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Stormhound
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New Jersey
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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Ordinarily, I wouldn't respond to such a post, but you're painting a highly inaccurate picture of things.
The terraforming model is new. The technology and research system is new. The concept of your people moving around without your guidance is new. The event engine is new. The economics is certainly a broader model than you're going to find elsewhere (and it's not exactly what you'd call a candidate for the chopping block, nor are the government agendas). In fact, a great many things are new in this game, especially compared to previous MOOs (ship combat with task forces, ground combat, internal politics, sub-leaders, corruption of leaders, multiple levels of "specials", mid-game player entry, planets AND MOONS to colonize with regions, a meaningful unrest and revolt system, internal piracy and security needs which require the presence of garrison ships and troops in your systems and on your worlds, military draft pools, a myriad of government policies, active forces vs. reserves, DEAs, more types of ground units, expanded espionage, expanded exploration of systems...have I come anywhere close to getting my point across yet?). If the only information you're getting on the game is through this forum, then frankly you haven't got very much idea what's going on at all, and you should get out to the website and the FAQ at the very least because you're missing a lot.
I'll also point out that we haven't announced any more cuts in a while (not a promise for the future, just a statement about the past), so it's hardly reasonable to talk about them being cut "one by one", which makes it sound as though we come out and announce another cut every week or so.
If you want to rip us for something we've done, go for it...but at least make sure you're accurate, because I'm not going to be shy about returning fire if I think you're off the mark.
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Starfighter08
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Switzerland
Nov 2000
time: 05:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
Ordinarily, I wouldn't respond to such a post, but you're painting a highly inaccurate picture of things. |
Well then, thank you very much for doing it then.
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
The terraforming model is new. The technology and research system is new. |
Ok, true the tech system is far better than anything existing at this time.
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
The concept of your people moving around without your guidance is new. |
Hu? I read the whole official sit two weeks or so ago but didn't see it (admittedly it was quite late at night  )
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
The event engine is new. |
I have some trouble with it because it remembers me of all the monopoly sessions (take a card  ) or some RPGs. I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong however.
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
The economics is certainly a broader model than you're going to find elsewhere (and it's not exactly what you'd call a candidate for the chopping block, nor are the government agendas). |
I'm very glad to hear that they won't be canned. I must say I'm quite fed up with these "planned economies" you usually get in TBS (gov't owned factories, supermarkets, TV stations just to name a few).
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
In fact, a great many things are new in this game, especially compared to previous MOOs (ship combat with task forces, |
Star Wars Rebellion
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
ground combat, |
Imperium Galactica (not quite the same but you still have quite some impact here)
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
internal politics, |
As far as I know the guys of "Galactic Civilizations" are trying something with a senate and different parties (I could be wrong here)
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
sub-leaders, corruption of leaders, |
Pax Imperia (I was quite shocked when I realized for the first time that a certain system governor's boni had become negative and fired him right away :cool
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
multiple levels of "specials", |
Quite curious about that. Do you mean black ops and such things?
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
mid-game player entry, |
Fugger2 (no, that's not swearing the Fugger were a wealthy family in 16/17 century Europe, the game is from a German developer AFAIK and the mid game entering player gets something like the average of the others' wealth.
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
planets AND MOONS to colonize with regions, a meaningful unrest and revolt system, |
By meaningful you mean better than civ and similar games I assume.
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
internal piracy and security needs which require the presence of garrison ships and troops in your systems and on your worlds, |
SW Rebellion has some rudimentary garrison requirements for conquered territories but that's about all.
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
military draft pools, a myriad of government policies, |
Europa Universalis has draft pools defined for every province and some gov't policies and EU2 is said (whatever that means) to have even more.
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
active forces vs. reserves, DEAs, more types of ground units, expanded espionage, expanded exploration of systems...have I come anywhere close to getting my point across yet?). |
Yep. The game's back on my must have list, congratulations.
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
If the only information you're getting on the game is through this forum, then frankly you haven't got very much idea what's going on at all, and you should get out to the website and the FAQ at the very least because you're missing a lot. |
As I said before, I visited your hp once (darn it really must have been late).
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
I'll also point out that we haven't announced any more cuts in a while (not a promise for the future, just a statement about the past), so it's hardly reasonable to talk about them being cut "one by one", which makes it sound as though we come out and announce another cut every week or so. |
Since I read about the society system these guys of "Clash of Civilizations" are trying to implement I'm quite in love (don't laugh it's true) with a fleshed out societies/politics/religion in TBS games and so far I've waited in vain for such a thing being implemented. 
