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Rexides posted:I hope you are talking about the multi-stage quests and not the building "quests", because those sucked and felt more like a 13-year-old's first attempt at modding than something a professional game designer would do. Well, loads of the non-building quests were broken, so I don't think he wins this one either way.
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# ? May 20, 2016 13:07 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 19:21 |
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Civ 5 had a quest system (via city states) and I thought it was brilliant. The quest system in BE seemed far inferior, but I admit to not having actually played the full game.
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# ? May 20, 2016 13:08 |
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JeremoudCorbynejad posted:not having actually played the full game. The only winning move
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# ? May 20, 2016 13:09 |
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The historical model for nukes was the first nation to develop them got to use them to devastating effect, once, and then MAD mode takes over as soon as another nation got them soon after. It would be cool if Civ modeled this.
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# ? May 20, 2016 14:12 |
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Eric the Mauve posted:The historical model for nukes was the first nation to develop them got to use them to devastating effect, once, and then MAD mode takes over as soon as another nation got them soon after. It would be cool if Civ modeled this. Well that's our history, and that model would be ideal for a balanced game mechanic, but it could easily have gone another way. It took four years after the bombing of Japan for the Soviets to manufacture their own, and might have taken longer still if Stalin didn't think physics was a bourgeois science not worth bothering with (and if he wasn't convinced to start the Soviet nuclear program by an astute scientist who noticed all the atomic physics papers disappearing from international journals). They also benefited from a uniquely successful espionage program. But then it would be a poo poo mechanic for a game if it was modelled on America getting the bomb and then just owning everyone. Huge hammer values, plentiful uranium and buffed espionage are kinda necessary to make sure MAD kicks in quickly in Civ, alternate realities be damned. Edit: restricted delivery systems too. I can't remember how it worked in Civ 5, but if I recall correctly the plane that bombed Japan couldn't take off from a carrier because it needed a much longer runway, which nicely gives the game an excuse to ban you from just sailing your first bombs around the world from day one. Microplastics fucked around with this message at 15:12 on May 20, 2016 |
# ? May 20, 2016 15:08 |
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I'd say giant ideological power blocs forming should be a feature of the atomic age. Hard to say how you get that into the usual Civ "only one country can win" formula though.
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# ? May 20, 2016 15:11 |
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Adopt some Europe universalis style diplomacy and being back vassal states would be a good first step.
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# ? May 20, 2016 15:20 |
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Jastiger posted:Adopt some Europe universalis style diplomacy and being back vassal states would be a good first step. It doesnt work when youre playing to win unless said vassals are specifically made for the purpose. If a playable country is in a position to be vassalized it should just be put out of its misery.
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# ? May 20, 2016 15:24 |
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Cold war style power blocs were what city states were made for! Although the ideology mechanic didn't mesh very neatly with them. Missed opportunity IMO.
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# ? May 20, 2016 15:28 |
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Starting the game in industrial era is sort of the only way for power blocs to really form.
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# ? May 20, 2016 15:42 |
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Gort posted:I'd say giant ideological power blocs forming should be a feature of the atomic age. Hard to say how you get that into the usual Civ "only one country can win" formula though. You get it by having AI civs not be playing to win. Civ4's diplomatic victory involved actually making friends with a significant portion of the world, as opposed to Civ5's "conquer half the world and bribe all the city-states" model. That didn't work in Civ5 simply because AI civs always hated you.
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# ? May 20, 2016 15:53 |
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:You get it by having AI civs not be playing to win. Civ4's diplomatic victory involved actually making friends with a significant portion of the world, as opposed to Civ5's "conquer half the world and bribe all the city-states" model. That didn't work in Civ5 simply because AI civs always hated you. How does that work in multiplayer, though?
