31-01-2003 07:21									#31
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it has been my experience that in civ, if you don't improve your cities properly or satisfy your people, unrest occurs and possible invasion, a.k.a. the decline.

i think the civ games reflect the dangers of doing nothing pretty well.

	31-01-2003 07:34									#32
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Remember, the Empire began to decay because of a stifling of creativity and lack of scientific advance. The Empire lasted for ten thousand years before it crumbled. I think this could be accurately reflected in the MOO series. Sure, it's fun to oppress your people and build the 'Spanish Armada' of the Orion Sector, but lose your focus and initiative with the creative process and reap the disaster you sow.

	31-01-2003 09:05									#33
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Well, I have the answer to the problem. Civ type, and I include the Moo series should incorporate leaders as a second level element to the human player/god.

As the empire expands game mechanics should be designed to require the playing diety to recruit leaders who should be evolving, dynamic factors in the game.

These leaders should cover the range of fields, military, scientific, cultural, religious, economic, and whatever else. The playing diety should pick and choose leaders according to various factors but the leaders being dynamic could prove useful or harmful or both. Replacing them might cause negative effects. Letting them remain in place could cause them to become too powerful and a threat to the unity of the empire. Or, should the playing diety choose to use mediocre leaders stagnation could occur.

And the story of the leaders and their interaction, who, being human are born and die within the game, becomes the history of the empire. This is the future of the next generation of empire building games.

	31-01-2003 13:17									#34
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I like that idea. Imagine you pick a leader who is too abitious, who gets the Empire into wars it cannot win. Then you'd get knocked back a peg, and have to rebuild when he was replaced, or a leader who wastes your money and resources on his own luxury, at the cost of defense. Some study of the history of the Byzantine Empire and its Emperors, or the Holy Roman Empire demonstrate this ocillation between good, strong leaders, and poor, weak leaders, and many examples of how a great leader came at the right time to save an Empire, or came at the wrong time... with disastrous results. When will someone make the game of my dreams...

-Jam

	31-01-2003 14:30									#35
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Along those lines and the topic of the thread...

Wouldn't it be cool if you got a fleet commander like Bel Riose?

But I think it would be FAR cooler to be able to research psychohistory and have that "dead hand" around to make the "iron will" look foolish

	31-01-2003 15:01									#36
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I'm not sure about researching psychohistory.

"Scientists - go and study Psychohistory" And then they come back and SHARE the results with you, and you trade the discovery with other civs... What was the first principle of PsyHist again?


-Jam

	31-01-2003 15:20									#37
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quote: Originally posted by War of Art I'm not sure about researching psychohistory. "Scientists - go and study Psychohistory" And then they come back and SHARE the results with you, and you trade the discovery with other civs... What was the first principle of PsyHist again? -Jam

Hmm.... perhaps there's some super-duper extra non-realistic "weapon" that removed all knowledge of psychology, sociology, political science, and most related fields from an entire empire so that they'd be properly impacted by your psychohistorical manipulations.... but then your own empire and other empires would mess up your controlled experiment .... ok, then what if we erased all knowledge of those fields from ALL of the peoples of the entire Orion Sector and beyond!



There, so if we collapse all social science everywhere and make sure it never comes back, then we can manipulate all of them

()*@$)(&%@!!!

Stupid Mule....

oh well...

	31-01-2003 15:35									#38
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I agree with those in favour of some kind of decline model.

It is a more true to life phenomenon, and (perhaps more importantly) handicaps, at least a little, an otherwise all powerful empire. It would certainly make the endgame more interesting/less uninteresting.

Jimmytrick's comment re leaders manifesting the effect (of decline) is a good one. And also it would (groan... sorry) fit well with the AI leaders/governors etc we were going to get under the IFP system...

And in response to those who don't like the idea of their empires collapsing around their ears... I don't think that's what's being suggested. We're just talking about a "slowdown"... which may become an actual decline if you mismanage the situation, but needn't necessarily.

