General Category > Stars Beyond Reach... This World Is Mine
Announcing "Stars Beyond Reach," a new 4x coming in April/May 2015.
x4000:
--- Quote from: Wingflier on October 31, 2014, 11:22:09 am ---If there is no unit management, can we expect to see something along the lines of Skyward Collapse, where the units themselves are simply a product of the buildings whether directly or indirectly, and have a mind of their own?
It's hard for me to imagine a 4X game that doesn't have "units" in the traditional sense. Buildings are important but how will the armies function? Will there even be armies?
Maybe I'm asking you to divulge too much at the given moment, but I think everyone would like to know how the "battle" system works, or if there is even any type of battle happening amongst factions.
--- End quote ---
The battle system in general is still in various stages of prototyping, but you are correct that there are literally no units, period. It's not like Skyward Collapse where you have units but they are auto-managed. You won't see any giant barbarians moving around the map.
That said, there are things like military dropships that are shuttling unseen soldiers from one part of the map to another on your command. That's a bit confusing when I'm not more specific, but I'm trying not to say too much that will change later.
Overall, think of the populace as being just like in SimCity. For instance, you have an overall population that is being sustained by the city/empire that you are creating, and you have to house them and so on. There is some concept of position of the populace, in that building adjacencies matter a lot for reasons like desirability, pollution, access to services and transportation, etc. However, unlike the very latest SimCity, there's not a simulation of every last little individual and how they move around. It's a bit more abstract than that here, more like SimCity 4 and SimCity 2000.
The military mechanics are intended to be a seamless offshoot of that. By erecting various military buildings, you project a certain amount of power from them as certain members of the populace are employed there. However, you have to have a supply chain to support those buildings fully. And from those buildings, you can supply things like the drop ships, which then land on kind of "makeshift buildings" that can go next to enemy terrain. These being things like little military camps that you fling up -- kind of like what a US Air Force Combat Controller would do in enemy territory to set up a temporary airstrip in hostile territory, then used for further breaching.
The military portion of your populace then begins the incursion from there (or defends against an enemy incursion if the roles are reversed), and the mechanics there are less finalized. I have a variety of models mapped out there that I think have promise, but which one exactly is clearest and smoothest is something I have yet to decide on. I want something that isn't click-heavy, that doesn't require endless subscreens, and that gives you the power to directly make choices but doesn't require you to micro everything if you don't want to. So that's going to be some more stuff that I'm experimenting with prior to us hitting beta.
The other aspect of military warfare is direct-fire weapons, mainly missiles. These being things where you say "hey missile silo, fire a missile at X coordinate in your range," and then it immediately does it and you see what happens. So there's not really a fight there per se, it's just you inflicting damage on an enemy city based on direct ranged attacks. That might be softening them up for a ground incursion, or a preventative measure to keep them from attacking you with their own ranged missiles, etc. The direct-fire weapons are already in and work just fine.
Anyhow, it's a pretty different concept from most other 4x games, by design. Not just to be different for the sake of being different, but because I feel like most 4x games bog down in the late game because of all the tedious combat. And I don't feel like automating that is the solution, I feel like a model that is actually fun and direct and fast and more in keeping with the rest of the game is the solution. And having giant units wandering around the map has just never really felt right to me in general. This game takes a lot of cues from citybuilders in general, and none of them have ever handled military in a way that I liked, either. So hence something new.
Incidentally, part of my reason for making AI War a game in space was because I like space but I disliked all space strategy games prior to that. It's kind of the same thing here. I love 4x games, but they tend to lose me when it comes to the actual combat. I love the back and forth struggle, but not how it is represented or how the AI deals with it or how I have to manipulate it. It's always felt clunky and awkward, and so I'm trying something more in keeping with the rest of the mechanics of that genre, which I absolutely love. Why can't combat be more like the actual empire-building portions, which are so fun? Etc.
relmz32:
--- Quote from: x4000 on October 31, 2014, 10:09:36 am ---
<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Q from nas1m:</span> Regarding how the planet is mapped in SE, how do you guys handle wrapping? The reason why I ask is that cylendrical wrapping, while popular and pretty easy to implement, doesn't actaully do a good job of representing an actual spherical planet.
--- End quote ---
--- End quote ---
Hey! That question was from *me*!
:D
--- Quote from: relmz32 on October 27, 2014, 02:56:07 pm ---...
Also, I have a question regarding how the planet is mapped in SE, how do you guys handle wrapping? The reason why i ask is that cylendrical wrapping, while popular and pretty easy to implement, doesn't actaully do a good job of representing an actual spherical planet.
--- End quote ---
This annoucement makes me quite excited, and the name does sound like a good fit, I am glad that you came up with something great.
Wingflier:
--- Quote from: x4000 on October 31, 2014, 11:37:40 am ---
--- Quote from: Wingflier on October 31, 2014, 11:22:09 am ---If there is no unit management, can we expect to see something along the lines of Skyward Collapse, where the units themselves are simply a product of the buildings whether directly or indirectly, and have a mind of their own?
It's hard for me to imagine a 4X game that doesn't have "units" in the traditional sense. Buildings are important but how will the armies function? Will there even be armies?
Maybe I'm asking you to divulge too much at the given moment, but I think everyone would like to know how the "battle" system works, or if there is even any type of battle happening amongst factions.
--- End quote ---
The battle system in general is still in various stages of prototyping, but you are correct that there are literally no units, period. It's not like Skyward Collapse where you have units but they are auto-managed. You won't see any giant barbarians moving around the map.
That said, there are things like military dropships that are shuttling unseen soldiers from one part of the map to another on your command. That's a bit confusing when I'm not more specific, but I'm trying not to say too much that will change later.
