What are your goals for multi-race starts?

[smoelf (OP)]

The obvious answer would probably be "to create a good story", since multi-race starts are often designed for RP potential and are frequently encountered in the AAR forum. However, I'm a bit curious if there are other goals that are put into this, when you start designing such a start with multiple races controlled by one human. Is it an inevitable slugfest towards mutual annihilation, do you take precautions to avoid this, or does the game inevitably end before any of this because of game slowdowns? Something else entirely?

A reason behind the question is that I have always been fascinated with the idea of multi-race starts, but have so far been a bit intimated by the set-up process and the prospect of game progression relative to the time I have to play. However, recently I have gravitated more and more towards trying it out, especially since the new templates decreases the setup when ship designs can more easily be replicated between races.

I will likely have several questions, which might be better off in the other questions thread, but for an initial discussion there is one particular thing on my mind. An obvious start would be the classical 3 faction Sol start, but part of the appeal for me is to experience warfare between multiple human controlled races. If the main base of all three factions are on the same home planet, it seems that any warfare would inevitably lead to mutual annihilation, unless heavy handed RP ensures that attacks on outer bases/colonies does not immediately translate to all out ground war on Earth. This is not a terribly unrealistic prospect, but not necessarily an interesting one, hence my question (to those of you who have experience with this) if this is just the nature of the game for such a setup, or if you are consciously steering the story in a way that avoids this? Or does the game generally slow down and stop before you ever get to this point, so that the enjoyable parts are rather the buildup instead of the actual warfare? Also feel free to suggest alternate interesting setups. I had considered doing a Mars-Earth two factions start and while it will solve the issue of immediate ground war, it would like still result in a complete stalemate once hostilities break out.

[Jorgen_CAB]

I have been rather reluctant to set up a larger multi-faction game in Aurora 4x since the support have been a bit lacking from VB version of Aurora in terms of running them properly. I do feel that the game now are in a much better state that I have contemplated starting up a more complex campaign with allot of RP potential. In general I like to start with the current Earth politics and perhaps propel it about 25-50 years into the future and run it from there. In the campaign I want to play I will start with a few major powers who will be the starting powers into space.

I know that different people approach this in a different way but I don't like to decide from the beginning what will happen but more naturally like to build up the story based on the situation. In the game I have on mind most of the Earth population will at the beginning be represented by a large Neutral population. I will then create about five major powers who are the starting countries or alliances that will begin exploring space and utilize the new materials found from transnewtonian technologies. Over time more countries or regions of Earth are then likely to start exploring as well.

In these types of games the major powers are rarely going to start any major wars on Earth, mostly because any such wars would be completely devastating and pointless and only weaken them in comparison with the other powers. From a RP perspective even the neutral population would have a say in any war on Earth as well, so they are not exactly practical. Minor skirmishes can just be handled with SM or through the story.

The biggest campaign that I have run have had up to about ten different player controlled factions. They are quite time consuming that is for sure. You do need to plan to play them for a very long time and using notes about planning and commenting in game movement of ships and convoys is key to keep yourself sane.

In general I go with long time planning as the tool for such games, that is setting up long term production of items is more realistic and manageable for such games, at least in my opinion. So I generally divide up industry on planets into sectors and then plan out the production over a five to ten year period where once at the start of every year there can be only small correction to these plans. In case of major events there obviously can be bigger changes to both current and short to mid term planning. The important point here is to write down on separate documents what the short, mid and long term plans that each faction or even planets has. In some factions who embrace more freedoms then even each planet might be more independent and decide what to do with it's own economy while more authoritarian governments might be directly controlling it (or sometimes not controlling at all), then it is up to me to rule what social impact these decisions have. I might decide that an authoritarian regime might need to have more military resources present on some planets than what the game suggest perhaps or something similar. Or some corrupt societies might be so full of kleptocrats that nothing gets done properly. Some more democratic worlds might be unhappy with wealth distribution and wants more autonomy etc...

