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Map Sizes?


pad152

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Can you give us some info on Map Sizes (small, med large & hex sizes 30X30, etc)?

Is the number of opponents related to Map Size? (example: Two opponents fixed to small maps only or can a two opponent game be played on a large map).

Is the number of units limited only by resources or is there a fixed number of units per game/map size?

Victory Conditions?

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Can you give us some info on Map Sizes (small, med large & hex sizes 30X30, etc)?

Is the number of opponents related to Map Size? (example: Two opponents fixed to small maps only or can a two opponent game be played on a large map).

Is the number of units limited only by resources or is there a fixed number of units per game/map size?

Victory Conditions?

Funny, I was just working on some of that stuff this week. The maps are measured in pixels, and they range from 800x800 to 3200x3200. Right now, the game recommends a maximum number of players based on map size (e.g. "Recommended Players: 3 or less"). There's really no problem playing a two-player game on the largest map size. Playing a 20 player game on the small map, however, is a problem (mostly due to the fact that the map generator has a hard time packing together that many players on a small map, plus, in terms of gameplay, all players will be almost on top of each-other on the first turn).

There is no fixed number of units in the game. However, you do have to pay a maintenance cost for units (food and oil), so the maximum number is actually determined by how many your nation can support.

Victory conditions, right now, involve being the only player in the game with any cities. (You don't have to capture all the cities on the map, but you have to capture all the enemy cities. In other words: there are neutral cities in the game, and you don't need to capture them to win.) You're also allowed to form teams with other players. If one team has control of all the owned cities, then the team wins the game. I'm thinking of adding a slightly different victory condition involving the capture of 90% of the owned cities. This is to avoid a particular type of stalemate that can occur in some maps.

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What about standard game? Historical or more random like Civilization. I love to play multiplayer on random maps, big maps. Hopefully a bid larger than 30x30.

The random map will probably be the most typical type of game.

Regarding maps, will they be wrap-around or optionally so?

Wrapping is optional. You can specify "no wrap", "left-right wrap", "top-bottom wrap", or "left-right + top-bottom wrap".

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Victory conditions - so capturing all the resources won't do it?

Will cities be able to build anything without resources or do cities provide some resources?

The way resources work is that you own resources (Iron Mines, Oil Fields, etc), and each turn those resources go into your reserves. At the same time, you're spending those resources out of your reserves. Even if you lose control of all resources on the map, you might still have some in reserve.

If you don't control any oil fields/mines/grain, and don't have any reserves, you might still be buying your oil/iron/food from another player. If a player is caught in a situation where they have used all their reserves and are consuming a resource faster than they are producing it, then buying it from another player is their best option because it's better than the alternative:

You can buy and sell resources at a fixed price, and the exchange rate is bad. If you need to, you can set your cities to produce wealth, and use that money to buy resources. It's not really a good option, since "producing wealth" means that you aren't building units or city improvements, and the exchange rate isn't very good.

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I am not very picky but should not the transfer of resources be subject to transport lift and route being available? Also price should be a negotiable between respective players - or a world market.

I have recently played a boardgame where a losing player decided to try to end the game quickly by selling all his output for a dollar. In Realpolitik Cuba was subsidised by Russia so not a total no-no but the ability to transfer was required.Tankers, troop/transport ships would seem to be a natural and make ASW an important consideration.

Sorry my point was, before I wandered off, was prices should be variable. An economic victory condition included : )

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I am not very picky but should not the transfer of resources be subject to transport lift and route being available?

In a more realistic game, players would have to transport resources from place to place and even have supply lines to individual units, but I decided not to go to that level of detail.

Also price should be a negotiable between respective players - or a world market.

When you buy/sell resources with other players, prices are always negotiated. But, in the 'open market' things can be bought and sold at a fixed price. I thought about making 'open market' prices fluctuate (based on random fluctuations and player buying/selling to the open market), or having no 'open market' at all.

Regarding the existence of an open market:

If you're playing a two-player game, then the other player is always going to be an enemy and you won't have anyone to trade with - so that's one reason why the existence of an 'open market' is a good thing. Also, if you're playing on a map of europe, then it's kind of assumed that nations exist outside the map area, and those nations would be potential trading partners. The 'open market' sort of simulates that.

