General Ideas Thread

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Hello hello !
How are sales going since the game is on Desura ?
Ok, seeing from the website and the comments on indiedb, things must still be very quiet there... But hey, is there any chance that IA gets the slight beefing up I mentioned in previous post ? 
I am sure that if we doe a bit of brain storming, we could find some good strategies.

Ah too bad that this game is not more successful : there are many competitors which look relatively close ( auralux, galcon, star baron, eufloria), but Mayhem Intergalactic is the only one which has automated supply lines, fog of war, and most important : is turn based.

[Chris]

I know, right? Totally superior.

I have a list of AI improvements I'd like to try out some day. I'll keep you posted if/when I get around to implementing them.

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Hmm. Totally superior. indeed 

Well, I have just set up a game with few planets on a huge map. That was cool : most planets were at 2 or 3 turns apart from their closest neighbour; except some clusters. There is quiet some tension when you try to guess how populated will the planet be in 3 or 4 turns, and try to plan some expansion an reinforcement 4 or 5 turns away.

Anyway, I might try to write down the some strategies a bit later, that could give you some more ideas.

[Chris]

Heh.

Yes, that's an interesting way to play for sure. Galcon has presets for generating different kinds of games, which is a feature that would probably be worth copying, just to expose people to the range of experiences you get with different parameters. That would definitely be one such scenario.

It's always nice to discuss strategies, I'll look forward to your thoughts.

[flap]

Game modes. Interesting.

That's really a fun exercise to imagine what could be done ! I fell like in Desktop Dungeons, were the developers have tried to twist their basic concept in every directions possible.

Blind
I could imagine a totally blind mode : You don't know the results of the battle were you are not involved. And thus you only know who owns a planet when you have a fight there (the colour could gradually fade away as last fight there is getting older).

Or one where you see fleets which are flying at given distance from your planet (maybe in proportion with the number of remaining ships)

Race
Another could be the race : you have a given number of turns. The player with highest ships production capacity wins. (players could start with more ships)

Duel
Close to that idea, pushed a bit further : Each player have one or more planets, with more ships than vanilla game. They give orders on turn 1. Then we wait until they are resolved (every fleet have travelled to destination) an the winner is the one with the most production capacity.

Bureaucracy
Still that idea, pushed a bit further. But it would require some change in the interface and game logic : Each player (human and AI) play a few turn as if they were alone on the map. They do actually enter their orders these few turns. Then, the orders of each player are being played, and the one with the biggest production capacity in he end wins. The fun part, is that you need to plan in advance without knowing if the enemy will be there, leading to catastrophic failures.
In terms of interface, when players are entering their orders, ships are being moved as usual, except that there is no fight. Instead of proposing to send a given number of ships, it proposes to send a proportion. Rally points command would work in the same way as normal games.

Exploration
We don't know were planets are at the beginning of the game.
The player has a scanning capacity in proportion of the number of ships (area scanned proportional to the number of ships).
We can launch a ship in a give direction from the planet (maybe with a message for confirmation). It will keep going in that direction for ever. The more ships are being sent, the larger scanning area is.

Ping pong
Same as Galcon (I haven't tried it though). The speed and direction of the planet depends on the origin and quanity of ships being sent at/from it (so a player can choose how to move a planet).

Exploration and ping pong could be fun when mixed together.