Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

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Matt Caspermeyer
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Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Matt Caspermeyer » Sun Sep 26, 2004 9:01 pm

Let's use this topic to discuss the current Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma test.

To help players organize their thoughts, think of game scale in these terms:

</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Galactic scale - effects of your actions change your situation on a scale throughout the entire galaxy.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Planetary scale - effects of your actions change your situation on a specific planet.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Stack scale - effects of your actions change the situation of a specific stack. For example, on certain shared planets, combining forces is a simple way of increasing the strength of a stack (like a Noble stack).</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">With the above scale mindset, let's break the game down into these aspects to help us focus on each one:

</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Starting Traits - list each Trait you selected (both positive and negative) and why you selected each Trait. List your starting Trait number (see http://www.twarriors.com/~hyperion/tutorials/selectingtraits.html).</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Economics - list your starting income deficit at the beginning of the turn and your ending (hopefully) surplus. What did you do to turn it around? Capture cities, raise tithe, taxes, etc.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Resource gathering / production - list whether you couldn't produce a certain resource on turn 1 due to a resource shortage. Also project your resource harvesting / production capability (i.e. whether you have a lot of Food, etc. or you don't have much Food, etc.). Also list what affect changing tax rate is having on your harvesting / production potential.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">City selection / location - analyze the starting cities on each planet you are on. Assess whether there are too many or too few of a certain city type.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Assess Rebel units located on your planets. Are the Rebels too hard, too easy, or just right. Assess the Rebels both on an individual stack and planetary scale basis.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Identify your strategic position on the galaxy map for each planet you have units on and what your potential strategies are going to be for protection of your starting planets and expansion.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Identify whether you were at war with a specific House at the beginning of your turn and how this affected your strategy. For example, if you were at war with a single House, did you decide to retaliate against that House?</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Assess losses identified at the beginning of your turn due to a House attacking you.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Assess shared planets with the other Houses:
    </font>
      </font></li>
    • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Denote your starting forces compared with other House forces.</font></li>
    • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Denote whether a force imbalance goes into your strategy for attacking a specific House on turn 1.</font></li>
    • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Assess, strategically, why attacking a specific House is a good idea on turn 1. Do you think you can get away with it. Estimate the implications of what you have done.</font></li>
    • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">On planets with multiple Houses, discuss why you decided to attack a specific House.</font></li>
    • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If you went to war against multiple Houses on the first turn, identify why you think you can take on multiple Houses on the first turn.</font></li>
    <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Assess shared planets with AI players (i.e. Church, League, Vau) - use the above guidelines with respect to Houses to assess why you did it and what you are going to do after you have attacked them (i.e. sue for peace, stay at war, etc.).</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Identify unprotected units for any player (House or AI). Where they are, and whether you attacked them or not.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Lastly, if you exploited any map weakness or design idea list what it was and why you used it.</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">This should be plenty of information to help you formalize your ideas into a post on how your first turn went.

Now for the tough part.

Based on your comments above, identify how you would change the galaxy to improve the balance of the galaxy and PBEM game play. Also, if you identify a problem with the galaxy, you must propose a solution. Simply saying the map is bad or you do not like the map provides no information for me to make it better. If you do not like the map, explicitly state why you do not like it, and what you would do to make it better.

Consider all of the above your opening statement. You won't be able to look at the start of your next turn until later, so your comments will be made without that information. After every player has made their comments, I'm sure there will be plenty of information here for an open discussion.

Feel free to add any comments you wish, but when replying to other player's comments, do not lose site of our final goal - to improve the Corinthian Galaxy making it better for PBEM play. So try to reply to other people's comments as if you were the map designer and what you would do to make it better.

Depending on whether we decide to continue the game or not, we'll either go through turn 2 to finish our turn 1 assessment and pass the game on or we'll play turn 2 to continue assessing the map. Depending on the player's decision here, we'll either continue to make comments or we'll stop the game and have each player add their final comments.

I really want to thank the testers for taking time to make detailed notes and helping to improve this galaxy!

Matt
Matt

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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Matt Caspermeyer » Mon Sep 27, 2004 5:31 am

When I play Li Halan, I like to role play them somewhat similar as to how they are in the EFS books. This means they have a tendancy to lean towards things related to the Church and so this is how I like to select Traits for them.

Trait Selection
</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Noble Scholars: +1 - Kish is a desert world and so I thought I'd take this to get the Food bonus.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ancient Documentarium (Psychosocial Engineering): +1 - Leans towards Li Halan's affiliation with the Church and a tendancy to research Psy techs.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Disdains Trade: -2 - Once again shows their devotion to the Church and hence a tendancy to not like to do things associated with the League.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Enemy in League: -0 - Distrusting anything that the League supports, Li Halan is the League's enemy.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Total = +0</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Economics

Taxes: 1700 -> Did not record end turn taxes
Tithe: 0 -> Did not record end turn Tithe
Unit Pay: -10014 -> Did not record end turn Unit Pay
Bank: 4000 -> Did not record end turn Bank
Total: -4314 -> Did not record end turn Total, but I think it was about +4300

On Kish, I was able to capture virtually all the cities save 3. I also attacked the Church on Kish so that I could raise the Tithe to the max. Capturing cities is a great way to increase tax revenue on planets where you control the Palace.

No ships or units were disbanded (to decrease unit pay), but Unit Pay was reduced from a starting Loyalty of 75% to 55%.

I don't remember whether I increased taxes (I think I did) - will check on turn 2.

No maps sold to the Vau.
No resources sold to generate income.
No Loan taken from the League.

Resource Gathering / Production

On Kish, I did not have enough resources to produce Ceramsteel, Chemicals, and Electronics.

With the help of Noble Scholars, I received enough of a Food bonus to give me a Food surplus on Kish. I am harvesting plenty of Energy, Metal, Trace, and Exotica for right now. I purchased enough resources to help with the Chemicals, Ceramsteel, and Electronics production problem for a few turns.

On Moonvick, I did not have enough resources to produce Electronics. Captured Well, Mine, and Chemicals plant near starting units. Chemicals Plant is a key acquisition due to lack of any Chemicals production on Moonvick as well as the Well and Mine to start harvesting much needed resources.

On Quentrand, there is plenty of Food, Energy, Metal, Trace, and Exotica production, but there is a lack of any production facilities so I built a Chemicals Plant with the starting Engineer.

On Earth I have sufficient Food, Energy, and Exotica production, but lack a Mine to harvest Metal, Trace, and Gems. All Mines on Earth are fairly well protected and I have no Engineer on that planet.

As far as the outlook for resource harvesting / production, on Kish I am harvesting plenty of all the resources with a boost to Food from Noble Scholars. Without Noble Scholars, I'd be at a deficit for Food production on Kish. As far as production, I am not producing sufficient Chemicals and Electronics. Since I will not be able to build units that use Ceramsteel, Monopols, or Singularities for a while, I have sufficient amounts of these resources for the time being.

Efforts on Kish will be to build sufficient Engineers to ensure harvesting capability is matched with production capability. The Engineer was used to build roads on Kish, no cities were built.

On Moonvick, fledgling harvesting and production is ongoing. Moonvick has a lot of growth potential with respect to harvesting and production facilities.

On Quentrand, harvesting is sufficient due to a lack of production facilities on that planet. With a freshly built Chemicals Plant Chemicals are now being brought in to allow Engineers to be built in the near future.

On Earth, focus will be set to capturing a Mine if the Rebels leave one weakly defended. May need to work with other Houses to defeat Rebel defenders.

City Selection / Location

On Kish there seems to be a good representation of starting cities save a Wetware Plant. Since no units will require Wetware for a very, very long time, a Wetware Plant is not needed. Harvesting capability is more than sufficient for Metal, Trace, Gems, and Energy. Food harvesting is sufficient with Noble Scholars, but focus is needed to keep Food production high enough to build additional Engineers and cities. Exotica is sufficient for now since there is only 1 Biochems Plant.

On Moonvick, there is a starting Electronics Plant, but no starting Chemicals Plant. Nonetheless, there is a Chemicals Plant within reach on turn 1 that is capturable. The same holds for a Well and Mine. Capture of these cities is imperative to shore up harvesting and production capability needed for early units.

On Quentrand, there are virtually no production cities, but plenty of harvesting cities. Planet is almost all ocean and so harvesting hexes are at a premium for Mines, but Energy and Food will be no problem. Exotica production is also limited by land hexes. This limitation makes Quentrand far more important for its strategic location rather than its harvesting / production capability.

