Bring back private galaxies...
 

... and ban anyone in a private galaxy from joining an alliance tag.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I like it, alliance isnt a nessesity nowadays, plus it allows gal play so much more, id even go as far to saying ban alliances for a round, although that is implausible

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Yay!

I like the idea, alliance play is shitty anyway.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Gets my vote.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

So you're either in a private galaxy or a random galaxy and an alliance?

Organised alliances can go random and completely trash private galaxies - you have the defence advantage, but it's not easy to spread the load.

Would you differentiate between private, allianceless galaxies and "public" random galaxies?

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Possible, yes. But better than them trashing random gals. A private galaxy would be much more able to cope, and to bounce back.

I don't think there would need to be any visible difference. It would be pretty obvious anyway.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I think it'd be best to ditch buddypacks altogether in that case, is that what you intended, completely random galaxies for random accounts / those who wish to play in alliances?

The idea's instantly appealing to old players, I think it'd make it easier for new players to get involved too.

It would make the objectives of the game much more clear (yet varied) for me.

edit: Particularly interesting might be the development of real relationships within clusters. I'd expect very active players in a cluster 7 galaxy would be much more likely to cooperate with those around them, big or small, old or new to the game.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

random gals get either 15 or 20 planets

private gals get 10 planets.

no allies.

but I dont know if this was more fun, maybe worth a 2 weeks tryout with 15 min ticks?

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I support this notion 100%. Random galaxies can be fun, and everything, but it can also totally ruin a potentially good round for you. I know I would be keen to set up a private galaxy, and bring back some old friends, at least, and I am quite sure it wouldn't be hard to convince them. Right now, it's not easy (Remember last round when we only got inactive randoms, and we were being killed every second night for three weeks? No, not coming back.).

I also hate fakenicking even though I do it myself at times. In my opinion, not being able to trust your closest planets is limiting gameplay a lot. Doing this would remove that problem entirely, at least for myself.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

You cant remove alliances, the minute you ban them in game you move them to outside the games control and management which isnt good for anyone.

As for the actual idea I cant help but think its an idea thats impossible to judge the impact which makes it hard to decide if its good or not.

Is the benift of having a few choosen galaxy mates really worth losing the backup of an alliance and as such would any serious player take up the option. Or would it infact be a system that only those 'less knowledgable' and less 'hardcore' and would leave them stranded and hence do more damage that good.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I'd probably do it wakey to be honest.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I'm curious if this idea was inspired by the replies in your other thread, or...?


Anyways, I love the idea myself. I'm (quite obviously) not a big alliance fanboy, and it certainly brings back a real sense of competition to the game.

Hell, if this went in, I believe I'd play "seriously" again! :o

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

good idea but it needs work, it'll make casual attacking limited to random galaxies and stuff though

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I'd try do the alliance thing to make sure JBG didn't get it too easy.

I imagine some private galaxies would get a bit carried away acting as one, but that'd be a joyful challenge. Competitive behaviour on other levels (not just alliances) would be fantastic.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

you would have to stop the priv gals from defending out of gal or else alliances would find a way past the private gal or alliance choice

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Just remove alliances and make it private galaxies only for one round at least :X.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

This is kind of said above in a couple of posts, but all you would actually achieve is a situation where you have alliance members in private galaxies out of tag the whole round. The winning alliance would no longer significantly depend on the alliance ingame rankings, but would be that with the most and best galaxy tags. I'd love it, as I never liked alliances being brought ingame in the first place. It makes the whole who won the round dispute redundant and narrows alliances in an artificial manner.

So i'd be all for it. As i would for what XelNaga said there ^

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Sorry, but too few players for private gals. In fact, anyone who is anyone could take a good guess at what group would win.

I am all for "forcing" people to work with thier gal though. Or "forcing" the cluster to work together. I am for no alliances, cluster defence -1. Out of cluster defence 0. Or something like that.

