True, perhaps each planet should add +5 or +10 to the fleet cap. Or perhaps raise the tactical slots available to 35 for asteroids and 50 for planets or something similar.

I still haven't had a problem so far though, with a quarter of a hundred planet galaxy conquered at the 38% upkeep level vs. 7 AI players. I'm sure it gets much harder though depending on positioning and against humans.

This is a great discussion!

First, regarding the possibility of negative income, I would like to draw attention to Gaien Crescent, for those that doubt the possibility of true negative income - in fact, the beginning of the game you have negative income. The map requires decisions of whether to make your initial planet your Cap home world (thru the upgrade), create an economy on your planet, or build a missionary or military excursion. This example can be experienced by everyone who owns the game in less than five minutes. This crushes the issue, because it IS real. In fact, if you make the wrong decisions on this map, you will literally be at 0 credits, with nothing to show for it, until someone comes along and kills you!

On the subject of huge maps and economies of scale... I've played Areolian all the way through, Huge Random several times, and I see end game as a graceful game of chess on huge maps. If you want to make several extremely powerful fleets, then so be it. That may be end up a smart decision, or you may regret it later on. There is nothing cut in stone about how a fight will turn out "by the looks of things." Micro management, economical manangement, and fleet capacity all weave together to form situations that each player will face with different tactics and perspectives. You can predict a lot of events unfolding in Sins, but you cannot determine the outcome by a simple number crunch.

If you aren't making money, then you obviously need to evaluate your economy, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

When end game draws near, I rely upon one of my main rules of thumb of RTS - it will not be a flawless victory. There are split second decisions that you will make as leader of your empire that will ultimately make positive and negative impacts on everything you control. Nothing will be perfect. Sometimes, you need to take that enemy planet on the front line. You know he's going to counter with a smaller force on one of your flanks. This is war. People are dying. Keep reminding yourself that not every shiny new defense laser pew pew beam is going to maintain a flawless record against your enemies. It may get owned. Your planets may take a lot of heat, and your armies may need to be constantly remade and retooled as the game plays out.

The game, as highlighted by the fleet cap, has several physical limitations and ceilings in place not only because of necessity of concrete game dynamics, but also because of PC specs. It's a game people, it's not the actual complexity of running a true real life empire. Analogies are great and everything, number crunching has its merits, but the fact remains that the developers are always striving for the most balanced game that gives all players of different styles and capabilities a chance. Giving a player a chance does not mean they deserve to win. It means they deserve a level playing field with many different strategies that can be used, all towards the ultimate goal of winning. Some games you can win without even losing a single ship. Some games, you will be teetering on the edge of existance, and an unorthodox decision in a critical moment may ultimately swing the tide in your favor, maybe even giving you momentum for the rest of the game. Smaller empires do deserve a chance, but not because they are n00bs. Because it's legitimate, it is for real, it is the reason we play these games - upsets happen. It's the quintessential Rudy, the Rocky inside all of us that we want to see come out, digging deep, and finding what it takes to fight off the big guy.

Rome fell. Then again, it's still around...

On the concept of ganks, it's ironic that most of the rebuttals have hinged on a situation arising in which several smaller empires gang up on the largest empire. There is diplomacy in this game. Even if it is some form of co-op, or a single player game, you have the chance to deal with other empires in ways that don't involve fighting. Just throwing that out there.

Considering the earlier allusion to chess I made, take it at face value. My perspective on end game, with particular emphasis on larger maps, the fact remains that there are different strategies that one can use in order to "finish off" the game. It's not over until it's over. I'd be willing to bet on the bigger empire, regardless of the fleet cap. I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, however. The reason we even play the game is the unknown outcome, if it was decided by simple numbers and exploitive strategies, the games would become more scripted.

PS - Yes, I'm saying the fleet cap is (pretty much) fine. I don't think Sins was designed specifically for people to only play huge modded maps w/ triple digit planets, who want to raise the fleet cap so they can get the exact same battles with twice as many ships (and CPU load). I understand the difficulties of expansion due to the fleet cap on huge levels; I believe it is a strategical hedge, intended to induce exactly these types of situations a commander faces, in regards to logistics and mobility. Also, I haven't seen much talk regarding the amount of skill a player has with regards to micro management finesse, in a game [theoretically] dealing with 10000 fleet cap - I don't want to see Sins turn into some sort of uber-Starcraft. I respect that playstyle, I find it fun as well, but I don't think Sins is aiming for JUST that. It's already epic scale...