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
If you want to rip us for something we've done, go for it...but at least make sure you're accurate, because I'm not going to be shy about returning fire if I think you're off the mark. |
Return fire at will, my armor and dodge ratings are good enough to stand quite some barrages.  And again, thanks for answering in such detail.
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Stormhound
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New Jersey
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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Well, if that's the definition of "new" you're going to use, then I have some very bad news for you...not one single thing is new (except maybe the tech system, but I'm not sure and since it was my baby someone else had best judge)...I can go through my collection of old board wargames and find examples of all of them. (No, don't ask me to.) Alan's collection is far bigger than mine, so if I haven't got one...
But these things are certainly new to the MOO series, and there probably aren't many games out there that have half or more of the list I gave. This is not, to paraphrase the commercial, your father's MOO. (g)
People moving around has been discussed both here and on the MOO3 forum. I haven't said a whole lot about it yet, but I've nibbled the edges of the topic. Short version: if people don't like the places you give them to live, they'll move. Some will move elsewhere within your empire, some will start new colonies all on their own, and some will tell you just what you can do with your planet and go join someone else's empire. We're not talking stampedes, here, but certainly enough that it might be worth your while to improve conditions.
No, multiple specials doesn't mean black ops. You remember how, for instance, planets in MOO2 could have specials like "natives" or "splinter colony" or "gold mine" or things like that? Well, specials in MOO3 are of several possible levels of scope, both higher AND lower than planetary. BTW, the espionage model does include things that I believe would be classified as "black ops". It's far more robust than the MOO1/2 models.
I know who the Fuggers were. I paid attention in history class, and they made their money largely through banking and merchant trade if memory serves. And just another interesting tidbit: Alan Emrich (the lead designer) used to be a history teacher, back before he got into the game industry. So you've got some ejumacated people working this game, yup!
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Starfighter08
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Switzerland
Nov 2000
time: 05:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
Well, if that's the definition of "new" you're going to use, then I have some very bad news for you...not one single thing is new (except maybe the tech system, but I'm not sure and since it was my baby someone else had best judge)...I can go through my collection of old board wargames and find examples of all of them. (No, don't ask me to.) Alan's collection is far bigger than mine, so if I haven't got one...
But these things are certainly new to the MOO series, and there probably aren't many games out there that have half or more of the list I gave. This is not, to paraphrase the commercial, your father's MOO. (g) |
I'll settle with this definition of new.
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
People moving around has been discussed both here and on the MOO3 forum. I haven't said a whole lot about it yet, but I've nibbled the edges of the topic. Short version: if people don't like the places you give them to live, they'll move. Some will move elsewhere within your empire, some will start new colonies all on their own, and some will tell you just what you can do with your planet and go join someone else's empire. We're not talking stampedes, here, but certainly enough that it might be worth your while to improve conditions. |
So voting with the feet (ships) is simulated
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
No, multiple specials doesn't mean black ops. You remember how, for instance, planets in MOO2 could have specials like "natives" or "splinter colony" or "gold mine" or things like that? Well, specials in MOO3 are of several possible levels of scope, both higher AND lower than planetary. BTW, the espionage model does include things that I believe would be classified as "black ops". It's far more robust than the MOO1/2 models. |
Ah, those specials...
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
I know who the Fuggers were. I paid attention in history class, and they made their money largely through banking and merchant trade if memory serves. And just another interesting tidbit: Alan Emrich (the lead designer) used to be a history teacher, back before he got into the game industry. So you've got some ejumacated people working this game, yup! |
It's just that I didn't know you would know such "details" about European history. Sorry, no offense intended.
A history teacher? Who would have thought that? For some odd reason I imagine game developers being some computer cracks just taken some things/events and stuffing them into their games. The fact that I study economics and that economies in TBS games (capitalism et al. excluded of course) hardly ever come close to anything like a free enterprise (or then it's something like "lower taxes and growth will increase", yea right) that prejudice grew even stronger.
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Stormhound
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New Jersey
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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Certainly no offense taken. We've got a mix of people. Among the non-QS people who are also helping with the design, we have a Doctor of Philosophy (not just a Ph.D., his doctorate is IN Philosophy), a geologist, an author, a marine biologist...and yes, there are some people who do know how to program, too.
I can't comment on what kind of people you see in other development houses (and it would probably be imprudent of me to do so even if I could), but there are some good minds and real fans of the MOO series working on this title, and even if half of the concepts we're putting together DID get cut...not that I have any reason to expect that they would...we'd still have a heck of a game.
