[Abandoned] Research & Conquer

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

TaCktiX says Gameplay done

Alrighty, my sum-up time:

- TSFs bombarding and a +6/45, sounds good and done.
- Continent bonuses by any name: none, period, done. I made the "continents" as an understanding / simplicity device so that people can quickly and easily tell area of the map without me needing to draw up some crazy grid. And if I'm not mistaken, we were on the same tangent 8 or so pages ago and it was decided that there was too much overlap with a continent-based bonus and SC/OC, the only difference being the ease of break. Then we agreed "well, no continent bonuses, just doesn't work for it." Nothing has honestly changed since then. Furthermore, I kind've like the fact that there is only one continent bonus on the map: homelands. The rest acts organically based off of single territory or build-a-bonus methods, and it works quite well for the map in my opinion. R&C is a total break from the way every other CC map has been, there's no need to stick continents into the map at all.
- I like Propaganda as is (+2 per capital held). It acts both as a quickie bonus for yourself (since you have at least one capital), as well as an incentive to eliminate people. Taking a homeland is a waste of armies against dead neutrals, and there is no way to balance that whatsoever without making whichever researches DIDN'T counterbalance it worth crap. That last bit has been noted by yourself, Tanarri. It's more hassle than it's worth.
- National Pride I'll adjust to +6/20 (I like the even numbers, what can I say?). Homeland bonus likewise will go up to +6 for holding all.
- No more researches. Suggest it for another map on this concept (which will inevitably be worked on, no worries there). Your head will remain attached to your body if you don't bother me about it again.
- Doomsday has no prerequisite. With the change to TSF, I've modified the text on the map to allow Labs to attack it. As thematic as having Zeppelin Strikes be a prerequisite it ignores my original reasoning from a few pages back: I want the ultimate tech to be a viable option to everyone regardless of any other research they went for. That way it can serve as a natural extension of an effective Mining takeover, or as a last-ditch maneuver against someone who's got too much of the map under Open Conscription. Giving it a prerequisite, even if it creates a corresponding drop in its neutral value, nulls that versatility. 200 neutral alone is sufficient reason not to just pump armies at it while you can be gaining more elsewhere.
- SC and OC descriptions have been edited to be identical to what they actually do. The reason why not +1 per 2 was because Oliver has to hand-code each possible SC and OC continent, with only so many overrides possible. Doing it at that lower level makes the XML bloat crazy fast. As it is, there are 30,970 lines of XML just to make all the continents that make SC and OC run. For reference, the unoptimized version of Conquer Man was 14294 lines long, and we all know how that made BOB go nuts on slower computers.

Oliver, your list of To Do is a bit too...open considering the stage of development we're in. If it's not been under heavy debate recently, it's as good as done. So looking at your To Do:
- Starting Neutral Armies has always been what it has been and there's been no discussion. In any case, it'll likely get revised in beta anyway so there's no point "fixing it" now when that's extra effort.
- Deep Mining has had a total pass by our two gentlemen here, done. Fix in beta if required.
- National Pride and Propaganda: see above.
- Starting Armies for players: 3 and always has been. No discussion, no problem. Fix in beta if required.

To all, here's my general thoughts and why I'm bashing the hammer down so hard:
Anything and everything is very likely to change when this thing hits Beta. No matter how informed our opinions, how considered our mental runthroughs of possibilities, things will slip through. Only playtesting is going to balance this map. As far as we know, we're doing more harm than good by spending page after page arguing nuances that might not even come into play.

So I only have two requirements for anything on the map at this point:
- Understandable
- Internally consistent
The turn cost metric for researches has been very consistent, with a few considerations made for cases where that doesn't directly apply (which I might remind all but Propaganda is no longer being discussed). The neutral metric I applied to the map is very consistent as well: 5 neutral for the first non-homeland regions, 3 for seconds, then decreasing to one further and further out. Mines raise the neutral of any region by 1. To wrap up, for all but Beta-Testing Purposes, this map's gameplay is DONE.

