Planets with many players fighting each other

[Chris]

Background: The space empire is in turmoil, the emperor is dead, the 5 great noble houses fight for control and influence of the feudal like society. The game is round based, 60-90 days and then reset, the winners are those with the most score at the end of the round. The player joins one of the noble houses (this is like a "race" which determine special units and abilities also it determines who your natural ally is).

There are 8 planets (5 of them being full fledged planets and 3 being half habitable rocks not worth much), so players fight on rather cramped planets (a planet can never be owned or fully controled by a single player). A player can operate on any number of planers planets, althrough the game mechanics will promote sticking to no more than 3, each planet has a separate player's base with separate units and resources (these can be transferred between planets but not for free).

The question is, how the fight/competition on these planets could look like? How it works and what the objective/reward of such struggle is?

I was thinking along the lines: each player has a planetary base which is owned by the player and can not be lost or pillaged. There are also neutral cities and population which can be controlled and can change hands. So players would own a base with buildings and will control a number of cities which affect the number of controlled population which means taxes, prestige and influence. Then somehow the players can attack others (or compete in some other way?) to steal their cities.

[saljutin]

develop scifi Atom bomb - checked
throw it on city owned by enemy - checked
watch population go to zero - checked
watch enemy die because of money shortage - double check


I think basic idea is good
user is colonizator who has 1 army/intelligence base
maybe on those rock planets there is endgame ore which is needed for some units, but people must somehow invest in excavation of those resources, so enemy can attack you and destroy those excavators?

[AltarofScience]

develop scifi Atom bomb - checked
throw it on city owned by enemy - checked
watch population go to zero - checked
watch enemy die because of money shortage - double check


I think basic idea is good
user is colonizator who has 1 army/intelligence base
maybe on those rock planets there is endgame ore which is needed for some units, but people must somehow invest in excavation of those resources, so enemy can attack you and destroy those excavators?

I hope by endgame ore you mean magical spice which powers space travel and gives prophetic visions. Based on my experience such a substance is the only viable resource that would fit in this game's setting.

[Chris]

No, wrong theme. The player is a noble family (Emperor of The Fading Suns, Dune style). Those nobles are under some law (more or less obeyed, various and notorious breaches of the law or twisted interpretations is to be expected) and the war is limited. Using nukes is simply not allowed (in case of use the noble house becomes a renegade and everyone can attack them without any rules nor restrictions which means either exile or a total annihilation). Also the player can not be a colonizor, all the planets within the game world had been inhabited for thousands years already. They can simply only fight for control of the already existing and built space empire (using not only military but also politics and covert ops).

I hope by endgame ore you mean magical spice which powers space travel and gives prophetic visions. Based on my experience such a substance is the only viable resource that would fit in this game's setting.

That's correct approach, althrough I won't make it THAT similar to Dune, the overall feeling of the game setting is correct.

[MrMaxx]

Sounds quite familiar...im developing a game that could match that description, called Plenty Planes: http://176.9.12.50:8080/plenty-planes it is still in very early development...more a proof-of-concept...but for now it looks promising.

Serverside is in Java with: Jetty, cometd, mongodb (through spring data)
Clientside is Javascript with: CAAT, jQuery, rendered in cavas

For now we have planes flying...
Currently working on planes attacking each other...
Next is players having bases that can be attacked...

The "vision" is to have everything moving all the times...so no table-style combat, but actual moving planes fighting each others on a large basis (if we ever get to that point)...

I would be happy, to talk to you about the game, that general genre of games...perhaps some evening in IRC?

So long...
MrMaxx

[Chris]

For now we have planes flying...
Currently working on planes attacking each other...
Next is players having bases that can be attacked...

Nope, that's completely different concept. I want just 5-8 planets cramped with players playing a military/intrigue game to claim the most influence over the planets and the imperial institutions.

