Re: Galaxy: Yet another idea to change a perfectly good game

From: sutin@helios.UCSC.EDU (Brian Sutin)

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1993 01:57:01 +0000

In article <1993Mar20.065005.7978@uvm.edu> bruneau@griffin.emba.uvm.edu (Mark L Bruneau) writes:
>when it fires.  Wouldn't it make more sense to go for your enemies
>capital ships, and ignore little popguns or drones?
>        I was thinking it would be a good idea to slightly weight the
>chances of hitting a bigger ship.  Nothing too dramatic, just a slight
>increase.

I agree with your title.  Why arbitrarily fix an unbroken game?  I can
think of thousands of changes, but do any of them fix something actually
wrong with galaxy, or do they just result in a different game?

My change would be the following:  Abolish cargo tech and cargo.  Allow
ANY ship to carry cargo, just by loading up the appropriate amount.  The
advantage is that I just removed several columns from the already too long
output, and removed 50 lines of code from the program.  The game is now
MORE complex, because if you use military ships to haul cargo, the shields
will be weaker upon arrival, and therefore more vulnerable.  Also now there
is a reason to build probes with drive greater than 1.  After all, only an
idiot would put cargo INSIDE a ship.  Just bolt it to the outside somewhere.

Another change:  This a galaxy, supposedly a disk.  Make the map generation
generate a disk, rather than a square, and then some players would not get
stuck in a corner with only two neighbors.

Both of these address problems.  One problem is that cargo makes the game
more complicated to play, and the output longer, but does not make the game
any more complex or interesting.  Another problem is that players stuck in
corners have a lack of opportunities for growth or diplomacy.

Brian Sutin				sutin@lick.ucsc.edu
Lick Observatory, UCSC			Santa Cruz, CA 95064
    Fred:   "May I rescue you?"
    Ginger: "No, thank you.  I prefer being in distress."

References

Galaxy: Yet another idea to change a perfectly good game
bruneau@griffin.emba.uvm.edu (Mark L Bruneau)
Sat, 20 Mar 1993 06:50:05 +0000

Referenced By

Galaxy: Yet another idea to change a perfectly good game
bruneau@griffin.emba.uvm.edu (Mark L Bruneau)
Sat, 20 Mar 1993 06:50:05 +0000