Hummmm. At first I wasn't so sure about this since there are still a few point I disagree with. But as it is right now, this map is playable, so lets just get it to beta. Like TaCktiX said, its not perfect but there are no obvious flaws and we are probably doing more harm than good. Lets just focus on legibility and clarity.

As far as I'm concerned, everything in TaCktiX's last post can be made final.

I also agree with TaCktiX, this really just needs to make it to beta already, because we never know.

That being said, there are two points that I'd like to bring up quickly, since they're based on previous discussion that I thought was agreed upon at the time and never made it to the current list. I'll keep my mouth shut on these after this unless someone specifically invites my further opinion by name. I just want to make sure they're not overlooked as I feel they're significantly enough askew to warrant at least a brief mention....

TSF neutral value -- I don't know where +6/45 came from. The neutral on this seems way out of whack. The suggestion that was being made was either +6/25-30 or +8/45. IMO either one of these would be fine for beta, but as is TSF is a 7.5 turn cost after getting its abilities cut back to bombard only, which seems seriously out of whack. I'd be more inclined to go with +6/30, but anything close to turn cost 5, plus or minus 1 would be fine.

Mining -- I know I haven't mentioned anything yet, but I've been waiting patiently for this one to come up. When we first came up with Zeppelins bombarding mines we had decided to give the mining bonus an effective +1 extra guy per mine to compensate for this. I really think that this needs to be fixed. I'd personally like to see the Mining tech cost a little less so it can be more viable earlier on, but for the time being I think that simply adjusting it to +2 per mine for basic mining would work fine.

If everyone just wants to get this thing to beta already and not worry about these until then, then that's alright. I just thought these two points were possibly overlooked and were fairly out of whack as they were.

[carlpgoodrich]

I thought the current version has both Basic mining and Advanced mining as +2 (so +4 total) per mine.

[TaCktiX]

Yes it does. As for the TSF neutral, my bad on that. I'll stick it at 30. And in the near future I will be doing a large/small split so that I can accommodate the detail required to get this map into the Forge.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Yes it does. As for the TSF neutral, my bad on that. I'll stick it at 30. And in the near future I will be doing a large/small split so that I can accommodate the detail required to get this map into the Forge.

Oh, my bad on the Mining thing. I was being lazy and only looking at Oliver's spreadsheet which was listed at +1 for basic and +2 for deep

What do you mean by a large/small split?

I look forward to getting this map into Beta. I think once we get the graphics sorted out it shouldn't take very long at all to get it through to Beta. Beta testing this map is gonna be hell though. I could easily see it being in Beta for 2-3 months before everything got sorted out. I look forward to it though, it'll be a really fun map to play

[TaCktiX]

Oh I know it'll be hell, but it'll be fun hell. Likely I'll ask for some special announcement about the map due to the fact that it really is first of its kind and will need the attention to make it as good as it can be. But that is conjecture at the present time.

A large/small split is when I start developing the map from two different files, one sized at the small dimension of 600 pixels by 600 pixels, the other sized at the large of 800 x 800. Some people develop at the large or an even larger scale to keep the upscale problem at bay (if you size up, things have a tendency to get distorted, if you size down, you lose nothing). Due to the space constraints of R&C I started with the small and to make the large look pretty I need to split the two sizes from each other at this point. By the looks of it the few graphical tweaks I need to make shouldn't make the doubled time a big deal.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Oh I know it'll be hell, but it'll be fun hell. Likely I'll ask for some special announcement about the map due to the fact that it really is first of its kind and will need the attention to make it as good as it can be. But that is conjecture at the present time.

A large/small split is when I start developing the map from two different files, one sized at the small dimension of 600 pixels by 600 pixels, the other sized at the large of 800 x 800. Some people develop at the large or an even larger scale to keep the upscale problem at bay (if you size up, things have a tendency to get distorted, if you size down, you lose nothing). Due to the space constraints of R&C I started with the small and to make the large look pretty I need to split the two sizes from each other at this point. By the looks of it the few graphical tweaks I need to make shouldn't make the doubled time a big deal.

