First expansion discussion (split from other thread)

[sojourner]

Note from x4000: I altered this first post to have some quotes from further-back posts from the other thread.

Thanks very much folks!  I think that, at this point in time, it's 99% chance that we'll be working on expansions.

A big mistake we made with Valley 1 was just working on free DLC for three months straight after release without any form of expansion content.  That was bloody expensive and ultimately did a number on our ability to actually break even on that game (aka, we didn't).

For Skyward I think what my most likely course of action will be is to both start work on major free DLC post launch (aka more woes and all sorts of good stuff, along with general balance), as well as starting on larger expansion stuff that would be in a for-pay package.  It may be worth it to make a thread about what people would want to see there.  Personally I'd want at least one more faction, but I think limiting it to one might be best so that the rest of the new additions could be core ones that affect all factions: ie new buildings that everyone can use, new land tiles, etc.  So you get the variety of a new faction, but also the increased scope across all factions (without directly adding units that would be exclusive to preexisting factions).  If that makes sense.

Pricing for the expansions would be a tricky thing.  If its $5 for the base game, is the expansion the same price?  That's kind of going to cause customer rebellion.  Is it $2.50?  Holy heck, there's a limit to how much we can put in an expansion for that low of a price.  Either way the expansion needs to be the same sort of "OMG this is a great value" sort of thing that the AI War expansions always have been.  And I guess one thing of note is that the cheapest of those expansions was the one that was least impressive on that score.  So that says something right there.

Anyway, it's not kosher to talk about expansions on day one I guess, but I think that doing that plus loads and loads of new free stuff for everyone is always the best course.  I want to see the woe count in the triple digits!  I want each of the ages to become increasingly distinct for reasons unrelated to the gods themselves (and the gods are just icing).  I want, if at all possible, a more robust citybuilding sim that is more economy-for-economy's sake rather than everything backing the military.  And I want, essentially, alternate win conditions relating from that.  Still "survive to the end and reach a certain score," don't get me wrong.  But a completely different way of accomplishing that.

Quests or great works of some kind could be interesting.  Those literally could be alternate win conditions, like building a ship to alpha centauri in civ.  Dangerous ways to win the game before the clock runs out could be interesting.

I've just described several expansions' worth of stuff, really; if we're going to do mechanics like that right, and really give each one a lot of details and variance, then each thing there would have a ton of sub-components that would warrant an expansion on its own, probably.  The great works expansion, with tons of complexity on those lines, and lots of other things thrown in.  The citybuilding expansion with economic paths to victory, and this whole "separate from the military" type of gameplay in it.

Who knows.  There are a lot of things I've thought about, and a lot of things that I'm sure you guys have ideas for, too.  I'm not sure what I'm most interested in pursuing yet, as my focus has been so tunnel-vision on this release (and not knowing how it would do).  But I do want to do something.  And in the meantime, of course, free DLC while we figure that out.  Unless something drastic happens to our current sales trajectory.  Knock on wood!

That all sounds pretty good to me.

In particular, I'd like to see more options for city building.  More building types or additional mechanics or whatever.   Though, I dont think any changes need to be made to the base mechanics on that one.... the way the citybuilding works right now and it's underlying mechanics are quite good, by my view.  There's alot of strategy there already.  But yeah, adding more to it, that'd be pretty great.

More factions though I think is the one thing I'd like to see most, definitely, even more than more city stuffs. 



Anyway, quickly going back to the patch and balance stuffs:

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=11648


I wanted to bring that one up because it's kind of a nasty balance issue that seems to have gotten overlooked.   Both of those tokens (Norns & Brokkr) are WAY too strong for the fact that they both have no downsides (and they GIVE you points....).   I'm thinking, change these in the same way that you changed Palladium/Cornucopia for the Greek.   These are powerful and useful as heck, and should be much tougher to use, and have a strong negative score to them.

Pricing for the expansions would be a tricky thing.  If its $5 for the base game, is the expansion the same price?  That's kind of going to cause customer rebellion.  Is it $2.50?  Holy heck, there's a limit to how much we can put in an expansion for that low of a price.  Either way the expansion needs to be the same sort of "OMG this is a great value" sort of thing that the AI War expansions always have been.  And I guess one thing of note is that the cheapest of those expansions was the one that was least impressive on that score.  So that says something right there.

As a point of reference, The Binding of Issac is a $5 game and the Wrath of the Lamb DLC is priced at $2.99. I think there's a LOT of content in that DLC, though. Exactly the same pricing for Dungeons of Dredmor and its DLC. Seems to be working for those guys. A DLC of the same price as the main game would definitely get you hauled over the coals, I think.

