Dark Spiral

Using this custom layout

Dark Galaxy
Turn based 24 tick turns, 12 hour wait
Formal Alliances ON
Common Gates

Interesting map design. I suggest leaving out the Red Square position, maybe tack that player start onto the outside end. Just seems they are in a more at risk position than anyone else.

I would be interested to know your thoughts on this layout (thanks Brian).
If you don’t join up, why?
Is it the turn based game putting you off or something else.
If I can identify the issue, I could always start another game.
Thanks
eDave

For me, it is the Dark with 24h turns. Early expansion is based on being able to see new stars from the first ones you claim. with 24h turns, you can only expand extremely slowly, making it very difficult to upgrade your stars despite getting paid every turn.

I’m also not a huge fan of Turn based games in general. I get why people like them, and I’ll play them, but I would rather have a slow game, or see if Jay can’t add another slow option like 1.5h Ticks.

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Hey eDave

I wanted to start by saying that I love all your map designs. The initial setup is amazing and I like what that adds to the game.

My only problem is turn based.

I honestly don’t think the community is capable of having a fast moving 32 player game at this point, I understand that you’ve tried to fix this with large jumps, but I feel it’s not the right move.

Dark games work best in real time, large games are the same. A large dark game like this on an incredible map? Real time all the way.

If that was available, I’d even abandon my winning position in the current 6v3 game for it.

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When I have some bandwidth I may well abandon this current game and start a real time version.

In the mean time please keep your thoughts coming in.

Don’t do that Ross, you are soooo close to winning that 6v3 game! :wink:

My route to victory is well planned and ready to go at any moment.

Cool map! For me the 24 hours jumps are a deal breaker. I don’t mind turn-based games, and I play them fairly often, but I’ve found any jumps of more than 8 hours are too hard to defend against. It all becomes a little bit random and chaotic.

But I would join this game right now if it was real time or 8 tick jumps.

I agree, I think the 24 hour jumps make the game really chaotic when it comes to fighting. You can travel a long way in 4 hours. Especially with warpgates.

@eDave if I were to expand the custom map code to allow you to place every single star, but doing so would disable the random scatter around each home star, would you use it? Would this be better for you?

I realize that question wasn’t directed at me, but I’ll throw in a response.

I think being able to place stars in specific spots would be great, but not practical if the trade off is losing all game generated placement. Can you imagine having to input 500+ stars in larger sized games?

What about the previous suggestion of secondary coordinates to generate shape to a galaxy without extra home worlds?

@Brian_Flowers we sorry Brian, i went looking for the other thread where there is discussion about this but got distracted.

I will have to add a property for each player start asking how many randomly generated stars you want built, and I might as well let you specify the range that they are scattered to as well.

@JayKyburz I can see occasions when it would be useful to be able to position single stars, but I think I would use it to bridge gaps and establish routes between star clusters. So I would like to still have random placement as well.

This along with the ability to place empty player positions would be useful and would give lots of map building options.

@Brian_Flowers @lookupANDY @Rosslessness In response to the comments above I have started a standard turn based version of the spiral (8 hour jumps, 24 hour wait time) and have also removed the central player position

@jay as well as placing individual stars it would be useful to be able to place individual stars which have warpgates.

What if you could have random star placement then you can also choose a certain number of stars to put anywhere on the map after it is generated? This could solve some of the problems with star placement. I think an option for some smaller empty star clusters would we nice too. Custom maps should be able to have slightly more stars than a regular game if they wanted it so they can make a map work. Maybe some flexibility with the number of stars on a map but also put some limits on it.

Why not utilize a 12 hour turn based timer for completing moves as opposed to a 24 hour timer?
It would guarantee faster movement of game, yet not necessarily be too onerous as far as time commitment.
Certainly less onerous than a real time game.

Due to the slow take up of the spiral as a Turn Based game I have started a real time version

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You listened to feedback, so I’m in!

Anyone else want to join? I only ask because I’ve got an amazing starting position, Large dark galaxy, real time, trading with neighbours only, bonus scanning levels to start.