Better helping streamline muli-hw games

[chemical_art]

I...I know multi-hw games are a mess...but to better streamline the experience:

1) AI only buildings, such as AI forts, guardposts, etc, scale with HW count.
2) Human resources, such as harvestors, also scale with HW count.

Doing these two things I think would better streamline the experience. Fallen Spire, for example, gets a general nerf because their unit caps scale, and the exo response scales, but the player ability economically does not scale. But without fallen spire, humans get an edge in some ways in demolishing ai defenses, but in large AIP games their economy cannot keep up like it would in a human game.


Thoughts?

[Hearteater]

I'd like for certain ship types to have a Shared Ship Cap.  This means no matter how many players or homeworlds in a game, the cap never changes.  Either player can build this ship and it counts against the global cap.  Obviously you can freely give units of this type to another player without trouble, provided they have that ship level unlocked.

Scouts and Raid Starships would fall under this.

[Diazo]

The thing is, Multi-HW is about tradeoffs.

Notably, as you increase the number of HW you start with, you are making the early game easier at the expense of making the late game harder.

Now, I don't play Multi-HW so this is all theory craft, but I know the AI gets more waves when there are multi-HW, I assume it also gets more reinforcements as well.

The increased reinforcements is where the harder late game comes in. Early game before the reinforcements really start to have an effect, multi-HW lets  you walk all over the AI. However in mid to late game you should start running into planets that are sufficiently reinforced to be a challenge, even on multi-HW. (Or it should in how I envision multi-HW balance working.)

The other big thing that makes Multi-HW easier is the extra knowledge you get, but I'm not sure I want to mess with that formula.

Lastly, how similar do we want to keep the multiplayer and multi-HW mechanics?

Hmmm, what about messing with AIP? The biggest advantage multi-HW has is the more territory you start with, without incurring any sort of AIP cost.

No real suggestions in here I realize, but my thoughts on what could be looked at for this.

D.

[keith.lamothe]

Now, I don't play Multi-HW so this is all theory craft, but I know the AI gets more waves when there are multi-HW, I assume it also gets more reinforcements as well.

Before 5.0 it actually didn't, but in the big reinforcements overhaul that happened before 6.0, HW count was made to factor into reinforcements.

Anyway, I don't mind buffing the AI's static (mapgen-placed) defenses proportional to HW count, but is that what folks really want?

Can you imagine a mkIV world with 16x the normal number of guard posts?  Do you want to imagine it?  Do you want to play it?

Not that it'd have to use guard posts to make up the difference, but they'd be the most obvious choice.

[Diazo]

The thing is, the early game is supposed to be relatively easy.

It certainly is on single-HW, so I assume multi-HW is the same.

Capturing those first 3 systems is (99% of the time) a pretty easy goal.

It's what comes after that gets harder at that pushes AIP high enough that it starts becoming a threat, hence why reinforcements are what needs tweaking I think.

Now, how to tweak them? I'm drawing a blank on that at the moment.

D.

[Toranth]

Anyway, I don't mind buffing the AI's static (mapgen-placed) defenses proportional to HW count, but is that what folks really want?
Can you imagine a mkIV world with 16x the normal number of guard posts?  Do you want to imagine it?  Do you want to play it?

You wouldn't need ships anymore; your troops would be able to walk to the AI Homeworlds.

Also... would the AI Homeworld also get 16x the number of Brutal picks?

[keith.lamothe]

Also... would the AI Homeworld also get 16x the number of Brutal picks?

I hadn't thought of that, but if so it could kick off a brand new "Wrath Disco" music genre.

[LaughingThesaurus]

...Is there a way, Keith, to make a cheat option of some kind that enables the player to multiply how much of a defensive structure multiplier the AI gets? I want to see 16x guard posts and 16x brutal picks just for entertainment's sake.

[Winge]

And here I was hoping you were talking about allocating more memory for a multi-HW game...