In any way... if you have more than three factions it quickly will get very complicated so you definitely need good notes for each faction, I would suggest a separate document for each faction. You also need to be very meticulous with using notes and messages in game too. I think it is most important that you try to be as neutral as possible when you decide the policies, actions and reactions of each faction. This is where your roleplaying abilities are put to the test, your ability to be as unbiased as possible, this is very difficult but not impossible. No one can be completely unbiased and that is fine, the ultimate goal is to create a fun story.

In general I find that only using say two or three factions become too much of rock, paper and scissor diplomacy storylines. But I also understand that having five or more factions can become very cumbersome for most people to handle, but those stories can be really great once you get into them.

[nuclearslurpee]

For me, the goal is to grow into a setting which is reminiscent of, e.g., the great-power era (think Victoria II/III era) in terms of complex diplomacy, brinksmanship, border conflicts, and so on. This along with more varied combat tactics and doctrine is something that the NPRs do not do well if at all so IMO is the major appeal of a multi-player-race campaign.

I am not as big of a fan as the multi-faction Earth starts, on one hand it is IMO overdone and on the other hand it slows down the game a lot when my interest is really more in the sprawling multi-system polities rather than squabbling humans fighting over Comet #187.

I know that different people approach this in a different way but I don't like to decide from the beginning what will happen but more naturally like to build up the story based on the situation.

I agree completely with this, Aurora is best suited for emergent storytelling, if you already have decided what will happen beyond some very broad strokes (e.g., China getting nuked as in all Steve AARs) I feel like this limits the appeal of the game.

[Steve Walmsley]

I agree completely with this, Aurora is best suited for emergent storytelling, if you already have decided what will happen beyond some very broad strokes (e.g., China getting nuked as in all Steve AARs) I feel like this limits the appeal of the game.

I don't decide ahead of time about China - they just seem to have really bad luck in my games

[Jorgen_CAB]

I agree, it is very good to have a strong backstory where you put in your player factions. If this is based on a Victorian style, Warhammer, Modern Earth or otherwise background is not that important. It can be full of starting conflicts and diplomatic tensions. You also don't have to start in an underdeveloped state either, but that obviously take allot more initial work to set up. The important thing is for the story to develop dynamically once the actual game starts, this I think will create the more interesting stories over time becasue you actually don't know what will happen. You can even have dice influencing social or other story events and reactions to them, that will sometimes force the story into a direction you did not expect.

I also agree that exploring the more deep tactical and strategical nuances in multi-faction games is one of the driving factors that I like to play that way. I would say it is one of the most important reasons to do it.

[nuclearslurpee]

I agree completely with this, Aurora is best suited for emergent storytelling, if you already have decided what will happen beyond some very broad strokes (e.g., China getting nuked as in all Steve AARs) I feel like this limits the appeal of the game.

I don't decide ahead of time about China - they just seem to have really bad luck in my games

You should run and publish an experiment to see if this is still true in C#... for science of course 

[smoelf (OP)]

I agree completely with this, Aurora is best suited for emergent storytelling, if you already have decided what will happen beyond some very broad strokes (e.g., China getting nuked as in all Steve AARs) I feel like this limits the appeal of the game.

I don't decide ahead of time about China - they just seem to have really bad luck in my games

You should run and publish an experiment to see if this is still true in C#... for science of course 

I second this motion

[Zap0]

I like to play such games to create a setting. If you have several empires embedded within a certain geography with different strengths, weaknesses and resource needs, there are natural conflicts that arise. Hence emergent storytelling.

If you have more factions so that one is not just dominant and can be handily beaten by the others if they were to team up, it can create a setting with a balance of power and brinkmanship. In a two-empire game one faction does not need to consider international relations if it decides to go to war. These settings also allow for smaller empires to exist as buffer states or as an ally that tips the scales. I love asymmetric setups. I found six empires to be a good number to create such a setting and still keep the micro bearable.

