Some questions...

[Maniac]

And here they are:

Around what year will the game begin?

How's technology done, a bit more specifically than theoretic and applied? Is there still a tech tree? How is research done? What's the basic technology everyone starts with?

I didn't immediately see an existing thread about the subject, thus I started this one.

[ElmoTheElk]

The year the game will begin in is not really set. We have the idea of 4000 BC but also a lot earlier (hunter-gatherers). But the best idea now I think is that we start the game at 0 after PlayerName. Since you don't know who the hell Christ is! Generally it will probably cover about the same years as civ1-3.

No there is no tech tree. Or one which doesn't look like civ2's at all. You will be researching multiple technologies at a time and you don't know what you will discover when. Aditionally you can only give a direction which way to reseach, but you will discover other techs too.
The basic technology isn't set yet. We didn't really set a starting year yet, so we can't define these yet. We don't really bother about this now. Our main objectives for design are in making general models which we could start programming with.

Elmo

[The Joker]

Yeah.

We haven't really decided these things yet.

The starting date should propably be as modifiable as possible. At first we propably have to make scenarios, so people can start when they want. Some would want to start early, at the dawn of farming. But due to the length of the game (1 turn = 1 year), and since it most likely will be mp (at least in the beginning when we don't have an AI) others would rather start some time later - perhabs around the equivalents of 2000 BC, to get to modern times faster.

But the main thing is to keep it flexible. Especially regarding the turn length. It should some how be possible to play with longer turns, so you could go from ancient to modern times in just some weeks. And, just as important, shorter turns should be possible. This would be fantastic for scenarios, which I think could have great entertainment value. Of cause we could have the classic ones like WW1/2, the Roman empire etc. But what I would find highly amusing would be to start playing with monthly turns from 2000 BC and onwards. This, if the game becomes what we want it to be, would be the closest people could get to actually running a modern day country, with all the economic, political, military and diplomatic issues that countries have today.

[Maniac]

Thanks for the answers!

I'm currently catching up with the current status of the project, and am forming some ideas myself, mostly about technology and domestication. I'll try to write down my ideas about domestication and post them in the 'Economy Model' thread if I ever find enough time. Oh, btw, I did find an existing thread about the subject of technology - I even posted in it long ago! Completely forgot about it. But when I try to reply in the thread, I always get a 404 error.

Oh yes. I read about the turn system. IMHO, even if the basic turn is only a month, and even with that deployment and operating range, it will make military actions very unrealistic in GGS, as it was in all other civ-like games. Shouldn't it be better to make the most basic time unit a day? For military actions and production/recruiting that is - of course not for the yearly (or decade-ly?) population/economic/research calculations. Then it would finally be possible to realistically conquer entire Persia in 13 years or conquer WW2 Europe in a one-year campaign. Instead of, before invading, waiting three years to cross the Atlantic. That would fit well with the proposed size of a tile: 20-50 km. An infantry army would then move one tile/day or 20 to 50 km, which is a realistic distance to marche per day. Cavalry could travel two if all else is equal. It could be something like Imperium Galactica (have you played that?) where you have several time modes. For example in GGS it could be a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly time mode. The yearly would be used most of the times in peace. The others only if you are executing a military campaign and need to do micro-managing of your army movements.

M@ni@c

[Maniac]

Btw, another question important for my domestication ideas. Is terrain handled as being divided in a small number of fix terrain types à la Civx, or is it more that every tile/area/whatever has a certain number of properties such as height, latitude, longitude, moistiness, temperature, rockiness, sea/wind current? Did I forget any important category?

[The Joker]

I think having a basic time unit being a day would mean too many problems and too much waste. It would, as you correctly states, allow more realistic unit movement. But that is just about it.

At the same time it would make economy, politics etc hell.

And since the game will be multiplayer (at least at first) people would not all use the same level. Having just 1 day per day (REALTIME!!!! ) would make the game incredibly slow and implayable. So no matter what we would need to have 1 year (or, in some scenarios 1 month) per day. And this means that days will move on really really slow, and that if you wanted to move units on a daily basis you would have to be online 24/7.

I think having monthly turns would give much of the benefit from the daily ones, and still ease the network power needed and make the game more playable.

And regarding the unrealistic unit movement. We are trying to make that realistic, with those operating and deployment ranges you mentioned. The idea is that these would work as they would in reality. So it could be possible to move a unit across a continent in just a turn in modern times. Of cause, that is only the case if moving through friendly territory. If that is not the case then movement would be significantly slower, so it wont be possible to conquor a continent in just a day. It would take longer, although it would not take millenia, as were the case in Civ and Civ2.

And the terrain types will indeed be different from Civ. In fact they are gonna be a lot like you described, with some different values for each area. But there is a limit to the amount of values we want. Each area (this is our replacement for tiles) will propably not consist of more than 1 byte (256 possibilities) of data, here not including the elevation, size and actual shape of the area.

I hope you indeed will make some more posts. You are more than welcome!

[Maniac]

At the same time it would make economy, politics etc hell.

How so? Only the military aspect would work on a daily basis. The other aspects still on a yearly basis or so. However, you are right - it's impossible for multiplayer. I was thinking in terms of Single Player.

Well, then I just hope the player will be able to set a lot of IF-THEN conditions for his armies.

Btw, off topic, do you know chess theory? Cause your last move was not really one I'd expect from a casual player.

see ye
Maniac

[The Joker]

Yes, you are indeed right that the player should be able to give advanced orders to his units, to allow them to act intelligently to a lot different scenarios, which will occur with the preplanned turns that we are using.

But no. I don't know anything about chess theory. I just played it a bit. Well, maybe more than a bit, but not very much. Great game we're playing, BTW.

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

If you measure unit speed by km/day and not by tile/turn, you can have yearly turns and still a logical game

[The Joker]

I agree completely.

The map distance unit should be km. No question about that.

It will also make a lot of cool scenarios possible, since a map of any size could be made.

And if it is possible, at least with the units, I also think that different turn lengths should be possible.

Imagine playing the battle for Stalingrad on a 10 000 sq km map and daily turns!!!!

What I am saying is that if we make sure that all distances are in km nothing has to be done really to allow small maps with great graphical complexity, apart from someone actually making them. There should be next to no limit to the size of each area. Of cause having only 10 sq km areas on an earth map would be very demanding on the computer. But it could be possible.

And when/if we go 3D we could have zooming capabilities, so people could see the amount of details that they wanted!

I know that all this seems pretty extreme. But what I am saying is that it doesn't have to require very much work.

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

Yes.
Scalability + Customability + Modular Programming Approach = longevity.



I love this project...