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Cosmic War

Galactic War discussion

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Galactic War discussion

Unread postby icycalm » 27 Jan 2015 19:00

Okay, here is my format for Galactic Clan Wars. It's simple, easy to execute and very tense and exciting.

Step 1. We check the PA Stats page to determine how many players each clan has available to it, by looking at how many players are using each clan's tag:

http://pastats.com/players

VoW, for example, currently has 18. So that's how many commanders VoW's leader has at his disposal at the start of the game, and all those are located at his clan's home system.

Step 2. If more players with clan tags show up on PA Stats while the war is in progress, they are added to their respective clans' home systems. This is to encourage clans to recruit as many players as possible (which is a beneficial effort to PA and the PA community as a whole, since all those players will be introduced to team games and voip-play, which is the best way to enjoy PA).

Step 3. Movement is kept simple by using a hex grid layout where every commander can move one grid per turn.

Step 4. The clan leaders move their chess pieces/commanders around the board turn by turn, by emailing their moves to a previously agreed neutral party. The moment that commanders from different clans land on a system, we have the possibility of a battle occurring.

Step 5. Let's say 5 Cult commanders and 3 VoW ones happen to move into a system at the same time. How do we play out the battle?

It's very simple. The Cult leader emails the neutral arbitrator and tells him what he plans to do. He might simply decide to withdraw and allow VoW to take control of the system unopposed. Or he might decide to fight the war with his full 5 allowable players. Or he might decide to fight with 3 and withdraw the other 2. And VoW has similar options. They both email the neutral arbitrator, and then he reveals to everyone what will happen. Maybe VoW committed 2 players, but Cult withdrew, so there will be no battle. Or maybe Cult committed 4 players, VoW committed 2, but on the day of the battle 2 of the Cult players couldn't make it (and hence their commanders withdrew from the system to reflect this in-game), so the match ends up being 2v2. Any and all possibilities are very easy to resolve and play out using this system, including lack of player availability due to real-life constraints, etc.

Step 6. Once a battle is over, the players who lost are all eliminated from the war for good. There's no way to bring them back.

Step 7. If battles occur involving more than 10 players we use a custom server. If some people end up crashing, so be it. We'll put it up to the "vagaries of war". If you crash it doesn't automatically mean that you are out of the war, since your team could still win the battle. And as for how we'll explain aesthetically a player crash... we can just call it "commander malfunction". They are robots after all.

Step 8. A clan is eliminated and kicked out of the galaxy when it loses all its commanders or its home system, whichever happens first.

Step 9. The smaller clans will protest that it is not fair for the larger clans to be able to leverage their large numbers, and that we should limit the number of players per clan to a number everyone can field. But this would not be a "Clan War". We want a REAL clan war, where every clan can leverage its strengths as best as it can. If those strengths amount to zerg numbers, so be it. Otherwise the outcome of the Galactic Clan War will be extremely similar to that of the regular Clan Wars, and it will be boring. We WANT to see 8v4s of 8 silver players against 4 uber players, because where else can you see such a match? And then you have a clan like The Realm which has both good AND many players, so you'll need alliances from the other clans to form to take them on.


That's really all there is to it. It's very simple and it can be played right now if we find at least one more clan that is willing to play it with us. I was thinking of doing a trial run with Promethean, because cdrkf is sympathetic to the idea, but I can't contact him on the PA forum anymore since I am banned. I tried sending a friend invite to jonasmod on Steam, to help me get in touch with cdrkf, but apparently he rejected it, so I have no way to get in touch with those guys. I told cdrkf to email me in our stream the other day, so I can have his email address, but he hasn't got back to me yet. I doubt any other clan besides Promethean would be willing to try this out with us, so if they don't step up we'll just have to keep recruiting people until we have enough to play it between us.

Maybe someone can PM this post to cdrkf on the PA forum?
Last edited by icycalm on 31 Jan 2015 10:49, edited 8 times in total.
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Unread postby icycalm » 27 Jan 2015 19:10

Maybe BRN would also be willing to do a trial run of this with us. So here are the guys' profile pages:

cdrkf: https://forums.uberent.com/members/cdrkf.1808673/
dom314: https://forums.uberent.com/members/dom314.1972077/

Someone PM them please and give them this link: http://culture.vg/forum/topic?p=25767#p25767

Maybe they want to play a 2-clan or 3-clan Galactic Clan War trial to test this out. It shouldn't take too long to play out.
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Unread postby jeffrobot494 » 27 Jan 2015 20:16

I'll PM them.

