How is it Possible to have More than One Faction on;

[TheLastRonin (OP)]

The Starting World?

I heard it was but I'm not sure how to go about it. Would both consume the minerals or would they get separate mineral 'blocks'?

[Father Tim]

On the (F9) 'System Information' screen, choose the homeworld and hit the SM mode button 'Create Empire'.  Be sure to select the existing race (ie Humans for Earth) for the new faction, unless you want them to actually be a different species with different tolerances.

And yes, both (all) will consume minerals from the same planetary stocks, so it's even more essential than usual to get off the homeworld and exploit other resource locations.

[sloanjh]

And yes, both (all) will consume minerals from the same planetary stocks, so it's even more essential than usual to get off the homeworld and exploit other resource locations.

And it creates an interesting "Prisoner's Dilemma/Tragedy of the Commons" situation: all of the power blocs are incentivized to mine as fast as they can so that they get a higher percentage of Earth's minerals, leading to even earlier exhaustion of those minerals than might be the case if there were only on power bloc and it could conserve minerals.

John

[Father Tim]

True, though I don't really see the advantage to 'conserving' minerals in the ground as opposed to in your stockpiles - unless you rely on that divide to aid your planning rather than tracking exact amounts.

[sloanjh]

True, though I don't really see the advantage to 'conserving' minerals in the ground as opposed to in your stockpiles - unless you rely on that divide to aid your planning rather than tracking exact amounts.

Yeah, I was wondering if someone was going to point out that little fly in the ointment  To really set it up as a prisoner's dilema, stockpiles of minerals would have to "rot", so that there's an economic penalty for pulling them out of the ground early.

Hmmmm, I just realized that there is an economic penalty hiding here - the opportunity cost of building mines instead of other stuff (like colony ships).  The power blocks will build more mines in order to suck the minerals out faster, leading to an earlier crash, before anyone's had an opportunity to move the mines off-planet.  At that point, the mines are just useless piles of machinery sitting on Earth and generating no return.  Essentially, all the powers go into an arms race of building mines, leading to wasteful overcapacity in the mining sector.  I just googled "Arms race prisoner's dilemma" (which Google's look-ahead figured out when I typed "prisoner's") and here's the first link that popped up http://jpr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/30/2/163 - mildly interesting.

John

[TheLastRonin (OP)]

You could always wipe the other factions out with ground forces!

[sloanjh]

You could always wipe the other factions out with ground forces!

Have you read Steve's Trans-Newtonian Campaign write-up?  Attempting to do so can have interesting....consequences

John

[FFuk]

If I try doing this (kinda wanted to try the Trans-Newtonian Campaign) I keep getting an error

Code: [Select]

Error 3201 was generated by DAO.Recordset
You cannot add or change a recordset because a related record is required in table 'Ship'.
followed by

Code: [Select]

Error 3201 was generated by DAO.Recordset
You cannot add or change a recordset because a related record is required in table 'Fleet'.
about 20 times. Any idea's? I did change my seperator (afaik).

[sloanjh]

If I try doing this (kinda wanted to try the Trans-Newtonian Campaign) I keep getting an error

Code: [Select]

Error 3201 was generated by DAO.Recordset
You cannot add or change a recordset because a related record is required in table 'Ship'.
followed by

Code: [Select]

Error 3201 was generated by DAO.Recordset
You cannot add or change a recordset because a related record is required in table 'Fleet'.
about 20 times. Any idea's? I did change my seperator (afaik).

By "doing this" do you mean setting up multiple, conventional-start, NPR on Earth?  If so, you need to make sure that you don't have "computer controls NPR players" set in the game options (or something like this).  Computer controlled races can only be Trans-Newtonian; it will cause errors if you try to create them as conventional races.

John

[Trueknight]

Happened the same to me when i tried. Like John said, you can't have computer controlled conventional NPR; also, if you put on the planet more TN cpu-controlled NPR, diplomacy model seems to not work well...it's been told me that eventually the npr will always nuke the planet, making it uninhabitable. Well...it could be a good starting point if you want to create a "post-fallout" campaign...

In any other case, if i've understood correctly, the only way it's to control yourself every faction...i gave it a try, but personally i found it too much micromanagement even for me (and i'm a great fun of micromanagement)...not to mention that it's not so funny to plot a devil plan  against yourself.

[Trueknight]

This make me think about something else. When i create a new, conventional game...what kind of NPRs are placed? If it can't exist a Computer controlled conventional NPR, that's means they start Trans-Newtonian, so they have an advantage in tech compared with player empire?

[Father Tim]

Yes.

[Hawkeye]

This is something I actually like (at least as an option)
Humanity is the "Johny come lately" so to speak and has a _very_ uphill struggle on its hands just to say alive.

[Trueknight]

I like it too!!  

Just wanted to be sure about it.

Still I'd like to have a more easy way to have a game with many human factions that fight in space; maybe it's there and i can't find it... IMHO it would be the most "realistic" set-up ... if you play that way, do you have any advice about it? How do you choose different strategies for the different factions?

[Hawkeye]

Never done a "Multiple Player Races on a single planet" campaign, so I can´t help you here.

All I can suggest is for you to read some of the fiction around here (which you probably allready have)

Steves Trans Newtonian Campaign  viewforum.php?f=16

Kurts Six Power Camaign  viewforum.php?f=42

I belive you can mitigate the low tech aspect of your conventional empire by setting up the game with rather low populations, and after game creation, increasing population and industry in SM mode.
The size of pre-build NPRs and the NPRs activated by NPR activities seem to be based on the player population at game creation (not sure where I read that, Kurt perhaps?).
So, if you start with 500 mio people and the default industry for that size of population, and after game creation change this to 1 bio people and double the industry, you give yourself a boost in the "catch up game"

Edit: Thinking of this, using several player races earth should do the trick too (in some way). If the NPRs size is based on the largest player race, but you have several player races, the combined population/industrial power would be much larger. Of course, working together is probably not what you want all those power blocks on earth to do