The planet defenses.

[ravenzachary]

I should add...I want a game where the player who plays 15 minutes a day (3 times, 5 minutes each, for instance) can hold his or her own against the land grabber strategy player who can jam out many more play sessions in the first week to sprint ahead. I think the land grabber strategy is actually a bad one for the game quality unless it's pursued by multiple players simultaneously to share the wealth. In the case of Aruru, being the first real game, people didn't think of that necessarily as an option.

[JetJaguar2000]

I should add...I want a game where the player who plays 15 minutes a day (3 times, 5 minutes each, for instance) can hold his or her own against the land grabber strategy player who can jam out many more play sessions in the first week to sprint ahead. I think the land grabber strategy is actually a bad one for the game quality unless it's pursued by multiple players simultaneously to share the wealth. In the case of Aruru, being the first real game, people didn't think of that necessarily as an option.

Exactly. The vast majority of players are not going to be dedicated enough to pursue this strategy (this is an iPhone game after all), which means the guys that do are going to have a lock on the game. There is also a discrepancy between the way the mechanics are advertised (long form, play a few minutes a day) and the dominating land grab tactic that requires a significant investment in micromanagement. To me this is a problem.

Also, land grabbing is just another Zerg rush tactic in a different form. There are systems built in to the game to prevent homeworld zerging, so why is this form of rush sanctioned? The outcome is the same: zerging player who "knows what they're doing" shuts out other players before they have a chance to get their bearings.

[KyleMac]

A lot of talk about victory conditions but no mention of Neptune's Pride where the way to win was to be the most sociopathic diplomat (as long as you didn't fall too far behind militarily). The inclusion of such a fully featured chat system in EotE leads me to believe that the devs want us to go down this route.

In NP Raven's strategy would probably lead to him being the first player eliminated and coming in last place. But even in NP the last couple of days can become very hectic and often players will just surrender since they don't want put the time in and are happy with a podium finish.

EDIT: One thing NP has going for it is that every star you own automatically builds ships (it's a very simplified "4x" game) and there's of course a defender bonus. So if a player rarely logs in his homeworld is probably going to be better defended than a player who moves regularly and has their ships attacking. This means that attacking the homeworlds of even idle players will cost you a lot of ships which you don't want to waste in a war. So the final standings in NP are generally the winning alliance top, the idlers next, and the other players who lost wars last.

I think the strong colonies in EotE is aiming towards this but there probably needs to be a more complicated build queue for the same full effect.