Endgame options

[Westergaard]

Ahaa… Now I understand! Transcendence is achieved when a civ has existed a number of years or accumulated a number of points (I like the latter solution best), right? I first thought that transcendence was something inevitable at the end of a technology-tree like in SMAC, and so it would only be accomplished in a certain time-period (out in the far future). But you think it’s accomplished when an empire has survived long enough, right?

Assuming this is correct, I see a whole new bunch of problems coming. Initially I thought that transcendence was a final project, ending the game. Now that I understand that it’s not, such a project is missing. I know that some people are opposed to the idea of an ending project, but I maintain that this is indispensable. If the game is allowed to continue on with however many technologies there are designed, the game will end up being played chiefly in the future. I think that the future should be modelled, but not at the expense of the past. The longer the game continues the smaller the history part becomes. This is fine, to a point. And I don’t know if that point should be 2050 or 3000, but I know that if the game is unlimited it has the potential of going on for a hilariously long time. If it FE went on to about 30.000 AD it would leave a game where the past took up only 12% of the game. I think that is unfeasible, and consequently I think that an ending project is essential.

I like the transcendence idea however and I think it should be implemented. But I also think that we should come up with a new ending project.

[Lord God Jinnai]

Well there isn't ness. any problem with F_Smith's proposal except that there would need to be some minimal technological or understanding of what it means to transcend. Also the civilization as a whole would need to be geared into that direction. A civ that survives because it is able to supress everyone else wouldn't cut it IMO. Finaly the time factor is for the reason i would call 'golden age' thinking in that it would take an extreme amount of prosperous time for people to be able to come up with these ideas and whatnot needed. The end of the golden age would mean an end to the project because after a few years, facts are lost or at best ger distorted in meaning or actual wording and the second golden age if there was one would haveto take time to sort things out, ect. And in the end take just as long.

[F_Smith]

West:

I agree, a certain number of points. And that should probably only make you elligible to transcend -- then your people would have to reach a certain level of 'education' -- the top level of education could be called 'enlightened', perhaps, and from there you can chose to 'transcend'?

Remember, the idea is for an online multiplayer game, which is why transcendence doesn't end the game. If the game ended, it would mean the end of a game for dozens of people. I don't know if ya'll want to include transcendence for a single-player scenario, that's up to everyone else.

* * *

Lordy:

I do think a civ can reach transcendence thru suppressing others.

I love your idea of a 'golden age'!!! Consider that done?

[Lord God Jinnai]

No, unfortunatly it cannot. I'll explain. See, in the short run, its possible to have a 'golden age' while surpressing most of the populace, but as time goes on, more and more money and resources will be sucked into keeping those who you want to be supressed, surpressed so there's less and less time to consider ideas and such so without some major breakthru there can be no golden age. That doesn't mean that democracy is the only key to this, just that surpression isn't, atleast in its extreme form (as democracy its its extreme form is anarchism which isn't going to work either).

[Westergaard]

F_Smith:
OK, glad we agree. Transcendence is a cool idea for multiplayer. But I still think that we should agree on a real "ending project". I made a brainstorm and came up with this list of more or less wild projects:

• Go to Alpha Centauri (again-again)
• "Single-player-transcendence" which do end the game
• Colonize other planets (I don't like this one - involves other maps)
• Energy sufficiency as proposed in the start of this thread (I agree that this one lacks the je-ne-sais-quoi, which makes a cool ending – should be possible to achieve though)
• Discovering some new technology with huge consequences for the world, as we know it. “Our scientists has discovered the meaning of life” or something. (Maybe this is part of transcendence?)
• Construct a “ringworld” (sci-fi term for a giant “belt” around a star, able to collect unlimited energy, on a huge area of land. Think it was a guy named Dyson who invented it)
• Contact extraterrestrial life. (SETI anyone?)
• Win a final war against hostile aliens.
• Deflect a huge meteor, which would otherwise destroy the entire planet. (Build a Bruce Willis wonder or something )
• Find the cure for a newly found, lethal virus which would otherwise wipe out the entire population. (almost similary to the previous)
• Planetary exodus: All people in the world are lifted into space cities and Earth is declared natural preserve.

I know that some of these projects sounds hilarious/stupid but it were just a quick brainstorm.

