Space Opera - Test Games

[sapper32]

Turn complete and sent on

[GrumpyMel]

Turn 16 sent on.

[Tufkal2]

And on to Casus_Belli....

[sapper32]

Turn sent on

[Tufkal2]

Turn 17 sent on.
Two observations:
1. If I am not mistaken I got the church support as of this turn? Would be very nice to get a message so I can be sure of this? Also: Can this be taken away from my by a card?
2. So far it is quite interesting invading neutral planets and mopping up the rebels. If the game should be sped up a little in the beginning might be interesting to be able to gain something from occupying the orbit of a planet. I think the starbases are not too interesting since I am limited by Isotopes in any way. Now if there were also some raw materials in space I think there would  be a higher incentive to go to war with the human opponents. But in any case I think the time for this will come ....

[sapper32]

Turn 17 sent on

[Casus_Belli]

I must say I find the transport system a bit too fiddly. There are too many restriction and I seem to overlook a different rule every turn. It might be just me , but it does make it a little frustrating.

[sapper32]

Turn 18 sent on,agree with you casus i struggle getting units around

[GrumpyMel]

Lunaticus - 

1) Yes you did. The message should be functional in the new version I uploaded. In the one we're playing...I had it send messages to every player except the one who did it...oops! [X(]  The support can't be taken away from you, nor can any other player get it for themselves now. Once one player gets it, that's it.


2) Yeah, I noticed the game starts out a bit slow. Actualy by this time in the test games I played against myself the Houses were already fighting each other... but I think that's because I went in knowing how the mechanics worked. Probably our game is running a bit slower as folks are still getting used to the rules. Anyways, I do want to see the start sped up some. In the last version I uploaded I added some more starting forces to each House. Hopefully, that will speed up the start some.

I didn't want to add too much to the start, as I didn't want to predetermine the way players built over-much.... but there may be some other things I can do to get the pot boiling quicker.


Casus Belli - If you mean transport of units between planets and space... yeah it is a bit complex. Unfortunately I'm a little limited in the approaches I can use by some of the things built into the AT Engine.  AT is a very versitile engine and I'm amazed it allowed me to do this sort of scenerio at all. Unfortunately modeling a space/ground conflict isn't really what it was designed for and I'm afraid I'm stretching it's capabilities a bit.

The initial approach I tried to take was alot simpler. I tried to simply have space-ships (i.e. the Jump Transports) pick up troops directly from the planets themselves. However that approach ran into quite a few problems. Firstly, I discovered that Naval Theatre Units (i.e. space-ships) can't actualy move on "Land", even if you assign terrain costs for land hexes that would otherwise allow it. So you would only end up being able to pickup/dropoff ground units on the "edge" of a planet....which didn't seem right.

I then thought about going the other way and to make space a "Land" type terrain
and making Space-Ships Land Theatre Units. But you run into a whole different set of weird problems with that approach...like space having zones of control, and stacking limits and concentric attack bonuses. Stuff that didn't really fit. It also meant that ships wouldn't be able to pickup/drop off units in cities near the "center" of a planet unless they fought thier way there from the "edge" of the planet, capturing all the ground hexes in between. That didn't really work either.

Ultimately the approach that I currently use was the only thing that I could come up with that really seemed to fit. Using Air Theatre Units (landers) to transition units from anywhere on a planets surface to space without having to worry about what was occupying the hexes between the drop-off/pickup points.

It actualy ended up working very well. Unfortunately it did make the process of getting a unit from the ground loaded up unto a space-ship (and vice versa) a little more complex for the player. However, I think once a player gets used to the rules....it works pretty well. The only thing that really still bothers me at this point is the inability to air-transport/para-drop HQ units. But there is nothing I can do about that...it looks to be hard-coded into the engine.

[Tufkal2]

Actually I think the current system works quite well once you get the hang of it. Will be interesting to see warfare between the houses will come along as with being able to paradrop everywhere things will get exciting soon. Only small suggestion I have if you want to make things a little bit simpler (but totally optional of course) is to allow landers to transfer between exactly one wormhole so you can transfer from one planet to a neighbouring planet without ships. Ships can then still be very important for naval superiority.
And I agree with the current engine spaceships and land units must be strictly separated. From an engine perspective the two things I think would be nice to have for a spacemod would be paradrops from a carrier and naval units fighting each other over several hex distance....

[GrumpyMel]

Turn 19 sent on to House Romanov

[Tufkal2]

Turn 19 sent on

[Casus_Belli]

And on

[Tufkal2]

Turn 20 sent to Casus Belli

[GrumpyMel]

Turn 21 sent on to House Romanov

[Tufkal2]

And on to Casus Belli. I think it will get pretty crowded soon....

[Casus_Belli]

done

[GrumpyMel]

Turn 22 sent on. I note that war has finally broken out among the Houses. With Kesh being the apparent powder keg.

[Tufkal2]

Turn 22 to Casus_Belli

[Casus_Belli]

A Plot! Conspiracy [:-] Well, we'll see about this...