Design: Random ideas for game balance/micromanagement

[MrBaggins]

1) Abstract more unconventional units.

First, implementing the caravan as an abstract unit really worked well, in my view. Although I can understand people not liking the loss of control... although to me, its actually an improvement.

My idea is that all the unconventional units... except, perhaps slavers, should be abstracted, to a "management dialog" where actions and targets could be selected, and current "effects" shown.

The "range" should be limited to a certain distance from any of a players cities. Certain techs... horseback riding, shipbuilding etc.. should extend that range.

Why? Well.. the AI gets to compete this way, since it doesn't need to escort and route these units... which ultimately means that a human player doesn't get affected by them. This is the reason their effects got nerfed in my opinion. Too easy for the human to abuse.

If... however, they are easy to target, by abstracting them, then a player can get ganged up on by these, pretty easily... IF he is diplomatically unfriendly. AI alliances, and ganging up with these tactics might even cause a human to sue for peace; I.E. stop the unconventional attacks, and I'll sign a peace treaty.

It also reduces unit management, and thus lessens micromanagement.

Shouldn't be terribly hard to implement, either.


More random ideas to come...

[Pedrunn]

Yes. As you said makes more difficult for the AI to use special attacks and increases micromanagement.
The unconventional unit walking in the map not only is unrealistic but also creates a barrier wher the other civs units cant walk through withou killing the unit.

Note: I even started a slic code. Where the ClickCity event opened a messagebox with the special atacks orders groups (Diplomat, Spionage, Biological, Terrorism) this created the respective special unit near the city and opened a new window with the option (ex: for spionage: Incite Revolution, Investigate city, Steal technology; for terrorism: Destroy Buildings, Plant Nuke, Assassinate Ruler). The player would choose a option and the attack was made.
Of course there is the problem that a messagebox has a limit of five buttons. But i think it would work fine although i never went beyond the coding of the messagebox tree.

[Pedrunn]

Re: Design: Random ideas for game balance/micromanagement

Originally posted by MrBaggins
perhaps slavers, should be abstracted, to a "management dialog" where actions and targets could be selected, and current "effects" shown.

I dream the day CTP2 trade system is going to be a buying/Selling and acumulating resources system. Slavers would be a resource to buy and sell.

Originally posted by MrBaggins
The "range" should be limited to a certain distance from any of a players cities. Certain techs... horseback riding, shipbuilding etc.. should extend that range.

You could create make the distance a reducing sucess rate factor. This factor would decrease with the advances you said. Makes more sense. Plus I dont want to open a screen wanting to attack acity to fail because of a few tiles away of the limit range. This would be frustating.

[Tamerlin]

I agree with you MrBaggins, most of the Special units can be abstracted, but as Pedrunn suggested it distance from the closest friendly city should introduce a modifier and should not prevent from making the attack/action you have bought the unit for.

But there is indeed a problem as many of these special units are also used to "defend" your nation as they can spot ennemy stealth units or reduce the chances of success those units. For example, as soon as I can produce spies I build one in each city so that I can spot ennemy stealth units coming close to them.

[uppi]

Originally posted by Tamerlin
I agree with you MrBaggins, most of the Special units can be abstracted, but as Pedrunn suggested it distance from the closest friendly city should introduce a modifier and should not prevent from making the attack/action you have bought the unit for.

But there is indeed a problem as many of these special units are also used to "defend" your nation as they can spot ennemy stealth units or reduce the chances of success those units. For example, as soon as I can produce spies I build one in each city so that I can spot ennemy stealth units coming close to them.

As the other stealth units wouldn't need to come to your city anymore, spies wouldn't see anything. Therefore you wouldn't need them in your city. If we make the special units abstract we also have to make the defense abstract. We could introduce a modifier of how succesful the attacks of the enemy are.

So if you have no spies, the spies of the enemys can do what they want without being caught. If you have lots of them, the others only have a minimal chance to succeed.

And I think it should be dependend on how many cities you have. If you have 10 spies and one city your chances are much better than if you have 10 spies for 100 cities.

[Locutus]

I definitely agree that espionage and diplomacy would work a lot better without tediously having to move units all over the map (and there are plenty of games out there that implement these concepts in this manner), but I'm not sure how to properly implement this system for economic/religious units.

But basically I would be in favour of this: it would streamline gameplay and reduce micromanagement, help the AI, and it might help remedy the disliking that a lot of civ players have of unconventional warfare.

For determining the range of unconventional warfare, I would also allow it to 'travel' over trade routes, and make the establishment of embassies and planting spies and such (things that could also be done without having to move units on the map, of course) increase the possibilities and chances of success.

[kaan]

Originally posted by uppi


As the other stealth units wouldn't need to come to your city anymore, spies wouldn't see anything. Therefore you wouldn't need them in your city. If we make the special units abstract we also have to make the defense abstract. We could introduce a modifier of how succesful the attacks of the enemy are.

So if you have no spies, the spies of the enemys can do what they want without being caught. If you have lots of them, the others only have a minimal chance to succeed.

And I think it should be dependend on how many cities you have. If you have 10 spies and one city your chances are much better than if you have 10 spies for 100 cities.

