Author Topic: What It Takes to Win  (Read 5417 times)

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Mars_In_Ten

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What It Takes to Win
« on: January 24, 2016, 03:05:09 PM »
The normal objective (for winning) in the multiplayer competitive mode apparently is to become President, that is attain level 5 in all four areas: Ag/BioChem/Engineering/Mining.  IMHO, it is pretty easy to attain level 5 in Ag and BioChem, and fairly easy in Engineering; while for me at least, mining takes more time, is hazardous, and seems to be the only area where there is competition for resources.

Once level 5 is attained in Ag and BioChem, there doesn't seem to be any incentive to maintaining and maximizing those resources (in the Presidential-win mode).  In the pursuit for the Presidency, once Ag and BioChem are at 5, the obvious strategy would be to concentrate on the other two areas, even if this resulted in crop fields that have long since gone to seed and fish that would have died of old age -- or of fields not replanted or ponds not restocked.  To me, there is something unsatisfying about this -- and not of the real world.  One counter to this, would be for a certain level of ongoing production be required to maintain those 5 ratings.

Players also accumulate points, I suppose based on some formula (unknown to me) of overall accomplishments and/or of generated resources (?).  If total generated resources (and accumulated bank credits) were among the factors that determined point values, it would require continued effort in all 4 areas to maintain ones position in the relative point standings.

What I am suggesting is: Players have up-front OPTIONS as to what constitutes victory: The race to the Presidency; first one to "x" number of points; highest number of points after "Y" minutes of game time. This would allow different strokes for different folks.

LostMartian

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Re: What It Takes to Win
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2016, 02:12:07 AM »
How about the first one to earn x amount of credits? Or maybe there could be many contracts that needs to be fulfilled, and the first one to finish x number of them wins. Maybe not all of the contracts will be revealed at first, with those that are being random. That way it would be hard to come up with dominant strategies that work for every game.

Mars_In_Ten

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Re: What It Takes to Win
« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2016, 09:30:04 AM »
Contracts, certainly, should play a part.  One way or 'tother I personally prefer a point based approach to victory. It allow a greater number of paths to victory.  Variety is good.  It keeps interest up.  It encourages creativity.

The larger point I was making though, is that I think the software should allow OPTIONS as to what constitutes victory for each particular multiplayer game -- as many other games do.  Then people can satisfy their own personal preferences.


Mars_In_Ten

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Re: What It Takes to Win
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2016, 09:50:06 AM »
Following up on what a Points based victory competition might look like, I played two scenarios, one focusing on farm production (using 8 Greenhouses/16 planter bins) and one focused on selling processed mineral elements (using production from just 3 augers).  That is, I FOCUSSED on Farm or Ores, but also developed other aspects as time permitted.

I'm sure it will depend on which ores mined, on their density, and on when sold, but 400 pounds of ore from each of the 3 augers -- processed, and sold -- yielded about 8000 credits (took me almost an hour to load those processed elements from the processor drawers into totes and to transfer them to Buyer  - and I damn near died of radiation poisoning while standing out there selling the ores).  Could at least provide a radiation shelter, for ore selling station.

On the farm approach, the challenges were to get enuf seeds to plant 16 bins (could buy a few seeds but mainly had to grow them -- age 60 a crop year) and of course money to buy the greenhouses.  This took lots of cumulative mission time; a careful balance between bins used for harvest and for contract; and raising enuf fish and harvesting enuf plants to keep plant fertilizer production up.

Bottom line:  both approaches would seem viable in a Point Victory approach -- but only because the Farm Contract is worth 400 -- if it were less or if selling ores was easier (faster), Farm would not be competitive.  There might also be other focusses that could be tried (eg, one based on Fabrication?? [Don't know what upper limits the game might impose on # of Points from a given source.]

Hyper

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Re: What It Takes to Win
« Reply #4 on: February 11, 2016, 09:03:53 AM »
Try the biology route. Algae on auto sell is only 5 credits but happens alot faster.