So what makes a good 4x space game economy model? I invite you to read my latest article: "What makes a good 4x space game economy model?" at SpaceSector.com [www.spacesector.com].Let me know your opinion here or in the blog forum as you prefer.Cheers Adam Solohttp://www.spacesector.com
Nice article, though my favorite one is the one you made on MOO II. You are right. MOO II is not yet surpassed. Not even by GalCiv II in my opinion (or Sins for that matter).
My top list of games:
1. CIV IV
2. Shared second: MOO II and Total Annihilation (ouch my age is showing here)
I find there is no right or wrong with whatever model you go with, as long as you are given the tools to deal with it easily.
Moo2 for example, there's nothing wrong with their model (i love it), but when you're playing a huge galaxy and you're managing 50+ colonines, things can get out out hand. A default build order would have been a perfect solution.
Sliders like in GalCiv II were great, but there are time where you have your "money planet" that you want to treat differntly than your other planets. If you can say for this planet do X, while eveyone else does Y, you have the best of both worlds.
I found the economy in SotS to be pretty good, esepcially as it matches the game's intent, to place you in the shoes of the overlord of an entire species who has no time to deal with building factories on planets, not when there are fleets to build and rival species to subjugate.
It's good to be aware of what's done in the past, but there is no point in trying to find an "industry-wide, standard" economy model, because the whole point of this industry is to try and differentiate and innovate. The only "right" economy model is one that's never been done--and even that may very well be wrong. If you don't innovate the economy, you're going to have to innovate on something else; like, say, 3-D, or the AI, or combat (or no combat at all), or something. But who knows...SotS on an Nvidia 3D box, or a good 4X that truly supports a non-modal multi-windowed interface so we can take advantage of our big&bad dual 24" monitors, or a good high-CPU game that takes advantage of quad core hyperthreading (or, for that matter, AMD's new 6-core Bulldozer boxes coming out next year).... The hardware is already innovating, whether the software catches up with it or not.
Customization and uniqueness (particularly having differences when it comes to trade) without the need to micro-manage.
Several games have made economy management okay. I don't know that any of them have yet made it fun.
I'd turn X3 into a 4X RTS and call it a day. Now that's an economy.
I still am waiting for an 4x game that can rival MOO2. Imo it`s economic system was even better than Civs one (at least lategame). I yesterday bought Gal Civ 2 to give a try again because I still remember not liking the system that much after I tried it a few years ago. After reading the article I maybe should have bought SotS instead (both were low prize) but than I would have missed on the diplomacy features...
IMHO the way you have to manage your planets in MOO2 is just superior to any other 4x space game I know. I really like the face that you just have to build buildings once to get bonuses as this reduces pesky micromanagement enormously (until lategame, when you started to have to update every single planet every now and then). You can have building queues for 100 and more turns and the important decicions regarding production/reseearch/food/income can be dealt with using 1 interface screen. Together with the transport system this allows for some deep strategies without even having to go into the single planet interface once.
I did like Ascendancy (tile management) for example but updating the different tiles as soon as you wanted to change a planets strategy or got a new improvement just became a chore. Civ4 does have a similar problem. Although you´re building a citys improvements only once, managing the surrounding tiles and units lategame just becomes too much micro. I loves this game but almost never finish a huge world as round just take too long at a specific point (1850 til 1900 when you are the dominating power but would need 100 years to conquer the plant; going completely war production would speed up the process but result in even more micro).
MOO2 endgame is more like starting to build ships everywhere (huge queues), setting up some automatic rally points and then just having to move huge armadas with 1 click. It basically had depth, the possibility to micromanage but without too much need of it.
Sadly MOO3 although probably having the most sophisticated economic system on paper (!) just did not do it right. They tried to implement everything and it almost sounded as a simulation instead of a strategy game. And then you could not figure why things happened because everything was calculated behind the scenes.
I still hope that some day there will be a 4x game that can rival MOO2s complexity and accessibility. But IMHO it is still the best of its genre even after 10+ years...
MoO3 had an excellent economic system, and the inaccesability was part of it that worked to be honest.
Of course it took some patches and user mods to get the game to a tolerable state, but honestly, it became a truly epic game of galactic domination witih those mods and patches.
Best space 4x by a wide margin in my opinion.
I completelly agree. This was one of MOO2 shortcomings in my opinion. The game was extremelly fun to play in all phases except in the eXtermination phase (late game). I remember that at some point in the game we knew that victory was certain and that it was just a question of "sweeping" the galaxy with stacks of ships. Something that also occurs in Civ4 by the way. This is one thing that in my opinion 4x games did not still got it, that is to balance phases so that all of them have something exciting to offer. For instance I see myself having more fun re-starting Civ4 games than actually have the patiente to finish them. But that is another discussion ..
I do think micro will probably improve substantially for 4X games over the next couple of years, now that it's becoming more common to have dual-screen monitors. Picture Galciv2, looping through all the planet screens, while on the other monitor the galaxy view zooms and pans to the planet and highlights it. Or going to that mini-menu on the galaxy screen (left side) and the other monitor instantly brings up the planet detail screen. *MUCH* better.I do agree about Civ4. It's like, why even have an industrial age? The game's already decided anyway. And yet that is precisely the time when you have the most cities, the most units you have to micro. 2/3 of the time you spend in one game is just to finish the job. The BC years are the most fun by far, and yet they just fly by. A few of the civ expansion packs attempted to glorify the later ages with scenarios. I think they were successful, actually, but by that time I had already checked out. I was done with Civ.Here's the fundamental problem with LOTS of games, and not just space 4X: if the New England Patriots had to give a player to the Saints every time the Saints scored on them, would football be as fun? It's like the Saints score once, the Patriots have to play with 10 players to the Saints' 12. Doesn't work: the game would be over after the first touchdown! And yet that's exactly how most strategy games are set up--even chess. In any athletic game, when one team scores, you still have all your players--you just have to come back. But how do you come back when you lose your players you have to come back with? If that's the way it's going to be, at least let the dominoes fall quickly once they start falling. But I'd really rather tweak the economy so the losing player has a chance-but at the expense of "points" for the other player.
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