straney@msudoc.ee.mich-state.edu (Ronald W. DeBry) (04/06/88)
I've discovered a cute way to become monstrously powerfull right from
the start in Conquer, but it can easily be fixed. It involves the option
to double raw resources when you are setting up your country. By just
buying some reproduction, and spending the rest of your points to get the
maximum of 10 doublings you get:
- enough jewels to buy 4-6 magic powers, depending on how many you
start with
- enough iron to up your combat bonuses to truly gross levels
- a sh*tload of food
By themselves, the magic and combat bonuses usually work out to about 3-5
points above what you'd get if you bought them directly, which is an
advantage, but nothing compared to what the food does. It, of course,
converts to gold during the first update - something like 12 MILLION
in gold. Enough to buy and maintain, oh say, 10,000 mercenaries, more
if you're really greedy. In one game, I was able to take out noria on
about the fifth turn.
The solution, obviously, is to limit the number of resource doubles allowed
to something more balanced.
I like the new unit types, but I haven't had time to set up a big multi-
player game yet, so it remains to be seen (by me that is) how they really
function and interact.
Two other bugs I have noticed: The Cavalry Power doesn't seem to work, but
since it doesn't really make sense now that you can buy Cav units, I just
made it go away. Second, when you start the game as a Destroyer, it also
turns your Capital to desert, which makes it pretty tough to draft troops
for several turns, until you build a city outside the desert zone.
Cheers, Roncc1@CS.UCLA.EDU (04/15/88)
Unfortunately, thats nothing. There's a much bigger bug in conquest, and I stopped playng becuse of it. Take a Dwarven Wizard. Buy one level of regen, and put EVERYTHING else into magic powers. When the game starts, tka take 4 sectors--Your starting capitol, one farm land, one gold mine, and one iron mine. Sit back. There's NO limit on population increase. You gain almost 200 points per update, your four sectors have about 500-600 soldiers, no one can take them, you can raise more people in an instant from your capitol if needed, and you just let everyone else fight it out and then clean up after them. The big problem with this is that population increase is adjusted by number of people in a spot--there's no NEED to expand in this game. Michael
smile@homxc.UUCP (E.BARLOW) (04/18/88)
In article <11274@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, cc1@CS.UCLA.EDU writes: > Unfortunately, thats nothing. There's a much bigger bug in conquest, and I > stopped playng becuse of it. > > [ text deleted ] > > The big problem with this is that population increase is adjusted by number of > people in a spot--there's no NEED to expand in this game. > Michael Why should everybody need to expand? I made different victory conditions to alleviate the need for everybody doing the same thing! You should want to expand a little for security/the fun of it (your dwarf wizard probably wasn't much fun - and that is why you are playing - right). How should this "problem" be fixed. The big rational behind expansion is because most players scores are dependent on gaining land... Your dwarf wizard is not and gets points as follows: Per 1000 1000 100K 100K 100K Magic 10 Races Sector People Soldiers Gold Jewels Iron Power Ship "wizard" EH 0 2 1 0 3 5 20 0 Thus you are pursuing the correct strategy for your nation... The only solution that I can come up with is to make production ability fall off with increasing usage (% chance of reducing the iron/jewel value of a sector by one based on amounts mined - % chance per sector per turn of "finding" new raw materials and adding to production ability), and make reproduction fall off if too many people are in a sector (1/2 rate if over 50K people/sector)... Maybe I will do this in the next release... Hmmm... But honestly... a wizard type should not necessarily want to expand **too** much... leave that to the colonist types... The Ed
michael@stb.UUCP (Michael) (04/24/88)
In article <1952@homxc.UUCP> smile@homxc.UUCP (E.BARLOW) writes: >In article <11274@shemp.CS.UCLA.EDU>, cc1@CS.UCLA.EDU (me at school) writes: >> Unfortunately, thats nothing. There's a much bigger bug in conquest, and I >> stopped playng becuse of it. >> ... >> The big problem with this is that population increase is adjusted by number of >> people in a spot--there's no NEED to expand in this game. >> Michael >Why should everybody need to expand? I made different victory conditions >to alleviate the need for everybody doing the same thing! >... >rational behind expansion is because most players scores are dependent >on gaining land... Your dwarf wizard is not and gets points as follows: You miss my point. Conquest will let you have a million people mining a sector, they will still grow at 10% and the mine will not run out. This is broken in both ways. There should be a limit to the amount of space a sector can hold. A non-city should not support as many people as a city. A mine should eventually run out--slowly, dropping from 9 to 8 to 7 .... to 1 to 0. A farmland might runout eventually, if you don't rotate crops. Etc. This is the big problem in conquest. This is why I can't play it anymore. The Dwarven Wizard example I gave is the biggest abuse of this--a normal player is very good to get 30 points per update, this player can get about 200 points per, and after everyone else has wiped themselves out trying to conquere the world, he can then wipe out everyone else. But EVERYONE has these problems--the DW simply benefits the most from them. Michael -- : Michael Gersten uunet.uu.net!ucla-an.ANES\ : ihnp4!hermix!ucla-an!denwa!stb!michael : sdcsvax!crash!gryphon!denwa!stb!michael : "This signature is too tame; anyone got some gasoline? "
smile@homxc.UUCP (E.BARLOW) (04/26/88)
> You miss my point. Conquest will let you have a million people mining a sector > they will still grow at 10% and the mine will not run out. > > There should be a limit to the amount of space a sector can hold. A non-city > should not support as many people as a city. A mine should eventually run > out--slowly, dropping from 9 to 8 to 7 .... to 1 to 0. A farmland might > runout eventually, if you don't rotate crops. Etc. I guess I just dont think it is that big a deal... It took me few lines of code to fix. if(pop>POPTHRESH) divisor=2; else divisor=1; -> then divide all production and repro in the sector by the divisor. Also added a fix to have stuff run out (another few lines). I never claimed that conquer was in a final form.... and who plays by points anyway (I never have... I play to kill npc's and pc's...). I have added/changed so much in the past few months that this is viewed by me as a low priority MR, not a fatal one. But look for this fix in the next version (its done... I just need to playtest it... Any volunteers). The Ed PS. I have carved up the NPC routines to permit utilization of npc strategies, but cant think of what these strategies should be... Need something general, but with enough oomph to be specificly implemented. (ie. Stragegy Aggressive: take as much land as possible in the beginning, and then go after any nations of a specific race in a JIHAD. Take land with people of the same race to fuel this aggression...) after
limes@sun.uucp (Greg Limes) (04/28/88)
In article <2015@homxc.UUCP> smile@homxc.UUCP (E.BARLOW) writes: >I never claimed that conquer was in a final form.... and who plays by >points anyway (I never have... I play to kill npc's and pc's...). >I have added/changed so much in the past few months that this is viewed by >me as a low priority MR, not a fatal one. But look for this fix in the >next version (its done... I just need to playtest it... Any volunteers). Sounds like fun; could you use input from someone who has never played Conquer before? Where can I get sources? On another note, is there a site that archives comp.sources.games, like killer archives comp.sources.unix? I do not have access to internet ftp ... -- Greg Limes [limes@sun.com] frames to /dev/fb