more=better!??

[Therlun]

hiho

Recently i did read some "advert" about Civ 4.
It was only a few lines, but the main point was "more technologies, more buildings, more units". Im not sure how much that says about the real Civ 4, but it shows something I really dislike.

Is that what gamemaking has become?
Games that focus on "more"?
It seems to me that a including of as many features as possible has replaced the use of intelligent and sophisticated game content.

I have the feeling many game-studios confuse something, and instead of making their games more complex they ONLY make them more complicated.

Many mods do the same.
Often players spend considerable time and effort on a mod, yet the result is doubtful.
Again the Civ series as example: Why should i want to play a mod (civ3) that only adds dozens of new buidlings and technologies to the vanilla game, which is already overcrowded?
What interest is a game with tons of useless and meaningless stuff expected to sprout?

There are some good games. Intelligent, entertaining, and not overloaded.
Yet i get the impression their kind heavily suffered over the last years.

My opinion is that too much thoughtless "adding" ruins many modern games.
And my hope is that this opinion is right, and the future will give birth to a more "destilled" branch of games.

Is it that difficult to withstand the urge to get an improvement by blindly adding stuff? Is it that IMPOSSIBLE?
Or am I only an aging (22...) gamefan, that mourns about the past?

This post is not directly targetted at L3O and Horizon.
I even have some hope that the game will greatly distingish from my pessimistic view of the "current standard".

Have fun,
Therlun

[RobHuntingdon]

Oi Therlun you will get absolutely no disagreement from me on this at all. I liked a lot of things about CivIII. But the technology tree I absolutely HATED. It was WAAAAAAAAAY too big. It was insanely rediculous the amount of research you had to do to get through the tree... and if you managed to do that, you'd either A) be unable to build everything or B) have to turn off research to get the money to buy a bunch of factories and then spend inane amounts of time micromanaging the rampant pollution that resulted... ugh!!

It took a game that had incredible potential and flushed it down the toilet.

And I used to want to work for Firaxis. Not anymore.

MOO3 was pretty bad too... but the fact that 90% of the game was screwed up in some way or another didn't help. But once again there were lots and lots of techs and no viable reason to not just sit there and reach for the end of the tree... which of course is one of the most boring concepts imaginable...

RH
_________________
Robert, the Earl of Huntingdon

Tarry here, my merry men, whilst I seek what adventure await in yonder greenwood; but look thou listen for my call, for I will blow my horn if I become hard-pressed.

Adapted from Sterling, pg. 45

[ForesterSOF]

More /= Better

A good balance of options and catagories is what I would go for.
_________________
You have two choices in life; Explore and Learn, or Vegetate

[Yaromir]

A disheartening trend indeed.

More is a buzzword. (more buildings, more technology)
Huge is a buzzword. (Explore Huge/Vast universe. Ok so I have 150 colonies...micromanagement hell!!!)
Epic is a meaningless buzzword.

Real-time is a mega-super-huge-overused-abused BUZZWORD.

So TBS fans suffer.

RTS = clickfest

I enjoyed Starcraft, but in multiplayer, you are running around like crazy. NO FUN.

Paradox's games are nice in SP. You can pause.

Game industry is about BUZZWORDS

</rant>

[Sim-Mania]

More is definitely not better.

Each technology, each building, or whatever the case may be, should have a obvious and specific impact on the game.

Take Civ3 for example (again), I am a big fan of the civ series, I've played the game from the first civ game up to the latest addition to the franchise; Conquests

Yet RobHuntingdon is right on the money when he says the tech tree is way to long, and in the end ineffectual. Half the techs you can reasearch have absolutely no significant impact on the game.

You may have many units to choose from, however the only unit worth building is the tank. So in the end, the game is determined by who has the most number of tanks (Not very strategic).

So my two cents of advise is - It all comes down to quality NOT quantity.

[AerionIstari]

Definately agree with the OP.

MoO3's big mistake was making the game HUGE! Then after they realized they had made the game so huge wasn't fun, then they set out to put lipstick on the pig.

If only InfoGames had just moderized MoO2 with a few new features. The Task Force concept was good, for example, as was the Starlanes idea. The real-time combat was ok, although I always let the AI run my combat just because I never could find the enemy on the huge map quick enough. But at least the RT combat was a decent idea that didn't entirely ruin the game.