Very pleased to hear that you are going to probably be working further on this game. A more robust citybuilding would be great! New factions! New Woes! Nice!

On the dangerous-alternate-way-to-win-early thing, the idea that came to mind first was some kind of deal where if you place/secure/whatever these X special tiles, then it forces some kind of end boss to come out that's stupidly, stupidly powerful and dangerous (like "can end your game in a few turns" dangerous) but if the combined military of the world takes him down you win instantly.

... (looks at last AIW patch) ... maybe I'm not always very original

Maybe it would be like a "minor faction" where there's some bandit-like units out there who move (from random spawns, or from a particular spawn zone) to a particular tile and that pushes up some progress bar.  When progress bar hits 100% the boss dude pops out.

So either you try to make sure they don't accomplish this at all, or you actually make it easier on them so they can get the guy out and you can kill him and win.

Maybe one of the two normal factions producing a particular resource (or other activity you can influence) increases the spawn rate of the "cultists" mentioned above, so if you really don't want to deal with it you have to be careful about that resource.  Or if you're trying to bring things to a head you may want to crank it out.  Maybe which resource this is changes from game to game, or from "phase" to "phase" of the progress bar.

Not trying to over-complicate things, but I think the above would be relatively lightweight as expansion-anchors (or mini-anchors, at least) go.

Maybe it would be like a "minor faction" where there's some bandit-like units out there who move (from random spawns, or from a particular spawn zone) to a particular tile and that pushes up some progress bar.  When progress bar hits 100% the boss dude pops out.

So either you try to make sure they don't accomplish this at all, or you actually make it easier on them so they can get the guy out and you can kill him and win.

Maybe one of the two normal factions producing a particular resource (or other activity you can influence) increases the spawn rate of the "cultists" mentioned above, so if you really don't want to deal with it you have to be careful about that resource.  Or if you're trying to bring things to a head you may want to crank it out.  Maybe which resource this is changes from game to game, or from "phase" to "phase" of the progress bar.

Not trying to over-complicate things, but I think the above would be relatively lightweight as expansion-anchors (or mini-anchors, at least) go.

Hmm, I like this concept.  It'd fit the theme of the game, too:  Being able to decide for yourself wether you want to stop them in this particular game, or allow them to summon the boss.   Where in most strategy titles you'd pretty much ALWAYS want to stop them, not as much choice.

If you can do this one to where there's benefits (and downsides) to both options, I think it'd be a pretty great addition.   A bit more "intense" than the usual bandits.   Yet of course, the usual bandits would still interfere!

My vote for the first expansion goes to a new faction. To me, the Egyptians would be the most logical choice.  For one thing, they are quite honestly the only other culture I can think of with "household-name-mythology." Just like everyone(qualifier:in western society) has heard of Zeus and Thor, a lot of people have heard of Odin, Loki, Athena, and Ares, almost as many people have heard of Ra and Osiris. Also, Egyptian architecture and desert tiles would add an exotic flair to the game.

[Misery]

My vote for the first expansion goes to a new faction. To me, the Egyptians would be the most logical choice.  For one thing, they are quite honestly the only other culture I can think of with "household-name-mythology." Just like everyone(qualifier:in western society) has heard of Zeus and Thor, a lot of people have heard of Odin, Loki, Athena, and Ares, almost as many people have heard of Ra and Osiris. Also, Egyptian architecture and desert tiles would add an exotic flair to the game.

Aye, this.


Even just a single new faction would add even more replay value to the game, as you'd suddenly have matchups that arent just involving Norse and Greek all the time.

Having an Egyptian faction would be pretty great.

[Pepisolo]

My vote for the first expansion goes to a new faction. To me, the Egyptians would be the most logical choice.  For one thing, they are quite honestly the only other culture I can think of with "household-name-mythology." Just like everyone(qualifier:in western society) has heard of Zeus and Thor, a lot of people have heard of Odin, Loki, Athena, and Ares, almost as many people have heard of Ra and Osiris. Also, Egyptian architecture and desert tiles would add an exotic flair to the game.

Yep, can't argue with any of this. Definitely sounds like a good shout. Actually,  maybe running a poll for the next faction would be a good idea. I'd expect the Egyptians to win it, although my wasted vote would go to the Celts... possibly.

[keith.lamothe]

Some parts of Japanese and/or Chinese mythology could do pretty well too.  But yea, I think "Egyptian" is the clearly obvious next faction.  Just me, though

[madcow]

I would love a native american (or Aztec) culture myself.

