Ongoing massive galactic war

So I got this idea while reading a thread about server management... What if Uber hosted a massive galactic war with hundreds of solar systems... Sort of like EVE online's map, but with an RTS. Players joining a team, conquering a planet or 2... That would be awesome.

Calling shotgun on this as a mod if Uber doesn't take it themselves.

But having something play for you while you sleep is a bad idea.

Actually I could see it working if the game reach a certain critical mass of players.
You could have clans ( with more than 50 members ) and when you are offline, another player can use your units.
To be sure to not have your units controlled by new players, clans members could have ranks and only player of your rank or higher could control your units.
But I think it would better fit in a mod with a slower pace than PA.

Simple solution to playing when players aren't online to protect their territories is to make the players that are offline have their territories as invulnerable for say a week.

But what if you want to invade a territory? You have to be lucky to be connected at the same time than the other guy?

Ranks won't stop people from being intentionally bad[1], or drunk people from making mistakes[2]. If you really want your buildings and tanks to remain after you're gone, you're going to have an accumulation of stuff build up... I can't picture wading through seas of friendly stuff very fun, especially if you're a new player looking to set up a base.

No, I really think your stuff has to leave when you leave. Base building shouldn't even be a concern; this is Planetary Annihilation not Planetary Basebuilder.


Clans just turn the galaxy into your pile of friends versus that pile of friends. I don't foresee any room for the solo artist, or the small clan of players starting out. Anyone trying to go-it alone will get stomped by the larger groups - which isn't fun, or awesome. I think it means that everyone will coalesce into very large power blocs. If that's the inevitable result[3], then why have clans at all? Lets just have fixed political factions that players play for.

It's certainly not going to stop a group of friends from joining the same team and playing together.

Two teams leaves things too open to be stalemated. If your fighting isn't going anywhere, then you'll get bored and quit. Which means victory didn't come from fighting harder and winning - it came from the other guy giving up and leaving. How you prevent that from happening is something I don't really know, but I think having a prime-number of teams[4] would be a good start.

I still think Eve is a good model to base such a mod/gametype on. As a metagame (and not a game in and of itself) GW should be there to facilitate the community playing and blowing each other up in a way that is more interesting than clicking automatch. You'll need points of interest to fight over and control to assert dominance from, some places in the universe will have to be more important than others.


[1] What if I'm a high ranking player, and I cover a planet with power plants with the sole purpose of stopping others from building here?
[2] PKC is well known to play games of FA while higher than a jetplane.
[3] Look up the Polya Urn Model.
[4] A trick I once read on a blog. Points awarded for correctly guessing who's. Zero points awarded if you are the blogger in question.

Exactly. Forcing everyone to be online to take a patch of ground isn't fun.

Remove him from the clan.

And what if I join a normal game and do the same?

The same also applies to [2] btw.

If gaming drunk makes you a bad player, you should just be treated like any other bad player. If you're messing it up for the clan, you get the boot.

And how do you tell between an honest mistake and malice? You're going to need a complicated system to manage the players.

Also, if I'm a high ranking player, what happens if I boot people from my clan for shits and giggles?

this? I though it was elementary.

About honest mistake .. well, that happen in EVERY possible multiplayer game.
Sorry, but those are just none issue. You were on a better track with the "two clans" problem.

That's why we have brains. Let the players sort it out on their own. That's how it always works with this kind of thing.

Voting? Direct democracy, or representative system? How many votes for a majority ruling? What about people in the clan that aren't playing any more? What about people with multiple accounts? And what would you rather spend your time doing; 1) being diplomatic and making sure one accidental night of drinking isn't misinterpreted as someone being a tart, or 2) blowing the up enemy and smashing comet rockets?

My argument with clans was that it adds too many problems for what benefit it has. Voting people out makes it worse. That's why I think n-number of pre-defined factions is a better choice.


Anyway, less politics, more gameplay.

If you're having a persistent galaxy, then comet rockets are going to pose... a problem. Because you're eventually going to run out of planets and/or comets to smash. Magically regenerating rocks works, but seems a little stupid.

Why not just have the galaxy degrade untill one side wins a pyrrhic victory?

People who aren't interested in the diplomacy part... shouldn't use this game mode. This seems obvious. There are lots of people who do love this kind of stuff. I'm not sure if the number of them is big enough to invest serious time in this mod, but that doesn't change that some people like this kind of game. And others don't.

I've spent months playing long term RTS games that revolves almost entirely around diplomacy and such. It's quite a different experience, and the voting/diplomacy is what made it so interesting.

(That said, my personal opinion is that it won't work because this game will NOT be suited to a game of that scale. But I've been wrong before, and I'm not going to scream no if someone's willing to build it.)

Oh, and ending this kind of game in a phyrric victory seems like the only truly fitting outcome.

I am against keeping stuff if player leaves.(At least if there is no shared unit controll)

If you allow teamswitch, including: only if one team has lesser players than the other.
Go for this and kill stuff from players if they disconnect.

Another possible solution is what Global Agenda did with its territory PvP. They had like 3 or 4 different leagues, and then each one was only open certain hours of the week. Example: North America league would be open for play between 4 PM and 10 PM Pacific. This prevents tryhard clans from making a big attack push at 8 AM on a weekday when most people are heading to work.

This could be a nice solution if there is enough players.

I do agree that after a player disconnects, his units either stay in a reserve bank for him until he returns, they are lost entirely, or he could give his units to another player. I do agree that clan battles are NOT the way to go for this mode, and predifined factions are better. What about some sort of warning system? For example, if several people invade a planet with no active players, and continue to go through half of that faction's planets before they are stopped... What if there was an early warning system... if at a certain range from other planets, you could see enemy commanders incoming. If a commander dies, I think he should just respawn. Autobalance might be necessary too. What would the victory conditions be? All planets captured, or just the homeworld captured?

When a player is not present we can just say that they are hiding in the void, leaving a game is the equilivent to retreating to a inter system transport pod.

And unless there is an advantage to keeping territory then we really don't need to worry, of course we could have controled systems start with garrison infastructure when it is invaded again.

Exactly, by going offline, he didn't disappear, rather teleported off-world. Of course there is an advantage to having more territory, there is more resources, and you're more likely to win.