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More info?)
"mcv" <mcvmcv@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:431b6d70$0$11069$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl...
> Brad Wardell <bwardell@stardock.com> wrote:
>>
>> In Galactic Civilizations I, planets had planet classes from 1 through
>> 26.
>> People usually colonized planets of class 15 or better.
>>
>> On the planets, there would be a listbox of improvements players could
>> build
>> on the planet. As a practical matter, players built every improvement
>> they
>> could throughout the game. To decrease micro-management, governors were
>> made available where people coudl queue up their construction but
>> realistically it meant that all planets were pretty much the same.
>
> Yes it did. I always try to differentiate a bit, simply because I like it
> and I think it's realistic, but in the long run they still ended up pretty
> much the same. So I'm really happy that planets will be a lot more
> specialised in GalCiv 2.
>
>> In Galactic Civilizations II planets look like this:
>>
http://www.galciv2.com/screenshots/gc-sept05c.jpg
>>
>> Classes 1 through 26 are still there but now the class number determines
>> how
>> many useable tiles there are on the planet. A typical planet now is a
>> class
>> 8 planet -- 8 tiles. Players can queue up what they want to build on a
>> given planet. The player doesn't even have to be notified on
>> construction
>> status if they don't want, a green tile will appear on the main map
>> letting
>> you know when a given planet has gone through its queue.
>
> So every planet has a custom build queue? That's great. Queues are good.
Correct. They're different per planet since every planet is different. If
you get a planet with, for example, two tiles that have ancient ruins on
them that double research production IF you put a research lab on the tile,
then that's going to probably make the player more inclined to put research
labs there.
By contrast, on another planet, you may only build farms to increase
population to get the tax revenue.
In GalCiv I, you built 1 of each improvement. In GalCiv II, you can build
as many of the same improvement as you want, the limit is the # of tiles.
> But does this now replace the governor queues? Perhaps it would be useful
> if, on colonisation, you could asign the new colony one from a few
> standard
> queue templates (editable by the player?), and once you've thought a few
> turns about that planet's role in your empire, you can customise it. This
> would be very similar to the way queues work in Stars!.
When you play it you'll see what I mean but it's a totally different style.
GalCiv I was like the Civilization style, GalCiv II planets are more akin to
Simcity or something. You literally start building your planet any time you
want, they don't even seem like queues when you're playing.
>But if each
> building has a tile asigned to it, automated queues may not work. In any
> case, the way you described it, it sounds very playable. (But keep in mind
> that first impressions can be deceptive, so keep the idea in the back of
> your mind in case players ever get tired of selecting the same standard
> build queue for each new colony.)
>
Yea, originally we were going to have some sort of governor design your
planets for you. But once we got playing, it's so easy to just land on a
planet and in seconds design out how you want your planet to be used.
>> IMO, it drastically reduces micro-management and puts strategic depth
>> into
>> how one handles planets since now you'd have a population center world or
>> a
>> research world or an industrial world and so forth based on your
>> particular
>> needs and strategy.
>
> I really love this specialisation aspect. I think I'd said it already, but
> it's worth repeating.
Thanks. Yea, a lot of people felt that GalCiv I planets were generic.
Where was the mineral rich world? Where was the fertile world? So we
decided to take it one step further and have planets broken up into actual
tiles where a given tile MIGHT have a special resource.
Here are two different planets:
http://www.galciv2.com/screenshots/gc-sept05d.jpg
http://www.galciv2.com/screenshots/gc-sept05c.jpg
Now, on each planet, you can find a couple tiles that have a little white
icon on them. That means there is some special bonus on that tile if you
build a particular improvement on them.
>
>>> You could asign
>>> different build queues to planets and had centralised sliders to divide
>>> between ships, buildings and research, but in the end you want some
>>> planets to build ships, and others to do the research or build wonders
>>> and trade goods, so every turn I'm fiddling with the centralised sliders
>>> and checking the effects on the individual planets in order to get the
>>> most out of it and not waste any production. (It also looks like unused
>>> production still costs money, but I never checked if that's really
>>> true.)
