Zone Reorganization Ideas

The original notes for Zones, made in 2013 are now somewhat out of date and are archived here

What we now know about zones

• In TLE-V1 there was a 'shrinkage' in the early days to group empires closer together. This was because it was perceived that empires were too spread-out to trade.
• In later stages however all the zones were occupied, the incentive to spread out was to catch lottery wins.
• Starter zones allow some form of 'protection' for new empires but with restrictions on the number of colonies allowed (again to encourage spreading out)
• A neutral zone, to give protection to empires that don't want to engage in PvP or PvAI
• It has taken about five years for all the zones to be occupied to any great extent.

What we can change with a reboot

• to avoid confusion about the size of each zone, let's keep them all the same size.
• lets try to avoid the concept that 0|0 is a 'special' zone and encourage people to start in other zones by having greater diversity between zones.
• Empires should have more control over where they start, with guide-lines as to what the characteristics of each zone are.
• Lacuna Expanse Corp should occupy the 'centre' of the map, having an initial set of planets, even SS which can 'seize' the central area and prevent colonisation. This is more in keeping with the game concept that LEC are powerful traders.
• Similarly, we should start from day one with other AI empires ensconced in some areas like LEC although they can start off 'inactive' we can enable them as required later in the game play.
• The 'corner' zones are special in that they only need to defend from two sides. Let's remove this by wrapping the map left-to-right and top-to-bottom. This has an added advantage that the maximum travel time from any two points is halved. (A toroidal map).
• Stars are too regularly spaced. A more 'natural' layout with clusters and voids will make some locations better/worse thus enhancing the game play. (note 1)
• Planets types are too regularly placed. A layout which would create regions high or low with certain ore types would enhance the game play. (note 1)
• We could shrink the map, the current size has taken a long time to expand into, let's reduce the number of zones. This has the advantage of reducing the number of lottery wins.
• (based on Norways suggestion) we could have special zones not reachable by most means in which special tournaments could be set up. I suggest we have a 'z' co-ordinate with each 'z' representing perhaps a 'globular cluster' which has the same rules as the main map (left-right and top-bottom wrapping) but could be much smaller, e.g. 1x1 zones in size. Different z index (a z-zone) for different purposes, i.e. a 'timeout' zone to park some empires on holiday, a 'war' zone where anything goes without help/interference from outside etc. I wonder if the starter zone should be set up this way with a z-index so that all starters would be in that 'globular cluster' but protected against larger empires. Once they reach 2 colonies they have the option of moving out into the 'main' game. Trade between the starter zone and the main game would be facilitated so that anywhere in the main game could trade with anywhere in the starter zone. New z-zones could be set up from time to time for tournaments and special events on an ad-hoc basis.

Note 1

We already have a map generator program that will create 'natural' groupings of stars, and groupings of ore types throughout the expanse. This will only really work with a reboot of the game.