Ashdar Imperials with sparse stars.

[Kaptajn Congoboy]

Hi there. First time post, trying to provide some feedback. I only have a few games under my belt, but it seems to me to be a few things that need ironing out. One of them is Ashdar Imperials on Sparse maps. See attached file. This is either normal or difficult - it was my second game that I only recently came back to in order to finish the map for feedback purposes. Note that I wasn't very experienced when I played this game and made tons of mistakes. And the map still looks like this - a sea of purple with the other empires boxed into corners.

Due to the Ashdar home system Stargate, expansion for them on these maps happens very fast compared to the others - travel times from home is 1 turn where others need to spend ages crossing space. Additionally, in the early game, the Ashdar Imperials can colonize a planet, build transports, 1 turn move population to the new colony, dump a bunch of colonists there, and return the transports to the pool. So instead of a 11 or 12-turn voyage back the transports become available again in 3 turns. This means the Ashdar Imps really gets a head start.

In this game, I have taken no hostile action against other empires. When new stargates become available early-mid game, the Ashdar get to be very proactive against other empires when they find them, being able to colonize worlds the other factions are heading for (typically with 5+ turn travel times) in 1 turn with a few colony ships and boxing them in. Also, they can sucker punch pirates and gremak slave bases and conquer them fairly easily, build stargates with the wads of cash they typically have, andd port the strike fleet back home in one turn.

The only other factions that managed to break out here were the Yoral and partially the Orthin, and this was mainly because the Yoral were on the opposite side of the map for me and the Orthin had 2 Garden worlds and the Gaia world right next to their homeworld. Still, they are hopelessly outlcassed at this point, and fight each other rather than me because my fleet outnumbers both their fleets put together by a factor of 3 or something.

I think this needs looking at for sparse star maps. There probably needs to be some kind of limit on the home system stargate on these maps, because it gives the Ashdar such a leg up.

[Chasm]

Stargates themselves are one of the most expensive techs in the game. The ancient gate is a step above them. Almost by definition those 2 advantages in early game are game breaking. Be thankful the computer player doesn't play that race properly...

[Kaptajn Congoboy]

Yes...so perhaps the player should not have access to it either? At least not in the way they work now?

[Chasm]

I'm not sure that race balance is something that is a concern yet. Realistically the races are not balanced against one another.

[Kaptajn Congoboy]

Eventually, they will have to be. Anyways, at the moment, playing the Ashdar Imperials in this situation is not very interesting unless you like complete pushover games.

[Chasm]

Play as the human side for a challenge, followed by the gremak and phidi. Yoral, Orfin, and Ashdar imperial are the 3 easiest.

[Kaptajn Congoboy]

I don't see the point of having factions that are so easy to play it barely is a game at all in the game. Eventually, they will need to iron it out or SiS will be a sidenote, which it doesn't deserve to be.

[bjg]

I don't see the point of having factions that are so easy to play it barely is a game at all in the game. Eventually, they will need to iron it out or SiS will be a sidenote, which it doesn't deserve to be.

Don't know what difficulty level you where playing at, but in my experience colony ships are quite expensive (specially in metal) and "eat" your population, so you can't really "spawn" the galaxy from the capital (at least not on the highest difficulty). The Ancient Stargate helps with logistics, but not enough to make (or break) the game. There are other means of fast expansion.

[Chasm]

Your homeworld has the ancient gate, yes, BUT you will also have conventional gates in every system very early also (its a 480 cost tech for imperials). As ashdar imperials, after initial buildup, the homeworld goes to research (artifacts on it) but my producers are shipping colony ships for warpout via internal stargates. A produced ship can be ANYWHERE in my range in 2 turns ( 1 to get to the homeworld, 1 to warp out). And after startup, the metal cost for colony ships is almost moot compared to warships because of the wrench cost increase. Via stargates I can instant ship population to my colony ship production worlds. And the model gets even crazier if I have any free port agreements. Just the ancient gate alone would be a strong advantage, early stargates with it becomes insane.

[bjg]

Just the ancient gate alone would be a strong advantage, early stargates with it becomes insane.

That I would agree with. Maybe give player a choice - dismantle (research) the Ancient Stargate and get early stargates or keep it, but have the same stargate research "price" as everybody else. That would be plausible and inline with other mechanics.

[Kaptajn Congoboy]

I don't see the point of having factions that are so easy to play it barely is a game at all in the game. Eventually, they will need to iron it out or SiS will be a sidenote, which it doesn't deserve to be.

Don't know what difficulty level you where playing at, but in my experience colony ships are quite expensive (specially in metal) and "eat" your population, so you can't really "spawn" the galaxy from the capital (at least not on the highest difficulty). The Ancient Stargate helps with logistics, but not enough to make (or break) the game. There are other means of fast expansion.

It was an early game (see above) so either normal or difficult. The main problem here is probably Sparse Stars, as noted in the thread title. You can't spam colony ships from the homeworld on any difficulty level, really, but you can get enough of them, and with travel times in the early game of 10+ turns to get anywhere to desireable worlds, that ancient gate is going to lead to the result above or something much like it with a human player. Remember that this was my second game after the first just-fooling-around game, so I did not max out expansion in the way I could have done now. Even without the later early gates, worlds close to your capital is going to enable you to get that expansion going way faster than any of the others. It will not be as bad without early gates, though.

[zolobolo]

I don't see the point of having factions that are so easy to play it barely is a game at all in the game. Eventually, they will need to iron it out or SiS will be a sidenote, which it doesn't deserve to be.

Don't know what difficulty level you where playing at, but in my experience colony ships are quite expensive (specially in metal) and "eat" your population, so you can't really "spawn" the galaxy from the capital (at least not on the highest difficulty). The Ancient Stargate helps with logistics, but not enough to make (or break) the game. There are other means of fast expansion.

It was an early game (see above) so either normal or difficult. The main problem here is probably Sparse Stars, as noted in the thread title. You can't spam colony ships from the homeworld on any difficulty level, really, but you can get enough of them, and with travel times in the early game of 10+ turns to get anywhere to desireable worlds, that ancient gate is going to lead to the result above or something much like it with a human player. Remember that this was my second game after the first just-fooling-around game, so I did not max out expansion in the way I could have done now. Even without the later early gates, worlds close to your capital is going to enable you to get that expansion going way faster than any of the others. It will not be as bad without early gates, though.

This might have changed since then, but I am just playing against Ashdar Imperials, and from the tech that the player is able to produce it seems that Gates only function between one-another. Meaning: The imperials do not get any sort of bonus until they build a gate on the destination end.

This means that there is absolutely no benefit for the Imperials from this aspect as the AI as it happens does not produce gates at all - this is probably an AI issue of not utilizing race specific functions

[bjg]

... I am just playing against Ashdar Imperials, and from the tech that the player is able to produce it seems that Gates only function between one-another.

Regular stargates work as you described. The Ancient Stargate (there is only one in the galaxy) can send anywhere within range - at least this is how it use to be.

[zolobolo]

... I am just playing against Ashdar Imperials, and from the tech that the player is able to produce it seems that Gates only function between one-another.

Regular stargates work as you described. The Ancient Stargate (there is only one in the galaxy) can send anywhere within range - at least this is how it use to be.

You are right. It does state that this is an Ancient Stargate and works as described