Personally I prefer nothing built at all, but lots of cash. Megahomeworlds ( Yes, all one word) are an interesting choice, but I would prefer each game to have varying rules.
Gorgeous map, BF! Looking forward to playing.
I’ve commented earlier on Brian’s map, but yea, that’s awesome.
Speaking of maps, below is the expansion maps of the current team game from start to the current tick of 660. This game is basically over (and has been for a while) … so my teammates have given me permission to post publicly since it gives away the location of our Warp Gates.
CLICK ON MAP TO SEE BIG
Note I had to 50% resize from 2000x1600 because imgurl wouldn’t allow me to upload a 10MB gif.
How did you get the team colours lined up? Did you just order the player starts in the custom data?
The team colors are using Qwerty’s script. I generated a map, then he joined it and did his magic. He sent me screen shots of both a 5 team and 8 team test map.
Setting the coordinates in an order doesn’t work. You have the colors/shapes randomly assign, I guess as part of the code you changed so that circle galaxies were random. It would make assigning teams by color much easier if I could simply order the coordinates that way.
How are you coming along with team settings? Any chance of getting a 1.5h Tick for real time games.
Oh right, I forgot about the random thing. Sorry no progress on much of the team games features yet.
I have been doing a few things like the map renderer this week because I have some publisher interest in the game again and want to show the large 64 player games working well on phones and tablets which is their main area of interest.
Cool, sounds exciting, it would be awesome if you were able to get investment from a publisher.
As a partial step towards team games, would it be possible to add an option to the tech trade limiting code that would only let you trade with formal allies?
Ditto what Brian said that it’s awesome you got some interest.
As you have seen, I’ve posted some game time-lapses - feel free to use any of those if it helps 'ya.
P.S. And ditto what Brian said about adding the game creation option to limit tech trading to only those players you are allied with. Since you were recently mucking around with that code (to limit by Scan distance), maybe a good time to add that feature.
And ummmmm … should the tech transfer options be:
“standard” (you can send to anyone)
“Scan Range ONLY” (newly added featured)
“Formal Allies ONLY” (recommended newly added feature)
“Scan Range AND Formal Allies ONLY” - D’OH! 
In retrospect the most important battle of the game for RG3 took place in tick 75, when I lost the battle for the choke point, my 1 ship defeated by your 2.
Yep.
I ID’d that immediately as the spot I needed to get to and losing that might have changed everything.
I dont think I signed off on a feature where you can’t trade outside your team. The whole game is about diplomacy and politics so I would still like to see teams trading with other teams.
I thought I replied to this earlier, but fun times battling with 'ya Myk … plus the Brucey/Princess Mykess made for some great NP Soap Opera …
I pretty much always play under my real name … so totally look me up in the future games if you want to ally … or I certainly understand if you want to be on the other side of the SMASHING!
And HEY, if there’s another team game, maybe Brucey and Princess Mykess can be on the same team - be fun!
There is plenty of diplomacy between teams without tech trades. Within a team setting, research choice is a huge factor. Both team games that have been organized so far have included it as a house rule. In the first, there was some blatant breaking of that rule, that left most other players rather unhappy about the cheating. In the second, we had an unfortunate AFK early in the game, that resulted in the AI sharing tech with the missing player. That situation was worked out very amicably by the team with the AFK, they were reinstated and we continued the game. It made the potential AI forced trade issue a problem we had to worry about for several weeks.
I can’t speak for everyone in the game, but I think the tech trade limitation is an interesting and integral addition to the game. We are simply asking for it to be a optional setting, not a required part of team games.
I agree with Jay, tech trading is a key part of diplomacy and should be permitted in team games. I don’t have a problem with making it an option, but I don’t consider it a show stopper. The impact of trading on the first game was negligible, and maybe turning off the auto-AFK rule in the team games might be a better option to combat the problems described in the second,.
Were you in that first game? I don’t recognize your screen name, as it isn’t one of those used in that game. As for negligible, I don’t think you can say that. Weapons was given to my opponent right before I would have taken several key battles. As a result of the cheating, I lost those. There was general outrage among most of the other players in that game, even by the receiving player’s own teammates.
Please don’t act like you are an authority on something (particularly referring to a specific game) when you don’t know what you are talking about.
click on my icon, I play as Brian Boru.
Thats nice. Still, your statement about it not impacting the game was inaccurate. The breaking of the house rules, aka cheating, did impact the game.
I agree that the CHOICE should be there to limit trading to ONLY players you are formally aligned with.
I can see this being kinda interesting in non-team games … i.e. if I want to trade tech with you, I have to formally align … so you see my Scan … plus no battles for at least 24 hours plus when we go to WAR, everyone knows!
I.e. the more I think about it, I think these are good choices for tech transfer at game creation:
“Standard” (you can send to anyone)
“Scan Range ONLY” (newly added featured)
“Formal Allies ONLY” (recommended newly added feature)
“Scan Range AND Formal Allies ONLY” - D’OH!
My guess is this would not be difficult to implement since Jay just added an option for tech trading and is familiar with the code since he was recently mucking with it. I say that with a GRIN because I know when I first look at code I wrote a while ago, I have to figure out WTF was I doing!
Alternatively, Making tech trade messages public, rather than only involving the players trading would be a nice option.
LOL Ross … now that would be bad-a** !!!
This would certainly be a cool additional but separate option from the list above.
I.e. if Jay decided this was worthwhile, in the game create options, he currently has Trade Cost and Trade Scanning (I would change the later to “Trade Conditions” and implement the suggestions above) and I would add a “Trade Notifications” with these options:
“Standard” (only notify players involved)
“Extra” (also notify any player formally aligned with the traders - heh, heh!)
“All” (notify all players of the trade)