Home Worlds

[Jon]

For all the veterans out there - a change has been made when
destroying a Home World. In the old days, you would get a message
like: Home World at 99-99 is being destroyed! when you dropped the
first 10 PI.

The game has been changed to simply say Production Center at 99-99 is
being destroyed! and you won't find out its a Home World until you
drop the final 10 PI when you get the Home World has been destroyed
message.

In addition, we now have a pre-drop message: Production Center at
99-99 will be destroyed" whenever a freighter arrives with 20 PI and
destroy orders.

The question is should we know it's a Home World prior to destroying
it? I think the attacking player should know that they have hit a
home world and realize that everything that empire has (and it's
allies) is bound to be coming. It gives the attacker reason to stay
and reinforce; or to run like mad.

Your thoughts?

[Davin]

Yeah, I thought it was a bug fix that had gotten lost because it
didn't make any sense to me the way it was. We spend the entire rest
of the game not knowing which Production Center is the Home World, and
you only find that out when you've finished destroying it. The old
code apparently DID tell you (once you'd started dropping PI on it,
but not in advance), but I wonder if that's the way it should be.

There really isn't anything in the game system that outwardly
distinguishes between a Production Center and a Home World - they look
exactly the same. I'm thinking that you shouldn't know whether or not
you've got them by the throat until it's over. That way an attacker
is committed to staying in one location until it's done (and I had
thought that I'd remembered it that way anyway). This gives the
defender an opportunity to counter-attack a fleet if they so desire
without the attacker picking up and leaving before they can get there.

Overall, I think it comes down to this... should we be helping the
attacker or the defender? The attacker is helped in several ways by
knowing what it is when the PI starts to go down. The defender is
helped in similar ways by hiding that information for as long as
possible. So who do we want to benefit here, from a game-balance
point of view?

I'm thinking that the defender needs all the advantage he can get.
The attacker can concentrate all his resources in one location, where
as the defender has to spread out all his defenses across his whole
empire because he never knows where he's going to be hit or by how big
a fleet. So the attacker already has some SERIOUS advantages when it
comes to big battles like this, and I think that a slight compensation
in favor of the defender would help take a tiny bit of the edge off
that advantage.

Most of you have only really BEEN in the attacker's role, so obviously
you'd want the attacker to benefit. But put yourself in the place of
the underdog and see if your perceptions on the subject change.
Taking out an empire should be a major event requiring a maximum of
commitment with overwhelming forces, so even as a most-of-the-time
attacker I think I would favor the defender in this case.

What do the rest of you think (from point of view of both the attacker
and the defender)?

[fge...@airmail.net]

I like the way it is.  You should know if it's a home world when the first 10 PI drops.

fg



On Tue 09/03/10 08:55 , Jon sent:

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[Davin]

So why is that, Frank? What if you're the defender and you want to
counter-attack the enemy fleet while it's still there (assuming that
it's only a PC). If we told the attacker that it's only a PC and he
runs like mad, then there's no way for you to catch his big fleet. He
already has a big advantage in being able to put his entire fleet in
one place to attack with and the defender has to spread out his fleet
across his entire territory. It's obviously a big advantage for the
attacker, but what about the defender or his allies? What would you
want if someone were dropping PI on YOU and your own fleet was big
enough to kill it and within range? Wouldn't you want to try to take
out the enemy's fleet while you had it effectively "pinned" there for
a turn? You wouldn't want it to escape, would you, letting it rampage
over all your PCs one after another?

[Jon]

I am not sure I am following your logic here - If the guy wants to
rampage your systems one after the other, he can do it regardless of
whether or not he knows he is in your Home System. You imply that the
attacker has all of the advantages, but I am not sure what those are.
Having been the attacker (more often than not) I know that there are
very little advantages. Yes - the defender does not know where I will
strike next - but he has the ability to build a lot of "static"
defenses cheaply and make any attack expensive.

Attacking fleets are slow if they have any heavy ships with them - and
they have to have heavy ships if they are going to take down a
production center. So you waste 3-4 turns building the fleet and 3-4
turns getting it together and in striking range. Scouts may or may
not tell you what you are in store for, so you have to attack blind
most of the time. If you get hurt, you have to arrange for a deep
space repair and resupply. Meanwhile the defender can build more
"cheap" defenses, and he has less distance to travel in order to
reenforce.

What advantages are you seeing? Maybe I need to change my style!!!

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