Another important thing, especially with Earth starts is that war does not need to be total. Ships and colonies do not need to be annihilated, they can surrender. A war can remain confined to Comet #187 as neither side wants to start a war on Earth. Peace can be made and negotiated. These are all options you do not have with NPRs. That said, Earth starts are still limiting, and I'm planning on separated starting positions if I ever start another game.

Unfortunately there aren't very many tools in the game right now for interaction between empires. The diplomatic trade option doesn't work (not sure if fixed in the new version), tech sharing does not allow for detailed control, there are no options to share wealth, facilities, designs, intelligence, ammunition etc. among allies. Setting an empire hostile causes breakout of fighting on every shared body, there are no individually commanded attacks. There is at least a ship transfer option that made it in in one of the more recent versions. Some of these interactions between empires can be achieved through DB editing, but that's a hassle and not something everyone wants to do.

The biggest issue with playing such a game is time. OP is rightfully afraid of the time investment in setting up several empires at once, especially if you also need to design their star systems or colonies, too. After the game starts it's a little like playing several games in parallel. Since I like to play to create an interesting setting, there tends to be a lot of play involved to actually get to that that interesting state. Having a bunch of empires with everything on their homeworld isn't very interesting, as losing the homeworld is a total loss. The fun part is when you have polities spanning over several systems and have to consider fleet deployments, logistics and where losses are not total. And playing to get to that situation from a standard homeworld start can take a long time, especially when you do it several times in parallel. That's one of the reasons why my 100-year, 6-empire multi-race AAR Race to the Stars didn't really have all that much happen in the first 50 years and the first couple decades especially. Still, that game was a massive investment in time. I've spent hundreds, perhaps over a thousand hours playing and writing for it. Very much loved it, though.

My recommendation for anyone wanting to try multi-race games is to start in an advanced state with TN tech and ships created at the start, and to start on separate worlds - be that different Sol bodies or different systems entirely.

I don't decide ahead of time about China - they just seem to have really bad luck in my games

You should run and publish an experiment to see if this is still true in C#... for science of course 

I second this motion

I third this motion.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Unfortunately there aren't very many tools in the game right now for interaction between empires. The diplomatic trade option doesn't work (not sure if fixed in the new version), tech sharing does not allow for detailed control, there are no options to share wealth, facilities, designs, intelligence, ammunition etc. among allies. Setting an empire hostile causes breakout of fighting on every shared body, there are no individually commanded attacks. There is at least a ship transfer option that made it in in one of the more recent versions. Some of these interactions between empires can be achieved through DB editing, but that's a hassle and not something everyone wants to do.

There are ways to do some of the thing you said can't be done. Wealth can be edited so that way you can transfer wealth between faction, troops should always be set to rear or support as troops on the same body will not be able to strike each other that way at all, thus you simulate that no combat occurs on that body. You also now can trade ships and designs so that is also something that is added to the game. Technology sharing are in my opinion best used with SM anyway in many cases, the same for trade in the form of resources, minution, supplies and fuel etc... I don't think that sharing maintenance facilities should be a thing though, that seem like an odd thing to be able to share, shore leave on the other hand you should probably be able to do at an allied colony. Likewise you should be able to refuel and resupply at an allied base etc...

Allthough allot of stuff such as refueling and sharing of facilities can be done by temporarily switching fleets between factions, allthough not the best way of doing it you can do it.

[Garfunkel]

I've done my fair share of multi-faction starts and all have been conventional Earth starts. The setup isn't necessarily long or difficult. For my 1890 Aurora with 10 factions, sure it took quite a bit of time. For my Solar Hegemony with 2 factions, it was couple of minutes. Unlike Jorgen, I don't keep written plans for each faction, rather I RP them moment-by-moment depending on their government model and leadership. Plus, that way you make little errors here and there as a player, which translate nicely into government frakkups in the game. Gameplay can be little slow but again that depends on the level of detail you go into. You don't need massive amount of detail for each faction and you don't need to obsessively detail everything that the factions produce, research and plan. You could also focus the story on just one faction and keep the others hidden in the background so that you can bring them up only when the story needs them. That's what I did in my really old Three-way Race to Stars where the focus was on characters.

