ST:BotF meets Poker and 2D Chess

[KrazeeXXL]

ok we were a little bit off-topic in the tourney thread and therefore I decided to open a new thread.

if you want to write something about your experiences or about commonalties in all three games, this is the right thread.

[I allways liked the way you can move your fleets. It's really simple but let a lot of room for strategy left. So f.e. cat and mouse can happen.]

edit: topic changed

[TurboC]

Fleets can always be in motion so there is really no comparison to chess... in chess each player gets their own move and chance to capture. BotF fleet movement would be like playing chess where all the pieces can move at once, and each move happens simultaneously. I.e., really nothing like chess.

For the record, I don't really like the BotF fleet controls. In Master of Orion 2, you had to have a destination star system, so you usually couldn't just sidestep. You could see the incoming fleets and bring defenders to greet them. You could also make things like warp interdictors so that later in the game, enemies couldn't just jump around to attack a new system each turn. In BotF none of those counters exist, so the attacker has too much of an advantage.

In real life, if you and I had equally fast ships, and I was coming in to attack your system, you could intercept me. You would be closer to your system, so would have to travel less distance to block my approach, and force an encounter. In BotF, the attacker can avoid many encounters, and the defender has to play a guessing game. I know "intercept" exists, but it's just poorly executed. A true intercept would be too difficult to program I guess, and also difficult to use... they wanted to allow flying around space without star-system destinations, so we got what we got.

[Martok]

For the record, I don't really like the BotF fleet controls. In Master of Orion 2, you had to have a destination star system, so you usually couldn't just sidestep. You could see the incoming fleets and bring defenders to greet them. You could also make things like warp interdictors so that later in the game, enemies couldn't just jump around to attack a new system each turn. In BotF none of those counters exist, so the attacker has too much of an advantage.

In real life, if you and I had equally fast ships, and I was coming in to attack your system, you could intercept me. You would be closer to your system, so would have to travel less distance to block my approach, and force an encounter. In BotF, the attacker can avoid many encounters, and the defender has to play a guessing game. I know "intercept" exists, but it's just poorly executed. A true intercept would be too difficult to program I guess, and also difficult to use... they wanted to allow flying around space without star-system destinations, so we got what we got.

While I don't feel fleet control is quite as bad as you make out, you have highlighted what I've felt has always been a fairly major flaw: The fact that there is no way to determine the direction a ship/fleet is traveling, thereby making interception nigh-impossible.

Obviously, there are exceptions, such as if/when a large enemy fleet is close by one of your colonies (especially one of your more important ones), you can usually bet that that's where the enemy is headed. As a general rule, however, it's very difficult to ascertain where ships/fleets are traveling from....and even more importantly, where they're going.


Nor is this is a problem with only BOTF, either. It seems like most grand strategy games -- for reasons passing my understanding -- lack this feature. Whether you're talking about BOTF, GalCiv 2, the Total War series, etc., they all have the flaw of the player being unable to ascertain another faction's forces' "paths"....and therefore, the inability to intercept them.

[KrazeeXXL]

I have to admit that this thread was a to-quick-one opened compared to the depth of the topic but it was made from necessity to obviate [off-topic] in another one. Therefor my opening wasn't well sophisticated. Sorry for that

TurboC, of course your statement was absolutely true about that you can move everything in BotF at the same time compared to chess where you can only move one figure. Everyone who knows both games is aware of that. That is the fact I provided

to prevent more inaccuracies:

I renamed the thread from BotF and Chess into ST:BotF meets Poker and 2D Chess

I hope this fits a little bit better and doesn't sound that boring then before


So if anyone has some thoughts about this great game meeting Poker and Chess feel free to post your thoughts and/or experiences. Would be nice to read some of other players! both mp and sp



I sadly miss a lot of these things from MoO2, too. But fewest its combat mode even if it don't crashed the same ammount like the one in BotF. And there are much more things of this great game "they" "seem" to have forgotten in our good 'ol BotF.

Little and big ones.
For me personally a big one is the possibility not to obviate Disasters as it was possible in MoO2. I mean intercepting Asteroids that threaten your systems
It allowed a more game-depth which made it much more interesting and lesser annoying then "oops my system was hit and I lost 100 buildings in it"

I have to admit that it is many many years ago I played MoO2 and don't remember most of the things which were possible in it. I tried to play it again some years ago but it crashed very often in XP and therefor I never played it again. The same thing happend to BotF until my best friend found this great XP patch for me after I moaned another time that I wasn't able to play it anymore (I had no internet at this time)

But this thread shouldn't be about MoO2. Because of that I have to curtail it a little.

[TurboC]

Sorry, one last MoO2 question - anyone know how to make it error-free in XP? I wouldn't mind firing it up again. I had to install some patch to get the mouse working, but it ends up that after maybe 200 turns, half the text goes black and it's unplayable. I think I heard that some people run it in DOS... not sure if DOSBox would run fast enough for it.

