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Clan Wars discussion REBOOT

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Clan Wars discussion REBOOT

Unread postby icycalm » 24 Jul 2017 06:55

I have decided to abandon the idea of a turn-based metagame. It is a bad idea, because the only way to make it good is to create turn-based complexity for it, in the form of involved turn-based mechanics. But if you do that, you are encroaching on the territory of games like Civ and so on, which will always be 1000x times better as long as you are not committed to making a PROPER videogame out of them (which we wouldn't be doing). What we wanted to make, essentially, would be a sci-fi version of the Total War series, but with the turn-based aspect of it running inside our heads, or at most like a board game, instead of in a computer. So we were doomed to failure from the start.

Instead, what I want to do now is create our own version of Clan Wars. Exodus has given up on the concept entirely -- most likely because their star caster, Zaphod, quit the game -- so the field is wide open for us to run our own team-based league. We can start out with an internal 2v2 or 3v3 tournament, to get reacquainted with the game, and teach it to any newcomers who want to join us, and then, with that tournament under our belt -- fully streamed and casted, plus the blog ready to go -- we can go on the PA forums and see if we can sign up a few clans to join us for Season 1.

As for our internal tournament, here are the participant list I have so far:

icycalm
recoil
infernovia
Some guy
danjiro
Robomoo
Yurian
Kojiero
NighAligned

I am not 100% sure everyone listed above wants to participate, so correct me if I made a mistake, and I am also not sure if any other people want to join, so let me know if that is the case, and then I will divide us into Alfa, Bravo, etc. squads, and we can start going into the MP lobby and playing against randoms for a while, until everyone has caught up and we are ready to have the internal contest.

The main advantage of our format over Exodus's will be the greater size of the battles: Clan Wars was strictly 4v4, but our showdowns will depend on the clans' sizes. If two clans can play a 10v10, that's what they will do, and if some other clan can only field three people, it will have to play 3v3s with the bigger clans, and so on.

Also, the systems will be larger. It's been 2+ years since Clan Wars, and now PA: Titans has introduced multi-threading performance gains, plus faster and cheaper servers exist, plus the custom server code is much more robust than it used to be (with the possibility of reconnecting now, if you are disconnected while playing), so we should be able to have far bigger, longer battles -- wars, really -- than have ever been played and streamed before.

It should be very exciting and very fun, and I look forward to Insomnia fostering the only PA competitive scene that showcases PA's scale the way it should be showcased. Fuck 4v4s that end in 45 minutes: let's have some 10v10s that take half a fucking DAY. That's what Jon Mavor wanted to achieve, and that's what I want our competitive league to strive towards.

(And by the way, we'll need to carefully design systems that will encourage this type of play, so with large land mass and without many superweapons and so on, so get ready for learning the system editor inside and out, and extensive playtesting.)
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Unread postby Some guy » 24 Jul 2017 08:48

I'm in!
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Unread postby infernovia » 24 Jul 2017 19:50

I'm in as well!
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Unread postby icycalm » 24 Jul 2017 21:14

infern, I don't think I've ever seen you play PA as part of a team. You build your own base and manage your own forces, and play even large games as a series of connected 1v1s, like all the guys in the other clans used to play them (with the exception of BRN, after they adopted my megabase strategy).

In Rust, however, you do play as part of a team, and seem comfortable in assuming a specialized role.

So what gives?

The larger the games we try to play, the less viable your playing style will be. Perhaps it's doable in 2v2s or 3v3s, but when you are doing 5v5s and up (never mind 10v10v10v10s) it can be quite annoying -- not to mention, when there is decent competition, fatal -- having a guy on the other side of a map doing his own thing and not being part of the overall strategy.

The worst thing is that I cannot entrust you to be part of other squads, because I don't think anyone else is assertive enough to try to integrate you in their efforts, so they'll just leave you to do your own thing, and you'll bring the whole team down. My only option is to take you into my team, give you a role, and hope that you accept it.

Connected to all the above is that you basically discuss nothing. You have your own plans of attack and defense, and you only grudgingly seem to share them if someone repeatedly prods you about them, all of which of course will not work at all if you don't get your own base and have to work on specialized tasks.

