Planning: Alien Invasion MP Game?

[unmerged(6147)]

In SP Aliens can establish 5 merchants in all COTs fairly easy and maintain it like that extremely easy, by *perhaps* needing to send 1 merchant a year to a COT where by some extremely bad luck their merchant is competed out, even with BB>2*BBlimit and stability=-3.
In SP it is also easy to acquire 15-20 merchats in the richest COTs by competing out other countries and than fairly easy maintaining this presence.

I accept that in MP it would all be harder when player countries discover out-of-Europe COTs. This could be fairly soon if they share maps. However, since in regular MP games with more or less equal trade technologies we often see nations dominating the world trade and easilly having 5 merchants in every COT, I assume it is only right to assume at least that in this case for Aliens.
If I were Alien, I would simply threaten to DOW a country that for example trades in any COT except her own, and even there Aliens should be given the monopoly. Perhaps I would even force them to embargo all the rest .

In post 54 in this thread you wrote

"Aliens would probably have all the trading income for a long time"

That was the statement I opposed because it is incorrect. I thought I was quite clear when I wrote that

"...it is quite astounding that some of you believe that they will have 20/20 or close to it in all COTs" in the post that you responded to.

Still you argue as if I opposed the idea that the aliens would easily reach and maintain 5/20. Incidentally that question is a much more interesting one, one that needs much more testing and analysis. Suffice to say that if there are 10 other nations that from start have say trade tech level 3 and fight for trade and they do it an intelligent way then the alien's trade would be killed.

Regarding threats: as I see the game: every other nation would be your enemy. It's them against you. No threats would have any effect. I would even advocate that when a player nation gets annexed the player can take up a new nation and keep up the fight against the aliens.

 

[unmerged(18425)]

I would even advocate that when a player nation gets annexed the player can take up a new nation and keep up the fight against the aliens.

Certainly. This game, if it ever starts, will have a lot of annexations and everyone interested should be allowed to get a new country

 

[Peter Ebbesen]

Things I got to add to the scenario that is not included in that download:

1. Eternal great monarch.

# Zorthons #

historicalmonarch = { 
	id = { type = 6 id = 10001 } 
	name = "Zeebon Morgo" 
	startdate = { year = 1417 } 
	deathdate = { year = 1850 } 
	DIP = 8 
	MIL = 8 
	ADM = 8 
}

2. Some leaders maybe? Evently distributed with 10 years apart?

Veenok 2/1/1/0 (1417-1850). The aliens do not need leaders. Trust me on this. Being a gazillon CRTs ahead of the opposition is enough until the late game, and there will only be a late game if the Alien player fucks up or somebody manages to inflict truly atrocious attritional casualties on the Aliens. Given that the first priority for the Alien player will be to knock out the traditional naval nations - blockade England, occupy, strip of provinces - repeat elsewhere, you just need to occupy the cores to make peace, it should be extremely difficult to actually perform meaningful resistance unless the Alien player is extremely lenient (which he has no reason to be). An alien high-level fortification will hold out against any attempt at storming that the humans can perform before 1700, while the alien cuts through fortresses like butter (even though they still remain the best chance of inflicting larger attritional casualties by tying up aliens for longer time).

It was hard enough fighting them (alone) against the AI. In the hands of a competent player.... Of course, this was way back in time and the rules have changed since then... To the detriment of the human side. Morale has greater importance and it is expensive to keep millionman standing armies.

Remember...

This is what it took to defeat them the last time around...

3. More country slots.

Perhaps.

Additinal suggestions about what to add would be welcome.

Some cool names for your armies...

U00;Army of Zorth
U00;New Geemok Fusiliers
U00;Buuzmuk's Elite
U00;Soldiers of E'E'Whop

and navies...

U00;Fleet of Zorth
U00;Ookhup Skimmers
U00;Bugstomper Fleet

Another thing is that you might want to reduce the random event file, as most of the events make very little sense for the alien player.

I have uploaded the original Zorthon Scenario from WAAR of the Worlds here in case anybody is interested, though I doubt it will run with EU2 1.08.

 

[unmerged(10146)]

Daniel A,

I was only reporting and commenting the results of a test based on the provided scenario that I conducted.

If humans are all put in Europe and Aliens in Patagonia, humans will be able to trade only in Europe, because at first humans will not have knowledge of the out-of-Europe COTs, and by the time they do, Aliens will have probably all the COTs in their hands and embargo humans if needed.

