25-02-2003 12:57									#1
	Noooooo! Big reason to BE in Senate Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I was the #2 ranked empire, I was doing great. I was driving towards getting a Stellar Converter to test blasting a planet to try to destroy it (Energy level 30 at the time) ... and...

The game ENDED, with me losing, despite having wiped one empire from the face of the Earth.

Why?

A rival race was elected President of the Senate.

Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a score twice as much as that race (who came in #3 to my #2), but it didn't matter, since they'd garnered friends in the Senate and got themselves voted.

Here is a HUGE reason to want to be an Orion Senate race, especially when you have that win condition active. (grumble)

Incidentally, I would like to see a Hall of Fame in a future patch. My score was great.

	25-02-2003 13:34									#2
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How about just turn off the Senate victory?

	25-02-2003 14:06									#3
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I hope you can do that. It seems very annoying like the UN victory in civIII

	25-02-2003 18:51									#4
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You can turn it off :P

	25-02-2003 19:09									#5
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This is the reason why people are discussing the need for a 'defy the council' option. if you turn off council victory its a completely different thing to needing to be superbly strong before the council unites and comes to kick your butt.

Considering the game has been deliberately built with many races outside the council completely, it makes sense that they simply wouldn't care who the muppets voted grand poobah, just like they haven't cared about any of the other votes. "I'm sorry Mr Harvester, you may have eaten the remainder of the galaxy but Mr Psilonius here has been elected local winner so you can just go home now, you've lost."

Winning a game after the council races come for you should be damn hard, but anyone should be entitled to try.

	25-02-2003 19:23									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Grumbold This is the reason why people are discussing the need for a 'defy the council' option. if you turn off council victory its a completely different thing to needing to be superbly strong before the council unites and comes to kick your butt. Considering the game has been deliberately built with many races outside the council completely, it makes sense that they simply wouldn't care who the muppets voted grand poobah, just like they haven't cared about any of the other votes. "I'm sorry Mr Harvester, you may have eaten the remainder of the galaxy but Mr Psilonius here has been elected local winner so you can just go home now, you've lost." Winning a game after the council races come for you should be damn hard, but anyone should be entitled to try.

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree!

-P

	25-02-2003 19:46									#7
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The current stituation (no dismissing the elected president) doesn't really ad up. There's three viable game options here, AFAICS:

1. Spending points ensuring that I'm in the Senate at startup, I'd leave the Senate-win option on

2. Spending points making sure I wasn't in the Senate, I'd turn the Senate-win option off, so I wouldn't have to share Jonahs experience

3. Not wanting to use racemod-points to secure one way or the other, I'd keep the option on and restart until I got started in the Senate

Patch suggestion #1: An easy way to solve the problem would be to patch the SP game so that no presidential elections were held before the player had become a member. Not very realistic, but very smart from a gameplay POW.

But what was that about no HOF? Who cares about a score if you have nothing to compare with? THAT is a major setback for a stat-buff like me....

Patch suggestion #2: PLEASE, add a HOF and a better one than the one in MOO2.
Why is it so tough for developers to grasp that a HOF entry should be a screendump of the victory screen....and a ladder system like the one in the Civ/Col-games wouldn't hurt, either....

	25-02-2003 19:55									#8
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Actually, imagine your reaction if your timing was bad and on turn umpteen on your way to a sole survivor-win with a shitload of Planetbuster ships you're en route to utterly annihilate the last race's last colony (which happens to be the sole member of a by now pathetically obsolete Senate, cause you've killed everybody else)....PLING!..You've lost, 'cause Mr. Itty-bitty has (inevitably) won the election....

I know I'd do something drastic involving the rectum of the lead programmer of MOO3 and about a pound of C4......

edit: fixing bad language..I know, I'm vain that way....

Last edited by OmniDude on 25-02-2003 at 20:02

	25-02-2003 20:19									#9
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Bring back final war!!

	25-02-2003 20:20									#10
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How do you get on the Senate if you don't start the game as a member?

	25-02-2003 20:39									#11
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A senate member proposes you for entry and the vote passes

	25-02-2003 21:25									#12
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Do they ever do that even? As in, an AI votes you into the Senate? To me, that would seem stupid since voting someone into the Sentate is like giving them a chance to win... you would think that whoever wasnt in the Senate would not be voted in, since they would pretty much just be a threat to victory... oh well.

	25-02-2003 22:13									#13
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quote: Originally posted by To_Serve_Man Do they ever do that even? As in, an AI votes you into the Senate? To me, that would seem stupid since voting someone into the Sentate is like giving them a chance to win... you would think that whoever wasnt in the Senate would not be voted in, since they would pretty much just be a threat to victory... oh well.

Well that is one of the key differences between an AI 'playing to win' and a simulating a real empire. If it was civ3, for example, you would never get voted in because the AI is a powergaming *****. MOO3 seems to have the AI simulating realistic empires, so it would vote you in if you have strong ties with it.

The harder difficulty is supposed to make the AI more concerned with winning, though, so it would probably be much less likely in such a game.

And don't forget multiplayer, either.

	25-02-2003 22:38									#14
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It would depend on the state of the Senate, surely? If you know X has considerably more votes than you, inviting in an ally couldn't hurt if you hope they will help stop your rival winning (or voting you excommunicated, or declaring Senate war on you or any one of those nasty possibilities.) Okay, eventually your ally may be a bigger rival but thats a judgement for another day, provided your alive to see it.

