Rise of Nations -- Time for your ideas!

[mactbone]

Well, they could just use a similar system as TA:K, and have the units upgrade themselves after so many kills, and appear different visually.

Personally, you're taking some, if not most of the strategy out of RTSs when you try to get rid of the peasants. Who always whips your butt in AoK? They guy who does the best resource and peasant management. It's not about armies so much as having a great economy, and you want to minimize the economies effect on the game by the methods you're prescribing.

[Patient English]

Complexity

Brian,

My hope would be that you would keep the unit types limited, easy to understand and - ok - pretty. But, please make them modifiable, as to role, graphic, era, requirements, obsolecence, etc.

Civ II still lives because of these possibilities, and Colonization and games like Imperialism would have similar longevity with them. After a while, the standard 4000 BC- current era game wears thin. If the game engine is sound, the possibilities are almost infinite!

OK, longevity doesn't make your publishers more money directly - but think of the add-on potential.

John

[Leonidas]

1) make everything as customizable as possible

2) have a pause button, but more importantly, have a speed button (so those of us who aren't RTS whizzes can play it)

3) have options to allow the player to set the time for the initial rushes (say a delay of 5 min., 10, 15, etc), to allow some players the opportunity to build up their civ

Best of luck

[monkeyman]

Genetic algorithm for AI. That way the AI learns how to beat you, it gets to play you again. Having multiple AI's with variable traits so this will work consistently.

Is this possible?

MM

[yin26]

Who always whips your butt in AoK? They guy who does the best resource and peasant management.

You still have resource management. In fact, it is MORE important under these constraints since you cannot so easily relocate. What it does is shift focus to a person's ability to handle his UNITS better. Frankly, I've seen too many of these games lost by the guy who simply got tired of the endless villie-crawl.

That ain't talent. It's brute force and tons of tedium.

[yin26]

Brian:

Please code up a game in which resources come in without the use of peasants and pass this around the guys just to test how differently the game will play. I bet you guys will find yourselves focussed on battle-field strategy and enjoying your time a whole lot more.

I see this move as the logical extention of having farms reseed themselves. You can argue that 'Player X is better because he never forgets to reseed his farms,' but most of the community has realized manually reseeding farms only served to distract from much more interesting decisions to be made.

The same with ALL manual manipulation and creation of peasants, I say.

[General Ludd]

I agree that resources shouldn't require alot of micro-management and babysiting, but I still want 'supply lines' which can be cut. Whether it be a bunch of indepedant peasants, or a cargo unit which automatically transports resources from where ever they are being collected.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by yin26
Those of you who would still like to see villie activity, you could just have automated villies that come from the resource buildings themselves. They cannot be attacked. Instead, if the resource building is destroyed, they disappear. Or if the land is claimed, so will the resource building. You'll still see a (set according to your tech level) number of villies doing their automated tasks but that will be for effect only. The precise number of resources will be harvested regardless based on your placement of the buildings and your tech level.

And you can turn this option off to save on CPU cycles...

Would the distance they have to travel from the resource building to the resource impact their efficienty - actual distance, or ditance traveled via paths, roads, etc. Congestion? Do i get to allocate labor among buildings?

Its not just a question of what animations to show, but how detailed or abstract the model should be.

and why should I lose the laborers when the building is destroyed? and why not let the laborers defend themselves? again, it depends on the era and scale. In a tiny stone age settlement the difference between losing a building and losing a building plus all its laborers could be huge. And its seems entirely reasonable that at that level of development i might choose to have no "professional" army and let the workers defend themselves, or supplement a tiny professional army. I realize that your approach makes more sense for all points after the neolithic, but thats the problem of a game that spans the ages, it needs to make some sense at all of them. Perhaps its because i have played Civ2 and AOE, but not EE, perhaps the idea is for the early stage to fly-by, and im just not seeing it.

LOTM

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by yin26
Brian:

Please code up a game in which resources come in without the use of peasants and pass this around the guys just to test how differently the game will play. I bet you guys will find yourselves focussed on battle-field strategy and enjoying your time a whole lot more.

I see this move as the logical extention of having farms reseed themselves. You can argue that 'Player X is better because he never forgets to reseed his farms,' but most of the community has realized manually reseeding farms only served to distract from much more interesting decisions to be made.

The same with ALL manual manipulation and creation of peasants, I say.

