Round 11

[JC]

This geezer's 'avin a giraffe.

[Sevrok]

i couldn't have a giraffe it wouldnt fit in my house! believe me i tried when i stole one from the zoo! however a rhino can fit in my house so stop being mean or i'll set my pet rhino on you, he's called bubbles!

[Synthetic_Sid]

Originally Posted by Mad Matte

Correct me if I am wrong, but Fury did attack Videer at end of round2? If that is correct, then did you not break agreement with them, even if it was just for "fun".

You're wrong. Legion HC knew about the attack before it happened, and had no problems with it.

[Sevrok]

synthetic sid i have a question. which part of you is synthetic? i've narrowed it down to either your brain or the medulla of your kidney!

[Gerbie]

I don't care about what happened. Fury is dead.

I see several possibilities:
- random gals
- random groups of 2 or 3
- single alliance galaxies
- stopping out of gal def altogether (no need to make shared galaxies)
- a score system that does not value value () (no more need for alliances to be the biggest, once stagnation sets the 'winners' stop gaining score while the little guys still can attack and thus gain score)
- bringing alliances and wars into the game (there have been different suggestions on this)
- making it easier for players to leave their galaxy and join other galaxies with other players during the game (and start a new priv gal)
- shuffling the game after stagnation has set in
- PA team doing nasty things to alliances that don't break up after they 'won' (my favorite )

[Cayl]

To Sevrok - I will grant that once the Furies and Legions get to a certain size, there exists the possibility for the smallest planets to have their own little wars and agreements and alliances on the outskirts of the universe below our minimum score threshold. However, if you never got on IRC its flatly impossible that anyone in Fury or Legion ever took you seriously, even in Round 2.

To Sid - On the R2 Agreements thing, I guess we can forgive the universe for thinking we had NAPs with BT and WaC. They fail to realize that with a universe of 200,000 planets, a couple of well organized alliances had the luxury of picking some targets and ignoring others. WaC and BT didn't attack us because they knew we'd respond in force. We didn't attack them because we presumed they would do the same, and were saving them for a time of our choosing. Meanwhile there were so many other players that we could just throw a war every so once in a while. Same for WaC. BT had problems though

To Rumad: Making things more fluid (whatever that means) isn't really an issue. I mean Phraktos didn't give Fang or Mistu any particular warning. Don't get much more fluid than that in alliance politics. That seemed to work out well for them. And switching alliances at a whim isn't the answer. That would have the opposite effect. There would be no point to a war. Wars are costly, and you might actually lose. Ick. No the best way to win your war is to drop your inactives, scan planets, and cov-opers and pick up your ally's top 10 planets at the end of the round. If you're already the top alliance, this will let you simultaneously cement your position, promise the top 10 players that they'll be with the winning planet, galaxy and alliance all in the same round, and weaken your "allies". It would also have the unintended consequence of being boring as hell.

I don't really think you could raise or lower the size of alliances much beyond the 75-100 range with this kind of player base. You get too low and people just make "wings" and gather in the same IRC channel and call themselves the same alliance regardless of what the game says. Going too high would just mean that all the cov-ops and scan planets would actually get to stay in the alliance til the end, effectively lowering the average score. Whoopty do.

There is no cure for blocking. The only thing you can do is try to make the game interesting for the small players or defeated alliances. Short rounds help, the long stagnant rounds of the past simply rotted the membership away from the inside out. Covert Ops help, but from experience I can tell you that it has limited amounts of fun.

[Sevrok]

we did go on irc we used legion and fury's own rooms! we actively rubed our victories in their faces! i think the thing with long rounds is that once a block gets to the top they are reluctant to change things! long rounds are good becuase they allow for huge battles, if the wars needed for them ever start! if it was possible for blocks to made official and have something preventing any one block having more than 2 alliances in the top ten it may make things a bit more interesting!

[Cayl]

And all of Synthetic Sid is synthetic. He's Cryptic and Ghengis's final technical project together. After several failed attempts (Icey, Cyclone, Mephiston to name a few) they finally perfected bot technology. Sid is run on a mainframe in England. He was programmed with the finest alliance handling algorithms but also allowed to synthesize his own through rapid simulation of up to 4 million Planetarion scenarios a minute.