I think, to fit the mechanic in the theme:
- there should be no killing of population. The population is kind of neutral, you can contol them indirectly by having a control over a city. Population is not owned by the player, it can only controlled/taxed. You are attacking the assets of the players (bases, military, personnel, infrastructure, member of the noble family), not the things they merely control.
- no nukes, chemical, biological weapons allowed. Any use of these result as branding the noble family as an outlaw.
- there should bo no big epic battles in space with thousands of ships, actually, maybe there should be no space battles as all? Some sort of "spacing guild" control of the interplanetary transport?
- the war should be limited, it simply makes no logical sense waging a total war between thousands of different sides over several planets (in such case there should be naturally formed like 2 big sides composed of allies). But if you can't simply send troops to pillage the enemy on sight there could be many small noble houses struggling on  a low scale with their neighbours to get a slightly bigger piece of the pie.

[Harkins]

Change theme from noble houses to corporations. They're fighting over control of the media and lobbying to reach their markets. So there's no temptation for violence, they just want to accumulate radio stations, tv shows and channels, movies, and eventually level up to buying legislators and other elected officials. The more they buy, the more they can sell in products, but there's a fairly zero-sum supply of these resources.

[Monatar]

You might use a background like the one in the Phoenix rebellion-books by M.K.Wren.
A handful of inhabited planets in two star systems, noble Houses (major and minor) that are in fact big companies, based on technological concession monopolies (like interstellar travel, mining concessions or energy tech), renegade Houses, a lawless Outside area, Thieves Guilds and a high-tech Rebellion organisation. Most of the population are working class, treated as slaves and  owned by the Houses, without any power. There is a small middle class of well-educated specialists.
There is a central Council of the leaders of the 12 main Houses that governs the worlds, with its own forces (police and military), but funded by the Houses, which makes it rather weak.
Each House has its own militia. There is a lot of power struggle going on between Houses, economical, technological, political and covert (political murder!). They are the real powers in this world.

[Chris]

I can't make corporations, this would be a completely different type of game then. I need/want a military struggle as the core of the gameplay (with a strong addition of assassination, politics).

The thing Monatar wrote is quite in the mood, but I also think it uncovers the core problem of this topic. If there are 12 or so noble houses it makes sense, but I need hundreds of noble houses (one per player). I wrote that there would be 5 great noble houses which players join but... these are not real noble houses, more like race selection, which means it is a completely different dynamic. I guess I could as well discard the idea of the great noble houses and just make hundreds tiny (one player) houses fighting each other...

[Chris]

I was thinking and I guess this topic should start with the storyline/universe description. Why you can't nuke the opponent? Why don't you need to colonize anything? Why can you use full military strike all the time? What limits are imposed on warfare and why?

First, watch this to get into the mood (it's below 2 minutes long): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx3C6kQdEyc

The core things I want in the game:
* the player is in control of a noble house in a kind of feudal like SF society
* there are few planets, so few that most players can remember the names of all (or at least most) planets and that these planets are climatic and unique
* I would prefer if military combat was not the only way of winning (althrough, it is OK if a certain degree of military is required in all strategies, also it can be the most important factor)

Secondary things:
- all players are considered humans, althrough there could be aliens as NPCs/common enemy (I'm also tempted to make an alien invasion, if players can't fight them they are all announced losers at the end of a round)
- planets can wary in terms of law. The imperial planet (the capital planet with the imperial throne) could have all military actions forbidden, while border planets could be lawless areas where you could gety away even with chemical/biological weapons use.
- the emperor could be dead, and the whole story is about who become a new one. But you can't do it via military alone since you are too weak as a noble house, you need to gather support of various planets/NPCs via glory/influence points.
- there are some sort of imperial institutions that still function and can enforce the law to some degree (also getting positions in these institutions could be very handy to the player).

# I wonder about space battles. Should these be there? Maybe ground battles only?
# as for the noble houses, I think the player is a full noble house but upon creation they select "tradition" (which is basicly selection of a "race"), which kind of determine what are your believes and who is your natural ally. This would also provide the flavour (honourable nobles, ruthless and insane ones, greedy merchants, knowledge lovers, house of genetic manipulation).

What you think? How would you shape it?