Rebel Assessment

On Kish, each major city cluster is protected by at least a PTS Laser Cannon and also a PTS Missile Launcher in the same city save one cluster. PTS Laser Cannons are very powerful defenders, with one PTS Laser Cannon / Missile Launcher pair in a Fort (city not attacked because of other Rebel forces including a Rebel Officer, Shock Legion, Assault Legion, Dervish, and 7 Rebel Partisans). Nonetheless, the Psy-Master, Warlocks, and Brother Battle are tough enough to take them on although the Warlocks suffered some serious damage.

On Moonvick, the Chemicals Plant is heavily defended (6 Assault Tanks and 3 Reaper Field Tanks), but the starting Li Halan forces are still sufficient to take them on and defeat them (although Armor is needed, not Foot units). Palace is going to prove to be a tough nut to crack with the Fortification and 2 PTS Missile Launchers. Fortunately, though, the other units are no more advanced than Electronics and Composite Armor (save the Noble) so a big stack of 20 should do the trick.

On Quentrand, the Palace Island is defended by multiple groups of 5 Militia and 1 Rocket Artillery. These stacks are deceptively tough (since you need to have big stacks to double up on the Rocket Artillery while wasting attacks on the fodder Militia troops, meanwhile the Rocket Artillery will get at least one good attack on the unit it is lined up with). There are also 6 Assault Legions in the Shield, which will make capturing the island a lot of fun.

On Earth, there are tough Rebel stacks peppered all over the place with a toughly defended Palace, Mines, and other cities. Cooperation seems to be the best way to handle the Rebels on Earth.

Overall, I think the Rebels seem to be well matched for the starting Li Halan forces on all these planets.

Kish is meant to be captured in basically one turn and it is. Moonvick is meant to be tough for Li Halan and Decados without reinforcements and it is. Quentrand (as previously mentioned) has far more strategic value than harvesting / production ability, but control of the Palace will afford a nice Firebird bonus to the player that can get it. Earth is meant to be extremely difficult to capture Rebel cities without taking several turns to plan, wait for Rebel AI miscues, and then weed out their forces little by little.

As far as the galaxy map is concerned, Kish is located one jump from Byzantium II so there are no intervening planets for Li Halan to worry about. Moonvick is two jumps away from Kish and Severus. Both Li Halan and Decados need to go through Byzantium II to send reinforcements. This presents an interesting position because both sides can spy the other's forces as they pass over Byz II.

Quentrand is probably the most strategic planet for the al-Malik and very crucial to Hawkwood as well. Control of Quentrand could cut off al-Malik or Hawkwood from their forces on Araindor. The al-Malik also need control of Quentrand to sustain access to Byzantium II. Hawkwood needs to control Isenias in order to maintain a Byzantium II access point, otherwise they will need to gain control of Quentrand (or secure travel through diplomacy).

Earth is very far away, but nonetheless has many Monasteries, Ruins, and Alien Ruins. This means that there can be a lot to be gain on Earth if a House can survive the first few turns there.

Identify War Status with other players

Li Halan started the game with no one at war with them.

Assess losses at beginning of turn

Li Halan did not suffer any losses before their turn.

Assess shared planets

Li Halan shares 4 other planets with other Houses: Byzantium II, Moonvick, Quentrand, and Earth.

On Byzantium II, forces were rearranged to defend cities. No other Houses were attacked due to insufficient firepower with the Assassin and Submarine to do much sustained damage. Starting forces seem to be well matched with other Houses with no single player having a significant advantage on Byzantium II.

On Moonvick, Li Halan does not have sufficient cargo-carrying units to wage large-stack sustained strikes on Decados and so Decados was left alone.

On Quentrand, al-Malik's forces were spread sufficiently such that a pre-emptive strike could be made on their forces. Time will tell if they are able to rebound from this pre-emptive strike. The al-Malik forces in the starting Fort were not attacked due to the possiblity of significant losses to the remaning Li Halan forces. Nonetheless, the damage has been done and even though al-Malik still has a strong force remaining it is smaller than Li Halan's and will need reinforcement from Istahkr. Control of the Quentrand Palace should bring in a nice income bonus since it also houses a Royal House Standard. This planet is probably the most strategic planet to Li Halan, Hawkwood, and al-Malik.

Holding on to Quentrand will probably be difficult. Will assess al-Malik reinforcement situation, may also pursue agreement with Hawkwood to assist in dealing with al-Malik depending on forces they send to Quentrand this turn. Al-Malik starts with the most powerful ship of any House (a Cybermorph Space Destroyer) and are in a very good position to do some serious damage to other House's space fleets (don't even think about visiting their homeworld with your starting space forces) and so putting pressure on them early is probably a good idea to nullify their starting advantage. They do have a weakness, though: no offensive Ranged Space attack ability so that can't bombard my cities on Quentrand and beyond.

On Earth, there are too many unknowns with respect to the other Houses starting forces and the Rebels, so the best strategic sense is to combine forces in the Fort and await other House's and Rebel actions and determine the best course of action.

Any pre-emptive attack on another House will most likely result in the destruction of all Li Halan forces on Earth and so it is best to remain prudent and not attack and decimate another House on turn 1. Also, there are plenty of Rebels both on the ground and in space to pick off weakened groups or units without Ranged Space protection and so sitting back and "turtling" is probably the best strategy.

Li Halan has little chance to interact with the League and so they were left alone. As far as the Church, on Kish there is a Church that was needed to increase income and so now Li Halan is at war with the Church. Current plan is to attempt to regain peaceful relations so that Li Halan can travel to Mecathea. If the Moonvick Church is still in Church hands, we may attempt to capture it before returning to peace with the Church.

Unprotected Units

I did not notice any unprotected units, although I know other players did.

No map weaknesses exploited.

At this juncture, since I didn't notice the unprotected ships, I am pretty open to comments about how to change the galaxy.

Things I've implemented from comments I've already heard:

</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I have added defenders to protect the ships on Leagueheim and Pacem.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The ships on Leagueheim are now pretty much very well protected and I doubt if Hazat can capture any on turn two or anyone else for that matter without at least some Ministry forces. We'll see of course. I also analyzed the stacks on Leagueheim and added units to shore up stack deficiencies (i.e. if a stack had no Air defense).</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Pacem may still be possible to capture ships if you're good at taking out Cyber Mages, but doubtful any one can capture the ships within the first couple of turns there, too.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Removed the roads on Byzantium II between the House cities, although I guess if you use your Cargo Plane, you can still capture lots of cities, although I don't mind a House's ability to do this. So maybe this change doesn't really affect anything and maybe I should leave the roads on Byzantium II.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Added defenders to the Holy Warriors on Byzantium II. This unit, in particular, keeps going back and forth between Jump and Lander. Currently they are Jump and so cannot protect themselves, but in the past were Lander and could. I know I've done this in other galaxies, too, so I'll keep an eye on this.</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Things I'm thinking about:

</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I could add a Chem Shock Legion to your Labs on Byzantium II, although I like the option of allowing players to capture your Labs on turn 1 as it shakes things up (and you have another one so you won't lose any technologies if you pick a Documentarium or three) so I'll probably leave the Labs with just the starting Assassin. Also, it saves you 500 Firebirds / turn and costs the capturing player 500 Firebirds / turn!</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Flagship Artisans - does it make sense to have them on Earth and on Byzantium II since it is an easy way to get Nobles? I could move them, I guess, or maybe I should have them generate income like Flagship Engineers so there is an incentive not to disband them? I don't really mind this strategy either, but I'm thinking long term are you going to convert a Noble to a Flagship Artisan and then build a Flagship with one or are you not likely to do that? Hmmm...</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
By the way, *I think* there was (/ is) a strategy that someone could have implemented on turn 1 to *possibly* prevent Hazat from capturing the undefended ships on Leagueheim.

Do any of you have any idea which strategy I was thinking about (not sure it would work, but I think it would)?

Matt
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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Igor » Mon Sep 27, 2004 11:50 am

Only one thing make prevent capture of unprotected unit of Legue or Church - if you take away all ships from League and Church - except transports. Or you must made a very, very good protection for it. For example - 7 ships must have 13 defending unit of high level.

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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Igor » Sat Oct 02, 2004 11:49 am

[Message edited to improve readability (just a few carriage returns here and there) - Matt]

First, it is not necessary to thank us for this description. We only play and we use result of that does Matt. It one works, and we are idlers, only we use result of his work. So, we pass to the description.