>>
>> Well one big difference off the bat is that in GalCiv II, if a planet
>> isn't
>> producing anything, you aren't charged for its shields. So players didn't
>> get stuck having to play with the global sliders constantly due to not
>> wanting to spend money on things they aren't using.
>
> Not having to pay for unused production capacity is great. But ofcourse
> that's not gonna stop me from trying to get the most out of my production
> capacity.
>
>> But this is a good point, it might be useful to make it so that players
>> could, to some degree, override the global sliders to have some planets
>> focus on different things (like ship production).
>>
>> Any suggestions on the best way to implement that UI-wise? I.e. don't
>> want
>> to overcomplicate the UI but such a feature would be nice and not
>> terribly
>> hard to implement.
>
> That's a good question. I don't know. Tweaking individual sliders for
> every single planet is way too much micromanagement, ofcourse. If you
> still have governors, you could tie the sliders to the governors, so
> you'd have shipbuilding governor that spends most on ships (and probably
> has manufacturing and shipyards in his build queue), and the research
> governor that lets his planets spend most on research (while building
> research labs, I suppose).
Yea, of course then it puts too much in the hands of the computer IMO.
Here's the usual treadmill that we're trying to avoid:
Step 1: Put in super cool but complex feature.
Step 2: User notices it creates micro management.
Step 3: Developer puts in "governors" who take care of managing complex
feature.
Step 4: User observes that the AI behind the governors isn't as good as they
would be at managing it.
Step 5: User feels forced into doing it by hand (doing all the
micromanagement) in order to play as well as possible.
This is why, for instance, we don't have tactical fleet battles (i.e.where
the player literally controls what weapon is going to fire at what ship at
what time). It would be fun for those people who are into that but for
those who just are inclined to hit the "Auto battle" button, it means they
won't be playing the game optimally since no AI is going to be as good as a
good player.
Same in terms of setting up per planet spending ratios. It's not hard to
let players have per planet spending ratios. But if we do that, then the
player may feel like the HAVE to adjust every single planaet (Because the
computer players certainly will). And then if we have "governors" doing it,
then we might as well not have the feature.
What I was thinking was that maybe instead of setting ratios per planet we
allow players to set an "Emphasis". That this screen:
http://www.galciv2.com/screenshots/gc-sept05c.jpg
That the planet could put an "emphasis" on military, social, or research
that would boost production in that area away from the other areas. It
would be a set amount but I think it might be more realistic and would keep
the micro-management down.
>
> But I can imagine you don't have governors anymore, and besides, it
> would probably make more sense to keep these sliders on the economic
> screen. Multiple sets of sliders on the economic screen might clutter
> it too much.
We're trying to avoid having governors in II. They worked well in GalCiv I
but they always feel like a cop-out. It's like jumping up and down saying
"Hey everyone, we know we didn't design this feature really well but fear
not, we'll let governors take care of it!". In GalCiv I, the governors
weren't handled by AI, they were simply fancy names for build queues.
>
> Personally I like the simple system of Stars! a lot: Every planet has
> a build queue that includes both ships and planetary structures, and
> any production that's left after finishing the queue goes to research.
> You can choose to have some or all planets spend a globally adjustable
> percentage of their production on research. But I don't think this
> system translates well to the GalCiv approach.
That's pretty similar to what we're doing here. The planet stuff in II is
radically different.
For example, in GalCiv I, the planet class determined how much stuff it
produced. Then improvements added % bonuses to it.
In GalCiv II, buildings do specific amounts of research. A Factory might
produce 5 shields of production. Period. So the benefit of a class 10
planet over a class 5 is that you could fit 5 more factories on the class 10
planet.
Example:
GalCiv I: Class 20 planet.
Base production = 20.
Population: 10m = 100% bonus.
Fusion Power Plan = 25% bonus.
Production = 20 * 2 * 1.25 = 50 production
GalCiv II: Class 20 planet.