One question: if my commander dies but my team wins the battle, am I still eliminated? Seems like I would be. Would allow for some very cool match results, where a team could win a battle but lose one of their most precious commanders, making it a victory for the other team. Might be problematic remembering whose commander is whose, though. Maybe a rule of no duplicate commanders on a single team? That wouldn't be possible after a certain team size, though.

PM'd:

I wrote:Hey cdrkf,

We want to do Galactic Clan Wars with you guys. This is icycalm's plan: http://culture.vg/forum/topic?p=25767#p25767


I wrote:Hey dom,

We want to do Galactic Clan Wars with you guys. This is icycalm's plan:
http://culture.vg/forum/topic?p=25767#p25767
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Unread postby icycalm » 27 Jan 2015 21:39

This is certainly a reasonable rule that could be added without complexifying things too much. I guess taking a screenshot of the lobby plus the replay afterwards would help figure out who died when. The problem is that for games with 10+ people there is no replay -- but there would be a Twitch stream. So it should be workable. And if we lose track of what happened, we'll just trust the player(s) who died to come forward and say so.
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Unread postby jeffrobot494 » 28 Jan 2015 06:42

Their responses:

cdrkf wrote:Hi, I'll take a look later this week and come back to you when I've had chance to spend a bit of time reading through it all properly. Also if you want Promethean involved you probably should include lapsedpacifist and headcrab. I'm quite active on the forums but due to other commitments the actual amount of time I can play is pretty limited.


dom314 wrote:Hi! I'll talk to my clan about this to gauge interest. I will let you know! xD
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Unread postby jeffrobot494 » 28 Jan 2015 09:07

From Mishtakashi of Team Burning:

Mishtakashi wrote:Hi Jeff,

I had read of the GW proposal, I think BRN would be interested in a short trial of the system. It would be cool if we could play out a whole GW in a single day or a weekend.

Cheers,
Mish.
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Unread postby icycalm » 28 Jan 2015 19:30

cdrkf emailed me and he is open to the idea, but he's not sure if he can commit Promethean to the trial run. He said he'll get back to me, but he also suggested I contact AC, which I am going to do right now. I think a CULTxBRNxAC trial war fought out over a weekend would be a great way to test this format. So this is what we'll do:

PM Mish and ask him if they can play the weekend after Clan Wars, i.e. 7-8 February, 7PM UTC. Since we have Europeans, Americans and Australians in the war, this appears to be the most convenient starting time for all.

If BRN is in, ask them to give you the names of 5 of their favorite systems. Tell them to not bother making new ones: this is a trial run after all. We'll just choose 5 existing systems, BRN will choose 5 and AC will choose another 5 (if they decide to participate), and we'll make a symmetrical galaxy out of them plus each clan's current home system (AC doesn't have one, so they'll have to make one, but Boggles likes designing systems so it shouldn't be a problem).

And then either you or gmase will make a graphic representation of the galaxy, we'll announce the trial run in the GCW thread next week (after Clan Wars is over), and that's it. There's really no other preparations to be made. Whoever shows up on the 7th of February at 7PM UTC will DEFINITELY play (since there's no harm in throwing extra players into the battles, even if they are beginners), and we'll have fun with the ensuing chaos.

So PM Mish (just copy-paste or link this post to him) and I'll email Boggles and we'll see what they say.
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Unread postby Some guy » 28 Jan 2015 19:43

This sounds awesome. I won't be able to join you though :(
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Unread postby icycalm » 28 Jan 2015 19:45

Many players from other clans won't be able to join either, but I am sure we'll get at least a dozen players in, so it's going to work.

In the real GCW, whoever can't play one weekend will be "saved" to play some other time (assuming his clan doesn't get wiped in the meantime...), so everyone who wants to participate should be able to.
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Unread postby jeffrobot494 » 28 Jan 2015 22:27

PM'd Mishtakashi.

Following Exodus' example, we might want to have a rules page that can be easily linked to. I could throw up a super simple WordPress site for us. We will also want an irc channel during the event. I think those are pretty easy to set up.

I'll let gmase handle the galaxy map if he's up for it.
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Unread postby icycalm » 28 Jan 2015 23:56

This is not a tournament, it's a trial. So we'll put in the minimum of effort. Let's see if we get 2 clans to join, and then I'll tell you the next step.

