A change of setting?

Cthulhuvong,

I know you want to make this a great game but I think you ran into the same problem as Rising Empires did: Everything starts great but, it quickly starts to fall.

Therefore, in order to ensure the survivaility of such a type of game, I have a proposition.

What if instead of making the focus of the game on 'faraway empires', we do not make it much like the agreed concept of SPC:Sci-Fi? I mean, we start with three or more great Earth nations viying for influence and power in the colonies. While some players will take the role of the great powers, most will be colonies, and this will enable a good gameplay mechanic, which has been succesful so far. This will also enable the Avatar team to have more control over the different planetary cultures and economies.

While the idea is good, I don't think it really gives players what they want, which is a game that allows them to make 'faraway empires' as you put it. Now I'm going to make a smaller map which will allow for players to interact with each other better. The idea is freedom, not restriction. Freedom to do what you will.

I think that if I can get 2 or 3 partners, all of whom can play as well, we could get this game running as is. If we get it up for a few months we could pitch it to Game Master if he's around and get it moved over there.

I am not saying freedom is a bad thing (quite the oppossite), but it is simply too much to handle and do...

...What I propose in this setting will simply limit what people can do in their backstories, as oppossed to creating a long-range empire from the start, they will have to work for it IC through actions. But it is your game, after all.

Well my idea is to allow them to control 1-3 worlds or systems to start. Not really an "empire" but not just a "country" or "planet". You get 1 "sector" which is made of 10 possibly habitable systems, of which you have between 1 to 3 inhabited worlds (haven't decided on a final number yet). I've got a few hundred different ways to figure out what the worlds are (thanks to the many RPGs I have), just have to meld them down to a single coherent system. You get a starting military, with an amount of ships to defend it.


Basically, I have the "what?" question answered, I just need the "how many?" one finished off. How many ships, how many troops, how many planets and how much GDP to start.


But if people want to do a less epic system, where they have single struggling colonies, I will bow to their wishes.

Hey, the colonies grow over time correct? Not to mention the rest of the system as well as nearby ones can be claimed by them. As I said, work (or work even more, in this case) as opposed 'ready from the start'.

You need not only to have Earthlings, but the basics stem from here. You see, the great powers of Earth (which are just a few countries which have gobbled up all the others), will be competing for those colonies, diplomatically, covertly, and even overtly.

This will also save you a headache from 'what the starting ships are?' (allowing you to preserve the players' ability to design new stuff while providing them with basic standards). These 'basic standard' ships, vehicles, and doctrines are initally provided only by the great powers (maybe some secondary powers as well if they do exist), but there is room for growth.

Well we already have a list of ships in the rules section, in the Military Units thread.

The major problem I see with the "Great Powers of Earth" idea is that either you have them working to conquer the colonies immediately, or being buddy buddy immediately. Its a rare player that will want to just keep them in line and do a little covert or overt control.

Either way, you're going to have to have players create their colony/empire, just the difference will be if they're a small settlement or spanning a world or two. You're still gonna have to make stats for the worlds and make up what resources are available no matter which you choose.

Well, in SPC:Sci-Fi the setting worked rather well. The backstory already stated that relations between nations were scant and, with Earth's resources becoming more and more scarce, habitatble worlds are a treasury seek by each power.

Otherwise I see no problem with the 'create your world' nation, however I think there should be more moderator input to create a better situation.

Rising_Phoenix wrote:Otherwise I see no problem with the 'create your world' nation, however I think there should be more moderator input to create a better situation.

Agreed. I think I may need your help. You are obviously very devoted to this game's success, and I'd love to have the help.

Cthulhuvong wrote:

Rising_Phoenix wrote:Otherwise I see no problem with the 'create your world' nation, however I think there should be more moderator input to create a better situation.

Agreed. I think I may need your help. You are obviously very devoted to this game's success, and I'd love to have the help.

Honestly?

If so, I am glad to provide any help.

Rising_Phoenix wrote:

Cthulhuvong wrote:

Rising_Phoenix wrote:Otherwise I see no problem with the 'create your world' nation, however I think there should be more moderator input to create a better situation.

Agreed. I think I may need your help. You are obviously very devoted to this game's success, and I'd love to have the help.

Honestly?

If so, I am glad to provide any help.

Honestly.

You seem bright and full of ideas and ready to share them. You are kind and not overbearing but still firm in your resolve. Just what we need. Go over the rules and make a list of what you think we need to start. We will most likely be moving to a new forum on Powellentertainment.net soon, probably within a week. We should also have the budget system, though I don't know if it will be working when we get it.

Well, thank you.

I guess I will personally consider the new game to be "SuperPower: Wayward Empires". This would merge both what the old SPC:Sci-Fi intended to do as well as the ideas from Wayward Empires, and include them into one single game.