Fury was founded around this piece of amazing technology, and it represents the highest form of b0tting ever introduced to planetarion. (Xanadu excluded).

[mazzelaar]

Originally Posted by Cayl

And all of Synthetic Sid is synthetic. He's Cryptic and Ghengis's final technical project together. After several failed attempts (Icey, Cyclone, Mephiston to name a few) they finally perfected bot technology. Sid is run on a mainframe in England. He was programmed with the finest alliance handling algorithms but also allowed to synthesize his own through rapid simulation of up to 4 million Planetarion scenarios a minute.

Fury was founded around this piece of amazing technology, and it represents the highest form of b0tting ever introduced to planetarion. (Xanadu excluded).

He makes ace coffee and has an AM/FM radio built in.

[wakey]

Originally Posted by Gerbie

I don't care about what happened. Fury is dead.

I see several possibilities:
- random gals
- random groups of 2 or 3
- single alliance galaxies
- stopping out of gal def altogether (no need to make shared galaxies)
- a score system that does not value value () (no more need for alliances to be the biggest, once stagnation sets the 'winners' stop gaining score while the little guys still can attack and thus gain score)
- bringing alliances and wars into the game (there have been different suggestions on this)
- making it easier for players to leave their galaxy and join other galaxies with other players during the game (and start a new priv gal)
- shuffling the game after stagnation has set in
- PA team doing nasty things to alliances that don't break up after they 'won' (my favorite )

As I've said elsewhere I think single alliance galaxies are flawed, its just too restrictive to the smaller alliances. Its like with private galaxies now smaller alliances end up grouping together because in theory its better but it just weakens the alliance by allowing a good proportion to be taken out in one strike. This obviously can be the same for larger alliances but their numbers mean they are generlaly less concentarted (20 member alliance = 2 galaxies, 40 member = 4 80 member = 8 and 100 member = 10. You take out a galaxy of the 20 member alliance thats half the alliance gone and hence half that now cant help defend, take out a galaxy of the 100 member one and you still have 9 other galaxies) and in their very nature a big alliance recieves less incoming and is better prepared to deal with it than the small.

BUT anyway as others have said the problem really isnt BLOCKS, blocks are a result of the games overwheling problem which is one that been raised here and one i've been raising alot and thats the score system. The score system says the winnder is basiclaly the one with most ships and roids this leads to people being cautious which leads to alliances blocking to ensure success. And lets be honest this doesnt really make sense, having ships doesnt tell anyone a great deal about your playing skill just that you stayed out of trouble. Score really does need to be based on peoples acheivements with ships just being something that allows us to acheive what we do then as Gerbie says theres less reason for 'playing safe' as that wont see you growing

[Cayl]

If this is going to be any kind of "space combat and political simulation" Then you have to have some kind of real world goals that follow Earth logic. In the real world, having natural resources (oil, food, water, Uranium, whatever) and having military might makes you powerful. Having political skill also makes you powerful. Having both makes you the winner.

Planetarion should follow those same rules.

[Sevrok]

Originally Posted by Cayl

If this is going to be any kind of "space combat and political simulation" Then you have to have some kind of real world goals that follow Earth logic. In the real world, having natural resources (oil, food, water, Uranium, whatever) and having military might makes you powerful. Having political skill also makes you powerful. Having both makes you the winner.

Planetarion should follow those same rules.

that is true! another idea i just had is to make the blocks official, so that every one knows who's on who's side!