Description Hazat:

1. On Aragon - everything is seized, except for island on which there are some buildings of rebels. Without a plenty of planes or the sea ships this island to grasp it is problematic, but it is solved subsequently, that is it - not a serious problem. As a whole, rebels have been crushed, is captured, but it is a little. Capture homeworld is carried out rather easily.

2. On Shemadin all is seized much, but not. But on the third turn the planet will be seized completely. A unique problem - shortage peep, but she too is solved, if a misfortune on Church - its farm has no protection. Hence, a conclusion such - Hazat in galaxy Corinthian - advanced industrial power. But shortage peep and metal on their planets that is the serious factor for decrease in their expansion. But at Hazat there is no necessity for construction of factories as that quantity which already is present on their planets, more than it is enough for a victory. Besides one more serious problem - constant lack of money. Cathedrals on Aragon and Shemadin have the first class protection. To grasp a cathedral on Aragon in the beginning of game it is impossible even theoretically (if to not use the ships stolen at League). And it is loss church taxes which makes 6000 - 7000 each turn. It is necessary to weaken protection of cathedrals.

3. Planet Bysantium. If Houses Li-Halan and Hazat are supervised by players who are in friendly attitudes other players will be completely crushed. I have already shown, that one could grasp the buildings belonging to three players. Presence artisan in laboratory is a mistake. It easily is disbanded and turns to the aristocrat, and he is a terrible soldier! Besides I suggest to take away from players of spies and a submarine. Byzantium should be really neutral planet. If the player wants to wage war on Byzantium let brings spies from the native planet. I also suggest to reduce quantity of the buildings belonging to players on Byzantium - it is necessary to leave only a fort and a farm, and, maybe, laboratory. Scepters also need to be placed on native planets of players. One more, the farm belonging to Church, has no protection, but contains much Crusaders which capture will be a unpleasant surprise for other players. It is necessary to clean them and a farm too. The church should have only the Cathedral on Byzantium, the farm is not necessary for it! Also, on Byzantium there is a huge quantity of armies of the various ministries. The quantity of these armies needs to be reduced in some times! They even cannot be taken out from a planet as it will demand huge quantity of the transport ships which simply are not present! Hence, ground armies of the ministries are absolutely useless. I suggest instead of 100 units to leave only 20.

4. Planet Earth. If Li-Halan was my ally other players would be crushed completely. I could crush own forces Al-Malik, sustain attack Decados which has been then crushed by Hawkwood. Therefore I suggest to clean artisans from spaceports and to group all armies of each House only in forte, it will complicate destruction of the opponent on the Earth. The heap spaceports is useless, as the planet is blocked by huge fleet of rebels. All this proves, that it is necessary to enter the moratorium on war during the first course, it should be an obligatory rule at game in this galaxy, and other rules can be thrown out in garbage box. I have found bug in game - if to grasp a cathedral on a planet of the opponent and many times to change sect loyalty of enemy armies will fall up to a zero, and they make revolution, and on the following turn it is possible to send there the forwarding case which will finish restoration of a constitutional order.

5. Leagueheim. Hazat can grasp the ships of League during the first turn - for this purpose it is necessary to load fighters in the transport ship, to send on League, to unload it in an orbit and to land fighters in the unprotected cities on Leagueheim. The result will be catastrophic for other players. I suggest to establish in cities of League the same protection, as well as in new galaxy Spartan, but in exchange it is necessary to weaken protection of a cathedral on Aragon, differently at Hazat select unique advantage, and in exchange do not give anything. Yes, by the way, loyalty of armies of League should be reduced up to 75 %! Taking into account power of their armies the player should have a chance to destroy them and consequently it is necessary to lower their loyalty.

6. Pacem - the same, as at League. Here advantage at Decados. It was the silly idea - to establish an opportunity to load raider ships in the transport ship. Look video introduction in original EFS! Compare the sizes of the ships! Unless it is possible to thrust such ship in the transport ship?! It same in the sizes as a destroyer. I suggest to load into the transport ship only cybermorph type of ALL ships because only they as follows from the name, can change the form. All other ships cannot be loaded in the transport ship!

And last about Hazat - money does not suffice. It was necessary to disband a part of fleet and a great bulk of ground armies, and also captured, but loyalty of army is not reduced, though taxes should be raised. All this!
Ruslan (RA-Menmare)

Now my turn! I already gave the description of events which have taken place on my planets (in privat messages). I support offers Ruslan's. If there will be no interdiction on war during the first turn nobody will play for those Houses which do the course by the last.

On Al-Malik everything attack, and in a result, at him does not remain armies. It is unfair. That circumstance, that at him is cybermorph destroyer is an absurdity. If at him was stealth dreadnaught - then he could have a chance, but even in this case it in the worse position, than other players. It in any case is compelled to wage war against Hawkwood and Li-Halan as they are on the common planets (Araindor and ets). The peace agreement here cannot be basically, therefore war between them is inevitable. And as armies Al-Malik are scattered on all territory the armies of the opponent collected in one fist, always win. Besides planet Istahr is poor and is not advanced! The industry is absent also money does not suffice even on the maintenance of the pity rests of armies. Only the interdiction on war during the first turn can balance this galaxy, differently she is useless for game on PBEM.

Some words about Hawkwood - on planet Delfi there are not enough land forces - only by planes to win it is impossible. It is necessary even a pair assault legions. Money suffices, deficiency is not present, superfluous armies are disbanded also loyalty is not reduced.
Belsauron

<small>[ 03.10.2004, 14:28: Message edited by: Belsauron ]</small>

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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Tiberius » Sun Oct 03, 2004 12:33 am

Corinthian Galaxy - Map Analysis
The Al-Malik Point of view.

I began the game by taking the following traits:

Battlemaster
Warrior Ethic
Rule of Law

In my opinion the Battlemaster trait is essential early in the game. Initially it allows a player to make great use of Weedwaker units and other units with low armor and high indirect firepower capablities. The +20 armor that the Battlemaster trait gives to every unit stacked with a noble is such a large bonus that I can in most cases load a Blademaster and a Grimson unit and take out numerous targets with just those two units.
I’m sure that late in the game the battlemaster trait becomes somewhat marginalized as a +20 armor to high tech units isn’t as much of a bonus. Even so the bonus is huge early on.

The increased loyalty from Rule of Law allows for me to use stacks without a noble and not fear too much about my units routing in the midst of combat. In most cases I won’t need to use a stack without a noble due to the very high movement points landers have and the large movement rates of the blademasters. In any case taking the trait allows me to finish off targets that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to reach with a stack and a noble.

At the beginning of the game all of my forces on Araindor were wiped out by the Hawkwoods before I had a chance to move any of them. The main problem here is that my traits couldn’t be attributed because my forces were attacked prior to the trait’s application. Another problem I see on Araindor and on Quentrand (another planet where I was attacked prior to my first turn – by the Li-Hilan) is the presence of numerous ruins on the planet. The problem is that the Hawkwoods on Araindor or the Li-Hilan on Quentrand have the first chance to explore the ruins and possibly gain troop supplements from the ruins. If they reload the turn a few times they’ll likely find troops that can bolster what they already have on the surface. I’d recommend removing all ruins from these planets or at the very least reducing the amount of ruins and placing them in places where players don’t have access to them on the first turn.

Since the Al-Malik are moving last I’d recommend either moving the Hawkwood forces and Al-Malik forces far enough apart so that it would be impossible for the Hawkwoods to attack the main core of the Al-Malik units with all of their units or to supplement the main core of the Al-Malik units so that the Hawkwoods will take significant damage when attempting such an attack. If memory serves the Hawkwoods didn’t lose any units while they completely wiped all of my units out. I tend to think that this wasn’t the intended idea. Place the units far enough apart so that each has one turn to get themselves organized and the fight for control of Araindor will be much more interesting. Presently all Al-Malik interest in the planet is lost on turn one and there remains no further cause for conflict between the Hawkwoods and Al-Malik in that sector of the galaxy.

On Quentrand the situation either isn’t so bad or the Li-Hilan didn’t make an attempt to completely take out my units. The ruins issue is also present here. In this case it helped to bolster my position as I reloaded turns until I was able to find ruins that housed a Cruiser, Frigate and Starbase. I probably will lose the remainder of my ground units this next turn there but I now have space superiority and have moved fresh units from Istakhr to Quentrand so my position is bolstered.

