How do you know when there is a winner in a game of Trade Wars?

I've been told that there is a winner when there is one player (or corp) who is completely dominant. But, when exactly is that point? If there is no timelimit and no deathlimit, how do you determine a winner? Blow up stardock? Eliminate the other people's citadels?

The reason I ask is because the handful of games I've been in, the players interest dropped off a little bit before there was a clear winner. Just wondering if there was a standard for when to accept defeat.

-Raven

-Raven

quote:
How do you know when there is a winner in a game of Trade Wars?

I've been told that there is a winner when there is one player (or corp) who is completely dominant. But, when exactly is that point? If there is no timelimit and no deathlimit, how do you determine a winner? Blow up stardock? Eliminate the other people's citadels?

The reason I ask is because the handful of games I've been in, the players interest dropped off a little bit before there was a clear winner. Just wondering if there was a standard for when to accept defeat.


In general, I accept defeat when my base(s) have all been overrun. If you want to force someone to quit, the best way is to #SD# everyone on their corp and then block off fedspace so they can't get back out.

quote:
How do you know when there is a winner in a game of Trade Wars?

I've been told that there is a winner when there is one player (or corp) who is completely dominant. But, when exactly is that point? If there is no timelimit and no deathlimit, how do you determine a winner? Blow up stardock? Eliminate the other people's citadels?



Generally, the winning corp is usually pretty quick to come to the sysop and say "we won, can you rebang?" cuz once you've won, the game isn't fun anymore... Generally, the winning corp has all or most of the active figs in the game and all or most citadels, or they have an unbreakable grip on the SD and spend the last few days of a game #sd#ing anyone who dares to show their face in the game...

Blowing up stardock can sometimes be more of a strategy of eliminating competition through attrition...... Ppl often lose ships through other means than being attacked, i.e., navhaz, fusing, mines, carbo, q-cannons, aliens, and so forth...... thus if a corp can afford it, they'll buy enough ships for themselves and blow the stardock to force their opponents to either rely on scouts or what few ships they have remaining.......

so yea, blowing up SD could be a game-ending tactic, or it could just be an attempt to wrest the lead from another corp.....

hope this helps

Daemon
ICQ# 99772936

Very cool. Thanks for the input. I like this game more as I learn more about how to play.

Anyone ever played a game with a "number of times blown up" limit? Do those games do very well? I would think that with the number of active players getting smaller all the time, it would not be as fun as a game with a lot of players until the bitter end.




-Raven

quote:
Anyone ever played a game with a "number of times blown up" limit? Do those games do very well? I would think that with the number of active players getting smaller all the time, it would not be as fun as a game with a lot of players until the bitter end.


Death limits are used primarily in League games and Tournaments to eliminate ppl as they get destroyed too often...... It makes ppl more cautious, and if they aren't, they dont last long.....

Daemon
ICQ# 99772936

Once again, I have a predicament, My freinds and I joined FatCat's server about 2 weeks ago, and it's been the first game we played in about a year . . . that makes it the 3rd game we ever played. Anyway, the game is heavily edited and there are only about 7 people who actually play; 3 of them are my freinds and I. The game has come down to our corp and the guy in second place. Here's what I can tell from the game . . .
>We own about 3/4 of all the fighters and produce WAY more than anybody else
>We own all the citadels except 2, however, the ones we dont own are IG planets
>We have a pretty good grasp on Star Dock when we're online but there's no way to hold it when we're off.
>We could probably take the guy with 2 citadels now, except we can't find him ANYWHERE and it's only a 5000 sector game. We've used the past 2 days to search for him using e-probes and whatnot, he's just not turning up.
If we find him we would probably "win" but we haven't found him . . . can we still call it a victory and if not, how would you go about finding/killing him?

well, if he's strong enough to break thru to stardock, and he's able to keep moving his planets around to avoid your e-probes, you can't call it a win yet, since you still have competition.

What you need to do is start putting toll figs in all dead-end sectors and keep track of which ones are getting destroyed. Also, try to pin down any bubbles that might exist, and fig them as well. Eventually, you will get figs in every dead end sector, which will make finding him much easier, and make his life a lot harder.


Daemon
Memphis TW BBS
ICQ# 99772936


High Competition and High Risk - Just the place to relax

Edited by - daemon on March 21 2002 11:38:55 AM

On a similar note ,

Are there settings that are good for making a game that can "run long"?

A friend of mine runs a game hw would like to see as a more long term role playing type of game. Which I think would be fun. Are there known settings to help encourage this instead of one corp getting an upper hand in about 30 days and becoming an "evil empire" heh

Just wondering.

quote:
Are there settings that are good for making a game that can "run long"?

A friend of mine runs a game hw would like to see as a more long term role playing type of game. Which I think would be fun. Are there known settings to help encourage this instead of one corp getting an upper hand in about 30 days and becoming an "evil empire" heh


The best settings for a long running game are when they are closest to stock. (Its one of the reasons that in the old days, many games lasted better than a year)

Less turns - means less can be accomplished in a day.

less time allowed online - means ZTMing may have to be split up, making such tasks more time consuming. Also means teams that want to run a continuous block on SD using scripts and toll figs much more difficult (e.g. 4 hr time limit means a corp of 6 must have flawless timing and not do anything else in that 4 hours)

Decrease # of pre-built ports from default by about 5-9% - will make PPTing at beginning of game more difficult, and will force players to burn turns e-probing and exploring looking for ports.

Make universe more convoluted - increase one-ways and max course length. Will make game more difficult.

Increase strength and activity of aliens - this will make players have to concentrate on aliens a little more than normal, and adds an interesting twist to the game.

put StarDock next to FedSpace - while this may seem like it would make game easier, it makes it more difficult for a leading team to set up StarDock blocking techniques to wipe out competition, as players can always coast in through the protected fedspace sectors.

Also, you can try not showing location of SD or not having Terra in sector 1, and making players find each of these. These options can backfire, however. A single corp can find and ambush either hidden location, or players can give up and not play the game at all.

Most of all, have your friend be creative. Even if a game doesn't last as long as desired, if players enjoy the game, they will come back over and over and over again. I know that on Memphis TW, there are a couple of games that always get a ton of players and a ton of competition because of interesting game settings and (on a few) balanced ship edits that bring players in time and again.

Hope this helps


Daemon
Memphis TW BBS
ICQ# 99772936


High Competition and High Risk - Just the place to relax