In short, I don't know what to do with you, but unless you make a sudden, radical change in your playing habits in this game, I don't see how you can be part of any team in the league, even if you started your own.
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Unread postby infernovia » 25 Jul 2017 00:18

For me, it's the difference in perspective and logistics. If I collect something in my planet/base, it's automatically the team's. But in Rust, that's not the case. In Rust, I only have my character's single viewpoint. But in PA and in other RTSes, I can skip between multiple battlefronts and multiple bases. If one of our bases falls, I can come back to another base/battle and help out.

I still liked splitting between econ/military focus. This was how Qpo and I used to do 2v2v2v2s. There were only a few times where I felt like I needed my entire attention devoted to something to the exclusion of others. One was in invasion of planets (ie the 3v3 game we played), and in this scenario I would entrust everything else to my teammates.

All that said, I can understand if this kind of nebulous playstyle doesn't work well with your vision. I can focus on the military if you would like.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Jul 2017 01:47

I don't really understand what you are saying. I barely remember any games involving you in which you are not alone in your own base doing your own thing, almost entirely unrelated to what the rest of the team is doing.

What is "my vision" supposed to be? I have no idea what you are talking about here.

In a long, large game, everyone ends up doing everything anyway. We START OUT with roles, but when we gain an extra planet, we need to send someone there, and then that someone relinquishes his old role to someone else, and starts running a planet on his own. Or when we first go into orbital, someone has to take that over, and might have to give his old role to someone else. Ultimately, everyone needs to be able to do everything. But none of that can work if people don't communicate and co-ordinate stuff (for example, you can't go to take over a planet if you haven't even realized that we have a new planet, or if you can't be bothered to tell other people what you are doing, or ask for anyone's input). So if by "my vision" you mean people communicating and co-ordinating stuff, then I agree. But for me it's not a vision, because no alternatives to it seem to me to exist, and neither you nor anyone else seems willing to elaborate them.

I don't know what else to say on this. You are the only person I've had this issue with. And the issue has been going on for years and dozens of hours of gaming. So, do you think you can co-ordinate your efforts with other human beings in the context of a real-time strategy game? Do you even want to?

We should start playing games in the PA lobby asap anyway, so we have more recent examples to use to illustrate our viewpoints than what happened six months or three years ago. Hopefully, there won't be any issues and we'll be able to enjoy the game immediately, but I am not betting on that, and I'll be ready to address issues as soon as they crop up.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Jul 2017 01:51

infernovia wrote:For me, it's the difference in perspective and logistics. If I collect something in my planet/base, it's automatically the team's.


That's false, by the way, and it's precisely the reason I am complaining. I never have any idea of what you have in your base, and hence I can never put it to use when planning moves, whether offensive or defensive. I often pass over your base and see units sitting there doing nothing, and thus draining our overall fighting strength, and weakening our fronts and offensives. You are basically a drain on the team's resources, and the only way to win if you are in the team is if we are fighting clearly inferior opponents.
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Unread postby infernovia » 25 Jul 2017 04:26

By not working with your vision I meant me abandoning roles and switching roles on the fly, but I seem to have misunderstood you.

I will work on being more vocal. I am going to keep your other criticisms in mind when I play.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Jul 2017 04:50

If you "abandon roles" and switch roles "on the fly", completely independently of what the rest of the team is doing, you don't belong to the team, and, if you fail to understand it, you must be kicked off it. And I resent your continued use of the phrase "your vision" to describe my efforts to make us work as a team, as opposed to the stupid 1v1 way that you operate. I repeatedly take people's suggestions during a game, and people often go off on missions of their own making, but the decisions for these moves are made after everyone concerned has consulted with each other, and we all know what everyone else is doing. If you have trouble joining into all of this you shouldn't be playing as part of our team, or of any other. I don't know how much simpler to put this, but I will not tolerate someone leeching 1/5th of our strength in a 5v5 game and pretending he is playing in single-player mode.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Jul 2017 04:59

Also, other people are free to assume the role of SupCom, but, again, not if they can't handle co-ordinating everyone and don't like talking to people, and proceed to tank the team and people's enjoyment, and drive everyone off the game. I would happily take orders from someone, if we had anyone in our team who actually enjoyed giving them, and wasn't entirely terrible at it.
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Unread postby infernovia » 25 Jul 2017 15:09

I have communicated when I am switching roles or when I am planning something that would affect the group as a whole.