Anyhow, glad to see that you're feeling better about it all. And now to get back to the business of delivering all these neat things...
(Y'know, this "the server is too busy" stuff is getting annoying...)
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Zealot
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Lisboa, Portugal
Jun 2000
time: 05:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
People moving around has been discussed both here and on the MOO3 forum. |
This IS a MOO3 forum!
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
I haven't said a whole lot about it yet, but I've nibbled the edges of the topic. Short version: if people don't like the places you give them to live, they'll move. Some will move elsewhere within your empire, some will start new colonies all on their own, and some will tell you just what you can do with your planet and go join someone else's empire. We're not talking stampedes, here, but certainly enough that it might be worth your while to improve conditions. |
So, there's a little of simCity in MOO3, right? 
quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
I know who the Fuggers were. I paid attention in history class, and they made their money largely through banking and merchant trade if memory serves. And just another interesting tidbit: Alan Emrich (the lead designer) used to be a history teacher, back before he got into the game industry. So you've got some ejumacated people working this game, yup! |
Wasn't a Fugger a Founding Father in Colonization?
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Stormhound
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New Jersey
Jan 1970
time: 00:15
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(Posted by Alan on the Delphi forum, 10/30/2001):
Here's a note from Bill Fisher, Kingpin of Quicksilver Software:
Actually, designing the AI has been more time-consuming than it has been difficult. We'll know for sure when we start our testing. The key has been to plan the game from the beginning so that each AI module has a well-defined, carefully limited set of tasks to perform, and to make sure that each of those tasks can be broken down into a simple set of need-based decisions.
I have two rules for writing game AI:
1. Don't do anything that looks stupid.
2. Try to do things that look smart.
In most games, the challenge is getting past item #1. That's often quite difficult. For example, in Conquest of the New World, we gave the AI a detailed list of buildings that needed to be constructed in each city, and the preferred order in which they were to be built. But we also had to tell it about a number of special cases, such as when there's not enough land and it needed to tear down something which is no longer productive to replace it with something that's now needed. These sequences were based on months of careful human play and analysis.
In Castles II, we addressed this challenge by creating a design where simply making "reasonable" choices from a well-defined sequence of play would result in very effective AI behavior. In formal mathematical terms, I like to say that "local optimization equals global optimization" -- that is, doing what looks smart from a very narrow view of the world tends to be the right choice. We're trying for the same approach in MOO3. Not all game designs are like this. In chess, in fact, it's often the exact opposite. Capturing your opponent's Queen with that pawn, while it looks good right now, will often lead to a game-losing chain of events one or two turns down the road.
For MOO3, here's what we've done:
1. Modularize: break down the game into small, simple sub-units with clearly defined rules and decision processes.
Needless to say, simulating an entire galaxy is a daunting challenge. We took a "divide and conquer" approach, picking a clear and easily understood metaphor to help us keep it straight in our own minds. From the very start, the galaxy was divided into various departments, just like a government would be. Each was given a set of tasks, which were assigned to various leaders within the department.
I often worry about getting too abstract and theoretical in AI design. It's tempting to build a monument to your own ingenuity, which nobody else can understand. The advantage of this departmental model is that it's quite easy to see how the various aspects of a galactic empire can be organized. It's somewhat abstract, but virtually everything has a clear equivalent in current human governmental structures, so the designers didn't get lost in abstruse mathematical abstractions. Everything boiled down to a relatively simple analogy with a familiar system.
Once the departments and sub-departments were laid out, the designers then worked through each system, one at a time, to make sure that its responsibilities were clear. Usually, this ended up looking a lot like a board game design. Alan, Tom and I have played lots of board games together over the years, and we like to think in the clean, elegant style that's required by such games. Early in the design process, I spent a lot of time talking with Alan about the departments, and was happy to see that each one essentially had a "combat results table" with a set of modifiers. This gave them plenty of variety, yet was simple enough that I could see how to write a very effective AI with minimal risk.
2. Stabilize: Design each subsystem so it's inherently stable
I wrote my first simulation game in 1975 (on punch cards). The first lesson I learned was that it's very easy to design a system that spirals off into disaster. For example, if a lack of food causes farmers to die immediately, reducing production, then any slight food shortage will quickly kill off the entire population. That's a simple system that tends toward instability. I like to think of this metaphorically as balancing a marble on a bowl that's been turned upside-down. The marble will quickly roll slightly to one side, picking up speed and rolling even faster as it falls toward the edge.