[Synthetic_Sid]

Originally Posted by wakey

BUT anyway as others have said the problem really isnt BLOCKS, blocks are a result of the games overwheling problem which is one that been raised here and one i've been raising alot and thats the score system. The score system says the winnder is basiclaly the one with most ships and roids this leads to people being cautious which leads to alliances blocking to ensure success. And lets be honest this doesnt really make sense, having ships doesnt tell anyone a great deal about your playing skill just that you stayed out of trouble. Score really does need to be based on peoples acheivements with ships just being something that allows us to acheive what we do then as Gerbie says theres less reason for 'playing safe' as that wont see you growing

You're half right (in that caution is a large part of the reason for blocking) - while at the same time being totally wrong (in claiming the scoring system is the root of the problem). The fundamental reason for blocks in Planetarion is that most people's fear of losing is a stronger driver for their actions than their desire to win. Blocking reduces greatly the risk of losing - while still allowing them to claim a share of the (albeit grossly devalued) win.

Changing the scoring system will have no (or a very negligible) impact on that: having more friends and less enemies would still increase your chance of gaining score - right up to the point where significant growth in score becomes impossible due to all decent targets being part of your block. Scoring based entirely (or largely) on exp rather than on assets wouldn't change that in any real way - and I note that your post merely states that it would affect it without any attempt to explain how/why. The reason it wouldn't affect it is because the situation wouldn't be any different to the current one - other than that the shortage of targets for large planets would be shortage of targets that gave good score, rather than shortage of targets that gave good roids. The rest of the universe would still be unable to gain ground on the "winners" - because as soon as they started to they'd become valid targets for the winning block by whatever criteria was used to restrict attacks (which would presumably be score rather than value).

Maybe i'm missing your point - but it seems to me, even on re-reading your post, that you're making a statement that a non-value based scoring system would remove blocks, but with no explanation whatsoever of how you reached this conclusion (other than some vague notion that it would make people less cautious).

[Sevrok]

i agree with synthetic on the point most players are driven by their fear of losin and not their desire to win! i am driven by my desire to have fun within the game and take on a whole new personality, so for me it is not winning that matters it is having fun! in doing this i remove my fear of losing ships and would quite happily risk my entire fleet just to see what happens!

[Gerbie]

Originally Posted by Synthetic_Sid

You're half right (in that caution is a large part of the reason for blocking) - while at the same time being totally wrong (in claiming the scoring system is the root of the problem). The fundamental reason for blocks in Planetarion is that most people's fear of losing is a stronger driver for their actions than their desire to win. Blocking reduces greatly the risk of losing - while still allowing them to claim a share of the (albeit grossly devalued) win.

Changing the scoring system will have no (or a very negligible) impact on that: having more friends and less enemies would still increase your chance of gaining score - right up to the point where significant growth in score becomes impossible due to all decent targets being part of your block. Scoring based entirely (or largely) on exp rather than on assets wouldn't change that in any real way - and I note that your post merely states that it would affect it without any attempt to explain how/why. The reason it wouldn't affect it is because the situation wouldn't be any different to the current one - other than that the shortage of targets for large planets would be shortage of targets that gave good score, rather than shortage of targets that gave good roids. The rest of the universe would still be unable to gain ground on the "winners" - because as soon as they started to they'd become valid targets for the winning block by whatever criteria was used to restrict attacks (which would presumably be score rather than value).

Maybe i'm missing your point - but it seems to me, even on re-reading your post, that you're making a statement that a non-value based scoring system would remove blocks, but with no explanation whatsoever of how you reached this conclusion (other than some vague notion that it would make people less cautious).

I don't think it will magically remove blocking. But the blocking would have less effect. I agree that being in a block gives an advantage. But there are then a couple of differences that will stop or reduce the effects of stagnation (which is more a problem than the blocking itself).

As said, when a block runs out of targets, the logical choice would be to break up the block, as they will be unable to gain new score.
I think you underestimate this effect. When a block knows it will have to break up, there is always the fear their opponent will backstab them. To prevent this they can talk it out to set a time and date for an agreed split. Or backstab the other first.
Another effect is that it might give the losing side hope as they know the tides will turn. This may prevent them from giving up. And they still can gain score, even while they are on the losing side.

Politics will be more dynamic. And hopefully more fun.

