Anacreon Request thread

General discussion for the game Anacreon
darkMATTER
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gc2 wrote:
No offense to darkMATTER, but there should probably be a limit to how many sector capitals you can designate in a certain time period- especially under the Law & Order doctrine. Most designations can't be given to worlds that are outside of an influence sphere, but sector capitals are an exception. During his war with Deletare he hit on the very clever strategy of designating pretty much all the worlds that defected to him (and later, when his fleets were destroyed, most of his home worlds as well) as sector capitals, causing them to immediately dedicate all surplus labor to building powerful imperial guards to render invasion difficult and suppress civil war. If those worlds had to develop normally it would have been at least 24 hours until most of them could build any infantry at all and many more of them would have been lost to civil wars, etc.
Just started, and saw those sector capitals; so that's whey they're there. Balancing issues aside, I find that it really kills the immersion. When I saw that planet cluster, I immediately thought to myself: is this some trick I don't know about? and it is.
As for the time investment issue, I think a good solution is to allow empires to be run by multiple players, especially ones in different time zones, so that the task can be divided up. This also adds another layer of strategy: can a team organize itself cohesively or are the members tripping over each other.
Additionally, new players can join an existing team and be quickly brought up to speed on the mechanics. This would be a huge advantage considering the game has neither a tutorial nor detailed documentation. When I first started this up, I felt that I had no chance to learn the mechanics as I go, so I had to download Anacreon 2 just so that I can see what it's all about. Even then, I blew my first jumpfleet attacking a planet with vastly superior defenses, and my second one a day later on a planet with a lower space force rating, but consisting of HEL cannons.
Well, I don't know if it is a trick per se. Don't I have a right to defend myself. Why have only one sector capital - for my enemy to conquer it [and then lose a bunch of worlds with it]. Then I have to make another sector capital from scratch - only for the same thing to happen over & over again. And if all my sector capitals get conquered while I am away - I come back to find out I have been eliminated from the game. So, I don't think it is a trick at all. It's a tactic - and it's called staying alive.
Watch TV, Do Nothing
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Lag has been severe lately; it's become very difficult to continue playing.
darkMATTER
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Watch TV, Do Nothing wrote:Lag has been severe lately; it's become very difficult to continue playing.
Agreed. I timed it. When a new "watch / turn" passes...it takes approx 12 seconds before my browser refreshes with updated info. Does make it frustrating to get stuff done - as after every 48 seconds you got stuck with a 12 second time-out. Not sure George if there is anything you can do - or if just the amount on new info the browser needs to load after every minute that the galaxy updates ?

Definitely has gotten worse from when I started.
george moromisato
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darkMATTER wrote:
Watch TV, Do Nothing wrote:Lag has been severe lately; it's become very difficult to continue playing.
Agreed. I timed it. When a new "watch / turn" passes...it takes approx 12 seconds before my browser refreshes with updated info. Does make it frustrating to get stuff done - as after every 48 seconds you got stuck with a 12 second time-out. Not sure George if there is anything you can do - or if just the amount on new info the browser needs to load after every minute that the galaxy updates ?

Definitely has gotten worse from when I started.
It has gotten worse.

Current stats show ~7 seconds for the engine to update a turn. Add in transmission time to the browser and 12 seconds sounds accurate. In contrast, the Alpha game, which has less usage and no nebula, takes ~0.5 seconds to update.

I'm going to take a look and see why it is taking so long.
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Atarlost
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I don't want to offend and may be biased, but I think the sector capital thing may point to a fundamental problem:

PvP requires the ability to get back in the game quickly. Losses and gains from PvP need to be nonpersistant to avoid a death spiral of failure and discouragement. Long games like Anacreon need to be freely restartable so a player in a hopeless position can get back in the game: one without already extant empires. That means PvAI or a quasi peer to peer setup like the Civ games use. (One player may be server, but serverhood can be transfered if they leave the game and any central server is solely for matchmaking, stats tracking, and patch distribution.)

If people are defending bug exploitation on the grounds that they can't defend their empire when asleep, the MMO paradigm isn't working out for Anacreon.
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gc2
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Well, I don't know if it is a trick per se. Don't I have a right to defend myself. Why have only one sector capital - for my enemy to conquer it [and then lose a bunch of worlds with it]. Then I have to make another sector capital from scratch - only for the same thing to happen over & over again. And if all my sector capitals get conquered while I am away - I come back to find out I have been eliminated from the game. So, I don't think it is a trick at all. It's a tactic - and it's called staying alive.
I'm sorry if my comment came across as a slight to your strategy, I assure you that it is not. My objection to the mechanic (and not the fact that you used them to your advantage) is purely on the grounds of game immersion.
The reason I used the word "trick" (perhaps a poor choice of terms) is that the strategy is extremely counter-intuitive. Empires, real or fictitious, are not set up in a way such that every city is a capital. It is true that games do not need to be realistic, but the more its mechanics deviate from common sense, the more it feels like just the interaction with a bunch of numbers and arbitrary rules.
I understand your point on self-defense. Presently, the more well-established players could probably steamroll through everything I have even if I were present to defend it. To lose everything while absent would be even more upsetting. Perhaps this is the real underlying issue, but to address that would be another matter entirely.
Dorne
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I propose having a new planet designation: Medical/Life Support. You can outsource your medical equipment to this planet, further improving efficiency and ensuring that even if planets don't have access to any resources they don't die due having not the right resources.
Firetrout
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A way to eject planets from the Empire without having to go through a civil war.