[hiigara]

If it's a military game in the future then all forces would have access to the nuke.
If these feudal houses you speak of, can't use the nuke, then they are very weak parties, and cannot dream of controlling the empire any time in the future. You cannot gather support from various planets to rule an empire, if you don't have military might.
In that case Tibet would be independent. They have a lot of political support.

Either this is a 100% intrigue political game, or you can't avoid nuclear war between factions.
Just because there are nukes it doesn't mean everyone would start nuking each other like there is not tomorrow.
The politically stable planets would have a large perimeter of defence around them, which would make impossible to nuke without a early warning. And nobody would concentrate all their wealth in single planet.

[Nox]

Bah, there is always a way.

There are many ways why prohibit nukes.

1) Morale/honor (yea, these are rather archaic words today...)

2) Fear of nuclear weapons stemming from some bad history lesson (real world anyone?)

3) Resource sensitivity - once you nuke something, you eliminate the enemy, but also destroy all possible sources of food, water. You turn usable structures into ruins. You no longer can abuse the population, they're RIP. They might have better means to widthstand radiation, but still not 100%.
Nuclear warheads are very powerful, but very crude weapons

4) ...


Dune was successful so of course this theme is ok (although it was thanks to Herbert's skills and wisdom, the way he wrote it).

Space battles could be, why not.

It's kinda basic description, but I think it's ok, sounds good.

[hiigara]

I did not read the book. But the movie Dune is definitely an intrigue, not a space war.
Startrek, Stargate, Star Wars. Those are space wars.
But war without nukes is doable of course.

[Chris]

The comparison to Tibet is wrong for this game. It is a space empire (kind of like a single country) that lost its ruler for some reason. There has to be a ruler. So the very weak parties of nobles (players) fight for this position. The independence of planets is not an option because no one desires it. It is not a setup with many countries, it is just one country that lasted for tenths thousands of years. No one even remembers how it was when there were separate countries. Plus, there is the alien invasion lurking around the corner (or another calamity) which makes it unsuitable to divide the empire into smaller pieces (no chance of survival).

You are not conquering planets to form an empire. There is an empire already and it lacks a ruler. You merely have to make so you are the one who sits on the already existing throne at the end of the day

Yeah, morale/honour could be important limiting factors. You lead a noble house. If you are perceived as unhonorous your followers will leave you and you will end up only with mercenaries and those who stay with you for worldy riches which might be not enough (elite units ready to givde their lives for you because your ancestors were the honourable nobles who did... bla, bla, bla).

The nuclear weapons might be not invented or the tech could be forgotten or the universe might work under slightly different laws of physic Anyway, there must be some sort of mass destruction weapon... but not necessarily available to players... Not sure.

[Chris]

I think I got something.

There are locations on each planet, hundreds of these (on average like 5-10 per player total). Each location can be controled by exactly one player only (at the start these are controled by neutral forces). Locations are marked as military, political, commercial  intrigue and can be obtained via the compatible force type only (for now assume all locations are military type). A player can see a list of locations and who controls it and can attack it. If successful the control goes to the attacker. The newly controled location gets a huge defensive bonus for a few days, so once you gain control of it you can be pretty sure to control it for at least few days (no retaliation from a powerful friend of the defeated player). Locations of course bring some bonuses, points, etc.
The locations are tiered, you have an option to rank up, which is benefitial overall but you can't control the lowest quality locations anymore (all tier 1 locations you control go to neutral forces and you can't attack these anymore), so effectively the game board is divided so weak do not compete with the strong over the same things.

To make it clear, you can't upgrade locations nor build there anything, these are just things you control so you can get raw resources and other perks. Your base with infrastructure is a completely different thing.

Optionally, there is some special resource that is depleted when controling locations, so you don't want to control a lot of locations all the time (that resource would not be obtainable via location's control). Which also makes losing locations a bit less stressful.

As for space forces, I was thinking that players own only ground troops and can hold various officer positions in the imperial space forces. If you have, let's say, 1 admiral and 2 captains in the imperial fleet and the enemy has just 3 captains you can persuade the fleet orbiting the planet to bombard the enemy front lines a bit

What you think? Does it sound appealing to you?