Eighteenth game on the multiplayer slow game server

[wobbly]

So flux ships have been pretty fun and the new composite hulls give a nice option for a long range heavy ship. Took a quick look at a static with 2 Zortium and a laser, as that's the other early heavy ship that'll reach 4 fuel range.

Static has 304 structure and 100uu speed.
Composite has 400 structure, 80uu speed and costs 1.2x the PP

I feel a little cruel for hiding stealthed flux troopers within my fleet, someone's about to learn the downside of using asteroid hulls when you are Laenfa. That said, its good that the flux pen hulls are no longer junk.

A question about the current stealth mechanics. Is it intended that stealth ships can be blockaded, and how set in stone is this? This particularly matters for flux hulls as their stealth is now based on not stopping. How it currently works is:

Flux ship hits blockade, stops and loses all its stealth. Flux ship is not attacked that round as the update to its stealth presumably happens after the combat phase.

[The Silent One]

...someone's about to learn the downside of using asteroid hulls when you are Laenfa.

Me?

[LienRag]

So flux ships have been pretty fun and the new composite hulls give a nice option for a long range heavy ship. Took a quick look at a static with 2 Zortium and a laser, as that's the other early heavy ship that'll reach 4 fuel range.

Static has 304 structure and 100uu speed.
Composite has 400 structure, 80uu speed and costs 1.2x the PP

I feel a little cruel for hiding stealthed flux troopers within my fleet, someone's about to learn the downside of using asteroid hulls when you are Laenfa. That said, its good that the flux pen hulls are no longer junk.

A question about the current stealth mechanics. Is it intended that stealth ships can be blockaded, and how set in stone is this? This particularly matters for flux hulls as their stealth is now based on not stopping. How it currently works is:

Flux ship hits blockade, stops and loses all its stealth. Flux ship is not attacked that round as the update to its stealth presumably happens after the combat phase.

Entirely agree with that, even if in this game it was to our detriment.
One question though, as it's not entirely clear : the stealth loss of stopped Flux ships is temporary, or does it repeat ? I mean, if one stops and waits two turns stopped, does the stealth come back ?

[LienRag]

Looking back to older games to check some settings, I noticed that we play the current game on a Galaxy with 42 systems per player, while we (or you, I don't remember if I was in that game) played earlier a game with 50 systems per player and I thought that the idea was to rise progressively the number of systems to test how the server could handle bigger numbers ?

Also, for the next game, is it possible to at last include my NanoValve Coating ship part and my Wormhole gate special ?
Both would benefit from multiplayer testing and are imho mature enough to be included in a test game (extensively tested in single player).

[o01eg]

Looking back to older games to check some settings, I noticed that we play the current game on a Galaxy with 42 systems per player, while we (or you, I don't remember if I was in that game) played earlier a game with 50 systems per player and I thought that the idea was to rise progressively the number of systems to test how the server could handle bigger numbers ?

I reduced number of systems when we switched from stable release to weekly test build.

[wobbly]

...someone's about to learn the downside of using asteroid hulls when you are Laenfa.

Me?

Nice early attack by the way. It was good to see, and from my perspective what was lacking was sufficient support from your teammates. When I saw human frigates I was expecting to be fighting 3 empires. Yours and LR's fleets with o01eg trying to cut me off from behind. Ophi didn't yet have supply to aid me and Oberlus lacked much military at that point. It would have gotten spicy.

It's possible that an underestimation occured. My planet appeared to have no ships defending it. However, that point you were blockading was 3 jumps away for base ships. Unless o01eg gains the blockade behind, my defenders could be 3 jumps back and still count. Also 15 troops was insufficient if I ever switched the planet to defense. The troopers should really have been built by humans with the abadonni concentrating on robotic ships. Unfortunately you are now facing the defenses I built in order to counter 3 empires sandwiching me.

[Ophiuchus]

boy, that two fighters got grilled by six lances.
still not sure if the lance should (be forced to) attack in bout 2. probably only if set to aggressive?

we are very lucky that the distance from is higher than sixty but lower than eighty

...someone's about to learn the downside of using asteroid hulls when you are Laenfa.

