Without digging back for quotes...
I agree that economic growth is the self destruct button for all the Starfire games I have ever been aware of. (Ok, other than players moving away...)
Pop growth does it in 4e on, while treaties did it for 3e. Regardless, folks start getting more income for no increase in expenses either way.
To me, that mechanic, right there - is the problem.
We have a bunch of house rules in our game to address those issues and keep them from shutting down our games. But it is a pretty hefty book. And I don't say they are for everybody.
What I would say is - any solution needs to address the problem. It needs FIXED. Not adjusted.
We have several ideas we went through. Some have worked well. But they represent very fundamental changes to the games. VERY. And I don't know that everyone would like them.
To illustrate.
Military treaties. Pretty much the same for us as they have always been. Friends are friends. Folks that aren't - aren't.
Trade treaties. BIG difference for us. We give no income bonus. You heard me.
None. What you get is a bonus to your economic research for the trade of ideas and goods. The civies are doing the buying and selling. The governments are getting taxes and tarriffs to pay for customs, etc. No net income. But a bonus to your economics. And as you get higher in EL, stuff gets more expensive, maint goes up, etc.
You also need trade treaties to trade tech between the races.
For colonization it is much more difficult to transfer to another game.
Our sys gen is biased toward smaller stars, and I make sure there is only about 1 hab per 40 systems.
Yes - 40...
And in addition to maint to keep a fleet going - you need a port. A spaceport. And the number of HS it can support is what it can hold (the old 40HS). It can support that level of fleet for 2StMP. Ships in addition to that or beyond the range of the SP cost x3 maint. So you can ship a massive fleet in to defend a distant system. But you need to have a bunch of MC on hand to cover it or it will start to suffer failures from lack of maint.
And those SP cost maint also.
You can also only have one SP per 20PU FRD.
And we hated the old 'freebie, million thick' minefields.
My players and I rejoiced when 4e got rid of them.
One of the best moves ever to me.
We also cut pop growth to 1% per 10 turns.
Cuts down on refiguring every turn that you get otherwise with 4e.
Combine the scarcity of good colonization, expense of keeping the fleets, along with a few other rules (like we require an ICC for each pop over settlement [with a maint cost for it] or income doesn't increase past 180PU, SA and RDS cost maint even without PDC placement, colonies farther than 4StMP from an ICC have NO net income -but you still want them to get an SP to support your border fleets, etc...)
Along with our limit on population growth - it makes getting bigger far more difficult. It becomes a juggling act of can you afford to lose your PTU (none free in our games) to a border system that won't generate income but will cut the cost of your border defenses - and will take you two months of CFN cost to emplace...or do you need them closer to a sector capital to try and pad your income somewhat so you can expand that direction...
As I said. It is a lot of rules we have put together to get a game we like. At turn 400 my wife has the largest economy of any player with an effective income of about 50,000 MC supporting three carrier task groups, an independant cruiser group, two commerce interdiction groups, two fast carrier groups, three survey groups, and a couple dozen escort carriers covering her commerce lanes. She has 3 habitables after this span of turns and an 'empire' that spans nearly a hundred systems.
Not bad for P&P, but it has taken a lot to get our game to this point.
But the problem is, that at the moment the CFN can operate in contested systems. For your idea to work, you would need to outlaw the CFN working in contested systems.
It won't in 4e plus. And I missed out on SM2 for games so we went from tracking your own to 'the CFN won't go there'. Never ran into this issue.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the Starfire community has a lot of people who enjoy these sort of detail-oriented calculations (I include myself in this category). I agree with Matt (or was it Paul) that if the game is going to have broad appeal as a paper and pencil game, the tendency to cater to this constituency through complex, detailed rule sets must be resisted. If, on the other hand, the intent is to go after this constituency, then it has to come with the realization that the player community might be to small to support the game from an economic standpoint.
John
I'd add to those last couple sentences that one has to realize that the people who are committed to supporting Starfire within SDS and volunteering their time to do so are going to tend to be people who probably lean more towards the more detailed game than the simpler game. And those people many not have it in them to want to give their time and efforts to support the type of game that they themselves wouldn't enjoy.
I agree with the statements I italicized.
All of the detail junkies - are old hands. They have gotten a solid base and are looking to expand it.
And most of those writing the rules - are
real old hands (sorry... I include myself with this) that have often taken this to amazing levels.
But I am probably the biggest exception. I have kids that I enjoy teaching Starfire. And I want them to be able to play it with their friends when they move away. Or maybe their kids some day.
But I have no illusions that this is going to happen if the only rule set they have to hand out is 400+ pages.
Matt is a sharp fella. He has a long history with Starfire. And it sounds like Solar gave his 'page shock'. Folks who have no history have almost no chance.
Which is why I am a HUGE proponent of creating a smaller ruleset. And why I have been willing to put in the time to create the Quick Start Rule sets to get folks to play tactical battles without the 400 page books. And why I have canvased anyone who knows anything about Starfire to get ideas for what can be done to fix its problems.
Also, I'd think that having to track crew grade for every single ship in existence wouldn't be good for the storage capacity of the DB either. Personally, I've never used the crew grade rules because I never wanted to track my ships individually, until absolutely necessary.
We like it.
But we also don't have fleets with anywhere close to that number of ships. Ok, maybe my wife does.
But she has also built up her fleets over hundreds of turns. And several of those ships have histories that long.
Same for all the players.
And we all like the fact that the old hands are far better at fighting than a ship two months out of the yards.
It helps with the RPing of it. And it makes the ships even more dear to the players. It makes them far less likely to do the 'die to a man' type of battle that is so common on table tops. They will work to save a fleet instead of just expend it like a numbers game.
My wife has hand drawn counters for some of the ships that have been around for hundreds of turns. That way she can tell what group is what on the large system maps at a glance instead of a mass of red or blue counters.
And on the occasion when a battle costs her a ship she has had for hundreds of turns, and fought dozens of battles with - it often sits on the table for days until she can finally bring herself to put it away for the last time.
You can't get that in a 'fluff-less' and 'grade-less' game.
So, we like grade.
But to learn the game - no, it is not necessary.