Design: Random ideas for game balance/micromanagement

[KHOMAR]

it would be great if the degree of micromanagement could be set in the start game panel or options.

[KHOMAR]

for helping against spies,a replacement for abstracted units could come from cities population with a score of loyalty towards the leader,maybe govt-dependent,which drives citizens reaction(lynch,denunciation,or in the worst case ,cooperation or high treason)

[KHOMAR]

the parameter of loyalty could be used to instaurate spontaneously an abstracting militia in town at a certain level and under certain governement,and to affect production speed of certain military unit (infantry-type troops for example).

[tyrantpimp]

I propse a civ would have to pay upkeep for their spy network and depending on the level of funding the better intel they would recieve. A good implementation of this would be galciv. Depending on your level of funding or lack thereof it would be easier or harder for your own country to be infiltrated.

Operations like stealing tech would have a different price associated with them you wouldnt passively recieve techs from your regular espionage budget. However the higher your budget the less espensive it would be to attempt the mission.

Also it would only make sense that the attempts got more expensive every time you fail, simulating increased security. On the same token your chance for failure would increase as well.

This at least would get rid of some of that excess gold thats laying around everyones empire.

[Lou Wigman]

If there's excess gold lying around then that is a play balance issue that needs to be solved. To keep tension in the game all 'resources' (generically speaking) should be kept scarce. That way the player really needs to prioritise their choices thus keeps the game interesting.

[MrBaggins]

Gold abundance has been a perenial problem.

The largest single solution to it, is to introduce Unit Updating. This is a significant cost, which seems to work very well in draining excess gold out of the system.

There are other possible costs in the system: Increased/proportional gold upkeeps for City Improvements (inspired by WesW,) gold upkeeps for units (E.G. high tech units, like Cruise Missiles, Nukes and Spies... even abstracted ones,) and gold upkeeps, perhaps, for Tile Improvements.

The aim would be to balance to the point where the well constructed empire has a modest gold surplus. A smaller empire wouldn't necessarily have less proportional surplus, since they'd have less upkeep from CI's (smaller cities,) units and TI's.

Trade, and subsequently diplomacy become more important.

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I, by the way, like/love the idea of abstracted spies, and espionage. I'd, instead of having a slider for expenditure towards espionage and counter-espionage, build spies, and allocate them (on a single unconventional action screen, to avoid MM.) They'd have upkeep costs (mainly gold.)

I'd also, if we can get the whole system figured out, to have the graphs (and demographics we've talked about,) be based not on what is, but what you think is, based on your espionage.

I have a slightly fleshed out system concept, talking about unit knowledge, outside line-of-sight, in another thread, which I'll look for.

[Uchuu-kun[SM42]]

I think this is an interesting concept, but... I think it should also be optional. There are times when I just feel like running rampant with slavers and spies; of course, the enemy usually counters, but...

True, it makes for a mess of micromanagement, but I cope.

[Ekmek]

Just a side on more ways to use gold. Slaving attacks should cost gold.

[Solver]

Just a side on more ways to use gold. Slaving attacks should cost gold.

Slave raids cost gold already...

[J Bytheway]

Originally posted by Solver

Just a side on more ways to use gold. Slaving attacks should cost gold.

Slave raids cost gold already...

Yes, but slaving attacks don't.

[Solver]

Ahh, those with a Slaver in the stack... I was thinking of MedMod style Enslavement ability units .

[child of Thor]

for spying i can think of a good few examples.

the easy one is Moo2 - you used your spies a bit like in a card game, the more you had, compared to your target enemy, the higher your chance of succsess at a particular mission. You were allowed a set maximum amount of spies and had to choose how many were active and how many defensive at any given time.
It was simple, but you also had other game effects that came into play(like tech tree improvements etc).

One system i really liked was in Imperium Galactica2 - the same basic setup as in Moo2, but alot more depth of options, and the ability to send your spies to 'spy school' added a degree of personality, you'd get real upset when your best spy got assasinated for example.

Still to design something(a UI) that can be easily used for all of CTP2's special units could be tricky as it would have to encompass all their special abilities in an easy to use form.

[Solver]

Yes, that model can be abstracted. Remove special units from the map like caravans, have them have some sort of an operative range, create UI screens for those, etc. That all seems fine, but I'm still against the ideas. It just thrills me always to load spies on a transport and send them to an enemy island, and so on - maybe it's just me, but I love actually moving the unconventional units around.

[child of Thor]

yes i agree there are some good bits to the actual movement of the units. And i think if this is done then maybe we should only choose some of the units, maybe the ones most unbalancing for the game(which i guess is spys/slavers - could be weird ). Actualy atleast in the Mods it never seemed to bother the AI in terms of keeping up in the tech race - so that function of the Ai's spy wasn't needed if it ever used it in the game?

[The Big Mc]

I am undecided on this. However It does prevents the wall of beef approach. But then we lose potential new unit ability like bribe.