[Synthetic_Sid]

Originally Posted by Gerbie

As said, when a block runs out of targets, the logical choice would be to break up the block, as they will be unable to gain new score.
I think you underestimate this effect. When a block knows it will have to break up, there is always the fear their opponent will backstab them. To prevent this they can talk it out to set a time and date for an agreed split. Or backstab the other first.
Another effect is that it might give the losing side hope as they know the tides will turn. This may prevent them from giving up. And they still can gain score, even while they are on the losing side.

You still don't explain the key point of your agrument. If running out of targets were sufficient to force a blcok to split then they'd split anyway - as in current system a dominating block already runs out (or low on) targets. It's hard for me to explain more clearly what the flaw is in your argument as it's not clear what the restriction on targetting would be - or what would define a target you couldn't gain score from - in your proposed model. For your argument to make sense a siutation would have to be reached where the winning side could gain NO score - the current round has shown that gaining very little score isn't an issue, and that players will live with coasting to a victory on what they've already achieved. Unless the ability to gain score is based on some (undefined) criteria other than the two participant's scores the situation would not be significantly changed.

[Gerbie]

In the current situation people can win if their block owns most roids and ships: they can use the roids to build even more ships. These ships and roids give value, which in turn gives score. Having most roids will allow the winning block to grow faster than the opposition.

If we change the score system so roids and ships you have and cling on to do not constantly give you extra score, the situation changes. If the 'winning' block needs to continue to gain new roids to continue to gain extra score, they will require targets. You can't win by sitting out the round.

Ofcourse, even with stagnation some targets remain. But these won't be easy targets to say the least. People will still gain some score, but the 'losing' people with lower values will have less problems gaining new roids (and score) than the 'winning' people on top of the value rankings.

[JonnyBGood]

Originally Posted by Sevrok

we did go on irc we used legion and fury's own rooms! we actively rubed our victories in their faces! i think the thing with long rounds is that once a block gets to the top they are reluctant to change things! long rounds are good becuase they allow for huge battles, if the wars needed for them ever start! if it was possible for blocks to made official and have something preventing any one block having more than 2 alliances in the top ten it may make things a bit more interesting!

I'm actually amazed that you came on here, invented a story based on things you'd read and imagined people would believe you. That said it certainly made reading this thread more interesting.

[Cayl]

Forget about farming rules for a moment (which is what would happen if you implemented your score system).

Whats to stop a pair of alliances from pairing up members and just having them attack each other each night. Hmm gosh, my fleet was out attacking, I couldn't get defense. Gosh he attacked me first, so I was just retalling. Strange how we both gained 300k score last night, huh?

Sorry, its not a good idea.

[-=Zyth=-]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I'm actually amazed that you came on here, invented a story based on things you'd read and imagined people would believe you. That said it certainly made reading this thread more interesting.

Marketing.

[Synthetic_Sid]

Originally Posted by Gerbie

Ofcourse, even with stagnation some targets remain. But these won't be easy targets to say the least. People will still gain some score, but the 'losing' people with lower values will have less problems gaining new roids (and score) than the 'winning' people on top of the value rankings.

This is the bit I always seem to get lost on in this scenario. Is score-gain from an attack based on how big (in value) your target is, or on how close to your own size your target is? If the former then the situation is largely unchanged from the current one - as people with small values can't beat ones with big values (unless you're proposing suiciding on someone big as being the best way to gain score). If the latter, then the best way to get score is to lose all your fleet/roids and attack other people who have done the same. Please clarify:

1. How the valid targets you can hit are determined (at present by 40% of your value)
2. How score gain from an attack is determined - is it based on something aboslute (e.g. number of ships killed/number of roids captured) or on something relative (how the attacker compares to you in size/score/value).

Once you've clarified that I can point out precisely what the flaws are - as at present i can see a whole raft of them but am unable to say precisely which apply due to the vagueness of the descriptions of how score would be gained.

[Kjeldoran]

tbh, it is one of the most basic behaviors of the human being. Since the first existance of the first cell till EVERY organisme on earth (or practically) atm, teaming together, working together is the best way to survive.
It's what pple do, it's in their nature. The fact that you have friends is partly cause you wanna be part of a group, meaning you feel stronger, better, happier with other pple, in a group. It's not the only reason though, yet an important one.

