Re: subtle question of game ethics

From: dagibbs@quantum.qnx.com (David Gibbs)

Date: Thu, 04 Feb 1993 16:16:18 +0000

In article <1863@idacrd.UUCP> desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins) writes:
>Hel <boyiny@math.mit.edu> writes:
>> I am not sure I even understand the rationale for colonising newly wiped
>> homeworlds.  Typically, a player have some planets within 15 or so that is
>> decent and I would rather opt for massive capitalisation to industrialise a
>> nearby planet fully and to boost my tech before attempting to fully
>> populate far away planets, even ones as good as homeworlds!
>
>As I have noted previously, I strongly believe in distributed
>colonization rather than "massive capitalisation."  The latter is much
>more expensive in the long run; in my opinion, much more so than any
>short-term defensive savings.

Actually, what I have found works best in a mixture of the two --
do a distributed colonization effort with colonists, so you send
them all over the place, but work to industrialize one or two
better worlds at a time.  This is especially useful if you expect
you may end up in a war -- for producing ships it is better to
have one or two fully developped colonies and several hardly
developped ones than to have a bunch of partially developped
colonies.

Of course, I could be wrong also, but I am current production leader
in Beta, even though I started with my closest adjacent planet over
9 light years away.  (Beta has reached turn 16, so I would consider
this to be fairly representative of the "initial development stage"
which is what is under discussion.)

> On early wars.

I personally don't like early wars, they do generally tend to inhibit
all players involved's economic growth.  But there are cases where
they are neccessary or even beneficial, not in the short term, but
definitely in the long term.  Getting rid of a neighbour can make for
a lot more lebensraum around turn 14-20 when you start to have filled
up your initial planets, also if that neighbour is hostile, it is
better to get rid of him early than late -- especially if you have
the co-operation of his other neighbours.  It will cost you, since
every bit of mass spent on combat ships could have been transports or
capital, but it is often worth it.

>If someone makes a significant attack on you (not just a mass-2 raider)
>and you sustain no losses, then that person is inept and you can just
>not worry about them one way or the other.

Or, you got lucky.  Or you defended properly.  I generally build a
orbital fort on turn 2 or so -- so if somebody launches a 99 mass
ship against me I have about a 50% advantage on it. (I would expect
it to need about half its mass in drive to get anywhere fast enough.)

Launching an attack like this doesn't neccessarily imply that the
player is inept, just that they got unlucky and picked the wrong
neighbour to attack.

-David
(dagibbs@quantum.qnx.com)
(Bytor in Beta, Homebodies in Gamma, adopted Ooze in Alpha and VOC in Game 7)

References

Re: Stupid Newbie (again)
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Thu, 28 Jan 1993 04:15:47 +0000
subtle question of game ethics
Hel, Queen of LogeSpawn
Mon, 01 Feb 1993 17:23:16 +0000
Re: subtle question of game ethics
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Tue, 02 Feb 1993 23:09:48 +0000
Re: Stupid Newbie (again)
gulla@Lise.Unit.NO (Anders H}kon Gulla)
Tue, 19 Jan 1993 15:09:55 +0000