Think of the Sorcerer King as the evil mage who won the last traditional 4X game. He has already conquered the world. His enemies (including you) are scattered, their armies broken and cities torn down. His dark minions have free reign to terrorize the survivors everywhere except a few tiny outposts of civilization (like the one you start in) too insignificant to crush.
Happy to answer any questions people have in here, unless Brad gets to them first ;)
YES YES YES make the AI play an asymmetric game! An idea whose time has come! I’m super excited, since the theme is one I really enjoy, too.
One thing, though- consider the possibility of rules transparency
For example, in some versions of XCOM, the player and the AI actually are both playing a game- the player’s actions, say, shooting down a UFO, may negatively affect it’s overall strength and cause it to alter its plans. Thing is, as the player, you have NO IDEA that’s happening and, even if you did, the mechanics are completely opaque. Therefore, you cannot strategize around them- if you choose to intercept UFO A versus UFO B, it will be based on what it does for you without taking into account how it disrupts your opposition.
If the rules were clearer, the player could plan better. Please consider making this happen.
Totally agree. We put in a rough “Quest” screen (press the quest button) that makes the rules clearer.
For example:
The size of the SK’s army is dependent on the number of strongholds he’s built. Destroy them to keep his units from being too numerous.
The amount of magical power he has in battle is dependent on the number of shards he’s destroyed.
The doomsday counter determines the types of units that he will be able to produce (i.e. early on it’s Darklings and Urxen, later it’s Juggernauts and Dread Knights).
Similarly with the minor races, both sides are trying to woo them. You can see each side’s progress in winning their favor from the quest screen (the first beta doesn’t have this in, we had to code freeze before that got in the public build).
Here’s the quickie quest screen:
Beta 2 will have the minor factions and the SK himself meddling a lot more.
Didn’t even mention that Brad and I will be livestreaming the game at 3pm ET today (just over an hour from now). Swing by http://twitch.tv/stardock to check it out.
Asymmetrical forces is the one defining feature I thought made AI War fantastic, it’s about time other people are running with that concept in 4X games.
Too bad this is listed as SP-only, as this concept could be really fun co-op! From the screenshots it looks like this is using Elemental’s engine, so I’m not surprised.
I’ve been thinking (to myself) that an asymmetrical 4X would be a great way to get around the limitations on AI development. You don’t need to make the AI competitive with a human, but rather the AI + enemy ruleset competitive with human + player ruleset. And if you’re clever about it, the player won’t know the difference (though that goes against what Mark L was saying upthread).
Looks interesting. I had two thoughts as I was looking over the game info on the website:
Equipping units is a thing that sounds cool but often becomes more tedium than excitement. It’s a system that is trying to do two things at once: control the cost of a unit and also the functionality of it. Usually, though, the trade-off between spending more to make the unit and spending less because you gave it worse equipment is not a very exciting one - it’s either obviously better to have a horde of cheaper units, or you will just give your guys the BIS stuff because it’s more fun. Crafting might be a cool way to get around that, but only if it’s handled in a more randomized way - you spend crafting mats to make an item or batch of items, which end up with a somewhat randomized set of properties, and then you make the choice between spending a lot on crafting to get cooler and cooler stuff, vs. just making more units / spending the money elsewhere. If the trade-off includes randomized risk, it’s more interesting than if the outcome is predictable for both courses.
Been playing MoO because of the game club suggestion, and it occurs to me that one of the interesting mechanics in space 4x is the way expansion works (limited fuel cell range and the difficulty of intercepting enemy fleets or redirecting your own while en-route). It keeps you more contained so that your fleet can protect you, and brings up the possibility of creating stepping-stone colonies to extend your reach. Given that this is a world where someone else has conquered it and presumably has powerful forces all around, it might make sense to have a similar supply-range concept for city expansion, and less ability to close off and defend a region (as opposed to the more typical anti-sprawl / ICS mechanics). Building cities you can’t defend could just be a recipe for a raid by the Sorcerer King’s forces or his Lieutenants (or a ruse to draw them out…).