I really don't know what else to say. I can work on being more vocal, but I don't know why you think I play single player. I don't tech up without telling the group, I don't attack a new planet/enemy without telling the group. I usually am requesting information all the time for results of attacks etc. I ask people to take over when I need my attention somewhere. I have always kept the group in mind when making decisions.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Jul 2017 15:14

My memories of the games in which you participated are different, and I stand by the statements I have made. I even remember Qpo telling me that once, in the early days, you fell somewhere on the map alone and started your own base even though back then we were always making megabases, and whenever someone would fall somewhere alone by mistake, they would always walk the commander to meet the others. You didn't even ask the others whether to build your own base, or even tell them that you were doing it. You just did it, and Qpo found out by scrolling over your base. I am definitely not making this stuff up.

I guess there's nothing left to do than to play, and if I see you doing this stuff I will point it out to you.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Jul 2017 20:17

So Insomnia's reboot of Clan Wars starts this Saturday at 5PM UTC:

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/so-w ... st-1141841

I wrote:In that case, we are rebooting the project, while keeping the name, if that's okay with people. It's a common name used in countless games after all: https://www.google.com/#safe=off&q=clan wars

There will be two components to it: one of them will be a clan vs. clan league, roughly as Exodus had it (though aiming for far higher numbers than 4v4, when enough players are available), and the other will be an actual clan war, with all clans simultaneously fighting each other in the same system, with however many players they happen to have online at the time of the battle. I'll have more details on both aspects soon, as well as a website, but for the time being we are announcing Clan Wars #1 for this Saturday, July 29 at 5PM UTC. The Cult will be there with at least 3-4 players, and possibly more, and will face off as many clans with as many players as show up, while streaming (and possibly casting -- feel free to volunteer for this if anyone wants) everything.

If no other clans show for the first war, The Cult will divide itself into alfa, bravo, charlie etc. squads and fight an internal battle, and we will keep doing this indefinitely, until we build enough of a clan community that we no longer need to do it. (We will also do it if, e.g., only a single clan shows up with say 2 people. Then it will be Cult A vs. Cult B vs that clan, etc.) These will be exhibition games and the results will not count towards the total on the leaderboard.

Some might wonder how this might work if one clan brings lots more people, but consider e.g. a 7v4v3. The smaller clans are free to team up and take on the bigger one, and once they have defeated it, fight it out between themselves.

This is our Discord, where everyone (and especially the clan leaders) are invited for better communication: https://discord.gg/8Vx2Sax
And this is our Twitch, where everything will be streamed: https://www.twitch.tv/insomniacult

We are starting with the literal clan war because it is the easiest and fastest to set up, and can help us get the ball rolling right away and having fun. After several weeks or months of this, and once we have built up a significant community of interested clans, we will begin discussing the league.

If anyone wants to offer help with any of this, we are prepared to gladly accept it, and this includes Exodus. Having said that we have our own vision of what PA's competitive scene should look like (that basically boils down to "bigger is better"), and we are prepared to do all the work on our own, if need be.

Looking forward to this Saturday and hope to see you all there.