Really, it's not that difficult or scary, just go for it!

[Zap0]

troops should always be set to rear or support as troops on the same body will not be able to strike each other that way at all, thus you simulate that no combat occurs on that body.

I've used that workaround too, but that is going to fall apart once heavy/long range bombardment come into play (which shoot from the rear), and it's a bit annoying to set/unset on large amounts of formations.

You don't need massive amount of detail for each faction and you don't need to obsessively detail everything that the factions produce, research and plan.

Wait, you don't?!

That's what I did in my really old Three-way Race to Stars where the focus was on characters.

I know Steve had a campaign by that name too, but you as well? I'm really not that original, am I? 😅

[StarshipCactus]

My recommendation for anyone wanting to try multi-race games is to start in an advanced state with TN tech and ships created at the start, and to start on separate worlds - be that different Sol bodies or different systems entirely.

Having read your fiction and tried my hand at a 6 faction start, (Not on Earth although all factions started on one planet. They were aliens ) I completely agree with that. I'm thinking if I restart my play-through I will try to SM myself a more setup universe rather than a semi TN start. (Started with TN theory researched for all.) I just had a few ground units, research labs and conventional industry for each faction, so I spent decades not doing much. I do think it was a good idea for me to make some factions way more powerful than others, but also try to define their national character and goals. Next time I'll have better notes for all of them including intel on other factions. Also don't try anything clever with the DB, it won't end well unless you really know what you're doing.

Your race to the stars was my favourite C# fiction on this site

[Froggiest1982]

The obvious answer would probably be "to create a good story", since multi-race starts are often designed for RP potential and are frequently encountered in the AAR forum.

In reality, story or background is the less painful and over the years when I wanted something quick and dirty I simply used either the real story (you can pick it up at any time and note the social/political landscape of that time) or simply the classic "what if", which would may require a bit more of your brain, but not that much. The final option would be going full brain mode (and patience) ON and get it from scratch.

However, I'm a bit curious if there are other goals that are put into this, when you start designing such a start with multiple races controlled by one human. Is it an inevitable slugfest towards mutual annihilation, do you take precautions to avoid this,

I don't find the goals to be any different than when you start exploring and find NPR to deal with to be honest. I am writing later some suggestions to make your game enough variegated or to keep it interesting.

or does the game inevitably end before any of this because of game slowdowns? Something else entirely?

I think if you never started anything like this, probably at the beginning you have many "fears", some of them may be justified (slowdowns), some others may come from random bugs people encounter, however version 2.3 just out is pretty much breaking bug safe and really code optimized for best performances. While many would disagree, for longevity I always use the same precautions: no civvies, I will control any new NPR. Spoilers are enough CPU varied opponents especially if you start as TN or Low Tech with Limited admins. When I play with Civvies and NPR controlled by the CPU I never Multi race start, I rather go solo. Also, I usually do that to try new things against unknown opponents.

A reason behind the question is that I have always been fascinated with the idea of multi-race starts, but have so far been a bit intimated by the set-up process and the prospect of game progression relative to the time I have to play. However, recently I have gravitated more and more towards trying it out, especially since the new templates decreases the setup when ship designs can more easily be replicated between races.