Regarding open-market price fluctuations:

Well, I've considered that in the past, and it's not a bad idea. It does add a little more complexity to the game (and I'm not sure I want to add too much complexity).

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Thanks for the response - obviously you have considered the benefits and problems so that is good.

I was mulling my last point re.economic victory. Allowing for the fact there are other sources is it possible to corner the market say in iron, by occupying ore producing areas, and by buying all ore that is available from the world market. Or is the world market infinitely expandable?

Just a curiosity on my part. I do not think any added complication in markets would necessarily add much to the game. What it does offer is for those players who are not militaristic a role in the game.

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Very true. Empire was simple - and to be honest I think I preferred the first version to the Deluxe.

However NOT having resources in the Deluxe was perhaps why it did not seem as good. It added a layer of fighting complexity but ignored resources - at least in the original version the simplicity of the warfare allowed for the abstraction level to make sense.

Not very helpfully part of me does not like to have to many player options as you find a very fragmented fan base all playing their own favoured version - and not wishing to play others not of their persuasion. Ah well I will be buying this whatever : )

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Allowing for the fact there are other sources is it possible to corner the market say in iron, by occupying ore producing areas, and by buying all ore that is available from the world market. Or is the world market infinitely expandable?

The world market has an infinite amount of resources, so it's not possible to flood the market or buy-up the market. Of course, with the poor exchange rate on the world-market, most people will probably prefer to buy it from you (if they can), and you could charge quite a bit of money. You'd have to charge less than the world market price, but it would still be quite profitable.

My question is, will some of the things like resources, trading, etc be optional?

No, sorry, all of them are always 'on'.

Not very helpfully part of me does not like to have to many player options as you find a very fragmented fan base all playing their own favoured version - and not wishing to play others not of their persuasion.

Yeah, I've been thinking about a related problem: getting things right the first time. I think that if I make some changes in later versions of the game that there will always be some people who liked it better the previous way (whatever it was). They might be a minority, but it would be nice to keep everyone together.

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Thanks for the reply - sounds good.

Belatedly I have looked at your site and finally appreciated the fact that you can have different time periods - dreadnoughts etc.

One can imagine the simplified version where zeppelins do the spotting, or towed kites!. I then thought how fast does technology evolve as this may be a downer if ends up as a technology race rather than a battle game. I assume though that technology can be frozen or at least slowed to accord with normal years/shipbuilding time. Battleships probably must be 3-4 years ..?

Anyway once finished! ..... I wonder if it can be modular and we can get to the age of sail. Throw in wind directions etc and we will be able to arrange British raids in the Med. during the Napoleonic wars and tie in with Les Grognards!!

Or even the exploration of the New World - with slightly smaller ships : )

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I wonder if it can be modular and we can get to the age of sail. Throw in wind directions etc and we will be able to arrange British raids in the Med. during the Napoleonic wars and tie in with Les Grognards!!

Or even the exploration of the New World - with slightly smaller ships : )

Well, that kind of thing would require building some new images, animations, and sounds (which isn't hard) along with a new set of rules (other than game-balance issues, this is easy because the game is setup to easily switch gamerules). Other than that, it's not really a problem to expand the game to other time-periods.

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  • 3 weeks later...

there exists two different branches of Empire.

one is the more well known, with the most recent (?) incarnation being Empire Deluxe. this game was popular among casual gamers. it was very simplistic. no economics or diplomacy, and limited multiplayer functions.

the other branch was more commonly used in modem BBS -systems. it was much more detailed, with stuff like economics and diplomacy. it was also "massively multiplayer" by the standards of the day.

then there were various other games of the same genre, some of which were superior to the original Empire games. e.g. Global Conquest and Command HQ (a tid bit: created by an ex-man who later bitterly regretted the sex change surgery).

EDIT: links to the two branches:

Walter Bright's Classic Empire

Wolfpack Empire

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yeah the other branch is pretty complex, though i have played it only twice (back in late 1980ies / early 1990ies).

i guess Empires of Steel leans a bit towards the complex branch, though free movement is closer to games like Command HQ.

can't wait to get the demo of EoS into my hands. this game may well turn out to be a real time stealer.

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