Edit: Not saying native american = aztec. But I think either would be cool.

[keith.lamothe]

I would love a native american (or Aztec) culture myself.

Edit: Not saying native american = aztec. But I think either would be cool.

Yea, either would be really good source material.

[Teal_Blue]

On the dangerous-alternate-way-to-win-early thing, the idea that came to mind first was some kind of deal where if you place/secure/whatever these X special tiles, then it forces some kind of end boss to come out that's stupidly, stupidly powerful and dangerous (like "can end your game in a few turns" dangerous) but if the combined military of the world takes him down you win instantly.

... (looks at last AIW patch) ... maybe I'm not always very original

   That's OK Keith, it is still a very, very, very cool idea!! 

And actually one that i would love to give a try.

-Teal

[Teal_Blue]

My vote for the first expansion goes to a new faction. To me, the Egyptians would be the most logical choice.  For one thing, they are quite honestly the only other culture I can think of with "household-name-mythology." Just like everyone(qualifier:in western society) has heard of Zeus and Thor, a lot of people have heard of Odin, Loki, Athena, and Ares, almost as many people have heard of Ra and Osiris. Also, Egyptian architecture and desert tiles would add an exotic flair to the game.

  I'll throw my vote in for this also!! 

-Teal

[Teal_Blue]

My vote for the first expansion goes to a new faction. To me, the Egyptians would be the most logical choice.  For one thing, they are quite honestly the only other culture I can think of with "household-name-mythology." Just like everyone(qualifier:in western society) has heard of Zeus and Thor, a lot of people have heard of Odin, Loki, Athena, and Ares, almost as many people have heard of Ra and Osiris. Also, Egyptian architecture and desert tiles would add an exotic flair to the game.

Aye, this.


Even just a single new faction would add even more replay value to the game, as you'd suddenly have matchups that arent just involving Norse and Greek all the time.

Having an Egyptian faction would be pretty great.

Just a quick question, because i'm not sure yet how it would work, but would we still have only 'two' active mythologies/cultures per play session? So if we choose the Egyptians, we'd have to let one of the others not play?

Or are they all 'active' when we add them?
Or do we add the Egyptians and now have a three way war front?

Or,    if we go several expansions and now we have 5, or 6 or 7 total cultures all playing at once?
That could get to be a handful,  haha, oh my!! 


Oh,  and i'm for a paid dlc soon after too, the MadKing Boss that Keith came up with sounds awesome!! 

-Teal

[tigersfan]

We'll likely be adding a new faction or two in the first expansion, as for who... the Egyptians are possible, the Chinese as well. Personally, for some reason I'm very much interested in the Tuatha De Dannan, which are the ancient Celtic pantheon/mythology. So, I might push for them as well.

[Mick]

An Egyptian expansion could involve new terrain types (desert) and also a "River Mechanic".

[Pepisolo]

Personally, for some reason I'm very much interested in the Tuatha De Dannan, which are the ancient Celtic pantheon/mythology. So, I might push for them as well.

Celtic faction -- yes, please!

[nas1m]

Personally, for some reason I'm very much interested in the Tuatha De Dannan, which are the ancient Celtic pantheon/mythology. So, I might push for them as well.

Celtic faction -- yes, please!

+1!

[x4000]

For me, I'm particularly interested in doing ancient Japanese, honestly.  I think there's a lot of interesting material there, and it's very different from the other two.

Celtic would be cool, but I don't think something that would be a good idea until a bit further in (later expansions), because otherwise it really starts to feel very clustered in those geographic regions.

Egyptians are of course cool, but they seem like too obvious of a choice to me; I'd rather do something more unusual.

Aztec or ancient Chinese are also really interesting, but I prefer the Japanese for whatever reason.

All in all, I'd love to do all of these over the course of new expansions, given sufficient time; it's a matter of order, presuming the game continues to have life in it over a goodly long period.

My inclination for the first expansion is to just do one new faction, and then to spend the rest of the expansion efforts on larger new gameplay mechanics that transcend one specific faction.  New buildings for all, new general mechanics, etc.  I think that's most interesting.

For the second expansion maybe it's two new factions or something.  I'd rather the expansions not be formulaic.

[Pepisolo]

You're really spoilt for choice at the moment. My preferences in order would be Celtic, Chinese, Japanese, Egyptian....but really any would be great. One expansion could focus on the introduction of 4 + way battles if that is even in your thinking. That would be be cool. For the next expansion one factions seems OK, I just hope it seems value enough for a potential $2.99(?) price tag. I think it would be, though.