So much going on this week and at the same time, so little. A lot of vacations here at Stardock pop up in June since this is one of the prime months here in terms of weather.
On a sad note, Trent (Mittens) had his last day today. He’s off to Salt Lake City to take a position as a designer at a new game studio. We’ll miss him. Combined with the people on vacation, the studio area feels like a ghost town.
My executive planner and marketing manager gave me a “CEO make over” today with a bunch of new clothes. I guess trade show shirts and ratty shorts just aren’t good enough anymore.
Right now, we’re looking at dozens of issues that need to be addressed before we can even do the alpha build of the game. Everything from the fonts looking crummy to setting priority on what should be on the setup.
For instance, if someone wants to create a custom civilization and in there choose “good” or “evil” that’s fine. But I’m having them get rid of being able to have pre-existing factions be good or evil because it would literally double the writing involved for each faction’s back story. While that’s interesting to have, I would rather have more depth per faction rather than half the depth but a mirror universe version of each one.
The screen you see here will likely be significantly altered between now and release. But this gives you an idea of how iterative the process is. I’ll probably eliminate the appearance area and put that into the custom race area. Right now, “design your race” is the only option. There isn’t a formal “choose your faction” area. Elemental comes with 2 built in races and 12 factions but we plan to let people create their own races and factions as well, but that should be a separate area that is a lot richer. If you try to mash too much stuff together, it’s confusing to new players but still too weak for experienced users.
I am with Luckymann on that one. Tactical Combat does not a good game make.
If you have tactical combat, it gives the human player an edge the ennemy AI doesn't have, unbalancing the game elements. If the AI already struggle with strategy, asking it to go for the tactics as well is not optimal.
I had a suggestion once posted on the GalCiv2 forum, which could incorporeate tactical genius with less micro-management on the part of the player. Wait a minute... finding link...
https://forums.galciv2.com/123277
In short, you could be given the options to create military doctrins for your army to follow. Less micro-management, as you don't have to command every single battles, but still the options to show off your genius - for becoming Sun Tzu, and writing the game world's Art of War.
And if you don't have tactical combat, you're at the mercy of a simplistic stats and auto-resolve system where there's absolutely no challenge and it all boils down to "more and better wins".
Oh, and contrary to what Luckmann said, Auto-Resolve basically is what a game without tactical combat does. It just has a system for seeing how many units you've got, figuring out their stats, compares with the enemy, and figures out the winner. So those who don't like it can just go auto-resolve on all (which some players in the Total War games keep doing), and those who do like it will play with it. Everyone wins!
Tactical combat is an important feature that works best when there's also an option to auto-resolve. I don't see why these two features wouldn't come together in order to satisfy the meticulous (I want to be in charge of every battle), the curious (hmm, let's give this a try) and the annoyed (gah! not this again!).
This is where we disagree. Building more and better is no challenge. Half of it depends on how lucky you get with the RNG on map generation and how the resources fall. No, winning a battle against a superior opponent, *that's* the challenge, and it's just not possible with a simple auto-resolve.
There:
Why is it not an option if you agree that that's what auto-resolve is?
How is not clicking "Fight!" and instead clicking "Auto-resolve" shooting yourself in the foot? Take E:TW, if you do Auto-resolve you usually end up with way better results than you would if you actually fought it, especially when the odds are already in your favor (see more and better). When it comes to stat comparisons, the CPU is ruthless and it will not make mistakes like a player will. If I wanted the most optimal wins in E:TW, I would always use auto-resolve when I have an advantage (you get shown a bar that compares your army strength and the enemy's). But I always fight because it's FUN, even if I lose more.
Now, kind sir, that's just hogwash! Just like you win against a superior enemy in tactical combat due to being the superior player, you can win in grand strategy by being equally superior. It's entirely possible to win against a superior opponent - it's just not possible to in that particular battle with that particular unit - just like you're going to have losses in tactical combat, so will you have it on auto-resolve in grand strategy.
My losses is invariably higher in auto-resolve compared to that of tactical combat. I'd shudder to think what would happen if I'd auto-resolve against an opponent that takes tactical control (if at all possible). This inherent flaw is made even worse by the fact that the AI will not only be sub-par compared to myself, but never be able to know what I prioritize (i.e. if need be, sacrifice all my peasants just to keep a single bear knight alive, because I may have to use them for something specific, later).
If the computer manages your troops better than you do on a comparatively even playing field, that's because you suck. Not some built-in inherent superiority of the auto-resolve system.
