I feel like it might be a good idea to gradually decay the drillers and/or shields on inactive bases.

We had someone drop out of our game on the 2nd or 3rd day who didn't do much in the beginning, but had 3 factories that continued to produce until he resigned. This resulted in factories with 70+ drillers and 20 shields before he resigned, which for the majority of the game was pretty unassailable even though nobody controlled that space.

I was adjacent to him and am just now in the process of taking over those abandoned factories at day 6-7. Even then, it is of questionable benefit and I probably just should have used those drillers to build another mine. It was actually more beneficial for me to have a 'wall' on one side of my territory that nobody wanted to bother going through for most of the game.

Decaying things back to a neutral state over time seems like it would be a reasonable way to approach that and make sure the space was reclaimed and utilized for gameplay.

(P.S. For some reason, when he resigned a gray/captured thief started heading toward my nearest base in an empty sub and did nothing when he arrived. Not sure what caused that.)

What is the advantage to gameplay in slowly resetting the bases?

A base with full shields and 70 drills has the same advantage and disadvantage for everyone.

What is a wasteful resource to capture for one player can be a useful buffer for one on on the other side.

The argument can also be made that you could adopt a strategy to reduce the risk of players dying with significant resources so that you can more easily take their bases once they resign.

This is to say, I like the current system.

The advantage to gameplay is that 'dead' nodes aren't really as much fun as live ones. I would rather play against other players.

There is very little satisfaction of 'winning' a tough battle against nobody--if you were to conquer another player's 70+20 base, it probably would actually feel pretty good, but just losing a bunch of guys for 'nothing' feels bad.

As I mentioned, I left it as a wall for most of the game. Interesting? Slightly, I guess. But I think that front of the map would have been significantly more engaging if I had to interact with another player.

I thought I’d add this into this post as it’s the same issue.

After playing a couple of games with people resigning at the start there is a clear advantage to those who neighbour these people due to them being able to grab a few extra outposts each. In one of the games (a 6 player map) 4 of the 5 remaining players were able to expand whilst one person didn’t have any access to it and they suffered because of it. In the more recent game, a 10 player map, this gave half of the players a chance to expand whilst the other half were left to deal with humans on all fronts.

So my question is, after a player resigns why don’t their factories, driller limits and shield regen stay in play? Effectively treat the player like they were still in the game and just doing nothing. The resigned player wouldn’t hire specialists or move drillers around so they are still easier to defeat than if the player was still playing, but it makes the outposts less of a walkover.

Jayde wrote: There is very little satisfaction of 'winning' a tough battle against nobody--if you were to conquer another player's 70+20 base, it probably would actually feel pretty good, but just losing a bunch of guys for 'nothing' feels bad.

Why should you receive the advantage of a couple of easy extra outposts just because you were lucky enough to start next to the player who quit?

And having a wall of outposts filled with a resigned players drillers adds a level of strategy to that front. You’re always welcome to claim it, but you shouldn’t get it cheaper than it’s worth.

champinoman, we came to the same conclusion a few days ago. games that start after the next update will treat resigned/eliminated players the same as normal players. their factories will produce drillers, their shields will recharge, and their specialists will stick around, all of which will make it harder for their neighbors to take over their territory.

they will simply lose the ability to issue orders, all of their neptunium will go away, and their mines will not produce any more.

EDIT: also, we need to address the root cause, which is players resigning a little too often for our taste, but that's a different matter entirely

So their specialists won't disappear after a day? I think that's great. It will increase the utility of the hypnotist for sure.

correct.

I'm a little skeptical of this approach for one reason: mainly because it still results in stagnation of the map.

To be honest, it is probably more beneficial to the neighboring player to have a gigantic wall of 400 regenerating guys who won't do anything other than defend than it is to simply let people claim those nodes and turn into 'normal' gameplay again.

As I mentioned before, in my game the fact that they were 'no-go' nodes was already very beneficial to me.

The reason I feel these types of nodes are bad is because the game's regeneration rates are not balanced around aimlessly camping on only 3-4 nodes. They are balanced to support expansion and an empire that actually has potential to win the game. When you consolidate drillers only on factories with no intent to ever migrate them anywhere, the number is generally far too high to ever be worth the risk of fighting over for just a single node.

Additionally, calculated losses are acceptable primarily if there is a broader strategic goal. Losing 100 guys attacking an output is acceptable if it means one of your opponents also loses an output and 80 guys. However, attacking a non-controlled node has no direct negative consequence towards an opponent. If given the choice of throwing 100 guys at a 'real' opponent or a non-active one, the smart move is almost always going to be to attack the real opponent--if you are going to lose 100 guys and gain an outpost either way, you may as well weaken an opponent while you do it.

Also, I think there is a big difference between resigning at the start of the game (where expansion is easy) vs. the later part of a game (where it becomes a gigantic wall) is an important distinction.

The fact that this is the reality for all players equally is by definition fair. Ultimately their attributes will even be known going in. Those who cannot adapt to dealing with them strategically will simply do more poorly.

If the maps were symmetrical for all players then it would be "fair" but some people are more affected (good or bad) by someone resigning than others.


If the person that resigned was forced out by another player than so be it. But if they just quit, especially early on it can have a big effect on those near by.