[Bognor]

Multiple homeworlds interact particularly oddly with having a champion, as you get more benefits with more homeworlds, but not more costs.  I've written this before, but for convenience:

These benefits are not affected by the number of homeworlds:

• Metal, crystal, and energy from the constructors you get in nebulae
• Knowledge from nebulae (added on edit)
• Special rewards from some nebulae, such as the Gatlings and friendly Neinzul Enclaves
• The firepower and abilities of the champion itself
• Allied starships that emerge from completed nebulae

But these benefits scale in proportion to the number of player homeworlds:

• Modular Forts - you get one per type per player homeworld
• The nebula starship fleet - you get 7 starships per constructor per player homeworld

So presumably the number of response points the AI gets per unit time should be something like "X points for the first player homeworld + Y points for every additional homeworld beyond the first", where 0 < Y < X

Keith agreed homeworld count should factor into champion cost but said we should make sure we're happy with balance in the more common single-homeworld case first.

[Bognor]

Thinking more about champions in multi-HW games, it would probably be simpler just to make the benefits of a champion independent of the number of homeworlds.  It might seem slightly odd to end up with multiple Human Modular Fortresses but only one of each alien mod fort, but I can't actually see anything wrong with that.

Regarding multi-HW nerfing Fallen Spire, is that necessarily a bad thing?  People have complained that the capital fleet render the rest of their ships obsolete, but having multiple homeworlds might alleviate that.

[Radiant Phoenix]

First, how does multi-homeworld differ from multi-player where each player has one homeworld?

Onto topics (assuming there is no difference):

Nebula Rewards: I've mentioned before that I think that they should scale to the number of champions, instead of the number of homeworlds. Bonus resource income should scale likewise.

Fallen Spire: This should either be completely orthogonal to normal gameplay -- does not scale at all with homeworlds, and neither does the AI's response, or it should scale completely -- FS ship cap, FS HM income, and FS structure HP and DPS all scale somehow.

I favor the former.

Resources in general: I think that resource income and resource cap should scale to the number of homeworlds. In multi-player, the latter is accomplished by giving each player their own resource cap, but the former is never accomplished -- more homeworlds doesn't increase harvester output or the resource output of non-home command stations.

My suggestions:
Base game:

• For every human homeworld, every command station or resource harvester has a foldout that gives resources, and the player's resource cap is increased by (10^6 - 1) M/C

Fallen Spire: either:

• ship caps, HP, DPS, resource income, and exo-wave numbers are completely unaffected by the number of homeworlds.

or

• For every homeworld, you get a foldout for the city hub that can build another set of structures

Ancient Shadows:

• Modular fortresses and nebula ship constructors are moved from the command station construction menu to a submenu of shadow ships. Each shadow ship can build one of each unlocked modular fortress, and the appropriate number of each type of nebula reward structure.
• Miscellaneous nebula rewards, like the K and the Dyson Gatlings, are scaled for the number of champions.

Anything I missed?

[Cinth]

I'm curious as to why this is even an issue.  I thought the game was balanced around 1 HW.



 

[Diazo]

I'm curious as to why this is even an issue.  I thought the game was balanced around 1 HW.

Erm, that's a bit tricky.

Yes, the 'official balance' is one HW, but so many players start with 2 or 4 homeworlds that the developers are willing to sink a little bit of time into it.

Yes, that does wonky things to the balance also.

D.

[Cinth]

I'm curious as to why this is even an issue.  I thought the game was balanced around 1 HW.

Erm, that's a bit tricky.

Yes, the 'official balance' is one HW, but so many players start with 2 or 4 homeworlds that the developers are willing to sink a little bit of time into it.

Yes, that does wonky things to the balance also.

D.

Anything up to 8 HW should behave like a multi-player game with up to 8 players, no?

Beyond that you set yourself up for a different kind of game entirely (if you want a challenge).  For me (16 HW games exclusively), it's the only way to have a "full scale war" with the AI outside of FS campaigns.  I don't really care for the hit and run, surgical style of play a single HW requires.  Yeah, D, we could never play a round together (we would be lost in each others style of gameplay ).

Some of this even seems like single HW envy.  Multi start with a lot of extra, and also have a lot of extra to build.  In no way can I build everything available to me (after spending the initial K) without having power issues.  I have a lot of income but I also need 10 docks pumping out ships to be able to refleet in a decent amount of time (with about 50 assisting engineers).  The AIs themselves hit harder.  I'm sure my doughnut of doom ss is still floating around the forums . 

I don't know if I'm just wanting to be resistant to change, but I slowly see my way of playing becoming not as fun as it once was (FS campaign change I'm looking at you).  I haven't finished a game since AS went live.