The fastest way to start is to design all components, ground forces, and ships without spending too much time on the names and such. You can edit this once you have completed your setup. In the past I would try to get these right from the start and was a massive waste of time. A lot of the things will unfold as you play, since the direction each race will take on tech tree will also determine a lot of the decision you'll have to also take as Game Master. For this reason, for Newbies in the Multi Race space, I strongly recommend to start early TN. The best for you would be:

Biology/Genetics - No Advancement (SM remove all researched techs)
Construction/Production - All Techs =<3,000RP
Defensive Systems =<1,000RP
Energy Weapons =<2,000RP
Ground Combat is controversial. Personally, I think you should know all the elements from the start, and leave only advancement and perks to the research tree and I set it that way. I leave the Xeno for once I discover ruins.
Logistics =<4,000
Missile/Kinetic =<2,000
Propulsion <=2,000 no Consumption advancement
Sensor <=2,000 no Gravitational advancement

Set your Research Points and Construction points to 0 as well. Let the needs drive your story. You will still setup an initial Commercial and Combat Navy, but I would keep it to a standard for all factions and let the randomness of the Shipyards dictate your designs. You should allow yourself one design per Shipyard and assign it from the beginning. The amount of slipways could determine the amount of the ships. I use the 10:1 Aurora rule. 1 Commercial slipway counts for 10 ships, while 1 Naval slipway will deliver only 1 Ship. But hey, you can make your own rules. For extra Randomness I design 1 dedicated Race per Race, without using the Human recommended. So I start with a Standard Human SM Race, then create a new race on Earth and call it Human Chinese, Human European, and so on. This will give me random traits and random bonuses/malus to the racial traits, meaning a race with 2.0 research, may need less labs than a 1.0 one or could simply be the opposite and just pump out research labs, up to you. This will be also potentially driving your goals due to the difference in traits of each race.

I will likely have several questions, which might be better off in the other questions thread, but for an initial discussion there is one particular thing on my mind. An obvious start would be the classical 3 faction Sol start, but part of the appeal for me is to experience warfare between multiple human controlled races. If the main base of all three factions are on the same home planet, it seems that any warfare would inevitably lead to mutual annihilation, unless heavy handed RP ensures that attacks on outer bases/colonies does not immediately translate to all out ground war on Earth. This is not a terribly unrealistic prospect, but not necessarily an interesting one, hence my question (to those of you who have experience with this) if this is just the nature of the game for such a setup, or if you are consciously steering the story in a way that avoids this? Or does the game generally slow down and stop before you ever get to this point, so that the enjoyable parts are rather the buildup instead of the actual warfare? Also feel free to suggest alternate interesting setups. I had considered doing a Mars-Earth two factions start and while it will solve the issue of immediate ground war, it would like still result in a complete stalemate once hostilities break out.

SM the diplomatic relationship and set it as fixed 10,000 so that you can RP the relationships and the treaties regardless. I know it could be interesting to have random races going to war because they do not like each other, but I still like to be in control and perhaps allow myself of a cold war sometimes.

Personally, by following where Aurora takes me, I hardly find the need to go war early on as the question is: why would this race do that? Yes, there is the dominance, needs of minerals, ideology, and so on. In reality, you will find out soon enough that your biggest enemy is the branch splitting where each faction goes its own way, as space is so big after all. So if you not careful your game will be a sort of this:

Race build up
Race discovers a jump point
Race travels and finds a suitable world
Race starts moving its people and infrastructure to the new world
Race goes its way on its own branch
Player have 4 solo games against CPU at the same time

I leave to your creativity how to avoid the above cirle. I have a couple of things that I use to keep races in check, but again, it's your game, see where it leads you or where you lead it!

[Garfunkel]

Oh yeah, that's a good bit of advice - use SM to mode open communications between the races immediately and then set their diplo status to whatever you want and freeze it. Also, living on the same planet does NOT give you contact info automatically, you need to have at least DSTS for that. Relevant for early conventional starts where you don't have anything.

[Jorgen_CAB]

troops should always be set to rear or support as troops on the same body will not be able to strike each other that way at all, thus you simulate that no combat occurs on that body.

I've used that workaround too, but that is going to fall apart once heavy/long range bombardment come into play (which shoot from the rear), and it's a bit annoying to set/unset on large amounts of formations.

If all formations are set to rear echelon then long range artillery will not fire... I even tested this right now just to be sure. I have used this before. But yes... I would like a button to just set units to peace which means they will not fire unless the opponent is not also set at peace on that same body.