Just curious, has anybody come with some sort of point-based mechanic for rating star systems? I imagine such a mechanic would be created to help people make relatively balanced homebrew content, but if it could also be applied to the official tiles, that'd be cool. I checked ti3wiki, but came up empty.

Well, I guess there's no such mechanic out there. At least not a well-known one. Working on that assumption, I'm going to try my hand at making one myself. This is just off the top of my head so I'd appreciate any constructive feedback concerning balance or rules aspects I may be forgetting.

- Every planet in a system is 5 points (just the fact that it's there has value)

- Every Space Station is worth 3 points (slightly less value since they can't hold planetary units and are easier to conquer)

- Each resource and each influence in the system is worth 1 point.

- Red and Green tech credits are worth 2 points each

- Yellow and Blue tech credits are worth 1 point each (I get the impression red and green techs are generally seen as more practical than yellow or blue, please comment if you feel differently)

- Each refresh ability a planet in system has is worth 1 point.

- Ion Storms and Asteroid Fields are worth 5 points.

- Supernovas are worth 7 points (slightly better than asteroids since they can't be bypassed by a tech upgrade)

- Each wormhole is worth 3 points.

That's everything I can think of off the top of my head that a system would contain (before play begins, so not counting units or DS tokens that might crop up during play.) Mecatol Rex isn't really meant to be scored by this system since it has special value as the central system in the game.

Let me know what you guys think. =)

I gave just a passing look but I think that there are at least two elements that should be considered more carefully:

1. In my game group Yellow and Blue techs are usually more used than Green and Red. The reason is simple yellow techs gave discounts and blue techs make expasion easier, plus a good level of blue tech means the possibility to bring more troops where needed in less time
2. The space station refresh ability is generally better than planetary refresh (except for Hope's End)

I would tweak the every influence and resource point it worth a point.

Your system makes Bereg/Lirta worth 23 points.

While Abyz/Fria is worth 16 points.

I would say the are closer to equal. The extra influence is pretty much a wash, because it is only useful for voting, but makes it hard to refresh Bereg/Lirta.

Winnu home system would be worth 13 points while L1Z1x home system would be worth 10 points only 3 points above a supernova.

I would makes supernovas 0 points or negative points. Same with ion storm and asteriods and nebulas.

Tech resources are two high.

It doesn't make sense to me that a 1-1 planet with a tech specialty would be worth 9 points. And a 3-0 planet would be worth 8 points.

I would take the 3-0 planet every time.

Bill

bnorton916 said:

You're quite right, I would take the 3-0 planet every time as well. These are the sorts of things I need to hear since I was literally just spitting that out as I wrote the post. So thanks. =)

I had been thinking of empty systems being 0 and going up from there, but I suppose systems with negative effects should reasonably go into negative points. That's a good point (no pun intended. =P)

Any ideas on how to tweak the resources/influence? Maybe say that each planet gets points equal to the higher of the two values associated with it? That makes a certain amount of sense since you can only really use one or the other at any given time.

Given the feedback about tech, maybe all tech credits should be 1 point after all.

With those tweaks the 3-0 planet and the 1-1(tech) planet would both come out to 8. Still, they shouldn't really even be even. Higher of Resources or Influence times 2? That's starting to get a bit complicated, but it would make the 3-0 an 11 and the 1-1 a 10. Maybe I'll devise some kinf of better-than-linear progression for resource/influence. Even having 4 resources on a planet does make it much better than having 1 resource. On the other hand, giving too much weight to a single 4-resource planet would downplay the value of having 4 1-resource planets instead.

I would always take a 4-0 planet over a 0-4 planet. You can just do so more with resources than influence.

I would be tempted to make take the higher of the two but divide the influence by 2.

But if influence is hard to come then a 0-4 planet is all of a sudden worth more then 2 resources.

It is going to hard to come up with anything that does have holes.

Bill

I think after some discussion on the old forums it was agreed that 1 resource = 1.5 influence. If you had a 2/3 planet, which would you use it for? It's a pretty tricky choice.

So I'd go with something like:

- Multiply the resources of a planet by 1.5 to give its true value. Then pick the higher value you have. This is your planet's base worth.

- Double the base worth of a planet as this is clearly the most important thing. This is the planet's actual worth.

- Add 1 point for each tech speciality, refresh ability.

- Add 2 points for a double system, 3 points for a triple system.

- If the resources and influence of a planet are tied after the 1.5 multiply, add 2 points to represent flexibility.

So to calculate Bereg/Lirta:

Bereg = 3/1 which is really 4.5/1 for a base worth of 4.5, giving an actual worth of 9.

Lirta IV = 2/3 which is really 3/3 for a base worth of 3, giving an actual worth of 6.

There are 2 tech specialities and a double system for +4 points, +2 points for Lirta being flexible, for a total system worth of 21.

Compare that to Abyz/Fria:

Abyz = 3/0 which is really 4.5/0 for a base worth of 4.5, giving an actual worth of 9.

Fria = 2/0 which is really 3/0 for a base worth of 3, giving an actual worth of 6.

