Cyborg's updated review

[Cyborg]

* It would be nice if I could find the technologies I was looking for without scrolling through the tree. Can't find a thing. I know that I need missile interceptors, but I can't find them.
* I don't understand territories.
* I don't understand expanding.
* I don't understand diplomacy.
* I don't know how to win. Or what the objective is.


I'm still just plopping down buildings and hoping for the best. I think I'm just bouncing hard off this game.

[Captain Jack]

Sounds like. At the very least I know the tech tree is going to be reshuffled several times just this month, and diplomacy is going to be completely different in a week or two, so hold tight.


Territories and expansion WILL need documentation and tutorialization before release, but in the meantime try dropping a military building or a Civic Center in a territory you want. Resource extractors might count as well. Think of these as zones of control, first to plant a flag gets to build in it, everyone else has to stay out unless they want to get stuck in.

Winning... well frankly the game isn't quite balanced for winning yet. I'm not sure if the victory screen is even coded yet. But the steps to win are like every Civilization game ever. Either dominate the other civs by blowing them to the stone age, or reach the end of the tech tree and follow the instructions you get when you do.

[Gwmngilfen]

Territories and expansion WILL need documentation and tutorialization before release, but in the meantime try dropping a military building or a Civic Center in a territory you want. Resource extractors might count as well. Think of these as zones of control, first to plant a flag gets to build in it, everyone else has to stay out unless they want to get stuck in.

Not any more:

Version 0.901 (Released June 30th, 2015)
    Resource gathering buildings (of the players and the AI) no longer capture territories.

Military buildings (I usually use a guardpost, nice and cheap) or civic centres are the way to go.

[Gwmngilfen]

* I don't know how to win. Or what the objective is.
I'm still just plopping down buildings and hoping for the best. I think I'm just bouncing hard off this game.

Until the tutorial is in, you need to treat it like a sandbox game. I view it like Sim City - I try to grow my city. That means fixing the current issues each turn (more housing? crime? pollution? disease?). That leads into planning ("Ok, so farms can go over *there*, I'll have the industrial sector down there...") which leads into grabbing a few territories to make space. Sooner or later someone will attack you, and then you can worry about military...

In other words, you don't really "win" right now, because thats still being worked on (I did achieve a space victory, but without the lore and shiny graphics that will come later, it felt hollow ). For now, pick a goal of your own and enjoy the ride.

[kasnavada]

Actually I feel kind of like the OP. There is a definite lack of early objective and mid objectives (not to mention end-objective). It's gotten better with territories, but I think whatever ideas are supposed to be in the game to "create" those just ain't coded yet.

I generally stop expanding more or less when I get to 30k income because the "town" I build works and it's more or less 1 or 2 military building / turn. I don't think it's the point.

[Zebeast46]

I actually just thought of an idea that MAY work, how about there is an option to turn on inflation, inflation would make each of your buildings that generate income produce less income and this effect would increase as the game goes on to convince players to expand (obviously it would max out at some point because of balance issues) I think this would also solve the problem of the player generally having too much money later on in the game. And like I mentioned this option would not be mandatory so that the players who want to take their time with the game can. The biggest disavantage I can think of is that I have not yet thought of a way to make it seem like it fits story wise.

[tombik]

I actually just thought of an idea that MAY work, how about there is an option to turn on inflation, inflation would make each of your buildings that generate income produce less income and this effect would increase as the game goes on to convince players to expand (obviously it would max out at some point because of balance issues) I think this would also solve the problem of the player generally having too much money later on in the game. And like I mentioned this option would not be mandatory so that the players who want to take their time with the game can. The biggest disavantage I can think of is that I have not yet thought of a way to make it seem like it fits story wise.

If there is a decrease in the revenue with each built income building, then there would be actually an optimal number of income generating buildings. The effect wont be incentivizing more building, it would incentivize no building at all once u reached that peak point.

So, with no fluff, and no supporting other mechanics, this would actually be the same with limiting maximum number of buildings for no reason. Since cost of each building is same, if profits are decreasing, this result is trivial.

If we are trying to incentivize more buildings, one can think of additional benefits for building more, like diplomacy power etc. Or changing the profits so that more buildings are actually producing MORE profit per building. But that would mess with early game balance, so maybe having some finite resource for starters will solve that.

So basically my counter offer would be:

-No economy can sustain itself in the short run.
-Starting crowns is defined as a lot of more than in current startup. So this bonus will be used instead of actual income from buildings for a while (until economy takes off). Considering there can't be any country in real world with only one factory for income (or bank) that has positive GDP growth, this actually makes sense.
-Objective is making economy sustainable. After a while, there would be again too much income, but that point would be hard to reach until end game.

- One more point. If there is still too much income, just balancing the latter buildings prices would do a good job. So there would be another layer of optimization between spending abundant of money versus efficiency.

[Zebeast46]

I actually just thought of an idea that MAY work, how about there is an option to turn on inflation, inflation would make each of your buildings that generate income produce less income and this effect would increase as the game goes on to convince players to expand (obviously it would max out at some point because of balance issues) I think this would also solve the problem of the player generally having too much money later on in the game. And like I mentioned this option would not be mandatory so that the players who want to take their time with the game can. The biggest disavantage I can think of is that I have not yet thought of a way to make it seem like it fits story wise.

If there is a decrease in the revenue with each built income building, then there would be actually an optimal number of income generating buildings. The effect wont be incentivizing more building, it would incentivize no building at all once u reached that peak point.

