Re: Galaxy Results Format

From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)

Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 16:10:04 +0000

Curt Welch <curt@oasys.dt.navy.mil> writes:
> I think building industry is fine, but having to grow population just
> makes the game more tedious and time consuming.  The tedium of
> planning the logistics of the transportation of colonist and capitol
> are exactly the type of thing that you could automate.

I think this quote just goes to show how differently different players
see the game.  I strongly suspect that the parts of the game I find
interesting are exactly the parts you find uninteresting, and vice
versa.  What I like about Galaxy is the challenge of maximizing growth
by optimizing the schedule for producing ships, capital, and research,
and for delivering resources to colonized worlds.  (This was a very big
part of the version 2.X game.  It is less significant in 3.X simply
because maximizing growth is so much easier.)

Of course I have also played and enjoyed PBM games which are much more
complicated than Galaxy.  Games which are 10 on the 1-to-10 scale, where
Galaxy is about a 3.  (Eventually I did decide that the 10 was too much,
and that I prefer no more than 8 or so.)

> But once you decide which planets to develop, and how many turns you
> are going to spend building industry, then the rest - i.e.  making
> sure you have your transports in the right place and making sure you
> have more colonist than industry, and making sure you have all the
> correct routes set up, and generating all the B,L,S, and R commands is
> booring and time consuming.  I find I can usually make the initial
> decisions in about 5 minutes, then I quite often spend another 60
> minutes checking and double checking all the logistics issues.

To be perfectly frank, if you are making these basic decisions in 5
minutes, you are doing a pretty lousy job.  How do you decide exactly
how much of each resource you need in each place?  And exactly what ship
designs will be most valuable in the long run?  And when to buy research
vs. when to build ships?

There's a reason that I have the largest industry in each of two games I
am in (Clarke and Alpha).  It's because I take care with these
decisions.  You just can't make these long-term decisions in even
approximately the best way without making some detailed calculations of
their consequences.

David desJardins

References

Galaxy Results Format
markhof@ls12r.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Ingolf Markhof)
Tue, 22 Dec 1992 14:17:20 +0000
Re: Galaxy Results Format
hankins@cs.swarthmore.edu (Luke Hankins)
Wed, 23 Dec 1992 18:39:55 +0000
Re: Galaxy Results Format
curt@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Curt Welch)
Wed, 23 Dec 1992 22:13:10 +0000

Referenced By

Galaxy Results Format
markhof@ls12r.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Ingolf Markhof)
Tue, 22 Dec 1992 14:17:20 +0000
Re: Galaxy Results Format
hankins@cs.swarthmore.edu (Luke Hankins)
Wed, 23 Dec 1992 18:39:55 +0000
Re: Galaxy Results Format
curt@oasys.dt.navy.mil (Curt Welch)
Wed, 23 Dec 1992 22:13:10 +0000