Ray the Wanderer Ray the Wanderer

Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread

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Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread

from Stardock Forums
The Prancing Pony

The welcome sight of a tavern greeted the weary traveler as he moved within distance of the town. Having traveled for many days, he longed for a cool mug of ale to slake his road-thirst.

As he approached the inn, he could see a sign of a fat pony rearing up on its hindlegs. The letters, THE PRANCING PONY, was painted in white.

The common room was large and rowdy. A bald and overweight innkeeper stood bent over the counter, whispering the latest gossip into the ears of a patron. On the benches were various folks, the local drunks for most part, but in corners of the taverns, he noticed there were groups drinking by themselves.

Setting himself down, the traveler handed a couple of coppers over to one of the bar wrenches for ale.

“Welcome to the Pony.” The traveler was mildly surprised to find a sprightly old man next to him, holding his gaze with keen eyes that belittled his obvious antiquity.

“Thank you, and whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

“Folks around here call me Ray and I do enjoy meeting up with newcomers to see if there is any assistance I could render.”

“That would be great, Ray. I would love to learn about the people who reside in these parts.”

“Ah, that’s a frequently asked question and one I’m well qualified to answer. There are a couple of factions here in Meta that you will want to watch out for.

The Pirates are currently dominant. Not the most refined of speakers but they are a jovial bunch, with a particular weakness for good drinks.

The Diplomats hold power in the Courts. Their courtiers are many but they don’t really mix with us common folks.

The Farmers are our working class. Hardworking and honest, they are however on occasion given over to overly elaborate festivals and celebrations.

The Galahs are a group of seafarers. They are also good trainers of livestock.

The Warlords are our warrior class. Their love for long campaigns leaves them frequently out of town.

The Spiders monopolise our merchant guilds. They are by far the most invertebrate bunch of traders you will ever see.

Far to the north, the Undead holds a death grip over the wastelands. I would caution you against traveling down that road.

There are many other smaller factions around, but I leave the details of those to Barley our bartender.

One of our tavern regulars, Gerakken the Spymaster, is also in the know with regards to many of the factions. So do buy him a drink if you want to find out more.”

“Thanks for the insights, Ray. But how about yourself, which faction do you belong to?”

Smiling to himself, the old man stood.

“Come round the Fellowship Halls tomorrow morning and I’ll show you around.”
476,025 views 2,185 replies
Reply #1976 from Stardock Forums Top
U still at work at 0230hrs? Of course, you're gaming and not working.
Your colleagues will be wondering why you are doing so much OT. :)

~SDC~
Reply #1977 from Stardock Forums Top
Alternating between real work and gaming.

I've been designing a hideously complicated system for the past week and I've gotten to the point where I just can't concentrate on it for more than an hour or two at a time. Yesterday was an 18-hour day :(
Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #1978 from Stardock Forums Top
Yes, I can see how you could relax alternating between designing a hideously complicated system and Galciv Maso. ;)

~SDC~
Reply #1981 from Stardock Forums Top
Rick, congrats on the Maso and third place!

Welcome gamer3999! I'll have your name on the Roster page of the website as soon as I can.

In case anyone hasn't been to the Fellowship website, it's at http://www.angelfire.com/rings/fellowshipgalciv

Well, I can honestly say that taking a vacation last week has proved to be a pain. Why is it that work piles up while I go on vacation...

Hey, anybody realize that if Cotal was still in the Fellowship, we would have the #1,2, and 3 players? Oh well, Cotal's an honorary member, so I guess we can still say that (sort of!) ;)
Reply #1982 from Stardock Forums Top
Rick, vincible,Cheese aside, how hard do you think Maso is over Crippling? Forget about scoring, I'm asking about difficulty.
End of quote


Ray

It is hard to say after playing one game of maso but it is totally different than crippling. Basically, there is never any surplus cash and one is alway behind. At the other levels a "good game" means dominating (number one in population, military, tech, economy, etc.). In maso I don't think I will ever dominate anything. I was just trying to avoid getting smashed like a bug until I could get cultural maximizing and crank out constructors. When I attacked the one major and two minors during the game, I used only the minimum - early it was one frigate with 5 transports that I traded for and later I actually made a Death Knight and traded for a battle transport - whoop-tee-doo - LOL

Even when I won, I was not on the top of the heap but had to culture flip my ally. So, maso is definitely MUCH harder. Like vincible, I have trouble giving a quantity but I suggest that maso is at least twice as hard as crippling. And crippling is only a little (?10%) harder than painful, which in only a little harder than tough, which is only a little harder than challenging.

