New Emperor of the Fading Suns Game (Nova?)

[Lord Austere]

allright, excellent. I'll set up a few map immages then

[Sangfugol]

here I´m
took my time to realize, that the simple tankrush wouldn´t work in nova as in the hyperionmod

[Lord Austere]

excellent. We make five then


Ok just a quick word on random galaxies. I've made a lot. 75% see two or more homeworlds adjacent to another or giving some houses only 1 planet for expansion. Others had an open symbiot horde with an open route to a homeworld (stigmata doesn't block the three planets as it should), one house that blocks all acces to Byzantium or one house being given half the galaxy to expand into.


In the end only 1 seemed to truly be somewhat acceptable in standart nova:



We have three options, play normal nova, play troyan or play this random galaxy.

[Nick Cav]

while that universe does seem very tempting, someplayers do have HUGE advantages, such as you austere, being purple allows you to keep all your ships on kish and prevent attack to all 4 planets behind you, there would be no way to sneak around back. So it would be almost impossible to ever fight you, meanwhile red, yellow, andgreen are stuck fighting for the middle

blue could also do the same as purple with the entire left side of the map two turns into the game
i vote either new universe or another option
sorry austere

[Eightball Maniac]

I'm no expert on how random maps are generated, but if it goes into a galaxy.gal file, you could just load it up in the map editor and adjust it. Add a back route to Li Halan's playground, maybe connect Kish and Vera Cruz, etc.

[Sangfugol]

all of them seem pretty fine (assuming the standart nova-map ist the vanilla one .

It doesn´t matter for me, but using the ancient documentary-traits won´t work with the troy2 map.

If we want to have a turn every day, my turn has to be between 14:00-20:00 GMT. At the moment I´m more or less available for the whole day from 6:00 to 22:00 GMT (8:00 - 24:00 GMT+2), but that can change in two months.
And from July 30th till August 1st I´m out of reach of any pc.

I will later send my email per pm.

Edit: Nick Cav, the first of your named 4 planets blocked by Kish is Stigmata or Critiqourum?

[Lord Austere]

I quite disagree on the arguments. At face value you may have a point, but remember that if you look at which planets are in who'se sphere of incluence a very different immage occurs. (this is the trick when looking at galaxies, unless you connect the dots you don't get a good overview as some jumproutes take you halfway across the map)

Basically I've coloured all planets with the shortest route leading to one homeworld:



It may seem that yellow, green and red fight in the center, but red and yellow don't have borders. Only green faces this problem, but then again as they are facing away from Byz 2 they will likely be able to backstab the weak hinterlands of one of the others.


Remember that for Hawkwood (Blue) it contains the Vau systems, a mixed blessing, and their acces to Byz 2 is cut by Red and Purple. They might have the largest chunk, but it's still a difficult task for them to claim the throne.

For Li Halan (Purple) their supply lines are long. It might seem nice to have a single track road, but it means forces need to jump 5 times to get to the other side of their empire, whilst the Hazat can easily use Pentateach, Rampoart and Bannockburn to place pressure on one end. Also they have the garisson to deal with, or possibly face symbiont invasion when it falls. (can't affort to allow another player controll of the garisson)

The Worst position is perhaps for for Decados (Green). But if they make a deal with the Hazat which obtains them Vril-Ya and gives Hazat Bannockburn they have a much stronger position for claiming tethys as two jumproads as their worlds allow them to place a lot of pressure.

The Hazat (red) are the most avarage house with a mixture of strong points in a solid backland that few will have interest in (provided they get bannockburn in exchange for Vril-Ya), but

Al Malik (Yellow) is probably strongest as they share only 1 direct border with other houses (the decados). Though this border is a tough one, as the decados will pressure them to no limit, they should be able to place a solid line at Daishan and use the madoc, manitou and chernobog systems to prsssure Byz 2.


----------------

Still I can make a few more galaxies, or we can use the standart one for the sake of ease (it took me 40-50 tries to get a galaxy with this level of balance between the houses)

[Garison]

we could always create our own, and thus force balance. I will attempt this today. As far as i know, the random planet feature in the EFS map editor will allow me to make some planets, but i don't think any rebels will be on there. I will use the troyan map as a blueprint, leaving stigmata Byz2 and holy terra in the same place, but will move the other planets around. We will see how it goes

I know the editor is buggy so this may not work. As i will use the random planet feature on the editor i should have no more advantage then anyone else/

[Garison]

Editor is too buggy. I can move spaceroutes easily but if i delete a planet then the map buggs out. i Can make the planets random, and then move the space lanes around to suit whatever design we would like, however the random planets tend to be the same sort of maps (islands) and contain no rebels. Maybe an editor masters will come in and tell me how to get around this ? is thier another map editor ?

Maps that are randomly generated are saved in the .sav not in .gal

[Nick Cav]

simply straight to the point...leminkainen, gynneth, absolution, and stigmata are isolated to only purples use, so...its very unfair, he(or she) can explorethese without any outside influence.


Anyway, i vote new map or a standard one.

[Russell]

Not to intrude, but you do know Stigmata is ministry controlled, and that those other three worlds are symbiot worlds, right? Which makes them exceedingly expensive to conquer, and the fact he has a ministry in his back yard complicates matters for him (the imperial fleet is hanging out right there, too). I just don't see how it would be a large advantage, especially when if you took over Kish (thus gaining his scepters), his role in the galaxy would be negligible anyway.

[Sangfugol]

In the end the random map isn´t that bad. The problem are some missing links between the planet. Can we create new links without deleting other ones?

A link from Leaqueheim to Stigmata and one from Severus (or one of the two neighboured systems) to Chermorog may ease some of the problems.

Another question: Is there any difference between white neutral worlds and grey ones? I coudln´t find any in Troy.

[Garison]

White planets are unoccupied with a few minor rebel cities, and Grey planets have a palace controlled by rebels, and are ussualy populated by more rebels then white planets.

we can't add routes to a random generated in game as it saves the final to .sav and not to .gal

I have on occasion gotten the map editor to generate a random map for me the last couple of days!!! this means i can move the jump routes as i see fit, change planet types, and add subtract units. I will go about randomly generating a map, and then changing the warproutes so we all have the following:
2 jumps between houses homeworlds . 2 jumps between Byz2 and any homeworld. wish me luck!

[Sangfugol]

luck

only one planet between the homeworlds of the houses? Sounds very warcrazy.

[Garison]

I have gotten a good spacemap made, i am going through and making sure the planets are not completely barren.

I will need to add: resource markers, and ruins. it will take a few days.

i will also balance the 3 ministries to be more fair. they will all get a planet each.

we all have a colony planet adjacent to our homeworld connected with a single space route, (its a mining planet) i will be to give everyone a bunch of engineers, and not add rebels as it will be much quicker. So its a house vs house map, with very little to slow you down but each other!