Another interesting variation is: why does everyone always have to start from the same point (i.e. zero)? It may be fun to play a game where you start as a large, bloated and crumbling empire, trying to fend off the new "upstart" empires and survive. Or, conversely, start as a new, small empire, surrounded by older, larger and more established empires, and try to survive and prosper (think; small country between two superpowers who will remain anonymous).

In those types of scenarios, the levelling effect of the "decline" model (for want of a better term), would be vital.

But anyway...

Jon...

	31-01-2003 15:47									#39
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Hmm, could be possible I suppose. It would need some kind of in-game mechanism for tech regression (realistic and on MY wish list) And then you'd have to force the your and the other civs into the situation where this occurs, having researched PsyHist first, then play on, but with the foreknowledge that only you, the player will have. Nice. But very hard to put into a game.

Back to declining empires...

Assuming that noone would play a game which always ended with your civ just "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" I would argue that perhaps a set-back or two could be a welcome addition to the Civ games of the future. Consider the progress of a normal Civ-style game. You expand, you become more advanced, etc. As you expand, the rate at which you can expand increases geometrically, that is to say, the more cities, planets whatever that you have, the more rapidly settlers, colony pods etc. can be produced, and so on. The same with millitary forces, improvements etc. In the long (or short) run you reach the point where you cannot be caught by the other civs. I'm sure everyone has got to this position, where victory is certain, and has been certain for a long while. If you have more bases, cities, whatever, and these bases are well developed, then you are unassailable. In any civ style game, the Roman Empire would still be with us today.

So, my point is, that when a civ once reaches a temporary point of dominance in the civ series of games, it has almost always already won. The rest of the game is just playing out this victory. And that "sucks" a bit, I'm afraid to say. I probably finish less than half my games of SMAC and Civ3 for this reason. So, I propose that any future games have the possiblity of falling back in the race for supremacy, or even losing from a leading position. How this could be done, however, without simply annoying the player, and making them feel all their work was for nothing, is a difficult question, and one that interests me immensely.

-Jam

	31-01-2003 18:35									#40
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Empires don't start from entirely even standings to begin with in any of the MOO or Civ games. Starting location has much to do with success... and in MOO and Civ3, each empire has different characteristics with stengths and weaknesses to further comlicate things. In Civ3 and MOO2, the differences in your empires attributes were very important as some traits were much more useful than others in a majority of situations.

Unrest and corruption are elements of decline and if not managed properly your empire will fail. Isn't that enough? This talk of having leaders do everything for you is all very interesting in theory but would it really hold your interest in a game?

I believe there has to be a balance of things a player can directly control and things that he cannot. I think that putting too much emphasis on the internal decay and the performance of leaders takes too much control out of the players hands. If you have too much to do as a player though, the balance shifts the other way and you end up in a MM black hole which isn't very fun either.

Here's hoping MOO3 is a well-balanced game.

	31-01-2003 21:17									#41
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quote: Originally posted by viciouscycle Empires don't start from entirely even standings to begin with in any of the MOO or Civ games. Starting location has much to do with success... and in MOO and Civ3, each empire has different characteristics with stengths and weaknesses to further comlicate things.

That’s true, but you know what I mean. They’re all still at the same point of development.

quote: Originally posted by viciouscycle Unrest and corruption are elements of decline and if not managed properly your empire will fail. Isn't that enough? This talk of having leaders do everything for you is all very interesting in theory but would it really hold your interest in a game?

I don’t think it would take away from the player’s involvement. On the contrary, I think it would add another layer to what you can do: ie Management of the individuals who execute your orders.

Finding enough good people to fill the expanding number of posts in your growing empire could act as the brake on growth/efficiency that’s being discussed.

Jon...

	01-02-2003 01:01									#42
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In Kebzero's most recent AAR he mentions how the Sakkra Empire Expanded WAY to quickly and literally crumbled into a shadow of its former glory. From largest Empire to just 6 worlds. Thsi was on the Highest Difficulty too...

	01-02-2003 07:17									#43
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I think the Sakkra fell in that particular game because they expanded beyond the capacity of the military to defend the new territory, etc...

