Decennial Resurgence (game 39) Information

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Azool
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Decennial Resurgence (game 39) Information

Post by Azool »

Please feel free to ask questions or clarifications. Comments are of course welcome, but please keep in mind that this map is going to be played. So if you have a criticism please fully explain it and offer suggestions

Reference Map for Universe: http://www.azool.us/smr/DR-Basic.jpg
Reference Map for Strife Gal: http://www.azool.us/smr/DR-Planets.jpg

General map description: The universe is designed to force top contending players (anyone who intends to complete for a top position in any category, ie kills, trading exp, trade profit, port raids, etc) to a central location. This design is reminiscent of past SM rounds. Many methods were used to accomplish this task. For starters, racial galaxies were given subpar trade routes. These routes are relatively safe with fed being so close to them, and this is intended to give newer players a safe environment away from most hunters where they can trade and learn the game. Any “advanced” player will likely seek more gain and to do so will need to move to the neutral galaxies. Traders will almost always want to park in federal space since it is the only 100% safe solution if you want to stay alive. However, with a universe designed with 1 major trading galaxy this leads to a significant advantage for jump ships. To counter this advantage, 2 intermediate galaxies “Drip” and “Drop” were added between fed space and the trading hub (Fleeting Unity) this requires that all ships must pass through a narrow piece of space and somewhat reduces the major jump advantage.

Since all non-jump ships must pass through a single sector to enter neutral space (warp between Drop-Unity) this makes hunting much easier as scouts can be placed at the entrance, or a hunter can simply sit on this warp. In order to mitigate this hunting advantage, a couple things were done. 1) There are no weapon shops in the neutral galaxy. This prevents hunters from quickly arming in neutral space and jumping on a player anytime they get pings and then quickly selling and being safe back in fed space (more on this effect later). 2) Forces in this galaxy will expire in 18 hours, so as to not allow hunters to mine routes, or leave CDs to pick up later. 3) The neutral is a large galaxy. This means that a player could potentially log off in open space and save turns from fedding and not have to worry about pinging enemy scouts around the choke point to the Unity galaxy. This obviously carries some risk, but the reward can be great if the player lives. 4) There are many warps connecting to the even larger “Eternal Strife” galaxy. Players can similarly hide in open space here, or they can take a somewhat safer approach and land on a planet. With typical SMR rounds players would not be able to land on planets early in the game (since they are not considered safe at such low levels). In order to try to make this a viable option, NPC planets were added. These planets range anywhere from level 15-45 and are fully stocked. Once an alliance has busted these planets they can claim them and provide a safer place for traders and hunters to land. Landing on these planets obviously gives an advantage to hunters and traders in the fact that they have more turns available to trade and hunt (since hunters do not have to arm, and traders do not have to pass through Drip-Drop and waste turns). The tradeoff is that they are exposed landing on a planet.

As discussed earlier, to obtain the best weapon setup, players must travel to Eternal Strife. This typically will cost a significant amount of turns. If the player decides that this turn cost is too much, the player can elect to buy a less powerful setup from the locations scattered in the racial galaxies for significantly less turns. The tradeoff is great weapons/high turn cost, or lesser weapons/low turn cost. Further, this significant turn cost to arm with the best weapons leads to another trade off. The hunter/opper can either land on a planet and save 100+ turns of arming per day, but risk dying, or they can sit in fed and spend 100+ turns arming with the best weapons before an op/hunting. If the player takes more of a risk, they are rewarded with having to spend less turns and they can play longer.


Fleeting Unity specifics: This galaxy is intended to be a trading galaxy. The routes in this gal are significantly better than the racial galaxies, and it is closer to fed than the alternate trading galaxy (Eternal Strife). All ship shops (except Fed, UG and racials) are located in this galaxy. The galaxy has no weapons, which means for an ideal setup, players must travel into the other neutral. There is also no fed located inside the galaxy, thus there are no fed routes, and all traders must trade far from safety with only 1 path returning them to fed space. The idea of this galaxy is that all competitive players will be trading here to gain the advantage of more exp and more money. This creates a central hub for hunting and ultimately creates more action between hunters and traders.


