07-03-2002 23:07									#31
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

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.

	08-03-2002 01:18									#32
	Complexity Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

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

	08-03-2002 04:56									#33
	Full PM-box? Change here!

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

	08-03-2002 06:52									#34
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

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

	08-03-2002 08:01									#35
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: 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.

	08-03-2002 08:06									#36
	Enter the AD-FREE zone

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.

	08-03-2002 08:22									#37
	Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

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.

	08-03-2002 08:59									#38
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: 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

	08-03-2002 09:12									#39
	Got spare money?

quote: 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

	08-03-2002 10:31									#40
	Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote: 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!!!!

	08-03-2002 11:45									#41
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

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

	08-03-2002 13:26									#42
	nation splitting / city conversion and ruler lifetime Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote: 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...=2&ti=761571217

Alexander the Great:
http://encarta.msn.com/find/Concise...=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.

	08-03-2002 23:03									#43
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

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.

	09-03-2002 00:14									#44
	Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

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.

	11-03-2002 18:38									#45
	Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

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

	11-03-2002 20:15									#46
	Full PM-box? Change here!

one thing i would really like, but maybe impossible, is too design your own units like in SMAC, i loved it then and trying to oadd it somehow to civ3, but it would be great if it's possible in RON

	11-03-2002 21:07									#47
	play like a king or slave? Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

Thanks for the comments, Brian.
I still am somewhat concerned.

Most players here seem to prefer a deep strategy game with time to think without haste. Personally I would love to see a kind of "Realtime Civilization". But the speed and the amount of action RoN promises almost sounds like hard work, from the current data it almost looks like "Turbo Civilization" or "Ages of Civilizations".

I heard that it is even possible to get from ancient times to the information age in 60 mins. This has to be about 6000 years in 60 mins = 100 years per min average. Probably (as in Civ) the time factor is faster in the beginning and slower in later times. However I am a afraid that the game might tend to be too fast for patient players who want to have a game of leisure and not a game of work. I personally are longing for a RTS title to play like a "king" (with time) and not like a "slave" (with haste).

So is it possible to adjust the game for "civilized" oldies like us?
Or do we have to take our heart pills to stand the pace?

	11-03-2002 23:21									#48
	Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote: Originally posted by Brian Reynolds 5. Lots of fun rules files to edit (but of course). 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

Brian: In particular I am very pleased to hear about point 12. I have expressed my desire for such an option for a long time. My mouse finger thanks you

	11-03-2002 23:34									#49
	Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote: Originally posted by Brian Reynolds 2. "Ethnic" identity is represented by the fact that captured cities must be assimilated into your nation before they can be fully used.

Brian, are there any factors that could decrease the time needed to assimilate a captured city other than a predefined amount of time?

Like: Size X cities can only be fully used after Y Time Units have elapsed? Can I decrease Y by building/rush-building a temple, or such?

	11-03-2002 23:42									#50
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Thanks for the update BR. The early previews have been raving, and I am so excited that you are now not under anybody's shadow. Can you release it: "Brian Reynolds' Rise of Nations!"

I had one quick thought about villies: I like the idea of having the village 'feel' alive, it's just the micro of them I don't like. How about this:

Just as with Civ, you can call up a row of heads signifying villies and then simply use slide bars to adjust their tasks. For example, if there are 3 resources and (yes) research sliders, you simply adjust what percent you want and the correct villie number automatically goes to the most efficient gathering spot?

Sure, allow for manual tasking as well, but make the auto-selecting of gathering spot so darn good that you would rarely want to.

And by adding villies as part of the research effort, you are maintaining a bit of the Civ flavor and making the resource gathering model more strategic with little extra tedium. This would help simulate a bit of the 'guns or butter?' dilemma and could result in some really interesting games in which Player A went heavy on resources and has a lot to spend on cheap, lower-level units while Player B assigned more villies to research and has fewer but more powerful units.

The 'smart slide bar villie' assigning that ties in research would simply be awesome, IMO!!!