And some serious punishments when someone loots a planet and starves everyone. My people were so apathetic, when I starved a planet from billions to 9 million people (At which point people ceased dying from starvation) no one in the rest of the Empire even noticed.
whaleduck
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Make trade routes easier to manage (e.x. hide all trade routes, show all routes that are not at full capacity(e.x planet 1337 wants to import 1338 luxries[Only 1 available], show all trade routes that have x material, etc)

Because

Image

is hard to manage.
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sun1404
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Or maybe add a trade route management screen (and maybe management screens for other things too) that lists trade routes by name (like Earth-Mars route) and let you easily select and manage trade routes, in a panel like Transcendence dock screen.
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NIGHTHAWK620
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george moromisato wrote:
darkMATTER wrote:
Watch TV, Do Nothing wrote:Lag has been severe lately; it's become very difficult to continue playing.
Agreed. I timed it. When a new "watch / turn" passes...it takes approx 12 seconds before my browser refreshes with updated info. Does make it frustrating to get stuff done - as after every 48 seconds you got stuck with a 12 second time-out. Not sure George if there is anything you can do - or if just the amount on new info the browser needs to load after every minute that the galaxy updates ?

Definitely has gotten worse from when I started.
It has gotten worse.

Current stats show ~7 seconds for the engine to update a turn. Add in transmission time to the browser and 12 seconds sounds accurate. In contrast, the Alpha game, which has less usage and no nebula, takes ~0.5 seconds to update.

I'm going to take a look and see why it is taking so long.
I only see 1 empire in the game and it's name is Orchidian Empire Home world is Kaginian besides me Tri Empire Home world is TRI-01 CPL 6.6. Could I be causing the lag in the game or is there an updated version of the game I don't know about. We are at http://ancreon.kronosaur.com/trantor.hex?gameID=1 . I am in the process of trying to take all the planets in the universe. Could this be causing the lag problem?
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gc2
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Several things I think that would be nice to see:

With regards to game flow:

The ability to queue fleet destinations
Useful for exploring and navigating around nebula patches

Worlds should build spaceports automatically
Or better yet, just remove them and extend a world's trade range automatically upon reaching TL5. I think this is definitely a good place to cut down on unnecessary clicks

Unless otherwise specified (maybe through a checkbox), worlds should build habitations automatically
Since habitations take so long to build, it's hard to remember where I've already built them. It is also much easier to specify where I don't want them rather than where I do.

Worlds should build planetary defense systems automatically, but by default contribute no industry to building the structures
Again, saves some clicks, and the annoyance of telling newly conquered worlds that I don't want GDM silos

A trade hub's demand should not be split evenly among all the contributors, it should be scaled based on actual production
With the current system, trade hubs could experience shortages even if all the contributing worlds are producing enough of the resources in question

With regards to combat:

Take away the missile defense of jumpships and give it to jumpcruisers
Make the Gorgos shoot missiles and Megathere shoot cannons
As of now I feel that the TL10 ships are not worth building at all, and are seriously in need of a buff, especially considering how much they cost (in both resources and infrastructure). Another issue is that jumpships, even the stinger, render all the missile-based weapons in the game pointless

When in combat, fleets should fire on everything that come into range, not just their set targets
It just seems weird when two opposing fleets fly by each other and neither one takes a single shot
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sun1404
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Missile weapons can actually destroy a fleet of jumpships, if they outnumber the ships enough. And the powerful ships use missiles so you can't just make a whole lot of them and annihilate everything. You'll need a balanced fleet to conquer a balanced defense.
Yes, look at my avatar, I have a wyvera type ship.
Kourtious
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The ability to merge fleets in the orbit of a hostile planet.
CaleyM
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The worst aspect of the game is the logistic nightmare called trade. Distance should be unlimited, either by fleet trade or otherwise. It makes no sense to have a planet one nanometer with the capture area trade 100% and another one nanometer outside that can't trade. That makes the game largely about drawing circles on a piece of paper with a marker and holding it against the screen to make decisions and who has time to waste manually sending loaded transports. Anyway the current system is easily cheated to an extent with trade route chaining.

Ditto for capitals. Worlds should experience more unrest or whatever at longer distances, but should still basically function.

Basically, everything should work in gradients rather than step over the white line and lose service.
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