[KrazeeXXL]

As far as I remember was MoO2 a W95 game so it won't run in dosbox. Only way in my mind is to run a virtual Win95 machine and playing it there. But I may be mistaken and it is a hybrid and in Dosbox playable, too... if you get it running in dosbox send me your dosbox.conf plz

to the virtual machine: vmwareserver is awesome and has the good vm-ware-tools integrated. They allow a better mouse support and stuff (vm ware server needs free registration afair)

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[Pigman]

When it comes to playing games, people choose to play for a variety of reasons. Some like the "luck of the draw" and for others a pure meeting of minds with skill the ultimate deciding factor, has more appeal. For some it depends on the mood and you can combine the above extremes.

POKER

I wouldn't say that Poker is not a game of skill, far from it, but luck (random factors as Spock has said) plays a very large part and the skill is about remembering the cards (52 off), understanding probability in mathematical terms and understanding psychology so as to know how to play the other players.

Of course Poker comes in various flavours and random factors have a greater or lesser part to play accordingly.


CHESS

On the other hand Chess is a game of pure skill, a meeting of minds if you will and whilst dirty tricks and psychology might have a part to play in any result, it will only be the case if a player allows himself/herself to be psyched out!

What's in front of you is all there is if you have a strong mind and that's the beauty of Chess.


BOTF

BOTF now comes in more flavours than ever and the balance between the need for great skill and having random factors (and I don't just mean random events) working in our favour, vary accordingly.

But, to me BOTF is neither like Chess nor Poker as the game is far more complex with vastly more variables and potential variations of situation to consider.

For me, in a single player game, I'm happy for the AI to throw as many variables at me as it can and it's fun to overcome these hurdles. I like to get all minor races eventually, however, so I hate the star going nova, or any random event that wipes out a minor.

When playing a human opponent, however, ego comes into play (I'm not Spock you see) and I personally would prefer for the randomness to be taken out of the game in this case.

The UCW Mod ought to be perfect for this if both players play as opposing Klingon houses and if the 2 houses had exactly the same ships, bonuses etc. In addition, it would be neccessary to have an absolutely symetrical galaxy and start position. For most this would be going too far and would be leaning towards the Chess-like meeting of minds, albeit far more complex.

Much as I love Chess, BOTF will always have far greater appeal and it's great that we now have so many versions to choose from. So a big thank you to all modders out there!!

Regards

Pigman

[TurboC]

Krazee: Install MoO2 using the DOS installer. Install DOSBox 0.72. Then go here:

http://lordbrazen.blogspot.com/

That tells you the configuration you need. I just played a 3-player game over my niece's house, unfortunately my nephew went to bed but we will continue tomorrow.

[KrazeeXXL]

TurboC thx for the link but all highlighted options in there I tried some months ago without positive results. Maybe I have to try it again... If I find some time for it or even if I find the game which implies that I have time first to look for it
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Pigman, I really liked your posting. After it we can almost close the thread (nothing really bad )

But, to me BOTF is neither like Chess nor Poker as the game is far more complex with vastly more variables and potential variations of situation to consider.

yea it isn't comparable to each Chess and Poker. But its some kind of mixture of Chess and Poker with some awesome Trekness in it

The UCW Mod ought to be perfect for this if both players play as opposing Klingon houses and if the 2 houses had exactly the same ships, bonuses etc.

yea the UCW mod. I really enjoyed it, too. For the same reasons as you!

In addition, it would be neccessary to have an absolutely symetrical galaxy and start position. For most this would be going too far and would be leaning towards the Chess-like meeting of minds, albeit far more complex.

absolutely symetrical isn't good IMO. I wouldn't like it then. Would be boring for BotF. That is why I like the mixture of BotF: Chess and Poker.

Chess is a nice game but for me personally a little bit boring after some time. Poker is to much luck and IMO to less skill. But BotF is a nice mixture of both. It's a little bit in the middle (if there is one )

@BotF starting: a maybe more counterbalanced neighbourhood and starting systems compared to the opponent would be nice. maybe comparable minors. (seen funny things in BOP: Caldonians next to Trill next to Bynars and 10 columns to the bottom right were the Vulcans)

In Vanilla random map generator doesn't balance it. I hope Gowron will find some things out with this generator so he can balance the game better. Luck is okay, but as you said it is a to big factor in this game. And I have to say, that I don't like simple "luck-games". I like skill-games. Then you see who is better and I guess maybe all of the mp players here will agree to me.

Therefor I like BOP. I recently tested a few T5's. It doesn't matter @ starting systems anymore. You can do what you want and I have to say that Gowron avoided these map-generator-unbalancing which you have normally with this starting seeds in a very clever way. Now it depends on how much dilithium you get @ the beginning (luck factor again)

When playing a human opponent, however, ego comes into play (I'm not Spock you see) and I personally would prefer for the randomness to be taken out of the game in this case.

yea the random events which I like in sp aren't good in mp. They boost the already big luck factor of the game into another sphere.

Much as I love Chess, BOTF will always have far greater appeal and it's great that we now have so many versions to choose from. So a big thank you to all modders out there!!

can't have written it better. I second that and leave it almost uncommented