Anacreon Era III Discussion Thread

General discussion for the game Anacreon
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Oddball
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Thanks for the updated map, one other thought on spawning next to a large empire all the worlds get taken before a new player can get established. Just a thought
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Oddball wrote:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 2:49 pm
How is the start up position on the map calculated? I know the map is much larger than where I am being located.

So far I have tried starting about a dozen times and every time I have been next to one of the larger players. I have been put adjacent to Imperium Aeterna at least 60% of the time, once between Imperium Aeterna and brides of the sun, two or three times next to Kingdomofbugs and the balance next to crystillane federation. All of these empires are so large as a neighbor I feel their is very little chance of survival.
As far as i know there are only 100 possible candidate worlds to start on and the game seems to pick randomly. The candidate worlds are attractive conquest targets since they are nearly perfect CG autofacs - I have deliberately captured at least four or five of them. This is partly to keep new empires from arising near me, but I would have taken them even if I didn't know they were candidate capitals. Candidate worlds that are part of an empire seem to get passed over until all the other candidate worlds are owned- when this happens, I believe that they can get taken away and assigned to new empires, although I could be wrong. I remember that Wayward Device had a problem with empires spawning on one of his CG autofacs in Beta I, although that might have been associated with the no-capital bug somehow.

Once you have a couple spread-out empires in a game, pretty much any capital candidate world is going to be relatively near one of them. This is because there's a relatively small pool of possible starting worlds, and because savvy new emperors (much like you) restart until they get a "good" one, passing over a shrinking pool of worlds with "bad neighbors" that subsequent empires will have no choice but to start on.

There are two commented-out lines in the scenario that would allow empires to start on any "normal" biotech-level earthlike, underground, ocean or desert world- I can only assume that they got commented out since it's not really fair to force somebody to start with an inferior world. Some of those world classes can be generated with trace trillum, which would be crippling on a starting capital. More candidate capitals would mean more chances to start far away from anyone, though; maybe inferior world classes could start with a different ship mix. For example, ocean world capitals could start with more jumpcruisers, a couple thousand gunships, or a floating city to compensate for their harder early game (they can also build high tech jumpships natively once they have tech projects, so it's not all doom and gloom). Or all players could start on inferior capital classes and get assigned a random second planet within trade range at game start, so that the influence of capital quality isn't as significant and the trade route concept is introduced at game start (it seems like half of players quit before they ever establish a trade route). Alternately, players could start the game with big resource stockpiles, enough that they have a cycle or two to burn through them before resource availability on the capital becomes a problem.

Another possible solution to the issue would be for the game to perform a nearest neighbor search between the remaining candidate worlds and the subset of worlds that have imperial or sector capital designation every time that a player joins, and to assign the one that's furthest from any capital to the incoming player. A NNS is a little bit computationally intensive, but players don't join often enough that this would be particularly onerous to run one occasionally.

The downside to this is that some players may actually prefer to start near one another; you will get less instant action in games before a lot of players have joined (the first couple generations of players will be out of jumpship range from one another). Also, aside from the first player, the first generation of players will all start on the edge of the map unless you add some randomness or limit the search radius to a certain distance.
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starxplor, how is your empire controlling almost 200 worlds with 3 capitals without any defections? Is it just pure luck or did something get done about the secession limits?
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--Imperator-- wrote:
Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:32 am
starxplor, how is your empire controlling almost 200 worlds with 3 capitals without any defections? Is it just pure luck or did something get done about the secession limits?
I reread the alpha notes and apparently the limit is >2 sector capitals, not >2 capitals total. I think that I've been spreading false information for a while now. My guess is that Ferengi are fine because they have exactly 2 sector capitals. I will have to change my guide.

edit: although I see starxplor has established a 3rd sector capital now, so all bets are off..
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Would it be a horrible idea to tout Anacreon somewhere like the 4X subreddit? On one hand it would be nice to see more players, on the other hand it's a) beta software and b) running on a server that probably can't support a ton of concurrent users.
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Watch TV, Do Nothing wrote:
Fri Apr 28, 2017 3:30 am
Would it be a horrible idea to tout Anacreon somewhere like the 4X subreddit? On one hand it would be nice to see more players, on the other hand it's a) beta software and b) running on a server that probably can't support a ton of concurrent users.
I think its worth trying. I'm not sure where Anacreon in its current state lies between appealing to casual players and hardcore 4X fans, so I don't imagine we'll be overloading the games. That said I think filling up the maps is the best possible outcome; we shouldn't be worried about that because it shows the game has room for more development.
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Yes, definitely! Great idea. We need more players, and hopefully with more people interested George might be motivated to accelerate development and/or find ways to monetise it, and by extension provide more support for the game.
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Watch TV, Do Nothing wrote:
Fri Apr 28, 2017 3:30 am
Would it be a horrible idea to tout Anacreon somewhere like the 4X subreddit? On one hand it would be nice to see more players, on the other hand it's a) beta software and b) running on a server that probably can't support a ton of concurrent users.
I think it would be great! I wouldn't expect too much--I think Anacreon was a ways to go. It's sort of in no man's land right now: too complex for casual play but not deep enough (yet) for hard-core players.

