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4X Empire Development

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4X Empire Development

Continuing Growth Past the Early Years

from GalCiv2 Forums
Just spent a bunch of time playing Space Empires IV, and eventually ended up ceasing the game for essentially the same reason I quit playing MOO-3.

The skinny version is that it became too far between rewards. The longer version is that the fully developed planets within the core of my empire had ceased to be useful starship providers, for two main reasons:
* The distance from the core to the edge of my territories became so great that it was pointless to build starships at the center worlds. Those ships would become technologically obsolete by the time they reached the Forward Edge of the Battle Area.
* The inordinate amount of time necessary to travel to the FEBA makes any launch from the core worlds irrelevant by the time they get there. The battles are long over, and the course of the game has moved on to other areas.

It occurred to me that my empire was stifling from within. The central planets were trying to provide something for me that only worlds near the edges of my territory can actually provide. The worlds that I had spent so much effort developing should not become a dead useless core. Their superior manufacturing ability should be convertible to some other functions, some internal organs for the life of the empire's body as a whole.
ideas
19,168 views 34 replies
Reply #26 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I found the page right here. It takes months for subspace communications to be received

What is today (2178) a matter of debate is whether the Arceans sent us the plans to aid us or to conquer us -- their star gate plans had no mechanism to turn it off. But given recent events, it's all moot anyway.


And in the two years between the time the Hyperdrive technology was released and the time the first colony ship was ready to go the humans heard nothing from the alien civilizations. No mention of a stargate actually being built in Earth's orbit.

You know, I kind of wish this whole story was set down in writing somewhere. I know Brad's no writer, but it's just tantalizing to have fragments of a story floating around.
Reply #27 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Reading through this thread, I came to think of David Weber's Honor Harrington universe, there wormholes are naturally occurring all over the universe. Though they are not particularly common, some of them occur in groups, creating wormhole nexuses. Such nexuses are of immense strategic and economic value to whoever controls them. Discovering these wormholes and where they lead is a major scientific undertaking as they tend to destroy ships that blunder into them unprepared. Furthermore any mass passing through will cause the wormhole to freeze for a period of time exponentially related to the mass that passes through, so that sending a huge fleet through will render the wormhole useless for quite some time, effectively cutting off retreat and reinforcement.

So how can this be used in GC2?

My proposal is to make static wormholes connecting two points in space. These should be found in any part of the map, and be discoverable with the right survey equipment (or by seeing a ship emerge). It should then be possible to build a starbase on a terminus thus controlling what gets into that end. If two different players control the two termini they have to agree on letting ships pass, or it will be considered an attack. Alternatively an SB on a terminus could shut of the wormhole for anyone without the right to pass, so that if two different players control the termini they would have to agree on letting ships through or the wormhole will simply be closed.

This will add strategic depth to the game, and alleviate some of the problems with huge distances.

But ok I do like the idea of being able to build wormholes at huge costs.
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #28 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
My proposal is to make static wormholes connecting two points in space. These should be found in any part of the map, and be discoverable with the right survey equipment (or by seeing a ship emerge). It should then be possible to build a starbase on a terminus thus controlling what gets into that end. If two different players control the two termini they have to agree on letting ships pass, or it will be considered an attack. Alternatively an SB on a terminus could shut of the wormhole for anyone without the right to pass, so that if two different players control the termini they would have to agree on letting ships through or the wormhole will simply be closed.


Not a million lightyears away from what I was thinking. How about a number of locations seeded about the map like starbase resources, which can be used to create the advanced star gate networks. I dont like the idea of there being huge numbers of instantaneous movement stargates all ovcer the place, like Moo1. So we want to restrict the number of gates down to a handful.

