Empire of Standards

Well I guess I will be the first to reply in here so here's my two cents... aimed towards Wheeloffire of course.
Since you've been gone there has been a great 'uproar' with regards to the Metaverse and the forming of a 'council' of a sort that from what I've gathered is meant to 'represent' various factions/voices throughout the Metaverse. I'm not sure if you have gone to the OP and read through the 'vast' amount of text (more closely resembling 'legalese' if you ask me)but if you have, I was wondering if you truly understand what you've just read.
I did wade through some of the earlier posts and even gave 'props' for the effort as it seemed worthy, at least with respect to what little I could comprehend from the thread. Regardless, you know my real take on the Metaverse, and the main issue I have as to why I don't post games there (not to mention your original comment in this thread's opening lines regarding people thinking that those who don't post are potential cheaters/novices who don't know snot about the game)but nonetheless I am trying to work around this issue so that I can submit to prove a point to some (Thagee stands out as one particular agitator of my bowels)regarding my knowledge of this game.
To any newbies reading and wishing to join an empire, consider ours, the illustrious EMPIRE OF STANDARDS. We are looking for a few good men/women who wish to represent a faction that seeks nothing less than total bedlam and carnage... not necessarily in that order. Seriously though, we aren't about the scores but we are about putting the smackdown on those who question our 'abilities'. So if you're the type who takes pride in what you do but hate condescending people, this is the place for you.
Oh, and please, for the love of God, bring a dictionary if you have issues spelling.

Well, lads, I was all for the Empire of Standards just on account of the name (I have a lot of Virgo in my chart). Plus, I've long been interested in finding more folks who play the game for reasons other than maxed-out scores.

But this semi-manifesto in posts 1 & 2 leaves me wondering if I should go independent or get crazy and start the Empire of the Huddled Masses or something. I thought the Empire of Standards was about mocking the "scoring machines" by showing that score-scoffers can keep up if we feel like it. This sounds like an invitation to a flame war, and I'm afraid I might already be "the enemy" given my collusion with Those Who Are Posting Voluminously About the Metaverse.

Any way to talk y'all out of your guerilla tactics and get you involved in, ahem, "the political process?" (Yes, I'm imagining serious spluttering at the very least )

What are your thoughts on the political process? After what I read in the core, I did have to warn people against hijacking the thread. No manifesto here.

Considering our pace of posted games, each passing day is certainly mocking the scoring machines. We have 4 games and we're ranked 73. That's amusing.

Not at all G.W. and I am sorry if you got that impression from my reply. I am NOT out for flame wars (even though I love a good one) and you are not my 'enemy'. I might have been a little sarcastic in what I typed so ignore what you took as 'aimed at you/flame intention' type talk. I was just trying to stress that I didn't appreciate being smacked with the 'gauntlet' by certain folks regarding my game knowledge, and being accused of not owning the game even... I mean come on.

Well, that was half-snarky talk aimed at you on account of your OP here seeming more like a call to a street brawl than an effort to build a Metaverse empire.

But I'm still so new to all this that I'm barely aware that empires get ranked also. We're #41 over at the AltMeta, I think b/c the ranking there throws out scores over 6 months old while the "real" Metaverse depreciates them via quirky formula.

If you're even half-serious asking about "the politcal process," it is mostly boring details. Self-gov't is like that--thankless work for things people end up taking for granted.

I think you should try keeping this thread for "recruiting" and offer your 2 BC over at the Core if you end up having opionions about things that are coming to a vote. If the EoS grows and I stay with it, I'll eventually make a habit of doing my best to get a vote within the empire before I make a vote at the council.

All hail the Empire of Standards! Finally, a reason to post to the Meta. You are three of my favorite people on these forums, and it would be an honor to join your quest. If nothing else, this should be one heck of a good time. I should be posting my first game tonight or tomorrow. Death to the fraktards!

DEATH TO FRAKTARDS!

That's one hell of a motto. That will be our unofficial one as kryo might have a problem with that as an official motto. And, gods forbid, a diplomat decides to whisper in his ear about our uncivilized behavior and the indisputable fact that "Wheeloffire has no redeeming value"/"wof is an a$$."

Welcome to the Empire of Standards, Mistralok.

GW, this thread is for recruiting. Don't worry about that. I hope you stay with EoS.

As far as offering my 2 BC at the core... I'll try. I'm deep in a huge Real Life (TM) project right now and it will be a couple weeks to get up to speed anyway.

No worries, Evil. I didn't feel personally attacked at all, just a bit self-conscious on account of having joined the EoS before I joined the MVC.

As long as the empire's core goal is a good time to be had by all, I'm likely to stay around. But I'm not likely to get another game in that soon. I've got what I hope will be a decent Huge DA game going, still too timid to step up past Tough.

Good to see you aboard, Mistralok.

Tough is fun. It's a different game on the higher levels.