Ahh, it's good that you're close to that point then. How far away are you from releasing version 6? Also how much time do you think we're looking at before it's ready for the graphics stamp?

I think it's been about a year that I've been following the development of the map. It's exciting that it's finally starting to get at least somewhat close to playable

[carlpgoodrich]

Good idea about trying to get a special announcement. Also, maybe we could get the newsletter to do a piece on it, explaining the basic concept (I think the map is pretty simple once you get the concept, but if you don't get it then the map looks really complicated). Sully, aren't you involved with the foundry part of the news letter?

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

One thing that I don't believe we discussed with National Pride is how we were going to deal with it from a 2-3 player game perspective when each player owns two homelands.

Does everyone have any thoughts on whether we should limit the bonus to just the one homeland that the player has researched the tech at or should we have it count for both homelands?

I'm leaning towards letting it count for both, simply because it'll be easier to explain.

[carlpgoodrich]

I guess if thats the case the way we would implement it is by making the lab part of the region you would need to hold? so that you cannot get the bonus for a foreign homeland. I am in favor of whichever is easiest for TaCktiX to explain.

[ender516]

Let me preface my remarks here by saying that I admit that I have been skimming most of the comments here for several pages. I like the general concept of this map, but am not a gameplay maven, so I won't attempt to pick apart the details when so many others are obviously more willing and able to do so.

However, I did note that someone expressed concern that foreign homelands would be worth more than your own national (original?) homeland. It seemed that the feeling was this was good for gameplay, but conceptually wrong. Might I suggest a perspective from which this is conceptually very right? Slave labour. If you invade and occupy a country, presumably you can enslave the local populace and force them to work to their limits and beyond, stripping that country of its resources with little regard for the consequences, human or environmental, and thus produce war materiel at a higher rate than you might get from your own people in a country that you still wanted to live in and not convert into an industrial wasteland. This presumes of course, that you have real control over the country and no effective resistance or underground or insurgency (pick your favourite term).

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Let me preface my remarks here by saying that I admit that I have been skimming most of the comments here for several pages. I like the general concept of this map, but am not a gameplay maven, so I won't attempt to pick apart the details when so many others are obviously more willing and able to do so.

However, I did note that someone expressed concern that foreign homelands would be worth more than your own national (original?) homeland. It seemed that the feeling was this was good for gameplay, but conceptually wrong. Might I suggest a perspective from which this is conceptually very right? Slave labour. If you invade and occupy a country, presumably you can enslave the local populace and force them to work to their limits and beyond, stripping that country of its resources with little regard for the consequences, human or environmental, and thus produce war materiel at a higher rate than you might get from your own people in a country that you still wanted to live in and not convert into an industrial wasteland. This presumes of course, that you have real control over the country and no effective resistance or underground or insurgency (pick your favourite term).

Thank you for your input Ender, it's always nice to see someone new here

For the time being, what you describe will not be an issue. What we've decided to go with will end up having all homelands worth equal unless someone has National Pride tech, in which case it will be worth more.

If during Beta it comes down to really needing to come up with some tech to offset the costs of invading another's homeland, then perhaps we could change Propaganda around to be a foreign capital only bonus and bump it up as necessary with perhaps a rename of the tech to 'Slave Labour' or the like. Certainly keep things the way they are now, but with the reasoning that Ender has provided, I think that if we need to, it at least opens it up as an option.

[Victor Sullivan]

Alright, though I think Oliver's TSF suggestion was absurd, to put it bluntly, I think most gameplay discussion is about small changes, which will happen in Beta anyways. Let's move on and focus on graphics. How's the XML going, Oliver?

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Alright, though I think Oliver's TSF suggestion was absurd, to put it bluntly, I think most gameplay discussion is about small changes, which will happen in Beta anyways. Let's move on and focus on graphics. How's the XML going, Oliver?

If you were referring to the +6/45 that was being discussed, this has already been fixed back to +6/30, which is more realistic.