Strife Specifics: This is the planet galaxy. In this galaxy there are certain planet “clusters” around. Each cluster has unique advantages and disadvantages. For example (refer to planet link above) the cluster labeled “2” has a CA and also contains ports; however, the majority of the planets are located only 1 sector away from the uno and are near warps, so alliances may pop in unexpectantly.

For cluster “6”, the advantages are that it contains the Nuke and has a planet quite deep, so more sectors can be mined to slow the enemy before they reach your planet. Controlling a location can give a significant advantage as you can deny access to enemies, and ensure access to a good item for youself. The disadvantages of this cluster is that the planets are far from the action, so your alliance will have to spend more turns getting from your planet out to the fight. Also, planets are generally closer to the uno than in other clusters and this cluster is further from the CA, making it difficult to mine. Finally, there are no ports in the cluster, so stocking the planets is difficult and “safe route” building is not possible.

For cluster “11”: Advantages: control the UG ships, control CA, easy mining, hard to clear. Disadvantages: unos very close to all planets once the mines have been cleared. Similarly, there are no ports in this cluster.

As you can see, each cluster has certain advantages and disadvantages, and these should be considered by all alliances planning to take a section of space. For more advantage/disadvantage analysis of each cluster feel free to contact me or post here and we can discuss further, but the point is that each has its positives and negatives.

As you can also see, some locations in the map are “controllable” meaning that a group of players can “easily” defend it. For example, there is a planet cluster that contains the HHG. If an alliance claims this territory, they could conceivably mine the entrances and keep any players outside of their alliance from obtaining the weapon easily. Keep in mind that while this may seem to give that alliance a major advantage, they gain this advantage at the cost of other disadvantages (ie no ports, far from action, unos close to planets, far from CA, or many other possible disadvantages) and that these clusters are equally obtainable by all alliances. This is true for most of the perceivable advantages (ie CA in cluster, good routes near cluster, far from uno, etc).
Further, this galaxy seems quite large at 30x50; however, this can be quite deceiving. This galaxy contains 20+ warps that connect to sectors inside of itself. For example, there are warps from cluster 4 that lead to the entrance to every other cluster. This means you can leave your cluster and ~12 turns (2 warps + 2 sectors) later be in the enemies cluster. So even though it seems you may be separated by 80-100+ sectors, the turns required to get there may be significantly less than anticipated.

The goal/intent of this galaxy is to provide somewhere for players to sleep. Players who sleep in this galaxy (whether on planets, or in open space, or in a dead end) risk dying, but they gain the advantage of having more turns than those who fed. It is a tradeoff that must be evaluated by all players/alliances.
In both neutral galaxies there are NPC forces. The vast majority of these forces protect strategic locations (planets, level 5 weapons, fed ships, UG ships, CA) but there are also random forces scattered around both neutral galaxies. The locations of these random forces were determined by random number generation as were the amount of mines included with them (the amount of CDs is always the same as the number of mines). The intention of these mines is to not allow players to grab powerful weapons/planets/etc early on, but rather require that they work toward obtaining these items. Once they are obtained by 1 alliance then typically they are open and available to everyone (ie once the path to PPL is cleared by alliance A, any player could get to this location without hitting NPC mines). It is highly recommended that early in the game you carry a scanner with you while you are in the neutral galaxies and scan sectors before entering so as to not hit mines and be destroyed.


Conclusion: The map is designed to offer a vast array of tradeoffs to players and alliances (Should I fed and waste turns? Or land on a planet and have more turns to fight, but risk dying? Should I trade in a safe low money racial route? Or a risky high money route in the neutral? Should I claim the HHG? Or take a cluster with a CA?). Also, the map intends to force the majority of competing players to 2 galaxies (Unity and Strife) creating essentially a 2000 sector highly connected (with warps) universe for players to interact, resulting in more action trading, hunting, opping, and competing for locations.