Me?

actually what is the downside? that you still can get cut off from the processor? the capital system is still a very good place to go micro-grav (besides being to exposed in this galaxy layout)

bubble ships with flux lances would have worked as an early-game cost-efficient defense measure. did not compare to organics yet. also perfect fit for the jump distance between bacabs alpha and deemi beta.

Nice early attack by the way.

Yeah, that was impressive

Ophi didn't yet have supply to aid me and Oberlus lacked much military at that point. It would have gotten spicy.

yeah, wobbly actually overcommitted there. luckily the LOT did not know or were not able to seize the moment. now the supply is robust. active radar would also have done wonders for TSO or some allied scouts with scanning policy (e.g. gifting an laenfa scout to such a neighbor would have been possible quite early) or active radar.

oh i see that TSO is evacuating(?). originally we wanted to barter for Bacabs alpha / get something for leaving it intact and in TSOs hand for something nice in exchange.
edit: probably we should have announced that some turns ago: in case we get in the position of taking over bacabs alpha, you have following options...

[LienRag]

There is no negotiations in a two-player (nor two-teams) game...

[Ophiuchus]

Oh o01eg upgraded his classics with flux lance. As anti-ship it is even weaker than AD, but more part-cost efficient if you dont upgrade AD tech (24/4 vs 144/40). Is it worth it if you dont need extra fuel? Value per PP goes slightly up a little in that design - so i would say yes. If you upgrade to AD-2 (288/40), its slightly better than the lance (20%). So I think balance between those parts is OK.

Also I recognize damage estimation in the ship designer against shields seems to be off. Maybe the used values are not scaled, and/or something else is broken.

Ship-designer maximizing damage per PP always suggests using the lance - that is a bit unexpected. So for me the "best" design is a 3 zortrium, 1 MD-2 or laser-1 and a flux lance Well not always, actually striker carrier with 3 zortium gives 33% more value.

o01eg deploys AD mostly for robustness in multi-role (against ships/planets and fighters). The lance also provides but maybe not enough in a typical situation.

There is no negotiations in a two-player (nor two-teams) game...

only if the aim is to win as fast as possible. if the aim is to learn it is completely different. we discussed this in our team. the main reason we went for an early grab was because we never tried battling in early game with policies/influence and also i wanted to try using flux tech. It becomes obsolete fast, so we had to go to war early.

if this was about winning as fast as possible we also would have gone for an early grab with you guys having the better empire builders and we the better war species and the galaxy layout like it is.

and i totally would like to add some human colonies to my empire.

[Oberlus]

Focused on the meta game, playtesting, etc, I would enjoy a longer game this time. There is stuff to try out for bigger empires, and few new things to playtest in master.

Stories on how you tried to achieve high stability and enough IP output and how that hindered, helped or eclipsed other parts of the game will be very welcome.


My impression, that I don't have time to develop here now, is that influence production is now even excesive for the kind of games we are playing (i.e. full war before turn 40, empires focused on military from turn 1, that sort of things) because the reduction I applied to policy adoption costs was too much, and that stability is a constant bump in the road for everything, to the point of I no longer caring about stuff like NAI, Fusion and many other techs, in a way that makes research strategy much more restricted and uninteresting (less choices, since most of them lead to a bonus that can't be used due to low stability) and hence the game less varied. I feel like focusing research (except military and complementary techs) or expansion gets less interesting, and trying to conquer the whole galaxy from your capital (I mean, using your capital as the only powerhouse) makes sense now.

