I’m there as soon as the Kickstarter goes up.
CK2 eh? Can I stab my Space Wife?
Asking for a space friend.
So there are some very good questions in this thread, and some perfectly legitimate ones. After all, if action points were such a good idea, why haven’t they been used more before now?
If you look at the history of the original MOO3 design, it’s essentially a tale of a major studio getting cold feet at the last minute and deciding that innovation wasn’t worth risking ruining a tried-and-true brand name (ha). I personally feel that with the right amount of automation and control, that game could have been awesome.
I guess what makes AotSS different is that there is generally a way to do what you want, but how you do it will make a big difference in the game world. As an example, say you have a planet that could potentially produce more basic materials because it’s got a lot of deposits, but the viceroy insists on building farms. There are many solutions to this issue - a benign solution would be to simply recommend in your Imperial voice that the build plan focus on mines, and unless the viceroy hates you they’ll usually do it. If that doesn’t work you could Designate the planet as a mining planet as a Project, but that takes a lot more time and effort and it will upset more Pops living there. Alternately, you could train miners to be more efficient, replace the viceroy with one that belongs to a House that has a strong mining tradition (though this will upset the viceroy and most likely their House) and if they really won’t leave their post, you can have them exiled or assassinated. Or, you could give the planet to another House as a holding and let them deal with it, creating appropriate trade infrastructure (trade hubs, starbases, trade ports) to get the basic materials through the supply trade system.
The point is that there are many paths to do what you want, but there are always tradeoffs. You can’t make everyone happy, so you have to pick your battles. And with AP, you don’t have the time or resources to make everyone happy or fight every battle. There will be soon Favors that characters will ask for that you can choose to fulfill or ignore, but since it will cost an AP to respond to the Favor (plus any AP expended actually doing the Favor) you focus on the personal side at the expense of, say, your intel operations. Or military ops. Or diplomacy. Or exploring new systems. Or colonization. Or reorganizing your capitals. Or… whatever.
To me, an emperor would have choices. They shouldn’t be a gray eminence. They should be a person, with skills, that can be killed and held accountable by their population. And I’m not sure that’s ever been done before in a 4X-type game. So we’ll see what happens, but early feedback has been extremely favorable, so I’m encouraged about the game design as a whole ‘works’, it just needs to be balanced, documented, and polished!
-Steve
Here’s a good blog that goes into more detail about the design and choices for AotSS: https://wp.me/p4wjaf-e
Not yet. But soon. :-)
-Steve
It’s interesting to compare how e.g. a boardgame might handle this, where you might only be able to do so many things during a turn. There, things wouldn’t happen automatically, but players seem to mind less when nothing gets done (due to limited resources) vs the wrong thing gets done (due to limited resources to influence a default behaviour).
I’ll have a read of your blog though!
Didn’t make it past the first paragraph of your post, Steve. I’m just clicking around furiously trying to find out how I send you money.
I’ll back your Kickstarter on Day One. Happy to support anyone trying to make this sort of game.
Steve, I mentioned this in Brian’s other thread, but you may want to modify the name a bit. You’re leaving yourself wide open with that acronym.
Yeah, it’s unfortunate. Guess the game better be great! 😆
Thanks man! Should be very soon - days, not weeks.
Unless you know what the default behavior is going to be, so you can plan around those default actions.
Now I remember why I bought it without hesitating!
This just made the game even better.
True to some extent. The problem with an AI governer has in part been, historically, that this wasn’t always clear.
Agreed. “I was up to quarter to three playing ASS! It’s addictive! Can’t wait until the weekend when I’ll really have some time to dig into it!”
LOL - yeah, “ASS” certainly looks like it’s going to be a fun game. I typically don’t do kickstarters, but I’ll be happy to chip in full price when it’s ready to go :)
edit - that said, “Kickstart my ASS” would be a great title for the fundraiser
Whoa
Yeah
Kickstart my ASS
Give it some sass
Always up for a new space conquerer, I’d wish if these things were more multiplayer, but that’s not always easy I guess.
Should I wait for the kickstarter?
I am not sure that a Kickstarter would be a wise investment of time. Perhaps a Patreon or Ko-Fi based crowdfunding campaign will work better - 5$ a month over 12 months is less of a bother than 60$ up front. I would got that even if I got the game months ago for what I think was a pittance.
Just putting the thought out, this scheme has worked well for other solo devs like that of Rise of Ruins.
The game sounds great. I will look forward to trying it when it’s done and hopefully becoming an…