The Al-Malik homeworld seems fairly sound. I was able to capture all but two rebel held cities on the planet without any significant losses. Initially I moved all of my Weedwackers and Grimson units to a city that had reble units sitting on its outskirts. I then used militia units to attack the rebels three times bringing most of my units up from Green to Expert and in some cases Elite status. Since there was a rebel held city one hex away from that location I moved in an Engineer built a road and used the same technique to bring almost all of my Weedwackers and Grimsons up to Elite status. I then loaded Grimsons and Weedwackers on transports and began cleansing the planet of all rebel influence. The fact that there weren’t any ruins on the planet is good. Ruins should have to be hunted down and shouldn’t be immediately available for the taking. One or two would have been okay but none suits me just as well. After cleansing the planet I brought all of my good forces back to the Shield city and moved the ones with the most health into transports for shipment to Quentrand where they joined my newly discovered Cruiser, Frigate and Starbase.

On Earth the Al-Malik situation is very bleak as it seems every other house took turns wiping out my initial units. I did have some units left but there were so very few of them that I had to search for a decent location to move them to for an attack. Unfortunately I loaded my best units on the air transport and inadvertently ran into a Decados held Partisan which quickly destroyed the transport and it’s cargo. Earth if a very difficult situation. It might be wise to change the units on the ground there or the locations of the cities held by the respective players such that it’s difficult to attack other houses on the first turn. Perhaps only place low movement rate units on the planet and allow players time to build a few units before others can attack them. At the very least it would allow for players to get their defenses together prior to an attack.

On Byzantium Secundus I had substantial remaining units and was able to take over quite a few cities due to the fact that the cities were left empty by other players. Since we are only playing for a turn or two other players probably saw no need to fortify labs. As such I have now taken and fortified the labs of the Hazat, Hawkwoods and Decados. Only the Li-Hilan seemed to have everything garrisoned. I should mention that several of my units on the planet were taken out since they weren’t stacked with my other good units. I think the amount of cities on B2 is fine but I’d bolster the units sitting alone in cities so that they cannot be taken out on turn one. Give a player a chance to rally his troops and prepare for the inevitable attacks that will be coming in the future. Losing them on turn one isn’t fun and really only tends to frustrate the player.
Give him a chance to get things together by bolstering his position a bit.

I haven’t made any efforts to check any of the remaining worlds for possible problems yet but that is next on the agenda. Specifically I’ll be looking for any unprotected or under protected starships.

I should also mention that I didn't make much of an effort on the first turn to take into account what kind of infrastructure is established by taking the entire planet - that is whether I gain the cities necessary to establish a proper infrastructure. I figured I'd save that for turn two. I also didn't pay too much attention to the amount of firebrands coming in and going out. It seemed there were enough to get me through the turn and probably through the next as well.

Hope the comments help.

Tiberius

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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Igor » Sun Oct 03, 2004 4:25 am

Agreed! Anybody must have chances regroup his warriors. My idea - or moratory on attack at first turn or all warriors every players must sit in one sity. This is very bad situation, when army of player sit in 4 or 5 sities. But will be better, if every player will have own planet, without forces of another players. I not like situation, when on my planet spies of another players. And about ruins - when I attack Al-Malik forces I have not used warrior, which sit in ruin - I not have enought forces for attack ruins and another player.

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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Matt Caspermeyer » Sun Oct 03, 2004 6:41 am

Great comments so far!

Belsauron:

Could you please discuss more the situation on Isenias? Losses, potential recovery plan (or letting Decados have it), etc. The same with Araindor (i.e. what's next now that the al-Malik are gone?).

Thanks!

Matt
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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Igor » Sun Oct 03, 2004 11:09 am

I already did the description of the turn in private correspondence. As to plans of counterattack, listen: On Izenias the partisans is a lot of mine. I planned to cut communications Decados and to arrange to it famine. I assigned the big hopes to forwarding armies Hazat which are in orbit Izenias and on the following turn they will enter fight on my party. The corresponding arrangement with Ruslan is achieved. Besides I have thrown all reserves on Izenias from my planet Delfi. The huge armada of the transport ships filled with armies, under covering dreadnaught and other military ships, is going to make punishment on vile green creatures. Yes my partisans are well! By the way, all partisans on Izenias are alive, and on Izenias it is ever less than armies Decados and less. And on Araindor there are no armies Al-Malik more. This House in awful position - it everyone, to whom not beat laziness!

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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Deathifier » Sun Oct 03, 2004 4:13 pm

Fighting the good fight with the Decados

It took an entire day for me to analyse and plot and plan for the first turn, and it was influced a fair bit by Hazat's evil plan to dominate the world with captured League Ships :)

Trait Selection - Well I selected my usual spread of single-player traits, which amounts to:

Noblesse oblige
Noble scholars
Enlightened Nobility
Rule of Law
Warrior Ethic
3x Tech
Battlemaster

Inbreeding
Spendthrift
Disdains Trade
Enemy In church & league

This will be adjusted next time around as the production bonuses hinder base level analysis.
I usually take at least 1 morale booster in PBEM regardless, as it stops my troops running away all the time.

Economics - Fun and games, especially with what happened during the turn.

Start of the turn:

Tax: 3900
Unit Pay: -15206
Bank: 4500
Total: -6806

Ending (unadjusted):

Tax: 7700
Tithe Skim: 7623
Unit Pay: -22407
Bank: 3851

Total: -3233

Rose taxes 10 notches, lose 30 loyalty.
Makes taxes 15400
Total: 4467

I did buy a few resources to start engineers (total of 2 underway), and the values exclude anticipated lab upkeep.


What follows is a summary of my turn, based on the blow-by-blow recording in my log file.


Planets -

Severus, the capital:
A summary of this goes as follows:
Blademaster + Assassin + Shuttle = Everything dies.

I did preliminary clearing of all but the central heavier defended cities with the 3 bombers I have (as individuals). One blew up when a rebel clergy got a psych attack off in the last building it was able to attack, the other two were damaged by random AA fire.

After it was cleared the combat crew proceeded to kill everything in sight.
They ran into I think two situations which could have killed them, one was a stack of partisans I forgot about in a lab and the other was the small rebel fleet near the rebels starport with ships.
Other big battle was a whole bunch of my units vs. the main rebel fleet on the planet. With the blademaster in there the only thing sunk was a transport I stupidly left in the attack group (sunk by water attack).

The limiter on the planet is the movement points of the shuttle, I captured all but 3 rebel buildings and those would be captured but early on I sent my entire fleet off to B2 so they couldn't do any land + capture actions (the buildings are empty). Random trackers around the place sometimes helped the blademaster team to minor effect.

At the end of it the assassin had a small amount of damage, the shuttle had a small amount (despite the PTS fire it kept taking) and the blademaster had a little. 1 or 2 turns and they'll be back to normal though.

I did capture some rebel ships, two bombers and a freighter. Nothing interesting, but they were moved and will rebel and I'll capture them next turn.

Didn't pay much attention to resources besides noting that everything was in surplus (I think), managed to build an engineer though.


Byzantium 2 - Straight from the log.
Moved an Armor Commander around and took some empty Hazat cities, probably a silly idea but anyway I retook my aborium and stocked it with some units (4 partisans, 1 Dervish, 1 Officer).


Moonvick - Shared with Li-Halan.
Couple of bad moves here, where I tried taking the church with my only mobile units in two independant attacks and got them all killed.
Other than that I moved a pile of units up north, slowly, very bloody slowly since I only have wagons for transport. Not sure if Li-Halan is capable of killing the massed units, but they can't do much anyway - either defend the cities I have, or move around, neither will achieve much.


Earth - The bloodbath:
Usually I'd sit around and hide for a bit, but since I was annoyed at Hazat I loaded up whatever I could and went halfway across the planet to kill one of their two stacks. Left behind is the worlds largest, and most useless, stack of trackers! I have a 4:1 bet that one of the nearby rebel stacks killed them :D

Anyway the Hazat force was killed, my group is a couple of units short of a full stack of combat units so I left everything together. Judging by reports later in the turn this stack got killed, if so it took all of my transport ability and my Blademaster with it, but it is impossible to have made it any stronger.

I do have one partisan that Al Malik somehow ran into, Hazat killed the other but alone its useless, maybe I'll free some rebels with it.

IMO Earth should be limited to small house fortresses, few (but powerful, house specific) combat units and only basic transport abilities. The idea is that the houses can sit in their forts and wait until help arrives from the main worlds, fight nearby rebels but not slaughter each other.
Get rid of the starport cluster, or move the starport and its contents to the houses fortified area.


