Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kebooo]

http://www.criticorum.com/devolution.html

Some of the scenarios on that site are interesting, but the links are dead.  Don't suppose you still have the files?

No, I believe those were all made by Tiberius, and I haven't talked to him since those many years ago for our Devolution game, probably the most fun game I ever played.  It's actually pretty easy to edit unit stats and various game mechanics, as well as create scenarios or galaxies with an intuitive map editor.  I've considered trying to rebalance the game myself (I consider both vanilla EFS and Nova unbalanced), but I think I'm too lazy for that.  The Hyperion patch was very popular, and its creator figured out a way to make the Vau active and also designed the Symbiots to be more of a threat, but I could never really get into it since he changed the units and style of the game enough so that it didn't quite feel right to me.

[Kebooo]

I'd like to add some of the important "hidden" resources, as well as the gems/exotica of each planet (the only two resources that can't be harvested from generic terrain), so I don't have an inherent advantage because of this knowledge.

Absolution (2 gems, 0 exotica)
Apshai (2 gems, 2 exotica)
Aragon (1 gem, 4 exotica) - Fertile marker beneath the Agora
Artemis (0 gems, 12 exotica)
Aylon (0 gems, 3 exotica)
Bannockburn (0 gems, 1 exotica)
Byzantium II (0 gems, 0 exotica)
Cadavus (2 gems, 0 exotica)
Cadiz (2 gems, 0 exotica)
Chernobog (5 gems, 14 exotica)
Criticorum (0 gems, 1 exotica)
Daishan (3 gems, 0 exotica)
De Moley (1 gems, 0 exotica)
Delphi (4 gems, 4 exotica)
Grail (1 gems, 1 exotica) - Trace marker under the farm south of the electronics
Gwynneth (2 gems, 0 exotica)
Holy Terra (0 gems, 7 exotica) - Metal marker beneath electronics on west coast of US, exotica marker beneath factory in China, exotica marker beneath mine in Europe, metal marker beneath fort in Australia
Icon (1 gems, 4 exotica)
Istakhr (3 gems, 0 exotica)
Kish (1 gems, 1 exotica) - Metal marker under the Li-Halan fort, metal marker under the rebel farm in th esouth
Leagueheim (0 gems, 0 exotica)
Leminkainen (2 gems, 4 exotica)
Madoc (0 gems, 2 exotica) - Metal marker under northern factory in the shield complex
Malignatius (7 gems, 0 exotica) - Fertile marker beneath a mine that's above gems on east continent, gem marker beneath the mine southwest of that mine, gem marker beneath the aborium on east continent, fertile marker beneath the factory on east continent, fertile marker beneath aborium on west continent, fertile marker beneath factory near that aborium on west continent
Manitou (1 gems (in the very south edge of screen), 11 exotica)
Midian (4 gems, 2 exotica)
Nowhere (1 gems, 0 exotica)
Pandemonium (1 gems, 2 exotica)
Pentateuch (1 gems, 1 exotica)
Pyre (1 gems, 0 exotica)
Rampart (0 gems, 14 exotica)
Ravenna (1 gems, 5 exotica)
Severus (1 gems, 11 exotica) - Exotica marker beneath the Decados factory, exotica marker beneath the Decados aborium
Shaprut (4 gems, 3 exotica)
Stigmata (0 gems, 7 exotica) - Energy marker beneath the southern island's fort
Sutek (0 gems, 0 exotica)
Tethys (0 gems, 0 exotica)
Vau (0 gems, 0 exotica)
Vera Cruz (5 gems, 7 exotica)
Vril-Ya (2 gems, 2 exotica)

So let's say this is how the galaxy ends up:

Li-Halan (assuming) Kish, Icon, Midian, Apshai, Criticorum, Rampart, Pandemonium, and half of Malignatius (4 gem half):
13 gems, 26 exotica
Hazat (assuming) Aragon, Vera Cruz, Sutek, Pyre, Madoc, Grail:
8 gems, 14 exotica
Decados (assuming) Severus, De Moley, Cadavus, Cadiz, Vril-Ya, Vau, Manitou:
9 gems, 24 exotica
Hawkwood (assuming) Delphi, Tethys, Ravenna, Gwynneth, Leminkainen, Pentateuch, Artemis:
10 gems, 26 exotica (add 7 more exotica if they take Holy Terra)
Al-malik (assuming) Istakhr, Aylon, Shaprut, Nowhere, Bannockburn, Daishin, Chernobog, Absolution and half of Malignatius (3 gem half):
21 gems, 21 exotica (add 7 more exotica if they take Stigmata)

As you can see Al-malik has the chance to become the wealthiest, with the highest gems, trace, energy, and number of planets (assuming expansion into symbiot triangle).  Their disadvantage is distance from Byzantium II, Stigmata in their backyard, and having to conquer Symbiots.  Li-Halan has many strong planets to expand to, but also has the most disputed planets to contend with virtually every faction but Hawkwood.  Hawkwood has great positioning and close proximity to Byzantium II, but is low on trace and food.  Decados is balanced overall, but no direct link to Byzantium II.  Hazat has the easiest access to Byzantium II, with 50% of all the links, but is the weakest on both gems and exotica in this kind of setup.  So more or less all of the factions are fairly balanced except Al-malik will become the most powerful every time in the hands of a great player, and that's why the least experienced should play as them (in my opinion).

[Kejardon]

and my diplomacy always falls to shambles after I pull a Borat-esque move, alienating the other players.

Take a look at mainiac in the other thread. This game can only transcend to greatness if someone does stuff like that, so that's no excuse not to play.
Although... if you don't know how to play well it might not work out as well... maybe we should do some practice stuff first?