	12-03-2002 00:18									#51
	Increase Your PM Length

quote: Originally posted by yin26 Just as with Civ, you can call up a row of heads signifying villies and then simply use slide bars to adjust their tasks. For example, if there are 3 resources and (yes) research sliders, you simply adjust what percent you want and the correct villie number automatically goes to the most efficient gathering spot? Sure, allow for manual tasking as well, but make the auto-selecting of gathering spot so darn good that you would rarely want to. And by adding villies as part of the research effort, you are maintaining a bit of the Civ flavor and making the resource gathering model more strategic with little extra tedium. This would help simulate a bit of the 'guns or butter?' dilemma and could result in some really interesting games in which Player A went heavy on resources and has a lot to spend on cheap, lower-level units while Player B assigned more villies to research and has fewer but more powerful units.

yin26: I like this idea. You could still have a lot of peasants running around, but their tasks could be automated (if you wish). The idea of tying peasants/villies to resource gathering AND research does add an extra strategic component. . .

As an added thought: Could there be different levels of peasants? What I mean is, could some of the first level peasants be trained to become scientists/researchers? This might require a special "Academy", time and money to undertake.

These "researchers" could be "trainable" as your civ enters each succeeding era to research new techs and weapons. . .

So, after you've assigned peasants to be trained as researchers, you would "see" these researchers on the main screen "working" at research buildings or open lab complexes. . .

Also, something I've been meaning to add is, I'm glad that RoN is NOT using 3D terrain. Often 3D terrain can be hard on the eyes, and it boosts system requirements unnecessarily.

AoE (from 1997) uses 2D terrain and looks very good and is still very acceptable looking 5 years down the road.

	12-03-2002 02:49									#52
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Leonidas:

Thanks! I like your addition a lot as well. Perhaps researchers can be made at a 1:1.5 ratio. To turn villies into a researcher (and to see the graphic change), 1.5 villies must be used to make one researcher, who then enters some kind of research-like building, etc. Very nice touch.

And it would be nice to attack an enemy and target his researchers. At 1:1.5, he'd have to consume a lot of villies to get back up to his research speed if you wipe out his researchers.

That sounds really fun to me...

Last edited by yin26 on 12-03-2002 at 02:55

	12-03-2002 20:57									#53
	Get a bigger avatar today!

quote: Originally posted by yin26 Leonidas: Thanks! I like your addition a lot as well. Perhaps researchers can be made at a 1:1.5 ratio. To turn villies into a researcher (and to see the graphic change), 1.5 villies must be used to make one researcher, who then enters some kind of research-like building, etc. Very nice touch. And it would be nice to attack an enemy and target his researchers. At 1:1.5, he'd have to consume a lot of villies to get back up to his research speed if you wipe out his researchers. That sounds really fun to me...

yin26: Yes, by attacking the researchers/Academies a person could really keep the opposition behind the eight-ball. . .

This would prove to be devastating as civs moved into the later tech eras. . .

	12-03-2002 23:45									#54
	Tired of ads?

just dont make battle click-fests!!

For example I like Battle Realms idea of recruiting people BUT it simply gets tedious and draws way too much attention off.

Besides from the screenshots it looks like there will be massive amount of units involved in battles. So I think it is better to hold the amount of different units small. Close, Ranged and Bombard will do I think. Maybe a fast scouting or flanking unit, but that sure is enough unit types to control.

It is very important to have control over the battle at any time (except when you make stupid descisions so that everything turns up in chaos, but even then you could rally your men at some point).

For example I like the control I had in Gettysburg and Antietam. Very fine battle simulations that were!!! And even with the few units you had, you could think up great tactics and it wasnt very stressful since combat lasted long enough to even control a larger frontline.

Fights in AOE or Empire Earth were over way too fast. And especially in AOE it was a click fest.


And yes I think city managment is fine, THOUGH if it gets boring it gets annoying.

I once had the idea of having different quarters of a city. Each quarter was represented by a central building and around that other buildings evolved.

So you put up a central building for people (a church for example) and this finds your city. People will move towards the church. Then you build a marketplace and within a certain area a financial district evolves. A library starts a scientific district and barracks mark zones of military control. There is also the option of having an industrial district. Started with maybe a blacksmith or factory.
You can speed up evolution by investing money in certain districts. Normally this would be taken from the city treasure if this is not enough from a global fund.

Military districts dont need to be in cities though.