Everyone is welcome to be there. If you are new to the game, be sure to have played it for at least a few hours before then, either alone or with other people, so you know how the controls work, etc.
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Unread postby icycalm » 25 Jul 2017 20:40

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/so-w ... st-1141842

I wrote:Btw, lone players are also welcome, and will be thrown in the game to play the role of the "barbarians" in Civilization, if you are familiar with that game. So a game might end up being 7v1v1v3v4v6 or whatever. It's all good, and no matter the setup in the end there can be only one, whether player or clan. We might even open up the game to randoms in the lobby who are not even aware of what's going on. We definitely need to do some testing to figure out what exact format works best, but they will be "live" tests, with the results being recorded on the leaderboard from the start, because we are eager to start having some fun asap.
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Unread postby icycalm » 26 Jul 2017 08:59

For whoever's interested to learn what happened with Clan Wars, go to the last page of this thread and start reading backwards as far as you care to: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/new-clan-wars.70643/
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Unread postby icycalm » 26 Jul 2017 19:26

Both the thread in the PA forum and our Discord are showing promising signs of interest for this Saturday's clan war. However, recoil won't be playing, and the only other players we have left who know the game are me, infernovia and Rory, and I haven't heard from the last two recently. So unless infern and/or Rory confirm participation, it looks like I will have to face the clan players with one or more noobs at my side. And in fact, I haven't got a firm yes even from the noobs.

So, please post in this thread if you are 100% sure you will attend, and if you are a noob, please play the game as much as possible before then, preferably with me (but alone will also do if I am not around when you want to play).

My strategy for dealing with the onslaught of these pro players is simple: make a huge planet, so that it takes them ages merely to get to us. This way, the game is artificially lengthened, and we lose in 30 minutes instead of in 15, and it looks better for the cameras. That's all we want for the first game: something that looks decent on video, so that it can entice more players and clans to join us for next weekend. The more clans and players join, the more chaotic the game becomes, and the easier it will be for us to carve our territory in the game, kill a few commanders, and feel good about ourselves.

I am designing a couple of systems right now, and we'll test them out with recoil on our server later tonight. We are also looking at dedicated servers, for better performance, and thus larger planets.

Let me know who can attend so I can plan something!
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Unread postby NighAligned » 26 Jul 2017 22:33

I'm still very new to the game but I'll join in!
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Unread postby icycalm » 26 Jul 2017 22:41

If I can get at least one more noob, we could do a 3v2 with those guys. Robo said he'll probably join, so that could work. We'll still lose, but it will be more even, and last longer.

But note that there could well be more teams and players showing up, so the more people we have the more prepared we'll be.

Also note that we are talking about a single game here, lasting probably about 30 minutes, and certainly no more than an hour. After that, we'll keep playing casual PA games for as long as we feel like it, and perhaps even switching to other games, depending on what people want to play.
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Unread postby icycalm » 27 Jul 2017 06:35

Kojiero will also be present. So me, Kojiero and Nigh for sure, and Robo said probably. We can still use more. We just played some 12P and 14P games with recoil and Kojiero tonight on our server, and they went great: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/162259456

If we can get that kind of playercount on a weekday, we should be able to get 20P+ on the weekend.
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Unread postby Robomoo » 27 Jul 2017 12:14

I can definitely play on Saturday.
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Unread postby recoil » 06 Aug 2017 05:55

I've got some ideas to add to the website and/or icylegion mod based on the previous discussions.

War Reports - We get people to write an account of each Clan War, we pick out the best one and feature it on cosmicwar.net to keep a nice stream of updates and provide an entertaining way to keep up on the happenings of the Clan Wars. I'll make an account of Clan Wars #2 from my perspective for the Strategy board if anyone wants to see an example of this.

System Wagering and Planet/System Destruction Permanence - Systems used in the Clan Wars will be given to the winning clan. The clan will be able to use, wager, and risk losing the system in future wars. If a planet is destroyed in the war, the system will be edited to account for the destruction. If all planets are destroyed, the system will be unavailable for use in future wars.

Achievements and Titles - We grant clans special titles for achieving different feats like destroying the most planets/systems, winning/losing the most wars, having the most players, etc. So for Clan Wars #2, we could grant eXodus the title of "Bringer of Doom" for winning the most games with a Ragnarok destruction or something like that. Maybe BRN gets the "Zerg" title.

I think this will get more people to come to each event and care about the results. It should be pretty simple to keep track of with good reports and a leaderboard and we'll eventually end up with a war epic. It would also be good practice for the eventual coming of Cosmic War and provide ideas on how to present its lore.
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