22-05-2003 17:28									#1
	BHG - Some suggestions on extremely neeeded game setup options Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

Hey all,

I know you guys at BHG are probably very busy imporving mulitplayer and general gameplay, as well as engaging in your eternal fight against the evil hackers and cheaters . But I have played multiplayer for the last few days, and it seems a large part of the community agrees with me about some needed improvement in the flexibilty of the game setup.

It all boils down to four basic feature that are really needed.

(Guys, if you support these ideas please show your support and keep this post at the top. BHG should see this. )

Free Style Diplomacy: We need a game setup option which allows players to have as many allies as they want. This is in high demand from what I see of the Diplo game players.

No Victory: Yup, there shoud be an option to disable all victory conditions. Why? Because it's essential to diplomacy games so the game won't end prematurely. (This was an Empire Earth mistake). I've seen some support for this option, and I have played my fair share of games where us players get "cheated" out of a game because conquest victory sets in, it's annoying, and I really hope you will patch it.

Nuclear Free Zone: No nukes allowed, period. Conventional weapons are fine, but alot of players hate the nukes, shouldn't we give them a simple option to disable them?

No Armageddon: I was really suprised to see that armageddon can't be turned off except for modding. Please make a gameplay option allowing us nuke happy's to go crazy with destroying the world!

That's it, just four options. I hope these crucial setup options will be considered, and that you' all at BGH will save this post, so you can look at it when things are not so crazy at work .

Apolytoners, please show your support by posting, this post will be buried fast if you don't express your feelings on these suggestions.

	22-05-2003 17:32									#2
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No Nukes and No Aramgeddon certainly sound like reasonable requests to add as game setup options. I don't quite follow you on the No Victory one - how does the game end then?

	22-05-2003 17:54									#3
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Quite frankly, It wouldn't.

In EE it was in the beta and they took it out for the final version. Oh the fun times we had in the beta, the whole world could be allied and build peacefully, and then world war would break out. The game could go on as long as the players wanted, while allying and unallying.

Game pretty much ends when your the last one standing or everyone els has left, and you quit. In this case, it's not about winning, but it's about fun and "role-playing", which is great fun indeed.

Not a good game for rated games though .

Again, it's just an OPTION, an option that I feel hundreds of players would use and love. Including me and my online, as well as real life friends.

	22-05-2003 19:09									#4
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Ok, given the way you describe it, I'd be in favor of that option too. Just to be clear however, there is still a "conquer everyone else" victory condition. Just no territory or wonder victory, right?

	22-05-2003 19:35									#5
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I think these are all very reasonable suggestions, especially the no nuke one. I HATE nukes in civ and always edit them out of the game. They just mess everything up!

	22-05-2003 21:17									#6
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I think what you mean is a last man standing diplomacy. So when one team conqures the whole map, then that team suddenly becomes enemies with each other, and they have to fight each other now?

And by the way, this is the most flexible RTS game i've ever seen, so if they've left out a few options lets forgive them eh?

	22-05-2003 22:13									#7
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Interesting suggestions, indeed.

	22-05-2003 22:13									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Bridger I think what you mean is a last man standing diplomacy. So when one team conqures the whole map, then that team suddenly becomes enemies with each other, and they have to fight each other now? And by the way, this is the most flexible RTS game i've ever seen, so if they've left out a few options lets forgive them eh?

Thanks for the comments guys.

No Bridger, I don't mean a last man standing policy. I mean a No Victory option. Under the Victory tab you have several choices, the one most used is conquest. From what I've experianced Conquest will end the game when there are no more neutral/enemy nations left to oppose you.

I love RoN more than any other RTS, but it isn't the most flexible RTS I've ever seen, so I would guess you have never played Age of Empires.

In AoE (and AoK) under the diplomacy screen you could ally as many as you wanted.

In the diplomacy screen there was also an "Allied Victory" checkbox. When selected, and if your allies had it selected too, you and your allies would win the game. But if you didn't select it the game would go on until you either 1: Selected it, or 2: Turned on your allies and killed them.

The "Allied Victory" check box worked well, but a No Victory option (under the victory tab most likely) would work just as well.

After hearing how "flexible" the RoN setup was from beta testers, I was sure that players would be able to turn off victory conditions if they wanted, but we can't. We should be able to play a game with no victory conditions if we want to. It just seems like common sense that if the game allows you to play alone, then it should allow a game where you can play as long as you like, and however you like.

Think of all those games of civ2 you kept on playing even after "victory" was achieved, and scoring was no longer kept. It was fun to keep playing even though it wasn't about winning anymore.

BGH - This one feature (the no victory request) seems to me the most important feature to be included. It will allow players to take the game to new depths, and have the type of "unrestricted play" that we as gamers crave.

