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The Fellowship Halls (Fellowship of the Ring Empire Thread)
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Welcome back to the Fellowship, Matthew, and welcome to the Fellowship Council!
Thanks for the heads-up, Marquesa, though obviously I wouldn't be catching the ABC show, Smeagol and Stupot, etc probably will. Our local channels usually show these "making of" shows as well.
Heard that those who previewed "The Return of the Ring" said it's the best of the trilogy. I personally enjoyed the final book more as well.
         
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Good morning, all.
The "someone at the door" was my daughter's Christmas presents. Thank God for Amazon.com, or I wouldn't have any gifts bought at all!
I hate to admit it, but I still haven't seen The Two Towers. I think I will take a day for myself sometime soon and rent the movies and watch them both in a row. It would be great to go see Return of the King right after that, so I could experience it all at the same time! 
Well, I've got lots to catch up on here at work. Sometime today I hope to write up a Review, it looks like all hell has broken loose with the Jedi and Euros.
Have a great day and Happy Gaming!
   
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The Metaverse Review is now out!
 Link
Headlines Include:
~ Galactic War Spreads
~ Weekly Spotlight Empire
~ And More!
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Woohoo! Finally, a position of power that I can abuse. In order to demonstrate my absolute authority, all players whose names begin with the letter 'E' are hereby expelled!
I think I enjoyed Two Towers a little more than Fellowship. My patience is a bit thin for those Council of Elrond moments when people sit around discussing things and I already know what they're going to say because I remember it from the book.
I expect anyone who enjoyed the first two films will enjoy the third. It's a shame that Saruman's bits have all been cut out, though. He's one of the most interesting characters.
I added another episode to that story last night. Is anyone else likely to contribute to it? If not, I can probably finish it myself.
[Message Edited]
  