With no ally there would not be any room to bs around and fake nick. people will get thier asses on irc and work with thier gal/cluster like PA should be.
WHen I first came to this game, people were not so ****ing gay and hiding like little pussies for no reason. Nowadays I see stupid ass people fake nicking. They show up finally in thier real nick, and I still don't know who the **** they are!! You just wasted 1 month hiding and shit, and noone knows who the **** you are!
FIX THIS ****ING GAME.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

But there's enough players for private gals OR alliances.

And who would win then, surely that's impossible to predict given that many good players will come back for private galaxies.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I imagine it would work something like this:

Private galaxies of 10-15 planets. People within these galaxies cannot receive -1 ETA alliance defence. I suppose they could be members of a tag; the point is that they are not going to be able to call upon alliance defence. Perhaps private galaxies should have a +1 on incoming defence fleets from anywhere in the universe? They most definitely should have -1 ETA on in-cluster defence though; a decent private galaxy should contain enough talented and active people to run a cluster alliance.

A digression: way back in round 3, when I first started, it was obvious that the lower clusters were better (higher scores, more roids). Since I started mid-round, it was also obvious that these higher average scores and roid counts could be attributed to the presence of Legion/Fury/RB (Triad?) members and their 'protected' galaxies in those clusters. Their scores distorted the average. But what was also apparent was that the benefit seemed to extend even to galaxies with no Triad members in. This appeared - and my hazy recollections may be incorrect here - to be, at least in part, due to the fact that these clusters had functional cluster alliances run by well-organised and talented Triad players (those cluster alliances were, typically, later betrayed by the Triad players, but that doesn't change the fact that they still ended up better off than those clusters which never had an effective cluster alliance). Back in those days, the art of running a good cluster alliance was considered to be a major part of their success. How true this was, I don't know. My point is that a good cluster alliance requires a hard core of experienced players who see the cluster alliance as being in their interests.

I also assume that it might be possible to join a private galaxy mid-round, using a similar process to exiling. Enter the code of the galaxy you want to join on the preference page, and you are transported there. Any alliance membership you have is either cancelled, or you are prevented from receiving reduced ETA defence. Likewise, players could exile out of private galaxies and return to 'normal' alliance play. Private galaxies could only receive new members if they met a certain size criteria; perhaps the size of the largest normal galaxy - 2, or something similar.

The idea is that private galaxies are essentially self-reliant for defence. This prevents them becoming too powerful; if they get too many roids, an alliance will hit them. But for people who want to have fun in a galaxy with friends, and cooperate with new people in their cluster for defence, private galaxies might be a fun option. Alliances will still exist and, indeed, will benefit from having private galaxies as a source of targets. A situation where a bunch of 'elite' players go for private galaxies would be very interesting, because although this might leave fewer 'elite' players in alliances, the alliances have a clear advantage in being able to attack the private galaxies.

A couple of other points:

* Private galaxies should require paid accounts.
* Thinking about whether alliances should be banned in private galaxies, I'm tempted to say that they should be, to prevent the scenario where someone creates a private galaxy with members from several alliances, to avoid incoming from all of them.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I think that if its going to be done, then private galaxies cant defend OOG. None of this "loose their ETA advantage" crap - it would still make them far too powerful.

Regarding Cluster alliances, i worry that private galaxies who are in an organised cluster will effectively be unassailable; ETA 5 and -1 defence available from multiple galaxies which could potentially be larger than a whole universal alliance, is a bad equation for attacking i would imagine. Also, random galaxies who have access to alliances wouldnt really have the same imputus to defend in-galaxy (or even communicate really), as all the focused galaxy players will be in their own private galaxies. This might result in merely more shunning of new and returning players.

I cant say that i am willing to accept such a massive change without much more discussion and thought, though i must admit that your proposal is very interesting.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I can't think of anything I'd like more! Surely they would be assailable by another organised cluster (It'd be interesting to see clusters develop given the very real fractions and divides in our alliance centred community). As for alliances, I don't doubt that an alliance with a strong core could hold their own against a galaxy and their attempt to negotiate a few relationships in cluster.