[Il Palazzo]

Let me give you some advice: play on a random map. It's so much better not to know what planets are going to turn into valuable assets. Oh, and you can turn the Symbiots into a real threat by genning a galaxy without the Stigmata bottleneck keeping them at bay(if you wish so).

And do yourself a favour and recruit only die hard fans of the game, if you can - this is just too much of a commitment to keep the neophytes playing. Maybe PM'ing those people in the original thread who lately expressed interest would help?

Also, IMO, it's better to turn off the plague - it prevents some silly situations, like having an outbreak on Byzantium, just because somebody couldn't/forgot to bring food.

[Il Palazzo]

and my diplomacy always falls to shambles after I pull a Borat-esque move, alienating the other players.

Take a look at mainiac in the other thread. This game can only transcend to greatness if someone does stuff like that, so that's no excuse not to play.

Oh, but he didn't antagonise other players per se, more like, he got to powerful, while failing to prevent an anti-mainiac coalition from forming.

[Kejardon]

Also, IMO, it's better to turn off the plague - it prevents some silly situations, like having an outbreak on Byzantium, just because somebody couldn't/forgot to bring food.

Oh jeeze, I never thought of that. I'm suddenly glad the computer cheats and doesn't really need to have food to avoid starving.

[Kebooo]

I'm personally in favor of the plague, mainly because most players are going to move their nobles away from their starting forts on Byzantium II at some point or another anyway, and it's against house rules to intentionally starve your units to create the plague.  Plague bombs are a powerful weapon that can lead to interesting diplomatic situations (EFS weapons of mass destruction!) and the real, urgent requirement to have food, and quickly, with universal warehouse off adds another dimension to the game.  If no other player is willing to land food and give it to another player on Byzantium II (using a spy unit to transfer it), and that player has no friendly routes to Byzantium II, then they should at least warn players 1-2 turns before starvation will set in there.  Plus that player obviously has no friends and no route to the key planet in the game so they're screwed anyway.

I agree with Palazzo that only people really interested in this game should sign-up...my longest game went on for 1.5 years, maybe even 2, and we didn't even finish it.  I think we got to about 125-150 turns in.  Granted there were times where we'd go a few weeks, maybe even a month, without a full turn played.  If you don't want to eventually play tedious 1 hour turns, you better hope someone has a really cunning plan to win the game earlier than usual or else you won't enjoy the end game.

I also support playing on a random map (I don't care that much either way), but there's a few conditions that we should follow if we do: 1) every one agrees to the random map, so that all players have a general sphere of influence they can conquer, and not have too difficult a route to Byzantium II and 2) Stigmata closes in the symbiots.  Having dangerous symbiots is fun, but it's also some real trouble for whoever they're near.  They're the only AI faction willing to actually land on your homeworld and start taking it over.  This is especially dangerous to a less experienced player.

The beauty of random maps is not knowing where any gems are except your own homeworlds.  That adds some real exploration, especially for players familiar with the historical map, and you won't know which structures are farms, mines, and so forth.  Stumbling upon a desert world or barren world is generally exciting in a random map.  The downside is that rebels are at 0% loyalty on these random planets so you have to disband them after you capture them.

[Il Palazzo]

The downside is that rebels are at 0% loyalty on these random planets so you have to disband them after you capture them.

they will revert to 75% loyalty after rebelling, so if you can capture them twice...

[mainiac]

and my diplomacy always falls to shambles after I pull a Borat-esque move, alienating the other players.

Take a look at mainiac in the other thread. This game can only transcend to greatness if someone does stuff like that, so that's no excuse not to play.

Oh, but he didn't antagonise other players per se, more like, he got to powerful, while failing to prevent an anti-mainiac coalition from forming.

So much of what's happening is behind the scenes that I don't think it can be fully appreciated from the outside.  I'm right in the middle, and I don't plan on making judgments until the game is finally over.

The balance of power is so fickle that every victory is also a liability, every defeat is also an asset.  It reminds me of a scene from Charlie Wilson's War:

Gust Avrakotos: There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. the boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later The boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "how terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful."
Charlie Wilson: Now the Zen master says, "We'll see."

That ball keeps bouncing...

[Il Palazzo]

The balance of power is so fickle that every victory is also a liability, every defeat is also an asset.

How true.

[Mlittle]

Are you guys full? I can find time for the second game and this time I get to play form the day 1.

[Kejardon]

you'll have to duke it out with CJ1145 I guess. He kinda volunteered for it but I don't know how enthusiastic he was about actually playing.

Current role list (unless I'm missing something)

1. nahkh
2. Kejardon, claiming Hawkwood
3. Keboo, claiming not Al-Malik I guess
4. Dwarmin
5. CJ1145 or Mlittle

[Kebooo]

I don't really care who plays, but in the case of CJ1145, he's never played EFS or any hex based games, so there's no guarantee he will even enjoy the game the game at all, and it's not as fun to replace a player after their empire has already been started.

Either way it looks like we have five, so we should decide on:

1) Who is playing which house
2) If we're playing with traits or not (using recommended Nova rules)
3) If we're playing with plague on or not (I suggest we do)
and
4) Historical or random galaxy

I don't care which house I play, although my longest games I played were as as Hawkwood, Hazat, and Al-malik, so I would prefer to play as Decados or Li-halan.  I'd prefer Li-halan out of those two, but I'm willing to play Decados if no one wants to.

[Mlittle]

If I'm in:

1) Can play any house, but I'd prefer not Decados if it's a historical world
2) Traits I'm ok either way
3) I'm ok either way
4) I would prefer a random world
5) Universal warehouse, on or off? I would prefer it off.

[Kejardon]

1) No real preference, but I'd like to try Hawkwood
2) I'd prefer traits
3) Ummmmmm either way
4) Random
5) Off