(Chris) I'm working on a few things (territories).

[x4000]

To a few questions/comments:

1. Regarding pollution being point-source, and crime for that matter, that has relevance to a lot of calculations in a way that wouldn't make sense doing it another way.  Possibly those things will need to remain area-of-effect in terms of the police and the hazmat, I don't know.  Maybe I'll leave those that way just at the start and see how that feels.  Just because a lot of stuff is changing to be territory-wide doesn't mean that every last thing has to, and the way crime and hazmat works now is finally getting pretty good.  They were extremely on the not-too-important end of why the shift to territories, anyway, so leaving them as-is doesn't change the equation at all on the rest of it.

2. Territories are indeed permanent structures, or at least that's the plan.  I think that there would just be too many possible exploits with the terrain riser and terrain bore, otherwise.  You could really wall yourself off in some ways that would be extremely damaging to the game (not to monsters or flying saucers, but still).  At the start of the game, the territories follow things like the snow boundaries when determining where they should end, but temperature changes will cause the snow to grow or recede in or out of those territories just as it always has on those tiles.  Ice is considered water for purpose of territory seeding, so most of it is in neutral waters, and the rest is contained inland of the polar territories (on a continental map).

[kasnavada]

It sounds great actually.

I wondered how to make the "current" system better but territories kind of open new things.

It really sounds like the regions from endless legend though - prepare to be compared.

[x4000]

Well, being compared to something is inevitable, so hopefully this will compare well to Endless Legend.  I suppose we shall see.  If someone says I copied it from then, then I'll just disagree and say we both copied Risk. 

[crazyroosterman]

this sounds pretty darn interesting though I will side with ptarth and cinth on this making assumptions on weather this is going to affect this game in a good or bad way is rather silly though I do have since you said you'll be able to attack across neutral bodies of water does that mean it'll end setting the frame work for other things?(like my shipping idea for example)

[Cinth]

what's his name

 

[crazyroosterman]

what's his name

 

thanks ill edit that.

[Cinth]

what's his name

 

thanks ill edit that.

No worries, lol. 

[jerith]

Regarding pollution being point-source, and crime for that matter, that has relevance to a lot of calculations in a way that wouldn't make sense doing it another way.  Possibly those things will need to remain area-of-effect in terms of the police and the hazmat, I don't know.

Maybe their effect could be averaged over all the pollution or crime sources in a territory? If a police station has a crime-reduction value of 80 and there are 10 potential crime spots, each crime spot gets 8 crime-reduction. Maybe juggle that a bit and allocate police presence in proportion to the likelihood of criminal activity, so the dark alley might get 12 while the fancy restaurant only gets 6.

For hazmats, that would switch them from pollution cleanup to pollution generation reduction, which I think makes sense. Leave city parks and such as pollution cleaners and let them keep their area-of-effect. That gives you two different ways to manage pollution, neither of which is completely effective. Reduction is more useful for your own industrial zones, cleanup is lower efficiency but can help with the smog your hazmats couldn't prevent and is essential anywhere downwind of the Acutians.

[Aklyon]

Downwind of the thoraxians too.

[x4000]

since you said you'll be able to attack across neutral bodies of water does that mean it'll end setting the frame work for other things?(like my shipping idea for example)

Indeed, for sure that does set up a nice framework.  A lot of the things that you were suggesting there become WAY more manageable because of the fact that we can think in terms of territory connectivity, which is way simpler than the very-granular tile connectivity.  It's like City Connections in SimCity, as opposed to power lines.  Seeing a city connection and understanding it is fine.  Seeing the line of power lines and where there's a break could sometimes be such a pain that they took it out (in my opinion not a bad thing, though I do miss it a bit).

Regarding pollution being point-source, and crime for that matter, that has relevance to a lot of calculations in a way that wouldn't make sense doing it another way.  Possibly those things will need to remain area-of-effect in terms of the police and the hazmat, I don't know.

Maybe their effect could be averaged over all the pollution or crime sources in a territory? If a police station has a crime-reduction value of 80 and there are 10 potential crime spots, each crime spot gets 8 crime-reduction. Maybe juggle that a bit and allocate police presence in proportion to the likelihood of criminal activity, so the dark alley might get 12 while the fancy restaurant only gets 6.

For hazmats, that would switch them from pollution cleanup to pollution generation reduction, which I think makes sense. Leave city parks and such as pollution cleaners and let them keep their area-of-effect. That gives you two different ways to manage pollution, neither of which is completely effective. Reduction is more useful for your own industrial zones, cleanup is lower efficiency but can help with the smog your hazmats couldn't prevent and is essential anywhere downwind of the Acutians.

With the police one, that is something that I'd tried in the past, and it had really unpredictable results just because crime hotspots change with time.  Placing a new building that might have crime suddenly would drop the crime prevention on everything in the area by x amount, and thus crime starts up everywhere because of a new building you put out.  Both police and hazmat used to work roughly like that, and I believe we changed that prior to starting the beta.  It sounded really good to me on paper, and it wasn't until after seeing it a while in practice I realized the issue.

Pollution reduction instead of pollution cleaning is definitely something you guys have been advocating for, and I could see that one working really well and making a lot of sense that way.  That might be one to throw on mantis just so it doesn't get forgotten.

Downwind of the thoraxians too.