Actually on my anomalous large crippling Cari wrote back that I had tripped a "too much money" flag early in the game but we are not sure why. My guess is that the high diplomacy cash for tech trading may have tripped it. As long as one get lots of cash for tech, the game is MUCH easier. On maso all of I could think of was "Show me the money!!!" LOL Of course, there was none. :)

Hope this helps. I will play some more maso as it seems like playing maso is sort of like getting a brand new game of Gal Civ compared to the lower levels. One of the things I really like on maso is that you are just trying to win and may have to change strategies during the game to survive. For example, I never intended to ally with the Dregnin but it was that or get toasted. Then I never intended to go to war but it was that or get invaded. My first game was a little chaotic to say the least. On maso, there was never a thought about running the entire tech tree for points because there was not enough income for rapid research and the longer I put off an opportunity for victory the more likely I would get knocked off. And that was tiny, rare ("easy maso" is an oxymoron). It may be a while before I get comfortable enough to play a bigger map. Maso is very, very different from crippling.

Rick
[Message Edited]
Reply #1983 from Stardock Forums Top
Ray, to maybe get a better grip on difficulty level comparisons (for the sake of good ol' fun analysis) you can compare the difficulty in terms of how easy it is to win. For instance:

To me, Average difficulty is a sure win - I could basically set up my game and hit end game until I inevitably won (that's not exactly true, but that's how I feel).

On Tough, I expect to gain early game superiority in 3 out of 4 major catagories, and the rest is a fore-gone conclusion. Mistakes at this level will not cause me to lose.

On Painful, the computer jumps out to a quick lead, but as long as I can play flawlessly, I can overtake the leaders in mid-to-late-game. Mistakes in planning or diplomacy could (and have) cost me the game.

On Crippling (very aptly named for me), I stay hopelessly behind no matter what I do, and I have to hope noone decides to kill me before I can "sneak" up on them with a culture bomb or alpha strike. I do not play this level often, because the fact that I can never really gain superiority in anything is stressful; that and the fact that my game seems 99% out of my control (a win here makes me feel like I have won the lottery - all luck and no skill).

On Maso, I am 100% sure I would never win, so I don't try. ;p

This is a very personal analysis of the game levels, but it is easy to think of the levels in terms like this, and it's probably fun for others to see an evaluation like this (especially from the top players). From this short post, you can infer quite alot about my play style and where my comfort zone is, etc.

Happy gaming.
Reply #1984 from Stardock Forums Top
Congrats on the Maso win Ric!! Seems you were playing painful just yesterday! I finished my first painful a while back but decided to perfect some strategy before moving up in difficulty. On that, I have a question for you guys.

Has anyone ever used the "dont ask" max option for population growth? Its +70% pop growth (in 1.05). I tried that in a quick little tiny/tough. I chose populists, +70 pop growth, +10 morale, +10 diplo, and +5 PQ. Gave me a total of +30 diplo, +30 morale, +5 PQ, +70 pop growth. The extra morale and PQ were chosen to basically give me a place to put all the extra people. It allowed my population to keep growing. The difference was pretty obvious in my opinion. I had a poor start but still, by the time I had 10 billion on earth, the largest AI pop was 4 billion. I had 18 when they were at like 8bil. This gave me huge advantage in tax income, production, research, influence, you name it. True, it wasnt a very hard setting, but I did that to see the difference easier. It got really absurd when I got aphrodisiac, improved environment, and basic env control. It was still fairly early game but earth could churn out fully loaded transports every 2-3 turns and still GAIN population. It was just sick. I cant imagine what it would be like if I had gone all the way to regenerators.

Anyway, just curious if anyone else had tried this. Its pretty expensive at 5 pts but it worked really well. You have to balance it with some morality and or PQ picks though since they act as a ceiling for max pop. The biggest drawback I see is losing the +speed you need on larger maps. This time around I swaped the pop growth for +1 speed. Same cost. Also dropped the +10 morale for another +10 diplo. I have a lot better start and got to more planets, but I still seem to produce and research slower. Influence is also harder. Interesting.

Happy gaming!
[Message Edited]
Reply #1985 from Stardock Forums Top
Thanks for all the feedback on the difficulties, guys. Much appreciated.