What we want to do is design systems that act like a marble inside a bowl that's right-side up. In a system like that, no matter where you put the marble, it will tend to roll back toward the center. This is what I mean by "inherently stable." That's how we've designed the individual systems in MOO3. They can swing a great deal from side to side, but they tend not to spiral out of control. There are checks and balances that always pull the system back from the precipice. That's not to say that they don't have interesting effects. The swings back and forth can be quite interesting. What it means is that they aren't fragile. Fragile systems in games are not fun.
3. Rationalize: Create "need-based" systems.
Instead of giving the AI (or the player) a long list of "stuff to build," give them a long list of specific needs with specific solutions. For example, instead of just allowing players or AIs to group ships in any way they want, define task forces around specific needs, such as a "planetary bombardment task force." At a higher level, give the AI a list of strategies to pursue. When the strategy says "attack a planet," it's then a simple matter to realize that this will require a bombardment task force, so the AI knows to build one.
This approach, of course, requires a lot of careful pre-planning and understanding of what each leader in each department will want or need to do. But, once that's done, the hard part of the AI design is also done. The AI can simply choose a solution from a logically constructed list, influenced by various other factors that are similarly defined throughout the design. And the logic for making such a choice, because it's all based on a "need" orientation, is usually quite simple.
That's a long explanation for a simple question, but I hope it shows how we're addressing this very large challenge. In the end, by breaking down a given decision into simple, clear parts that behave based on well-defined needs, we have essentially designed everything needed for the AI except the code and a few high-level strategies. By facing the challenges of the AI design from the start, we've minimized our risks and, as a secondary effect, created a system that's very easy for players to understand and enjoy.
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moomin
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Moo Like In Moomin
Jul 2000
time: 05:15
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I'm happy to see that long answer, SH. While I, personally, could do with more maths and fewer words, there's no doubt he's at least thought of the worst traps and took pains to avoid them. How effective this will be remains to be seen, however.
But even in optimized environs, AI is *difficult*. I program medical support systems (basically diagnosis support systems, giving doctors "a second opinion" based on a specific set of symptoms). We've generally found that the AI route is very improductive - we do almost all work based on a neural network model instead. Not for lack of trying, let me tell you, because NNs have specific drawbacks all by themselves. Or problem is, perhaps, more difficult, since it's impossible to modularize diagnostics in any meaningful way, but the problem you face is not exactly trivial either.
And while I'm certain that the efforts you describe would've been adequate for Moo2, let's remember that Moo3 AI will not only have to be so-so, but spectacular. The IFP system guarantees that even the smallest weakness in AI will propagate up to the player in a way that will be quite infuriating. But I hope you guys will pull it off. It'd be revolutionary in more ways than one, if so.
Good Luck!
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moomin
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Moo Like In Moomin
Jul 2000
time: 05:15
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quote:
Originally posted by Stormhound
Sounds like you're talking about the Event system mainly. There's certainly a big argument raging on the Delphi board about it (actually, it's starting to resemble the "Argument Clinic" sketch from Monty Python).
I don't know if Megalomaniacs are going to be pleased anyhow...remember that IFP will hamper that "perfect control", as will things like having to deal with factional support and people who move around when they darned well feel like it.
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Mmm. But the IFP system plays straight into our magalomanic hands, that's the whole point. I'm not the PulseGun Mk 45 designer, I'm the Evil Overlord, I have hapless minions to attend those boring tasks. That's why I like the IFP, anyway. That it also reduces MM is a very nice perk. Megalomaniacs are not control freaks, you know. Not all the time, anyway.
But my personal beef with the event system is not only the skewed misfortune hitting the leader ("hitting the leader" is the duty of the other players, not of the universe, as it were) but the card metaphore itself. I quit playing board games because I found it tedious to deal with cards and dice - they empathically drive home that you're playing a game not running an empire. Gaming, much like other forms of entertainment is a mostly a matter of immerison and suspension of disbelief - and I think that both these elements are lost when you are forcibly reminded that you're dealing cards, not being Evil Overlord, all the time.
And I really, really hate that. Computers got invented so that we don't have to see the cards and the dice, dammit!
Oh well. As long as you can turn events of it's fine, I guess. Now that Civ 3 seems to be "more of the same", only slower and with additional sprinkling of even more AI cheating, I guess I should be happy that there is still a developer out there that's trying to do something interesting with a sequel.
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18-09-2001 12:55
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