It's worth pointing out that in most battles, short or long term, the most offensive party normally wins in Planetarion. I don't think you'd see defence play as bigger part in the game as you suggest.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I could comfort myself with this idea if there'd be an alliance status page. Since people in private gals cannot join alliances and usually ensure that there's 24/7 online coverage for the galaxy status, we cannot warrant this for the random galaxies which can join alliances instead.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

It would get rid of fake nicking

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Where does that help those people which land in a good cluster but a crap gal?

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

It will sure give more options to ppl, maybe some old PA players will return to play with their old friends^^. I don´t see any bad parts in it, there will always be big gals, if 10 ppl can do good on their own without any help from outside, why not, congrats, gotta actually be in their cloths to realise how hard is to survive with gal defence only. It will also diversify the game, bringing upfront gal fights(exciting, huh), plus more cream to ally politics, pfft, I can´t wait.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

When did I say it did or didnt, I was just saying fake nicking would be almost non-existant with this method.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Got you wrong there honey, thought you'd refer to the alliance status suggestion. <3
I agree that this may help getting rid of fakenicking, even though I can imagine that the priv gals will still join their cluster channels with fakenick.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Mmh maybe we should get rid of clusters entirely. Or at least something like this:

A private galaxy has 15 members and IS one cluster

so i.e.: 2:3 ,there are no other gals in cluster 2 then

random gals have 20 members and are in a cluster, that has 5 gals in it, so i.e: 2.1, 2.2,... 2.5
and they have -eta 1 def, as same have allies which have something between 20 and 30 players -eta 1 def.

Or make it even more simple:

No allies and no cluster at all, just:

Galaxy 1,2,3,4,5,.... 100

and you can only def ingal.

private gals 15 members, random gals 20 to 25 member.. How bout that?

Yeah im sure this will lead to some powerblocks...

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

i am against this : /
will change way too much in the game

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

But this is only a minor change! If you're against this because it is 'too much' change, you must be against almost any changes!

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Its a small change that has large impacts on the gameplay of the game, i think. Mainly because of all the effort to counter any possible abuses.

Also, i think you'll have to spend more time suggesting things; in comparison to most, this is a very major change. The only things that would have it more are prolly my Micromanagement things and the like. Still, even with small changes they are hard to come by.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I really like this idea, and having read the whole thread, the pros do seem to outweigh the cons.

I have one question which I can't remember whether it was addressed or not;

Would there still be an alliance ranking at all? Seems to me smaller (random) players would desire to see how their alliance was doing, rather than leaving them in the dark it would probably be better to have some form of alliance ranking.

I was toying with the idea of an integrated alliance/gal ranking, but i'm not sure if this would be feasible or not, or indeed the point of this suggestion was to return to the gal tagging to see who had won, such as Xelnaga suggested earlier.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I don't see any reason to change the present alliance system. I imagine most alliances would continue to operate as they presently do. Let's be clear about this: I'm not suggesting that being in a private galaxy should be an advantage in terms of ranking. Private galaxies would have two major weaknesses:

1) An inability to receive effective defence from outside the galaxy (perhaps an outright ban on any defence from outside the cluster might be necessary)

2) The fact that, lacking an alliance, galaxies have to operate as discrete military units. A private galaxy cannot effectively declare war or threaten war against an alliance, because private galaxies are in a very precarious defensive position. They cannot, at any point, tolerate full-scale attacks from a determined alliance. Any mid-ranking alliance could cause heavy damage to a private galaxy if they wanted to do so.

The sole intended advantage of being in a private galaxy is the ability to play alongside friends, without the necessity for military officers, defence points, recruitment and all of the bullshi... complexity that an alliance typically requires. I'm not proposing a return to a pre-round 8 where the only good galaxies were private ones.

Does anyone have any further suggestions on how this feature could be properly balanced? In my opinion, hardcore players should be going random, so how can we make sure that this is the case?