You're misinterpreting what I said. Grand strategy most certainly has bearing, or I wouldn't be playing these at all. But at the same time, when you're playing a generated map a big part of that *is* how lucky you get with resources.
But no, it is not possible to win militarily against a militarily superior opponent because the lack of tactical combat does not allow it. You will never get a single battle win in your favor if you are constantly out-matched in every fight. Obviously you have to suck pretty spectacularly to do that if you're trying to play military (and understandable if you are not), but the fact remains.
So your whole argument basically hinges on the fact that because you may be good at tactical combat, you don't want it? I mean, I can understand people who just like the grand strategy aspect and the combat not so much, but in your case it seems to be that you don't like that the CPU will not be as good as you, so you'd rather it sucks for everyone than possibly not having the very best outcome possible?
This is what I never understood, why do you feel forced to use something just because it's there? It's like the IGN reviewer of HAWX - he was complaining that there was an option you could activate that showed you the flight path you needed to take to intercept a hostile or dodge a missile, and that it made the combat way too easy. But it's entirely optional and you never have to use it. It's the same here. If you're playing SP, what does it matter? You can win with auto-resolving all battles just as well. Having a tactical combat option does not force you to use it. You decide for yourself. And don't blame the AI or the game for that choice, because both are always viable ways of winning.
In auto-resolve, the computer doesn't manage anything for you. In auto-resolve, there's no terrain. There's no walls, there's no hills, there's no cover. It is a very basic stats comparison to determine a winner. In the tactical field, however, all of these things exist. The auto-resolve AI doesn't know that the enemy you're attacking might quickly send all of his forces to the hole in the wall you just blew and re-create the scene from 300 where a few troops can beat back many because they're coming through this little gap. It's just going to see oh, you have 300 and he has 1000, you lose! It has nothing to do with sucking or not, and everything to do with variables that auto-resolve cannot consider.
This makes no sense whatsoever. You said it yourself, the AI will not be able to know what you prioritize. That's true in a game with tactical combat where you don't use it, and true in a game where there's no tactical combat at all (which is what you want).
In single player, never using tactical combat is exactly the same as having no tactical combat whatsoever. In multiplayer, turn off TC in the lobby and it's a game with no tactical combat whatsoever.
So on the whole, you're not making a lot of sense.
You worded it better than I did, Tridus
Really? I fought for years to be free from that... You're going in the wrong direction like this imo. That light-handed touch and the way you present(ed?) yourself (like just a normal guy) is why you are one of my favorite developers. Just something to keep in mind.
Tactical combat is always a tough issue in 4x game development. It's typically a losing proposition for game difficulty. At best, the AI is good and there's no advantage to the human player between auto-resolve and tactical. At worst, the AI is crap and using it gives the player way too much advantage. When the AI is crap, to have a good game you often have to fall back on letting auto-resolve handle it to keep the game balance.
The only reason to have tactical combat is because it's just plain fun and you're confident (as the developer) that the investment improves the game sufficiently to justify it. I actually like Dominions tactical combat. You can give some reasonably interesting pre-battle orders and set up your units on the field as you like ahead of time, but then the game handles the battle itself. It gives me a General's level input for battle planning, but avoids the AI difficulties with detailed tactial battles.
I suppose, in the end, I'm probably going to be happy with whatever comes at whatever level of detail. My main excitement isn't for the tactical battle, but the overall 4x game. One thing perhaps in favor of tactical battles, or at least Dominion like battles, is it'd be really damn cool to see the Sauron vs. a bazillion flunky type battles unfold. Having a Civ4 like "battle" would be really anticlimatic when your Dragon goes up against 5,000 grunts...
Why would I want to tie my hand behind my back between my right arm and left leg, just because I can? The Unreal Tournament campaign is easy - that doesn't mean that people come with the suggestion of playing it with your tounge and nose. Because I can don't mean that I should have to or get a fullfilling experience out of doing so.
Four or five auto-resolved battles in a row, with the extra losses that will include, could easily result in a sixth battle that would be lost, perhaps decisively, that otherwise wouldn't have been lost at all.
Edit:
This is strictly something that you create for yourself, the game doesn't create it for you by having the option of tactical combat.
If you don't like it, you don't have to use it, and you can still win (provided auto-resolve is done well).
If you like it, you can use it and you can still win.
