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:
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- <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>
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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
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| LH | Hz | De | Hk | aM |
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LH | | | | | Wa |
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Hz | | | Wa | Wa | Wa |
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De | | Wa | | Wa | |
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Hk | | Wa | Wa | | Wa |
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aM | Wa | Wa | | Wa | |
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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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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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