[carlpgoodrich]

Slave labor is an interesting idea. Could be +2 per foreign territory, or something like that. That would definitely be much more interesting than Propaganda as it is now, and would really add an incentive to eliminate other players. I actually really like this, but I am alright waiting for beta unless TaCktiX and Oliver sign off.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I also like the idea and would support it if TaCktiX and Oliver liked it as well. I think +2 per foreign territory would work well and provide a nice balance. It would also provide nice incentive to kill someone, since in all likelyhood you'd be getting a +10 for the foreign homeland (4 inner territories plus the 1 border you'd break).

The major problem that I could see with this is in 2, 4, and 5 player games where there would be a neutral homeland. The two ways I could see to fix this would be to assign a high neutral to the tech (50 would likely to do it) or to require the homeland's capital to be held and stick a large neutral on the capital when it starts neutral (20-30 should do it) and have the tech with a smaller neutral of 30 or so.

The first option above would be easier to explain and I think would work best since for the most part I'd see eliminating opponents as a mid-late game thing but there's still the option of using it on a neutral territory early game to get a nice boost (risky move). The second option would make the tech accessible for early kill tactics but would, I think, be too difficult to explain.

This all, of course, being only if TaCktiX and Oliver like the idea and I think this'll be the last I speak of it until we get feedback from them.

[TaCktiX]

Would Slave Labor be replacing Propaganda or supplementing it? I personally think the first option about it, that is "they're your slaves, of course they're being productive enough to equal your own people." It's the conceptual justification for the gameplay changing to homelands being the same bonus. I think Propaganda as it is is a good research for both a small bonus and an incentive to go and kill off another player, with the +2 per capital. In a 2-3 player game, it'll be even more so as the bonus will be automatically +4. As it is I don't think there is a need to rejigger the research to a different name and functionality, particularly one that can be excessively lucrative against unheld neutral areas.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Would Slave Labor be replacing Propaganda or supplementing it? I personally think the first option about it, that is "they're your slaves, of course they're being productive enough to equal your own people." It's the conceptual justification for the gameplay changing to homelands being the same bonus. I think Propaganda as it is is a good research for both a small bonus and an incentive to go and kill off another player, with the +2 per capital. In a 2-3 player game, it'll be even more so as the bonus will be automatically +4. As it is I don't think there is a need to rejigger the research to a different name and functionality, particularly one that can be excessively lucrative against unheld neutral areas.

The thought that I had would be a replacement of Propaganda. Dealing with the potential for abuse when it comes to neutral homelands is a big problem though.

I am happy to leave it as is and deal with the lack of incentive for killing other players should it arise. Once the map hits beta we'll have a better idea of how to deal with it anyway.

[TaCktiX]

A quick update on the upcoming version:
- Revamped the bridges
- Made minor clerical adjustments to various parts of the map
- Have split the map

And I'm hitting myself constantly on account of the fact that a very large portion of the upscale didn't go well. Cue loads of replacement, resetting, etc. Hopefully I have it out this week, but I have no guarantees.

Also, the more I think about how to do it, the less feasible I'm finding "green" on the map, particularly the small version. It's a very busy map, and will be even more so when full army counts are in use. As great as a "more realistic" map would be, I'm not going to do it on account of the likely loss of understandability. Instead, I'm going to justify it as being a map in the literal sense. Essentially, every player has an overlay of a map that they are making decisions from, and deciding their research priorities. Since it's a steampunk-influenced style of the map, it's a system imperfection so to speak.

[OliverFA]

Sorry, what do you mean with clerical adjustments? :-O

As in, moving the color of Open Conscription to be a little bit more right so the junction of Deep Mining, TSF, and it doesn't look so weird. Also standardizing the verbiage for National Pride (still had reinforcements instead of bonus). So nothing we hadn't already solidified.

[OliverFA]

Alright, though I think Oliver's TSF suggestion was absurd, to put it bluntly, I think most gameplay discussion is about small changes, which will happen in Beta anyways. Let's move on and focus on graphics. How's the XML going, Oliver?