Both methods are feasible, and both are enjoyable to those who strictly prefer one or the other. If you hate tactical combat, why should you care that someone who doesn't can get a bit better battle results in some cases? You play the way you like it, and others will play the way they like it. Feeling obligated to use tactical combat because it's there is what you're shooting yourself in the foot with, not the keeping to auto-resolve.
No its not true for any game. What he said is that in auto-resolve, the superior force will pretty well always win. With tactical, that's not true, because a better tactician will win over a poor tactician even with a reasonably inferior force. The computer doesn't factor that in.
The whole flaw in your argument is this idea that "grand strategy" somehow goes away if you have tactical combat, which is pretty well completely wrong.
The other way of looking at it is that you're playing with the same rules the computer uses, since by necessity it has the computer resolving everything. You're not playing with one hand tied behind your back, you're playing on a level playing field. The rest of us are playing with whatever advantage our tactical abilities give us. (Except in multiplayer, where there should be an option to disable TC entirely to speed the game up.)
Again with this fallacy that tactical combat removes the high level strategy, with an insult to the rest of the forum on top of it. Well done.
TC is fun for quite a lot of people. Taking it out of the game because you can't keep yourself from using it would just be innane, and a great reason for an epic whinefest (and cancelled pre-order in my case, I'm just not interested in a game where my army that should be able to win gets wiped out by stupid AI out of my control).
I don't care that someone else that likes tactical combat gets better combat results that I. I care that I get sub-par combat results compared to what I'd get if I engaged in tactical combat. I'm comparing myself to myself, not myself to others. Ultimately, I'm not as opposed to the idea of tactical combat as much as that of "use auto resolves, lol" as an argument in itself in favour of tactical combat as valid. I don't consider the option between winning and loosing an option.
A game geared for tactical combat will never be able to perform admirably in auto-resolve. Compare it to games geared for "auto-resolve" such as Civilization, where the tactics lie in the strategy. You'll send units to their deaths in Elemental tactical combat just like you send units to their deaths in Civilization. A lost unit doesn't constitute defeat or a lost army.
Edit: Ach, sorry. Didn't mean to double-post.
"Use auto resolve" isn't an argument in defense of tactical combat. It's an option given to those who don't like tactical combat and don't want to deal with it. If you take it away, what option do those who don't like auto-resolve have? None.
And it's not like if you use auto-resolve you lose, and if you use tactical you win.
As I said, and as you just admitted, you're creating this for yourself. Obviously your problem is not with tactical combat itself, it's that auto-resolve can be inferior since you just leave it to the computer to decide the outcome based on stats. But if you're fine with that in games that don't have the option of tactical, there's no logical reason you shouldn't be fine with it in a game that does since it works exactly the same way.
You're making too many assumptions. It's not like Elemental won't have strategy and you'll be going lone-ranger in tactical combat felling dragons left and right with your one guy, which is how you make it sound. On the flip side, there is 0 strategy involved in figuring out that your unit stack in Civ4 has a much higher attack rating than the target's defense, so you cannot lose.
This argument has come up in every game I have ever beta-ed (even tho we aren't beta testing yet!).
There is always "some feature" that part of the community does not like, but feels they will be obligated to use if it is present. The one that sticks out in my mind was the MMO Vanguard, and "the feature" was the mini-map. There was one crowd that felt that having an overhead mini-map took away from the realism and dumbed down the game. I was in this camp and that was the original direction the game was taking.
This became a huge big deal. There were a large group of people that were saying they would not buy the game if there was no mini map. The no-map people said if it was in the game, and for instance they were having a hard time locating either a group or some other location, others would get impatient and say "Just look at the mini map!" On the other hand, the pro-map people argued "what do you care if there is a mini-map, if you don't like it, just don't use it!" It got to the point that a large number of people wanted separate servers set up, based on whether the mini map was available or not. Eventually the mini-map was put in universally.
This tactical/autoresolve discussion seems to be going the same way. It seems again we may be getting worked up in advance over something that may be a relatively non-issue. If autoresolve is done well, it should give generally pretty consistent result to what a decent human player could accomplish. But maybe as a human player you have a few aces up your sleeve that you don't feel the AI will take advantage of. Or you are a superior tactician to the autoresolve AI (not that the AI really uses tactics, but basically you consistently get a better result than autoresolve).
I guess I just don't get the "If I don't use TC, I am shooting myself in the foot, therefore I am forced to use TC." And I really don't get the "I don't like TC, therefore it should not be in the game." argument. I mean in the first, it is being complained that you are being "forced" to play a certain way - you're not, you just don't like the options and attendant consequences, but then you TRULY want to force everyone to play your way by removing the option completely? Isn't that what it boils down to?