Translates to having 20 tiles to build things on.
Player builds:
10 factories that each provides 5 production each.
2 farms to increase population cap to 20 million.
1 Extreme Entertainment Center which provides 5 entertainment units (morale
is no longer some fuzzy thing, it's population per entertainment unit).
3 research centers that each provide 5 research production.
1 embassy that increases the planet's influence
1 start port so that planet can build ships
1 banking center to increase tax revenue
1 colony capital (required)
Much of the economcis in GalCiv I were a bit voodoo. Players just knew
"bigger planet == better". But there wasn't much strategy in it. The guy
who got the bestest planets early on was likely going to win. There was no
real strategy to how one ran their planets.
In GalCiv II, there is since now there's a strategic decision as to WHAT you
build on the planets.
>
> How about this: Have a single set of global sliders, but for each planet
> you can choose to ignore it and check one of three check boxes: spend
> everything on ships, spend everything on buildings, or spend everything
> on research. Spending everything on buildings is useful for newly
> colonised planets that need to catch up quickly, while the other two
> are useful for planets that have built everything they need and can
> now focus on their specialisation. This is simple, and still gives
> quite a bit of control over individual planets. You could even identify
> the 3 alternative production strategies with an icon and show it on maps
> and planet lists, so you can quickly identify your developing colonies,
> your shipbuilding centers, and your research centers.
Sounds like we're thinking along the same lines. I am not so much for an
all or nothing approach but I do like the idea of enabling the player to
place an emphasis on a particular area.
>
>>> Something else that I would really like, is the option to play against
>>> the smartest, most devious AI you can think of, but on a completely
>>> level playing field: no economic bonuses for them, no ganging up on
>>> the human, etc. I love the tough AI in GalCiv, but I can see that they
>>> get bonuses that I don't, while at the same time they're still a bit
>>> slow and aren't as devious as a human opponent would be. If that's the
>>> best you can do (as it is with most games with their brain-dead AI),
>>> well, that'd be the only option to keep the game challenging, but you
>>> once mentioned that you actually dumbed the AI down because it was too
>>> nasty. I'd like to play against the nastiest AI you can think of, but
>>> on equal footing, if that's possible.
>>
>> Indeed. I don't know how much time there would be but it might be
>> possible
>> to put in a preferences field so that power players such as you could
>> have
>> the AI play at its maximum intelligence without resource advantages.
>
> I'd really love that. Ofcourse I'm only a single player, and you probably
> can't afford to cater to the wishes of every individual player, so I'll
> understand if you don't include this option. But you never know, there
> might be other die-hards like me that would like that kind of play.
As the AI coder, I too would like to have an option where the aI player
puts it all on the line. We could even have it start sending swearing
messages and then if you're about to win have a dialog saying "Player has
disconnected" and then simulate a ping flood.
>
>> The reason why in GalCiv I we "dumbed" the AI down is because the AI,
>> playing no-holds-barred, was not very fun in our view. Computer players
>> can, by their nature, calculate optimal paths. For example, take
>> colonization -- we could easily have made it so that the AI was even
>> nastier
>> at that. Just have the AI see if someone else's ship was going to reach a
>> planet before their ship and then find a different planet. We decided
>> colonization was tough enough so we have it wait until the other player
>> actually colonizes the planet before the AI takes notice.
>
> For most players that kind of cleverness might be a bit too nasty, but
> I use those very same tactics, and if I were playing against humans,
> some of them would probably do it too, so it'd only be fair if the AI
> did it too. I don't mind a bit of a challenge. And especially if the
> AI loses its economic advantages, it's gonna need the extra smarts to
> have a chance. Ofcourse in the case of colonisation, it also has the
> benefit of already knowing the location of the yellow stars (unless
> you're changing that to), so for colonisation it might actually still
> be fair to give the AI some disadvantage to compensate.
>
>> Then there was starbase stuff we dumbed down. The AI would never get
>> bored
>> of building gazillions of constructors and literally making their sectors
>> invulnerable to attack by just making use of stacking advantages.