[Ophiuchus]

My impression, that I don't have time to develop here now, is that influence production is now even excesive for the kind of games we are playing (i.e. full war before turn 40, empires focused on military from turn 1, that sort of things) because the reduction I applied to policy adoption costs was too much, and that stability is a constant bump in the road for everything, to the point of I no longer caring about stuff like NAI, Fusion and many other techs, in a way that makes research strategy much more restricted and uninteresting (less choices, since most of them lead to a bonus that can't be used due to low stability) and hence the game less varied. I feel like focusing research (except military and complementary techs) or expansion gets less interesting, and trying to conquer the whole galaxy from your capital (I mean, using your capital as the only powerhouse) makes sense now.

ok, my problems are very different.

metropoles was the first thing i optimized for (i.e. grabbing three planets). Now influence is scarce, stability 8 (and soon 10) is what i am optimizing my empire for. And i am totally looking for the PP and RP it will give.
i am totally out of the game for the third free economic slot although i totally would use it to boost my stability.

you should build lighthouses(?) - not sure how much it changes your situation - it could be a main research objective for all fulver. while fulver are bad stability and my george is good stability, your current stability looks much better than mine. e.g. you can benefit from NAI easily.

i doubt conquering the galaxy from only the capital is possible. although collecting capitals probably will work (which was also before the story driving early grab strategy). using flux tech one should be able to build up home defense fast i guess.

yes, i think research got seriously nerfed. and that is mostly because stability requirements are not easy to achieve. the other thing is the first social slot is so important. and broadcasts are really useful. did you adopt algorithmic research?

OTOH in our game i am waiting quite often a long time for tech to come. not sure what that indicates (besides that my empire is industry-focused).

to sum it up. the main thing i manage is stability (and unlocking policies/slots).

[LienRag]

Focused on the meta game, playtesting, etc, I would enjoy a longer game this time.

Non-meta, it makes no sense with the loss of Bacabs, probably would be better to play a new game with lower stability requirements for NAI, GGG and the like (that, or Stability bonus for Good/adequate planets like I proposed) since you're right to say that they render most development strategies non-viable.

[Oberlus]

Non-meta, it makes no sense with the loss of Bacabs.

Stop evacuation of Bacabs then?

[Oberlus]

Fulver dislike important industry buildings (IC, GGG, SOG) but luckyly like Hyperspatial Dam.
They like stockpile focus, which is such a meh.
They like a few policies that can be used to increase their stability:
- Liberty. +4 from liking this policy and doubling its effect, -2 from base stability malus, so total of +2. And has a flat bonus to research. Really noice.
- Stockpile Liquidation: needs last stockpile tech, so it's only a late game choice. Bye.
- Algorithmic Research: Fulver are bad at research, but with Liberty this gives +4 stability (same as any other in this list). I used it for a while despite no planets being focused to research.
- Exploration. I didn't take it because I only have a military slot and it is for Active Scanning to see sneaky Laenfa planets. Same for other interesting military policies.
- Colonization. Good one for Fulver early game. I didn't use it because I took the wrong research path and went first for Mind of the Void instead of Arch. Psychology.
- Racial Purity. Not having any planet to exterminate, this makes little sense for my empire, better Colonization. But I got a thirds social slot so I could take this one and drop propaganda.
- Dream Recursion: late game policy (not compatible with Liberty, I think). Bye.

With Liberty, Industrialism and Colonization I got two of my three colonies above stability 10, one still at 9.5. Dropping Propaganda in pro of Racial Purity would get me all my planets above stability 12, which would be nice.
At that point I could ponder getting some GGG and still stay over stability 10...

Mid game I would spam lighthouses all over the place. Fulver like those.
Late game I could also use Stargates and the Hyper Dam.


But simpler than all this is just go for the techs that doesn't depend on stability: hulls, armor, weapons, supply, outposts, brlitzkrieg.
Empire building strategies... I don't see how one could pull it out unless all players are commited to that and forgetting about blitzkriegs.

[wobbly]

I feel like focusing research (except military and complementary techs) or expansion gets less interesting, and trying to conquer the whole galaxy from your capital (I mean, using your capital as the only powerhouse) makes sense now.

1 thing I'll say, and maybe some other stuff later, is metropoles seem to come online too early. The big bonus here combined with the fact pop growth is now slower seems to tilt stuff too much in 1 direction. I'd like to see this pushed back a little. Maybe to when wider empires are reasonably able to take population policy, which is unlocked by nano-tech medicine. Its too close (stage-wise) to centralization anyway, which does the job just fine for the early game.