If we end up hosting this event in the long run, we'll use Insomnia for rules, etc. If you throw up a quick WordPress site it will make the event look cheap.
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Unread postby jeffrobot494 » 29 Jan 2015 04:11

Mishtakashi wrote:I will be away during those dates unfortunately, I'll see if anyone else would like to liason with you for that date.
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Unread postby icycalm » 29 Jan 2015 17:20

Haven't heard back from Boggles yet. They are probably wondering whether it's a good move to support my GCW idea considering that Exodus is about to launch CW season 2, and that would conflict for player attention with GCW. Exodus would also not want them to support me, I am sure.

The BRN guys are nice, but I think in the long run we'll have trouble getting many clans to join. So I've worked out a plan that will allow us to start playing on our own, but also be able to incorporate other clans if they see how much fun we are having and decide to join.

My idea is called Universal War, and it includes Galactic Clan Wars as mini-games. It works exactly as I explained GCW above, but when a clan wins a galaxy, they get 1 point on the galactic scoreboard, and that galaxy becomes from that point on THEIRS. There are trillions of galaxies in the universe, so we'll keep score and see how many each clan can accumulate.

Note that once a system has been used in a galaxy, it can never be used again, since no two systems in the universe are identical (this includes clan home systems). This rule will spur the creation of new systems, and will form part of the creation of the PA UNIVERSE referred to in the name "Universal War".

Moreover, to make things spicier, once a clan has won a galaxy, it gets the opportunity to attack a galaxy held by another clan. The culmination of each Galactic War, in other words, will be a two-clan fight over an existing galaxy (which, since there are only 2 clans involved, will probably be decided in a single evening -- and will probably also involve a giant 20v20 or something, which should be hilarious, especially on small systems in which all these commanders will be spawning right on top of each other. Pure chaos.)

There will be a website where we'll post updates of galactic war maps after all the clans have played their turns, and a scoreboard of how many galaxies (and WHICH galaxies, since they'll all be unique) each clan currently holds. And there will be a thread on the PA forum where we'll be posting updates of the Universal War, and where new clans can state their interest in joining.

As for how we can begin playing without any other clans, we'll just divide ourselves into the official PA factions: Legonis Machina, The Foundation, The Revenants, etc., and start playing between ourselves. If a NEW CHALLENGER suddenly arrives, he will be incorporated as a new faction. So let's say AC decides to join us after we've already played 4 Galactic Wars (and therefore, after 4 galaxies in the universe are already under someone's control): then "Angel's Court" will become a new PA faction. We discovered this faction in the universe while travelling across it and fighting each other. So new clans can join in at any time and be incorporated into the war in a perfectly aesthetically justified manner. After all, this makes more sense than all factions being aware of the existence of each other instantaneously. And we'll riff this off the PA release trailer, which spoke of "The Awakening" of the machines. The Universal War BEGINS with "The Awakening", and it rages on forever (or at least until a single faction grabs all the trillions of galaxies available lol. We can even come up with a number for the hell of it).

Also, when other clans join it will obviously put OUR factions at a disadvantage, because they'll be smaller. But we can start merging them, if we need to do so. For example, if I take The Foundation and jeff takes The Revenants, and suddenly Angel's Court joins the Universal War, then jeff and I can merge our factions to create The Cult. And thus The Cult will be born!

And so on and so forth.

So, essentially, all we have to do is start playing and having lots of fun and streaming and casting and youtubing everything, and the other clans are BOUND to join us sooner or later. If we do this well, it will be a thousand times more fun than 4v4 Clan Wars. So let's do it guys! I am 100% up for it, and we can begin playing with 10 or 12 players. So let's start reading up on the factions, deciding who the supreme commanders will be, picking our preferred colors and teammates, start thinking about our home systems, and let's play a small galactic war. We might as well email BRN and call the trial off, since there's no point in doing a trial: we'll work out all the details in a relaxed manner between us, and once we've played a couple of wars everyone will be able to see how things work on our dedicated website and our streams and youtube videos, and they'll be able to judge for themselves if they want to join.

So, steps needed to be done:

1: jeff PMs Mishtakashi that we have decided to test the format internally, because it will be quicker and easier this way. Once the format has been tested and we've decided that it works, we'll make a thread in the PA forum and BRN and other clans will be able to join, if they like it.