Overall, think of the populace as being just like in SimCity. For instance, you have an overall population that is being sustained by the city/empire that you are creating, and you have to house them and so on. There is some concept of position of the populace, in that building adjacencies matter a lot for reasons like desirability, pollution, access to services and transportation, etc. However, unlike the very latest SimCity, there's not a simulation of every last little individual and how they move around. It's a bit more abstract than that here, more like SimCity 4 and SimCity 2000.
The military mechanics are intended to be a seamless offshoot of that. By erecting various military buildings, you project a certain amount of power from them as certain members of the populace are employed there. However, you have to have a supply chain to support those buildings fully. And from those buildings, you can supply things like the drop ships, which then land on kind of "makeshift buildings" that can go next to enemy terrain. These being things like little military camps that you fling up -- kind of like what a US Air Force Combat Controller would do in enemy territory to set up a temporary airstrip in hostile territory, then used for further breaching.
The military portion of your populace then begins the incursion from there (or defends against an enemy incursion if the roles are reversed), and the mechanics there are less finalized. I have a variety of models mapped out there that I think have promise, but which one exactly is clearest and smoothest is something I have yet to decide on. I want something that isn't click-heavy, that doesn't require endless subscreens, and that gives you the power to directly make choices but doesn't require you to micro everything if you don't want to. So that's going to be some more stuff that I'm experimenting with prior to us hitting beta.
The other aspect of military warfare is direct-fire weapons, mainly missiles. These being things where you say "hey missile silo, fire a missile at X coordinate in your range," and then it immediately does it and you see what happens. So there's not really a fight there per se, it's just you inflicting damage on an enemy city based on direct ranged attacks. That might be softening them up for a ground incursion, or a preventative measure to keep them from attacking you with their own ranged missiles, etc. The direct-fire weapons are already in and work just fine.
Anyhow, it's a pretty different concept from most other 4x games, by design. Not just to be different for the sake of being different, but because I feel like most 4x games bog down in the late game because of all the tedious combat. And I don't feel like automating that is the solution, I feel like a model that is actually fun and direct and fast and more in keeping with the rest of the game is the solution. And having giant units wandering around the map has just never really felt right to me in general. This game takes a lot of cues from citybuilders in general, and none of them have ever handled military in a way that I liked, either. So hence something new.
Incidentally, part of my reason for making AI War a game in space was because I like space but I disliked all space strategy games prior to that. It's kind of the same thing here. I love 4x games, but they tend to lose me when it comes to the actual combat. I love the back and forth struggle, but not how it is represented or how the AI deals with it or how I have to manipulate it. It's always felt clunky and awkward, and so I'm trying something more in keeping with the rest of the mechanics of that genre, which I absolutely love. Why can't combat be more like the actual empire-building portions, which are so fun? Etc.
--- End quote ---
So the battles themselves will not be animated or displayed in any visceral sense, but will instead rely on the imagination of the player using statistics screens and outcomes to determine how the battle played out?
x4000:
--- Quote from: relmz32 on October 31, 2014, 12:06:35 pm ---
--- Quote ---Q from nas1m:
--- End quote ---
Hey! That question was from *me*! :D
--- End quote ---
My bad! Sorry about that, I fixed it now. :)
--- Quote from: Wingflier on October 31, 2014, 12:07:07 pm ---So the battles themselves will not be animated or displayed in any visceral sense, but will instead rely on the imagination of the player using statistics screens and outcomes to determine how the battle played out?
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure I would characterize it like that. As you are moving troops into an area, or as other troops are moving into an area, you're seeing buildings being erected and troop transports flying around. If you direct-fire a missile, you see the missile launch, fly, explode, and then see the wreckage left after.
In terms of ground combat, you'd never see guys shooting a bunch of guns, no. You will probably see some sort of particle effect, possibly, and you would see the attacked tile either get turned to rubble or else switched in allegiances, depending. That's something I'm still experimenting with conceptually, as well. Can buildings be captured intact? Etc.
I guess there is still some similarity to Risk here, in some ways. You're not having a clash of a bunch of troops individually on a particular tile that lasts an extended period of time. Rather, for the most part they are more of a quicker decisive victory on that tile one way or the other, and things shift one way or the other. The way that territory moves in Rebuild 2 or 3 is also a pretty good example of that. There's a sense of territory creeping back and forth, not of specific units living or dying on a given territory.
I know that breaks the Risk analogy slightly, but if you consider a group of tiles to be more like a territory in Risk, then the individual tiles are closer to armies in risk. So you wind up with some armies coming and going, and the struggle for the territory moves back and forth visually as that happens.
The actual mechanics of fighting are not meant to be sophisticated or complex here. Choosing where to attack a city definitely is, as which buildings you take out make a difference in the outcome of the battle. And the defensive levels of tiles would influence how well you actually CAN attack various areas. And the same goes for when you're defending your own areas -- creating buffer zones being a relevant thing, etc.
One thing that's relevant with the military here is making sure that you can still maintain an effective supply chain if you lose certain key parts of your city. So where are your backups, etc. And like I've said before, there are a lot of other ways that you can (and kind of have to) compete aside from just via direct military action.
This is part of why I'm reluctant to talk about certain things too soon, though. People jump to all sorts of conclusions, and I wind up having to dispel those by saying a lot of things that haven't fully been prototyped and thus might change by the time they get their hands on the game. ;) So take the above with a grain of salt in that it might change before you have your hands on the game. But what I'm driving at is hopefully clearer now.
ElOhTeeBee:
Question from a friend - can you clarify which races will and will not be playable? Specifically, can you play as the Thoraxians?
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