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[Il Palazzo]

An interesting wrinkle on this idea would be to have it so that travel is possible without wormholes, but is more expensive to travel this way.  It could also provide a source of piracy related activities, if a ship travels to a planet without a wormhole or another player's presence, it can go incognito and start pirating.

I suppose such a travel could simply be much slower - like ten or twenty turns instead of one. Of course, then we'll be ripping off MOO3 in addition to all the other games we're already borrowing from. Not that it should stop us.

[Lap]

I don't get the idea of player-selected-planets. Am I right to assume that you want to make the galactic map a complete abstraction? As in, we decide to make a wormhole, and it doesn't really mean where lies the destination, as it's assumed that some star is indeed nearby. Then the players choose the type of planet freely, as it's also assumed that there is a selection of planets available.

It would basically be like saying to the players "We've calculated that the next wormhole can to steered to any one of these planets so pick one". The actual galaxy map would be fairly abstract as the only important thing for it to do is show players how long it takes to get from here to there. Actual measurements of distance could still be abstracted to prevent crazy long wormholes from screwing the map, but the player wouldn't directly see any units of distance between planets in this example.

I'm not really gung ho about any one of these ideas yet as I'm still weighing the effects. I still don't know how to graphically represent a wormhole that players vote on that ends up by chance passing through another planet. That kind of thing is my main problem with player selected wormholes at the moment.

Choosing predetermined worlds is a pretty lazy option for me since it requires zero code changes, but I wanted to throw these selected worlds and wormholes out there since it's the kind of thing that really saves me time if I get it in early rather than late.

Choosing the wormhole and planet method has now become secondary to figuring out the quirks I listed that come with players not having their own starting homeworld.

Until that gets figured out I cannot move forward very far.


Another Big Issue: Army Movement

I made a huge post on GameDev.net (http://www.gamedev.net/community/forums/topic.asp?topic_id=573263), but the short of it is that there are two problems that Dom3 had that will be repeated if I don't change something.

1. Stacking all your units in a single big army was usually the best strategy.

2. A single enemy army can easily bypass your main army and rampage through your lands and there is no reliable way to stop them with the simultaneous turns system.

These two things meant the strategy was just to run into the enemy base and make random moves every turn so you would be ruining his income while also never actually having to have a real conflict.

I can either solve the stacking problem by making units that hit everything in a stack (meaning they are super effective against them) or I can put penalties or limits on big armies. I'm aiming for penalties or limits.

Solving the issue of armies running past each other I've got some solutions:

1. Use a somewhat complicated support attack/defend system like the Hearts of Iron 3 series. This system essentially allows adjacent provinces to automatically help out in attacks and defense.

2. Attacks into enemy territory take an entire turn before going into effect and the defender is notified and essentially has one turn to move units there (Favors Defense).

3. Attacks into enemy territory occur instantly, but any army that participated becomes "exhausted" and cannot attack for one turn. Should exhaustion also mean not being able to move at all?

Option 1 makes the game take less turns, but means players might need to give more orders (thus lengthening their turns slightly). Options 2 and 3 are fairly intuitive, but make attacking a bit slower, which might slow the game (but slow it more than having wild goose chases? I don't know).

Thoughts? Other options?

[Virex]

Make it so that units could chase enemies automatically and units in friendly territory move much faster? Would at least make catching armies easier.

[LDiCesare]

It is indeed problematic how to prevent players from starting a bloodbath on the home world right off the bat. Both  strong static defences and EOFS-Byzantium-like ban on fighting seem very artificial, but in the end we might just have to accept one of them.

Why not put a big senate army on Byzantium and send them against whoever starts a war on the planet?

Regarding stacks: Dominions tried to prevent some stacking with resources (food) so your armies start starving if you mass too many of these. Except many units just don't eat and others provide enough food for lots of units. You could decrease army usefulness/power when there are too many of them massed together (to simulate logistic issues) or even have them skirmish between themselves (a la Warhammer orcs).

[Lap]

Virex, any idea how would this automated chasing work and how would it be better than support attack/defense?

I forgot about the food mechanic in Dom, which reminds me of supply in general. I have it coded so that units can require food, but I think trying to move food around would be a huge pain. It's a minor issue at this point.

Hearts of Iron III had a system (though terribly bugged) where food/supplies would automatically trickle in from home provinces as long as you had an indirect connection to it. The idea here is that the player rarely has to think about supplies until an enemy cuts off your only spaceport.