I guess the argument (for us historical accuracy nerds) is that a ruler, even in a small settlement, doesnt have to remember farm re-seeding, but leaves that to the farmers. Labor allocation is another matter. Labor shouldnt remain idle when there's work, but I should be able to manually override the allocation when i want. Again, i would suggest the Caesar3 model.

I agree that excessive micromanagement is not only tedious, but historically inaccurate ("President Roosevelt, 5 pipefitters at the Oakland shipyard are sitting around with nothing to do")

But i dont want a game that is only about battlefield strategy and minimizes broader strategic decisions ("Pres. Roosevelt, we can build more destroyers to defend the coastal tanker fleet from uboats, or we can just build a pipeline from Texas to the Northeast" or "Queen Elizabeth, we can build a huge army of musketeers and bombards, or we can keep taxes low, keep the gentry loyal, and watch the economy boom")

I similarly dont want a game that forces a leader to engage in battlefield micromanagement ("Pres. Roosevelt, should the torpedo planes from the Enterprise wait for the divebombers, or proceed without them?") That sort of micromanagement belongs in a different sort of game, just as the economic micromanagement does.

LOTM

[Dale]

I guess the argument (for us historical accuracy nerds) is that a ruler, even in a small settlement, doesnt have to remember farm re-seeding, but leaves that to the farmers.

You would NOT believe how much I got pissed at AOE and AOK when I was handling a battle for 5 minutes, only to find I ran out of food because the STUPID farmers didn't replant!!!!

[Leonidas]

Brian, I have been impressed with your games in the past. You, and your team have the talent to develop a great game. If anyone can make a good RTS that I might even play (lol), you can do it.

So:

Give us lots of interesting decisions to make (such as having a separate screen for upgrading units to better weapons, armour, abilities, etc. Kind of like a workshop that was in SMAC but it doesn't have to be as complex as that one. The upgrade screen could be more in line with that found in Panzer General 2).

Leave out the tedious tasks - such as re-planting the same farms a thousand times by clicking on farmers. Streamline the tedious. Mindless tasks and busy work does not equal fun or gameplay, especially in a RTS game when a person' s attention needs to be focussed on the important things. . .

Allow for the ability of grouping units either into formations and/or armies. In keeping with this, maybe have the option to have Generals appear either through combat, experience, etc. Perhaps have the option or a special building from which we could pay for mercenaries and Generals.

These Generals would bestow extra bonuses on the army they command.

If you do have armies/formations, then allow for combined arms through the extra bonuses the different units can bring into combat. For example, cavalry would have flanking attack; archers would have range attack; swordsmen would have melee attack, etc

[ColdFever]

nation splitting / city conversion and ruler lifetime

Originally posted by Brian Reynolds
Okay, guys, go for it! Remember this IS ... about human history

Ok, here one more from the history table:

As in real history, I would like to see the possibility that nations might split or that cities might convert. This should be in close relation to the power of a ruler. Background: especially in ancient and medieval times often the unity and expansion of a nation depended on a strong ruler. Once that ruler passed away, the unity sooner or later collapsed, examples:

Charlemagne:

http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?z=1&pg=2&ti=761571217

Alexander the Great:

http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise.asp?z=1&pg=2&ti=761564408

The possibility of a nation split / city conversion should be more likely, if the territory of a nation is very large, as the power of a ruler is limited. My idea of how this could be simulated/implemented:

1. Each unit and town has not only one "power/experience" value, but also a "loyalty" value.

2. There should be one ruler unit for each nation (a king unit, or more likely: a "dynasty" unit, as one minute of gameplay can be worth a hundred years). IMPORTANT: the ruler has a " sovereignty" value that amplifies the loyalty value of all units/towns he is close too, while at the same time the loyalty value of units/towns far away from the ruler is decreasing, if his sovereignty value is not big enough to reach that far. A picture to explain that in other words: image the ruler unit as a "sun", that is warming the people standing close to him the stronger it shines.

3. The ruler unit should be mortal, so that it can be killed by other nations, and, more important: the ruler unit (dynasty) should die regularly and be replaced by another unit. THIS IS IMPORTANT: after a ruler unit dies, a new ruler unit should have a RANDOM "sovereignty" value, so that one can be lucky to receive a strong ruler, or may be unlucky to receive a weak ruler. This would make the game far more realistic and interesting, as the luck might change - there might even be a "traitor" unit that a human player with a weak ruler might create to kill the weak ruler that hinders his plans (yes, treachery is history too)

The most important benefit of this concept:
The gameplay would be balanced more, as big nations would be much harder to handle than small ones. As in real history, a player that wants to conquer vast territories will need a particularly strong ruler, but may later face internal problems, once that ruler dies, giving the other players a good chance to catch up again.

