Rise of Nations -- Time for your ideas!

[WarpStorm]

I think Yin is looking for something on the lines of Warlords Battlecry. In WBC, you have mines and as long as you control them you get the resources. If you want more production out of a mine you add more workers (up to a limit). No more micro-management. You do have to protect them, because your opponents can take them over.

Of course, I may have misread Yin's comments.

[yin26]

Right, along those lines. And to restate: I really like the way you have to claim land in Disciples 2. It's simple, elegant and strategic. And you could still show the villies moving around, but why should I have to micro all of them?

Micro-ing villies is a challenge of dexterity not mental acuity (well, Mr. Fixit and others would occasionally run up the 'villie second' spreadsheets). Mind you, games demanding dexterity are fine and all, but we have plenty of those. RoN has an unsurpassed chance with Brian at the helm of FINALLY bringing us a superior 'Civ-like' game but in manageable and satisfying real-time.

Certainly my dream for many, many years...(Empire Earth didn't pull it off, IMO).

[chronocrator]

It isn't easy to find a alternative to villagers (even the next Command & Conquer will use them.) Controlling single mines would be one option,another idea would be to have the map devided into areas with a flag in the middle of it. The player who controls the flag, controls the area with all the mines in it. This system is used in "Z".
The problem is that both systems will lead to massive rushing since the player who controls ost of the mines ASAP will usually win the game.

[yin26]

One way to deal with that is to make considerable morale penalties when fighting on enemy land -- you can still take his territory, but you'll need markedly more (or more advanced) troops to pull it off. While this could lead to some long see-saw battles, the better player will still win ... with proven skill. Rushing, on the other hand, while not totally unrelated to skill level (rushing can be quite hard and risky to do), ends in games that aren't enitirely satisfying -- often even to the winner.

[chronocrator]

Penalties for fighting on enemy land could make things even worse. I am especially thinking about the beginning of the game here... each player will just try to grab every piece of land he can get his hands on. Then once the starting rush is over the one with most of the land will have a great advantage especially if the enemy will get penalties when he attacks that large territory.

[yin26]

Land grab and rush are not the same thing. If you don't go out and establish your claim over important parts of land *and* keep control over them, you deserve to be at a disadvantage. Turtles should never have an easy time, IMO. But in the early game, a guy who just willy-nilly grabs up a bunch of land won't have any hope of holding it all. Keep in mind that to reclaim that land for yourself, all you'd have to do is whack his unguarded flag there a few times.

Rushing, however, means killing the guy on his home turf within the first few minutes of the game.

[Leonidas]

Since this game will span 6,000 years of human history, it might be interesting to add some "spice' to the game by adding "Wonders of the World".

Give all the civs something to work for: these Wonders could bestow added benefits on the civ that built them (such as extra gold, production, advances, etc). These Wonders could also be captured.

But give these Wonders "physical presence" and beauty: such as the Great Pyramids, Stonehenge, Great Library, etc. . .

Entertain us, yes; but also inspire us - give us something that will "massage our imaginations". . .

[chronocrator]

Originally posted by yin26
Land grab and rush are not the same thing. If you don't go out and establish your claim over important parts of land *and* keep control over them, you deserve to be at a disadvantage.

True, and my point was that the player who grabbed all that land will have it easier to defend it if the enemy gets a penalty for fighting on it.


Nice pictures, Leonidas! Since Civ AoE and EE have wonders I'm pretty sure we're going to see them in RoN, too. I just hope, they'll give the player some cool advantages like in EE.

[yin26]

True, and my point was that the player who grabbed all that land will have it easier to defend it if the enemy gets a penalty for fighting on it.

As well he should! And remember: The flag claiming the land has no attack value...

[chronocrator]

Here's an idea that could help. Include something similar to Civ3's culture but with a twist. In Civ3 culture is used to expand borders and it is the only way to do so, except for capturing enemy cities. In RoN the player should be able to expand borders with the help of the army or other units (no matter if a system with flags is used or not) but he has to back it up with culture.

more culture -> higher unit morale
bigger territory -> lower unit morale

So if a player wants to maintain a huge empire he needs quite a lot of culture, while small countries with little culture have the same unit morale. IMO this would be a good system since it would make rushing harder and even give smaller nations a chance. A once great nation that is almost defeated and has just the capital (with many buildings and culture) left would have a really high morale which is realistic and good for gameplay IMO.