One of these projects should be used as an absolute ending at where it would be impossible to advance any further. I don’t think the game should end at a set year, only at a set technology-level – this leaves the option of literally bombing the enemies (and yourself) back to the stone-age.

Come to think of it, it would be cool if there were a lot of different endings possible (more than FE SMAC). This gives the player more options, which is a good thing. Either a civ could pursue a complete planetary exodus, or they could aim for a small colonization mission to Alpha Centauri. Each ending should of course provide different points.

The meteor, alien attack and virus-type endings could be randomly triggered by certain parameters. Alien attacks could FE be a risk if a civ pursued the “alien contact ending”. Lethal virus ending could be possible in overly polluted worlds (Don’t know if it should still be a “victory condition” however. Maybe just a bad random event if you didn’t protect the environment.

Of course there should also be the traditional endings: Unite the world peacefully, conquer the world, convert everybody to a certain religion and any other forms of economic civilian victories. But these don’t guarantee an ending at a certain point and the problem with the limitless game occurs.

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Oh – by the way. I’m going on vacation tomorrow, for an entire week, so I can’t participate in the discussion until then. I’m going to Sicily See ya.

[Mark_Everson]

I may have missed it, but I didn't see "Stable world government" or some such as a way to end the game. Obviously its not very good for a perpetual game, since things will get pretty boring if everyone is in a peaceful world confederation (unless the aliens land and attack :P ). But for a SP game its a good way to end it in a constructive way. If it lasts sufficiently long, each power in the world govt. would get a score bonus and the game would end.

[Whitemage]

Hi!

Greetings from an offical 'lurker'!
First off, I think you guys are doing a great job-
I'm really looking forword to Clash. Some ideas on this
subject:

I don't think 'hold the world for 100 turns' is a very good ending. After 100 turns, the excitement of conquring the world kinda wears off.'Stable World Government'however, is a good idea (the future of the U.N...).

Undersea citys and space satellites are great too! And thare should be an option to win thruw 'most points by year X'.
I gotta go- more later.

[Mark_Everson]

Hey Whitemage:

I agree with you that we need to make sure our victory conditions aren't anti-climactic. We'll need to balance them for the correct feel when we get to that stage in the demos.

[Twinge]

quote: Well i never liked the endgames, but if we have them, there should the the possibility of many types for many types of players, not all are wanting to take over the world or be the most technological advanced so we should consider that.

Your all missing the biggest and probably most important point:
(Two Words : ) USER CHOICE!


I personally am a strong beliver in having many, many options available for the user to change at their own discretion. Map editing and thie like are only the begging.

quote: First, remember that we're only talking about one scenario here -- a 'history of modern man' scenario. There absolutely will be other scenarios that start later than the stone age, etc.

Exactly. There needs to be a wide variety of custom scenarios and user defined options for how the game goes, where it begins, and how it ends. Other user-changes might include restrictions on technology, etc.

quote: What I'm basically saying is that the future of mankind will change drastically, and it will keep changing. A game trying to model the world forever, would have to make the world go static at some point. Somewhere there'd have to be a limit, and in real life I just don't think there ever will be. The future development of mankind is limitless, and thus cannot be realistically and entirely modelled in any type of game.

Well, if you look at many past civilizations, they do die out, and I think a "global set back" is somewhat feasable. Just look at the dark ages; they lost major technology, among other things. While this might not be the most interesting option, it should be an option (kinda like a death match)

quote: So this would basically be an option for game startup. One choice would be to limit the game to near future techs and the planet Earth and end with the building procests. Another would be to go into far future techs and colonization of other planets and end with the 'transencence' project.

This is about the only place I saw that even touched on anything like I'm talking about; It seems like a great idea to me. Basically I envision A) A few (4-10) sets of possible winning conditions: these might be 1-Classic, like Civ {Dominate or space travel}, 2-Perpetual (As Discussed Earlier), 3-Technology {Either getting a certain total % of Tech or Colonizing Moon, Underwater, etc}; etc, etc. And possibility B, the one I like more: A few single options, and the primary area where theres basically a lot checkboxes where the user chooses what ending condtions are possible (most of them should be relativly equally hard to get)

And yet another quote on the subject:

quote: Regarding the reason for a space race, I thinkt it should be up to the player what do to. But all possibilities should be included. If the player wanted to go to space for strategic reasons - fine. If he wanted to solve energy problems - OK or if even if he went there for research purposes, it should all be possible.