[RobHuntingdon]

That was one thing I liked about starcraft.

See, the tech tree was a good size in SC, so that's good. And I did like that they got each unit to have strengths and weaknesses. For example, battlecrusers are powerful but they are vulnerable to A) ghost-freeze and B) cloaked units and C) they're slower than a depressed snail...

And the next unit did not immediately replace the previous. In fact, some units were simply never replaced. Which isn't exactly my favorite, actually. I always modded good ol Civ2 to make the list of about 80 units at endgame filter down to about 20. I got tired of paging through lists of tons of units I'd never use looking for the one I did. One of my favorite things about SMAC was the fact I could just build two or three designs that complimented each other and get the whole rest of the list to go the heck away... and obsolete most units I no longer needed, pulling them back out of retirement (or designing new and better) if I ever needed them again.


So back to ship design in a TBS, yeah I see the idea of limited but meaningful options. But I also think new techs SHOULD replace the old. Nothing is more annoying than a unit in Civ2 that is worthless in every way except for one minor detail. Especially if the AI isn't smart enough (or tech-level-advanced enough) to build their unit that this unit counters. And I think the same about ship weapons or sensors. There comes a point where new tech should completely replace the old. Just not right away. Maybe two or three times in a game you should be forced to upgrade because the old tech just can't keep up with the enemies new stuff. Moo2 did this OK actually. I usually used mass drivers until I got gauss cannons with occasional half-steps along the way, and them until I got mauler devices. But I could actually put 400 mass drivers on a ship and it would still be useful... FOR AWHILE. But eventually I had to upgrade.

And really, when you get right down to it, this is a fairly reasonable modus operandi for a government. Why waste your money upgrading to the very newest every five minutes? Use what you've got, redesign when it makes a significant difference. The rest of the time just upgrade the older stuff a bit when a ship hits port and please let it be automatic. The president of the US does not sit down every day and say "well do I need to order a different model of tank shell now?" Neither should a TBS virtual leader. The engineers on the ships should say "wow I read this nice technical journal the other day about how I can increase my engine efficiency... and hey we're stuck in port four light years from the border... no enemies in sight... lets get in there and start playing around so we have a better ship when we do have to fight again..." And within the limitations of the existing technology, they improve the existing items to whatever the new max is.

To really make this a good idea requires old tech to improve as you do research in some way. But doesn't that just sound like good 'ol Scotty on TOS?

And because the tech tree in Moo3 was so poorly done, I often tried to do just that. I found keeping ships up-to-date to be just a huge micromanagement hell. So I just upgraded every 50 turns or so (or 500 sometimes) and/or whenever an old fleet got trounced because its weapons were suddenly mere laser pointers that couldn't warm up the other side's C-rations...

It *sorta* worked...

RH
_________________
Robert, the Earl of Huntingdon

Tarry here, my merry men, whilst I seek what adventure await in yonder greenwood; but look thou listen for my call, for I will blow my horn if I become hard-pressed.

Adapted from Sterling, pg. 45

[Therlun]

[AerionIstari]

[RobHuntingdon]

[DeckPrism]

More is not always better. At a fundamental level there can be a certain elegant simplicity that actualy leads to complex relationships. Add meaningfull choices with tradeoffs and some choices for flavor and things could be fun. It is hard to talk about abstract design without mentioning examples.

MOO1 had some interesting 'combinations' that the AI would never use. If it had been able to, the the player would have been forced to respond.

MOO2 had enough stuff in it that you could play several different ways and win with each. It was fun to design your ship to fit an interesting purpose. Your tech path and design became integrated with what you were doing to your enemy and your response to them.

MOO3 departed from the specials techs leaving design rather formulaic. ...

It is nice when there are factors built in to allow for: failed attack/defense, redesign/replan, recovery. I think it is even nicer when that can happen over and over during the course of a game, back and forth, as the AI reacts to your counter. This can be done if there are weaknesses asociated with strengths, choices such that you can't do al things well all the time, and game pace such that there is time to pull off that redesign. In short, elegant simplicity leading to complexity well balanced.

There is a certain level of the dramatic asociated with losing 1/10th of your empire and yet being able to turn that back around the other way before being slowed. This drama can be lost if the ratio is 1/100 instead, i.e. if the powerswings from the redesign are minor compared to the overall manegment task. I probably also like it if the swings become greater as the game progresses.

