Random World Setup

[Luther]

BTW - just spit-balling here - but Ron's idea about random world setup has another plus I was thinking about - could save a lot of time, because it means the game board could be setup in advance - which would probably carve out at least another half hour.

[Derrick Heyoka]

OK I'm fine with a completely random map I s'pose... allow me to suggest a possible compromise though.  We split the hexen into one pile of planets, and one pile of all the other shit.  Then we flip 'em all over, pass 'em out 'n do the usual thing... just face down so all we know is "planet, or something else."  It'd be fairly random but no one would be faced with like nothing but their homeworld and a wormhole to play alone in.

Although I certainly get the allure of the wild abandon of racing around the untamed cosmos, plundering what ye may and woe to he what lay in yar way.

Still I fear for someone being very sad and feeling helplessly fucked for eight hours.

Annnnyway whatever yo.  Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

[Lucy St. Jude]

I willing to try total randomness for a game.  If it sucks, we will never speak of it again, if it doesn't, yay!

[Jake]

One of my reasons for putting a world right next to Mecatol Rex in the last game was to provide a legitimate reason to be near Mecatol Rex without immediately giving away that it might be my secret objective.

I'm willing to try it both ways.  I do see merit to doing it completely random.

I've noticed that people tend to leave the ring around Mecatol Rex completely free of worlds.  I think this has the side effect of giving away anyone who's got an objective of Mectal Rex.  As soon as they move closer to it, everyone thinks that's their secret objective.

One of my reasons for putting a world right next to Mecatol Rex in the last game was to provide a legitimate reason to be near Mecatol Rex without immediately giving away that it might be my secret objective.

In a random placement game, more planets might be near Mecatol Rex, and so the fighting near the center of the map might get very energetic.

[Derrick Heyoka]

One of my reasons for putting a world right next to Mecatol Rex in the last game was to provide a legitimate reason to be near Mecatol Rex without immediately giving away that it might be my secret objective.

Sneaky git!! 

[Luther]

I was thinking we could make some shifting rules - like if a person fails to have at least one world hex adjacent, one gets shuffled next to him (based on proximity) - and two specials have to be shifted away from each other, etc.  If people are interested, I will write something up.

[Jake]

I was thinking we could make some shifting rules - like if a person fails to have at least one world hex adjacent, one gets shuffled next to him (based on proximity) - and two specials have to be shifted away from each other, etc.  If people are interested, I will write something up.

Not a bad idea.  I'd suggest it be optional, based on player discretion.  My for example is your race in the last game, which had 3 home worlds.  If you built all your PDSs on those worlds and then had a boundary of dead space around you, you could have made it very lethal for anyone to try and attack your home system.  (Especially if you combined that with the diplomacy rules...forcing diplomacy on anyone trying to reach your home system, and then attacking them with your PDS units.)

[Lucy St. Jude]

Otter had an idea that sounded like fun to me.  We could arrange the tiles randomly, and not flip them over until someone activates the tile.  Fog of war ftw!

[Jake]

Otter had an idea that sounded like fun to me.  We could arrange the tiles randomly, and not flip them over until someone activates the tile.  Fog of war ftw!

I'd be willing to try that too.  Fog of War rocks.

It would also be interesting to apply some sort of Fog of War to fleet sizes.  So that you didn't necessarily know what you'd be facing when you tangle with an opponent (until it was too late).  Of course, we'd also want some sort of "spying" capability so that people could try to determine fleet composition.  However, that might be more than the scope of TI3 could handle. 

[Derrick Heyoka]

I'd be willing to try that too.  Fog of War rocks.

It would also be interesting to apply some sort of Fog of War to fleet sizes.  So that you didn't necessarily know what you'd be facing when you tangle with an opponent (until it was too late).  Of course, we'd also want some sort of "spying" capability so that people could try to determine fleet composition.  However, that might be more than the scope of TI3 could handle. 

Yeah Otter's fog of war sounds fun, and ultimately easy to accomplish.  As much as I'd LOVE to try a real fog of war sort of scenario like you're talking about J, I think it'd just all be too many changes at that point.  Although I was totally working on my own boardgame a few years ago that had that in it... /sniffle. 

[Nalroth]

I am down with the Fog o War deal. Combined with the random placement, it would make people fight like mad dogs for decent planets. I would not want to add the domain counters to the mix unless we are playing in a place where we can leave the table set up for a few days.