A great part of the techs XML is done. Which is why I started to discuss about the exact numbers. I was waiting for territories to be set in stone so I could also work in the positions and adjacencies XML. I understand that this is now the case, so I'll understand coding territories coordinates.

[TaCktiX]

I'll post up a set of 88's and 888's with Version 6 to ease that.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

A quick update on the upcoming version:
- Revamped the bridges
- Made minor clerical adjustments to various parts of the map
- Have split the map

And I'm hitting myself constantly on account of the fact that a very large portion of the upscale didn't go well. Cue loads of replacement, resetting, etc. Hopefully I have it out this week, but I have no guarantees.

Also, the more I think about how to do it, the less feasible I'm finding "green" on the map, particularly the small version. It's a very busy map, and will be even more so when full army counts are in use. As great as a "more realistic" map would be, I'm not going to do it on account of the likely loss of understandability. Instead, I'm going to justify it as being a map in the literal sense. Essentially, every player has an overlay of a map that they are making decisions from, and deciding their research priorities. Since it's a steampunk-influenced style of the map, it's a system imperfection so to speak.

I look forward to seeing the new version so that we can get to the next stage of finishing up the graphics. I'm glad to hear that it's hopefully a week away.

Regarding the map, I also think that green wouldn't work very well on the map, if for no other reason than it doesn't mesh with the colour scheme. I think the map as is at least matches the colour scheme and would do if we couldn't figure out something better.

What I am wondering is how a terrain texture of some sort, perhaps with an effect like gentle hills in some spots, would look on the map. None of the following are exactly what I was looking for, but I hope they give at least an idea of what I'm aiming at...

Not a great example and more provided for the shading than anything else, and would need some serious lightening and playing with


If this weren't as sharp of a picture and you couldn't see the individual grains, some of the shading might make for something that could work


Not sure about this one, but anything close to this would need to have less distinctive points and less harsh shading


Something like this without the extra darker colouring and black specks may work...

Click image to enlarge.

Or something like this without the green


Maybe something along the lines of the bottom right of this one...

Click image to enlarge.

I hope this gives an idea of what I'm trying to suggest. I couldn't find anything that really jumped out at me, but most of these were at least close in one way or another.

What do you guys (and more importantly TaCktiX) think?

[OliverFA]

I'll post up a set of 88's and 888's with Version 6 to ease that.

Thanks

[carlpgoodrich]

Awesome! Apparently the size restrictions have been loosened. TaCktiX, I don't know if/how this would work, but wouldn't a lot of the current troubles be lifted if the small version could be just a little bit bigger?

For those of you who haven't read the post on the CC home page, with permission from MrBenn, a map can go from Standard maximum sizes (630x600 pixels for a small map and 840x800 pixels for a large map) to SuperSize (1000x800 pixels for a small map, and 1400x1200 pixels for a large map).

Despite the temptation, let me state that I do NOT think we should add anything to the gameplay even if it might fit. This map is beyond that point.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Awesome! Apparently the size restrictions have been loosened. TaCktiX, I don't know if/how this would work, but wouldn't a lot of the current troubles be lifted if the small version could be just a little bit bigger?

For those of you who haven't read the post on the CC home page, with permission from MrBenn, a map can go from Standard maximum sizes (630x600 pixels for a small map and 840x800 pixels for a large map) to SuperSize (1000x800 pixels for a small map, and 1400x1200 pixels for a large map).

Despite the temptation, let me state that I do NOT think we should add anything to the gameplay even if it might fit. This map is beyond that point.

I would think that having the extra space for explanations may be useful. I would certainly try to limit the additional size as much as possible, since the larger the map, the less players will likely play it due to not wanting to scroll as much, particularly sideways.

Regarding gameplay, I would also agree that nothing should be added, as this is going to be enough of a (albeit fun) nightmare to beta test as is. Should another map be created in the future that offers additional player capacity though, I could easily see having further techs be added in with the extra space as well.