This is my first attempt to create a game which was designed for web-based play right from the ground up. Naturally, many of my personal preferances show up in the way the game works. Some of the other features and structures are driven by the desire to make the game work well in the environment in which I expect it to be played. I hope you enjoy your stay in my 'universe' Patrick Tuckey CREDITS Many people and things influenced the design of this game, and it is possible to mention only a few of them: The basic game design owes a lot to the science fiction I have read over the years. Although many different books, stories and authors contributed to my vision for the universe of this game, my favorite stories take place in the 'Co-Dominium' universe created by Jerry Pournelle. Although the game is not just a copy of the 'Co-Dominium' universe, it is not hard to imagine John Christian Falkenburg as the military genius of the world random events. Sid Meier's game 'Civilization,' and 'Star Web' from Flying Buffalo Games also influenced the way the game was designed. 'Civilization' is a great solitare strategy game, but I would like to see a game out in the stars, and it never worked well for me as a multi-player game. 'Star Web' is a great example of a multi-player, turn based, long distance game, but relying solely on text print-outs for game information is a little dated in this computer age, and there are some things about the game that I personally do not care for. By designing my own game I was able to use some of the features I liked best about both of these games, and combine them with the type of game I enjoy most. Justice Campbell designed the original web pages for the StarEmpires site, as well as the StarEmpires logo. Justice is still my best resource for changing and updating the web-based part of the game. Brian Dunn was the most active of the early play-testers, and in additon to many suggestions for improving or streamlining the game interface, was responsible for the ideas behind the random world events, warship landing parties, factory ships, trade, and alien first contact rules. Brian also thought up several of the random world events, including my personal favorite, the 'eureka' event. Paul Anderson used his extensive programming experience to offer many useful tips and hints on how to make the player interface more user friendly. Other early playtesters include: Tim Huseby Ger Parsons Rich Dyrda John Wrona HINTS Power Strategies: The success of an individual power chiefly depends on the management of population, technology, economic resources, and military power. Economics and the military are considered seperately below. Powers will normally find populations either too large or too small for their purposes. This is because on fecund worlds with large populations, these populations will grow to such large sizes that they will cost more to keep happy than they will contribute (this is the problem the United Nations faces at the beginning of the Manifest Destiny scenario). On the other hand, on fecund worlds with small populations the number of people grows slowly, and on barren or hostile worlds it does not grow at all. This means that workers have to be transported in, and people used for crews on ships and armies have to be replaced from off-world. Most of a power's transport ships will usually be employed moving populations from worlds with excess people to worlds with too small populations. Assimilation of populations also provides several different avenues of strategy depending on the power's situation. Management of technology is also a very important strategic consideration. It is always to the benefit of a power to gain new technologies, but it is not always advantageous to deploy this technology. If technology is deployed to a world, and that world is captured, then the capturing power will gain access to this technology. An enemy may also learn technology from combat with a more advanced unit. Since worlds and ships may learn technologies from each other during a refit of the ship, care must also be exercised deciding which ships are refitted at which worlds. Even foreign civilian populations living on a world may learn technologies employed on that world. This all means that a power must use care in deciding where technologies are used. Economic Strategies: Generally speaking, it is more expensive to ship resources from one system to another than the end results justify. Of course, if a ship is traveling from one system to another empty anyway, it might as well be filled with resource points, but a regular run just can not do much better than break even. It can be viable to ship resources within a system, but all associated costs should be carefully assesed before deciding to do so on a permanent basis. For example, two population points on a hostile world with a resource potential of 2 will will produce 2 resource points, but will cost 1 treasury point per turn for life support and 1/4 treasury point per turn for transport (2 interplanetary transports will be needed to ship the resources to another world for production). Similarly, the same world with an industry of one will produce one production point (one population point works at the industry while the other is resource mining), while still costing one treasury point for life support, resulting in a net gain of 0. Both of these examples do not even count the cost of building the ships or the industry. Setting up a permanent supply route with a barren world is a much better proposition. A barren world can support 10 population points for one treasury point, and even with a resource potential of only 2 will therefore produce 5 resource points. The transport costs (for interplanetary transport) will still be 1/8 treasury point per resource point, so this provides a much greater net gain. The results are even more favorable on a world with a greater resource potential. It also pays to build industry on a barren world, which is not the case with a hostile world. Population points with allegiance to other powers are also usually not going to produce enough on a barren or hostile world to justify their life support costs, so they should usually be moved to a fecund world, where no life support is needed. It always pays to have a population of at least 1000 on a fecund world, and building industry normally is a good idea, since it eliminates transportation costs entirely. Military Strategies: Interplanetary war on a large scale is a very expensive proposition and does not often pay off unless other considerations apply. By the time the costs of building enough armies to control the population of the target world, enough armies to cover losses incurred in the invasion, and transport costs to get all of these armies into position are figured, a diplomatic solution may be a rather less expensive strategy. The victory point losses and resulting radiation also make planetary bombardments a less than ideal solution. Interstellar wars multiply these difficulties. Smaller 'police' actions against colonies can be much more productive. A small population can be controled by one or two armies, and defended from a similar attack by just a few ships. If the world in question is rich enough, much profit can be made with quite a small investment. Another possible strategic action is a raid on a world where the controlling power has a very small margin. If the controlling power only has control by just a few control points, a few armies may be able to upset the ballance and make the world uncontrolled. Although this will not gain the invading power any direct gain, sometimes hurting an enemy is just as important as gaining for oneself. The threat of this kind of raid may also force an enemy into putting more assets on a world than he might otherwise allocate. Naval Strategies: Because it is impossible for a power to have any intellegence of a system or world without a unit there, naval units will often be used for recon purposes. Because bombardment of a world is so expensive politically, most naval combat will be ship-to-ship, with only occasional bombardments in support of landing armies. Although the dreadnaught is the most effective ship in combat, sometimes it is neccessary to have a greater number of ships for scouting purposes, so most powers will end up with more star cruisers than dreadnaughts to spare building and maintenance costs. Although limited to their home systems, monitors can be a very cost effective way to defend a system. Star Empires: As the territory controled by an individually power encompasses more and more systems, it will become more and more difficult to manage all of those systems. Also, as previously noted, it is usually cost prohibitive to attempt the conquest of a populated world. The means that many powers may find it expediant to form feudal empires, where subsidiary powers are given control of systems in return for tribute or military commitments. Players are encouraged to use their imaginations in the formation of these empires.