Wasn't the "Heavy Foot of Government" (HFOG) effect one of the original features slated to be implemented in MOO3? I don't know if it went the way of IFPs (good riddance to those) or if it's still in the game. HFOG was supposed to have precisely the effects some people are describing here, including necessitating alliances/trade agreements/research treaties between large empires and smaller ones as the larger empires became less and less efficient at these tasks, the level of inefficiency being related to the size and development level of the empire.

Anyone have any more information about this?

	01-02-2003 10:55									#44
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According to the strat guide, the heavy foot of govt is still in there. My understanding is that it doesn't deal with corruption, but instead deals with happiness. There aren't that many details about it.

	03-02-2003 12:43									#45
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I believe that HFOG is a simple multiplication factor which applies to all construction costs. As your empire gets more inefficient, things simply cost more/take longer to build. This is info from the official "data dump thingie" on their web site. Hope that helps.

But, HFOG is not the same as "decay" , just a way of simulationing the burocracy needed to run a HUGE empire spread across millions of light-years.

-Jam

	03-02-2003 16:39									#46
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I hope they kept HFOG true to the spirit of Alan's design. One of the main things the devs wanted to avoid was the 'critical mass' domination of empires. It should be at least as hard to run a large empire than a smaller one.

I hate games that have an inverse difficulty curve. It's the one thing I don't like about Medieval:TW. It starts hard, but the more provinces you conquer the easier it gets.

However, now that 'the speech' and IFPs are cut I have no idea what HFOG is going to be like. Fingers crossed it'll be great!

	03-02-2003 17:22									#47
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quote: Originally posted by campfreddie I hope they kept HFOG true to the spirit of Alan's design. ... However, now that 'the speech' and IFPs are cut I have no idea what HFOG is going to be like. Fingers crossed it'll be great!

All I know for sure is that it has been gutted. The old HFOG was dependent on IFPs I believe.

	03-02-2003 17:25									#48
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Well, if critical mass is still a factor in MoO3, its not the end of the world. If you simply can't handle another game that gets easier as it goes on, then wait another month for GalCiv. Brad has practically promised to eliminate "critical mass" with the AI recognising when the player (or another AI faction) is reaching this point, and trying to do something about it, either surrendering to the inevitable, striking first, or maybe even trying to form a coalition against the leading faction. I'm reckoning that between MoO3 and GalCiv, there will be at least one good game.

-Jam

	03-02-2003 18:02									#49
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I can agree that the deterioration makes sense in other games, but perhaps not Moo3. In Moo3, almost always an 'empire' is a race, not just a political entity. These races are often single minded, whether bent on destruction, trade, or research.
What it comes down to is the race with the most individual independences would be the most likely to become corrupt and split apart, and assuming no human progress, that's certainly us. They could make a few things unique to the humans, to make the game more interesting for them. Senate, anyone?
But anyway, I do not feel the current troubles of corruption and self-destruction rampant in the history of this world necessarily exist with other races, and certainly not necessarily with the higher technology. The power grab ambition is weak. Everything is already established.

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	03-02-2003 18:06									#50
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Actually, in MoO3, an empire is almost always NOT just a race, but may contain many (20+ ???) races in greater or larger proportions. Imagine the problems that us humans have, but multiplied by a factor of x for all the as yet unimaginable problems that an alien race would have, and then add in factor y for the conflicts between the different races in your empire. A big, mixed-race empire should be full of potential internal confict and divisions, perfect for collapse at any moment...

-Jam

	03-02-2003 18:30									#51
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quote: Originally posted by War of Art Actually, in MoO3, an empire is almost always NOT just a race, but may contain many (20+ ???) races in greater or larger proportions. Imagine the problems that us humans have, but multiplied by a factor of x for all the as yet unimaginable problems that an alien race would have, and then add in factor y for the conflicts between the different races in your empire. A big, mixed-race empire should be full of potential internal confict and divisions, perfect for collapse at any moment...

Ilp. have to disagree. Empirse are very often a single race unless you decide to conquer population. Remember that the current popular notion that 'black', 'white', 'hispanic', 'asian', etc are races, is completely false, just incase you were going down that ally. Every human in the world is more related than any two breeds of cats or dogs.