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# ? May 20, 2016 15:55 |
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Whether to optimize the game design for single player or multiplayer is an important and unavoidable decision. If you optimize for multiplayer then AI civs should behave as much like humans as possible: win or die trying. if you optimize for the single player experience then you're better off programming the AI civs for a rich roleplaying experience for the player, IMO. And yeah, in Civ 5 "diplomatic victory" was really economic victory, the goal was to amass enough cash to buy off all the city-states.
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# ? May 20, 2016 16:04 |
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Gort posted:How does that work in multiplayer, though? Mutual victories, I guess? Doesn't the game have permanent alliances where if one of the civs in the alliance wins, the other(s) win as well?
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# ? May 20, 2016 16:05 |
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^^ only in Civ4 and only in SP I think. I think genuine power-blocs between playable empires (each playing to win) could work if the mechanic was set up in a very specific fashion, perhaps something like this (which I've given very little thought to): One player establishes a bloc and each subsequent member gets a benefit but with diminishing returns - so the game incentivises players to seek out the smallest bloc which polarises the world quickly. A bit like the ideology system with its early-bird policies. But it should be possible for a city-state to share ally status with the entire bloc, so being in a big powerful bloc that can pool its resources to influence them and start proxy wars would be beneficial, even if you were the last to join and got a lovely membership party-bag at the door. Of course, a bloc would fall apart when the winning conditions are in sight, but any semblance of historical realism falls apart at that point anyway. Microplastics fucked around with this message at 16:10 on May 20, 2016 |
# ? May 20, 2016 16:08 |
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Eric the Mauve posted:Whether to optimize the game design for single player or multiplayer is an important and unavoidable decision. If you optimize for multiplayer then AI civs should behave as much like humans as possible: win or die trying. I don't think this follows, actually. If you're in a multiplayer game, wouldn't you rather the AI-controlled civs be "part of the game board" rather than a lovely stand-in for another player? Manipulating AIs should be part of the multiplayer gameplay (unless of course you play a no-AI game).
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# ? May 20, 2016 16:25 |
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Gort posted:I'd say giant ideological power blocs forming should be a feature of the atomic age. Hard to say how you get that into the usual Civ "only one country can win" formula though. Given that Ideologies were a thing in V and sharing having the same Ideology meant that AIs liked you more, those still came about. It's not incompatible with having one winner though since Culture and Diplomatic victories are also a thing and having a dominant Ideological bloc helps both.
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# ? May 20, 2016 17:29 |
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Panzeh posted:It doesnt work when youre playing to win unless said vassals are specifically made for the purpose. Eh not so much. There is value to the winner to not have to expend upkeep on a vassalized civ, especially if they are a buffer between enemies and themselves, and obviously value to the Vassal because they get to live and/or fight another day. I think it's totally viable in mp and sp. In mp it'd turn into an awesome game of Thrones as the lower houses try to find a way to oust the upper houses (or remain loyal to see their hated enemies burn) and in single player it'd be a better way to handle belligerent AI without being a huge war monger and having everyone hate you.
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# ? May 20, 2016 18:11 |
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Xelkelvos posted:Given that Ideologies were a thing in V and sharing having the same Ideology meant that AIs liked you more, those still came about. It's not incompatible with having one winner though since Culture and Diplomatic victories are also a thing and having a dominant Ideological bloc helps both. There's no such thing as ideological victories, though. If England joins the USA in a Freedom ideology and the USA launches a spaceship, England loses.
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# ? May 20, 2016 19:50 |
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They should add some sort of (possibly very basic) logistics systems for armies if they're doing the 1 unit per tile, it would create some interesting choices in how you advance on a front.
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# ? May 21, 2016 05:51 |
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It would end up as something like a spike in upkeep the further from your own territory you are, which would probably not be fun.
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# ? May 21, 2016 05:53 |
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Tuxedo Gin posted:It would end up as something like a spike in upkeep the further from your own territory you are, which would probably not be fun. Great Generals already (in Civ 5) act like mobile logistics centers, by buffing units that are adjacent to them. Remember that any penalty can be rewritten as a withheld bonus without changing mechanics.