I've been doing a lot of army based stuff. I might leave out the generals for now. The most important change is that I redid a lot of the way data is stored and made the game even more modder friendly. There are also more error checks that will prevent crashes and fill in data you forgot to enter when making new units or whatever. This also means I can easily change entire game mechanics without rewriting large portions of code. If I wanted to add a unit in that explodes an entire province and then starts spawning space goblins afterwards I can do that without change to the base code of the game. It's super flexible.

Here's the latest progress list:

-Most of the Army/Unit Display window finished.
-Units are sorted on this screen by how they will most likely be positioned in battle.
-Units can be moved between armies by dragging them.
-Mouse dragging a selection box works for selecting units (I sure take this for granted...so much time coding such small things).
-Transports are now implemented. You can load units into transports just by moving their icon onto any transport's icon.
-Army movement types and speed are properly calculated and properly restricted to terrain types (no infantry in the water type stuff).

[Lap]

I came across another decision to be made about army movement.

Let's say I'm X and there are three provinces in a nice line here:

X1, X2, Y1

I have a guy on X1 and I want to move it to reinforce my second province, X2. An enemy army is much faster and on the same turn beats me to X2 and takes it over.

The troops I thought were going to help defend X2 are now attackers. This is especially terrible for me if the army consisted of weaker/defensive units that will be torn apart without support.

Here are my options:
1. Do nothing. "Moving your armies is always a risk"
2. Let players set army aggressiveness before they move. Aggressive armies will move into enemy territory while defensive ones will instead cancel their order on finding that their destination has been conquered

I'm leaning towards 2 right now.

I'm also trying to figure out who should get the province when a join attack by allies occurs. Who should get the province? The person with the most units? The strongest army? The ones that killed the most? The person who got there slighty beforehand (technically irrelevant, but still an option)?

Another progress packed day:
-Implemented a very versatile animation system.
I can make layers of animations, organized into groups and can change/modify any of them on the fly. I should be set in this department no matter what future animations the game needs (probably not many).
-Space->Space,Space->Planet, Planet->Space Movement
Interstellar travel works great. The UI for launching and landing could use some work though.
-Almost all current and future Server/Client data is properly received and sent.
-Armies movement,transports, and unit reorganizations are properly reflected on client and server.
Though all the movement code was mostly functional on the client and the server the hardest part was connecting them.
-Implemented Alliances and other player relations Currently, just basic War/Neutral/Ally
-Redid some combat code to allow for allies in combat
-Coordinated Attacks
Normally, whichever army is fastest will get to a province and fight. I added an option to have all your armies and those of your allies attack at the same time if they are attacking the same province. The downside is that they will be as slow as the slowest army participating.
-Special Events  Though lacking in content, special event code seems to be working. They can be galaxy-wide, planet-wide, or regional.

[x2yzh9]

Lap, I've got an idea on the whole starting everyone on the same planet thing. In the storyline thing, say that a sort of large laser defence system was created that can target empires that attack other empires on planet-side. While this CAN be taken out, it would be very hard to do ingame, so it's possible but not at the starting time feasible.

[mainiac]

The HOI system was interesting, but I felt it was severely flawed in that it let the attacked commit a greater fraction of their forces to battle then the defender.  In the real world if you had two sides with three evenly spaced forces of equal strength, you would be said to have a standoff situation, attacking is risky.  In HOI, the logical thing to do is immediately concentrate your forces and attack the middle forces because all the attackers would be able to engage while only one third of the defenders could do so.  Realistically, the defenders should have an easier time tactically maneuvering in such a situation then the attackers, not suffer a 66% decline in effective firepower.  Napoleonic and post-napoleonic warfare demonstrated these principles quite extensively, internal movement is quite helpful for tactical and logistical maneuverability.

Of course, with large enough territories, this stops being an issue.  I had the impression from your earlier screenshot that you intended to only have 20 or so territories on a planet.

[Lap]

The provinces are pretty big in this so I'm hoping it won't be such an issue. In HOI I remember support defense preventing most of those situations and any situation where I forgot to use support defense I could just have my adjacent units attack the attacker's province and they'd all be in one big battle. I never had any problems with feeling like my units weren't able to participate when they should. Provinces in HOI are much smaller and it was pseudo real-time so it had those advantages.

