So in the future you will have the option to sign only in games that fit your ideal of game (shield bonus, ship limit, cloack failure, etc). I am sure that if Joshua creates a game with no ship limit many people would like to join it in, but it is not going to be me.

Until then I understand that a common config for us all must be accepted, and it is what we are discussing.

Improving? Sure, but give them time to check new setups and configs.

challengespaceyard - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 2:58 PM

Removing the ship limit causes complications with regards to the Firecloud's chunnel ability.

valhalla - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 4:55 PM

Do not get rid of the ship limit! Stay true to the original game.

Different races are best at different stages in the game. The ship limit is part of that balance. For example, the Lizards are especially strong in the early game. The NEED to expand fast then because they are not as strong later on. In the late game, it takes 2 or 3 of their biggest ships to beat one carrier. Ships builds are rare after the limit and when they come up through the rotating builds, Liz get a T-Rex while others get a huge carrier. At this point, for "normal" builds, the Liz and other small big ship races have a disadvantage.

As for PBP, you don't have to use them to build the biggest ship you can make. For say 10 PBP, you could build many patriots, LCCs, Loki's, etc and max them out. Most of us could use more towers, mine scanners, fighter producers, etc.

>The ship limit inhibits fighting.

Maybe under the old rules where hoarding free fighters was the path to victory, but not now.

Now, if you want more score, you need to take more planets. Ships are the tools to fight and make that happen. If you sit back and don't fight, how exactly do you plan to expand?

valhalla - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 5:37 PM

I am pretty much against messing with the original game. The new Nu scoring system is a lot better than the reinvented one and is pretty much in line with the original.

The only change I would like to see to the actual game is the ES bonus set to 50%. While this was optional, this was standard practice in all the old games I used to play in. I suggest a community vote on this and any changes with the framing that the goal is to stay true to the original balanced game.

The only other area that I would edit is outside of the game, this sites ranking system. What I want to know about other players is two things: How do they finish games (average place they finish in) and how likely are they to finish games they start. I don't care how many games they played in or how strong their alliance was (how do I know if they were an asset or were dead wood along for the ride?). A ranking system that reflected the quality of that individual player independent of the number of games played or allies strengths. Basically, something like the old ladder system.

We don't need big complicated systems, finishing first is finishing first.

James

figak - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 5:57 PM

I look forward to trying out this planet based system and I like the fact that we can still see BOTH scores, but one is used for resolving.

I also like the alliances use in planets score.

I assume this alliance addition could be use with games set as per military score? I can think of games where alliances are already >65% but it's good that this is not applied retroactively.

joesnoffy - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 6:46 PM

I look forward to play with this new win condition, but not all races are equally qualified for capturing planets with starbases.

I like the idea proposed by marklein:
"Perhaps the win condition for a single player could be 150 planets, but an alliance would require 150 planets per member. I just pulled those numbers out of the air, they might need tweaking. I like the idea of the win number being kind of high thereby forcing large alliances to disband and start fighting each other at some point in order to reach the win condition."
Maybe the planet numbers should be something like 150 for one player, 250 for two players, and 300 for three players. Nobody can defeats an alliance with 300 planets anyway.

I would like to suggest that and alliance winning a game share the victory point in equal shares. One player winning a game gets (number of planets (alliance) * game difficulty * 3), two players get (number of planets (alliance)* game difficulty * 3)/2 each, and finally three players get (number of planets (alliance)* game difficulty * 3)/3 each. This will reflect the fact that winning a game with two allies is much easier than winning on your own.

Best wishes,

JoeSnoffy

thin lizzy - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 7:25 PM

I absolutely agree with James.

The old game was balanced quite well, which maybe is the hardest part in designing a multiplayer game. Especially if the players all have different abilities to use.

No comment about the importance of the shiplimit.

Per

valhalla - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 7:33 PM

joesnoffy

I also like the idea of diff winning conditions based on alliance size.

I still think score should be based on individuals - yes the team "wins" but score in normal games should be based on individual contributions - "what place were you when the game ended?" This is simple and would encourage vets to ally with newer players which will help retain new blood.

Separate from this, I've heard about plans for special team games in the future. For games specifically set up as team X vs team Y, then the team entire team wins (or looses).

We can do both, but lets not mix the two.

marklein - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 8:00 PM

Some food for thought.