So, with no fluff, and no supporting other mechanics, this would actually be the same with limiting maximum number of buildings for no reason. Since cost of each building is same, if profits are decreasing, this result is trivial.

If we are trying to incentivize more buildings, one can think of additional benefits for building more, like diplomacy power etc. Or changing the profits so that more buildings are actually producing MORE profit per building. But that would mess with early game balance, so maybe having some finite resource for starters will solve that.

So basically my counter offer would be:

-No economy can sustain itself in the short run.
-Starting crowns is defined as a lot of more than in current startup. So this bonus will be used instead of actual income from buildings for  while (until economy takes off). Considering about there can't be any country in real world with only one factory for income (or bank) that has positive GDP growth, this actually makes sense.
-Objective is making economy sustainable. After a while, there would be again too much income, but that point would be hard to reach until end game.

- One more point. If there is still too much income, just balancing the latter buildings prices would do a good job. So there would be another layer of optimization between spending abundant of money versus efficiency.

I think I mis wrote this but what I meant was that over time the inflation increases which will then require you to build more income buildings which require a higher population to sustain  . Sorry about that.
But yeah I get your points, there are probably better ways to do this.

[tombik]

I think I mis wrote this but what I meant was that over time the inflation increases which will then require you to build more income buildings which require a higher population to sustain  . Sorry about that.
But yeah I get your points, there are probably better ways to do this.

If you meant, inflation would effect older buildings harder, so it is basically not about quantity but about its age, I can see how this would help spreading out.

But it will also incentivize destroying your own buildings time to time to get maximum benefit.

If you mean same effect will apply to all buildings, there cant be a way to implement this. If more buildings will mean a decreasingly increasing profit, at the limit marginal profit will be zero, rendering additional buildings redundant, even harmful.

I cant see how you are thinking so please explain more, I am curious

[Zebeast46]

Yeah, sorry abot this I am pretty terrible at explaining things  . But yeah basically what I mean is that, for example at 75 turns or so all buildings that produce crowns now are only 0.90x times as effective as before, then another 75 turns in or so they then only have 0.80x times as much crowd production than originally up to probably a limit of around 0.50x times as many crowns.

Actually I think I may want to alter the idea slightly into an idea that might make the Acutians stand out a bit more. As in if the Acutians dont like you then the price of all your buildings go up by about ten percent and if you are friendly with them the price of your buildings drop by ten percent.

I guess either of these could work if they were refined enough, but I think that inflation is a huge misnomer for the first idea as inflation is things costing more put simply, while the first idea is more of a decrease in effectiveness among your income producing buildings.

[kasnavada]

Another thing to consider is how it's going to affect the player.
- As a 4X player, I think I should expand because I've got something to do. My economy crashing if I don't expand all the time is not going to be very popular. I can't really pinpoint why but the idea of buildings giving less money as time go buy sounds like forcing me to rush all the time.
- It's certainly a "unique" idea. Then again, why didn't anyone implement that ? I don't have the reasons here but I think it's worth looking up. Sometimes no one stumbled upon something, other times it's because no one ever made it work and fun.
- On an gameplay point of view, it adds a layer of complexity for min-maxers as it's plain better to build in batches rather than rewarding planning. Also there is a need to view how you can fit destroying and destroyed building in there. It looks like it's going to be very complex to put in place, complex to use, for meager benefits.
- what is it planning to accomplish ? Giving mid / end game goals ? There are other ways to give "fun" to the player, proved one, which exist in the competition (from Civ5 alone: conquering an opponent, getting new ressources when you unlock one, making a new city, new "missions" from city states, new menaces like barbarians and wars...). And there still is original ideas and other competition to look at.

So... no I'm not convinced. Maybe it can work.

[Zebeast46]

Another thing to consider is how it's going to affect the player.
- As a 4X player, I think I should expand because I've got something to do. My economy crashing if I don't expand all the time is not going to be very popular. I can't really pinpoint why but the idea of buildings giving less money as time go buy sounds like forcing me to rush all the time.
- It's certainly a "unique" idea. Then again, why didn't anyone implement that ? I don't have the reasons here but I think it's worth looking up. Sometimes no one stumbled upon something, other times it's because no one ever made it work and fun.
- On an gameplay point of view, it adds a layer of complexity for min-maxers as it's plain better to build in batches rather than rewarding planning. Also there is a need to view how you can fit destroying and destroyed building in there. It looks like it's going to be very complex to put in place, complex to use, for meager benefits.
- what is it planning to accomplish ? Giving mid / end game goals ? There are other ways to give "fun" to the player, proved one, which exist in the competition (from Civ5 alone: conquering an opponent, getting new ressources when you unlock one, making a new city, new "missions" from city states, new menaces like barbarians and wars...). And there still is original ideas and other competition to look at.

So... no I'm not convinced. Maybe it can work.

Yeah, I am not really sure it will work and you gave good points,, I guess i should thank everyone who responded with feedback.

[tombik]

Now I got your point, also read kasnavada's comment and i have one more thing to add:

- losing some buildings in endgame would be devastating with needing more buildings to sustain themselves.

[kasnavada]

I still think you can propose it. Well Chris will read that eventually, maybe it'll spin his head into something great.

[tombik]

Btw, I just came up with a more balanced implementation for inflation.

If it is correlated with total number of buildings in the world -not with time-, it will be balanced, and cant be manipulated that easily. With also more interaction between physical wealth versus financial wealth (factories and banks and optimal mix of them), race for dominating economy would be interesting enough for being a victory condition