Isenias - Clashing with Hawkwood.
I set out here to see what kind of damage can be done, and the result was less than encouraging.

In a series of brutal battles my forces took the church (well ok, it was 14 infantry units and a heavy infantry, and one got hurt), sailed my fleet over to Hawkwoods little island and killed their two guided missile ships with the loss of the heavy infantry unit.

Ground Forces Move SE, attack fort:

3 Shock Tank Killer
8 Shock Med Tank
1 Grimsons
1 Covert Legion
2 Trackers
1 Noble

VS.

Noble (Game assumes it is battlemastered)
1 PTS Missile System
2 Fighters
1 Guided Missile Destroyer
1 Guided Missile Battleship
4 Heavy Infantry

2 Shock Tank Killers Lost
5 Shock Med Tanks Lost
Damage to remaining tank killer and 1 trackers.

And to finish:
Group attacks Starport

1 Shock Tank Killer
3 Shock Med Tank
1 Grimsons
1 Covert Legion
2 Trackers
1 Noble

VS.

1 Battle Carrier
1 Advanced SOC -- [That is a normal SOC - Matt]
2 Advanced Gunboats

Lost another 2 Shock Med Tanks.

Also sank their sub, land transport and sea transport with a couple of bombers.
Their remaining forces total some partisans, and whilst they can take buildings they have no mobility and will eventually be caught once my fleet gets back.

As a summary I think most of my useful ground units were killed, the ships survived and there is a good chance that Hawkwood would be deadly if those guided missile ships were able to combine with the noble as I believe my fleet is inferior (as a note tests with my fleet vs. just a 1 Guided Missile Cruiser and Guided Missile Frigate resulted in the complete destruction of my side, and theirs hardly scratched, hence the use of land forces!).

That was all the planet-side combat, other interesting bits.
Space fleet is a bit on the light side, I get:
Talon, Power Fighter, Jump Fighter, Raider, Cruiser.

Plus the two rebel bombers gives me a full carrier, a raider and a weakest bombardment ship - I somehow doubt this will stand up to much.

I was able to use the Jump Fighter, Talon and to my Surprise the Raider to head first to B2 (where the raider killed the Hazat Raider there) and then use the B2 Solar Flare to take the group to PACEM. The raider killed a hazat scout mech and the jump fighter stole some church battleships for extra firepower ;)

I didn't really need the Raider, just took it along for amusement - alone it's a fairly week ship, and being loadable doesn't help it much aside from letting it strike and flee (though the transport gets stuck behind), but then jump fighters would work just as well, as would anything else that is loadable and jump capable.

In summary the Decados are in a fairly ok position, but the weak fleet and the "Kill or be killed" deal with Hawkwood on Isenias puts them into a precarious position - failure to seize Isenias will definitely put them behind, and if Hawkwood has a stronger fleet and is able to reinforce things may not go so well.
Famine and such on the planet is a non-issue, B2 is next door with food in the event that stocks are destroyed, and I sieze some off Hawkwood anyway when they are taken out ;)

Earth is just a mess and needs an overhaul and Moonvick is a non-issue since it has nothing but some food and units on it - the loss of either would not hurt.

That is my first turn summary.

- Deathifier

<small>[ 04.10.2004, 03:34: Message edited by: Matt Caspermeyer ]</small>

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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Matt Caspermeyer » Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:50 am

First of all, these are great comments!

I'm going to summarize all the key points, present solutions, ask questions, etc.

Trait Selection

The Houses picked the following Positive Traits:
Noblesse Oblige (+4): Loyalty
Noble Scholars (+1): Food Bonus
Enlightened Nobility (+2): Research Bonus
Rule of Law (+4): Loyalty
Warrior Ethic (+2): Expert units on production
Administration (+3): Income Bonus
Ancient Documentarium (+1-+3): Tech Bonus
Battlemaster (+10): +20 Armor Bonus

A note on Battlemaster, TRAITS.DAT defines starting Traits for each House at a specific difficulty. Battlemaster is selected for every House at every difficulty so that Noble stacks are much better defended on turn 1 and so that the AI players will always have it. Attack a Noble stack on turn 1 before they get their turn and you'll see that Battlemaster is listed up there for the defender.

Should Battlemaster be tuned down? This is easily accomplished by scaling Armor and Attack Strength (Hyperion scaled Armor and Attack Strength down to make reading values easier (some Armor values used 4 digits previously) while increasing the effectiveness of Battlemaster dramatically).

Should this Trait be left alone and have the +10 changed to a higher value? Every player but one picked Battlemaster.

The strength in Battlemaster lies in its use offensively. It can be reduced by making it harder for Nobles to attack offensively. Personally, I like how effective it is, but it is certainly meant for beginners and intermediate players so it is not surprising to see how effective it is in the hands of experts.

The Houses picked the following Negative Traits:
Inbreeding (-0): Negative is irrelevant
Spendthrift (-2): League prices 10% higher
Disdains Trade (-2): League prices 10% higher
Enemy in Church (-1): Lower chance Church will agree with a contract
Enemy in League (-0): Negative is irrelevant

I think you can see from the Trait selection that players value Loyalty, Technology, and combat abilities.

A re-assessment of the bonus value ratings for the Positive and Negative Traits should probably be done. An example of this is that the 2 Positive Loyalty Traits increase Unit and City Loyalty while Tyranny only decreases Unit Loyalty, yet the absolute value of the Trait Ratings are the same.

Economics

It seems like virtually all players were able to capture at least 90% of their cities on their homeworlds on the first turn. Players were able to make ends meet monetarily by this action, plus adjusting either loyalty, taxes, or disbanding units.

With respect to disbanding units, I noted that players who disbanded units did not decrease their Unit Pay (Loyalty), nor did they increase their Taxes. This is your choice, you could have easily reduced your Loyalty or increased your Taxes to keep these units rather than disband them.

As far as the Tithe, here is what I can gather from the posts: Li Halan siezed Kish Church, Decados siezed (I'm not sure) at least Isenias Church?, (I think) al-Malik siezed their Church on Istahkr. I'm not sure if Hawkwood siezed their Church on Delphi.

Nonetheless, I know that the Churches on Kish, Severus, Delphi, Istahkr, Isenias, and Quentrand can be siezed on turn 1 if the Houses on those planets so wish it.

Here is a simple Palace / Church tally for each House:

Li Halan: P:1+1(Quentrand), C:1+1(Quentrand) = 2+2
Hazat: P:2, C:0 = 2+0
Decados: P:2-1(Isenias), C:1+1(Isenias) = 3+1/-1
Hawkwood: P:1+1(Isenias), C:1+1(Isenias) = 2+2
al-Malik: P:1+1(Quentrand), C:1+1(Quentrand) = 2+2

The +/-1 refers to a Palace or Church that can be contended between 2 different Houses on turn 1 and whether it is possible a House can gain (+) or lose (-) that structure on turn 1.

Economically, each House at least has a chance of a +2 (total Palace + Church) at the end of turn 1.

This, alone, is insufficient to maintain the cost of units on turn 1 without altering Taxes, Tithe, Unit Pay, or disbanding units. Nonetheless, I don't perceive this as a that bad of a problem.

Additionally, I have not mentioned the Royal House Standard on Quentrand, Moonvick, and Araindor (+2400 Firebirds/turn at 100% Loyalty).

Economically, here is my assessment of each House's position through the first few turns:

Li Halan: Potential for 3 Palaces and 3 Churches
Hazat: Potential for 2 Palaces and 1 Church (on Osquen)
Decados: Potential for 3 Palaces and 3 Churches
Hawkwood: Potential for 3 Palaces and 3 Churches
al-Malik: Potential for 3 Palaces and 3 Churches

With this potential, though, Li Halan, Decados, Hawkwood, and al-Malik are fighting over the same Palaces and Churches and so some players are going to be winners and others losers, only Hazat is out of the fray (so to speak) with respect to this interplanetary conflict.

No Houses sold resources to the League as far as I know. I do know that each House has a starting Cyclotron on their homeworld and Singularities can be sold to the League for extra income if a player needs it (since they won't be able to build spaceships for quite a while).

To my knowledge, no players took advantage of selling maps to the Vau (let me know if you did) and no players took a Loan from the League (although Hazat and Decados are good candidates for this on turn 2, no rules, remember?).

Selling maps to the Vau could have offset some players disbanding units and they could have taken out a loan for that matter if they really wanted to.