This sounds a lot like the system in MOO3.

I agree that this would be a good solution for diplomats, lawyers and some spies but i still want to be able to use spies for recon missions and i dont think the terrorist units should be abstracted at all.

klaus

[MrBaggins]

Wow... I'm so impressed with the response.

You've all added great concepts... to the basic idea.

I realized after I wrote the piece that there wasn't any real concept of defence in the system, as written, but having (and stockpiling, essentially) abstracted unconventional defense units... like diplomats(first?) and spies... would work for the system well.

I like the idea of making range not a hard cap, but a modifier to success...

and I ESPECIALLY like the idea of making this based on trade... so that the borderline unconventional units, like clerics, lawyers, corporate franchises and so on... and not terrorist units... as kaan said, would work over established trade routes.

It gives another reason to keep those routes open... but... the problem with it is... a player could close himself off to annoying attacks by cutting the trade route. Maybe once a trade route is opened then a link to that city is established for purposes of unconventional war, continuously, rather than the duration of the trade?

[Solver]

On the first thought, I'm against it - love moving Spies and other units over the map. However, if a decent GUI implementation is done, and factors for distance/success are balanced, then why not. Although, killing and finding unconventional units is part of the game...

[MrBaggins]

A couple of points.

First, anything to do with movement on the map, is usually a human advantage.

A human can evade pretty well, AND anticipate and search. An AI has a tough time doing that.

Trade was implemented as an abstract form in CtP2 and I really don't think that took away from the game.

For me, the end result was important; the trade route... not the travel from one city to another.

I don't know, since its not been implemented, but I have a feeling that other unconventional units might have the same feel; that its the end result of the effect thats important, and CERTAINLY some satisfaction at the AI effectively using the units. A system which only the player can utilize tends to leave an empty feeling with me.

I absolutely agree that interface is important though.

As for killing/finding unconventional units, that could still happen... perhaps as a spy function... they could target other unconventional units in other cities.

[Solver]

First, anything to do with movement on the map, is usually a human advantage.

A human can evade pretty well, AND anticipate and search. An AI has a tough time doing that.

Definitely. However, as said, I do somehow enjoy actually loading my spies in transports and moving them to the enemy more than giving an order via control screen.

I don't know, since its not been implemented, but I have a feeling that other unconventional units might have the same feel; that its the end result of the effect thats important, and CERTAINLY some satisfaction at the AI effectively using the units. A system which only the player can utilize tends to leave an empty feeling with me.

I will definitely appreciate the change if it helps the AI - though I've seen it make use of Slavers.

I absolutely agree that interface is important though.

Civ 3 did that rather well. That espionage screen gives access to every unconventional function there was on one screen....

[uppi]

Originally posted by MrBaggins
As for killing/finding unconventional units, that could still happen... perhaps as a spy function... they could target other unconventional units in other cities.

The problem would be, that if someone has a huge amount of special units he could target all the defending units, kill them and then terrorize the enemy. And the others would have no chance to defend, as their new spies would be killed immediately.

[MrBaggins]

Originally posted by uppi


The problem would be, that if someone has a huge amount of special units he could target all the defending units, kill them and then terrorize the enemy. And the others would have no chance to defend, as their new spies would be killed immediately.

Certain incidents, such as assassination would put a city "on edge", and preclude further attempts... thus limiting such incidents to one a turn, per city.

That, and the attempts not having a 100% success rate, should solve the issue.

Also, we would introduce a modifier on success, if a player starts to spam a particular unconventional attack, thus preventing cheese, based around the concept that a society would alter its laws if an outsider abused them enough.

[drulius]

How about abstracting the approach in a slighty different way where all unconventional attacks are represented by the same stealth unit (graphics change with techs but fundementally the unit would be only either offensive or defensive). If unconventional and conventional units cannot hurt each other (unless a stealth unit is in a regular stack that gets attacked), but defensive stealth always kills offensive stealth (by touch). And if the stealth units have the same reveal rules as now, then with cheap defensive stealth units(counter spies, attorney's general, abolishionists) and expensive offensive stealth units(spies, lawyers, slavers), all you would have to do is keep the offensive stealth unit alive in enemy territory (or within range of the target) long enough to launch the attack and then the actual unconventional attack could easily get abstracted to message dialogs (Slavers in range of successful conventional attacks wouldn't need dialogs unless we want the ability to select the destination city for the new slave). I think the AI might actually have defensive advantage here, how many humans have the patience to patrol every vulnerable tile of their territory with an unconventional unit in as few turns as possible through the whole game? Even then, the attacking unit could be on a ship or across a single beach tile.

I must admit a certain unique level of satisfaction I don't get from any other game but that I do get from moving my Eco-Ranger up to a target city and then blowing it up turning the city into park land, or marching a lone Infector unit through an enemy's cities, and then leaving it around to get population decline updates and watch the biohazard warnings flash above the infected cities.

[Maquiladora]

I would like to get rid of Slavers stealth ability so the Slaver can only really be used stacked with an army or alone hunting down lone settlers and abstract all other unconventionals.