Re: Galaxy

From: markhof@ls12r.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Ingolf Markhof)

Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1993 16:24:17 +0000

In article <1993Mar1.115202.14978@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, js138@cus.cam.ac.uk (John Sloan) writes:
|> I've come to the conclusion, after many (well a couple) hours o musing, that
|> Galaxy suffers from the same feature prevalent in many Starspanning stragey games
|> which is this - it is too hard to defend.  Now this gives the advantage to the
|> attacker, which may be no bad thing, but means that in general the person who
|> attacks first will win, and you are left to simply outguessing your opponents as
|> to when that will be, as a war which is too evenly balanced will leave both of
|> you crippled.

Sorry, but I can't aggree to this. Why do you think that it's to hard to defend?!?
For my opinion, just the opposite is true: It's to hard to attack! An attacker has
to spend many, many ship mass points for the drives of the attacking fleet, while
the defender doesn't need any drive. Example: An attacker may attack with [a 1 a a 0]
ships, while the defender can simply build [0 1 d d 0] ships, i.e. the attacker will
use 1/3th of its ship mass for drive, weapons and shields, while the defender can
put 50% in weapons and shields, only.

Moreover, there is in fact no sufficient advantage if you attack someone else. As
industrial development is very hard and time consuming, you will usually have enough
uncontested planets to develop. This development will need much time. Why should
you attack someone else if you still have enough room? As you will in fact destroy
any equipment on conquered planets by bombing, you may hit your enemy, but there
is no economical advantage for this. (Although there may a strategic advantage, but
you must keep in mind that other people will continue to build cap's while you're
consuming you industrial power to kill just one of your neighbours).

Therefore, the usual way to play galaxy is to found some colonies on the planets
nearby you homeworld, first. You'll then use an long time to develop these colonies.
In this peroid, there is no need for warships with an attack capability. So, it's
better to build unmoveable bases or slow warships to be placed on your colonies for
defensive purposes. When you're colonies are get full of colonists and capitals,
you will get into another phase of the game, where you'll need to attack. In fact,
this is the time when the game really begins...

|> So my suggestion is this - limit the maximum distance which ships can travel.  If
|> the furthest a ship could (safely) travel was 20 light years, then there would
|> be strategic planets in large open tracts of space, ownership of which would be
|> vital to continue past them.  This would allow people to have a modicum of a
|> defensive strategy - defending only the key planets, and leaving the rest of the
|> defenses of large tracts of open space.

Sorry, but there _is_ a maximum speed that ships can travel. This maximum may be
raised by drive technology and is therefore different for different players. But
technology is expensive. And a warships will ever need a remarkable amount of weapon
and shield mass, so the actual speed for warships is ever far below the maximum!
An as mentioned above, you _can_ concentrate on defending key planets by building
unmoveable star bases!

|> Furthermore, I suggest that the max safe warp should be of the order of 10 light
|> years, with 15ly having 50% chance of safe success and 20ly having 0%.  Thus you
|> could colonise easily enough (small cargo ships are cheap), but attacking across
|> large distances would be tricky.

Oh no! - I'd just like to make another change: Conquering other players colonies should
not end in bombing the colonies. Instead, you should be able to choose between the
following:

1) "Bomb" the planet: This will remove all enemy populattion from the planet, but
   not destroy all the capitals: 30 % of the capitals will be left.

2) "Occupy" the planet: This will neither destroy col's or cap's, but you'll control
    the colony. The colonies IP output is reduced by 30%, enemy population will not
    grow any more and you cannot unload any of your col's on the planet. But besides
    of this changes, the colony behaves as beeing on of your colonies as long as you'll
    have at least one armed ships in orbit, i.e., you can choose the colonies production
    and may build ships or develop technology by using its IP's. - The original owner
    of the colony may, however, free his people by reconquering the planet.

Comments?

References

Galaxy
js138@cus.cam.ac.uk (John Sloan)
Mon, 01 Mar 1993 11:52:02 +0000

Referenced By

Galaxy
js138@cus.cam.ac.uk (John Sloan)
Mon, 01 Mar 1993 11:52:02 +0000