Published on November 22, 2006 By Zydor In Beta Reports
The Super Ability of reducing opponents down to 3 moves that the YOR have needs to be amended. Its way over the top at its current value, and extremely frustrating. Build in game frustrations and you ask for angst from new or casual players. It destroys the flow of the game.

Of course it can be countered by using heavily defended ships with Eyes of the Universe ability, that can just plough thro anything they throw at them on their way to taking out high value influence planets. Thats not the issue.

A new player will be put off the game very rapidly before realising how to counter it, and you'll lose them. The move reduction should not be as harsh, a value of (say) 50% would still achieve the desired result of delaying entry and exit, but without destroying the flow of the game, and the likely the side effect of the player putting their fist thro the screen

An absolute value of 3 move points will just achieve player frustration, not innovation. A percentage value (say 50%)- as opposed to a hard coded absolute value - will gradually degrade the effect over time as opponents fleets get faster, but stilkl achieve the effect of protection when most vulnerable at the early game stages.

Game features have to make sense when placed in context with the rest of the game, or you lose players and gain bad reps. In my view this one makes no sense as it stands.

Regards
Zy
Comments (Page 4)
9 PagesFirst 2 3 4 5 6  Last
on Nov 27, 2006
The argument that a transport of 85 moves to 3 is too harsh really tells me that I need to go back in and make engines cost a lot more space and money.


Or that we want much bigger maps...




*walks away, whistling*
on Nov 27, 2006
Fuels - my comment is mainly directed at Metaverse players who, having figured out how to "beat" the AI by building ships with 50 moves per turn that strike every planet and conquer all in a single turn think that the AI is "poor" when in fact the problem is that there's no practical defense to such a strategy.


Fair comment - I always wondered why engines were so much cheaper than hulls. Perhaps a simple fix would be +1 to the component size of each engine unit after the first. So the first engine is (eg) Size 4, but the next is size 5, the 3rd is size 6, etc. Call it extra reinforcement required for the stresses of such extreme speed, perhaps? So this has very little effect on "normal" ship designs, but means that if you really want super-fast ships, you have to make some harder design choices.

It would also reduce the number of ultra-fast uber-attack/zero defence small/tiny ship designs which are particularly unbalancing IME. You might want to increase the penalty for larger hull sizes.

on Nov 27, 2006
Ships moving at 20+ moves per turn is not how it was designed to be played. So I'm updating the engine component values.


This is good news Brad/Frogboy but I still think the Yor super abilty is overpowered. Poss you could have a 3 spaces per turn move minimum otherwise a 50% loss of speed.

i.e.

Move 1=1 Space
Move 2=2 Spaces
Move 3=3 Spaces
Move 4=3 Spaces
Move 5=3 Spaces
Move 6=3 Spaces
Move 7=3 Spaces
Move 8=4 Spaces
Move 9=4 Spaces
Move 10=5 Spaces


and so on...


Lenius.

on Nov 27, 2006
So ships gettign 40 moves per turn is not something the AI has been designed to deal with.


Ships moving at 20+ moves per turn is not how it was designed to be played.


Chess AI is only possible because the moves the pieces make are so limited. In GalCiv, it's bad enough that nearly every piece is essentially a king with N moves. But if you give the king 40 moves then any sort of AI strategy goes right out the door.


I took those first two quotes to back up the statement I'm about to make on the third. It's not true that any AI strategy goes out the door, just the one you have designed. I don't disagree, that in this case, it would be best to nerf engines hardcore. However, when calculating strategic decisions based on possible moves, in the case of ships being at 20 to 50 some speeds, it could be done by an area of overlap algorithm. A single turn for a ship can be calculated by a circle with a radius of the speed, and for arguments sake, all likely moves in consecutive turns could just have a radius of turn N *speed. Then it's quite possible for the AI to see likely targets when multiple ships from different positions overlap areas.

-But it still doesn't solve the problem when ships can cover the whole galaxy in like 2 turns
-It still doesn't stop the 1 turn wars
-It still makes giving the AI the ability to match the speed improbable

So the only logical conclusion is to nerf those engines .

Also, just a thought, but wouldn't an engine with horsepower X move a tiny ship of mass N much faster than a massive ship of mass 100N? Maybe the solution lies in inertia?
on Nov 27, 2006
A hard cap on movement speed wouldnt be a bad idea. I always pity the AI :/ It's hard to make a sector game with good AI that doesn't result in AI processing the moves to infinity +1, altough in Space Empires the usual cap is around 15ish moves, and AI can handle that kind of movement. But then again the systems are really broken up and can only be reached via warppoints.

Well one day hopefully you guys get to design a simple game with only system to system travel ala Moo2.