If we apply this to PA then we'll realize that there is no cure for blocking and that blocking is infact not a desease either. If alliances would, purely hypothetically spoken, make no agreements AT ALL and will target their main threat then THIS is the beginning of working together. Both alliances will aim to the top alliance (the one that threatens them the most) and will take advantage of the fact that the other puts pressure on their enemy aswell?

Working together doesn't always mean doin it willingly or even be aware of it. We learned to do it when we were young, we work together with pple all the time and we learn what it means to be social. It's being fed to us from the day we were born and everything you do has in some way have to do with being in a team and working together.

I think blocking is only a natural thing in PA and will exist till the very last tick that this game exists. I don't think PA should put in idiotic rules and I surely wish them not to mingle themselves with politics and alliances. That's the aspect that you fiind in PA and often not in other type of games so I really hope they just stay away from trying to controle that aswell.

Nway that's just my though on blocking. An alliance on its own is a block aswell, of pple who wanna team together so they can be stronger. members BLOCK together into an alliance. Alliances BLOCK together into a triad or whatever the correct word is. Each and every one of us is being part of his own block aka his/her alliance.

rgds Kj

[Tis]

Originally Posted by JonnyBGood

I'm actually amazed that you came on here, invented a story based on things you'd read and imagined people would believe you. That said it certainly made reading this thread more interesting.

Raise your hand if you think Sevrok is just dreadnoob being his normal self.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by Cayl

To Rumad: Making things more fluid (whatever that means) isn't really an issue. I mean Phraktos didn't give Fang or Mistu any particular warning. Don't get much more fluid than that in alliance politics. That seemed to work out well for them. And switching alliances at a whim isn't the answer. That would have the opposite effect. There would be no point to a war. Wars are costly, and you might actually lose. Ick. No the best way to win your war is to drop your inactives, scan planets, and cov-opers and pick up your ally's top 10 planets at the end of the round. If you're already the top alliance, this will let you simultaneously cement your position, promise the top 10 players that they'll be with the winning planet, galaxy and alliance all in the same round, and weaken your "allies". It would also have the unintended consequence of being boring as hell.

I don't really think you could raise or lower the size of alliances much beyond the 75-100 range with this kind of player base. You get too low and people just make "wings" and gather in the same IRC channel and call themselves the same alliance regardless of what the game says. Going too high would just mean that all the cov-ops and scan planets would actually get to stay in the alliance til the end, effectively lowering the average score. Whoopty do.

There is no cure for blocking. The only thing you can do is try to make the game interesting for the small players or defeated alliances. Short rounds help, the long stagnant rounds of the past simply rotted the membership away from the inside out. Covert Ops help, but from experience I can tell you that it has limited amounts of fun.

Firstly cayl thinsg aren't fluid - they are very static. Since round I dontknowhen alliances ave built agreements to last an entire round. They buil galaxies and entire alliance reputations about this. Phraktos did break away and failed abysmally. As for it working out well they lost 40 odd members because f it - I would hardly call that a success or working out well (they are now being oided lie 24/7).

Switching alliances at the right time and gam mechanics to support that are veyr needed. You need a way in a small universe to allow you to beakaway cleanly and so you can involve the downtrodden a bit more. Also I don't see there being no point to war, I see a game were your reticent to totally destoying another alliance, where yu are constantly having to juggle the need to get roids against the need to have relations in place. If yu cut off all tis you could find you are 1 alliance against the universe - likewise a frienly alliance may have lots of friends, but limits thre own growth potential. I think it allows for greatr depth than we have currently.

I agree that in the curent structure that you cannot raise alliances - except in the instance where a block splits. If a bloc splits that extra 20 or 30 spaces can sort the conflict and also assist the process of breaking away. Even if you dont raise the limit its stil possible if alliance swapping protocol is canged - where mixed galaxies side with one side o another, hc's kicking members in weaker gals to strengthen there fortress gals, but to do that you really need to be able to lose members and gain members quickly.