Enjoy the game!
Men are born to succeed, not fail.
-Henry David Thoreau
Azool
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Re: Decennial Resurgence (game 39) Information

Post by Azool »

Reserved for additions and Q&A
Men are born to succeed, not fail.
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seldum
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Re: Decennial Resurgence (game 39) Information

Post by seldum »

This map would have been better suited for the draft round when it was limited to two teams. As it stands of late SMr has only been able to support 2 competitive alliances with a few small trading / newbie training alliances. SM had a player base ten times the size of ours. Our main goal should be to promote the game to new players to grow our player base and make it easier for them to experience the game in its entirety. Generally speaking new players expect instant gratification not horrible gains on a horrible racial galaxy route. It is also my opinion that the complexity of the map greatly increases an already steep learning curve for new players as well as lessening the desire of an alliance trying to be successful to recruit and attempt to teach the game to the newer players.

As for the other flaws I see them as I saw them before as challenges that can be overcome by a strong team.
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Kard
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Re: Decennial Resurgence (game 39) Information

Post by Kard »

seldum wrote:This map would have been better suited for the draft round when it was limited to two teams. As it stands of late SMr has only been able to support 2 competitive alliances with a few small trading / newbie training alliances. SM had a player base ten times the size of ours. Our main goal should be to promote the game to new players to grow our player base and make it easier for them to experience the game in its entirety. Generally speaking new players expect instant gratification not horrible gains on a horrible racial galaxy route. It is also my opinion that the complexity of the map greatly increases an already steep learning curve for new players as well as lessening the desire of an alliance trying to be successful to recruit and attempt to teach the game to the newer players.

As for the other flaws I see them as I saw them before as challenges that can be overcome by a strong team.
I disagree. Put a small fish in a small fish bowl, it doesnt grow. You have to design maps for more action then the previous round, so it has room to grow. If we design every round as a fast food, watered down version, no one stays. Its instant satisfaction, and done. Give them a proper meal. Let them taste the game in its entiretiy. If they dont make it that far because its to hard or big, then so be it. If they do, then we grow. But years of cookie cutter maps, that consist of a neutral gal leading to many small planet gals and CA gal, well those have gotten boring, and most importantly, have not helped the player base grow one bit. Lets at least try something new. Which is in fact not something new at all, but a winning formula that was used in the past for map design.

Talk is cheap, proof is in the results. An almost 40 ship battle. When is the last time youve seen that.
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Infinity
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Re: Decennial Resurgence (game 39) Information

Post by Infinity »

Generally speaking new players expect instant gratification not horrible gains on a horrible racial galaxy route.
Well, he is right about this, and trust me I trained new players - they do not see the point of something if the gain isnt slightly augmented.

No comments on the map, I would just like clusters to be different than they were so we have a reason to explore and not anticipate enemy's strategy right away.
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Re: Decennial Resurgence (game 39) Information

Post by N.ator »

sweet this game actually seems like it will be fun! seems like a very hunters paradise though! but thats ok!

i think we should put http://www.azool.us/smr/DR-Basic.jpg (that image) as a link on the galaxy map when you click it.. when you click galaxy map, when you are able to choose a gal you are able to view this image.. i think it will help the solo players or people who dont access the forums
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Purify
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Re: Decennial Resurgence (game 39) Information

Post by Purify »

While your explanation is well worded and thought out, I have to disagree with the whole premise of trying to create some sort of balance of player decisions. When you have to make choices with trade-offs like you have presented what often happens is that people just don't play. For example, I was going to come back and play this game.... but I see that only WQ has any type of decent trade route... so... i haven't moved yet. Players get frustrated with the difficulty of tasks they enjoy doing... so they just don't do anything. Making an arming route of 100+ turns is not going to encourage more people to park on unsafe planets or in the open like you have suggested.... instead it is going to encourage them to arm up less often.

On top of this you have actually made a map that favours Ikky and high XP cloakers. Ikky players do not have to really arm up as any level 4 or 5 weapons will suffice, so the long arming route has no effect. In addition, you have created numerous choke points that high XP cloakers can sit and try and pick people off. The long arming routes have little effect on these players too.

I have one request regarding this map and that is after the game is over you post again critiquing how the map worked and how it did not work. If we are going to have 'ambitious' maps like this we might as well learn from the process instead of making the same mistakes over and over again.

I have often said that 'a map cannot make a game it can only break a game'.... I have the fear that this map falls in the latter category, but only time will tell.
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