View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | Date Submitted | Last Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0001820 | AI War 1 / Classic | Suggestion - Campaign Management And Setup | Dec 4, 2010 3:55 pm | Jan 3, 2011 11:45 am | |
| Reporter | Winter Born | Assigned To | Chris_McElligottPark | ||
| Status | closed | Resolution | won't fix | ||
| Summary | 0001820: make multi home world starts a "cheat" | ||||
| Description | I think multi home world starts should be set up as a "cheat" so that you know it is a non-standard play style. | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Internal Weight | |||||
|
|
Either that or rebalance them, but I think that's probably more trouble than it's worth. Enabling them by cheat leaves them in the game for people that want them, but makes it clear that the game is unbalanced with this option selected and that the game is not really designed around it. |
|
|
Taking multiple homeworlds already bumps up the difficulty of the AI a little. Maybe it needs to bump it up a little more at the worst, but I don't really see any a reason to make this count as a cheat. You might as well call picking Broken Golems Easy a cheat if you call this a cheat. |
|
|
It is balanced, it's just a higher stakes game both ways. Offense is easier for both sides, because the attack waves grow faster than the human ship cap. Also, a group of players in multiplayer could do the exact same thing (possibly even better because I think the ship cap degredation is lighter for multiplayer) as a multi-hw if they actually worked in unison instead of all doing their own thing. Playing multi-player isn't considered cheating. It's just a way to make the game faster and more dangerous, like using blitz speed or a 10 planet map, unless using 10 planet maps or blitz speed is going to be a cheat too, or easy golems, or no waves with mad bomber AIs (which is far more broken) or... |
|
|
[i]Offense is easier for both sides, because the attack waves grow faster than the human ship cap.[/i] Yes, except the human player fundamentally has the initiative in this game, so balance isn't as simple as "the AI gets more ships too." As evidenced by your own strategies, and dozens of other examples across the forum, at root having a lot more ships to work with is far more advantageous for the human player than it is for the AI. [i]Playing multi-player isn't considered cheating.[/i] That, however, is a fair point. I think, difficult as I expect it'll be, rebalance is the better option because multiplayer also suffers from this "power creep" issue. [i]or no waves with mad bomber AIs (which is far more broken)[/i] Yes, it is, but I don't see anyone complaining that the game is too exploitable because they can use that option. It's recognized as an unbalancing option by the community, rather than as a source of some fundamental problem with the game. On the other hand, it seems like a lot of the complaining about it being too easy to get low-AIP victories is coming from people using the multi-HW start trick. "ARS's aren't priority targets" complaints from people starting with 4 or 5 bonus ships don't carry a lot of weight, it's a self-created issue in the same way that "mad bomber AI's are really easy" would be nonsense from someone playing with waves off. |
|
|
With low AIP games, you just don't have the knowledge to get more than three ships to mk 3, whatever they may be. You spend all the knowledge you're going to get before you get a chance at an ARS that probably won't give you anything useful anyway. You have maybe 29-34k knowledge to spend. The first 22.5k is spent getting bombers, fighters and cruisers or their special replacements to mk 3. The rest is spent on necessary defense things like gravity turrets and lightning turrets, or maybe flagships, FFBs or MRSs. If you get an ARS after that by chance of it being in the attack lane, it is likely going to be mostly useless unless it is a ship useful at mk1 like paralyzers, FFBs or autobombs. It's not the fact that you already have 4 bonus ships, it is that you only get enough knowledge for anything beyond what is absolutely necessary in a floor AIP game, and ARS ships do not fit that definition unless you get FFBs. When I do 4 hw, I usually don't even build or touch 2 or 3 of the chosen ships. Triangle ships are typically just so much more generally useful. This applies regardless of how many homeworlds you start with. Rebalancing would be kind of tough due to the increasing effectiveness of area damage with more players/HWs the more ships go through a single warp lane. |
|
|
Multi homeworld start has the advantage of multiple bonus ships to start, but it has some disadvantages as well: - Lose any one home and you lose the game. AFAIK this is tougher than in multiplayer, where the game goes on and everyone gets to keep playing if a home is lost. - You still only get one set of efficient reactors per planet. This means that you have effectively the same energy quota as in single player, but are dealing with multiple times the number of AI waves attacking you. So while you may have a much larger cap of turrets and ships, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY EXTRA ENERGY to actually support all that extra stuff. When you combine this with multple homes you must defend or die, and it more than offsets the extra bonus ships and starting resources. (By comparison, in a multiplayer game, each player gets their own set of efficient reactors on every planet so multiplayers actual have a lot more energy to use overall.) - A 3-home start (for example) gets extra ships/turrets, but generally not 3x the number, which is what everyone gets in a 3-player multiplayer game (and similarly for other numbers besides 3). Overall, multi homeworld seems to me to already be more challenging than standard multiplayer. I don't see it as being anything like a "cheat". |
|
|
I'm actually leaning more this direction: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php?topic=7797.new;topicseen#new |
| Date Modified | Username | Field | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 4, 2010 3:55 pm | Winter Born | New Issue | |
| Dec 4, 2010 4:04 pm | Vinraith | Note Added: 0005244 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 4:28 pm | Gwyrgyn | Note Added: 0005250 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 4:29 pm | Suzera | Note Added: 0005252 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 4:29 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005252 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 4:36 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005252 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 4:37 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005252 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 4:37 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005252 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 4:37 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005252 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 4:56 pm | Vinraith | Note Added: 0005256 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 4:59 pm | Vinraith | Note Edited: 0005256 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 5:14 pm | Suzera | Note Added: 0005259 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 5:14 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005259 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 5:15 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005259 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 5:17 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005259 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 5:17 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005259 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 5:18 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005259 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 5:18 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005259 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 5:19 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005259 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 5:19 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005259 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 5:21 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005259 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 5:27 pm | Suzera | Note Edited: 0005259 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 7:58 pm | LintMan | Note Added: 0005281 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 10:47 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Note Added: 0005298 | |
| Dec 4, 2010 10:47 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | new => resolved |
| Dec 4, 2010 10:47 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Resolution | open => won't fix |
| Dec 4, 2010 10:47 pm | Chris_McElligottPark | Assigned To | => Chris_McElligottPark |
| Jan 3, 2011 11:45 am | Chris_McElligottPark | Status | resolved => closed |