If humans are dispersed around the world, thus controlling COTs, than they will have another problem: they will not know about each other. Aliens can slow down their exploration long enough to take most of COTs one by one against humans and the situation would be similar.

Sure, humans can arrange trade agreements, but you should test how good that would be against so advanced trader as Aliens would be. According to my experience, trade agreements don't at all work that good when there is a lot of them. Even with trade agreements present there is mutual competition in COTs.

 

[unmerged(18425)]

Any updates on this Chaingun?

 

[Chaingun]

I might be able to work on it tomorrow, but I've been rather busy this week, and I do not expect this round of stress to stop until the end until next week.

 

[unmerged(6147)]

Daniel A,

I was only reporting and commenting the results of a test based on the provided scenario that I conducted.

If humans are all put in Europe and Aliens in Patagonia, humans will be able to trade only in Europe, because at first humans will not have knowledge of the out-of-Europe COTs, and by the time they do, Aliens will have probably all the COTs in their hands and embargo humans if needed.

If humans are dispersed around the world, thus controlling COTs, than they will have another problem: they will not know about each other. Aliens can slow down their exploration long enough to take most of COTs one by one against humans and the situation would be similar.

Sure, humans can arrange trade agreements, but you should test how good that would be against so advanced trader as Aliens would be. According to my experience, trade agreements don't at all work that good when there is a lot of them. Even with trade agreements present there is mutual competition in COTs.

The humans will of course swap maps... :wacko: It's the humans against the enemy, at least in my world. They will have a difficult task as is it, why make it more difficult than that I never stop to be amazed how bound by your MP experience you MPers thought processes appear to be when you discuss tactics.

Each embargo costs 3% TE. Sure they could embargo say 10 humans and pay 30% TE... but that leaves the rest of the world and the COTs not owned by the aliens. I am a little astounded that you maintain that they would end up with 20/20 in every COT or close to it. It would be interesting to hear you describe this test a little more in detail.

No, the humans would not use TA when competing intelligently, that costs TE. I remember a thread many years ago about trade wars against the no 1 in the game and at that time the MPers I discussed it with thought that as well, when I suggested an "intelligent" trade war against one nation - the correct tactic was outside their experience and therefore they could not imagine it. N.b. such a war was easier at that time since you always targetted the monopolist when all slots was occupied and further more: TAs did not decrease your TE in case you wanted to use such.

 

[Chaingun]

Ok, so I will be able to play from the end of next week. Now, with some rebalancing I intend to start a game of based on the current scenario.

The question is: What days could people play this on? This autumn basically every weekday will be fine for me (minus Friday plus Sunday).

As for balancing, it's mostly of a question of how much manpower we want the aliens to have I guess and/or tech. Going to try to find that scenario on my hard drive now. :wacko:

EDIT: Found, updating text and country .CVS to latest Beta type.

EDIT2: Going to spend some of evening balancing.

 

[Chaingun]

I just decreased both their economic techs to 5 each. I don't think this will influence their decisions early on but it may help to bring down economic progress a little. Also, later on it may actually present them with the question: Do I have to research?

 

[unmerged(21338)]

Don't make all of the players in Europe. China & perhaps an Indian civilization would have more relevance if the entire world is going to be attack, then you have the Ottomans & Russia. That would only leave 3-4 nations in Western Europe so it spreads out any chance for conflict between the other player nations & allows for a more centralized opposition by giving more places to rape the AI before the Aliens arrive.

 

[Chaingun]

Don't make all of the players in Europe. China & perhaps an Indian civilization would have more relevance if the entire world is going to be attack, then you have the Ottomans & Russia. That would only leave 3-4 nations in Western Europe so it spreads out any chance for conflict between the other player nations & allows for a more centralized opposition by giving more places to rape the AI before the Aliens arrive.

Well, yeah. I was thinking to allow all human players to decide for themselves by discussing it. It's the really smartest if all strong nations are picked first.

 

[unmerged(7276)]

im really interested in playing this game.

 

[Chaingun]

im really interested in playing this game.

I'm planning on setting up a thread or so very soon to ask what days people can play. I guess it will be some kind of vote on the day, and day with most people available wins...

 

[Spinalcurve]

I am interested too