But if we are moving whitin a week, should not we wait until it is done and set up things over there instead?

Good point, yes if you have any ideas, keep them to yourself!


And then reveal them on the new site

The owner of Powellentertainment.net is going to give me a forum on there for 10$ a month. Hopefully we can get a game going by December.

Cthulhuvong wrote:Good point, yes if you have any ideas, keep them to yourself!


And then reveal them on the new site

The owner of Powellentertainment.net is going to give me a forum on there for 10$ a month. Hopefully we can get a game going by December.

It will be awesome, trust me.

On the meantime, I *can* provide some small ideas that could prove quite cool.

Rising_Phoenix wrote:

Cthulhuvong wrote:Good point, yes if you have any ideas, keep them to yourself!


And then reveal them on the new site

The owner of Powellentertainment.net is going to give me a forum on there for 10$ a month. Hopefully we can get a game going by December.

It will be awesome, trust me.

On the meantime, I *can* provide some small ideas that could prove quite cool.

Do you have any idea how we can make including aliens easy and yet still allow players a large amount of freedom in creating them?

Cthulhuvong wrote:Do you have any idea how we can make including aliens easy and yet still allow players a large amount of freedom in creating them?

Well, in addition to the Earth, we can have other 'great powers' -- However these are the alien worlds. These may or may not be in a cold war-style situation, however the larger a homeworld's population and GDP/GNP, the more nations competing to get space supremacy should be there.

We can start using Earth as a base. We add a number of great powers and secondary powers, and then use it as a set form which players can create thier own alien homeworlds. Larger populations than Earth will be more fractured with smaller nations, while smaller populations than Earth will have fewer, larger nations.

As a suggestion, I think we should allow up to roughtly Earth-size only or smaller, as to not have single-player worlds with a load of NPC nations.

I was thinking of having Earth and the surrounding sector be NPC/Admin-run.

So we have each alien race be its own group of nations? I was only going to have humans have multiples because most players will want to be humans more, but I really like this. Do you want admins to make these new aliens or just have players come up with them and then make up the rest of the NPCs?

Glad to hear that.

We can either have them player-made, admin-made, or a mixture of both.

Ideally, we should try to preserve the 'cold war' feeling, and aliens will add a new dimension of fun to that. (So we will have aliens trying to rally their own against the other races, while socialists/ecumenists will try to do the oppossite, citing how race alone is no excuse to follow a single nation, etc.)

Well we could do something similar to the 4 Empires setting that I created. Modified of course, we could do 1 human section of the map and 3 disorganized sections for aliens. The could have formerly been states of mixed species now divided.

Hows that sound?

Awesome.

'Racial' spheres of influence should be rather loose (an alien colony could very well be next to Alpha Centauri, for example), while political ones should be stronger. At least at the start, that is.

So how should we organize the players? Should we make a map with the 4 former 'empires' mapped out and players choose which one they used to be in or depending on their application put them in one?

Cthulhuvong wrote:So how should we organize the players? Should we make a map with the 4 former 'empires' mapped out and players choose which one they used to be in or depending on their application put them in one?

Great Powers: Homeworld.
Secondary Powers: Homeworld (lesser than great powers), or in-system.
Colonies: The farther away, the lesser the population, and the looser the ties to the homeworld by proxy.

I was thinking of giving every player 1 whole system they could exploit (sort of like SWD), and then have there be 9 other systems in the same hex on the map. This way they can expand quickly if they want, but without worrying about conflicts in the first year or two. Players would not control what you call "Great Power Homeworlds", only admins would. I would classify these as those homeworlds which have spawned other "states" or "empires". Players would all be "Secondary Powers", either as homeworlds or off-shoot states and empires. These would be former colonies that have grown in prominence.

Great powers would control all 10 systems in their hex, while secondaries would control 1 and have nominal claim on the other 9. These 10 systems would all have a voidgate, of course.

Cthulhuvong wrote:I was thinking of giving every player 1 whole system they could exploit (sort of like SWD), and then have there be 9 other systems in the same hex on the map. This way they can expand quickly if they want, but without worrying about conflicts in the first year or two. Players would not control what you call "Great Power Homeworlds", only admins would. I would classify these as those homeworlds which have spawned other "states" or "empires". Players would all be "Secondary Powers", either as homeworlds or off-shoot states and empires. These would be former colonies that have grown in prominence.

Great powers would control all 10 systems in their hex, while secondaries would control 1 and have nominal claim on the other 9. These 10 systems would all have a voidgate, of course.

Do not you think that is a lot of micro-managemet?

1 System per hex is more than enought, I think. But I agree, nominally they should have claims to the whole system.