Well, ultimately I really doubt they're going to get rid of tactical combat at this stage. I mean, they've been working on the game for 2 years or so already, they're not just going to decide to scrap that big of a chunk of it.
And at the same time, a pretty courteous debate between 3 people isn't really what I'd call getting worked up over it, either. It just shows that people like different play styles, and that hopefully Stardock does a good job catering to both. If GalCiv 2 is any indication, I'm more worried about poorer Tactical Combat implementation than auto-resolve, as auto-resolve in that game was quite good in dealing with all the funky ships people were making themselves and Elemental will be no different from a unit-design perspective.
And you're wrong in that it's not used as an argument. You see it constantly as a defense of tactical combat, casually disregarding the issues that comes with it because "it's optional, lol y r u compiling?".
I wouldn't like to neuter myself in any of these games. The difference is that in those games, I don't have to in order for it to provide an enjoyable game experience. On one side, we have mindnumbingly boring, knuckledraggingly skullbowling tactical combat and on the other side we have the situation of tying an arm and a leg behind your back while doing the foxtrot - don't you see how neither of those situations are considered acceptable at a glance?
It's not hard to figure out wheter or not your stack have a higher or lower win/loss probability compared to that of your enemy - correct. The strategy lies in creating the situation in which you are superior, wheter it be through not attacking that unit on the hill, or sacrificing units to do so because he needs to be stopped now. You will send units to their deaths in Elemental, just like you'd do in any other game. The only arguable difference in that is that a single unit in Civilization 4 can be a considerable investment, while from the sound of things you'll be throwing away peasants like candy in Elemental tactical combat by the late game.
Not by me.
I gave you one. Empire: Total War. I've seen auto-resolves that ended in the entire 2000+ enemy army killed with only ~200 losses on my side. There is no way such a victory is even remotely possible in a hand-fought tactical battle. Especially because when you're actually doing the battle you have to deal with getting past that town wall, whereas auto-resolve just ignores it and resolves purely by stats.
And from everything you've read about Elemental so far, you don't think the same will be the case? If anything, in Elemental you will need more strategy to get there because it's looking like it won't be "hey you found Iron, now you can just build anything that needs iron!" and you'll actually have some worry about supply and usage.
There is zero logic in this statement. Whether or not you have the option to do it, in the games that aren't built around tactical combat you are neutered by default (I'll start using bolds, too ). In games that have it, you are given the option to either keep it that way, or try your hand at manipulating the battle. Not the other way around.
Hey Annatar, Luckmann,
Perhaps I missunderstood the whole problem...
If you have a general auto resolve option, then the player can decide in a single player campaign if he wants to fight the battle personally or not. Sounds fine to me.
In a game against another player, both sides need to agree on the mode: Either both are autoresolving, or both are fighting it out. It does not make sense to have one player autoresolve, while the other leads the battle personally.
That way, no one has an edge over the other, both sides are served.
Well, Luckmann's argument is that fighting the battle personally is inherently superior to letting it auto-resolve (as in, if you fight personally you will always get a better outcome than auto-resolve) and thus not using tactical battle is like gimping yourself because why would you want to settle for losing more. So in that sense he feels that he's being forced to use it because if he doesn't he won't be maximising his units/army's potential.
My argument is that there's nothing that anyone can do about that since it's a condition he's created. If both auto and tactical are made well enough that both are completely viable ways of playing exclusively, then there's really no issue. The big problem is if you have a tactical layer, people can still use auto-resolve if they don't like it. But if there isn't one, everyone is forced to use auto-resolve, even if they don't like.
I'd rather have both, than either one exclusively.
I see. Thus the question is if we'll have tactical battles or not at all...
Hm... I personally would prefer to have tactical battles. Otherwise designing your own units is just eye candy. And I would just hate the Civilization problem: "the stone thrower shoots down the fighterjet..."
How about waiting for the first beta reports about that matter? Does not make sense to talk about the disadvantages and advantages of a system we haven't even seen yet...
Well we know we will be having tactical battles, but I do not think we'll see them even in beta 1. We'd probably get them closer to the end. They've already said they want to make the early betas playable on the cloth map only without all the fancy stuff, as it's a lot easier to make gameplay changes like that without having to worry about artwork and all of that. And the principle being that it should be designed so that it's feasible to play it completely zoomed out.
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