Now I agree if you take over a huge chunk of another empire, then make peace, they'll be trying to convert back for a rather long time, and only military/police, or massive 'reeducation' would help. But I would argue this conversion is race independent: if you are reconquering a once long ago held planet, they will probably not come willingly even if they are your race.

	04-02-2003 13:03									#52
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Read the AARs. In some of these the beta testers have 6 or more races in their empires, from conquest and from colonisation.

-Jam

	06-02-2003 02:03									#53
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gah, hardcoded empire decay... can anyone imagine a less fun feature for an empire game?

As much as I agree with hitting the critical mass being sucky, that kind of solution sounds worse then the problem.

	06-02-2003 02:04									#54
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i mean christ, just look at corruption in civ3...

	06-02-2003 09:36									#55
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That's because you can't do anything about corruption in Civ3. Or c-flipping.

Suppose rebellions could arise in colonies. Not just Civ2 style revolts where you lose production and research contributions for a turn, and after turning a worker into an elvis or adding another martial law unit it ends. A real revolt, subborning troops and declaring independence. It doesn't automatically flip to another empire, but another empire might be willing to send it support, just to occupy the forces of their opponent (like France helping American Rev). You can reconquer by force, or diplomacy, or decide it's too expensive to keep.

	06-02-2003 12:17									#56
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Exactly - you can't do anything about corruption in Civ3. If building a courthouse, or researching "Devolution" of something would actually work, then corruption would be an interesting game mechanic, another problem to solve in-play. As it is there's nothing wrong with corruption per se, just the tools the player has to combat it.

-Jam

	06-02-2003 13:41									#57
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quote: Originally posted by vee4473 It would seem to me that to make jscott's version of a game would be out of sync with the moo series. Having an empire decay from within because of thousands of years of political and social deterioration would make the game more of a politcal/social simulator. Moo and civ type games are more about shorter term conquest (military or otherwise).

(emphasis above is mine - sik)

This is ridiculous on its face. Civ goes from the first agricultural states all the way to human colonization of other star systems. Its scope is larger than all of human history to this point. It is not about short term conquest (though for some bizarre reason a lot of people like to play it that way), which is why even though it is one of the worst wargames ever coded for the pc people still love it. MOO is the same scale game, except it begins just at the dawn of space travel and continues until the galaxy is dominated by one power. It is a better wargame (I'm talking MOO2 here, I haven't seen MOO3 yet!), but it still spends most of its effort being an economic, diplomatic and technology driven endeavor.

I'm all for an empire simulator that spends some effort making the player deal with the problems of empire. As has been stated at length above, most of these problems do not come in the form of incompetently led troops from outside the empire, but from power struggles within the empire. Read some history and you will find that troops are deployed far more often against internal opposition than external. And that is just the troops, an enormous amount of energy is spent deciding internal policies as well. Interstate warfare and diplomacy pale in comparison, though when they flare up they can be decisive factors also.

	06-02-2003 17:16									#58
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I want to say that strategis games are very very creative. The can develop our mentality. CIV3 is a great game but I can't be satisfied with diplomatic options. It's a worst thing in all type of this sort of games. I want to say that diplomation is the best way to evolve in CIV3 world. It's key to success. I'm hope that Master of Orion 3 will give me this kind of satisfaction. Sorry for mistake but i'm from Poland. I want to greet you too!!!So I'm greeting you!!!

	06-02-2003 21:43									#59
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Sikander makes the point I was trying to make very eloquently. The MOO series spans hundreds of years minimum. There should be some mechanism for adding in inefficiency and decay. That this would lead to unrest and then rebellions is axiomatic. I think most people who aren't looking for a mind-numbing RTS-like conquest sim would be very satisfied with some more internal policy management.

A simple way to build this in would just be adding monarchs who live and die and whose attributes effect the economic and social formulas in some way. I would like to see something more, but this would not be hard to put into place.

	07-02-2003 15:40									#60
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quote: Sorry for mistake but i'm from Poland.

Beeing form Poland does not make you automatically a bad english speaker...