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# ? May 21, 2016 05:56 |
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:Great Generals already (in Civ 5) act like mobile logistics centers, by buffing units that are adjacent to them. Remember that any penalty can be rewritten as a withheld bonus without changing mechanics. It's not quite the same; one of the properties of a logistics mechanic is that by cutting off supply lines you can weaken or even destroy the enemy without head to head conflict. Generals can hide on military units, so even if you surround them entirely you're not cutting the enemy off from anything. The simplest model for logistics would probably just be to require units to be able to trace a line back to friendly controlled territory, or they start taking damage per turn. Enemy unit ZOC would cut off supply lines. The biggest reason for not including logistics is that the AI is already pants-on-head bad at war, this would just be another way that conscious players would stomp them. Also, the fields of battle in Civ V are much too small, in terms of number of hexes to maneuver around in, to really support this kind of play. Maybe if Civ6 increases the hex density of the map, moving around will be more meaningful.
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# ? May 21, 2016 20:19 |
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What if a great general had a number assigned to it, which increases in friendly territory (to a maximum of 100, say) and depletes otherwise, and upon which the combat bonus depends? That could represent supply, like a convoy of grain or truck of ammo. It's not as simple as tracing a line back, but it would at least allow for a proper expedition (take enough supply up front and you won't need to protect the line) and I think it would be easier for the AI to deal with if the AI had a few basic rules (take empty generals back, send full generals out, always escort generals, increase escort commitment if retreating generals are harassed) Probably makes less sense to call them generals and ought to be another unit, but that might be unnecessarily complicated
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# ? May 23, 2016 21:25 |
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JeremoudCorbynejad posted:It's not as simple as tracing a line back, but it would at least allow for a proper expedition (take enough supply up front and you won't need to protect the line) and I think it would be easier for the AI to deal with if the AI had a few basic rules (take empty generals back, send full generals out, always escort generals, increase escort commitment if retreating generals are harassed) I liked it when caravans were units that you had to walk to their destination. I would make it so that your military units don't heal on their own, but you can build cheap 'supply' units which destroy themselves to give some amount of health to friendly military units on the same tile. Then you would have supply lines without needing a whole new mechanic or another hidden number or modifier, as it's just health.
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# ? May 23, 2016 21:33 |
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Star Warrior X posted:I liked it when caravans were units that you had to walk to their destination. I would make it so that your military units don't heal on their own, but you can build cheap 'supply' units which destroy themselves to give some amount of health to friendly military units on the same tile. Then you would have supply lines without needing a whole new mechanic or another hidden number or modifier, as it's just health. I like this concept in principle, though I'm a little worried about how much overhead it'd add to warfare. I think I'd want to make certain that running supply convoys is not something you'd be expected to handle in micro for every conflict. That is, if you wanted to make certain that a specific army was okay, then you could bundle a supply convoy with them, but that'd be a tradeoff you'd be making, and you wouldn't generally want (or need) to send out a continual train of supply convoys to your army as it operates in the field. Maybe supply convoys just give you 2x the health value you get from pillaging an improvement. It's nice, certainly, especially if you've already pillaged everything or you want to keep tile improvements around, but it's not something you'd want to have instead of, say, a ranged support squad. EDIT: something I've often wondered about is why you aren't allowed to spend production on upgrading a unit. If I want to park a unit in a city and dedicate that city's productive output into getting said unit a poo poo-ton of promotions, why can't I? Obviously the hammer cost of promotions would need to be balanced, but you're spending production on non-economic means, and you can still lose the unit and thus all the hammers you spent on making your super-unit. TooMuchAbstraction fucked around with this message at 21:50 on May 23, 2016 |
# ? May 23, 2016 21:47 |
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I'd make each unit assign it's supply to a city. Two things could stress a city's ability to supply a unit: distance from the city or too many units supplied from one city. The former can be removed with appropriate technology and the latter just by developing cities. You could also have a buildable supply unit that functions as a mobile city, but depletes after X number of turns. TooMuchAbstraction posted:EDIT: something I've often wondered about is why you aren't allowed to spend production on upgrading a unit. If I want to park a unit in a city and dedicate that city's productive output into getting said unit a poo poo-ton of promotions, why can't I? Obviously the hammer cost of promotions would need to be balanced, but you're spending production on non-economic means, and you can still lose the unit and thus all the hammers you spent on making your super-unit. I think it's to simulate the effect of being in combat. Barracks, etc give experience bonuses, but only being "under fire" can really season a unit.
