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[LordArchibald]

I'm also curious about your plans for alien AI -- are they a number of set races with their own behaviors a la Galactic Civilizations (incidentally an excellent example of competitive AI that doesn't rely on cheating or various multipliers to beat the stuffing out of you), or are you going to set it up so that races are randomly generated with different assortments of goals, traits, characteristics, &c? Obviously a set of predetermined races are easier, but one of the big problems that you run into with 4Xes where the AI is either homogenous or static-differentiated (i.e. different between races but always the same for each race) is predictability, which in turn hurts replay value as you quickly learn how the AI will behave, which makes countering it trivial as long as you're halfway competent.

Some of the aliens are so unique that predefined is the only way to go (I needed to write a separate code of these - like parasites). Maybe I would be able to make partially random "standard races", but then, I want to avoid the standard races in the first place...

One way to do that would be to have a steady decrease in bureaucratic efficiency scaling with the size of your forces, both individual fleets/armies/whatever, and your total military arm. Same with commercial-side stuff. That way, when you lose a big chunk of ships or planets, the ones left respond sooner, travel faster, fight better, produce more and more quickly, &c.

Obviously larger-scale mechanisms are more efficient purely economically, but with a distributed imperial command system full of incompetent and corrupt officials, smaller systems are going to be more efficient because it's harder for things to be overlooked, the distance both spatial and bureaucratic for orders to travel is smaller, &c. At least, that's how you justify it in the fluff.

A few things:
- the games encourages you to have like 150-200 planets (so, can't make punishments for early expansion here), after you reach this you will be discouraged from getting more (no additional prestige, no additional perks/research, etc), these numbers will be explicitly given ingame (via audience/advisors). Also in the standard scenario you will be tasked with getting 50 planets by turn 100 (or face gameover or something near it), so the player will be aggressively driven by early conquest (except for certain scenarios)
- the AI (aliens) are less expansionistic (exceptions) than the player (they will strive to have 10-80 planets depending on race)
- important part of the game is to survive the late game arrival of aliens from another galaxy/dimension who want to purge all life, so for the player to conquer the whole galaxy is not exactly the best strategy (you might still lose even after conquering every single system, better probably would be to subdue civilized alien races and turn them into friendly cannon fodder for the final battle)
- some aliens are worth something to you (civilized humanoids which can trade, make diplomacy, etc) than others (parasites, the hive) which are better to be annihilated
- you will need to station forces on the borders (many small border skirmishes)
- losing "one big battle" would not be a terrible problem, there will be a lot of damaged ships (which auto reroute to the nearest base for repairs) and not that many destroyed, so losing a battle means that part your forces will be unavailavble for several turns, not that they were annihilated
- I aim to make it more about territory than fleets (so losing a planet is a bigger issue than losing a fleet that defends it)

So are you aiming for an Emperor of the Fading Suns clone, but without the micro?

Well... not exactly... Althrough it's definitely more similar to EoFS than CKII. EoFS is a story from the perspective of a great noble house in an empire without the ruler. I want to go for an empire with a strong ruler supported by corrupted bureaucracy and no nobles.

[Sergarr]

If you can, can you also add the feature where your orders do not propagate instantaneously and can be interrupted by corrupt individuals and/or enemy spies?

[Vilanat]

This sounds VERY interesting and promising! please update often, even with technical stuff you fear might bore us.

[LordArchibald]

The IMHO best choice to combat the "steamroller" approach is not to limit force-sizes or other crap that was discussed in that article - that just makes the process more slow and feel more artificial.

What you need is to couple each permanent negative effect you inflict on the enemy (like a military defeat, losing his troops and ships) with a temporary positive effect for him (like a temporary buff for existing troops), and make the effect of a temporary positive effect be stronger than the permanent negative effect.

That way a military defeat will actually make you stronger in the short-term, which you can then exploit to make a powerful counter-attack (which he can then counter-counter-attack, leading to a duel of counters...). But it won't actually give you a permanent advantage over your enemy, so it won't snowball out of control.