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Downie,
I just wrote another chapter to Alliance of Evil. Your return has spawned a bit of a creative mood! Hopefully idle will go ahead and approve it!
Your chapters are awesome! Hope my little bit doesn't ruin what you were planning.
Link
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| Hope my little bit doesn't ruin what you were planning. |
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Don't worry. Even if it did, which it didn't, I always have a backup plan.
The details of the big finale will crystallise as soon as I've thought of a way to work in a secret undersea base, a romantic candlelit dinner, an exploding oil tanker, a daring commando raid, and a big musical number.
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Okay, my chapter's out! I like the ideas of the secret undersea base and the musical number! 
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Ahhh...time to go home! My favorite time of the workday!
Have a great night, everybody! See ya tomorrow, unless my Huge/Maso goes quicker than I think!
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Yeah, but most of his bits (eg his role in the Scouring of the Shire sequence) weren't even filmed. Of course, I can understand PJ not wanting the film to go on for several more hours after Sauron's destroyed...
The big conclusion to Alliance of Evil will be out soon. I'm afraid I had to cut out the secret undersea base to leave more room for the big musical number.
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Personally, I have taken the best available quick route before by taking an Alliance Victory, but I am a little militaristic, I guess. I enjoy eliminating the enemy through either invasion or simple destruction. I don't seem to endure the tedium that others do, even though my games take a little longer. I guess taking the first available victory would speed the pace up a bit, but I'm more into watching aliens burn! 
But I admire your ethics. I read your AAR on your Beyond Human victory. Good stuff! Not many would be so honest as to explain their reload.
Still, I find military hostilities to be the best option for me. I don't like it all that much when systems flip to me, but sometimes it's the only way to grab a foothold someplace.
I've found my nirvana, I guess. As you'll note, my scores are not anything major. I don't concentrate on playing Gigantic/Maso just to max scores. Heck, I don't even stick with Maso on every game!
As most people know, I implore people to play at their own skill level and comfort zone. In that regard, I would probably be a very good fit in Realms Beyond. But I also feel there is a certain gratification to winning the game a certain way. No doubt you know my disdain for the ending movie for a Cultural Victory. 
I guess in the end, we all play the way we want to play. If a player is taking the time to mop up and it's too tedious, they will either burn out or adjust their gamestyle to fit their own needs. My hope, as always, is the adjustment of the gamestyle. But recommending taking a Tech Victory over an Alliance Victory is not something I'm comfortable with.
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I don't know exactly how many hours it was, but it was quite a lot, and it was fairly tedious, though not quite tedious enough to stop me trying to win. There really isn't any such thing as a quick victory when you're playing a gigantic masochistic map. I have resolved to avoid getting into such situations in the future.
I started a new game last night on a Large map. This time, I was lucky enough to get a bad starting position. After the initial colonisation rush, I had two PQ15+ stars, while the Torians had eight. So, I colonised a couple of PQ14s, sold techs to the Alexians, built Dip Trans and Grav Accel, built culture defenses to stop the Arceans flipping me, researched Interstellar Business and collected about ten other techs by trading it, conquered a couple of minors, and bribed the Torians for peace. The Arcean stars were almost defenseless, surrounded by Torian dreadnaughts, but (as usual) the AI had failed to send enough transports to capture any territory. So I started a military, and conquered all the Arcean worlds. Even then, I was still well behind the Torians both economically and technologically. By this point, I could have defeated him fairly safely with culture bases. But, instead, I decided to go for a military solution, even though he was allied to all the other races, and I had about two Death Knights against his numerous Avatars and Rangers. So I devoted everything I had to building antimatter missiles, and eventually launched a full scale attack on his capital. In the first ground battle, 135 billion people died.
I'm now at a point where there are only two worlds left that I need to conquer to win, so the game is fairly tedious again, but at least it shouldn't take too long. I doubt it will increase my player score much, though.
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Good morning, gang! I was pretty busy last night but managed to squeeze in an hour or so on my Huge/Maso. It's definitely going to be a fight to the finish. I grabbed the relatively weak Drengin pretty quick and the Altarians bowed out early, but the Arceans and Torians are busy colonizing PQ14s. Yes, indeed! I've lost about three to them. I don't know why some games they colonize under PQ15, but this is one of those games that they are scarfing up everything.
Right now, it's pretty much even between the Arceans, Torians and me, with the Yor slipping behind a bit. I plan on capitalizing on that.  None of the minors got great starts and the Scottlingas have already disappeared. It looks like the Carinoids are getting hammered pretty good too by the Torians. I raped the Alexians for a 50 month deal, so I have a pretty nice budget to work with.
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After reading over my last post, I realized I may have sounded like I was criticizing those who choose to play Gigantic/Maso. On the contrary, if anybody has the patience to play a Gig/Maso, more power to them! I am just not happy playing it myself. Too big, too slow, and I'll admit it...too hard. I find Huge/Maso a good challenge and much more enjoyable. Just wanted to clarify that.
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Smeagol, I read in another post that someone else was having trouble posting. That doesn't sound too good.
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#843
by Citizen Sirian - 12/11/2003 9:58:11 AM
| I admire your ethics. I read your AAR on your Beyond Human victory. Good stuff! Not many would be so honest as to explain their reload. |
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I've submitted losses to the Metaverse, four times. Under certain circumstances, RB rules require that. Fortunately, I have turned them all around on the second chance, and been able to salvage wins out of each loss on replay, and resubmit; but the day may come when I lose the replay, too. *shrug* We're not obliged to report variant games, no-win situations, and playing out of our depth, so I've had some other losses I didn't have to report.
Talking about the one reload I did has led to new insights. A couple of players now have reported that they don't seem to provoke the AI with parked ships if they have cultural control over the sector. If so, that would be an interesting wrinkle. It might mean it's a good idea to add cultural modules to bases in deep space, so you can park defenders there without upsetting the locals.
For the RB Civ3 tournament, we have a rule for allowing reloads over misclicks. Accidentally started a war because you clicked the wrong thing? Accidentally bought an improvement when you meant to cancel? Moved a key unit to the wrong tile? Reload and fix it, if you wish. On the honor system. We believe the results ought to depend on your strategy, not your mouse-handling skills and ability always to press the key you meant to press. The spirit of the rules is the most important thing. People play games to have a good time, and rules should enhance that, not hinder it.
The up side of frequent patches is that the game keeps on improving. The down side is that player may not know the rules. I, personally, don't believe it makes sense to play a game without understanding the rules. Nobody is asked to play chess, in any competition, without knowing the rules. Tournaments don't shuffle the rules, but supposing they did, they certainly would not do it secretly, forcing players to "figure them out during the game". That's how it felt to have the AI declare war on me out of the blue. That was a change to the rules, and if I had understood it, I would not have been in that position. So that reload has a different context than, say, drawing a poor attack ratio on a close invasion and reloading to get better odds on the dice throw, or reloading to try to improve a morality event outcome when settling a key world. Etc. Not a significant ethical dilemma, on the rule issue, I think. Admitting to scouting out the map and obtaining spoiler information about the terrain, then reloading... that's a bigger deal. And I've done that, too, in up to half of my games, but I'm doing it less (needing it less) as I learn more about the game.
There's a more important reason to set limits for oneself and observe them, than ethical purity. Exposure to risks accelerates challenge and learning. Do-overs promote laziness, laziness curbs growth. If you don't have to live with a mistake, there is less incentive to analyze what led to the mistake, less drive to change, less likelihood of improvement.
We are capable of transcending our boundaries, of achieving excellence beyond imagining, but we have to reach far to have hope of getting there. Exercise is what builds strength. Resistance is what determines the value of strength training. Too much, and no gain will be made. Too little, and no significant gain will be made. Whether exercising the body, the mind, the heart or the soul, human beings thrive on hard work and challenge. There are no shortcuts, no magic pills.
GalCiv's scoring mechanisms offer challenge. But it is possible to "figure that out", at which point the challange factor slacks off. The only way to continue past that point with "significant resistance" is to forge your own challenges, to create your own ways to add resistance. Or, you can rest on your laurels, but you will gradually lose steam and soften up while those who press onward will pass you by. Think about it.
- Sirian
  
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I totally agree with you that you should never rest on your laurels. In fact, I try changing a few things in almost every game I play. Whether it be starting abilities (Maso with low diplomacy is very, very hard), a different map setting (I think maps with less than Common are more interesting and require more thought), or merely a new way to achieve the same goal (using Terror Stars over Transports, using little military, etc). Much of what I've described goes on behind the scenes as submissions only tell a little bit about what you did in a game. Military Victory? How was it achieved? Huge Map? Was it full of yellow stars?
Yes, giving ourselves new challenges keeps the game fresh and interesting. I'm not very good at AARs, as I tend to play without keeping track of what I did. Very spontaneous, yet a lot of thought goes into each move. Unfortunately, I usually concentrate so much on what's ahead, I forget how I got there!
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I had no problem submitting. 42K points. Enough to put me back in the top 15. Not bad for a game that was actually enjoyable the majority of the time, without bothering to research Galactic Creation, etc. So, my two new rules are: (a) play on Large maps and (b) do Ctrl-N until I get a fairly bad start position.
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| Ctrl-N until I get a fairly bad start position |
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How's that for a great strategy!!
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I just looked at the Metaverse and saw that Maxtipherous is now in third place! I don't think I've ever seen an unaligned overlord so highly ranked!
Congrats to Maxtipherous! Now, please join the Fellowship!
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