New Team map ideas

Just wanted to show off some new team map ideas. These could be really interesting once Jay finishes getting Team Settings incorporated into the game. Thanks to Qwerty for running his scripts on these maps to show them in their intended team colors!

5 teams of 3

8 teams of 3

In our Team Game Hangout, there were suggestions for doing these as Dark games. That would require settings from Jay to make it possible to designate the coordinates of each team as part of the team formation process. Let’s hope that doesn’t end up being too complicated!

To echo what I said in Hangouts for all to see - AWESOME!!!

The double ring setup is very, very cool - DARK Galaxy would be scary - even if you ally with your partners, you don’t know who has the inner ring for a few cycles - crazy fun stuff!

I actually think the “super-home-world” concept would work very well here (I presume all players are active - no AI’ers) since makes it something very worthwhile to take … but also very difficult to do so.

This game would take a LONNGGGG time to play!

And yea, would require some team settings by Jay.
BTW, a savvy team could offer to ally with someone else … and then be able to better guess where they are - you might want to disable that capability.

Well I think with the setting we have asked Jay to include, teams would be automatically allied. You wouldn’t be able to FA with anyone else.

True, without the AI super home worlds, the high infrastructure stars would be limited to the core of each empire, and easier to defend.

A bit off topic, but related to team games, as they tend to be big player count games spanning the globe:

I’d still like to see if Jay can add an offset Tick time for real time games. For example, 1.5h Ticks. I think that might be the sweet spot for real time games. A 6Tick span would take 9h, giving people time to work and sleep, while missing no more time than most Turns in Turn based games. It would also give players 107h before being kicked for AFK. Detrimental to your empire to be sure, but plenty of time for you to be offline for a long weekend.

More importantly to me, is that it would alternate Production to opposite sides of the globe. I know there is debate about how important it is to be able to be online in the hour before and after Production, but this solution shifts it so no player has it stuck at a bad time for them every cycle of the game.

1 Like

I hate to sound daft, but if I enact formal alliances with my two allies won’t we immediately know where we all are from shared scanning date?

not daft at all. Of course you will. The map has a very specific layout, your three team members will make an arrow towards the center. It will just be Mostly Dark.

Another thing, if you have high range, either to start or researched, you could effectively jump to your ally despite not being able to see any of the stars between you.

I’ve played an interesting Dark game with fixed tech, and Range was set at 15. What was most interesting in that game, was that when a player went AI, the AI could see everything, jumping to stars that were outside the set fixed scanning range. A couple of us, including Qwerty, posted about that back on G+.

Ditto what Brian said … except how will you know which WAY that arrow will point?!? :wink:

I didn’t check the distances carefully … but if they are somewhat equidistant, until the inner circle player sees someone else, I don’t think you will know which player is which.

That’s why I mentioned you do an alliance with another team … because once you see them on the map, you should be able to orient yourself.

Cool comments about High Range Brian … I could see that being really interesting as you could jump to your allies home star.

The arrow will be fairly obvious. I just went into one of my sample maps. I believe it is the 8 team one above. The distance between the center stars (guessing at home worlds) is 28-30 ly from inner to outer rings. It is about 24.5 ly between the two on the outer ring. It was pretty uniform in those distances for each team.

Yep. You’re triangle is a bit too Isosceles-ey.

First, let me say I didn’t design the map planning on playing a dark game. It would be kind of interesting that way though. Second, I don’t really think it matters if you know which slice of the pie you are on.

The map idea was to have a team game with the relative balance of a circle galaxy, but in which all team members were able to engage the enemies without having to leap frog across your allies. It could also be done without the gaps, but I thought they add a little something extra to the map.

Ditto what Ross said … as I said, if the distances are adjusted to be equidistant, then the arrow could point any of three ways! :wink:

It matters knowing what slice of the pie you are oriented and can end your ships in the right direction.
I.e. if you send all your forces to toward the middle (or side) … and it turns out you are on the outer right and you are sending 'em into space, then … D’OH! :wink:

Ross and I actually discussed that pretty early this afternoon. You don’t need distances to figure that out. You simply need to use the game’s own UI to get a good idea of that. I can get a good idea of where I am in a dark circle by myself before it starts. Having 3 players to use for triangulation means I’m confident I could tell which slice I am.

Modifying the map to make the distances equal is going to do one of two things. Either it will kill the gap between rings or make the whole in the center even bigger. You could just push the inner circle out a few light years, but that kills the gap between the rings. To increase the distance between starts on the outer ring you have to push them further out. You then have to keep the inner ring the same distance from the outer. This makes the hole in the center even larger, as well as risks putting gaps between stars for each star in the inner ring.