[yin26]

Yes, something like that. The overall idea being that *something* should be done to make attacking the guy on his own turf in the first few minutes of the game much, much more difficult. Culture and expanding borders could work in that you'd need to spend quite a sum of money to build it up. I think I would add a twist to your twist in that when your borders expand, you get to click on the quadrant into which they move, so that there is some strategic element to it all.

I wonder, though, if simply placing flags --which perhaps you only gain as an element of culture?!!!-- might not allow the player more strategic control?

Still, we seem to share the same goal...

[chronocrator]

I don't know if you understand me correctly. Units and not culture expand the border / place flags! But culture is needed to secure these gained areas because only with enough culture will units work efficiently.

more culture -> higher unit morale
less culture -> lower unit morale
bigger territory -> lower unit morale
smaller territory -> higher unit morale

So if a player needs a higher morale he will have to stop expanding and build up some culture (again: unlike in Civ3 units expand the empire).

[yin26]

I understand you, but you shouldn't penalize a guy for having lots of territory. If he claimed it AND held onto it, he deserves to reap the reward. Now, a cool way to get at what you are striving for is to have the length of time a section of land is owned give correlating bonuses...to some reasonable maximum.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by yin26
Yes, something like that. The overall idea being that *something* should be done to make attacking the guy on his own turf in the first few minutes of the game much, much more difficult. Culture and expanding borders could work in that you'd need to spend quite a sum of money to build it up. I think I would add a twist to your twist in that when your borders expand, you get to click on the quadrant into which they move, so that there is some strategic element to it all.

I wonder, though, if simply placing flags --which perhaps you only gain as an element of culture?!!!-- might not allow the player more strategic control?

Still, we seem to share the same goal...

ok yin, i know these games arent supposed to be history simulators, but sometimes looking at history can give us some insight into the issues involved.

We dont like rushes? why? well because it unbalances gameplay, but also because we sense its unrealistic - real like was more balanced, Sumer in 3500 couldnt just build bronze age warriors and crush egypt. So something was going on that enabled civs to survive, even when others had miliatry/technologocal leads. Artificial limits to rushing, or bonuses for fighting on home turf may mimic that, but is worth asking what was really going on. Obviously there were no rules in real history that said "no conquest till gunpowder" Maybe it was culture, or some home turf advantage? I doubt this - Egypt WAS conquered by outsiders, later when its culture was stronger. And akkadians with a culture that was derivative from Sumerian had no difficulty conquering SUmerian cities. Bronze age civs simply didnt have the kind of nationalism we think of today, leading to guerilla resistance. (well maybe china did, though i dont think so, certainly the near eastern civs did not) So what did stop ancient "rushes" Logistics and command and control. While it may have been easier for a pre-gunpowder army to keep supplied, since it could live off the land to some degree, this was not necessarily easy, especailly in an ancient world where few areas had large food surpluses. Command and control was also a dilemma - If I march with my army to Egypt, can i be sure that the rival sumerian cities wont revolt while Im gone? until issues of administration and supply had been resolved, at least to some degree, it was difficult to conquer or even raid beyond a certain distance. So it would have been possible to rush your close neighbors, but difficult to impossible to rush the more distant ones.

Yet all these games lack the grognard expedients of explicitly modeling army supply or command and control. These feature are too complex and "unsatisfying" for mass market games. Therefore we can either allow rushes, or introduce rules with various degrees of arbitratriness to prevent them. This is not to say that logistics or command and control SHOULD be introduced to such games - merely that when designing the work arounds, it is useful to understand the underlying phenomenon that did this in the real world.

LOTM

[WarpStorm]

Actually, supply and support would be great concepts to add to a game like this. If you do a rush build, but can't afford to keep paying and feeding and resupplying ammo for you troops, they should desert or at least suffer the combat consequences of having bad morale and inadequeate equipment.