There's a tech speciality and a double system for +3 points, for a total system worth of 18.

That's an interesting mechanic. Thanks for sharing, Possum! =)

I think I have a fair bit to digest now for this little project, but I'd still be interested to see anything else people might have to add.

I personally think Abyz/Fria is better than Bereg/Lirta because you can refresh the former. But this is opinion and it is hard to put numbers to opinions.

Bill

Dang, I hadn't thought of that - and you're right, that's hard to put into numbers. Any ideas?

Other than that, any issues with my system?

I go with Possuman on this one.

I also agree with Woodclaw on the blue ones dont beeing sucky. Play with preset map with even spred of wormholes, mobility becomes more important. Recommended.

The Assembly-secondary is more like a tactical curiosity i think, but there is a point to it for sure.

As a continuation from that i say it ain't much use to planets with 3/1 or 1/3 influence resource. The additional 1 are almost never used, as they tend to be spent/exhausted for the same purpose every round, to get commandcounters or to get units.

Maybe add one additional rule that if it is the combination 3/1 or 1/3, you do not count the "1"-part? I am not sure if the same is true for 2/1 or 1/2. It is far more likely to be spent according to situation, at least the 1/2

What you think?

Well that's factored into my rules: For a 3/1 planet, it becomes 4.5/1 for a base value of 4.5, true worth of 9. The 1 influence is lost because (as you rightly say) it so rarely gets used. It's only in planets of equal resource/influence value after the modifier (e.g. 2/3 becomes 3/3) where the other value is not lost - it turns into a +2 point "flexibility" bonus.

By the way it DO get used when counting votes. Rarely but it does something. You are right of course

True, but I don't think the occasional +1 vote really merits a system getting any more points. I mean, in some ways a 3/0 is better than a 3/1 simply due to refreshing.

Perhaps you could use the following:

Specialization Bonuses

+1 point if the planet has both res and inf and there is a difference of at least 2 between them

+1 point if the planet has all influence

+2 points if the planet has all resources

To use possumman's example:

So to calculate Bereg/Lirta:

Bereg = 3/1 which is really 4.5/1 for a base worth of 4.5, giving an actual worth of 9.

Lirta IV = 2/3 which is really 3/3 for a base worth of 3, giving an actual worth of 6.

There are 2 tech specialities and a double system for +4 points, +2 points for Lirta being flexible, +1 point for Bereg being specialized for a total system worth of 22.

Compare that to Abyz/Fria:

Abyz = 3/0 which is really 4.5/0 for a base worth of 4.5, giving an actual worth of 9.

Fria = 2/0 which is really 3/0 for a base worth of 3, giving an actual worth of 6.

There's a tech speciality and a double system for +3 points, +2 points for both planets being specialized and +4 points for both planets being resource refreshable for a total system worth of 24.

Interesting - but is Abyz/Fria actually better than Bereg/Lirta?

I do like the idea though - but perhaps just +1 point for pure influence, +2 points for pure resources. The trouble is that this starts making 1/0 and 0/1 planets much better than they actually are... And the "difference of 2" bit is basically already factored into my rules with the 1.5 multiplier...

Let's use my base rules with a 1/0 planet, a 0/1 and a 1/1 planet:

1/0 is really 1.5/0 for a base worth of 1.5 for an actual worth of 3.

0/1 is really 0/1 for a base worth of 1 for an actual worth of 2.

1/1 is really 1.5/1 for a base worth of 1.5 for an actual worth of 3.

So looking at that, I really only want the 1/0 to get an extra point. So maybe just +1 point for pure resources. That would bump Abyz/Fria to 20 vs Bereg/Lirta's 21.

Possum is the ****. Agree with everything he says.

I agree with SigurdIronfist.

I'm definitely liking this system that POssum has proposed. The more I think about it the more I like it.

However, I'm not so sure that the mechanic needs to reflect the ability to refresh an entire system. Yes it's a handy little trick assuming that all planets are exhausted when you use the refresh SC ability, but you can also refresh planets from different systems if you want. As long as the total adds up to 5 (I think?) you end up with the same effect no matter which planets you refresh. For my purposes, I was looking for a way to weight the system itself (outside of gameplay) without worrying about effects or tokens that might change the tactical value during play. I think Possum's initial proposal does that quite nicely.

I'm not saying the refresh rule a bad addition for those who wish to see that aspect weighted, but I'm not sure that I'll be employing that one myself.

Thanks for all the responses, looks like I've got something I can work with here. I look forward to any further discussion on the subject, I have to say this thread is making me think about TI3 in a different way than I'm used to, and it's quite refreshing. =)

Well I was actually in the process of investigating this - I've set up a poll on the TI3wiki to decide which is better, Abyz/Fria or Bereg/Lirta. That should hopefully give us an insight on how many points to allocate to refreshing.

Steve-O, with your permission could I post up the system I've posted here onto the TI3wiki forum? I'll credit you as appropriate.

possumman said:

I may have been the one to suggest rating star systems, but most of this mechanic is yours as far as I can tell. Please feel free to repost it anywhere you like =)