Note: combat is the one that interest me the most right now, so if you are in doubt about what to post go for these first

Before we start taking about combat, keep in mind the game is asymmetric and singleplayer. So, it allows very unique and interesting mechanics (Andean Abyss (boardgame), AI War Fleet command (computer game), Dwarf Fortress (I suppose some people on this board might have heard of that one )), so we might utilize on this! Also, since there are no other players some balance issues are not existant. AI aliens are not playing by the same rules, there might be completely arbitrary rules (comparing apples to oranges)


Let's say we talk about aliens that use space forces (not all do, some just launch themselves to neighbour planets and take these via ground forces if their super resistant transporters survive the defensive barrage). But let's focus on a more standard scenario ( aliens have ships and use these to fight).

My plan to limit steamroller is:
1) Strategic level forces splitting forces - if you don't keep some forces over border planets these will be quickly taken over by aliens (small scale raids); also offensive recon is very inefficient (can't detect ships in warp, have to rely on inelligence only) you can reliably only see defensive forces (free recon over all neighbour planets), so you can estimate defensive forces but don't know where enemy offensive forces are (unless they are over your planet, but that's a bit too late )
2) Losing battles is acceptable - most combat casualities are "damaged ships" which are auto rerouted for repairs (which is free!), so losing battles mostly means you make part of your forces unavailable for X turns. Risk taking and delaying tactics is a valid strategy.
3) Probably some penalties to total tonnage per battle (like if you have more than 500k tons of ships in a battle you get tactical penalties, maneoverability penalties, etc). Or maybe even more strict "max XXX ships can fire each battle round"?

If you can, can you also add the feature where your orders do not propagate instantaneously and can be interrupted by corrupt individuals and/or enemy spies?

I don't think I can do it... At least for majorty of mechanics, there might be a bit of these in audiences (like your builders failing the milestone for "moon of death" construction once again ).

This sounds VERY interesting and promising! please update often, even with technical stuff you fear might bore us.

OK... I will dump everything, note I do not endorse checking all of these

https://twitter.com/SilverLemur (Twitter - a lot of random pictures)
http://silverlemur.tumblr.com/ (Tumblr - sort of dump of bigger walls of text (explanations of some mechanics))

YouTube. THESE VIDEOS ARE OF TERRIBLE QUALITY, I'M NOT ACCEPTING ANY COMPLAINS (also please do not pass links to these to others)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M8a2ZF9lNE (Research system)
https://youtu.be/rtQ8gVwDuCo (PSE prototype preview, very lame quality in all spects (video, audio and my explanations) )

[Flying Dice]

Okay, re: the research system.

1. I always like RP pool systems; they tend to cut down on micromanagement and wasted time, which is pretty obviously what you're aiming for.

2. I assume that either you're going to be tweaking technology costs/RP generation, or else that you were either using an abnormally large empire or a dev tool to increase your RP gain for the purposes of demonstration, yes?

[LordArchibald]

Okay, re: the research system.

1. I always like RP pool systems; they tend to cut down on micromanagement and wasted time, which is pretty obviously what you're aiming for.

2. I assume that either you're going to be tweaking technology costs/RP generation, or else that you were either using an abnormally large empire or a dev tool to increase your RP gain for the purposes of demonstration, yes?

1. You mean like "science categories" I made?
Also, I can't recall any "RP pool systems" in strategies, if you know these, drop the titles/links please.

2. Well, at this stage I do not ballance yet, I just keep everything at settings that allows me quick testing. But yeah, the RP costs would be much higher in the playable version (I still wonder at what pace you should research).

BTW, I wonder how to handle the ugly "multiple researches finished in one turn" which is kind of unavoidable with the current settings (all non primary/secondary fields progressing at identical pace).

[Flying Dice]

You don't see it much in 4X or grand strategy games, more in RPGs and such, where your pool of resources for advancement (skill points, experience, whatever) accumulates and can be spent on whatever it is you need at the time. I mentioned it because I don't recall any other games in the genre that have done that and I'm glad to see it -- it's much more flexible and makes it easier to respond to changing circumstances, since you don't get into situations where you're halfway done with a big research project and suddenly a new enemy pops up and creates a drastic need for a specific defensive technology that you haven't started.

Or at least that's what it looked like was happening to me; each category slowly accumulates points that you can spend to research any technology in that category which is available at the time, yes? Or was that only a test system and you intend (given what you said in the last sentence) to set it up so that you select one technology for each field to be in progress at any given time?