	22-05-2003 22:20									#9
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Also, about RTS and flexibility...

Most games have an option to turn "Super Weapons" on or off. Nukes are deffinitely the RoN equivalent to super weapons.

It doesn't seem odd or strange that a player should be able to turn them off. At least not to me.

	22-05-2003 23:27									#10
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I just tried setting Victory to "Territory", and then setting "Territory Goal" to "No Territory Victory".

I started a test game me vs 1 easiest computer.

I allied with the computer.

The game abruptly ended saying "Your Team Won".

I tried this test both on Custom Diplomacy and Diplomacy game type options.

Oh well....guess it really will take a patch to fix this.

	23-05-2003 00:11									#11
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Here's my suggestion:

A "Random starting placement" feature for CTW. (If it's not there already. I would check the manual, but... ) It would be cool to have the option to start in a random place on the map. Also, are resources randomized on the map?

	23-05-2003 01:30									#12
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All of these suggestions are good ones. I agree that nukes disrupt the flow of the game (though I love lobbing 6 at a time on my enemy sometimes). And I would love the ability to turn off victory conditions, or at least have an option to 'continue playing' once the condition is achieved. Maybe the AoE engine doesn't support this

These are the kinds of options though, that I'd be very suprised that BHG wouldn't add in a coming patch. I would imagine that things like this would be easy for them to achieve, giving them the most 'bang for the buck' as it were, when making patches.

	23-05-2003 01:42									#13
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All good points. Frankly, one of the biggest problems with additional, orthogonal options is the UI for 1024x768 in all languages. It's important that we have room for all the information and that it's clear to all players at a glance.

We definitely want to support mods and scripts via MP in a clean way. This is forcing us to think still harder about the setup screen. Perhaps we'll find ways to make significantly more room during this process. (BTW, MP saving is coming along and will hopefully be out before long.)

The "No Nukes" option was brought up not long before ship by internal MS testers. There, too, it was a question of limited screen real estate. The real call there is a Design team one but I think it's a probability if we can find the room.

Thanks for the thoughts,
J

BTW, AOE engine? That's painful stuff.

	23-05-2003 01:51									#14
	Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

there appears to be one more row that can be added in the setup screen when choosing "custom" rules option, so maybe a "mod" option at the end can be added for which mod is being used. although if we want the game to support multiple mods simultaneously there would be another screen needed to control this like they have in other moddable games, in which case instead of having an extra row to which mod, one would simply add an option to the game rules option and add "mod rules". and maybe somehow a help caption can pop up that lists which mods are active.

	23-05-2003 03:13									#15
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quote: Originally posted by vootguy Maybe the AoE engine doesn't support this

Ouch. What a blow...

Thanks for the respoonse J. I really hope to have some great diplomacy games in the future, provided I can actually ally with all my friends and build some, without the game ending that is.

	23-05-2003 06:39									#16
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I guess i don't get it then, what would be the point of no victory conditions. You want the game to keep going until somebody gets bored enough to quit?

	23-05-2003 11:23									#17
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I think in custom diplomacy you can have more than one ally?

	23-05-2003 16:32									#18
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Only if you start with one.

I you put 2 allies on your team, you cannot ally with a third. And if you go to war with your second allly, you can't re-ally with him as long as you still have your first.

In other words, it still only let's have an alliance with just one player, unless you started with more than one on your team.

	24-05-2003 00:33									#19
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quote: Originally posted by jcoleman All good points. Frankly, one of the biggest problems with additional, orthogonal options is the UI for 1024x768 in all languages. It's important that we have room for all the information and that it's clear to all players at a glance.

i understand the problem you're stating with reguard to screen real estate versus at-a-glance availibility, but RoN is simply a more complex game than many others, and it does deserve more setup options.

perhaps you could have a "simple" and "advanced" switch for the game host, where if he wanted to, could either use the interrface you currently have for setting up games, or a more in-depth tabbed interface with far more options on multiple tabs.

feedback on the feedback?

	24-05-2003 08:42									#20
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quote: Originally posted by Timeline Ouch. What a blow...

No harm intended of course, this game is the best RTS I've ever played. Just thinking of my last game, with my entrenched line holding off an onslaught of enemy Main Battle Tanks... it gets my blood flowing right now.

I totally respect the decision to use the AoE logic, if not their engine... I'm a firm believer in not 'reinventing the wheel'. If everyone working with technology actually built off the strengths of others, we'd have a cure for cancer already... not to mention more great games RoN has been my gaming nirvana since the demo was released. This contrasts to the total disillusionment I felt after I had played my first game of Civ3.

UberKrux has a great idea about screen real estate... having an 'advanced' setup options screen for those who want it is similar to the interface used for units in the game.

Edited for spelling.