Expansion Is The First Principle #4918

[hobknob]

For what it's worth...

 

I have blown up total allies fleets, even though our ROE settings were peaceful. I have seen plenty of fleets fail to engage when a PAP of war had been declared and have seen quite a few fleets on Zulu fail to engage. Sometimes these were my fleets that failed to engage and other times my fleets were the lucky buggers who got a reprieve of a few turns. In some cases it is strategically important to contact Pete in order to get a correction, other times it isn't worth the bother.

 

Face it. The fleet encounter system has a bit of "fog of war" in it, whether it was intended or not.

 

Don't hang your hat on a first encounter that goes bad. Wait until you have a couple of bad encounters to support a pattern. Of course, if you are looking for any excuse then you don't need to wait....

 

 

 

Now, about newer positions being gobbled up....

 

A new position should be able to get themselves up to speed quite quickly these days. There has been enough information posted on the boards or passed out by myself and others to pretty much negate the information gap that exists between veteran players and new players. the biggest problem has been in the area of weapon choices and finding your way down the path that leads to a level 9 or 10 weapon. With the recent weapon tree expansion that problem has pretty much resolved itself. Pick a path and stick to it. The biggest advantage that older positions now have is experience and production base, which you really have to have if you are building btonners.

 

What new players really need to fear is the veteran who starts a new position and then just manages it better so that they seem to be well advanced at first contact. But then all would have started on relatively even footing...

 

And on a final note. It is my understanding that the universe grows in response to new players. The more new players/positions, the faster it grows and the farther the "new" players/positions are from the "old" players. So, if you want more buffer space just get more people to sign up for positions.

[rfouasnon]

But then , there is the odd example or two with empires 3 years apart being neighbors...of course , the older position expanded to the newer position's borders.....but the other point , with fog of war , would be the best way to see the encounters....make sure the settings are as if you want them , and then hope for the best .

[Flagritz]

People have said before that its not really that bad. Yet it does happen. So what is the motivation for playing, or bringing new people into the game when all they are doing is spending their time and money to build up an empire till the empire that is 2,3, or 4 years older than theirs shows up at the door and says "Nice empire. I think Ill take it"

 

 

From someone who spent 3 years building up an empire to then lose it and have to start again I would still say it was totally worth it.

 

I loved running the Flagritz Empire and I wish I still had them but even when I was losing it was exciting! :]

 

it was a huge learning curve and I do think that my case is the exception not the norm.

 

Ive started new empires and other then a brief glitch that put one of them right next door to a older empire they are doing well, building and expanding, making new friends and forging new allies.

 

Overall most players are pretty decent, most of the older players if they do come across you will give you a chance (sometimes even help), in any game there are the warmongers out there but however much you hate them they do make all those weapons and shields have meaning.

 

I recommend getting a few players to join at the same time and then you guys can form your own portion of space and enjoy.