The more possibilitys, the more interesting, the more fun, the more gameplay, the more likely people are to buy it.

Well, that's about enough for now.

quote: Your standing on my foot!

[This message has been edited by Twinge (edited December 16, 2000).]

[Richard Bruns]

We have definitely been planning for player choice. I see this project as making not a game, but a game engine and creation utility. When we are discussing the "default" game, we are basically making one possible scenario out of many. What we plan on doing is having programmers make the game editors first, and then have others make scenarios using those editors. The "default game" will be a scenario that is the standard for miltiplayer games. Anyone will be able to make any scenario they want, using the same tools that we used to make the default game. Scenario and modpack possibilities are unlimited.

But to multiplay those new scenarios, you will have to get others to download them. The basic multiplayer game cannot be too varied and customizable, or people could get their strategy messed up when playing. Too much variation in the default multiplayer would eliminate the possibly of a fair ladder or ranking system.

[Twinge]

Ah, I see. While that sounds like a good idea, I think whatever you choose should be default (Will include global conquest, for sure, not sure what else), but some of the other seperate scenarios shouldnt be as seperate as you imply. A lot of these possible endings were good ideas, and more than just the defualt should be implemented in the basic game (For a simple, not so good comparison-In Civ, you could start a random world, do earth, or customize the world, which were all different ways to play)

quote: But to multiplay those new scenarios, you will have to get others to download them. The basic multiplayer game cannot be too varied and customizable, or people could get their strategy messed up when playing. Too much variation in the default multiplayer would eliminate the possibly of a fair ladder or ranking system.

The default doesnt exactly need to be varied so much, but as I said earlier there should be other "already included" kinds of scenarios. That way, the players would decide before the game begins what kind of game they would play, what map, etc.
This could also go back to my suggestion of a few basic "sets" of winning conditions, where each set contains, say, 1-4 different ways to win, and theres a total of maybe 5 sets. If you wanted ladder games, you could have a ladder devoted to each set.

quote: Why must Saturday come so many times a week??

[Richard Bruns]

I've bumped up a recent thread about game options. It was designed more for the startup than the ending, but it lets you see the kinds of things we were planning on. There will be selectable variation in a lot of things built in.

[Twinge]

In short: That's my kind of game!
I've always found most commercial games lacked customization. Goldeneye for N64 was a great game, but not enough customization IN what weapons for multiplayer, time/etc limits. Perfect Dark is pretty much the same but with a lot of great customization and other features. The only real thing I'd add would be (more customization) a level editor & weapon editor =)
Same for most commercial games, just not enough you can change to make the game more tailored and fun for the user. Hope it comes out good.

[Twinge]

Well, it's been a year or more, and I've returned (perhaps temporarily, perhaps not)

Thought I'd start at the old threads I had posted in and work my way up =)

A few new thoughts/review of the subject(s):
There is such a thing as being realistic and also setting it too much "in stone". If you think about it, if n early any important advance or event was discovered or happened at a different time, the future differentations would be exponential. It'd be interesting if the tech chart could be dynamic, to some extent, and you don't always need certain % of tech A to get tech B.
Hard to implement though, and Might add too much confusion.

A "Hapiness" Ending might be another idea. The general populace loves you and your ruling styles so much that foriegn civilizations start uprising, migrating, or whatever else to be under your prosperous rule.

I'd also like to see more peacetime than in the Civ games. (I think your already planning this but IU'll mention it anyway) I mean, in most of the Civ games I'd spend maybe 1 turn at peace for every 10 turns at war (not including the time before I met anyone, of course) partially due to the easilly pissed AI and partially because of the game design.

Well i never liked the endgames, but if we have them, there should the the possibility of many types for many types of players, not all are wanting to take over the world or be the most technological advanced so we should consider that.

Exactly. I still like the idea of Sets or checkboxes where you basically turn on what can end the game and such. You can just decide on one signle goal to work towords, a ton of goals that can be achieved for perhaps a quicker game, or (for most players) somewhere in between. Ending could include bloodlust, peace, exceptional government, happiness, alpha centauri, auto-ending at a specific date, transcendence, sea colonization, solving energy crisis (fusion, solar, anti-particles, etc) Or a combination of mroe than 1. for example, you'd have to be both peaceful and transcend (makes sense) or perhaps you'd have to solve both energy crisis, food crisis, etc. Even a MOO style ending might work if optional. Some single player games could act more like Sim scenarios, where if you dont do X thing by Y time you lose the scenario.

