Anyone familiar with 4x games knows that the more cities you conquer/found the more powerful you become in a linear fashion. Therefore once you have a few more cities than the opponent it becomes a boring mopping-up exercise. In real life having an enormous empire presents many problems. Here is how to address this in game terms.
All military units should require monetary upkeep. Each additional city you hold should offer you slightly less income due to "empire upkeep" costs or whatever. The second city you found should have 90% of the gold income potential of the first, the third city should have 80%, the fourth 70%, until you get to your 12th city which will give NO NET INCOME. Static structures like city walls and barracks would have no upkeep, only armies will have upkeep. This way there is a hard limit on the power level of your army. If you have 20 cities you can only field the same size army as a player with 12 cities.
This way the war remains challenging until the end. Other games have used this concept but where they stumble is when they offer ways to mitigate or eliminate the penalty for having many cities. After your empire reaches a certain size your army should no longer grow. Holding territory and denying it to your enemy should be its own reqard at this point.
Wes
Didn't work in Civ 4.
In Elemental, each city requires magic that you can't recover to clear the land for the city's founding. So while you spread out your cities, and build large armies, that guy over there with only three cities? Yeah, he's able to research the "Apocalyptic spell of KYA!" so when your armies come marching in, all you end up with is nice little piles of ash.
https://forums.elementalgame.com/329219
3. The mechanics in Elemental are a bit different than the typical 4X game because even in terms of warfare, there are very different paths. For instance, Player A may have a huge army ready to steamroll but Player B may have an incredibly powerful sovereign who can wipe out vast armies and Player C may have built up an incredible well of mana that can be used to decimate vast swaths of the world and all three of these things could come together at once based on which path players take and of course all 3 could lose to Player D who wins through the quest victory condition if they're not careful.
There's another quote that I can't find at the moment, but that should be enough.
Civ4 had upkeep and maintenance costs, and corruption in Civ3. Both help somewhat keep city acquisitions down. But whatever the solution is, it should be fun and risky, rather than calculated. Maybe instead of upkeep costs, there is an increased chance of desertions/revolutions/pretender kings as the player increases the number of cities and increases army size?
But yeah, what brenavi said. There's supposed to be widely different specializations so steamroller armies may have a very different counter.
The problem here is that if there isn't a steam roller effect, then the game wouldn't end. I understand that the mopping up experiance is very boring, because I've been there too. The thing is, if you make it so there comes a point where you can't win because your army is too big, you have a problem.
Civ 4 still had the mop-up problem when you started steam rolling, only it was more frustrating because you didn't have additional fire-power backing you because of the sudden growth of empire (unless you switched civics then suddently all your friends hated you now too)
The counter to the steamroller is probably the desperation game-breaking spells.
One thing I'd like to see to balance things out- tech diffusion.
Instead of tech trading, have it where techs automatically transfer between neighbors based on a number of factors
-open borders (closed borders for trading would drastically reduce the odds of this happening)
-size of empire (smaller empires would gain effect quicker)
-bordering neighboring cultures (both independents, if they research, and other civs would count, but seperately)
-civics (more open the civic, more likely to receive learning of new tech
-whether the tech is one you can research now or not, (If you can more likely to get it)
-war (increases the odds of tech diffusion)
In fact, I would not have tech trading outside of this system. Too many imbalances and exploits, and it's sorta illogical.
You could spy to gain a tech though.
Why are they "game-breaking"? Not sure if you've played Master of Magic, but one of the victories was a global baniishment spell for the enemy wizards (can't remember if it affected allies or not.) This spell took lots of mana and time (as it was one of the last spells you could research, plus the cast time wasn't incosinderable) and you could interrupt it by taking the enemy capitol. So how is that game-breaking?
think about it. In any game today, if there was a big I-win button, even if it took 10 turns to push, the game would be considered unbalanced. And it is, you have a 10-turn time frame to take the capital or you lose. Now you can have a fun game of it, but its not 'balanced' by the strategy game community's opinion.
Those were Stardock's words, not mine.
I don’t think the developers will go for this. They are making this game 64-bit native to enable very large map sizes and what good are very large map sizes if you can only have 11 cities from which you gain income. Even if you scale this idea with the size of the map it strikes me as an arbitrary game mechanism. The existing mechanism for city foundation where by the sovereign must impart his essence to the land is a superior method b/c you don’t want a monarch that is feeble yet you will need some cities.
