What is fun?

[Darkstar]

Humm...

I have seen a lot of very INTERESTING conversations and ideas and whatnot. But I have a simple question for everyone...

What is fun?

And more importantly...

What is fun in a TBS game?

See, to me, the EARLY game is really where most fun is in computer TBS games. When you are out exploring (that's unit pushing though... amazing, isn't it?), and when you don't know if you are even going to survive for another 20 turns...

THAT'S FUN!

It's the discovery and unknown.

Now, the fun slowly dies down after that. There is a point where I know I've crossed critical mass. Doesn't matter WHAT happens, I know I've won now. Period. Then the only fun left is deciding which order I take over opponents and their real estate. After a bit, that gets... boring, as even THAT doesn't matter. Drop off one core army, and that continent is taken, even if I play ping pong, and take the furthest city from the last taken on the continent. Blah.

Now, unit pushing is BORING. Hurry up and declare me the winner... heck with it... start new game. Ah... back to FUN!

ABSOLUTELY new games are even MORE fun. It's the discovery of the game itself. But that's another issue.

I bring this up because I have been seeing various posters comments... and wondering where they see the fun of what they seem to be driving for. I am just trying to understand the people of the team... and the frequent and infrequent guests.

Just the newest village idiot...

[heardie]

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...&highlight=fun is also about this topic

[The Joker]

Good question. And good analysis. It reminds me a lot of what was once discussed when we discussed Civ3, in a debate that eventually led some of us to start GGS.

I think the best way to keep the game fun is through the well know Rise and Fall of Great Powers idea. Think history. In history you are never sure if you have won. Huge empires collaps, or are surpassed by others, in a matter of decades. In Civ2 the strong just got stronger, and the weak weaker. That is simply the opposite of what we are going to do. In GGS staying on top should be at least as much work and challenge (read "fun") as getting there.

So how are we going to do this?

Well, I think the key here is to observe history, and try to copy that as much as we can while still making the game fun and, well, a game. What we need to figure out is the basic algorithms of the game. In Civ2, and all other TBS games there are algorithms in the game that makes it an advantage to be strong, and large. You get more ressources, which means you can build more stuff and so get even stronger. These algorithms should not be changed. What we need to do is simply make some other algorithms, that works in the opposite directions. Algorithms, that makes a civ weaker, the larger it gets. This could be due to more corruption, more civil unrest, slower adaption to new situations etc. These algorithms should not, however, work in the same scopes and areas as the "large is good" algorithms. This would mean that if you make your civ larger you would be stronger in some areas, but weaker in others. And perhabs you would be stronger in the short, but weaker in the long run.

I know what I have described is pretty theoretic, and I am by no means implying that implementing it will be anything resembling easy. But what I am saying is, this is propably our best sollution, and it can be done. We can do it.

[ElmoTheElk]

I agree with you here. One of the main things that eventually lead to this project was to have a bigger fun factor in civ games (and the tbs genre at large). One of the main thing that should contibute to this is the Rise And Fall idea we will try to implent. It's generally that it will become very hard to upkeep a very large empire. Because of 'natural' systems like too less money and decreasing happyness.

Elmo