In my opinion the fleet cap should be combined in a relation of planets total in the map, stars and the distance, heck maybe even upon your culture. It might make culture more usefull (only logic for me that if more people like your culture that they try to enlist in your military thus giving you more recruits for your ships.) I am not saying however that it should work as a large multiplier just as a kind of influence on it.
The problem I see is that if you play large maps FFA it becomes nearly impossible to overcome the stalements once you wiped out 2 or so AI's and you have to defend what you have at that point. I can understand that it might be there for a "realistic" point of view (i.e. the larger the size the harder to controll) but at the moment it becomes pretty much impossible to move on once stuck with a larger number of planets to protect.


Regarding the tax rates... I got no problem with my income. Though I admit that by playing advent and using the Deliverance machine on my own planets sometimes eases the stress alot and saves a long bunch of time that the com center would require, I think it it isn't too much of a prob.

As I said earlier, there is a difference between having a good economy and having the most planets. A person with 5 planets can easily make more than a person with 10 planets. So no that does NOT mean that the game is simply a planet grab because it may be better to spend your time developing your existing planets then going to colonize more. Also, I never said that the small empire should have "absolutely no chance" against the large one. I merely stated they SHOULD be a disadvantage because they are in fact the smaller empire and put themself in that position by not playing as well as the larger empire. What is the point of playing good if game mechanics simply 'make it fair' again for the other empire who isn't playing as well?

BTW I see now where you can get confused with what I'm saying. By 'Larger Empire' I mean more powerful as in economy, technology, and yes sometimes size. Sorry for the confusion. Again let me restate: The amount of ships an empire can field should NOT depend on how many planets said empire owns, but on the resources that empire generates. A ship is a ship and should cost the same to upkeep regardless of that empires income.

I too would prefer a fixed upkeep/supply point instead of one that depends on the Empire economy.

Not only doesn't it make any sense (the US/Jamaica exemple summed it up well), but I think it creates more balance issues than it solves:

Concerning small vs big empires, in a FFA game with 3 players or more, most of the time, the smaller ones (let's call them B and C) will end up ganging up against the leading one (let's call him A): Suppose A is doing so well that he has as much income as both of them combined:
It costs him 50% of his ressources to upkeep his fleet, while B and C each can pay 50% of theirs to match his fleet.
Thus, B+C and A have the same upkeep (as 50% of A income=50% of B income+ 50% of C income), but a fleet twice as large.
This is a major balance issye IMO (even though B+C have a slight disadvantage in tech because each of them must develop each tech).

The second issue is when two evenly matched(A and player fight. They both start with a 75% upkeep.
A ends up getting the upper hand, and B fleet takesheavy damage.
If the upkeep was ship based instead of income based, it would allow B to rebuild (because his upkeep would have decreased a lot).
However, under the current system, B still pays 75% of his income for a fleet he doesn't have anymore, and gets basically zero chance of coming back.
A can take many of his planets while he builds up some fleet, and A becomes bigger and B smaller than they would have without the fixed percentage upkeep system. Thus, B needs more help because he has become smaller.

There is no point in trying to give small empires a better chance when this mechanism itself is turning a moderate defeat into a crushing one.

as i didnt read all the way thorugh, this is the one area that i didnt address in my above post. perpetual comeback has only ever been implemented a hand full of times where it actually functions.

honestly, i have never seen a system that punishes the better player while simultaniously crushes the chances of the weaker one.

the person with the better ecomnomy, more planets, and more tech should have the advantage. after all, isnt that the entire point?

I've been playing a FFA game on a huge map and I've encountered the whackamole effect even before maxing out the fleet...so raising/changing the fleet cap isn't necessarily the answer.

I think the problem has more to do with the AI ganging up against the player.

IMO the best solution would be to revamp diplomacy in the game, so the player has more influence over the other civilizations.

Some possible ways to achieve this:

- Allow one player to bribe player A into attacking player B. (In other words, provide a method to break apart AI alliances.)

- Make it easier to buy favor with AI players.

- Provide a mechanism (for example learn a spy tech, or pay for spy missions) to discover how much AI players like/dislike each other.

- Give human and AI players an opportunity/incentive to remain neutral.

- Revamp the "missions" concept. Make it so you need to respond to the proposals ("accept" specific missions). You would only lose favor with an AI if you failed a mission that you accepted. Or at least make it so you lose less favor if you didn't accept/acknowledge their mission.

Basically, make it easier to make and keep allies in the game. The AI seems to do this to great effect vs. the human player on Huge maps.

hah, I just finished a huge 102 planet map with 2 AI allies against 7 enemies.