WileyCoyote,

Interesting observations. I've not focused much on the pop growth picks as my initial impression through experimentating with that pick is that my populations maxed out rather rapidly and the pop stopped growing. So I thought to myself that I've lost the benefit of the picks rather quickly. However, it is true that having very big pops on the planets in a short time helps to provide the empire with a lot of resources (taxes, production, research, influence) faster than an empire which grew more slowly.

You certainly got my interest to experiment more with the pop growth pick.

~SDC~
Reply #1986 from Stardock Forums Top
anybody realize that if Cotal was still in the Fellowship, we would have the #1,2, and 3 players? Oh well, Cotal's an honorary member, so I guess we can still say that (sort of!)
End of quote


If you can't beat 'em, pretend they've joined you. ;)
Reply #1987 from Stardock Forums Top
Interesting observations. I've not focused much on the pop growth picks as my initial impression through experimentating with that pick is that my populations maxed out rather rapidly and the pop stopped growing.
End of quote


I feared the same thing at first. Thats why I also picked a totat of +30 morale and +5 PQ. This basically raises the cap and lets the pop keep growing. You could choose even more morale to help this out. It would probably be easier to just make sure you grab a morale resource though. Like you said, its interesting because a high pop helps out with everything. Getting one real fast can therefore be a big advantage. However, it might need to be an all or nothing venture.

Let me know if you try it!
Reply #1988 from Stardock Forums Top
I have tried most of the options. My favorite for the last couple of weeks has been the +20 diplo, +20 morale party (populist?) and always choosing max diplo (5 points for 60%). That leaves 5 points left. On a large map (or bigger), I choose +1 speed and on a medium map or less (where I only colonize one or two sectors away), I choose +5 PQ to get that extra PQ. Then I put one point in morale to crank up that pop growth and the final one in influence both for the early game and because I prefer to culture bomb to victory. Good luck. :)

Rick
Reply #1990 from Stardock Forums Top
I find that on crippling, I know I will win bar a disaster, by the early game on small maps, and by the mid game on large maps. On maso, I could always lose if another civ declared war (because they usually have a better navy). I couldn't put a percentage on the rise in difficulty level. Amazingly, I still find maso enjoyable if I have a high diplomacy to keep out of wars.
Reply #1991 from Stardock Forums Top
Rick, our picking strategy is exactly the same.
End of quote


Glad I am doing something right. ;)

Vincible, Ray, and others . . . I put a maso question in the maso strategy thread but basically I am trying to learn maso level economics. I am mostly broke since I can't swap tech for cash on maso. It seems the obvious approach is pump up freighter trade with star base boosters and build up population for taxes. What am I missing? Please share your thoughts here or in the maso strategy thread. Thanks.

Rick
Reply #1992 from Stardock Forums Top
Done, Rick.

Is there somewhere I can go for a full 1.10 tech tree? Javascout's isn't updated yet. I don't see one in the game. Am I missing something obvious?
Reply #1993 from Stardock Forums Top
Don't think anyone has updated their tech trees to 1.1 yet.
Javascout did say he is going to update his site soon.

I don't think there are many changes to techs are there?

Disruptors (evil tech) after Interstellar Tactics and a whole bunch of weapon techs after Corvette.

~SDC~
Reply #1994 from Stardock Forums Top
Rick, I've also made a short post at the Maso Strats thread.

Basically, maso players have to get used to life without tech selling. Trade is especially critical on Tinies because tax income is never going to be great with only a few planets.

Note that you can still tech sell to new minors who appear later in the game. Well, more like TG sell because they start with all your techs.

~SDC~
Reply #1996 from Stardock Forums Top
Congrats to arobertson for 100k and admiral promotion. And congrats to all of the FOTR who have recently entered a game on the metaverse. Getting 100k is going to be a requirement for the top 25 (front page) in the metaverse very soon now.

Rick
Reply #1997 from Stardock Forums Top
I'm currently playing a fun Maso Huge.

Dregs have got a very good start so they have been Strongest in both economy and military for the entire game so far. My bribes of tech are proving ineffective for some reason and they are Wary.

I certainly don't want to war against them because they have 4-5 long trade routes with me and I've 3 medium trade routes with them. I've been very lucky in trade in this game because almost everyone is trading with me even though I'm at NE of the map. Tors who are at SW have a couple of trade routes with me that stretch all the way diagionally across the Huge map.

The trade money is really rolling in. :)

~SDC~
Reply #1998 from Stardock Forums Top
Just updated the Metaverse Review. Here's the http://metaversereview.joeuser.com

Ray, I hadn't noticed until today how close Cotal is getting to you. Better start cranking it up! :HOT: