Beta 2 Map. [spoilers ahead]

[Dorne]

Any comments are welcome!

[george moromisato]

Very cool!

[sun1404]

I knew my empire is small. Never knew it's THAT small. And hey, Dorne of Deletare, I hope you're not... bent on galactic conquering?

[Dorne]

I knew my empire is small. Never knew it's THAT small. And hey, Dorne of Deletare, I hope you're not... bent on galactic conquering?

This time I'll go for a peaceful dictatorship route

If you need any advice on growing let me know.

[Miguk]

Interesting. I had wondered how big those nebulas are and now I see they stretch all the way across the map in a couple of belts.

[sun1404]

I knew my empire is small. Never knew it's THAT small. And hey, Dorne of Deletare, I hope you're not... bent on galactic conquering?

This time I'll go for a peaceful dictatorship route

If you need any advice on growing let me know.

That's relieving.

But well, I'm pretty much in the center of the map, surrounded by a bunch of large and small empires with borders close, if not overlapping, to my border, and I pretty much have every designations covered already, so I guess growth is not a viable option now.

[Dorne]

That's relieving.

But well, I'm pretty much in the center of the map, surrounded by a bunch of large and small empires with borders close, if not overlapping, to my border, and I pretty much have every designations covered already, so I guess growth is not a viable option now.

Now's a good time to start growing actually. If I were you, I'd be making more jumpship yards, jumpship autofacs, a couple of infantry bases, and more ramjet yards and ramjet autofacs until you run out of trill hex and aetherium. I don't know how trade empires work but keep expanding and taking more planets. You'll use them for something eventually.

*edit, I didn't notice but since your borders overlap its time to create a sector capital, make sure to put some troops on it and wait for 24 hours. after that time passes expand expand expand!

[sun1404]

And go to war with an empire 1.5 times larger than me, and risk having the other three or so seeing me as a danger? I guess I can't survive that.

[Dorne]

And go to war with an empire 1.5 times larger than me, and risk having the other three or so seeing me as a danger? I guess I can't survive that.

If I were you, I'd make a remote sector capital away from where you are; you can't effectively grow in that area if what you are saying is correct. There's some deterrent if they fight a smaller empire with the social order detriment but you'll never grow in that case. I've already created multiple sector capitals, some as far away as the far north, end near the middle. If all else fails and they conquer your capital, you've got a backup sector capital in the very least. Make sure there are enough troops to make sure it doesn't defect and it's at least a level 5 world.

[sun1404]

That an interesting strategy, thank you. Honestly, I've never thought of starting a mini-empire away from my capitol, because I've never had so much of a fleet as I have now.

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

I think Pardus and Omnithor are both zombie empires; I haven't seen any activity from them in some time. If you can take a capital world a lot of the worlds in the empire will defect to your side immediately.

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

And here's the map as it stands right now. I put colored circles around sector capitals for the strongest empires that still seem to be active. Looks like Deletare (Dorne) is about to eat Miguk- did Miguk attack first? If Deletare attacked Miguk, whose imperial might is a fraction of his, it should have incurred a major dissatisfaction penalty. (Unless he's settling independent worlds that just happen to be in Miguk's territory)

Deletare has an imperial might greater than any other four players and his settlement strategy seems to be to take every single world in his territory, not just the good ones. He also has at least 15 sector capitals. Law & Order seems to be by far the strongest doctrine right now, although there only seem to be a couple of people playing actively. The game would be a lot more interesting if there were more players.

One problem seems to be that people don't want to keep playing after suffering military setbacks. I won two wars against strong players who both abdicated or abandoned their empires, even though I only took a couple of planets. It would be good to make it clearer that weak empires don't have to fight tooth and nail to survive; I was counterattacked by one guy whose imperial might had dropped below the level where I could safely initiate an attack against him, which allowed me to resume the war. I would suggest making the "Empire" tab visible from any world in an empire, not just the capital, and add some sort of indicator to let you know whether the other player can attack you without penalty and vice versa.

[sun1404]

Talking about Doctrines, I've seen a few empires with the 'Strength and Honor' doctrine, which I cannot choose for my own empire. What is it? Why can't I choose it? Are there more of these unseen doctrines? I've only seen Fire and Movement, Trade and Enterprise, and Law & Order.

Also, A few days ago, when I was thinking Pardus is inactive and considering attacking him, he conquered a few worlds near my border. I guess he's still active, but not frequently so.

[Watch TV, Do Nothing]

You can't choose Strength and Honor if your capital is located in a nebula, since Strength & Honor generates starships at the capital and sector capitals. I think it should be changed so that Strength and Honor can also produce ramjets, and correspondingly have empires whose capitals are generated in a nebula have aetherium as a starting resource.

I also feel that players shouldn't be able to change doctrines away from Fire & Movement until they have captured a couple of worlds. I've seen a few new players switch to Law & Order or Trade & Enterprise when they only have one world; these doctrines don't generate ships, so they're totally unsuitable for the very early game. There should also be warnings when you try to designate a world as something unsuitable (for example, designating a world with trace trillum deposits as a trillum extractor); and there should be a one-watch cooldown after changing a world's designation so that players can't accidentally re-designate a world ten times during a lag period and wreck its efficiency.

[Dorne]

Looks like Deletare (Dorne) is about to eat Miguk- did Miguk attack first?

Neutral Worlds. Just made a capital to make a missile world and create a small island post for friendlies.