I don’t think the game should end at a set year, only at a set technology-level

Another thing best left to user-choice =) Set technology would be better IMO, but I'm sure some people would like to end at a year at least some of the time.

Or we could institute arbitrary catastrophes that send people back to the stone ages when tech gets to a certain point. That could make things go forever, but it could seem like a cheap trick and annoy players.

As always, a middle ground or balance is needed. Another user option, perhaps =) In a "hard" level game, this could be set high and have, say, a whopping 0.4% chance of happening each turn after the 50th or something like that. Certainly an option though; possible global disasters in every game would be lame.

The future development of mankind is limitless

Perhaps I personally think mankind will kill itself off within, say, 1000-2000 years.
Human's development could have given so many different things in different orders too. Electricity could have been discovered in the 1600s, if conditions were right. Very hard to add that kind of complexity in any game though, even Clash.

Some people mention the "perpetual" style of game, but that could NOT be standard. Many players wouldn't want to play a single game for such a massive amount of time. It would be a nice option tho, but I think the Clash group should focus on a more standard style (it can end in a "reasonable" amount of time, say 8-36 hours) Ideally, both options would be in.

i hope that space conquest will be triggered by the need for ICBMs, like in reality.

There are many ways to the same end. A more peacful society might simply go into space for the basic human curiosity. A lot of ways to look at things. If everything technology-wise in the game always happens like it happened in our world, it would get boring quicker than if it were more dynamic. As always, a middle ground here would be ideal. Options are good again as well =)

I personally think that there will have to be a cut-off somewhere, so the balance between past, present and future won’t become distorted.

Quite true. Probably another user option =) It would be interesting if you could go deep enough to go in a week-by-week basis, for example, in a WWI scenario or something.

It's all about user choice =)
I don't remeber what was in that "game options" thread, so I'll have to go reread that one too eventually.
Some of this is repetitious but this post hasn't been touched since I left so it's probably about time for it to resurface anyway

[Simon Loverix]

The end of the game should be the point where there is no longer a 'clash of civilizations', at which moment the game becomes pointless. Also, the main focus of the game should stay on earth.

You have three categories of endings:
Domination: One civ dominates the world or an aspect of it so totally that opposition has no reasonable chance.
Cooperation: All civs work together, which eliminates the importance of relative power.
Destruction: The end of humankind

Domination goals include: world conquest, monopolizing trade, energy, diplomacy, religion, etc.
Cooperation goals include: world peace, a UN type institution controlling trade, energy, etc.
Destruction includes natural and artificial disasters.

Achievements do not end the game but give you points. Expeditions, buildings, science, etc. are all achievements. These include space stations, satellites, etc. They can provide a significant boost towards a domination, however. If there was only one colonizable planet nearby, the civ to colonize it would probably gain space dominance.

Transcendence can be seen as a destruction, since enlightened beings are not really basic, greedy, mortal, imperfect humans.. It also seems strange to me that an enlightened civilization will deny its elated state to other civs. So i propose that transcendence is either for all civs or none, which implies that transcendence would also be cooperation. And if other civs do cooperate, thereby acknowledging your superiority in culture, science etc. it certainly also is a domination. Transcendence thus is the ultimate goal, since it is unlikely to achieve it without achieving a rist of other goals. (Transcendence is, I suppose, the absence of all material needs.)

Now, how do these end the game? I think that a player should be able to choose to end his game when one or more goals are achieved. You could manipulate the minimum, type and specific goals needed, but the decision when to stop exactly should be one the player makes. The scenario designer decides when the player can stop, but should not forbid him/her(/it) to do better than required.

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The points:

Every turn basic indicators of a civs power (population, trade, military, ..) are converted to points and recorded. That's a power graph. To calculate the final score you sum up all points, for every [I]year[I/], not for every turn. That's it. A thousand-year empire in the bronze age will roughly be worth as much as a century of dominance in the modern world, though it took less turns. But farther on the tech tree, points are easier to achieve, so it encourages the player to stay.
Goals and achievements that are of timeless value and prestige give the civilization a fixed point bonus every year until the end of time, i.e. the end of the game. Even if the civ becomes eliminated afterwards, it still gets points. This encourages the player to do well early in the game.