Scenario: Crystals ally with Colonies. Crystals use their web awesomeness to defend disputed borders while the Colonies use their fighter awesomeness to take new planets. The result is that the Colonies end up owning most of the planets just as a matter of tactics.

Conclusion: Winning teams should split the "points" awarded for the win evenly. If you don't like the idea of a slacker team member going along for the win then just drop your alliance with them before the game is over.

No matter what, I'm looking forward to the new win condition games the more we talk about it! Too bad I'm already at my max. :-(

valhalla - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 8:31 PM

Scenario: Crystals ally with Colonies. Crystals use their web awesomeness to defend disputed borders while the Colonies use their fighter awesomeness to take new planets. The result is that the Colonies end up owning most of the planets just as a matter of tactics.

More food for thought:

Solution: Crystal and Colonies players take full responsibility for the success and failures of races the play. They recognize the strengths and weakness of their races and negotiate a mutually beneficial solution - an alliance - that makes them both stronger. This may include plans for sharing captured planets, sharing captured ships for cloning, fighter awesomeness, etc. One (of many) ways to do this is to trade SBes in the heart of their respective empires. They provide resources and their aly builds them what ever they want. Now the Xtals have carriers with fighters and the Colonies have ships they can direct that lay web mines. . . Problem solved.

This is negotiated prior to entering into an alliance. Who you form an alliance with and what the terms are, is part of the game and is your responsibility as a player.

kedalion - Wednesday, March 02, 2011 11:16 PM

joesnoffy

Your scoring would give everybody in a winning 3-way alliance the same reward as every other player, but that's just a matter of multiplier...

shrambot - Thursday, March 03, 2011 6:28 PM

Some more food for thoughts:
It has been lamented, that some races will have advantages because they can capture planets very quickly, and very far away, so many other races wont (be able to) spare ships to go for them.
How about lowering the numbers of planets for winning, but also only take planets into account, that have a certain numbers of defense-posts (say: 10) on them ?
You need clans to have defense-posts, so your planets with only one clan cant have that number of defense, so wont count.

Would this conditions mean that anyone has to put almost the same amount of work onto capturing planets, or not ?
I guess that Rebels and Privateers still are ahead, tho not as much as before.

Greetings,
Shrambot

dralmar - Monday, March 07, 2011 11:45 PM

msg, you said: "I have never read of any Navies in history use destroyers to tow their Battleships into battle. I have never read a sci-fi book or seen a movie where this was a standard battle tactic."

Ever read the SciFi series about Honor Harrington? by David Weber? I don't want to spoil anything, but you are wrong about the towing.

Dralmar

kissofpain - Tuesday, March 08, 2011 10:16 AM

During WW2, after USS Carrier Yorktown was damaged in the battle of Midway, it was towed by USS Vireo, a destroyer class. Unfortunately a japanese sub surprised the salvage group and USS Yorktown was eventually sunked.

In the Star Trek Voyager series, during the species 8472 ark, Voyager gets towed by a borg cube, in order to move at transwarp speed.

mjs68508 - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 8:57 PM

But, those towing examples involve damaged ships.

There should be a combat penalty for ships without TW engines.

Anonymous - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 9:02 PM

No. The game is fine the way it is. Don't fix what ain't broken.

Got a problem with small ships towing larger ships that have poor engines? Intercept and kill the smaller ship.

crackpot - Wednesday, March 09, 2011 9:53 PM

I'm not a fan on the win conditions for a single player. This promotes alliances and penalizes those who like playing solo or don't ally too much.

I think this is fine for *one* of the win conditions but it shouldn't be the only one. A military victory where a player has >x% should be one of the conditions (as well as a player vote)..

..these things have been done for years over at robomaster.ca (which looks to be closed now) .. and the scoring method was spot on.

thin lizzy - Thursday, March 10, 2011 12:58 AM

mjs,

isn't there the "engine shield bonus" doing exactly what you are looking for?

finsch - Friday, March 18, 2011 9:53 AM

Hi,

in every new game there a crazy three person alliance like Privateer, Borg, Chrystal or something like that. Play alone is not possible, the very intelligent Race advanteges and disadvantages no longer has any effect.

Sry for that - i don´t like the new system!

Back to the roots!

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