Economically, I think all players have enough knobs to tweak to bring their economy under control on turn 1 and to plan for the future.

Resource Gathering / Production

Not much has been mentioned on this, so hopefully on turn 2 players will have a better assessment of the state of this aspect of the game.

One thing to note is that the League will stock the Agoras with more resources per the change made in the EFS.EXE. This should also prove to be able to sustain the high Food / Metal requirements of Engineers for city construction and expansion.

City Selection / Location

Not much has been mentioned about the city selection on planets, hopefully more information will be provided on turn 2, but I think all Houses should be able to determine what they are short on and resolve deficiencies by building additional cities. The question here is whether more Rebel cities should be provided to shore up deficiencies on capture or require the player to develop the planet as they see fit.

Nonetheless, some information was provided:
</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Church Farm on Byzantium II is unnecessary and should either be removed or changed to another city.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ruins on shared planets should potentially be removed. Alien Ruins should probably be removed as well. If I remove a Ruin / Alien Ruin, it will be moved to another planet so that players can still get these Ruins, eventually.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Churches on Aragon and Schemadin are virtually impossible to defeat early in the game. This is true, and as such Hazat was originally designed such that they were the hardest player to play. Hazat should be able to capture the Church on Osquen when they get there. Nonetheless, I can see where weakening the Church protectors on Aragon is probably a good idea so that Hazat can capture the Church and build Psy units early in the game.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The number of House cities on Byzantium II are too numerous. There is at least a minimum of a Fort, Factory, and Starport so that the AI players can build units here in a protected environment. Also the Lab prevents the Church from burning it and also is another AI crutch. The University is present to allow the Houses to build special Ministry units when they get the technology. Lastly the Arborium is there so that Houses do not have to keep shipping Food to Byzantium II. The Wells are there so that players could build Submarines (now Submarines are built in Forts). I'm not sure if I'll be changing Amphibious units back to Wells, but they are built in Forts so that the AI can build them there. So if Submarines stay being built in Forts then the Wells can probably be removed.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The presence of the Ministry forces on Byzantium II are meant for one thing - the declaration of the Emperor. Once that happens, war will break out on Byzantium II and each Minister will be able to use those forces to potentially stop the Emperor from achieving victory as 2 Ministries will be better than 1 Ministry + the Imperial Guard. So it is best that the Ministers leave these forces alone so that they are able to thwart a potential Emperorship attempt.</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Rebel Assessment

Since all Houses were able to capture virtually all of their cities on their respective homeworlds it seems like the Rebel defenders are not too difficult. Next is the question of do players think it is too easy or are they just right?

We'll also be able to better assess the Rebels after they have made their turn, so I'm hoping we'll see more information on this as players assess the beginning of their next turns.

Identify War Status with other players

From what I can gather:

Li Halan went to war with: al-Malik
Hazat went to war with: Decados, Hawkwood, al-Malik
Decados went to war with: Hawkwood
Hawkwood went to war with: al-Malik

Here is the House Relations matrix:

Code: Select all

-----------------------------
    | LH | Hz | De | Hk | aM |
 -----------------------------
 LH |    |    |    |    | Wa |
 -----------------------------
 Hz |    |    | Wa | Wa | Wa |
 -----------------------------
 De |    | Wa |    | Wa |    |
 -----------------------------
 Hk |    | Wa | Wa |    | Wa |
 -----------------------------
 aM | Wa | Wa |    | Wa |    |
 -----------------------------
I realize that this test only goes a few turns, but I'd like players to discuss the feasibility of their actions.

If I look at the Relations matrix logically, here are the potential alliances:

Li Halan <-> Hazat
Li Halan <^> Decados (improbable, more on this later)
Li Halan <~> Hawkwood (tenuous, more on this later)
Decados <-> al-Malik

Assess losses at beginning of turn

Li Halan lost no units at the beginning of their turn
Hazat lost no units at the beginning of their turn
Decados lost some units on Byzantium II at the beginning of their turn
Hawkwood lost some units on Byzantium II and almost all their units on Isenias at the beginning of their turn
al-Malik lost almost all their units on Earth, all their units on Araindor, a significant portion of their units on Earth, and a few of their units on Byzantium II (is this correct?) at the beginning of their turn

Assess shared planets

Lots of great feedback here! From what I can gather, here are the comments.

Earth (all Houses present) - too many units are spread out and it is too easy to take advantage of combining forces and decimating a specific side if your turn is before another player's.

What happened:</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hazat destroyed virtually all al-Malik starting forces</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Decados destroyed virtually all remaining Hazat forces</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hawkwood detroyed virtually all remaining Decados forces.</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Recommended Action:
Concentrate starting forces to prevent players from picking off small House stacks with their combined forces before Houses that take their turns later can combine their forces and defend themselves.

Byzantium II (all Houses present) - all House's Nobles are fairly well protected in their starting Forts. The remaining forces are scattered with a few units here and there, but it seemed like with an Assassin and Submarine, that players wouldn't be able to get far here. I must be overlooking something.

What happened:</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The details are sketchy to me, but somehow Hazat was able to defeat the Defenders of 3? Labs and other cities with just an Assassin and Submarine? Is this correct? Am I missing something here? I never seem to get very far with the Assassin and Submarine, but maybe I'm attacking cities in the wrong order.</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Recommended Action:
I'm not sure what to do here as the details are sketchy, but recommendations are to remove the Submarines and Assassins and replace with units that cannot attack on Byzantium II. It should be noted that Li Halan, Decados, and al-Malik all have multiple Submarines within a jump of Byzantium II and so players better be wary of that and so removing the Submarines and Assassins might not really help much and be disadvantageous for Hazat and Hawkwood.

Moonvick (Li Halan and Decados) - there seems to be sufficient separation between Li Halan and Decados to prevent any first turn, planet-clearing strikes.

What happened:</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Neither House attacked the other</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Recommended Action:
None, or group Decados forces more tightly to ensure that Li Halan cannot destroy starting Decados forces.

Quentrand (Li Halan and al-Malik) - forces are very close to one another, but al-Malik has superior starting forces.

What happened:</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Li Halan attacked and destroyed small al-Malik stacks before al-Malik could defend themselves.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Primary al-Malik Noble stack not attacked due to starting Battlemaster Trait for al-Malik (see above comment about starting Traits) and the presence of sufficient forces to cause significant damage to Li Halan forces (Li Halan did not select Battlemaster Trait)</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">al-Malik recovered by attacking Ruins and capturing spaceships. Not sure whether Li Halan forces were attacked on the ground or in space, will assess at beginning of turn 2</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Recommended Action:
This is tough, but things could have potentially been different if Li Halan selected the Battlemaster Trait. Nontheless, Battlemaster or not, this planet cannot be held onto by Li Halan by themselves long term. Li Halan needs to enlist help from Hawkwood as al-Malik can send his Cybermorph Destroyer to Quentrand and blockade the planet and prevent Li Halan from bringing reinforcements while wearing down the Li Halan forces. Also, even with the Battlemaster Trait, Li Halan will suffer significant losses destroying the fortified al-Malik Battlemastered Noble stack. I think this type of polarizing situation makes the game much more interesting so I'd be reluctant to remove it (although it might make sense to move 1 or 2 key units to the al-Malik Fort to make Li Halan's losses more significant if they attempt to remove al-Malik from Quentrand on turn 1).

Isenias (Decados and Hawkwood) - forces are near enough for Decados to attack Hawkwood forces, but Hawkwood forces are vastly superior to starting Decados forces.

What happened:</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Decados engaged and destroyed all starting Hawkwood forces, save the scattered Rebel Partisans.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not certain about the details of Hawkwood response, need more information</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Recommended Action:
This is another tough one. The starting Decados space fleet is inferior to Hawkwood's and so it will be tough for Decados to (normally) hold onto this planet without help from the al-Malik as (similar to Quentrand) Hawkwood can blockade the planet from Decados reinforcements. So it is almost mandatory that Decados eliminate the starting Hawkwood forces if they have any hope for holding on to the planet. If any changes are made here, it would be the movement of 1 or 2 key units to the starting Hawkwood Noble stack to increase Decados' losses.

At this point, I want to bring attention to the planets Quentrand and Isenias. These planets are designed to polarize the game if players take advantage of their starting advantage. I really like this aspect of the Corinthian galaxy as it sets things in motion very quickly with respect to polarizing alliances and wars.

Araindor (Hawkwood and al-Malik) - forces between Hawkwood and al-Malik are evenly matched, but in very close proximity and spread out amongst the starting cities.