2. We register the domain universalwar.pa on this site: https://www.101domain.com/ It is a killer name and we REALLY want it (because we want a killer name and a killer website to give ourselves maximum exposure and attract a maximum of clans and players), but the problem is that it costs "240.00 USD for 2 Years" plus "0.00 - 99.00 USD" setup fee. And it doesn't look like I can grab it for just 1 year, so we'll have to fork up anywhere between 240 and 340 right away. I am willing to put up 100, can you guys put up the rest? Start sending money into my PayPal account immediately if so, and if I see money accumulating there I'll grab it asap. We will then have the domain for 2 years, and we can ask clans that join to give us 20 or 30 bucks to help cover our costs, so that they spread more or less equally among everyone. But in order to get the thing kickstarted we'll need to put up money up front, so help out in any way you can to make this happen.

3. Once we have the name we put up a WordPress site but with a KILLER template from RocketTheme.com (same site that did the Insomnia template).

4. We contact Maldor who does nice galactic maps to make our first map for us.

5. Once we have decided on the (small) teams for war #1, we put up the rules and the initial map on our website, and start a thread in the PA forum, to let people know that war #1 has started and that they can follow it on our site and our stream.

6. At the end of the first war (which could take place as quickly as next weekend if we hurry), one of the factions will have won a galaxy, and then we'll all start adding more members among us to play the second one.

7. After 3-4 wars all the Cult members should be divided between our 3-4 teams (preferably 4, since with 3 teams it will be much easier for one of them to get sandwiched by the other 2, and it won't be very fair to them), and at that point we can start incorporating other clans, if any of them have expressed an interest in joining us. And the war will continue...
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Unread postby icycalm » 29 Jan 2015 17:32

So, to get things rolling, here's how I see us dividing ourselves into factions for the first war.

We want 4 factions, ergo 4 supreme commanders. From my experience with our players so far I'd say those should be me, recoil and jeffrobot for sure. I don't know about the fourth one. I don't think we have another person right now who would be decent for the job. And even if we did, a 4th faction would end up spreading our players too thin between them. So let's try for 3 first, and maybe we can do 4 in the second war. Here is a preliminary breakdown of how I see dividing the MOST DEVOTED players for the first war:

icycalm
fede16071995
agentx

recoil
gmase
Some guy

jeffrobot494
theiban
chevvy

This way, the 3 best 1v1 players (gmase, fede and jeff) are divided between the three teams, as well as the 3 best strategic leaders. Since I know all these players well, I think this is the most balanced breakdown we can do right now. It would be nice to add a few more players in, but I don't think we have any others who are sufficiently dedicated right now, and if we add in people who only play once a week or two we'll only end up making the war last for months.

Having said that, Starnerd3/StarofSweden is quite dedicated, so if we can get 2 more players to commit to this we could either spread them between the teams, or start a 4th one. Just need to find 2 more players, but even if we don't, I say we go ahead regardless.
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Unread postby icycalm » 29 Jan 2015 17:39

Also, if the LTC retards are reading this (which of course they are), why don't you do something useful with your lives and join us for this? Put a team of 3 losers together, decide on a supreme commander (lol, as if they could ever command anything) and a clan name (learn to suck!), and send $30 to my PayPal account and you are in. Let's have some fun together. Stop playing shitty games in shitty ways and play what the Overman recommends that you play. Wake up!

This goes for any other group of people reading this. Have 3 people and $30? Then join up asap! My PayPal address is sales@culture.vg (but don't bother emailing me if you haven't sent the money first. I am not interested in chatting aimlessly with people who are not 100% invested in the project).
Last edited by icycalm on 29 Jan 2015 18:14, edited 1 time in total.
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Unread postby ChevRage » 29 Jan 2015 17:44

Just sent $50.
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Unread postby icycalm » 29 Jan 2015 17:51

Also, we need to pick the best name for the game. Universal War is one idea, but how about Cosmic War? (cosmicwar.pa is also available.) Any more ideas, post them here. The domain is expensive, so we better get it right the first time lol.
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Unread postby Some guy » 29 Jan 2015 17:57

I sent you £30/$45.11.
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Unread postby icycalm » 29 Jan 2015 18:02

And guys, better use sales@culture.vg, because PayPal is giving me trouble claiming money from icycalm@culture.vg. chevvy sent it to sales but Rory sent it to icycalm and PayPal is driving me nuts with this.
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Unread postby Some guy » 29 Jan 2015 18:04

Sorry about that, I'll send $50 to sales@culture.vg soon.
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Unread postby Some guy » 29 Jan 2015 18:10

It turns out that I can just cancel the payment, do you want me to do that?
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Unread postby Some guy » 29 Jan 2015 18:18

Alright, I sent $50 to the sales address

How about Galactic Conquest as the name?
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