My faction was the Advent, controlling 66 of those planets
total game time 14:34:04 with my victory being my combined fleet nuking the last homeworld as panic drove the population to burn their own world

my credit income was hovering around 80 or so, with a fleet upkeep cost of 166. I upped trade and filled un-needed frigate construction places with trade slots. metal and Crystal were low only because the Advent have no way of improving resources without cutting down all trade;;;;;;;;;.

My 4 fleets with a healthy mix of 2-9 capitals and heavy cruisers were able to take on the AI easily as /all/ my planets had tactical slots maxed out. Though I turtled in most of the time and waited for additional supplies to cover any (and very few when I maxed out my tech trees) losses. I think my endgame credit amount was past the million mark, as well as metal and crystal past the 200 thousand mark. It's all really how you present targets to your foes and how well organized your static defenses are for keeping the planets alive. Of all that time, only one fleet (which was a rebel fleet) made it to my Homeworld (which I never moved, being that in my mind, moving the capital would actually be detrimental to population loyalty ), even then it was crushed in mere minuets due to fighter/bomber and turret defenses. Rebels were crushed with no more than a meep by 1-3 heavy cruisers posted in every planet that didn't have enough defenses just yet.

The planets with lower alligance pretty much are nill, except if the culture isn't strong enough. What's really the thing with that is how easy your planet's population will sway to being influenced by another. Besides, that doesn't go down much when you have a fleet parked in orbit

Sorry but it doesn't work this way. If you can rebuild a colossal fleet in a couple of minute just because of the freed upkeep, it means the game is horribly balanced(ie, the upkeep cost is way too high compared to the building cost). That is not an issue inherent to the system, but to its implementation. Most upkeep systems (Kohan, any turn based strategy game) work that way, and they don't have the problem you describe. As long as it still takes enough time to rebuild, taking advantage of a tactical victory would still be feasible, and as the losing empire would have less planets, he would not be able to field as many ships as the other one. If the idea is to make sure someone is unable to recover from a tactical defeat, then there is no point in allowing small empires to be able to field as many ships as larger ones. Under the current system, losing a colony or ressources is no big deal, because it doesn't hurt your ability to maintain your fleet, so I don't see how it favors not piling up lots of ships.

My views on the whole 'Small empire = small fleet' is that, sure they might only field a smaller navy, but what about the R/D part making his smaller, cheaper fleet turn into a formidable force that suddenly surpises the bigger empire as he's usually devoting all available energy to developing colonies and fielding more and more ships. Tis what I do, I turtle in and grind out the needed 16 research stations and go to town improving and fortifying my worlds. Only when I have a firm avantage in both qualtiy ships and maxed capitals into 2-6 fleets do I start pushing, and find myself riding on just how fast my ships can obliterate and destroy a colony.

The trick to Sins is to not overextend your logistics, that's why real life tank rushes extend only about 100 miles before they stop and wait for the supply lines to catch up.

I think an excellent system to minorly add on is a logistical factor that limits how far you can safely expand and still be able to have your ships repair themselves. Right now I could take a wormhole and start smashing only planets but not gain anymore, but my fleet would have no where and no one to supply them, so hulls wouldn't be restored and armor quality would drop until I pulled them back to a world that had a Captial/frigate yard that would restore them depending on the extent of the fleet's going out from the safe supply lines of the empire. I know this game tries to remove micromanagement, but yet I'd love to see this game implement an upkeep factor that varied with what state of war you were in, as well as your personal supply lines.

Perhaps to simulate the extent of your supply lines, maybe have a group of NPC, background ships like you find on densely populated planets moving further out from the homeworld, so you could see how stretched your resources are and when to pull back and strengthen the lines. Would give this excellent game another very engrossing factor for you to have to keep up with.

Tying upkeep to ships instead of having them depend on the economy would adress the issue of fleet size not depending on map. My main problem with the current system is that other point I highlighted with my first post: The current upkeep system makes it too easy for 2 people to counter 1, especially in large games where it is easier to fill the cap, even without controlling too much of the map. It can be an obvious problem in FFA (but maybe it is no big deal in team games, as it is usually a bad idea to lose your teammate in 2v2 anyway). I see it as a balance issue and not just a realism one. However, you are right about the face that it probavly cannot be addressed in a patch because as you pointed out, production times are usually too short (and production costs too low) for that to work correctly. But I think that would be a welcome change in an Xpack.

My 2c

Each galaxy file has fleet cap built in,
Each team gets an equal share of that,
Each team member gets an equal share of that,
If someone gets killed, the numbers are re-adjusted to give other team mates more cap
If a team gets killed, the numbers are re-adjusted to give other teams more cap

Thats rediculous, this detracts from strategy. Power(ships) come to those who earn it. This system only serves to handicap those ambitious expansionists so that weaker players arent destroyed as easily as they should be.