Re: Galaxy Variants

From: Tim Hughes <t.hughes@dial.pipex.com>

Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 00:00:00 +0000

Jonathan Cebra wrote:
>
> >Good luck in your searches, but none of the latest new ideas has
> >impressed me as something good for the game;-)

The simplest answer to Franz's problem on ownership of worlds would seem to be
to add a new order "CONQUER planetname".  The effect being that if the issuing
players' units survive the battle then they attempt to take over the planet.  If
two or more players issue the order then they are deemed to be "at war" at that
planet and fight.  This should cover the cases of either betrayal or order
foul-up.

On the point of game balance I would agree with Jonathan. Galaxy is indeed
well-balanced (and I suspect carefully playtested to be so).  I think that
capturing planets will severely unbalance Galaxy.  When you lose an important
planet its a disaster.  If the enemy captures it intact, that would be double
disaster.  Surely this will just lead to an unstoppable "blitzkrieg" effect?  I
suggest that if capturing is allowed then there must either be a counter-order
to raze a planet before it falls into enemy hands (Scorched-earth?) or some
partial destruction of infrastructure (say 30-70%) to represent "collateral
damage" and the disruption wrought by invasion.

As an aside: I don't like either option.  Galaxy is about xenophobic and
xenocidally-inclined alien species hell-bent on mutual destruction.  Capturing
alien population/industry just doesn't fit my personal rationale.

My own preference for possible additions to Galaxy would be:

1.  Allowing ships to carry other ships as cargo.  There are lots of
possibilities.  "Carriers" which move driveless battleships/fortresses to a
planet.  "Mine Layers" where you drop lots of small ships at a world to disrupt
enemy movements.  With high CARGO tech you could perhaps build fast carriers
which deploy slow moving, heavy armed fleets deep in enemy territory.  You'd
have to playtest this carefully to get the SHIPMASS to CARGOMASS ratio to give a
proper pay back for the resources invested.

2.  As in Blind Galaxy ONE CAP invested produced TWO Industry - this should
speed up development reasonably.

3.  I'd like to explore the idea of terraforming.  Allow a new item like CAP
called TER which increases the effective size of worlds.  This could be allied
with a new Tech called ECO which governs the effectiveness of such units.  This
should allow a number of new strategies without disturbing the balance.

4.  Recalling ships in hyperspace would add an interesting twist.  There are
various possibilities here, the one I'm interested in is replicating a dummy
attack or feint. i.e. you threaten an attack at one planet when the real intent
is launch the main attack alsewhere.  I'm not really in favour of being able to
redirect ships in flight, just generating the threat of attack without actually
fighting.  Perhaps one could issue a "FEINT planetname groupnumber" order when
ships are initially moved?

> One variant which I have enjoyed which was used in Fall and Winter is to limit
> the turn status report to information about the player receiving the report....  snip

This definitely sounds like Blind Galaxy to me, which is indeed strategically
and tactically a very different game from Galaxy.  From what little I have seen
of Blind Galaxy it is a more difficult game to play as you need to spend much
more time figuring out what is going on.

References

Re: Galaxy Variants
mike@geophys.hokudai.ac.jp (Mikhail A. Menshov)
Sat, 08 Jun 1996 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Galaxy Variants
cebra@ids2.idsonline.com (Jonathan Cebra)
Sun, 09 Jun 1996 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Galaxy Variants
mike@geophys.hokudai.ac.jp (Mikhail A. Menshov)
Sat, 08 Jun 1996 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Galaxy Variants
cebra@ids2.idsonline.com (Jonathan Cebra)
Sun, 09 Jun 1996 00:00:00 +0000