What happenned:</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hawkwood destroyed all starting al-Malik forces (both sides had Battlemaster).</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Recommended Action:
Since Hawkwood was able to leverage their Battlemaster trait to attack (I'm assuming here) al-Malik's forces with full stacks of 20 units they easily decimated the al-Malik forces. Either move al-Malik and Hawkwood forces far enough away (not likely with Hover units) or combine forces. Combining forces is the better solution here. It is important that the tension remain on this planet by ensuring that Hawkwood cannot take out the al-Malik forces at the beginning of the game. Plus, it will be a race to reinforce Araindor and overcome the opponent's forces to gain control of that planet.

Unprotected Units

There were unprotected units on Byzantium II that Hazat captured on turn 1.
There were unprotected units on Pacem that Decados captured on turn 1.
There are uprotected units on Leagueheim that Hazat will capture on turn 2.
There is an undefended Farm on Schemadin - this is surprising for me, I know there used to be units in that city. Oh well, I'll add a few units.

Recommended Action:
Protect unprotected ships. I have already done this. The ships are not meant to be captured by any House without an enormous amount of effort.

Discussion of Logicalness of House Actions

Here I am going to assess the logicalness (or how logical) it was for a House to perform the actions they did based on a long term assessment (I realize actions are being based on short term assessment, but this will serve as a reality check).

Li Halan decisions.

Quentrand - it probably does not make sense for Li Halan to put effort into holding on to Quentrand unless he can ensure that an alliance is forged with Hawkwood to help keep al-Malik from reinforcing the planet. Nonetheless, it is probably better to go down fighting rather than trying to work an agreement with al-Malik to stay or to abandon the planet (although I've already abandoned the planet in another PBEM, which is a good way to save the Noble). Also, if Hawkwood and al-Malik can make an alliance, then they could easily remove Li Halan from Quentrand.

Hazat Decisions:

Attacking al-Malik on Earth was probably an okay decision, but Hazat should have returned to their Fort (not sure if they did) with their highest Armor forces to ensure that they could hold on to their Statue of the Prophets to help offset the cost of snagging the space ships on Leagueheim (Hazat's plan) and the ships they snatched on Byzantium II. It may have been better to just sit in the Fort and not do anything, but al-Malik has no recourse of retaliating so Hazat probably can away with this.

Attacking the Houses on Byzantium II does not make sense except for al-Malik since they attacked them on Earth (did Hazat attack al-Malik? I guess I'll find out...) and Hazat would need to ensure that the al-Malik were not in a position to retaliate.

Decados Decisions:

It makes no sense to attack House Hazat as they pose no immediate threat on Earth. Since Decados is going to attack Hawkwood on Isenias, it makes much better sense for Decados to attack Hawkwood on Earth rather than Hazat (and potentially form an alliance with Hazat since Decados are going to snatch the ships on Pacem) since Hawkwood must retaliate on Earth after Decados attacks Hawkwood on Isenias.

On Isenias, Decados really has no choice but to attack Hawkwood there because if they don't Hawkwood's forces will regroup and destroy Decados' forces. Nonetheless, holding on to the planet is going to be tough unless they forge an alliance with al-Malik to bring some more firepower to bear on the superior Hawkwood space fleet. Interestingly, if Hawkwood and al-Malik can forge an alliance, they could easily blockade Quentrand and Isenias and push both Li Halan and Decados off those respective planets. A scary proposition now that I think about it.

Hawkwood Decisions:

Attacking Decados on Earth makes perfect sense, especially after Decados attacked Hawkwood on Isenias. Hawkwood also had the advantage on Araindor and it makes perfect sense to do this, save for the strategic implications mentioned above in the loss of a potential alliance with al-Malik to remove Li Halan from Quentrand and Decados from Isenias.

al-Malik Decisions:

Since al-Malik's forces are pretty battered by the time they get their turn they need to keep their poise and determine what they are going to do. Searching Ruins on Quentrand is a great way to bolster their space fleet and shore up the deficiency of no Ranged Space bombarding capability, and they have the units to do it in their starting Fort. Since it was mentioned that Araindor is now a non-issue, it probably makes sense for al-Malik to still pursue an alliance with Hawkwood if the loss of a Noble is deemed as no big deal.

Planetary Assessment on Galactic Scale

Quentrand - al-Malik needs to control this planet to ensure access to Byzantium II
Isenias - Hawkwood needs to control this planet to ensure access to Byzantium II
Moonvick - much more important for its production potential, strategic location significant due to being one jump away from Byzantium II, not strategic otherwise.
Earth - much more important for what is on Earth (lots of Ruins, Alien Ruins, and Universities); production potential is about average.

Player starting Loyalty

Comments have been made that Rebel, Church, and League units should not have 100% Loyalty due to the quality of the units of those sides or now with the change in EFS.INI not greater than 75%.

I understand that it is fun to allow players to capture units, but I am very careful (usually anyway) when it comes to allowing players to capture really powerful units. Basically if a unit is more than 2 upgrade levels down (i.e. a Cybermorph Space Frigate is a Level 3 unit or a Maruader Legion is a Level 4 unit) I rarely like to leave it available for capture.

If you note the technology level of the units that the Church, League, and Rebels have, they are advanced. I want to make attacking these players difficult, but the question is - are they too difficult? It is hard to say, but I know that the players here are very good and I feel they are up to the challenge of attacking computer players with such an overwhelming advantage.

I also realize that I do give some of the Ministries quite a few "toys" (i.e. advanced units). Maybe I should limit their units to Level 2 units and below so that they are not so powerful. This is something I certainly need to think about.

Comments on Hyperion Mod Changes / Suggested Changes:

</font>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">EFS.INI was changed so that units with 75% Loyalty or greater do not route (EFS.INI is only looked at when the game is started, after that, those settings are in affect the whole game). I'm still evaluating this change. Before this setting was 90%. I really do not like the way units route in the game and if I could change it, I would.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Engineeers cost roughly 200 Food and 500 Metal (like the old Hyperion days), but is this too much? I'm still evaluating this change, intuition tends to lean towards this not causing a problem, but we'll see in PBEM's.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">A comment has been made about loadable space units. The Space Raider unit class and Level 3 & 4 Space Frigates are loadable. It has been suggested to make all Cybermorph space ships (save those with Cargo Pods) loadable (since they can morph into the Cargo bay). While this is actually a neat idea, this would simply make these units way too powerful, especially over their Stealth counterparts (where it is meant to make the selection between the 2 best space ship classes difficult). I am going to change it so that the Level 3 & 4 Space Frigates are not loadable, though, but I am still on the fence regarding the Space Raider unit class. I know that the game pictures show these ships as big capital ships, but I like the strategic advantage of allowing these ships to be loadable as it adds to their mystic. So I'm still thinking about what to do here and so for now they are going to stay loadable as I think about this game aspect more.</font></li>
  • <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Flagship Artisans are easily disbanded back to Nobles (especially when players do not have the technologies to build Flagships). I think (maybe) to entice players not to be so willing to disband them, I am going to allow them to generate income like their big brothers, the Flagship Engineers. I am also going to move them to homeworlds or other strategic places where players are more apt to be able to hold on to them.</font></li>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well, I hope everyone will comment on the summary above and provide their opinions on my assessments (especially if they disagree with them).

On to turn 2!

Matt
Matt

Deathifier
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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Deathifier » Mon Oct 04, 2004 8:05 am

Some extra notes:

I captured the church on Severus, it was the first thing I did (with a horde of milita). The only buildings not under my control are 3 empty rebel cities, the agora and the imperial eye fort.

The moves on earth were almost solely in response to denying Hazat the income from two royal house standards, so that hopefully most of their captured league fleet won't get far.
Take this out of the equation and it's much more likely I would have attacked hawkwood.
The problem with that is I really only have one proper AA unit to shoot down all their fighters and bombers - the ships just don't have the range to attack the fort.
Thus I would have probably just sat in my Fort or Well and waited.

The Hazat have two stacks on Earth, I took out one, this was the battle in what used to be the Al-Malik fort:
2 Desolator
1 Frigate
1 Destroyer
1 Aircraft Carrier
1 Stealth Scout Lander Mech
1 Stealth Tank
1 Security Specialist
1 Sniper
1 Battleship
1 SOC
1 Gunboat
1 Blademaster
1 Violator
1 Cruiser
2 Trackers
1 Guppy

VS.