Another idea is to keep track of "nationalities" of conquered peoples and if those cities have insufficient garrisons there would be a chance every turn every that those cities could revolt. This could be even more likely when the owning fraction is at war. Naturally the nationality of a city will slowly change to that of the owning nation if is originating nation is no longer in existences. This would make it much more difficult for an empire to expand b/c every time it does so it will need to put out revolts on its boarder.
I strongly disagree with the OP. Yes there should be some added "difficulties" of managing a larger empire, but the last thing I want is the AI balancing things to favor the underdog for the sake of keeping things interesting.
Besides, it seems that Stardock may already have discovered an innovative way around this. That is, having a lot more cities than another player does NOT mean you are in "mop up" mode. Your opponenet may have been focusing on those few remaining cities and gone the route of making those cities extremely tough nuts to crack, and those cities may be inhabited by near-Demigods (plug!) that will plow through your armies like a hot knife through cold butter.
Again, as you get more powerful, be that in magical power or lots of armies/cities, it makes sense that you will have some unique new challenges to overcome, whether it be maintaining supply lines (or trade routes) or any of dozens of sensible things. But please please please don't make the game ARTIFICIALLY harder trying to bring the game back into parity or make the game nerf you because you are becomeing too strong!
Mop up, while it may not be as much "fun" as the early discovery phases, is part of the four X genre - Xterminate. And again, it appears they are going to spice this phase up as you still won't really know that you are to the cakewalk phase ever.
Yet,if you read what I quoted, just because you're going for the "game-breaking" end of game spell, does not mean you'll win, because that third guy over there might be within walking distance of finishing the "questing" victory condition.
Just as clarification, I believe that the exact word used to describe the massive endgame spells was "debalancing." That's not intrinsically the same thing as game-breaking (a "game-breaker" is something that manages to ruin the fun of a game all by its lonesome). The point of having such debalancing spells is to allow for a large variety of ways to win. But just because you manage to cast one of those endgame spells doesn't necessarily mean you win automatically - you might have weakened your opposition considerably but maybe you didn't destroy it; and maybe you went for the spell-casting route because your military was never particularly strong - so this means that you still might not be in the easy mop-up state of the game. So far I think the only explicity "I win" button we've been told about is completion of the Master Quest.
I don't think the steamroller effect needs to be stopped - ultimately that is what lets anybody win the game. But it needs to be mitigated. The problem with the steamroller effect is when it kicks in too early. Your actions in the beginning of the game shouldn't determine the conclusion. But nonetheless there has to come a point when one player has a major advantage of the others. The trick is to make actually playing the game to completion at that point still fun and rewarding. Major debalancing spells are one way (if one is cast by you it takes care of a lot of the tedious mopping up for you; if one is cast by an opponent then you will probably lose your major advantage and the game isn't so close to ending as you thought!).
So basically, I think the more relevant question is: How to prevent the "steamroller effect" from kicking in too early? In Civ IV getting an especially nice bonus from huts could be game-breaking - they could essentially determine the fate of the game. Getting a bunch of nice techs gives you a big boost early on that you don't really ever lose, and getting a free settler means that unless you screw up or get really unlucky later on, you've won the game. Things like that should be avoided at almost all costs.
Perzactly.
Like several people have said, the steamroller effect is nessecary, otherwise a game would never end. There has to come a point where one person has a considerable advantage over the opposition and wins the game.
The question is instead, how do you delay that effect until the appropriate time?
Personally, I think implementing supply lines and other similar elements are key, but I've never seen them done properly. Basicly the idea is that your army needs supplies, food, water, meds and equipment, and cannot function without these items. If you can make it possible to cut armies off from their supply lines, over time, they'd weaken as they get hungry, injured and their equipment breaks down. So to be able to steamroll your opponent, you'd have to be able to attack him, and simultaneously guard against supply disruptions. As a defender, you can use guerrila warfare tactics to fend off much larger forces then yourself.
I would say it is the complement : the steamroller effect is problematic when it kicked too far from the end.
As Cuddlelump said, the steamroller effect is necessary to make the game end. So the issue is when victory is assured, but you still need to play half of the game to get the "Victory is your" screen. That's the boring part of any TBS.
I mention this because most proposal to attenuate the steamroller effect (like supply, or big empire penalties) would do nothing but exacerbate the length of the mop-up phase. Instead, ways to make the game end sooner should be devised, like the surrenders and cultural victories of GalCiv2. One way I could think of would be to make the AIs take increasingly large risks when pushed to the wall, like sending their channellers on the front line. So the dominant player would have to deal with the last breath assault of the remaining (hostile) AIs, which would be challenging and would allow him to finish off them quickly (instead of having to do long siege on all the AIs capitals).