>
> I've done that too at times, although I don't really do it anymore. This
> is a very defensive strategy, and as AI, sooner or later you're gonna be
> attacked by the human. The human player can often count on not being
> attacked quite that hard by the AI. But if you were to make the AI more
> vicious, the human might also be forced to do something like this, in
> which case it would be fair if the AI did it too.
Yea, there's a LOT of nasty stuff the AI could do. We'd monitor the forums
and some playe rwould come up with a really ruthless strategy and think
"Man, can you imagine if the AI did that?" and of course, it's tempting
since computers don't ever get "tired" of soemthing. Most "cheese" tactics,
for intance, involve some sort of exploit that's repititious in nature.
Imagine a computer AI that exploits its own game? lol
>
>> So in GalCiv II, we'll probably take a similar strategy. That said, it
>> wouldn't be super hard to put in an update the ability for power gamers
>> to
>> have the AI play probably very similarly how someone would play it
>> on-line.
>> Every nasty tactic taken to the nth degree.
>
> I would really love it if you did that, although I'm aware that I'm
> probably a minority.
>
>>> As for AIs ganging up on the human, I don't think that happens much in
>>> GalCiv (which is good!), but there's one area where it does: tech trade.
>>
>> Indeed. And it still does thi to a certain degree. It's not that they
>> gang
>> up so much as the AI never gets bored of opening up the trade window to
>> check to see fi there's a potential trade opportunity.
>
> Well, neither do I. As soon as I develop new tech, I check the diplomacy
> screen and often go on a tech trading frenzy. When I know I have tech
> that others don't, I also check the diplomacy screen quite regularly, to
> see if I can get something interesting for it. And then sell that to
> everybody else, ofcourse.
>
>>> If I can't sell tech on the same turn I receive it,
>>> this tech trade strategy won't work as well. But what might be even
>>> more interesting is to still require some research for techs you receive
>>> from other players. This would still make some sense, because your
>>> scientists need to adapt the new tech to your own technology base, your
>>> engineers need to be educated in the new tech, etc. If trading tech gave
>>> the receiver a 50% discount (or 90%, if you prefer), trading tech won't
>>> be quite as much of a killer that the AI needs to be reluctant to do it
>>> with the human. And if at the same time the AIs are a more willing to
>>> trade tech with each other, I think this aspect of the game would be a
>>> lot more balanced.
>>
>> That is pretty interesting. I don't know if it could be implemented that
>> way without adding another laye rof complexity. But I think the general
>> concept -- having players not be able to get a bunch of money being a
>> trade
>> merchant is possible. You could, for instance, have the value of teh
>> tech
>> be dependent on the # of players who already have it.
>
> Could also be an interesting approach, although I have no idea yet what
> influence that would have exactly. I think the most important thing that
> makes tech trading so attractive is the ability to sell tech that you
> just got from another player that same turn. If you only really got the
> new tech at the start of the next turn, I think that would slow it down
> enough to make it more reasonable. And perhaps selling a tech to one
> player could trigger the AI to check if it can sell that same tech to
> other players too. That way you can only sell someone else's tech to
> others if the original developer of the tech is for whatever reason
> unable or unwilling to do so.
So yea, we coudl make it so that the amount an AI player would want for a
given tech (or pay for) would be now based on the # of players who have it.
That really wouldn't be very hard to do. That's a good idea, mcv.
>
>> Thanks! And thank you for your excellent suggestions. I'm printing this
>> out now actually.
>
> I'm glad my comments are so useful.
>
Definitely!
Brad
--
Brad Wardell
Project Manager: Galactic Civilizations II (http://www.galciv2.com)
Stardock Corp.
http://www.stardock.com
>
> mcv.
> --
> "Serenity is a very personal work with political resonance and a
> heartfelt message about the human condition and stuff blowing up.
> 'Cause let's face it, nobody cares about that 'human condition'
> stuff... in fact if you notice it, try to keep it to yourself."
> -- Joss Whedon on his new film
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