and also if u wanna make the game more challenging..caps troop build as much as the your populations allow u..like if u have 300K pop u can only have 300K troops or 60% troops of ur populations..
also caps each planet with a max build of 1K buildings..
remove the race bonus and only let research active so people would not be able to guess what roles the player are in a family..
and no families member cannot attack their own player unless its tagged inactive (after 3 days of no activity by that player)

@mace  .... 1000's of planets were no problem 10 years ago, i remember when i first started i was ranked towards the beginning of the round like 400-500 something,   i just looked at the ranking page under players and there are only 150 players in triangulum

just agreeing with what u were saying and what this thread is saying.   I think the galaxy should be made into 1/4 in size and # of systems ... maybe even 1/3 (might be better than 1/4)

I oppose the whole thread when it starts with "hey, I haven't logged in for years..."

Less does not equal more, in-fact, less equals less. You need to think through every scenario that this entails, the effect it will have in keeping players interested (mainly for the smaller families) and indeed new players randoming in mid-round etc...

The only thing I agree with is smaller maps.

Yes, that was the idea.

Firstly, this wasn't implemented because of Mace at all.  Secondly, and more importantly, your view is a bit absurd.  You want to discount someones feedback, just because they havn't played in a while?  If anything, their feedback is more important because they're coming back to it with a fresh perspective and possibly highlighting struggles that they're facing and difficulties in coming back to the game.

i do like sadface's idea of having less families with more people in them. being in a smaller family myself this round, i am lacking people to co-ordinate plans with. there are 3 active members in my family(that play as a team), 1 player that plays for himself, 1 player that logs on once a week and then a high turn over of people coming and going(they get drafted into our family...see that we are small and then delete to try for another family)

having active family members and working together is a side of the game that a lot of players (especially new players that get put into low families) are missing.

No less is better or less systems with more planets

50 planets per player might be misleading. It was just a guess to get started. Let's elaborate a bit on that to see wether we can get a kind of formula to make it easier for the Mods to design a galaxy.

How many planets in a galaxy should be available depends mainly on:
1) number of players
2) lenght of the round adjusted by slow roundstart (depending on starting resources)
3) how many explos are avaliable per player/day
4) when should free planets run out
5) special multiplier: ability, activity and attitude (the 3 As)

The first 3 variables can be seen as fixed and known.
4) "when should free planets run out" is open for discussion, as a starting variable I'd take what was fun in the golden age of IC and then free planets run out after about half the time of the round.
5) "special multiplier" is kind of a wild card best used as an additional multiplier that tries to figure in "soft" values like ability and activity and also allows to specify what you aim for: a rather cozy galaxy with lots of space or a fast paced battle round.

So, if I needed to decide how many planets a galaxy should have, I'd try to translate the above variables into the following formula:

total_planets = players x (total_days_of_round - slow_start_adjustment) x explos_per_day x free_planets_run_out x special_multiplyer

Example for 150 players, length of the round: 1.5 month, 8 explos/day, planets should run out after about half the roundlenght, medium battle round:

total_planets = 150 x (45-7) x 8 x 0.5 x 0.4 = 9120 planets

• 150: players

• 45-7: lenght of round - slow start

• 8: explos/day

• 0.5: planets should run out after 50% round length

• 0.4: Special multiplyer = 100% - 20% inactives - 20% ability - 10% latecomers - 10% medium combat round = 40% = 0.4

Planets per players would be: 60.8 planets = 9120 planets / 150 players

As you can see the special multiplier has quite an impact and importance. This is also the multiplier which relies most on gut feeling and thus best suited to be adjusted by experience. If you have tried this formula and made the experience that the exploration phase was too long then lower the special multiplier or when explo phase was too short then raise the special multiplier. Thus it's probably a good idea to make a thread in the Mod forum for each galaxy and round to write down your used formula, what kind of round you expected and what kind of round you actually got. And my gut feeling would say that the number of planets is too high for such a short round of just 1.5 month but better start with any kind of formula than just guessing. Another variable to play around with might be to lower the number of allowed explos/day.

I hope this might be of help.

btw, not sure if anyone mentioned it, but a good solution imo would be to dekrease the number of allowed ezplos/day as the round advanzes, so amount of planets per player wouldnt have any effekt at all and we save our brains from doing formulas.

To be more ezzakt, in a round of 6 weeks  (1.5 months)

week 1 you are allowed to build 8 ezplos a day -> 56 + 8 initial
week 2 you are allowed to build 5 ezplos a day -> 35
week 3 you are allowed to build 3 ezplos a day -> 21
week 4 you are allowed to build 1 ezplo a day -> 7
Weeks 5 & 6 you arent allowed to build any ezplo.

total 127 planets ezplorable for every player, konsidering faktors like slow start and aktivity, it would go around 100 planets.
So in a family of 3 aktives you, as leader, kan draw a projektion of what your kkore size should be, 300 planets would fit in a kore of 17 systems.  Wise families would save ezplos for the last days, others would use them just to sekure systems and not to get a 'kore' formed by full systems, big families wouldn't abuse small fams by demanding insane amount of planets for a nap (bekause there arent), etz...
I mean, new strategies would rise about the wise use of your limited ezplos, and this would inkrease military aktions for sure.

Hey, once I was. But that was a long time ago.
And I haven't played IC since ages nor do I plan to, neither playing nor modding.

Why aren't you a Mod, Render?
From your posts I got the impression that you are pretty decent player. While it is not necessary to be a good player to be a Mod, some Mods also being good players who have an understanding of the game mechanics/balance surely help.

Excellent idea.
I'd make it percentages of the total game lenght instead of fixed weeks (and somewhere in the exploration area there should be an info box showing when you can build how many ships during the game). I'd also always allow to build 1 or 2 explos per day until the end of the game.

And the lower the number of players the more impact and unpredictable, yes, certainly true. But this isn't really an argument against a formula but rather stresses the need of any formula getting improved by experience and some "gut feeling".

I noticed. Not only the "get it wrong" part *grin* but also that you have put quite more thought into galaxy design lately. And thus my post wasn't meant as criticism at all but to offer an additional approach/tool.

*grin
It is absolutely astonishing how fast a game goes down when you listen too much to the players which again will, absolutely regardless of that it was their own input, crucify you for implementing it.

I wonder wether there is a paper or guide out there somewhere about "Game evolution in consideration of players' input: what should be listened to and what not". Certainly it needs a kind of guard to maintain the game structure: usually done by a stable core group/programmer and it certainly helps when the authors' of the game write down some rules in granite about what the game actually tries to be... and all changes can be compared wether they fit to this rules.

I never took it as criticism.  And if it were, it's constructive, so quite useful.  I was portraying that yep, we listen to players cos we don't always have the best ideas.  Afterall, we ourselves are players.

But I do agree about the whole not listening too much, and as of late, you'll see certain decisions which had to be made, despite some more vocal people being against it.  Sadly, not the way we want to go, but sometimes a necessity.

@ Render:

I thought a lot of the problems you had were around the new design and the map for mobile phones.  Have you had a chance to look at the new map since the update yesterday?  I'm sure your input would be helpful.

For finetuning:

* Lowest number of allowed explos shouldn't go below 2/day (for tactical reasons, sneaking in etc.)

* The decrease of explos one can build over time should be dependent to the length of the round and needs to be defined together with the galaxy settings.

* The time counter should NOT tick down from the first day of the round but from the first day the player JOINED the round. This way a late coming player, let's say in the 3rd week, has still a lot of disadvantages but at least he'll be able to build more explos and the family will see him much more like an asset (because he can build 8 explos/day while the family mates can only build 4/day).