Yeah, they can be a bit... yeah.  Boarines sometimes, too.

[crazyroosterman]

since you said you'll be able to attack across neutral bodies of water does that mean it'll end setting the frame work for other things?(like my shipping idea for example)

Indeed, for sure that does set up a nice framework.  A lot of the things that you were suggesting there become WAY more manageable because of the fact that we can think in terms of territory connectivity, which is way simpler than the very-granular tile connectivity.  It's like City Connections in SimCity, as opposed to power lines.  Seeing a city connection and understanding it is fine.  Seeing the line of power lines and where there's a break could sometimes be such a pain that they took it out (in my opinion not a bad thing, though I do miss it a bit).

so that means there's a much better chance of my idea achualy being considered enough to be implemented into the game then? awesome!.

[x4000]

since you said you'll be able to attack across neutral bodies of water does that mean it'll end setting the frame work for other things?(like my shipping idea for example)

Indeed, for sure that does set up a nice framework.  A lot of the things that you were suggesting there become WAY more manageable because of the fact that we can think in terms of territory connectivity, which is way simpler than the very-granular tile connectivity.  It's like City Connections in SimCity, as opposed to power lines.  Seeing a city connection and understanding it is fine.  Seeing the line of power lines and where there's a break could sometimes be such a pain that they took it out (in my opinion not a bad thing, though I do miss it a bit).

so that means there's a much better chance of my idea achualy being considered enough to be implemented into the game then? awesome!.

Yep!  Before there was basically no chance -- I had tried some stuff along those lines actually in the pre-beta stages, and they were confusing even to me.  Supply lines through helipads to seaports and so on and so forth.  Types of city connections.  It was somewhat elegant, but computationally expensive and bloody unclear.  I like the idea of that sort of stuff, which is why I had it in my original designs in the first place.

Right now it's a matter of trying to get the cleanest clearest implementation of stuff in a way that is balanced and fun, so we'll see if any of that sort of shipping lanes stuff fits into it.  I imagine it might not, but we'll see.  But as a post-1.0 or expansion feature, that's totally the sort of thing I'd be all over.

[crazyroosterman]

since you said you'll be able to attack across neutral bodies of water does that mean it'll end setting the frame work for other things?(like my shipping idea for example)

Indeed, for sure that does set up a nice framework.  A lot of the things that you were suggesting there become WAY more manageable because of the fact that we can think in terms of territory connectivity, which is way simpler than the very-granular tile connectivity.  It's like City Connections in SimCity, as opposed to power lines.  Seeing a city connection and understanding it is fine.  Seeing the line of power lines and where there's a break could sometimes be such a pain that they took it out (in my opinion not a bad thing, though I do miss it a bit).

so that means there's a much better chance of my idea achualy being considered enough to be implemented into the game then? awesome!.

Yep!  Before there was basically no chance -- I had tried some stuff along those lines actually in the pre-beta stages, and they were confusing even to me.  Supply lines through helipads to seaports and so on and so forth.  Types of city connections.  It was somewhat elegant, but computationally expensive and bloody unclear.  I like the idea of that sort of stuff, which is why I had it in my original designs in the first place.

Right now it's a matter of trying to get the cleanest clearest implementation of stuff in a way that is balanced and fun, so we'll see if any of that sort of shipping lanes stuff fits into it.  I imagine it might not, but we'll see.  But as a post-1.0 or expansion feature, that's totally the sort of thing I'd be all over.

awesome you can do it that way if its what appeals to you most I'm just super happy that idea isn't being kicked out,

[x4000]

Thanks!

[jerith]

With the police one, that is something that I'd tried in the past, and it had really unpredictable results just because crime hotspots change with time.  Placing a new building that might have crime suddenly would drop the crime prevention on everything in the area by x amount, and thus crime starts up everywhere because of a new building you put out.  Both police and hazmat used to work roughly like that, and I believe we changed that prior to starting the beta.  It sounded really good to me on paper, and it wasn't until after seeing it a while in practice I realized the issue.

Depending on the variability of the crime, you could counter that somewhat by having most of the crime reduction (80%, say) spread evenly and rest spread proportionally. That way when an extra building pushes you over the limit the resulting crime spike is going to start in the ganglands before it spreads to suburbia. Of course, if there's too much variance you'd need much more police to cover the hot spots because half of the would be at the Middle Eatery nibbling donuts. If there's not enough variance, we go back to the problem you described where a new building starts crime popping up everywhere.

This could be a good way to differentiate normal police from riot police, though. Normal police have precincts and cover everything evenly within those precincts. (I've intentionally left the definition of a "precinct" vague here, but I imagine it would have something to do with an AOE range or Voronoi partitioning of a territory.) Riot police cover the whole territory and bridge the gap between what the beat cops can handle and the peak criminal activity. The idea is that early on you don't have many high-crime buildings and normal police can cover those fine, but later you'll have high-crime buildings that stick up above the normal protection and the riot police can be cost effective there.

Pollution reduction instead of pollution cleaning is definitely something you guys have been advocating for, and I could see that one working really well and making a lot of sense that way.  That might be one to throw on mantis just so it doesn't get forgotten.

I'll Mantis that in the morning, I think, unless someone else gets to it first.

Pollution prevention would likely have the same kind of problems you described for crime reduction, but that takes longer to have an effect and is therefore less dangerous if you catch it happening early.