It seems that Tartarus is effectively a combat-based game in which the commanders are not given any objectives. The only order that can really be given is to destroy the units to the front, thereby causing endless grinding and standoff.

Surely it would make sense to give the game a purpose…to allow clan leaders to breed their units for a specific job and to use their superior tactical skills to engage and defeat an enemy in a fluid environment.

The Sphere. Scrap the Green, Orange and Purple biomass and introduce deserts where a titan may go but not harvest. Start players at the cap. They may only start, however, at the beginning of a new mission and will only receive 60 generic units.

Halls. Maintain Halls, but change them from being operational to totemic and indestructible, able to move a basic 5 hexes without cost. No more ranking points, a simply extra score for hitting it. Scoring continues until attacker destroyed.

Alliances. To be limited to three clans. Must be registered. A clan may not fire on an allied unit. (No more training!)
All non-allied clans are considered to be the enemy. Unless given an order to the contrary, such as move or regen, a unit must fire at any enemy unit within range at the beginning of the turn, except unarmed scouts who will be considered invisible to any automated system.
If a unit fails to fire on an enemy then the auto-pilot will engage and fire.
All clans download their allies full maps and see what they see. All Hall positions are revealed.

Augmentation. Augmentation only operates when a unit is in excess of 50 units from it’s or any alliance Hall. Within 50 hexes the augmentation will be lost until the unit moves away.
A fighter may ‘earn’ Augmentation points for it’s immediate parent through combat. Every five experience points will earn one Augmentation point. A clan may only have 100 Augmentation points at any one time, either used or unused.
The parent may spawn another unit and allocate a maximum of 5 Augmentation points to it’s systems. Each Augmentation point will give an increase in performance of 4%, giving a possible increase in performance of 20% in any one system.
System Augmentation will not be tied into the normal limitations of any other system/s.
System Augmentation will be invisible to the enemy, but will be visible to allies.

Objectives. General orders should be given to all clans such as ‘Tag 5 enemy Halls’ or ‘Destroy 5 fighters each from clans X Y & Z’. (Think Risk).
The first clan/alliance to achieve the objective will be declared the winner and will receive ‘Victory Points’. A new objective will then be given.

Scoring. Scrap tourneys.
Three scores..... Operation points. Cumulative points. Victory points.

What will this achieve?

1. With objectives the clans will have to move around the Sphere. They will cross paths with other clans resulting in combat.
2. The alliance rules coupled with the Augmentation rules will effectively prevent training.
3. Preventing the opposition from seeing how you have augmented your systems will add a little mystery to the game.
4. The Augmentation system coupled with objectives will mean that it would not always be ‘the biggest and baddest’ unit which will win. Far more thought would have to be put into the roles of units.
5. Seeing the position of opposition Halls will aid planning and speed up the game so clans don’t sit around twiddling their thumbs during lengthy scouting operations. To accept this it is important to move away from the concept that Halls are the be all and end all of the game.
6. Three different methods of scoring will give everyone the chance to excel at something.
7. Limiting the number of clans in an Alliance will encourage small groups of new players to play.

Please feel free to flame.
Thank you
Peter.

Press 'submit' and die......................

In a nutshell. No. We don't like it!

I dislike simply requiring the registeration of alliances, etc. impractical and will lead to cheating from laziness. It might be worth offering a benefit to "declared alliances" (allies nano ignores one another?) but it would have to be a trade at least equal to training and other benefits of undeclaired alliances.


I do like the idea of central, slow clan halls. however, if you want to do this then why give scoring points for hitting an immortal clan hall? if you loose nothing for me to gain points than what incentive is there for you to guard it well, especially if you and i know one another off-game.

I like centrality.
I like expanded options for for when individual units are created.
I like "goals" beyond "take that hill because my -hated- (for today) enemy is upon it."

I like tournies, simply because they give clear time markers.


in essence, what everyone is saying is we need something to fight over. resources beyond Biomass conflict beyond "I want a fight."



what if mothers, the central breeders, could only improve tech based on points won through wounds to other mothers?
give the defensive player a chance and have "warp zone" type areas appear randomly in which titans win their clan more of this resource...
(makes taking or holding that particular hill/valley/other land feature more than a moral and personal imperative... it's how your forces will grow stronger.)

What if we make this a more nomadic game?

Say every tourney random patches of biomass 20 hexes wide are generated. Then when harvested they dissapear and dont grow back. At the end of the tourney all biomass dissapears and new patches spring up. This forces you to have to find and hold areas. If you can deny an enemy breeding ground, you can more then just destroy their front line, you can force them to retreat.

Everyone would have to move, forcing people to fight over patches, so long as theres not to few or to many. We make halls the exception, they create a patch every tourney. This makes them valuable but they have to be near the front in order to help the troops.

Just a thought.

Phoenix...Thank you for your valuable input...I am sure that you found the mark given for putting your name at the top of the exam paper invaluable.

Mortis...if I may answer your points.

The registration of alliances is not impractical atall...the game already accomodates that.

