mclure@sri-unix (07/24/82)
One of our players recently suggested that there be a $1000 charge for each sector that a country takes control of. The initial $5000 treasury would be doubled or tripled to allow for inital expansion. The idea behind this is to discourage large land grabs or the familiar "fencing" in which a country surrounds enormous amounts of territory in order to cut it off from other people.
sjb (07/25/82)
I do not like that idea. In 'real' life (now, please no flames that Empire is real life and everything else is imaginary!), does a country pay a fee for taking over land? That is, aside from the cost of weapons, military, etc. does, for example, Iran or Iraq pay for land that they obtain. Besides, where would the money go? To the country conquered, to the DEITY, dropped on the floor? And, even if you triple the initial $5000, that means that only 15 sectors could be taken before you ran out of money, considering that it is very hard to make money at first. 15 sectors is pretty measly. In general, the big countries have their share of problems as well. They generally have more plague, since they have to increase their technology to fight effectively and usually do not have the time to increase their research. Small countries usually have the benefit of being looked over during wars (assuming the big countries go after each other), giving them time to fortify themselves. And since they have less to defend, they can put more into their defense. It is this balance between big and small countries that makes Empire interesting. Why make everyone small? It is not practical to try and balance everything out completely fairly (grammar takes a rest while school is out!) Hell, next step along that road is to outlaw wars!