Of course such redesigns imply you have oportunities before you in tech that you have not taken advantage of yet. Replanning similarly requires a realocation of resources in a novel way in order to achieve either a strategic or tactical advantage, for which there must be interesting options available that you can, but have not yet used, but which if you overuse can and will be responded too.

If there is too much stuff in a game it is likely that some choices are esential, others are useless, and the quantity of information you have to dig through to make your choice is wearying. I favor allowing the player to comprehend the game, but still find the resulting choices interesting.

Well, I'm hungry and tired, so I don't know that I was very clear, but have at it.
_________________
Do not let light shine upon your opponent's mind through a hole in your body.

[AerionIstari]

[Yaromir]

[RobHuntingdon]

That actually isn't as big a loss as it may sound. See they get to keep your money for two to three months. You get enough suckers to do that and you can get a fair bit just off of interest alone... but of course, they have higher gain methods they can use, especially with large chunks of cash. Plus a lot of people forget to file their rebates on time, or they forget to cash their rebate checks later on... or they move and the check never reaches them.

But I'm pretty happy that I managed to offload a bunch of other games I didn't play on Babbage's (hey I wasn't using them, if they'll take 'em...) and so I actually only put down $8 or so real money for the game.

Would have been happier if I'd gotten at least $8 worth of game for that...

RH
_________________
Robert, the Earl of Huntingdon

Tarry here, my merry men, whilst I seek what adventure await in yonder greenwood; but look thou listen for my call, for I will blow my horn if I become hard-pressed.

Adapted from Sterling, pg. 45

[Quantum]

Much of tech ungrade, refit, etc. decisions should be based on the time scale. For instance, if each turn is 1 or 2 years or more, then alot of the upgrades should probably be inherent (like increasing the off - def values) because most would logically happen within a turn. However, if the turn is a week, then a ship or unit should probably have an upgrade time and cost.
Another problem with some games such as the Civ series is that once you get the units, you hardly have time to use them to even enjoy the tactical possibilites. That and the the time scale for movement and building is all out of wack. Up until the 20th century movement and building was always alot faster than new techs.
I prefer meaningful techs with plenty of time to use them, but not to be able to sit back and rely on them forever.
The second major idea is "How long should the game be?". Should the game be finished in 2 hours, 2 days, or even a few weeks? If you want an epic game then maybe make a longer game but with 2 hour + segments that give the player alot a heart pounding excitement.
I think an interesting idea would be to have maybe three time scales. The first one for economics and general nation-civilization decisions (long time scale) with inherent upgrading, the second one if a war starts (giving major stategy decisions), and a third one for actual battles (shortest time scale). You could do something like this in a campaign like game with plenty of scenarios and set a free-style game that has its structure similar.
A third issue is who does what. One of the stupidest things in MOO3 was that the planets built their defenses. That should have been on the imperial level as should all military units. Smaller governors should handle economics and perhaps police (piracy), but not military units. To illustrate this, there is now way the people of Hawaii could have supported and built up Pearl Harbor in the second world war. Military and defence should come out of imperal (or what ever you call your highest level of government) instead of the smaller governments).
And last, I think the games should allow for tactical upgrades. In other words when the game does combat, it can at a later date call "new" game that is actually a real time combat. This can be upgraded. For instance, what would MOO3 have been like if (besides fixing the governors and moving the military to Imperial level), you could subcall another game like a privateer-freelancer type game for tactical ship combat and maybe another type(pick your favorite) for ground combat. Throw in a few spy missions where you really have to fly in and record or intercept something or someone and return alive and it would certainly jazz up the excitement. This would also give further meaning to some techs. While this does increase the time to play the game to completion, it opens new chances for decision making which I believe is fun of playing a stategy game. And if done right, it gives the computer company more than one income source.

[RobHuntingdon]

I've done a little bit of work with spawning processes like you describe, and let me tell you it's not super easy even with static content. You thrown in a need for the two programs to communicate... well it can always be done of course but it can get to be a real pain in the butt and a half. Security, for one. Speed for another. And plenty more.

RH
_________________
Robert, the Earl of Huntingdon

Tarry here, my merry men, whilst I seek what adventure await in yonder greenwood; but look thou listen for my call, for I will blow my horn if I become hard-pressed.

Adapted from Sterling, pg. 45

[Ran Taro]