I agree there is no way to stop blocking - which is why politics need to be taken in game. Surely if politics are brought inside te game with advantages to such agreements then (eta advantage maybe -1 for allis -2 for alliance 0 for any defence outside of that) yur onto a winner. Any other agreements made outside of say 1 core agreement becomes ancillary and means you can easily have more fluidity in politics imo.

As i have said these are only ideas but something needs to be done. I never invented blocks, but i ave proliferated them, I am anti stagnation yet I have caused it. Why? Because it was to the benefit of my alliance. You can remove all old alliances from the game and some will always look to proliferate blocking. While there is no soluio you can add things to "spice" thinsg up a bit.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by Desse

If the facts are irrelevant to prove your point, then why are you using them in your arguments ?

they weren't facts - they were points of reference of instances. The rounds maybe wrong, but the fact is the events happened. OK so I am a litle out on my round number why would that in anyway detract from the events themselves?

[Desse]

Originally Posted by Rumad

they weren't facts - they were points of reference of instances. The rounds maybe wrong, but the fact is the events happened. OK so I am a litle out on my round number why would that in anyway detract from the events themselves?

because pointing to a political situation in a round, and claiming it was because that round was random, when it was not, undermines the whole point, you were trying to make.

"whether you would remove the total need for blocking is hard to see (round 6 blocking still existed an that was fully random).

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by Desse

because pointing to a political situation in a round, and claiming it was because that round was random, when it was not, undermines the whole point, you were trying to make.

"whether you would remove the total need for blocking is hard to see (round 6 blocking still existed an that was fully random).

yep the last random round was 8 - slap my wirsts and well done for having a better remembrance of what happened what round. I admitted the round numbers maybe a bit screwy - i don't and have never claimed to be the oracle of knowledge, but the existence of that instance is True. The fact that it be round 8 or round 6 is to some extent irrelevant.

It only undermines the point when you try and catch someone out. In my mind the instance happned, the point remains, get over it

[Sevrok]

Originally Posted by Tis

Raise your hand if you think Sevrok is just dreadnoob being his normal self.

Sevrok is no noob! sevrok is your worst nightmare reborn full of hate and spite!

[SYMM]

Originally Posted by Desse

because pointing to a political situation in a round, and claiming it was because that round was random, when it was not, undermines the whole point, you were trying to make.

"whether you would remove the total need for blocking is hard to see (round 6 blocking still existed an that was fully random).

That's bollocks. Anyone with half a brain will realise that swapping the 6 for an 8 (or 9 for 9.5 or whatever) makes the point stand.

[Desse]

If he refers to the political situation in R6, and claims it was because of random gals, then that point makes no sense.

[Rumad]

Originally Posted by Desse

If he refers to the political situation in R6, and claims it was because of random gals, then that point makes no sense.

You obviously realised my mistake to get to the correct round as such you know what the point was.

I just had a conversation on irc with zhil and called Ni! from round 5 round 6 BT - he correcte dme I knew and he knew what i was talking about and thats why the point stands - because you and any player that hasnt started playing within the last ound or so knows what the point is related too.

Brain is blown with dates and such, bu there is a reference point which cannot be denied. Dunno why we are arguing this though its veyr very off topic

[Gerbie]

To Cayl: roid swapping to gain score is already possible. That won't change, it might just get more effective.

To: Synthetic_Sid
1. I would just maintain the current 40% limit.
2. There are several possible ways to make a determination of score gain. For instance the way it was done in PaX and the current way. I don't know how the game was in PaX (I didn't build more than a few scout ships then) though. The current game might require a cap to correct for suicidal attacks (for instance: you can not gain more score than the damage you did (including roids taken) - the damage done to you).

[Synthetic_Sid]

Originally Posted by Gerbie

2. There are several possible ways to make a determination of score gain. For instance the way it was done in PaX and the current way. I don't know how the game was in PaX (I didn't build more than a few scout ships then) though. The current game might require a cap to correct for suicidal attacks (for instance: you can not gain more score than the damage you did (including roids taken) - the damage done to you).

