Re: Galaxy idea - capturing planets

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

Date: Sat, 11 Jul 1992 17:51:53 +0000

I aggree to the proposal of Gerald Siek to introduce planet capturing.
That's exactly what I was thinking about.

Russell Wallace claims that it would not be realistic to capture a
planet without causing massive damage to the economic infrastructure.
But one could also say that it is not realistic that a planet that has
been bombed can be re-colonized immediatly. In fact, the relation to
"reality" is a poor basis for arguments. And it's more important if
a new rule will make the game better, or not. For my opinion, planet
capturing would make the game _much_ better! And I will explain why.

First, let my describe a good strategy for playing Galaxy:

To win the game, you have to rise you production power. In fact, there is
no reason to attack anyone as long as you have enough planets. And as
rising the production is very expensive and very time consuming, you can
play just the economical game for a long time. Of course you have to care
for the other races nearby. Just building transports and capitals can lead
to sudden death if one fellow nearby is disturbed by the boring economical
game, if he will build some war ships, if he will attack you. So don't forget
to use a certain amount of the production for your defense. But keep in mind
that it's more expensive to build ships that are able to attack than to
build ships for defense, only. Try to spend as less as possible for defense.

There are some remarks:

1) The more player follow this strategy, the less will happen in the game.
   I mean, the opening will be extrem long (about 30-40 turns). In during
   this opening phase, the game will be boring...

2) If you will be involved in a conflict early, your chances to win the game
   are reduced dramatically. War is expensive an will stop you economical
   development. Some of your colonies may get bombed, so your industrial
   power can even decrease! All other people which are able to rise their
   industrial power while some stupid persons make war will be happy about
   this! Even if you "win" a war by elemination of you opponent, you will
   get nothing than empty planets! While you might have been able to double
   the number of your controlled plantes, other people doubled the number
   of their capitals instead. These will kill you later on simply be their
   superior production power!

3) The most important on 2) is that you don't have to start the war. Beeing
   attacked by some stupid aggressive person is sufficient. You won't never
   win the game...

So, for my opinion, there would be much more action in the game if war
could bring some profit, too! In fact, there would be more attacks! That's
the reason why planet capturing is a very good idea!

By the way: Introducing planet capturing does not mean to exclude bombing
from the game! There would simply be a choice to bomb or not to bomb, but
to capture, instead.

References

Galaxy idea - capturing planets
jerry@uni-paderborn.de (Gerald Siek)
Sat, 11 Jul 1992 09:26:59 +0000