Maybe something along that line for city-managment.

ata

	14-03-2002 18:22									#55
	Get a bigger avatar today!

I'm probably not the sort of person you want posting because I'll not be buyig a game that zips through the renaissance in under ten minutes no matter what game mechanics it uses -but- I fully support Yin's idea. If a game is going to focus on speed then you don't want to be messing with peasants when your attention should be on your military, diplomatic or economic decisions. There is nothing more infuriating in my limited RTS experience than finding that while you have been conducting an extremely effective military campaign somewhere a lone enemy detatchment has managed to ease past your defences and murdered your workforce because they are too stupid to look after themselves or scream for help.

	15-03-2002 07:25									#56
	A few ideas Increase Your PM Length

it nice to know that game designers care:

I guess many of my dieas are ones i have seen work well in other games;

The notion of general that you pointed out doesn't go far enough, I believe. In terms of handling troops in th field, i think the game Cossacks has done the best job of an RTS. Players will crank out lots of units. I think that these units should fight not alone, but as integrated units (so if i make 20 spearmen, i form them into one spearmen division an now i have one large unit, not 20). This cuts down micromanagement greatly- it allows for a battle to be fought by giving a few orders to my divisions (like a real leader does) instead of getting orders to every **** and tom in my army. It would also make the implementation of any sort of A.I. commander unit (to lessen micromanagement) much easier.

I think that some sort of free market fro traded goods should be implemented- The base price to pay for any good should be based on a combination of the overall demand and the supply (not being used internally). Such a system will give players the incentive to be self-reliant whie at the smae time create monopolies of goods to make insane amounts of money.

I like most of Yin's ideas for developing land- i would even go further and restrict how far military campaigns can go from your cities by the creation of some sort of army supply system- only late in human history could an empire send their forces around the world- the Egyptians could not have sent an army to China, even if they wanted. So, limit how far military units can stray from your territory before youcan no longer give them orders- with the raneg increasing with tech. I suspect this might be very difficult o implement in term of coding, but i think it would really bring a level of strategic depth not seen in many computer games period.

	15-03-2002 23:14									#57
	a realtime trading system Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

I’ve got an idea for a trading system that I think would fit in better in RoN than those of AoK or Civ.

The trading system used in AoK is IMO too simple and it assumes that there exist trading partners outside the map that buy the players’ resources or sell resources to the players. This isn’t very realistic, prices are not based on supply and demand and interesting tactics like trade embargoes are not possible (ok trade embargoes wouldn’t really be that interesting with 4 resources everywhere on the map but in RoN there’ll be many strategic resources that are rare).
Then there’s the system that Civ uses which is complex and works fine for a TBS game. However trade occurs only after long negotiations that don’t fit well into a RTS game since they take too much time. (While you can pause the game in SP mode, I guess that this is not possible in MP.)

So here’s the idea:
It is a trade screen that allows each player to set the price (s)he is willing to pay for certain resources and the amount of money (s)he demands for selling the resources.
I know it is going to be big but anyways, the screen could look like that: First of all each resource needs a checkbox so the player can choose if (s)he wants to sell the resource, a slider for the price the player wants to get for the resource and another slider (or a textbox) to set the minimum amount of that resource that is supposed to stay in the player’s warehouse (so if it is set to 300 and the player owns less than 300 units of that resource, nobody is able to buy it from that player.).
To allow a buying option the screen also contains a checkbox to set if the player wants to buy that resource, another slider for the maximum price (s)he is willing to pay for it and again a textbox or slider that is used to set the maximum amount the player needs (if this is set to 1000 and the player owns more than 1000 units of that resource nobody is able to sell more to her/him).
Furthermore it would be useful if the player could choose with which nations he wants to trade with and which would be his favourite trade partners (if the price is the same deals will be made with those first; this assumes that there is “button-click trade” and not “trade-cart trade” otherwise the favourite option would not be that useful.)
Trade could then happen automatically either after the click of a button or after a trading unit would reach another player’s marketplace.

The downside of this would be the huge and complex screen that the player needs to take care of during a running game. But I think that this would be manageable if the player could choose a default starting setting because then it would just require a few clicks every now and then to change certain settings.