The idea for a laser defense system or some other anti-aggression tech is feasible and makes sense. However, the real problem I'm having with having people start out together is how to deal with the initial land grab of colonization.

[Il Palazzo]

As for the initial setup and some prevention to sudden rushes at the beginning of the game:
Maybe a variation of dom3's provincial defense(PD) system would work? Let's say a player can build a "barracks" or "fortification" or somesuch type of building, which would provide free units in the case of attack. These would be otherwise unmovable, and their only (or secondary to e.g.army production) function would be to provide an alternative way of defending the province.
With such buildings implemented, all you need to do is make sure that each player owns one or two in their home provinces. You could even make orbital lazors available as one of those defensive constructions.

As for the colonization rush - if there will be no predetermined wormholes, then the players will naturally band together, forming small(2-4 players) groups and pooling their wealth, so that they can afford creation of a wormhole. Then they'll have to deal with sharing the world's surface and resulting tensions, they'd also collectively defend their newly discovered worlds from other players wanting to colonise them. We could imagine that some players would want/be forced to cede their rights of colonisation etc.

Additionally, the senate could create a wormhole to wherever the votes decided.

[Lap]

I think I'll be starting off the game with the senate opening one or more wormholes. Nothing would say "This game sucks" more to a new player than stubborn of clueless players not banding together and having the resulting turns go nowhere. Players making their own wormholes will be a later game thing so that the senate will get some more play.

The real problem I have with the rush to colonize is the simultaneous turn business.

1. If the game started with multiple open planets it wouldn't be that uncommon for 7 people to go to one planet and one to the other. This either ends with a massively overcrowded planet or a few unlucky players have to waste multiple turns going back to the other planet.

2. With multiple people orbiting a planet we get landing issues. Mutliple people could end up choosing the same landing site or ones close to each other. I either resolve this by having the late arrival attack the defender (needlessly crippling both players) or the later player wastes a turn and tries again.

Sure players can unofficially call "dibs" on a planet, but in my experience these early land rushes are just chaos. If something goes seriously wrong for a player at this stage there's nothing invested and therefore nothing stopping them from immediately quitting and playing another game in hopes of a better start.

The only thing I can think of at the moment is a kind of solution to the second issue where players give landing preferences. For example, I want to land and take over province #2, but if that gets taken right before I get there I'll take, #3, then #1, then #6, etc.

[LDiCesare]

What about the following opening?

The Senate has decided to (re)open some wormhole(s) and assigned planets/lands to some houses, and some 'free' planets available. This way, each house/player starts with a base on Byzantium and the right to colonise/settle a given land on a given planet. However, the claims are just claims and players don't actually have to play that way. They could decide to land somewhere else altogether. For instance you start with 3 reachable planets and 6 players. 2 planets have been divided in 3 fiefdoms. The third planet hasn't and is 'open' for everyone. Will the house leaders try to settle their declared fiefdom or try to grab land on the third, open planet? Or will they try to immediately seize someone else's fiefdom, thereby potentially angering the senate? Going for the free planet would be a gambit, as you'd give up your claim to a fiefdom you're supposed to get (1/3rd of a planet) in favor for a share of another planet. If you're alone, you win 1 planet. If there are 2 who pick up the same option, then it's going to benefit either them and the lucky guy who stood on the same planet, or noone as everyone will have half a planet to play with. If 3 or more pick the option, it's bad for them. So ideally, you'd want to do this gambit one time every 3 or 6 games but no more.

[Lap]

Starting with claims on fiefdoms brings us back closer to the original plan of each house having their own homeworld. This in itself isn't a tragedy as I still feel that the wormhole mechanic will still keep players close. As their empires grow so does the galaxy and I think that was really the bigger problem. In EFS, with players having so many open planets to colonize and being located so far apart there was very little reason to interact or attack other players.

Having the player choose between a guaranteed fiefdom at the start or a more risky self colonization is an interesting proposition that seems a bit less chaotic, while still giving players choice. I still wonder how I should deal with multiple players trying to land on the same spot at the same time though. Hopefully, with so many open provinces and many players taking fiefdoms we won't see that often though.

[Lap]

Here's the current building/recruiting screen which I'm looking for feedback on:



It's looking pretty good and the only thing I haven't been able to decide yet is where to put costs and build time. I've seen a lot of games put the build time right next to the name like 'Tank (4)'. I could make an hourglass symbol and put it with the rest of the resource costs. I could do the same with money. Money and time to build might be so universal and important that maybe I should put them in the detailed stat window or the title of one of the windows.