1 Guided Missile Cruiser
3 Anti-Infantry Tanks
1 Power Transport
1 Covert Legion
2 SP Anit-Tank
1 SP Artillery
2 Noble
1 Cybercorp
1 SPF Legion

Losses were 1 Frigate, 1 Sniper, 1 SOC, 1 Gunboat
Damage was moderate to the battleship, destroyer and Cruiser plus one Desolator with 3% health.

The other stack has a Noble, Blademaster, 4 SPF, 1 Covert, 1 Violator, 1 Tornado, 1 Guided Missile Destroyer, 1 Guided Missile Cruiser, 1 Mini Sub, a cargo plane and powered naval transport.

The only ground troops I have that didn't take part in the battle were a horde of trackers.

Am waiting to see what turns up on Turn 2 :)

- Deathifier

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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Igor » Mon Oct 04, 2004 10:10 am

I see that you will not use our comments and advices. Interesting, why we post our messages? Nothing that Ruslan and I want to change - Matt will not use. I think that our comments are useless.

Matt Caspermeyer
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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Matt Caspermeyer » Mon Oct 04, 2004 3:20 pm

Belsauron:

I guess my post was a little too long and boring and you must have nodded off (I'm being somewhat sarcastic since I spent all day on the post) before I got to the part where I basically went through most of Ruslan's comments - see the section on City Selection / Location? Each bullet under that section is from a comment that Ruslan made and I have found a lot of his comments really good (and am probably going to implement most of his comments) as well as Deathifier's and Tiberius'.

I have had a hard time extracting information from your comments and emails, but I have done the best I could based on the limited information you provided.

Nonetheless, you and other players have mentioned that combining forces on planets is probably the best way to go - see that in the Recommended Actions under the specific planet analysis (especially for Earth and Araindor)? Some of the other planets probably need a discussion (hence this forum) as certain actions I think are good for PBEM.

So, maybe I did miss a few things, if you feel I have missed a few things why don't you enlighten me rather than complain as I value everyone's input!

I'm certainly not a mind reader, though, and so if you expect me to figure out what you're thinking just post it! If not I'll try to use my psychic powers to read your mind (just kidding and trying to lighten the mood :) ). Seriously, if you think I've overlooked something or missed the point, just post it here! That is the purpose of this topic anyway, to discuss these things as my post above is simply my opinion and if anyone here disagrees let's discuss it openly, calmly, and figure out what we want to do.

I am a little slow sometimes, but I do try to listen to everyone's comments and I am a fast learner - so just try me. You won't be disappointed! :) ;)

Matt
Matt

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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Igor » Tue Oct 05, 2004 11:54 am

For example, from your comment follows, that on structure of Church armies in a cathedral on Aragon you will not bring any changes, motivating it is that Hazat - hardest player - is not argument.
I disagree that armies from 75 % of loyalty do not recede are a bad idea. Besides we discuss changes for PBEM game. As to complication of game in single player mod it will not strengthen AI as it plays very poorly and to play singleplayer mod not interestingly. Let's change conditions for game on PBEM! Cost of engineers is very high is tightens game for many months. As to loading the ships in the transport ships - I agree with Ruslan's as with game should correspond to an original plot.

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Re: Hyperion Corinthian Galaxy Gamma Test - Comments / Discu

Postby Matt Caspermeyer » Tue Oct 05, 2004 4:44 pm

Belsauron:

For example, from your comment follows, that on structure of Church armies in a cathedral on Aragon you will not bring any changes, motivating it is that Hazat - hardest player - is not argument.
If you look at my post above, I state:

Nonetheless, I can see where weakening the Church protectors on Aragon is probably a good idea so that Hazat can capture the Church and build Psy units early in the game.
So I'm almost 100% certain that I'm going to implement this change and weaken the Hazat Church (just haven't gotten around to doing it yet).

I disagree that armies from 75 % of loyalty do not recede are a bad idea. Besides we discuss changes for PBEM game. As to complication of game in single player mod it will not strengthen AI as it plays very poorly and to play singleplayer mod not interestingly. Let's change conditions for game on PBEM!
To which I wrote:

EFS.INI was changed so that units with 75% Loyalty or greater do not route (EFS.INI is only looked at when the game is started, after that, those settings are in affect the whole game). I'm still evaluating this change. Before this setting was 90%. I really do not like the way units route in the game and if I could change it, I would.
So as you can see, I am considering the change with respect to the Loyalty and routing. The big thing here is that if you think of it from a designer's perspective, what do you want to allow players to get away with? I do realize capturing units is fun, but it is also enjoyable to make sure that players put a lot of effort into earning big rewards.

I know that I can capture virtually any unit that can route in the game, from lowly Militia to Hover Destroyers, etc. by using the right kind of fire power. I also realize that pretty much any expert player can do this, too.

Here is the design problem that is tough to solve: How do I make maps that are good for both single and PBEM play? It is a hard requirement to meet, because as you make the maps harder, the computer players have a harder time being competitive because as you and I know, they are not very smart.

So I try to toe that fine line and it is not easy. So I make virtually all high-technology Rebel, Church, and League units 100%. I also changed it so that units with 75% Loyalty do not route, which is usually the Loyalty of starting House units, so that other players cannot route and capture players units on turn 1. I thought this was actually a good idea because I know on Araindor Hawkwood was always capturing a lot of al-Malik forces, but maybe it was not the best solution. Maybe it is better to just bump up the Loyalty of those starting units rather than set the unit routing to as low as 75% in EFS.INI.

It is a tough decision, but at least I'm still evaluating it.

Cost of engineers is very high is tightens game for many months.
To which I wrote:

Engineeers cost roughly 200 Food and 500 Metal (like the old Hyperion days), but is this too much? I'm still evaluating this change, intuition tends to lean towards this not causing a problem, but we'll see in PBEM's.
Once again, I'm still evaluating this change. I need more data. I realize that this consumes more resources, but I know playing Hazat that the Aragon Agora is restocked virtually every turn and it is easy to produce an Engineer a turn (or so) at the beginning of the game. And that is with a significant Food shortage on Aragon as well.

I'm actually confident that players will be able to sustain a high Engineer build rate. But if you're using money to sustain captured space ships, keep your Loyalty high - that is your decision, but City and Unit Loyalty can be dropped to 25% without Rebellion and so this is a viable option for generating sufficient money to buy resources from the League.

As to loading the ships in the transport ships - I agree with Ruslan's as with game should correspond to an original plot.
To which I wrote:

A comment has been made about loadable space units. The Space Raider unit class and Level 3 & 4 Space Frigates are loadable. It has been suggested to make all Cybermorph space ships (save those with Cargo Pods) loadable (since they can morph into the Cargo bay). While this is actually a neat idea, this would simply make these units way too powerful, especially over their Stealth counterparts (where it is meant to make the selection between the 2 best space ship classes difficult). I am going to change it so that the Level 3 & 4 Space Frigates are not loadable, though, but I am still on the fence regarding the Space Raider unit class. I know that the game pictures show these ships as big capital ships, but I like the strategic advantage of allowing these ships to be loadable as it adds to their mystic. So I'm still thinking about what to do here and so for now they are going to stay loadable as I think about this game aspect more.
So you can see here that I am making one change - changing the Space Frigate unit class to not be loadable. The jury is still out on the Space Raider class, I could really go either way, but think about it from a design perspective and how powerful the Space Raider class is.

Let's look at some extremes. I think we can agree that the Space Torpedo Bomber class is not incredibly powerful such that passing one from planet to planet is not a real devasting game breaker, but if a Cadiz Dreadnought was loadable, that would be seriously scary! So the big question is: does allowing the Space Raider class to be loadable affect the game in a negative way such that it should not be allowed? I know it is a big capital ship (in Hyperion it is slightly smaller than the Space Frigate class and considered the smallest capital ship), but does allowing it to be loaded aboard Cargo ships represent a bad thing for Hyperion?

Not sure, that is why I am still thinking about it.

I think you can see from the above post that I have listened very closely to your and Ruslan's comments and have encapsulated them in my turn 1 analysis. We may not agree on the solutions, but at least they are being brought out in the open where they can be discussed and other people can present their opinions.

Designing a mod and maps to make everyone happy is not my goal. I'm trying to design a mod that produces one of the most fun while challenging playing experiences for any given player. I'm hoping that because you are playing you are having a lot of fun and find playing Hyperion games challenging!

The big question is what can I do to make it more fun and challenging at the same time? Hmmm... a tough one to answer, I'm sure!

:)

Matt
Matt


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