Re: Galaxy Variants

From: Frans Slothouber <slothoub@cs.utwente.nl>

Date: Tue, 11 Jun 1996 00:00:00 +0000

Mikhail A. Menshov wrote:
>
> >: Frans, why don't you just create some other game instead. Galaxy is
> >: a very self-consistant game and adding all this nonsence without first
> >: giving it much thought is very unlikely to produce anything better then
> >: the original.
> >
> >Really pissed off by this statement. How can you discard something as
> >nonsence that you know very little about.
>
> Sorry, France "all this nonsence" was not meant to include everything
> you are doing:-) I was referring to this specific discussion about
> who would "take over" planet, which lead to a suggestion to introduce
> a "Give" command (this is not the fisrt attempt, BTW;-) Which _is_ a
> complete nonsense - in order to win one would only need to recruit more
> supporters who give him their planets. I was a little mad after reading
> this thread and overreacted, I must admit.

Well I do admit that the longer I think about the "Give" command the less I like
it.  Part of the problems could be solved if only planets that aren`t fully
developed could be handed over to another player... The command could still
be used for illegal purposed though.

Think the Claim command that someone suggested  would be a much better solution.

> >Galaxy isn't perfect. And you even made a remark to another player to
> >this effect, about the unfairness of the distribution of planets and
> >their sizes in galaxy Dilbert.
> >
> >I tried to solve this problem by creating new code that allocates all
> >players about the same number of planets within a given radius of
> >their home planet.
>
> On the whole I believe I do know enough about the improvements you are
> introducing from your own posting here. You know _I_ am not very
> enthusiastic about it because without a Chance that reigns in the
> Galaxy the game will lose much of it's charm. (I can lament unfair
> distribution of the planets, but I love to fight out of difficult
> position) If you decide to create a game with minimal
> fortuity, it will be fine, but it will be a different game, that is
> what I mean.
> And of course I can not understand any attempt to advance cooperative
> aspect of the game at the expence of competitiveness. Even the present
> game is too often spoiled by overallying.
> Everything that doesn't change the principles of the game is intersting,
> but is not very important really. You can change planet distribution,
> but you can not assign equally strong neghbour players to everybody
> A player who's neighbour has dropped out will have an advantage in
> any initial distribution:-))

As I explained in the posting to Sjoerd, the element of chance is
not eleminated.  There is a whole spectrum between a complete random
galaxy  and a galaxy where every player has the same size planets on
the same distances from their home planets...

In my opinion the orginal code for creating the galaxy is too random.
The new code tried to solve this.   Many types of galaxies can be created
with it, since each parameter can be specified.

For instance by specifying  that home planets should lie at least 20 light years
appart and that the empty planets should also lie within a
radius of 20 ly years from the home planet a galaxy will be created that
is much alike the old-style galaxy,  this cause planets that 'belong' to you
could be lying on the front door of one of your neighbours.

Specifying that they should lie within 2 ly would create a very fair but boring
galaxy.

-However- the program also lets you specify all types in between...
so why stick to a piece of code that was coded rather arbitrairly many
years ago.   I do agree that some of the new rules (for instance the bombing
rules) require a name change... but I do think that the distribution of old
style galaxy can definitly be improved.

To get an idea of what is possible  with the new code
take a look at the questions asked when creating a new game....

What is the name of the Game?

TZone

What is the name of file with the addresses of the players?

players

You have to decide on the size of the galaxy. If you make it too
large the game will be slow. If you make it too small the program
might not be able to create it.  Some suggestions:
10 players - size 100
40 players - size 250
60 players - size 400
What should the size of galaxy be?

120

The program will make sure that all Home World are at least
some  x  number of light years appart.  What would you like this
number to be?  (We suggest a minimum of at least 20 light years)

Within a radius [2,r] from each Home World the program
will allocate a number of empty planets for the player to
colonize. How many planets should this be?
(About 10 is a good number)

And within what radius from the Home World?
(We suggest 20.000 or less)

It is possible to give all players a number of extra home planets
They will be located in a radius of 10 ly from the first Home World
of each player. The will be of size 1000, resource 10, and fully
populated. How many should each player get?
(2 or 3 is a good number)

It is possible to add a number of 'stuff' planets. These are useless
planets, all of size 50 or less, that are use to fill up the empty space
between Home Worlds. They make it possible for a players to approach
(attack) other players by different routes.
How many 'stuff' planets per player should there be?

resulting map:

0,0                                                                        120,0
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                             o                               o     o
                              oo                   o
                                    o                            o
                        o      o    +       oo  o   o   o
                                    +             o  o  o o         o     o
  o        o                        o         o o     +     o
                                       o        o     +                 o
                     o            oo    o       oo
       o                              o o         o

o      o
o        o
            o                              o
      oo +
          +o                                              o           o o  o
       oo    o                                                              oo o
             o                                                     oo  o       o
             o  o                     o                     o          o  ++
                                                                          o
           o         o              o                    o               o o
o                o                                o                       o

o   ++     o
                 ooo                                         o
    o            o  o    o    o
               o                           o
                             o           o
                                                    o     o
      o                      o     o                              o         o o
                            o       o                                o  oo
                    o           o  o*                                      +
                            o       *o      o                        o      o
                    o           o    o                              o         o
                       o      o  oo                   o                   oo
  o     o                +      o                    o oo
 o   o  o           o    +     o                    o  +
       o                o o                     o    o +
o  +      oo               o                   oo   o
    +     o
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
0,120                                                                    120,120

As you can see, much variation...  can even be argued that this galaxy is
unfair to some players   (which could be solved by making it smaller)

Have Fun,
Frans.

References

Re: Galaxy Variants
mike@geophys.hokudai.ac.jp (Mikhail A. Menshov)
Tue, 11 Jun 1996 00:00:00 +0000