I cannot see why it would cause cheating, by making alliance member unable to fire at allied units they cannot train, and if one alliance were to try to train against another it would be pretty obvious, and as in any sport/game/event cheats should not be tolerated and should be ejected. If nothing were done because someone might bend the rules or cheat...well, we might as well just stay in bed. Also, in the overall game there would really be little point in inter-alliance training because it is the alliances themselves that would be in competition....they could not physically(?) help each other to achieve the goal as only one alliance would be victorious

The whole idea of changing Halls....alright, lets say for argumet's sake that Halls cease to exist and we have Home Totems.....would be to get away from the mentality that has grown over the three epochs that Halls are the be all and end all of the game. They could be changed into a simple target used in part of the game. If, for example the general order is to tag five 'Home Totems' then you may want to defend your home whilst attacking others, to prevent the opposition from securing an easy victory. On the other hand, if the order was to place a specific type of unit on a specific spot in x number of turns then you may decide to forgo defence for attack.

Just firing at the Home Totem could score points, but if not done as a response to an order it would achieve nothing towards victory.

Peter.

For the record, I don't like the "forced" alliances either. If anything they seem somewhat pointless to me.

Peter, you mention training - we both exist in two large alliances that make up a large proportion of capped clans - does Evolution routinely train its titans before they go into combat? I'm assuming you don't otherwise you wouldn't suggest a rule that makes it more difficult. For the record, The One (as far as I can tell) does not routinely train its titans. Sure, there's the occassional friendly fire, and sometimes we test out prototype designs against more traditional ones... but beyond that our titans do not fire upon each other. Besides, there is a "experience cannot exceed age*2" (it may be age*3) that is restrcting enough to make sure clans dont train their titans before they enter combat.

What I do like from this thread, is the slow emerging idea of how to restrict/change biomass. All we want is a rule that will allow stalemates lines to finally break - and eliminating the enemies biomass would make a line unsustainable and have to withdraw/advance to a new patch of biomass.

mortis wrote:

in essence, what everyone is saying is we need something to fight over. resources beyond Biomass conflict beyond "I want a fight."

Or to make biomass more valuable.

So here's my twist on it:

"Blue" breeders can harvest any type of biomass. They harvest green at 1 per day, orange at 2, purple at 3 and blue at 4 (or 6+ if we want to make it really good!).

The sphere is predominantly green with patches of orange, purple and blue.

Titans with spawn-chambers can be set in "open" or "closed" mode. This simply means that their chambers are open to suck up biomass or closed and will not (to allow migration to a blue zone for example).

Once a breeder has started harvesting up one type of colour, it can only suck up that colour for the duration of its sucking period. Breeders can spawn titans as normal or they can vent their biomass (which is then destroyed). Venting is primarily so that a breeders can start harvesting a different colour if they chose after previous harvesting something else. Their may be some tactical benefits to it too, though I can't think of any right now.

Now for the good bit. Breeders that have harvested green can spawn at a maximun of 25% the tech cap. 50% for orange, 75% for purple and 100% for blue.

Capped titans become the new OTs. OTs become the Godlike creatures they're supposed to be.

The vast majority of titans are a mere gen 48 (which then also helps new players be competative).

Phoenix.

Oh... and how does this break a line?

Basically, it stops them forming in the first place. Battles will take place over blue biomass fields (and to a lesser extent purple and orange). The slow rate of titan production (cos green is the norm) and range in tech of fighters will make the battle relatively quick. The winner will send in their breeders, spawn some nice shiny capped titans then charge on to secure the next patch of blue their scouts have found.

Defensive lines, who don't move will quickly use all their blue biomass up and the more mobile army of the aggressor will be going from strength to strength. In theory.


I also like this idea because its so much like the original idea behind Tartarus:

Faraway Games wrote:

Lead your clan to victory as your fight amid the bio-mass fields, leading your clan of evolving Titans to supremacy

Tartarus General Information wrote:

The game gives each player control of a Titan clan, they must nurture their forces, directing the spawning of the next generation to advance tech levels while fighting for the right to the bio-mass fields.

Phoenix.

I have looked back through my posts and I cannot see any mention of 'forced alliances'. I can, however, see that my suggestion was

Quote:

Alliances. To be limited to three clans.

I assume that you misunderstood me. My intent was to suggest the prevention of 'mega alliances' and to level the playing field.

The idea of preventing training was as a response to Jonathan's thread where he considered it to be a possible downside to a combat based bonus. I did not intend to insinuate that training is currently taking place.

I cannot fault your thoughts expressed in the rest of your thread, although again the prospect of the biggest and baddest alliance dominating the game area looms large.

Peter.

"Forced" in that any clan outside your alliance is automatically fired upon and forced in that you have a set number of allies.

Basically I don't think the social aspect of the game should be changed. Alliances form pretty easily between clans and thats a good thing ultimately. Its not much fun playing this sort of game without allies - and it works now, it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I'm not really against uber-alliances really anyway. Large alliances tend to break up naturally after a period, but while they're around they invoke fear - which is also good.

Quote:

The idea of preventing training was as a response to Jonathan's thread where he considered it to be a possible downside to a combat based bonus. I did not intend to insinuate that training is currently taking place.

I see your point. All the more reason for a combat bonus (beyond experience) to not be implimented - especially if it means restrictions on alliance, etc.

IMHO.

Phoenix.