Gameplay Considerations

[F_Smith]

It's been entirely too quiet around here lately, so let me kick off a thread that should be interesting to discuss.

What actual gameplay decisions will the player be required to make?

I'll throw out a few possibilities, for comments:

[*]Task Force orders (movement, training, etc).
[*]Government Orders (tax rate, govt policies, spending priorities).
[*]Hiring/firing characters as leaders of various groups.[/list]

Is that it? Or will there be more? Will the player have any actual control over the people? How about the tech growth (beyond spending priorities)? What kind of decisions will need to be made about military supply?

P.S. -- we're pretty close to a minimally 'playable' alpha, altho the graphics may be crude (perhaps the same little line drawings and stick figures in the Beast). Lee is doing great on the Map interface, and it will be easy to plug his code into the alpha once it's ready. So keep in touch the next week or two, and you may have something to play around with!

[F_Smith]

Hi, Richard:

Good points.

So how should the actual diplomacy be handled?

I assume a player can--

[*]Make requests/demands/offers.
[*]Accept or reject the requests/demands/offers of others.[/list]

Does this cover all the gameplay considerations?

As far as economy, ecology, and tech direction -- will all these be controlled via 'spending'?

Should a player have personal wealth reserves, too? Like in Caesar 3. What do you think?



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Player's Gameplay Controls Under Consideration So Far:


[*]Task Force orders (movement, training, response types, etc).
[*]Govt Orders (govt policies, spending priorities, secret police actions).
[*]Diplomatic Actions (make/reject/accept offers, demands and requests of other civs).
[*]Hiring/firing game characters as leaders of some groups (military, bueracracy, state-run church).
[*]Personal (character) spending priorities.[/list]
[This message has been edited by F_Smith (edited November 01, 2000).]

[Mark_Everson]

I don't have much time, need to pack for my business trip etc.

Diplomacy
add spying orders and spending levels for the spy service

Economy
(from the interface part of the econ web page)
B) Civ-wide detailed econ interface
Here you can pick civ-wide levels of taxation, taxes for merchants broken down by incomming, outgoing and domestic trade, values of trade with different civs, and what the commodities are, and the top-three to-do picks of your advisor. Also in here should be a map of the civ showing the different provinces if the player wants to go down to the provincial level. There will also be icons leading to micro-management screens for ordering builds, subsidization and/or taxation of:

improvements to food... sites (B1)

infrastructure types (B2)

particular specials etc. (B3)

ratios of weapons types or unit types to build, and how much in total that costs (B4)

People-Mover commands for forced or incentivized migration. (B5)

All these show current levels and have a way to change the level.


And as an aside, since this thread needs to be kept Very general or it will get out of hand, I think any detailed discussions on the issues need to be in the respective threads for the models.

See you all Sunday evening.

[Richard Bruns]

Diplomacy! Both internal and external. Deal with AI governments and your people. Hopefully we can get them to act rational, so you can actually keep friends. Civ 2 suffered because the AI always broke promises and would never be reasonable. Players were forced to respond in kind, which lessens the playing experience. If I trade techs and start an alliance, I want them to still like me the next turn. There shoudl be things like power blocks and alliances.

As part of that, we have tech trading. Are you willing to teach your allies how to make nukes, like the USA did afer WW2? This game should encourage players to do that. In civ2, gining the AI a tech for an alliance meant that it would just declare war and use that tech against you in a few turns.

Economy management is also a big one. Here you determine spending preferences and, indirectly, research goals. Economic policy is IMO one of the prime gameplay considerations.

And as part of that, there is ecology management. You, the immortal ruler, will have to deal with ling term ecological consequences of your and other civ's actions. But you can't cripple your economy, either.

[Henrique Duarte]

My grain of salt on diplomacy...

I´ve been visiting a recent game site of a strategy game of the 1500-1800 period, and according to recent buyers and beta testers the game´s diplomacy system is tremendous and is fundamental for a balanced game:

Several strategic alliances are regularly formed between nations where balance of power is searched ex´s: Portugal+France vs Spain+Austria
Sweden+Poland vs Denmark+Russia ....

Whenever a bigger nation grows bigger several smaller powers gang together so that the combined power of their alliance might be able to face the big guy...if possible they go and reduce the enemy down to size.

For Clash diplomatic options should range from dynastical ties proposals (Royal marriages), vassalage and full anexation through diplomacy, economic ties (product specific, area specific or full economic trade freedom), tech knowledge exchange - in our case application techs only, declarations of war, peace seatlements...and simple bribing or threatning options should also be provided.

The development and religion affinity of the two states concerned should determine the diplomatic options and influence tremendously the effects of each diplomatic option...

cya

P.S. the game is called Europa Universalis...www.europa-universalis.com...maybe you should take a peak at this one...
[This message has been edited by Henrique Duarte (edited November 02, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Henrique Duarte (edited November 02, 2000).]

[Mark_Everson]

Hi Henrique

Good to hear from you! Most of the stuff you mention is already planned. I don't want to respond in detail, because this thread isn't really the place for discussion of the diplomatic model per se. If you want to take the discussion further, you should probably put your post in the diplo thread.

[Henrique Duarte]

O.K. Mark

Still terribly short on time for any serious dedication but I still manage to keep an eye on Clash +- every couple of days :-).

I´ll take a better look at the dipl. model first...

By the way I am pretty impressed with the work done :-)

keep it up

Henrique

[roquijad]

Hi all,

That thing about little powers making alliances to protect themselves from the big power is IMO really nice. We must have it!

I think player decisions are only those mentioned in F_Smith's last post. Trying not to get into too much detail, I'd say in the govt part, players will have to decide in this general areas:

1) Govt Profile (political structure and policies)
2) Foul Play & Internal Intelligence levels
3) Spending Profile (related to the econ model)

[Lord God Jinnai]

Just a point i'd like to make...spying and other espionage acts shouldn't be listed under 'diplomacy' as they aren't acts of diplomacy. Not that i don't want it and it should be considered for the upcoming model, but plz list it somewhere like Special Actions or something or under plain Espionage Acts.

One thing i would like to see is the basic integration of a few of the fundimental technologies such as agriculture, transportation and communication. Maybe 1 application tech for each and 1-2 that crosses over.