Last thought: the influence of rulers should somewhat fade with modern communications that are available in later times. In ancient and medieval times communication was difficult and it was very hard to rule vast areas without the reputation of a strong ruler. In contrast modern communication techniques make it much more easy to spread the influence of governments.

[Jack_www]

I think not having to micromange shipyards, factories and workers would be a great plus for the game. Telling a worker what to do every 5 secs is real pain in the butt. And if you are in the middle of a battle and your workers stop working, this is not a very good thing. Like other people have said, most rts games, the person who wins is the one who grathers the most resouces the fastest and builds the most units in the shortest period of time. Once they get a huge fleet or groug of units they just send them into the base of their oppent and watch the units destroy everything. I just hope this game does not turn out like this.

[yin26]

Again, I envision a system similar to Disciples 2 but in real-time. Once you claim a block of land by planting a marker, you can place buildings there -- resource AND military. This serves two immediate purposes: 1) In order to get at resources, the land has to be 'yours.' 2) This makes forward building impossible in the sense that in order to build stuff close to the enemy, you first need to claim territory there, which is something that can be easily taken away by the enemy if you aren't protecting your claim ... which is quite hard on the other side of the map early on.

LOTM: Yes, I'd make the placement of resource buildings as strategically important as possible. Distance to resource, tech upgrades, etc. And I would limit the number of villies you see by your tech level and number of resource buildings you plant and NOT by simply hitting HCHCHCHCHCHCHCHCHC for as long as your food and pop limit allows.

Now don't get me wrong: Beating people by superior villie management is sort of satisfying in a quasi-physical way. But it isn't strategy in my mind. You also have people copying second for second villie orders, etc., to shave 2 seconds off the opening game, etc.

I'm just tired of that kind of game. It has had its day. And keep in mind, AoM is coming out soon.

I really hope that BR creates a game that allows something between Civ and AoK. In my mind, that means: 1) no micro of villies and 2) 'fewer but more important units' -- I suppose along the lines of WC3? But throw in heavy doses of the Disciples 2 stuff ... like let units upgrade only along certain paths that close off certain abilities and open others such that the decision to upgrade in one direction or the other itself involves strategy and isn't merely a no-brainer click.

[Brian Reynolds]

Some comments/answers on miscellaneous things that have come up in the thread:

1. The influence of individual cities on your borders is affected among other things by (a) their size, (b) your political power--Civic accomplishments, and (c) presence and level of Temple in city.
2. "Ethnic" identity is represented by the fact that captured cities must be assimilated into your nation before they can be fully used.
3. The diplomacy allows you to make deals between players--e.g. treaties for cash, etc.
4. Resources (farms, woods, whatever) do NOT deplete; the rate you can accumulate them though is based on the amount of relevant territory (e.g. wooded, farmed, etc) you control. But you'll need more resources later in the game so you'll need to control more territory.
5. Lots of fun rules files to edit (but of course).
6. Yes, you trade between your various cities (or with other nations)--but we don't make you micromanage moving individual kinds of goods around. Establishment & maintenance of a trade route is done by starting (one) Caravan trading between the two cities. Control of a "special resource" is represented by placing a merchant there.
7. You do not have to "build houses" to raise your pop cap. It's based on the # and size of your cities, and the presence of Granaries.
8. We do have peasants and various other "civilian" units--we wanted your cities to look AND feel like a thriving society, not just have the game be about moving military units around. That said, we've tried to make the economic "puzzle game" interesting (the various strategies you have available, and the various pressures on you). We've also worked a lot on minimizing the boring kinds of "micromanagement". I should also mention (for Yin) that we support a variety of "deathmatch" and faster resource collection modes where resource gathering is deemphasized.
9. We do have a "General" unit who can move around with and do various things to enhance his troops.
10. There is a way to get a full reveal of the map towards the end of the game.
11. There are Speed and Pause settings. You can always give orders while paused in single player, and we support options to allow it in multiplayer.
12. We -do- support what we call "Rush Rules" which allow you to enforce a ban on military attacking early in the game; a lot of different options available here.

Brian