Motivation
The Game List at the Lugdunum Server has evolved considerably over the last year or more, mainly due to requests and innovative game
design suggestions from many players, to the point where there are now about 40 series defined in the full list. However, for most
of that time, none of the series has required empires to have more than three wins to enter them.
The reason for these low limits was that a year ago, the database was immature, and only a few tens of empires had more than two wins
to their name, so even a game which required only three wins could be very hard to fill. I often saw games of Peaceful Chaos, for instance, close
with two or three empires instead of the expected 16, which rather spoils the design.
The situation is very different now. The database now has about 3200 players who have wins or have accessed games in the last three months, and of those:
- 369 have at least 6 wins
- 437 have at least 5 wins
- 532 have at least 4 wins
- 639 have at least 3 wins
- 870 have at least 2 wins
- 1565 have at least 1 win
In these conditions, I feel it's appropriate to raise the limits on some games, for two reasons:
- So that new players will be introduced to the more esoteric features of the advanced games gradually
- So that seasoned players can be guaranteed at least reasonably experienced opposition
Implementation
I don't want to go overboard with this. If, for instance, I were to make some series only available to those with ten wins or more, I would
be limiting the possible entrants to less than 200 players, which would probably result in many such games failing to fill up again, as in the past.
So the highest minimum limit I have placed is 6 wins.
The following table shows all the public series defined, in order of when they enter the Game List of an empire as it acquires wins:
| Name | Description | Wins | Notes |
|---|
| No win |
|---|
| Simple Starter | Beginner's 6-player Stripped-down Blitz with Alliances | 0-6 | A stripped-down version of SC to get the feel of the most basic features and strategies, the only available techs are Science, Colony and Attack. |
| Winless Wonder | Beginner's Mini Blitz Grudge (2-player) | 0-6 | This series is losing the visible build feature. See the note on build visibility below. |
| Devil's Advocate | Beginner's 6-player Blitz with Alliances | 0-10 | I'm altering this series to take on some of the features of Raw Recruits, which is ending, as we don't need three 6-player beginner blitzes. So changes from the previous incarnation are: 5-minute updates (was 4), average resources 35 (was 40) and Max Ag Ratio 100 (was 5). |
| Feste's Bootstrap | Beginner's Daily Grudge | 0-8 | Both the 25 Max Ag Ratio and the uneven resource allocation were anomalous for a beginner game, so I am evening the resources to 32/32/32, and setting the Max Ag Ratio back to the default. |
| 1 win |
|---|
| Baptism by Fire | 6-player Blitz with Alliances | 1-10 | This series is intended as an introduction to some of the new ship types that were introduced with the v3.0 code, and to the concepts of Restricted Techs and Trade-Ins. |
| Campo di Miracoli | Daily Grudge | 1- | |
| The Zeppelin Race | Daily Mirror Grudge | 1- | |
| Blood'n'Gutz | 5-player Blood Blitz | 1- | This series is losing the visible build feature. See the note on build visibility below. |
| American Beauty | 6-player Daily with Alliances | 1-12 | A new series to introduce larger daily games, less restrictive than the similar but more advanced Kobiyashi Maru. |
| 2 wins |
|---|
| Walls of Jericho | Mini Blitz Grudge | 2- | |
| Clanner's Paradise | Blitz Grudge | 2- | Retains the visible build feature. |
| Original Blitz | 6-player Blitz with Alliances | 2- | |
| Harvester's Haven | 6-player Blitz with Alliances | 2- | Very high resources, and high tech. |
| Blue Moon | 6-player Blitz with Alliances | 2- | High resources and high tech, this is the ideal game for technological experimentation, as all sixteen technologies are predeveloped. The catch is that you are only allowed ten ships at a time! |
| Reckless Abandon | 10-player Daily with Alliances | 2- | High tech, features the v3.0 new ship types. |
| Cerberus | Mini Blitz Grudge | 2- | |
| Krakatoa | Blitz Grudge | 2- | |
| Chameleon Blitz | 8-player Blitz with Alliances | 2- | Morphers are pre-developed and cheap to build and run in this series. |
| 3 wins |
|---|
| Galactic Powers | 16-player Daily with Alliances | 3- | High tech, high resource, huge map, features the v3.0 new ship types. |
| Supreme Grudge | Blitz Grudge | 3- | High Tech. Retains the visible build feature. |
| Team Lazy Grudge | 4-player Daily with Alliances | 3- | The classic 2-on-2 game, usually played between pre-arranged alliances. |
| Team Weekly Grudge | 4-player Weekly with Alliances | 3- | As above, with longer updates. |
| Ipanema | Daily Grudge | 3- | Retains the visible build feature. |
| La Cenerentola | Daily Mirror Grudge | 3- | |
| Lightning Strike | Blitz Mirror Grudge | 3- | Features the v3.0 new ship types, but in a relatively small game with quite low Tech advance, there was little chance for them to play a significant part. Therefore the Tech advance has been increased to 2.25. |