Yes there are several ways: but what makes no sense to me is claiming that your method of gaining score would address the blocking issue then, when asked, admitting that you can't actually decide what this method of scoring is. If you can't define how score would be gained then I don't see how you can claim that it would be impossible for a large block to gain score without splitting.

Currently the com,bat exp element of score is gained based purely on the number of roids captured (plus there's exp for things like coops and scans). Taking value out of score wouldn't change anything if the limit for attacking was still 40% of value. Make it 40% of score instead and that allows people with big fleets to atatck ones with small fleets. Your concept is flawed - which i guess is why you're not willing to be specific about any of the details of it.

Oh - and score based on ships killed would mean removing or changing catharr for starters - unless you wanted ships frozen to give exp (allowing caths to attack one another and farm exp for 0 losses).

[ComradeRob]

XP also has the disadvantage of being 'unrealistic'. In a real war, both armies will do equal amounts of fighting, but the winner is the one that ends up controlling the most territory, and with the most soldiers left at the end of the war. It is hard to imagine someone claiming that Germany should have won WWII because they amassed more 'XP' during the war than the Allies (who only won because they formed a bigger block! ).

This might seem like a silly point to make, but it goes to the heart of what makes a good game,. especially a war/strategy game. The game has to be believable, things need to happen for realistic reasons. It is reasonable to expect that an army which fights often will gain some kind of experience points for doing so. This might boost their combat effectiveness, but it shouldn't have any real effect beyond that.

There are lots of alternative scoring systems, but I don't think basing scoring on XP is better than scoring based on roids/fleet. I can see why some people like the idea, but I think it raises as many problems as it solves (as Sid has pointed out).

[Gerbie]

To Synthetic_Sid:
I think both methods are possible. And it's not up to me to decide. I expect the old system was abandoned for a reason. (I wasn't around then, so I'm not sure which.) Trusting this was a proper reason I would go for the current XP system, probably with some tweaks.

I expect you will still not be convinced. The 'winning' block will continue to gain score, but the rate of it will slow down as the game stagnates. Active attackers in the losing block can roid faster than players in the winning block (though, the winning block will make sure they don't keep the roids very long). This i.m.o. should give sufficient incentive for blocks to split.

I disagree with your conclusion that taking value out of score won't change anything.

About cathaar. Frozen ships don't give XP. But cath have kill ships as well. (And stolen roids gave XP in PaX as well I think.) If there is also a factor of ships lost (to prevent suicide attacks), then cath can still do well as they can attack with few losses. Ofc the game should be tweaked if such a system was to be made possible.

Finally I have to admit I haven't really thought about the consequences on a detailed level. But problems are here to be solved, now we can still discuss it.

To ComradeRob: I agree that it will reduce the realism of the game. And I also have to admit that it raises many problems. These problems might however be easy to solve, while the blocking isue hasn't been solved thus far.

[Mad Matte]

Can it also not be a problem that since rnd2-3, (with exception in rnd6) no cease-fires/peace talks have occured with a defeated enemy?

[Moridin]

Originally Posted by Synthetic_Sid

How would speeding up movement between alliances affect the ability to make/cancel agreements with other alliances? I wasn't aware that it was necessary for members to defect to cancel, for example, a nap. By the same token, how would raising the number of members in allowed in an alliance impact on blocks?

And as a side-issue would you care to name ONE agreement that Fury broke in round 2? Were you even around in round 2? Fury never had agreements with any of the alliances we went to war with: in the case of BT and Concordium, discussions had been held but no actual agreement was ever reached. With BT it was because they were unwilling to agree to any rigidly defined sanctions to apply when members broke the terms of an agreement, and in the case of Concordium negotiations ceased when Moridin (with whom I'd been negotiating) ceased to play an active role in Concordium. If you want to have digs at Fury - at least try to have some factual basis for them.

Yeah, thats unfortunately the truth, I still have your drafts for an agreement around somewhere on some old comp. r2 I had allready deleted my planet by the time these talks startet, told someone else to take it up, dont remember who, and guess they didnt.