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[Drakale]

Wouldn't it suffer from the total war series's main flaw, i.e. you gotta play through a lot of one sided fights before getting that one actually meaningful engagement.

I really want a game where you control a self sufficient colony on an environmentally hostile planet, mars style. Aliens and weird stuff entirely optional. There's that Conlan's claim (now Unclaimed World) game that seem to fit the bill, but I'm not convinced it will actually get made in a near future.

[Matz05]

-snip-

I can bet that in such a game people would find one, two, maximum four viable builds and roll with them. Happened before.

Happened where? I've never seen a game based mainly on invention and crafting fail. Haven't seen one succeed either though. Just... haven't seen one.
Umm, this isn't sarcastic or anything, but can you recommend one? No matter how broken the game, I like playing mad scientist.


And as for the often-held idea that "customization makes things inevitably worse because it can't be balanced"; real life posits a counterexample. Remember, not all weapons in real life take the same amount of time and materials to kill someone.
A rocket launcher is far more deadly than an assault rifle in single combat (two guys in Kevlar quickdraw and scramble for cover at medium range, who is in worse shape after five seconds?),as well as being relatively cheap and simple to manufacture (I'm talking about unguided rockets) compared to high-pressure automatic weapons; but there are reasons that in a modern military you will find one, maybe two rocket launchers in a group using at least six or seven assault rifles. They are easy to miss with and you can't carry 200 rockets. They kill things you didn't want to, sometimes yourself. They get stuck in doors sometimes!
Titanium alloys (among some other blends) can be made rediculously heat resistant and undeformable; but they make up only a tiny minority of our technology. High scarcity, vital use in other fields, and certain situational drawbacks inherent in what gives them strength (they are inflexible, conductive, etc.) makes their use a values judgement.

While I agree that shoehorning in customization where it was not well thought out can break competitive balance, the concept of "technology" works somewhat different from normal balance. In permadeath (or just very high equipment/structure/posession damage relatively open PVP) environments, like some kind of scavenger world, while "better" equipment will probably exist, it will be contested so highly destruction becomes a real possibility. If you take something fancy into combat, it is going to attract bullets/lasers/fireballs/thrown knives covered in acid. Some will probably hit it. When it breaks or gets stolen, it probably won't be as easily replaceable as something less "better"; unless the laws of physics in the universe in question are very poorly designed.

Building a deathray that can often oneshot someone is an accomplishment.
Keeping that deathray when everyone around you both wants it and fears it is a much bigger challenge.
Mass-producing deathrays, keeping them fueled/maintained, and deploying them successfully when everyone knows they exists and the basic principles of how they work is a nightmare. More so once people start experimenting with deliberate counters.

[MrWiggles]

The real life example isn't entirely analogous in a game environment. Game environments, can be, well gamed to gain unintentional advantages through combining numeric values. The things that guide restrictions in real life, often abstracted and simplified in games.

[Draco18s]

I've never seen a game based mainly on invention and crafting fail. Haven't seen one succeed either though. Just... haven't seen one.

A Tale in the Desert.
Notably, it's both succeeded AND failed at the same time.

Succeeded in the sense that it has (had?) a large player base, failed because there was an "end" and the world would get resets, clearing everything out and letting people start over (primarily because there were 6 achievements for being the first person to build X, and if you weren't first, what was the point?  Notably, "building X" took like months of constant play to do)

[Niveras]

I really want a game where you control a self sufficient colony on an environmentally hostile planet, mars style. Aliens and weird stuff entirely optional. There's that Conlan's claim (now Unclaimed World) game that seem to fit the bill, but I'm not convinced it will actually get made in a near future.

There's Maia (Bay12 thread) in development. It appears to be going for a DF/Dungeon Keeper sort of colony management.

But I expect it's not quite what you're looking for.

[Matz05]

I didn't know A Tale in the Desert let you make new things. I thought it was just a convulted tech tree.

[MrWiggles]

I really want a game where you control a self sufficient colony on an environmentally hostile planet, mars style. Aliens and weird stuff entirely optional. There's that Conlan's claim (now Unclaimed World) game that seem to fit the bill, but I'm not convinced it will actually get made in a near future.