Frogboy can you tell us what is the absolute max movement AI will use? So I won't design faster ships than that.
on Nov 27, 2006
The game was designed around the assumption that ships would top out at speeds of around 6 to 8 moves per turn. That means the AI was designed looking for ships that might be getting tops in that area.
So ships gettign 40 moves per turn is not something the AI has been designed to deal with.


Well, seems like a case of bad planning and poor testing? If this wasn't predicted. I'm surprised it wasn't addressed sooner.
Anyways, I've seen some of these "faction super abilities" go very wrong in other games, most notably in the BatteTech CCG with the Box Powers. Balance issues, of course, which makes them rarely used. IME (and I've done some beta testing in other games) this is usually a bad idea. Someone *always* finds a way to abuse this, no matter how much you test it. Just like the engines/speed issue.
on Nov 27, 2006
*peeks round the door*

Geeez that started a debate

Interesting facts on the designed speed re AIs. If the game rebalances to stop mega fast ships, then I have no problem with the 3 move point Yor ability. My original comment was based purely on the flow of the game, and to effectively come to a skidding halt with the current speed abilities did not make sense, and I still believe potentially confusing/frustrating for new players.

If the game rebalances to slow down the mega fast ships, the 3 move point speed as an ability fits nicely and is within the bounds of reason with a base speed of 12-18 move points. Playing Gigantic with 12-18 move point ships will be a whole new ball game - sounds fun   

Regards
Zy

on Nov 27, 2006
For what it's worth, the only comment I can make about speed is that it should be relative to the size of the galaxy. A speed of 5 on a tiny galaxy gets you across the galaxy in 9 turns. On a gigantic galaxy a speed of 5 takes 48 turns (1 year) to cross the galaxy. You would need a speed of 27 on a gigantic galaxy to be comparable to a speed of 5 on a tiny galaxy.

If you do put in some fixed max speed, I would plead that you need auto-launch to rally point functionality that is absolutely reliable 100% of the time, even right after the load of a save game. Also, this should be dependable for up to 10,000 ships simultaneously on autopilot.
on Nov 27, 2006
Just a question for Fuels Chief.

I have no idea how to do this and am really curious.

You invited us to look at your character profile. I did. How can you post 4 games so quickly?

Game 1 : Huge - 14 years - 102250 pts - posted 11/18/06 9:37pm
Game 2 : Gigantic 14 years - 161000 pts - posted 11/18/06 9:50pm
Game 3 : Gigantic 16 years - 183750 pts - posted 11/18/06 10:07pm
Game 4 : Gigantic 15 years - 189750 pts - posted 11/18/06 10:21pm

That run and those points are incredible!

It takes me days, sometimes a week on a small galaxy at tough. Would love to learn your secret!  
on Nov 27, 2006
I think the simple way of solwing the problem is to limit the number of Movement points a Ship has to 8.

Or you can make any drives technologies taking from 50-25% of the ship space.
on Nov 27, 2006
You invited us to look at your character profile. I did. How can you post 4 games so quickly?


He stores up new game saves to play while he's away from the internet, then submits them all when he returns.
on Nov 27, 2006
I think the simple way of solwing the problem is to limit the number of Movement points a Ship has to 8.

Or you can make any drives technologies taking from 50-25% of the ship space.


Please don't add a hard cap to ship speed. That will just make all ships go the same speed. What's the point of designing ships if there's only one right design?

But I would enjoy some rebalancing to reduce the power of engines. Making them larger and more expensive is a good start. Personally, I'd like a system where the engines have a small size but a large sizemod, so that they take up more space on the larger hulls. As it is now, it is much easier to make large ships fast than to make small ships fast. And maybe give the small hulls some inherent boost to speed.

Or set up a formula of diminishing returns for adding engines to a ship. Make each extra engine less effective, or larger, or more expenive than the previous one. A soft cap like this means you can still make fast ships if you really want to, but you'll have to sacrifice lots of weapons and armor to do it.

on Nov 27, 2006
He stores up new game saves to play while he's away from the internet, then submits them all when he returns.

Yes, that plus he plays real fast. I wish I had the knack. I once made a comment to him about submitting two huge games in the same day 7 hours apart.   

When I metioned that I was amazed he could complete a game in 7 hours, he replied that it was quicker than that because he also mowed the lawn between games.   
on Nov 28, 2006
Wow! I did notice he hadn't posted a game in a few months before he rambled off those 4. Great Job Fuels!

Playing the Torian though? Something about those smug, self righteous bullies just irks me. It seems like every game I play, they are the ones that give me the most grief. I have actually developed strategies around taking them out first.

Nasty... Nasty Aliens.
on Nov 28, 2006
Playing the Torian though? Something about those smug, self righteous bullies just irks me. It seems like every game I play, they are the ones that give me the most grief. I have actually developed strategies around taking them out first.

The best way to take them out is to BE them. Actually in my opinion they're the best racial choice because of the "free" 25% morale bonus.
9 PagesFirst 2 3 4 5 6  Last