I like this. I've never played a 4X game where the AI would become appropriately desperate. I've played games where some AI personalities tend to take more risks than others, but it's hardly ever contextual. When an AI (of sufficient difficulty, maybe even personality) decides that its chances of victory are rapidly vanishing into nothing, it should act in desperation. It could decide to mount a final, desperate attack, it could try desperately to build an alliance with anyone who will listen, or even surrender to a stronger civilization to combine forces against you.
Also, if you're the reigning power in the region and you have bad relations with a lot of smaller civilizations, I'd love to see them get passed their own differences with each other and team up against you; and actually coordinate. One thing that AIs are notoriously bad at are coordinating with each other. When an alliance is formed, maybe it can create sort of a 'parent' AI that works to coordinate goals and efforts. If two civs are in an alliance and fighting the same enemy, that 'parent' AI could kick in and act is a sort of liason between them.
I like this idea too. The "last ditch effort" is rarely (if ever) simulated in AI behavior. More thought should be put into this as I could see this being a lot of fun, more rational than some AI behavior, and lessen the tedium of the end game.
Other suggestions: Hope this was not mentioned before but--a good diplomancy model should take care of some of the steam roller effect. Smaller fractions may band together to better defend themselfs. Again, prehaps creating some sort of "last alliance battle (all or nothing).
Also, having sections of the map which are favorable to some players but not others (like forests, mountains, plains, swamps) could nuture the development of some fractions even in the face of a strong opponent. This is sort of like preventing the steamroller from entering the bog. Also make different fractions feel really unique.
I think the important thing is that the AI avoid predictability. If you know that there is a final wave coming when the AI gets desperate, again you will just be prepared for it. The truly important thing, in this regard, is that there are several AI personalities at least that will respond differently, and it need to beprocedural enough that you will not be able to deduce the personality type you are playing and always be able to react accordingly. You need to have a rusher personality that may switch to being a turtle (not just randomly but under the right conditions) The work they are doing on the AI to make it indistinguishable from human is promising.
I also like the idea that you really are not going to ever feel that you have reached the steamroller phase, because even when you have a channeller down to a small army and a few cities, you still won't know exactly what you are facing until you face it. Maybe he has been building incredibly powerful units that will mow thru your armies. Maybe he has one very powerful unit and 50 units made to look identical to that unit to give the appearance of strength. or vice versa.
The steamroller effect (and other 4X annoyances like boring late games) was brought up another forum I visit. Someone provided a link to Soren Johnson's interview with the designers of the Fall From Heaven 2 mod for Civ IV. Here's the interesting part:
Soren: Let’s talk a little about the gameplay itself. What are some of the mechanics that you are most proud of developing in FfH? What ideas turned out to be the most fun? The most original? The hardest to get right? Derek: … The most original: The Armageddon Counter (AC). Turn-based games tend to go into a late game deadlock situation, and there isn’t much reason to have wars outside of specific victory conditions. The AC begins to have an effect from the mid-game on. It rises as “bad” things happen in the world - cities are razed, evil religions spread, powerful demons enter the world. It goes down as “good” things happen, powerful demons are defeated, evil holy cities are destroyed, graves and city ruins are sanctified. If the player stays in his borders and doesn’t engage with the rest of the world, the AC may not become an issue or may begin to rise depending on what is happening in that game. However, the important part is that the effects of the AC, powerful creatures appearing, blight and pestilences striking the world, AI players becoming more and more likely to go to war with each other, are shared by all players. So if you hide in your borders, you will still be subject to them. Because of that, players have an incentive to come out of their shells and try to direct the outcome of the world.
Soren: Let’s talk a little about the gameplay itself. What are some of the mechanics that you are most proud of developing in FfH? What ideas turned out to be the most fun? The most original? The hardest to get right?
Derek: … The most original: The Armageddon Counter (AC). Turn-based games tend to go into a late game deadlock situation, and there isn’t much reason to have wars outside of specific victory conditions. The AC begins to have an effect from the mid-game on. It rises as “bad” things happen in the world - cities are razed, evil religions spread, powerful demons enter the world. It goes down as “good” things happen, powerful demons are defeated, evil holy cities are destroyed, graves and city ruins are sanctified. If the player stays in his borders and doesn’t engage with the rest of the world, the AC may not become an issue or may begin to rise depending on what is happening in that game. However, the important part is that the effects of the AC, powerful creatures appearing, blight and pestilences striking the world, AI players becoming more and more likely to go to war with each other, are shared by all players. So if you hide in your borders, you will still be subject to them. Because of that, players have an incentive to come out of their shells and try to direct the outcome of the world.