In regards to balance... I'd honestly just say that the best way to figure that out is to decide how long you want average games to last, and then set up the tech trees so that people who are decently efficient will hit the top tier at about that time. From there you can add options to increase or decrease the time it takes to research everything so that players can choose how long they want that aspect of the game to take.

[LordArchibald]

I have managed to made the first video that's of acceptable quality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVtRkzy8HmQ
It's about parasites invasion/cycle (one of the unique/weird races).

In regards to balance... I'd honestly just say that the best way to figure that out is to decide how long you want average games to last, and then set up the tech trees so that people who are decently efficient will hit the top tier at about that time. From there you can add options to increase or decrease the time it takes to research everything so that players can choose how long they want that aspect of the game to take.

Good point

[Cicero]

I have managed to made the first video that's of acceptable quality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVtRkzy8HmQ
It's about parasites invasion/cycle (one of the unique/weird races).

Keeping my eye on this game, it looks great! Is the parasite home planet exceptionally hard to conquer?

[quamzie]

Will the aliens be only organic stuff? Or some high-tech purge everything robots/ nanite swarms?
How do you plan the assasination mechanic? Is it something like instant sudden random game over with not that much counterplay?

[LordArchibald]

Or at least that's what it looked like was happening to me; each category slowly accumulates points that you can spend to research any technology in that category which is available at the time, yes? Or was that only a test system and you intend (given what you said in the last sentence) to set it up so that you select one technology for each field to be in progress at any given time?

I'm not sure if I understood it fully. But what I plan is everything works as in the video except "Research" button, instead there will be "Queue" button which says in what order techs will be bought WITHIN THE CATEGORY (so no change here). Also there will be a limit of 1 tech (PER CATEGORY) researched per turn (but that's cosmetic I suppose).

BTW, I hate the "category" and "field" name, you have a better term... Like "sciences" maybe?

I have managed to made the first video that's of acceptable quality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVtRkzy8HmQ
It's about parasites invasion/cycle (one of the unique/weird races).

Keeping my eye on this game, it looks great! Is the parasite home planet exceptionally hard to conquer?

Indeed. Otherwise it wouldn't work. The parasites homeplanet will have superb defences (conquerable in the late game only I suppose, unless you specialize in anti organic warfare). Also, I was thinking of making the homeworld defences halved for like 15-20 turns after the cycle ends (so immediatelly after the parasites invasion the player would have the highest chance, of course most likely the player would be quite weak at that point).

Will the aliens be only organic stuff? Or some high-tech purge everything robots/ nanite swarms?
How do you plan the assasination mechanic? Is it something like instant sudden random game over with not that much counterplay?

Organic. I like the parasites to be organic Organic ships, organic planetary defences, organic infestation weapons. The twist is the player might invest in radiation weapons which are good vs these (but not that great overall), so probably only one fleet, dedicated to fight parasites, would have these installed.

BTW, I'm looking to include some maniacal robot/cyborg race, but not sure how these should work, if you have ideas post.

Assassination - no, there won't be insta death. Failure here means "your clone was killed" or "you were injured", etc. It has repercussions (usually penalty to empire efficiency for X turns), also if you fail it 3 times you get extra repercussions (due to all these injures/etc and/or because you were forced to increase security and/or grow paranoid you get a permanent penatly).

[quamzie]

And do you have patreon page?

[Lord_lemonpie]

PTW, this looks great!

[LordArchibald]

Added tons of links (bottom of the first post), various Twitter, FB, Tumblr, etc since people have different prefs what to follow.
Of course I will be posting on the forum here as usual, so it's just an extra for people who want it.

Implemented the annihilators (late game transdimensional race that enters via rifts, probably surviving their attack will be the last requirement for triggering victory). I will soon make a short video about them.

And do you have patreon page?

No... But I could have. Why you ask?
(I know, I know, I have asked why there is no DF patreon, still I have not got one myself )

[varsovie]

I'll start to copy-paste my questions.

Do you plan a Linux/Mac version?

IMHO one of the good way to reduce snowballing in a game where you play a leader (in contrast of playing God) is to limit the number of actions. That means is you have a small empire you can "micro" it to get better efficiency, while a big empire you're forced to make choices on what to control. It also keeps the turns of somewhat decent length and depth for both early and late game.
Or heck with artificial action limitations, just make the game real-time.