But it never hurts to get more feedback and more players.
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Oddball wrote:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 5:48 pm
Thanks for the updated map, one other thought on spawning next to a large empire all the worlds get taken before a new player can get established. Just a thought
It is a good thought and actually a strong strategy, especially in when starting out. If the other player is forced to abdicate because they have no worlds to spread to, they can't become a threat. It is also good for containing a player that is already established but may become a threat. If you notice, Brides of the Sun has effectively blockaded Crystalline Federation with complete jump-access to the empires core.
Fire, Fire, Fire;
Streaks of golden light,
Rays of cosmic waves crashing through still dead night.

Gifts of diamond rays,
Strewn pearls of days not measured,
Treasured gleaming quests fade through the absolute oblivion of infinite time, no matter the direction.

And war died the day it noticed itself,
Peace, yet still dead, peace in the void of voids.
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Watch TV, Do Nothing wrote:
Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:42 am
--Imperator-- wrote:
Fri Apr 28, 2017 1:32 am
starxplor, how is your empire controlling almost 200 worlds with 3 capitals without any defections? Is it just pure luck or did something get done about the secession limits?
I reread the alpha notes and apparently the limit is >2 sector capitals, not >2 capitals total. I think that I've been spreading false information for a while now. My guess is that Ferengi are fine because they have exactly 2 sector capitals. I will have to change my guide.

edit: although I see starxplor has established a 3rd sector capital now, so all bets are off..
I had 2 sector capitals and one main capital with zero risk.
Adding a third sector capital turned it to high risk... I am going to keep going to see if/how long it take and what the results are.
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TheBugKing wrote:
Fri Apr 28, 2017 12:41 pm
Oddball wrote:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 5:48 pm
Thanks for the updated map, one other thought on spawning next to a large empire all the worlds get taken before a new player can get established. Just a thought
It is a good thought and actually a strong strategy, especially in when starting out. If the other player is forced to abdicate because they have no worlds to spread to, they can't become a threat. It is also good for containing a player that is already established but may become a threat. If you notice, Brides of the Sun has effectively blockaded Crystalline Federation with complete jump-access to the empires core.
They also have jump access to my core, how is that a blockade?
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TheBugKing wrote:
Fri Apr 28, 2017 12:41 pm
Oddball wrote:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 5:48 pm
Thanks for the updated map, one other thought on spawning next to a large empire all the worlds get taken before a new player can get established. Just a thought
It is a good thought and actually a strong strategy, especially in when starting out. If the other player is forced to abdicate because they have no worlds to spread to, they can't become a threat. It is also good for containing a player that is already established but may become a threat. If you notice, Brides of the Sun has effectively blockaded Crystalline Federation with complete jump-access to the empires core.
While we're on the subject of containing threats... would you please kindly refrain from expanding into the nebula south of me, as per our treaty? Especially after yesterday's little incident, which I'm sure we don't want a repeat of.
Oddball
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I have seen on other games maps are divided into sub sets. The games apparently determined how many active players to each sub set before opening a new sub set. As an example if the map was divided into 4 quadrants and each quadrant was divided into a number of sub sets. So first few players go to quadrant A - sub set random, Next few players go to quadrant D sub set random. the size of the map is determined by the number of active players. This would guarantee random open places on the map I think. Just a thought thanks for the help
TheBugKing
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incident
[/quote]

I had no intention of expanding into that center area. Expansion requires SC's and I have no SC in that area. As far as expansion elsewhere in the south, that is my domain to worry about. You have two or three, depending on how you want to look at it, thriving empires in your region to worry about.

Edit: I don't think It would be fair to harass you just yet with all the action up there. :mrgreen: :wink:
Last edited by TheBugKing on Fri Apr 28, 2017 8:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Fire, Fire, Fire;
Streaks of golden light,
Rays of cosmic waves crashing through still dead night.

Gifts of diamond rays,
Strewn pearls of days not measured,
Treasured gleaming quests fade through the absolute oblivion of infinite time, no matter the direction.

And war died the day it noticed itself,
Peace, yet still dead, peace in the void of voids.
TheBugKing
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Watch TV, Do Nothing wrote:
Fri Apr 28, 2017 2:34 pm
TheBugKing wrote:
Fri Apr 28, 2017 12:41 pm
Oddball wrote:
Thu Apr 27, 2017 5:48 pm


They also have jump access to my core, how is that a blockade?
Ah, I was referring more to your buildup of Citadels. You could effectively shoot down every single ship as soon as it left the jumpyard, but the Federation could not. Also, if you chose, you could restrict maneuvers to and from his core with the amount of Citadels. That was the blockade part.
Fire, Fire, Fire;
Streaks of golden light,
Rays of cosmic waves crashing through still dead night.

Gifts of diamond rays,
Strewn pearls of days not measured,
Treasured gleaming quests fade through the absolute oblivion of infinite time, no matter the direction.

And war died the day it noticed itself,
Peace, yet still dead, peace in the void of voids.
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