| Bury the Hatchett | 6-player Cutthroat Blitz | 3- | No alliances allowed. This series is losing the visible build feature. See the note on build visibility below. |
| Elm Street | 7-player Daily Blood | 3- | High tech, features the v3.0 new ship types. |
| Tay Bridge | Blitz Mirror Grudge | 3- | |
| Cornucopia | 9-player Daily with Alliances | 3- | Very high resources |
| 4 wins |
|---|
| Road Rage | Daily Mirror Grudge | 4- | |
| The Cuckoo's Nest | 8-player Daily with Alliances | 4- | This game permits building at any colony, ie. Minimum Pop to Build = 0. |
| Dogsstar | 5-player Daily Blood | 4- | |
| Sahara | 6-player Daily with Alliances | 4- | Very Low Tech advance, High Min and Fuel, Low Ag. Features the v3.0 new ship types |
| Classic Daily | 12-player Daily with Alliances | 4- | Retains the visible build feature. |
| Amanda's Revenge | Daily Grudge | 4- | Large-scale grudge. |
| Spit Roast | Blitz Grudge | 4- | High Tech. |
| Snowball | Daily Grudge | 4- | High tech, features the v3.0 new ship types. |
| Universal Domination | 16-player Daily Cutthroat | 4- | High tech, high resource, huge map, features the v3.0 new ship types. |
| Long Ship Dragons | 16-player Daily with Alliances. | 4- | No twists, this is a classic large-scale v2.9 game. |
| Saint Stephen | 12-player Daily with Alliances. | 4- | Similar to Chameleon Blitz in that Morphers are pre-developed and cheap, this Daily version also has Carriers and Builders available. |
| 5 wins |
|---|
| Kobiyashi Maru | 6-player Daily with Alliance | 5- | Restricted to one ally each - intended to be played as three teams of two. |
| Ralof's Rumble | Daily Multihome Mirror Grudge | 5- | |
| Cry Havoc! | Daily Grudge | 5- | |
| Mad Scientist | 8-player Daily with Alliance | 5- | High resources, Restricted techs, requires 100 pop at a planet to build. Features the v3.0 new ship types. |
| Cuckoo Desert Blitz | 5-player Blood Blitz | 5- | Low tech, High min, Low Ag. Minimum Pop to Build = 0. Features the v3.0 new ship types. |
| Max Time | Weekly Grudge | 5- | Similar to Cry Havoc! for those who prefer a less stringent time commitment. |
| 6 wins |
|---|
| Last Man Standing | 8-player Daily Cutthroat | 6- | No alliances allowed. |
| Nemesis | Multihome Mirror Blitz Grudge | 6- | |
| Peaceful Chaos | 16-player Daily with Alliances | 6- | High resource, high tech. Features the v3.0 new ship types. |
| Mad Scientist II | 8-player Daily Cutthroat | 6- | The 'No Alliances' version of Mad Scientist. Features the v3.0 new ship types. |
| Tug-O-War | Daily Mirror Grudge | 6- | A large-scale, high-tech game featuring the v3.0 new ship types, with an unusual set of pre-developed and restricted technologies, and only one restricted tech allowed at a time. |
| Shifting Sands | Daily Grudge | 6- | This game has so many unusual features that any attempt to summarise them will leave out something crucial. You'll have to read the Detailed Game List :) |
| Smarmy Purgatory | 13-player Daily Cutthroat | 6- | See above - another outlandish design from Eric. Do *not* attempt this without deliberating long and hard over the implications... |
Note on Build Visibility
When you order a ship to be built at a planet that has been explored by another player, whether that player can see the ship being built on the Map or Systems screen immediately, or is prevented from seeing it until after the next update, is determined by a series-based configuration option called Build Visibility. Invisible builds (Build
Visibilty = "No") were introduced into the game in version 2.9, and so traditionally, games marked on the Game List with the v2.8 logo have had visible builds, whereas
those marked with v2.9 or v3.0 logos have had invisible builds.
A year ago, most public SC servers were running v2.8 code which didn't support the invisible build feature. Therefore, it seemed appropriate that at least some
of the games available to newcomers to the Lugdunum server should be as similar as possible to games they might have played on other more popular servers, so two of the
Beginner series, Raw Recruits and Winless Wonder, had visible builds.
Things are very different now. The advantages to the fairness and speed of games in having your build orders hidden from other players until after the update has
taken place seem to have been widely accepted, and the majority of public servers available now support the feature. I feel it's now safe to regard invisible builds
as the default, while accepting that there are still quite a lot of players, especially those who have been playing a long while, who like the opportunities for bluff
which visible builds present. Therefore I will maintain several series which feature visible builds - Classic Daily, Ipanema, Clanner's Paradise
and Supreme Grudge at least - but these are not Beginner games. Raw Recruits, the 6-player Beginner Blitz which featured visible builds, is being subsumed
by the invisible-build equivalent, Devil's Advocate, which takes on some of RR's other features, while Winless Wonder, Blood'n'Gutz and Bury the Hatchett
are being upgraded to invisible builds.
|
