13-12-2003 09:22									#1
	Design: Random ideas for game balance/micromanagement Suffering from ads?

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...

	13-12-2003 16:13									#2
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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.

Last edited by Pedrunn on 13-12-2003 at 16:31

	13-12-2003 16:25									#3
	Re: Design: Random ideas for game balance/micromanagement Support Apolyton

quote: 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.

quote: 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.

	13-12-2003 17:23									#4
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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.

Last edited by Tamerlin on 13-12-2003 at 17:30

	13-12-2003 18:33									#5
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quote: 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.

	13-12-2003 18:55									#6
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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.

	13-12-2003 19:25									#7
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quote: 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

	13-12-2003 20:19									#8
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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?

	13-12-2003 21:25									#9
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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...

	13-12-2003 22:03									#10
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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.

	13-12-2003 23:11									#11
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quote: 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.

quote: 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.

quote: 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....

	14-12-2003 17:31									#12
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quote: 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.

	14-12-2003 17:44									#13
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quote: 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.

	23-12-2003 10:08									#14
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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.

	23-12-2003 14:15									#15
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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.

	07-02-2004 04:46									#16
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it would be great if the degree of micromanagement could be set in the start game panel or options.

	07-02-2004 05:08									#17
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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)

	07-02-2004 05:27									#18
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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).

	09-02-2004 06:55									#19
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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.

	09-02-2004 14:37									#20
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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.

	09-02-2004 17:55									#21
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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.

---

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.

	21-04-2004 00:22									#22
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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.

	21-04-2004 01:00									#23
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Just a side on more ways to use gold. Slaving attacks should cost gold.

	21-04-2004 01:02									#24
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quote: Just a side on more ways to use gold. Slaving attacks should cost gold.

Slave raids cost gold already...

	21-04-2004 01:15									#25
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quote: Originally posted by Solver quote: 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.

	21-04-2004 01:16									#26
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Ahh, those with a Slaver in the stack... I was thinking of MedMod style Enslavement ability units .

	21-04-2004 01:42									#27
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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.

	21-04-2004 02:41									#28
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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.

	21-04-2004 03:20									#29
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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?

	21-04-2004 03:24									#30
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I am undecided on this. However It does prevents the wall of beef approach. But then we lose potential new unit ability like bribe.