	25-02-2003 23:15									#15
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By the way, your score is increased by all the defensive and full allies you have.

I don't mind losing this way, but I would like to see a Hall of Fame a la SMAC.

	25-02-2003 23:21									#16
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quote: Originally posted by OmniDude Actually, imagine your reaction if your timing was bad and on turn umpteen on your way to a sole survivor-win with a shitload of Planetbuster ships you're en route to utterly annihilate the last race's last colony (which happens to be the sole member of a by now pathetically obsolete Senate, cause you've killed everybody else)....PLING!..You've lost, 'cause Mr. Itty-bitty has (inevitably) won the election....

Funny thing is, I mentioned the possibility of this to a gamer friend of mine Sunday over a game of pool, before this thread started. He groaned (and laughed) at the idea even when it was just a theoretical possibility.

We discussed this and decided that failing to get on the Concil, the best plan was to hold your final assault until just after an election that you know won't go one way or the other. If it looks like someone is going to win, hit him hard enough to drop the number of votes he has, but not enough to give it to the other guy. Hope for abstainers.

	25-02-2003 23:31									#17
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Something needs to be done about this senate victory thing- it stinks. Not fun at all, and DEFINATELY going to stink for MP.

Sorry, but FIX IT. And this 'Game Over! Now Go Away!' thing at the end also stinks.

	25-02-2003 23:49									#18
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quote: Originally posted by Anun Ik Oba Something needs to be done about this senate victory thing- it stinks. Not fun at all, and DEFINATELY going to stink for MP.

As others have mentioned, you can turn the Senate Victory condition off. And I wouldn't be too worried about someone achieving a senate victory in multiplayer; human players are a lot quicker to notice someone creeping for a senate victory and will likely work hard to keep that from happening. Of course, you're free to run that victory off in MP too.

Although I do think there should be an option to 'defy senate' when a senate victory occurs. It could be similar to the effect in MOO2, where all the senate members would form one unified empire and you'd have to fight them all.

	26-02-2003 00:29									#19
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Norman is right, you know - if you don't like it, don't play it. There's a toggle button for a reason.

It's MY fault for being TOO isolationist with the option on.

	26-02-2003 00:48									#20
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are there any reasons to NOT be in the senate?

	26-02-2003 01:04									#21
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Sure. Being alone allows to you boost your economy by minimizing the Opprossometer and raising taxes. You don't have to worry about spies, enemy incursions and so forth. However, with the Senate Victory on, you MUST seek out and at least have SOME contact with other races, and at least get in on the conversations.

	26-02-2003 01:12									#22
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spies only work if you are in the senate??? What's that about? does it mean that you have a xenophobia law which says kill aliens on site? that way spies wouldn't work.

	26-02-2003 01:24									#23
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Spies can't affect you if they don't know you exist. Council members all know each other exist from turn one, so you have to be security concious....

	26-02-2003 02:43									#24
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I would think Sentate victory would be 99% useless in Multi-player since humans play to win, not vote someone to end a game. Unless you can have like Team Deathmatch MoO3 games, senate victory does not seem very interesting.

Does the Senate still make rules and laws and all the regular 'Senate' stuff if the Senate victory is turned off?

It also seems really unfair if you don't start in the senate to lose to the senate...

oh well. I wish people would start giving some non-beta-tester AARs somewhere.. like here on Apolyton... in the thread i started...soon....

	26-02-2003 03:21									#25
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I think multiplayer senate victory could be possible, IF the votes were all cast simultaneously.

I might be able to get concsessions out of certain weak players by asking for votes in the next senate election. As long as they don't know I'm going to win, then they might still consider voting for me.


Now, if I'd designed the moo3 senate victory, it would have gone like this. Every so many cycles, the council meets and elects a chairman (simple majority). Chairman gets a veto on any bill passing through the senate, unless it gets a 2/3s majority of votes. The antarans would start out as Chairman.

Since the antarans have such overwhelming voting block, they'd be chairman most of the time, and even after you start beating them, they'd still have a powerful block.

To become President, you'd have to win a chairman election with a 3/4s majority, which would be difficult without whooping on the antarans.

I think such a system would give the senate vicotry more meaning. And you could convince people to elect you to chariman, without explaining you've now got enough votes to become president at the same time.

	26-02-2003 04:03									#26
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If i was making the Senate, I would have made it so you either:

A) Have to be voted as 'el Presidente' Two (or three) times in a Row. This way, theres more of a 'double elimination' feeling, and if someone has 1 presidental win under their belt, one may feel more obligated to attack and destroy that player, so they cannot win a second election.

B) Have a time limt after the 'el Presidente' was elected... say, 20 more turns and the game is over or something.

Its just... to me.... Senate victory gives me the feeling I got when I was playing one of the 'other' nations in a Europa Universalis game, and oops, the games over(crash to desktop) cause some other nation annexed me in a historic event and I had NO control over it what so ever.

oh well....

	26-02-2003 04:19									#27
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quote: Originally posted by JonahFalcon By the way, your score is increased by all the defensive and full allies you have. I don't mind losing this way, but I would like to see a Hall of Fame a la SMAC.

MoO3 doesn't have a Hall of Fame??? Or a simple one, not so detailed ?