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# ? May 23, 2016 22:20 |
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This all sounds needlessly complicated
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# ? May 23, 2016 22:35 |
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Games > Civilization VI: This all sounds needlessly complicated
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# ? May 23, 2016 22:41 |
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Yeah, supply is something that should probably be abstracted- given you generally have 1-20 years between turns, you'd think they would have figured it out. It's also sort of built in with the healing rules. If you don't bring enough armies to a fight you either have a gap in the fighting where you're healing very slowly or have to bring over another wave of armies. Really, if you wanted to model supply, have a supply unit that allows units in its radius to heal more quickly. Or military units it's attached to, depending how VI winds up modeling the support unit stuff.
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# ? May 23, 2016 22:52 |
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Micromanaging supply lines sounds like the opposite of fun
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# ? May 23, 2016 23:19 |
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majormonotone posted:Micromanaging supply lines sounds like the opposite of fun Yeah, honestly tactical combat and logistics in and of itself are just not things I desire in a civ game. War should be a reflection of the other parts of the game, a reward for skilled diplomacy, building the right things, and preparation, not shuffling units around optimally. There are plenty of very good wargames out there.
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# ? May 23, 2016 23:25 |
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The other issue is that tactical combat violates the Covert Action Rule™, so it's not going to happen.
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# ? May 23, 2016 23:40 |
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Panzeh posted:Yeah, honestly tactical combat and logistics in and of itself are just not things I desire in a civ game. Spoken like a filthy casual. We don't want your kind here.
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# ? May 23, 2016 23:40 |
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Panzeh posted:Yeah, honestly tactical combat and logistics in and of itself are just not things I desire in a civ game. Having it be Total War Civ, while interesting, would not be a fun civ however. I certainly agree with that.
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# ? May 23, 2016 23:52 |
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Poil posted:I only play at emperor but there is certainly no diplomacy involved. That's because you're playing Civ5. In Civ4 there was actual diplomacy. I mean, you could game it (e.g. buying allies by repeatedly giving them tiny gifts), but it was still "you can make friends with the AI, and thereby convince them to do things they wouldn't otherwise do, including join you in wars and vote for you for diplo victory".
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# ? May 24, 2016 00:01 |
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Having to directly manage logistics and supply lines would be fiddly and boring, and shouldn't be included. But being able to disrupt supply lines increases the strategic options, and makes fights more interesting than 'bring more/better troops and focus fire'. Plus, having to at least think about supply lines, even if you're not controlling them manually, means you don't just beeline your army to their capital and ignore every other city to short circuit the war.
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# ? May 24, 2016 00:06 |
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Supply lines are never going to be in a Civ game except in the most abstract way. It's a semi-casual strategy game. In order for supply lines to be in the game, they would be the main focus of the game as they would be the most micromanaged feature.
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# ? May 24, 2016 00:12 |
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The Human Crouton posted:Supply lines are never going to be in a Civ game except in the most abstract way. It's a semi-casual strategy game. In order for supply lines to be in the game, they would be the main focus of the game as they would be the most micromanaged feature.
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# ? May 24, 2016 00:15 |
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# ? May 14, 2024 19:21 |
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Poil posted:What if you set them up as trade routes? Build them and send them from a city to a specific unit, for 30 turns and then you have to reselect that particular unit from the list. Why?
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# ? May 24, 2016 00:15 |