There's Maia (Bay12 thread) in development. It appears to be going for a DF/Dungeon Keeper sort of colony management.

But I expect it's not quite what you're looking for.

The Dev for Maia is kind of full of himself.

[Draco18s]

I didn't know A Tale in the Desert let you make new things. I thought it was just a convulted tech tree.

It is a convoluted tech tree.

But it feels like crafting.  The wonder at the end of each of six ... paths (art, science, medicine, etc.) is the achievement one.

[Devling]

-snip-

I can bet that in such a game people would find one, two, maximum four viable builds and roll with them. Happened before.

-double snip-

A game has limitations, it has limits and parameters.
Thus it has a max, a most effective.
People will find 2 or 3 builds that will work in every situation.
Period.
The only way to keep things interesting would be to keep adding content, thus pushing the boundary's.
But, give someone enough time, and they will figure out a way to maximize shit.
That's what we've been doing for all of history, and beyond!
Making our tools the bestest!

[Draco18s]

A game has limitations, it has limits and parameters.
Thus it has a max, a most effective.

Reminds me of an article I read today that attempted to find the highest "damage in a single turn" 60-card vintage magic deck (baring infinite combos).

The current record holder stands at 2^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^30 damage.
(Just FYI, that is a number so large that "googol" pales in comparison, why, it even blows a googolplex out of the water.  In comparison, a googolplex is less than 10^^4).

[Matz05]

If the same tool can do everything to the maximum effectiveness you designed the system wrong. It's just not physically possible!

Diamond has hardness above all but the most advanced hardness-specialized materials we can make today. We can synthesize diamond with moderate difficulty. Why, then, do our soldiers not wear diamond plate? Why aren't our cars made of it? You can't scratch it, but it WILL shatter on hard enough impacts. It is also a major pain to make in large pieces.
The characteristics that make spring steel different (some flex and great elasticity) suit it for different tasks. This flexibility would be a curse if you tried to make turbine blades out of it.
A good half-metre of iron would protect space stations from meteorites well. Pity we can't shoot it up there.

The characteristics that make a good surgical implement do not make a good battle-axe.
The qualities that are a plus for a battle-axe are not good for a close-combat urban weapon.
etc.

EDIT: And isn't Magic that game where it's much easier to do infinite damage than to do a fixed, very large number?

[Devling]

BUT, games aren't that.
That would be real life.
Real life isn't fun.
Plus, the sheer amount of man hours needed to make an even basic simulation of real life is ENORMOUS!
Well, I guess this is games you wish existed...

[Graknorke]

Plus, the sheer amount of man hours needed to make an even basic simulation of real life is ENORMOUS!
Well, I guess this is games you wish existed...

WELL.
In that case, I would love a game that simulated the universe, predicting its particular method of randomness and started from the initial conditions. Except you can mess around with it. Like interrupting a beheading during the French Revolution be dropping a large phallus into the middle of the proceedings. Or building NASA their damn moonbase yourself using computer majyyks. Then sending it to the moon because no doubt they'd still mess it up even with your generous help.
The possibilities are effectively endless.

Done it already. Except a perfect simulation of the entire universe with inbuilt editing capabilities.
I'm pretty sure it's impossible though.

[X-03]

I want a game where you ARE the evil feral nonsentient creature (Think playing the Alien from all the AvP games), but with modern graphics, and with the ENTIRE game devoted to it.

[Catastrophic lolcats]

I want a game where you ARE the evil feral nonsentient creature (Think playing the Alien from all the AvP games), but with modern graphics, and with the ENTIRE game devoted to it.

I would also love that. The first Alien Versus Predator (2000) sorta had this to an extent. The Alien gameplay was mostly built around "stealth" and "stalking" in the harder difficulties. Shame the later editions forgot about this and basically had the Alien as mindless charging.

Also a game where you're being stalked by a monster, like the original Alien, where your fellow crew members are slowly being picked off one by one. Either singleplayer or multiplayer where you have to do the standard monster movie tropes like having to split up and do set tasks alone.
I haven't seen any game really attempt this and they either go for the isolation survival horror or the shoot everything jump scares. Basically I want to play one of those red shirts in monster movies who manages to do slightly less stupid decisions.