I also dont like the idea that you can drop a gate down exactly where you want it, that makes things a little too convenient I think. On the other hand, simple predefined point to point wormholes can be restrictive. Instead, could we have the option to link up the 'resource' sites I mentioned earlier to form our gate paths. Say I had discovered 3 gate sites, I would have option to link any two, a start point and end point. I would need to discover a fourth site to create a second gate pair. A system like that gives the player a chance to create their own short cuts, but doesn't give them the power to drastically mould the galaxy to their will.

Perhaps a high level tech could grant the ability to create new gate sites, but I'm not so sure about that. If you want a narrative to these gate sites, maybe they are some sort of chaotic natural wormhole, tamed by technology to be used as safe passages. Maybe they are a point of space closer to subspace. I'm sure someone can come up with a compelling theory.
Reply #29 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I think how speed is increased is sort of irrelevant - we can come up with any technobabble to justify it. The point is it shouldn't detract from gameplay. As I remember it, the longest it took to fly across the galaxy in a huge MOO game was maybe 7 turns, give or take a turn, at the highest tech level. That was fast enough to not drag the game out, but slow enough to allow you to respond militarily if necessary.
Reply #30 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
If you are allowed to stack all the engines you have space for on your ship designs, you could stick 20 engines on your large hulls, and end up with ships with like, 210 moves (hulls have 1 engine in their infrastructure). Would that be enough for a quick movement across a giant map?
Reply #31 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
One theory on wormholes would tie them to blackholes. Imagine that space is a giant rubber mat, and if you put balls of different masses on that mat, they would distort "space" by bending the mat and attracting other masses. Now, if you had enough mass at a single point, it would distort "space" infinitely. This is called a "Quantum Singularity" a.k.a. a black hole. (This is actually how Einstein once described gravity's effect on space.) Now if you will, what if you were to affect the distortion of a blackhole so that it bent back on itself and eventually reconnected with another part of space. One way to do that is to bring 2 black holes close enough together. What you get in theory as the result is a wormhole, where you can enter into one point in space, and emerge in another. (Another prevailing theory is one end is a "black" hole, the other is a "white" hole, things go in the black hole, and out the white hole, kinda like a one way wormhole) Now, either kind of wormhole would require special protection from the intense gravities that occur within them, and that's why we haven't been able to test those theories. (What do we have that would protect a probe from that kind of force?)

For the game though, maybe you should use blackholes in this manner. After a certain tech is researched, you can begin analyzing blackholes around your civilization to determine where, and if they go anywhere, and whether or not it's one way or 2. Then once you can create a ship that could survive the trip, you can begin utilizing them.

On a side note. In reality, black holes are very VERY difficult to detect. At the moment we have no concrete way of detecting gravity waves. NASA IS working on that with project LISA, however that is still in the future. Our only other means of detection through space involve the electromagnetic spectrum, which will not escape the gravity of a blackhole. Finally, the only way we even know that black holes exists is A) Large patches of black space where stars have been observed entering into disappearing, and reappearing beyond (i.e. passing behind) and B) Watching the movements of stars, and observing that there is some unseen mass affecting it's movement. What this means is that until a civilization can detect and track gravity waves, a blackhole is near impossible to detect.

Taking this into game terms, shouldn't we make blackholes on the map invisible objects that each civ has a separate small chance of detecting each turn, so that over the course of the game a civ without the proper detection tech might identify maybe half a dozen of them (regardless of distance), but once the tech is discovered, the chance be increased based on distance from your detectors (as gravity does in fact affect gravity, the farther it has to travel, the more likely there will be distructive interference), so that you could eventually know all blackholes near your space.
Reply #33 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
Unless a ship stumbles onto the event horrizon. Then im guessing the ship would detect it rather quickly....

"Hey, whats that in front of us? Quick, reverse engggggggiiiiiiiii....."
Reply #34 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
LOL, Well, truth be told, it might be a little more obvious if it were near (but not on) the path of travel for a ship, as stars would disappear as you move. Also there would be a gradual acceleration to detect too if it is anywhere near the ship's path of travel, so I guess that stumbling over one might not be SO fatal....