Another issue is whether I should have anything cost money. In EFS units only cost time and resources. Money is spent to pay their upkeep, not to build them. For some reason I can't put my finger on I'm leaning towards having most things be resource based and have upkeep be what money primarily gets spent on.

[Il Palazzo]

Lots of mildly incoherent ranting incoming. If you'll like some of the ideas, let me know, and I'll try to make them more precise.

Spoiler: First, a comment on building units (click to show/hide)

You'll probably be highly reluctant to change this now, that it's apparently mostly coded in(or is it?), but do consider the following.

In two words: too detailed.
With the system the screenshot shows, the player will be bogged down with micromanagement hell.
20 provinces per planet, means 20 visits to the recruitment screen - on one planet only. Then each turn when the units are completed, the player will have to move them by hand to form an army.

This might work ok for buildings, as there's a limited number of times you can actually build something in each province - plus, I'm still of opinion that constructions should be very expensive, additionally limiting the need(or possibility) to improve provinces.

Perhaps an alternative to proposed army building would work better:
Let's say, the industrial types of buildings will provide a province with some construction capacity(so far just as you've had it), but instead of being confined to that very province, it would be able to act across the planet - in the same fashion, and using the same system, that the resource availability currently does.
A player would be able to rise an army either in any single one of his provinces on a planet, or only in those with a "barracks" or "assembly point" or somesuch building present. The game would track a supply line to every province with proper industry, summing up all the construction capacities and presenting the total of buildable units. Simultainously, it would track the resource availability using the same supply line system. Albeit for resources, the supply lines would extend to nearby worlds - as we've discussed earlier. The production capacity would be bound to the planet only.

Imagine an interface, where on one half of a screen, a planetery map is shown. The player selects(highlights) a province he controlls, and the map changes colours to show which of the remaining provinces are in supply chain. The other half of the screen provides information on the current production capacity and available resources, as well as a choice of units to include in the army(depending on the specialised buildings present within the supply zone).
The player simply picks the units to form his army composition, and the numbers showing remaining resources and capacity would dynamically change as he does so.

The main quirk of this system is that all the units should be most likely constructed within one turn. Otherwise, one would have to invent a very clever way of accounting for provinces lost during the construction time.
Still, if all the units(maybe spaceships would be handled differently) will take but one turn to assemble, then one doesn't have to worry about which factory exactly was the unit produced in and from which planet/province should the resources be drawn, so I think it's not too bad.

Regarding how advanced units production should work in this system: Either an advanced factory allows every "capacity slot" to construct the corresponding advanced unit(so you just need an access to one per planet to be able to create an e.g. mastiff tanks-only army), or each such factory would create a number of capacity slots specific to that unit.
In that second case, imagine a list of units available to build - as in your screenshot - each would have an additional number by them, not as in EFS denoting the ETA, but how many of those can be created, regardless of otherwise available capacity(which would be for e.g. low tech units).
The first option is nice, because it tones down micromanagement even further, but the second will prevent "best-unit-only" armies being raised.

Spoiler: cash issues (click to show/hide)

In my opinion, money should be used pretty much everywhere, not only for upkeep purposes. I really hated the EFS for how it made all that cash redundant after a while. You just had to make sure you had enough for your troops and labs, and there was no other value for it.
I would add some price tags to every building and unit(alongside resources), as well as making the Senate one of the main money sinks.
If you'd go with the army building system I've proposed above, then maybe some extra cost could be associated with resources being transported from off world colonies along the supply chain - the farther they need to go, the pricey.
Or maybe some units don't require any cash - like militia for example - and the price tags are associated only with the more advanced units. Or maybe even better - each factory has a "production cost", which is deducted for every unit it creates.

Also, as the armies would essentially take one turn to rise, troop upkeep should be very high - which would prevent players from using all the capacity they've got to build troops. Instead, the armies would be created only when needed.
Some nifty strategic effects could take place, e.g. threatening to invade, which forces the threatened to rise an army in expectation of attack - which in turn costs him fortune to maintain, while the attack never really comes etc.(sort of Fleet-in-Being strategy)

As for the starting positions and the associated problems, I was going to post something earlier, but then I got drunk and completely forgot what I was going to say. I'll give it another go soon.