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

That clarifys anything I could think of. This would certainly go some way to livening up the game in my opinion, something which is much needed.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

First we should gather why hardcore players would now go private, apart from playing with other hardcore players they know.

In my opinion the reasons will be the very low eta for ingal defense - fixed eta 5 is a huge advantage for spamming defense fleets across the galaxy. Especially in combination with the galaxy status you can recall your fleets as soon as required without having to rely on other sources like pa mail, jumpgate probes, xp observation.
The next reason will be that - as long as there will be defense from out of cluster possible - people will effectively avoid the alliance system and play private galaxies only. And as long as it ain't hard-coded that you cannot receive out of cluster defense if you are in a private galaxy, there will always be one ship or another useful for that, ship stats cannot suit for this purpose.

Alliances need to be able to compete with such things, one way or another. Imho an alliance status would solve that nicely - that would also help getting rid of officers as everyone could see who has what coming in and thus people could contribute for themselves even more, making it an option for hardcore players as well.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

A small problem with an alliance status would be overcoverage in some of the smaller alliances, as the def fleets wouldn't show up until the next tick, so say everyone sends, then they see its overcovered, they all recall, bingo no defence.

Not that this is incredibly likely, and having thought about it, in the case of smaller alliances it would probably be a nice change to have things overcovered rather than with nothing at all.

How would this affect spying on alliances?

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I do not see a problem with smaller alliances overcovering things. They should learn and improve communications. After all, people have to be challenged in this game and, ultimately, the game should only offer help to help yourself - not prevent you from committing suicide due to sheer stupidity or something.

I do admit that spies may have it a bit easier with an alliance status, depending upon it's implementation of course. What would be wrong with spies though? Alliances should be careful enough when picking their members.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

This is fairly easily dealt with. Each hostile on the alliance status could have a link to a thread in an alliance defence forum in which each member states what they're sending.

Why not hardcode it then?

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Better still a way of members adding what they are defending to the alliance status screen in the same kind of style as on the current attacks screen. Claiming the incoming and adding what they are sending. Shouldnt be too difficult to code i wouldnt think?

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

With my moderator hat on, I have to point out that discussion of an alliance status feature should probably be continued in a new thread.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

What would happen to newbie players who didn't have 9 mates with which to make a private gal? Would they be limited to just who they knew in the game? Or would there be some sort of merge?

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Personally I believe the universe needs two things.

A random aspect where you play with random people and a private aspect where you play with people you know.

In this day and age the private aspect would msot closly allign with the current alliances, and the random aspect would most closly allign with a galaxy.

However what I think would be important is rebalencing theese two groups, changing the way they work and interact on a universal scale.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I really love this idea, but perhaps we can expand on it just a tad. My suggestion is, create the private galaxies, but separate them off from the normal universe and put them as C100 galaxies. Then only allow the Private Galaxies to have the ability to attack the other private galaxies. This way you can still let them tag up, but they won't be bashing on the people who just want to play maybe more casual. They'll be able to bash on each other properly and have just as much fun.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Splitting the universe = bad

If we split the universe it dilutes the amount of players we have, causing more problems.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

I disagree.

If anything it doesn't dilute the players, but gives more competition to the competetive ones, and maybe actually get newer players to stick around since they might have a better chance at getting trained before being bashed and giving up and quitting, and by doing so actually increase the player base.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Splitting the universe into two parts with even less players than we currently have in the total universe clearly means less competition for everyone. And less competition is the worst that can happen.

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

That random aspect has ****ed up my round the last three or four rounds I have played. I tell myself that I won't have that bad luck next round, but guess what? I do, every round. :)

A buddypack or alliance isn't enough "private aspect". The random aspect can still ruin your round. I have nightwatched something like 5 nights in a row now, and I'm getting sick and tired of it...

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

i kinda like playing random,it brings a nice aspect to the game. ofc it means i get owned sooner or later but thats an other matter :)

Re: Bring back private galaxies...
 

Ooooohhhhhh qebab, you left me all alone.......