Good post, good idea. Have some "outside force" disrupt excessive turtling (but not too much please, i like turtling )
As nathaniel richter already said: the topic starters idea probably does not jive with the extreme scalability the devs have in mind. It would be very hard to implement it properly that way and also feel "rigid" and "meta-game"
Perhaps a good idea to keep in-line with the background story: In the last cataclysm lots and lots of energy got stored up and then went boom, basically. So take the permisse that our channelers are not quite as good as "the old ones" were. Any excessive turtling would probably at one point involve hure stockpiling of mana supplies or putting into ever increasingly powerfull magic items.
Back to the premisse: our "new" channelers at one point start to lose control over that much power. You get "random" blowouts, the chance of which increases as the excess gets greater. So at one point you have to start letting it out and doing something usefull with it or suffer the consequences (and I do believe that there are legion effects one can think of to get to that point: to much magic attracts demons/dragons, flareouts destroy terrain, flareouts "burn out" caster units who are even less in control then your channeler, magic items might get overloaded and go boom or BOOOM, magic frenzy might hit and turn a numer of troops in a certain location against you, fighting for independence).
Basically all this allows for a certain amount of powerhording but doing it too much will cause you damage. You might even make it have effect on other players realms (but less so) as to encourage them to find ways to get you to expend some energy (not wait untill you blow up).
It might even be used as a tactic in an MP game - See other thread: debalancing death effects - Faced with (near) certain defeat a channeler might start hording power to produce a new cataclysm. If I cant win - we all lose kinda thing. Other channelers would be forced to attack him/her to prevent that from happening (after all: they still have a chance of winning) (and pushed to that - not only by end defeat but because once the hoard gets large enough its start to create random effects in their backyard too). This would force other channelers to attack the "hoarder" under unfavourable circumstances - his terrain/his domain on his defensive positions. If the hoarder gets lucky it might even be he inflict sufficeint damage so he becomes a viable force for a while longer.
This would prevent the need for something artificial like a "counter". The increasing occurance of "blowouts" should be indication enough and I'm sure channelers spy on eachother - it would be rather hard to keep a major blowout hidden.
Depending on which way you choose to develop you might be able to harness more or less power but always within limits
edit: i agree with above posters: AI last ditch efforts I have rarely (never?) seen done well. Either the AI is a risktaker or its not - Switching back and forth (recovering from last ditch if it happened to turn out well) is - I think- not at all easy to program. So many variables.
I don't like this idea. It essentially caps channeler strength. Among other side effects, it means that once you reach that 'cap' your channeler will essentially devalue for the rest of the game as empires and armies expand. Your channeler is stuck at a safe strength while everything else continually gets stronger.
I think one of the best aspectsof the Armageddon Counter in the civ mod is that it's universal. I think a creative adaptation of the Armageddon Counter into Elemental could have to do with magic balance. There are 5 elements, each with a spectrum (I think it's linear, but I don't know if that's been confirmed). Instead of having a linear counter, they could use a pentagon (I imagine something like a color wheel, but a pentagon, and with the 5 points corresponding to the 5 Element colors). The state of magic balance can be described as a point within that pentagram, where the center represents perfect balance. If the state of balance is off-center, then depending on where, the likelihood of various events could change. This can be expanded further by differentiating between use of magic from the two sides of the elemental spectra, too.
Not if you link the 'threshold' to an improvable skill or ability. Something like that would seem roughly analgous to the Logistics ability in GC2. Everyone has a base, some civs start with a small bonus, you can research to improve, and random map prizes (anomalies) can give small boosts that can add up substantially over time.
This Armageddon Counter on the other hand, I don't like at all (among other things, it sounds like a plan to Bring On the Steamroller ASAP). But then I also resent the faster-is-better attitude that's hard coded into GC2's scoring system. No small part of that taste I developed is because with the GC2 AIs, you can actually see a remarkable variation in how a given map unfolds, *if* you give enough time for the AIs to develop some strength and complexity before all hell breaks loose and most folks devote most resources to war. To paraphrase the immortal Chauncy Gardner, "Sometimes, I like to watch."
And it must be remembered that Elemental will have Human vs Human MP component. Under such conditions the "slippery slope" effect must be balanced over the course of the games entirety. Player mistakes notwithstanding.
Scaling is not an issue if it is as both sides can grow at similiar rates until the inevitable FINAL Battle.
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