	18-03-2002 18:08									#58
	Avatar Enlargement: We've got the solution

You could add a corruption feature in which all productivity of your empire goes close to zero after you get a certain size.

	18-03-2002 20:17									#59
	RTS usual mistakes Enter the AD-FREE zone

Some common mistakes in a RTS game, and (of course) a possible solution:

1) Windows. Never use windows in a game of this type, while you're looking the window something awful is happening in your border!

For solve this, include a queue of messages/pendent assets.
What to do with these messages? Look at 2!

2) Map zoomable. When you start a diplomatic encounter the map zooms in a secondary position and the heads of the leaders and option boxes in the top. So, you can talk and see what is happening.

3) Boring at the end. When you have an amaizing wall, full of resources, defense towers in each corner... And the enemy is doing... Nothing... You can destroy'em in a few seconds but you can't destroy all this work!!

4) Strange things. Is interesting that the game include strange things that only appears each 100 games (no aliens/God, please!). The idea is make'em using the normal units, for example, a civ called Atlantis appears in a far island an have a strange science bonus. If it sinks or not, is your decision, but 6000 years is a lot of time to stay without a great disaster.

5) Correct scale. Is ridiculous see an airbase with F-15 and a tree that is taller than an entire city-tile. If you make a city, an instant road appears connecting to something near and some houses appear in the road. Think in Transport Tycoon city development.

6) Maps. Why the maps are always a single big square (or exagon like in The Settlers)? Different shapes (world shape, multilevel like in Test of Time and Call to Power 1, four-connected, etc...) Of course the better is the normal one, but always is good to have a big of variation not only in sizes.

7) Advanced Diplomacy. Possibility of make marriages between kingdoms (the MOST used diplomatic rule in ALL the history!!!),
etc...

8) Out-of-the-game. Some tribes are better with you or worse deppending of another games (game history), but always in a correct balance (so, 1 for you, 6 hate you, 6 love you and 5 are neutral). So, If you are a pig with Celts, Celts hate you till in a game you are good with them. With this the computer have the same reason that a human player to kill you.

9) Historical accurancy vs Number of tribes. Like in "other games" (hehehe ) there are problems with this. But look Age of Empires II, there are Teutons and nobody said "oh, I want Germans...". The great idea could be 18 tribes that evolve in name, face of leader, architecture, etc (but not alway all in all the era changes!)... So, if there are 5 eras (for example):

The Celts -> Celtic Empire -> The Irish -> The Irish -> Ireland

Also the player can choose from a list of possibilities or make a custom one (at the moment, or better including it in a well performed editor ). So we can maintain us as English or change to Americans when the 17th century starts. With this the game can cover large empires/countries like China or USA and some than in the past where big ones and now disappeared or they are a 3rd world nation (like Mongolia, Ghana, Incans/The Birú, Crown of Aragon/Catalans ).

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Last edited by XarXo on 18-03-2002 at 20:44

	18-03-2002 21:54									#60
	Increase Your PM Length

Brian:

I forgot to highlight earlier that deathmatch isn't quite what I meant by taking away / automating villies with a slide bar.

In deathmatch, you have basically a 'buy anything you want and build as much as you want as fast as you can click' kind of thing. I don't like that kind of game at all. I *want* to micro my economy -- but in a far more interesting way. What I was hoping to see is a situation in which the player would be able to focus on more important decisions throughout the game: diplomacy, upgrades, research, etc.

Of course, those decisions would need to be made more interesting: In diplomacy, for example, perhaps you could have royal marriage options that make attacks on each other impossible for a time. In upgrades, units could have branching paths -- each with distinct abilities and weaknesses such that the rock, scissor, paper dynamic would be far more interesting (do I upgrade my archers along the path toward snipers, which takes longer but will eventually produce units with massive range, or do I take a more immediate reward of some kind?).

In research, the added thinking time given back to the player who doesn't need to micro 100 villies would be particularly welcomed and, I think, really would set RoN apart from the pack. I think virtually ALL of us want a superior Civ3 in real-time with kick-butt graphics. You've got the graphics. What remains to be seen, though, is if the thinking part of our brains will be given enough time (and enough options) to make far deeper decisions with far more interesting results than we currently see with the run of RTS's on the market.

Best of luck!