Shooting from the hip
EmpD...@gmail.com
And without actually thinking way to deeply (which can get anybody
into a lot of trouble), I have a few ideas.
1: All this RTS (Real Time Stuff).
One implementation would be to have a sector accumulate some mobility
and avail every ETU. Have some pretty generous maximums too. 127 max
mob won't cut it if you are going to be inebriated for 3 days after
seeing Resvon's sister pole dancing. Anyway, when you get on, you can
then "process" any sectors you feel like. This will make stuff and
dist stuff.
And each ETU will also build/repair ships/planes/units. Money for
those, along with mil, will be deducted every ETU.
Some concepts have to die because of this system. Notably,
education. Ummm, anybody mind throwing education out of the boat?
Nobody really complained about not having it in my last few games
except for the Carl Spackler kid. I remember him saying "I'm gonna
quit because there is no education in this game."
Oh, wait. My bad. He was referring to beer.
2: Technology.
Kind of dove tailing into the RTS above, since you won't have so much
tech produced per BTU and then logging it and subtracting so many dB
and then splitting it and adding in your uncle's birthday, this
concept needed a bit of tweeking.
Rather than have some convoluted time dependant tech progressive
scheme, how about just an overall arithmetic scheme. Maybe one of you
math majors out there can explain that to the rest of us. But it
means, I think, that your progression depends on where you are. So if
you are at tech 40, it takes X development to get to 41. But if you
are at 80, it take X+Y to get to 81.
3: Civilians
Get rid of them. Why? Well, why do people feel they have to get on
every update even if they are not being attacked? The major reason is
to ensure max civ growth. Moving people around so no sectors are over
768 civs, building 24 cargo ships per update to ferry them to 4
different islands (Yes, 3BlindStooges was making that many).
Doing all of that gives you an added edge over the competition. I
doubt that Empire's founding fathers were thinking that was goal of
the game.
4: Sectors
Less production type sectors, more geographic sectors.
I've run games were I've removed dust, oil, hcms, lcms, etc. Yes, it
simplified the economic portion of the game. But it also meant you
needed fewer production sectors to run a country.
and aside from sea sectors, the game has no geography to force battles
into key areas. Why don't we have deserts and hill country and swamps
and rivers and tundra and slums? We would then be looking at a well
designed game board offering a lot of strategic challenges.
5: Design builders
Anybody ever played the now defunct game "Stars!"? One of the
attractions of the game is that as you progressed in technology
(actually, technologies) you got new attributes for your war ships.
Faster engines, stronger weapons, better hulls, etc. Then you as a
designer got to design a ship based on your available toy box. So you
need a cheap, short ranged interceptor with killer air combat or you
want a heavily armored ground support plane? You get to custom make
it.
6: Announcments
I think this would be great tool. I envision it as a global telegram
in the game. But instead of sending a message to one player, you send
it to all of them. Even the visitor account can read it. Then you
can make witty little quips like "the peaceful citizens take
offense..." and "gathered around the Murk-O-Vision set..."
Pat
AKA Overlord
Not Mithrillien
Not Redline
Not Fodderland
Not Kearconnan
Not Amber
Not Metallica
Not DAK
Not JustUs
Not Atlantis
Not SubOceana
Not Revelstone
Not Dorsia
Not Mirkwood
Not Escher
Not Temekula
Not AK
Not Resvon
Not Ionica