I think one main reason I've stayed at Tough is that I don't want to "ruin the romance." GCII is the first 4X game I've played where the AI was a challenge for me without needing any bonuses. I can beat the game on Tough pretty regularly, but by no means on every map I generate.

Thanks for the warm welcome. Darn glad to be teamed up with a great bunch of guys. Let's show them what we're about.

Welcome aboard from me as well Mistralok! As G.W. assumed, we are looking for members who 'just want to have a good time'.





Yeah, I had to break down and get dial up again so I am hoping if I at least start a Meta game this weekend and do the old save/swap/submit thing I should be able to FINALLY get a Metaverse game logged.
I myself am still trying to 'decipher' what all the political mumbo jumbo is about and even though I wasn't that interested in the Meta one way or another, I now find myself curious enough to try a submit and see what happens.
And Wheeloffire, sorry if I didn't take the 'lead' and try to accomplish anything with our little old EoS, but when you went MIA I felt it was best to bide my time and see what developed. I mean this is your empire after all and I wasn't about to go stepping on the toes of my Emperor! You know that I was never really into the Meta but I'd like to think that despite our GREAT PERSONALITIES we are actually going to try to make a go of this and give the others a run for their money. Then we can sit back and watch them all eat cake.

Incidentally, I was attempting to register over at the Galactic Core, since 8:30 am and still haven't received an activation email. Now I am not sure how long the response time is, but I resubmitted four times throughout the course of today to no avail. No email response whatsoever to activate my account (and yes, all spam filters are off just in case). Anyone reading know what gives?

I've manually activated you, you should be able to log in now.

Anybody know what happened to n0v4k4n3?

What, did real life get in the way of wasting time at your PC?

We still only have 4 games posted, and I'm getting a little worried that the large chunk of time I've put into my first DL Metaverse game might go awry because I've stumbled across a possible bug re confusion between building a "custom" empire to play and making changes to a "core" empire.

I hope at least one of you likes to play shorter games, or it might be rather a while before we can shower the scoremongers with scoffing points.

I prefer tiny and small maps. Brad said somewhere that the game is optimized for medium maps. I played large because it was set for random and I wanted to play it anyway for experience's sake. With 3 victory types behind me and the fact that this empire isn't about scoring or even logging games (log one and you're Standard for life:) ), I personally discourage large maps.

Everybody has to work for a living. If you can play to put 5000 ships in a sector, it's time to find something else.

Difficulty >= Tough. Maps <= medium. That keeps the game fresh and challenging... in my humble opinion.

As a good citizen of an anti-imperialist empire, I must half-agree. Maps <= medium bore and annoy me.

The AIs don't really have room to unfold and get into interesting trouble amongst themselves unless you have at least a Large map. Plus, longer games give more opportunities for random events, which are sometimes much big fun, unless they, well, kill the game for a given player's style and skills.

Sorry all. I lost a cook, and had to cover his shifts.

I generally play large maps, for the reasons GW stated. I've had some interesting experiences with smaller maps, one of which I will post about. (When I finish my first E of S game, of course.)

Mistralok, Evil, I still don't see characters for you in the EoS at AltMeta. (Edit: I'm still a real newb at this "system" so you might be registered and it might be "normal" not to see you at AltMeta until after you post a game.)

You can set up your characters before you're ready to post a game. Showing growth (you'd make it 100% for "the quarter!") might help draw in others. The MVC folks are also talking about email campaigns to bring in new empire members. I'm told the forum email options are a bit flaky, but I might try a bit of recruiting if I notice a creatively feisty poster is currently "unaligned."

However we go about it, I suspect we need more folks if we're to build a pile of scores high enough that the scoremongers hear the raspberries from the masses

It is. AltMeta ignores anyone with 0 games posted.

Thanks, Kryo. I have a followup question about the offical Metaverse. Does the system that displays medals here on the galciv2.com forum ignore posted scores that are flagged with as cheats? I'm asking b/c I've done a little searching that left me with the impression that a 50-game medal might be based on 42 cheats and 8 fair games, etc.

Flagged games are counted as 0-score games for the purpose of your overall score (which can be painful if one hits you unexpectedly), but otherwise they aren't counted as either a win or loss, and I believe the game-count medals are only based on wins.

My question is based on looking into a Metaverse poster who shows the over 100 games medal and is ranked as a Lieutenant but whose record is overwhelmingly dominated by games flagged as cheats and/or defeats. Best I can tell, you can lose every game you ever post and still show medals that make you look "strong" unless someone checks your record.

I'm sorry guys. I started a DL game just before DA went gold. I was doing well, so decided to continue. I wanted to make my first posted game something special. I rocked. But I updated to 1.5 during the game, and when I won, I got a 'buffer overrun' message. This had never happened to me in any previous version. Quelle surprise. Veni, vici, vidi, buffer overrun. I'm going to take a 'leap of faith', and start a DA game. Hopefully things will turn out differently this time. If they don't, I'm going to scream bloody murder.