Supporting continuing development for Empyrean Challenge / Cluster Wars
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I understand the idea of bringing down the complexity in order to bring in new players. But the thing that originally drew me to CW ("Empyrean Challenge" back then) WAS the complexity. That's why I signed up and kept paying Vern money. We can make the game simpler, but then it's a lot like many other games out there. CW is a game like no other because of this level of detail and simulation.
Another approach would be to embrace the complexity. Do whatever we can to keep it playable, yes. Improve the user-interface and the turn reports and add click-and-drag elements to make things easier. All good. But keep the level of simulation up where it is.
There is an old wargame called Campaign for North Africa that has been celebrated for years as the most complex game ever published. It supposedly takes 1500 hours to play, with 5 players on each side. There's another called A World At War, simulating all of WWII, that has hundreds of pages of rules, charts, and player aids. It's not for everyone, but it is magnificent. There's an old game called Magic Realm that has a cult following. It's ridiculously complex, but players love it for exactly that reason. And Dwarf Fortress (an obscure computer game) has such a crazy fan-base that people keep cloning and extending the game.
I'll support this project either way. I just want to make the case for keeping this game HEAVY.
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following up on this topic -- I was always excited by the esoteric detail that permeates this game, but there were other areas that overly abstracted things. In my opinion.
- only 3 mine-able resources (METS, NMTS, FUEL) - why not more? Atomics? Diamonds? Rare earths? Even ice/water?
- only 2 weapon-types (EWP, MSS) - what about romulan plasma torpedoes? different types of EWP? rail guns? ground bombs?
- FCT produce each component in 4 turns - why? (see first post)
- what about ship-carriers? this is in the old game WarpWar -- warp-capable ships that bring sub-warp ships into battle?
- what about fighters? luke skywalker?
- what about mine-fields in space?
It might be just me, but I would like to have to find low-yield diamond mines in order to build my special armor plates. Or build mine-laying ships to protect my OBC from ASC. Or build stealth fighters to sneak spies into enemy colonies with detection.
Maybe it's a big enough job just to get the game running again. But I do think we should keep an open mind on game development. Vern did!
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Ok, it is on this note I shall bow out of contributing here. I am just not interested in this game being created. It's not EC.
I wish you all well and hope you can come up with something that all here will enjoy. Good luck!
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I am not actually the architect or game designer, here. I am just an interested party, throwing out suggestions. I think I've made it clear that I am happy to just make EC as Vern had designed it. No need to leave the party just because of me.
At this point, I have one job -- to build the cluster-generator. I have designed it so that all the major factors going into cluster characteristics can be configured before generating everything. This means one cluster can be generated exactly along the lines of Vern's design, and another cluster can have other characteristics.
There's no reason we can't design much of the game rules to be configurable for each new game. So if you are only interested in a version 100% faithful to Vern's design, that's perfectly fine. And if you want to try different settings, go for it. Want Vern-style beamers? Or you want super-beamers that work for pop? Or you want no beamers at all, like the old days? All could be configured during game setup, using checkboxes.
Anyway, I am probably posting here too much. I can also just build the cluster-generator tool and otherwise just observe and be quiet. I have been inspired by this effort, but I can just as easily build what I'm thinking of in a completely separate environment, and let this project here proceed as you all wish.
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I think we will remain reasonably true to the original, but the original was somewhat of a moving target over time. I think LABs are an improvement over building RSCH inFCT with a 9:1 PRO:USK ratio. Individual TL levels for items also an improvement over a global TL for all items. BEM are a bit of a kludge for a cost to avoid the complexity of building more cargo SHPs. With online design programs much of the tedium of calculations can be eliminated.
One issue is that it is likely we will never see Vern's source code to pin down exactly what is "original". We will have to develop algorithms to fill in the voids and design them to our collective best guess of how they did or how they should work. Much of the Combat code was buggy anyway - for example when you were INVaded all your SLD went to combat and no one left the next turn to man the EWP/MSS. They were supposed to be "released" but I don't think that actually happened in CWT2.
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