Micromanagement and other frailties of TBSGs

from Stardock Forums
I am a 38 year old physician who has been playing turn-based strategy games for a long long time and i have designed role-playing games/systems for almost 25 years. I wanted to make a few points, which you may ignore or discuss!

First of all...congratulations on a game that is intelligently-contrived and excellently supported. Full kudos for what you have created. In general, I am impressed enough to make comment!

In order to successfully play this game on the higher levels of difficulty, one must not only understand the game and its strategy (which should be what matters) but one must micromanage to the point where the game loses some of its luster.
1) Returning to the Diplomatic screen almost every turn in order to trade/sell technology is nearly imperative. This is very tiresome.
2) One must completely examine the entire region available to your sensors in order to be sure a stray ship hasnt passed into your space. This is also very tiresome and adds nothing to the enjoyment of the game. In such a technologically evolved system, there would be automatic alerts in place for anyone that entered your area of dominion...you wouldnt have to figure it out by hand.
3) The tech-tree (within the software/game itself) is extremely poor. It should not be a mystery what each tech will lead to and which advances they will allow. This material should be in the MANUAL or easily accessible from the tech-page. Instead, we must use web resources designed by players in order to get this information.
4) Managing systems becomes impossible to expedite intelligently in larger galaxies, to the point where i no longer play in anything larger than MEDIUM. The micromanagment becomes so horrific that the grand spectrum of the STRATEGY game becomes lost and 90% of your time is spent micromanaging resources.

Micromangagemnt aside, i believe there are other areas where this game could be improved.
1) The AI should not know where all the yellow stars and resources are at the beginning of the game. This is an opinion and i grant that anyone who feels the AI should have this immediate advantage is entitled to that opinion and it is 100% valid.
2) I believe this game would be better overall if trading/selling of technology was limited in some fashion. The whole game really becomes a marketplace more than a strategy game.
3) The difference between ship technologies should be more extraordinary. In the current system, it takes only a few military bonuses via technology or racial picks to allow a Battle Cruiser (or similar sized ship) to defeat a Battleship, 1-on-1. Given the described difference in the size and power of these ships (and the research required to even begin to build them), even a couple of these smaller ships should have some problem with a Battleship, even with substantial military bonuses. it should take a huge fleet of Star-Fighters to take on capital ships, but they do just fine with a few military bonuses.
4) Cultural domination appears to be too easy to do at the far end of the tech tree and not easy enough at the early-end of the tree. It is almost impossible to "flip" star systems in a small-sized galaxy. You will win my military conquest long before it is viable to flip the worlds peacefully.
5) No technologically advanced society would have more than half of its GNP (gross national product) dependent on trade with foreign nations. In the current system, trade is substantially more important important as a source of income than it ought to be. If you want to make players/AIs "dependent" on another power for its solvency, there must be other ways. Taxation of a population and creation of funds through markets should amount to at least 70-90% of total funds. Trade should be gravy on top of the actual meal, instead of the primary source of end-game income.
6) The AI determines "Military Power" in a very odd way. it would seem that the number of ships is more important than the power of the ships. Does it just add up the total attack of all ships on the board? (which would make 4 Starfighters equal to a Battleship?)
7) The TRADE GOODS and WONDERS are far too important...again turning this game from a strategy game into a marketplace game of economic micromanagment.

Well...enough for now...i have stood on the soapbox for far too long. Again, i like this game a great deal and i do not wish to have this posting be misconstrued as anything but constructive criticism from a fellow game-developer!
952 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
3) The tech-tree (within the software/game itself) is extremely poor. It should not be a mystery what each tech will lead to and which advances they will allow. This material should be in the MANUAL or easily accessible from the tech-page. Instead, we must use web resources designed by players in order to get this information.
End of quote


It's not very easy to do this in a game where the tech tree changes every so often (the first day it was out there was already one such change, as I recall). Doubly so in a game where techs can easily be added or removed by players.

~SDC~
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
@Arturus Magi: It's not easy but still possible. And since that is one of the things anounced for the expansion pack discussing about it is quite pointless...

I definetly do not agree about the point with the ability to power smaller ships up to be able beating bigger ships. That adds a lot of fun for me and is what the resource-system is thought for.

What exactly is so hard about managing colonies in larger than medium galaxies? That's what Mr. Ford is for...

Ship management however becomes a pain when you have too many... but I cant think about how to improve it to make it easier. I know that in Moo 1 it was done in such a brilliant way that managing fleet movement was really a thing that added to the fun for me but you cant do it here because of the free space where you can travel everywhere and not just from planet to planet.
The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
" The tech-tree (within the software/game itself) is extremely poor. It should not be a mystery what each tech will lead to and which advances they will allow."

By coincidence I started to discuss this from an (almost) opposite point of view last night in this thread http://www.galciv.com/forum.asp?BID=GF&id=75057#75276

I think there is a lot still to achieve in all strategy games that have a developing technology at their heart. Be good for more to join in the discussion.
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" there would be automatic alerts in place for anyone that entered your area of dominion...you wouldnt have to figure it out by hand."

This has long been a frustration for me also. I sometimes think it is neglected by designers because they keep switching mindsets between strategic thinking and the first person excitement of actually doing the front line things like fighting battles and gazing into space:).
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
" there would be automatic alerts in place for anyone that entered your area of dominion...you wouldnt have to figure it out by hand."

This has long been a frustration for me also. I sometimes think it is neglected by designers because they keep switching mindsets between strategic thinking and the first person excitement of actually doing the front line things like fighting battles and gazing into space:).
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Actually, there is an alternative to automatic alerts of enemy ships. In JA2, pressing "enter" will cycle through all visible enemies and center the view on them. This might not work as well in a TBS in the scale of as GalCiv, but there are tricks to speed up the cycling (e.g. cycling through enemy groups of ships within a 7x7 box...)

There are also other things that are available as well to help speed up the process of finding enemies. Just like in "Capture The Flag", you can also implement a replay option (but that can be a bit bulky...), as well as leave question marks in locations where an enemy was last sighted. (This couls also be adapted to stabases and certain starbase resources.)
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
I say this not because I don't believe you, but because several people have already said they work on games without elaboration:

I DEMAND TO SEE YOUR RESUME!

:D.

If I am talking to the creator of PONG, I'd like to know it so I can suck up and maybe get some tips on game creation.
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
I have created a fantasy role-playing system, not a computer game. My resume is devoid of this particular effort since I am a physician by trade :)
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
Sounds cool, Ungerpup. I was into D&D and AD&D in my youth. You wanna give me some highlights of your system just for my interest?
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Wow, went through your material rather quickly but am sufficiently impressed by the amount of heart that went into this work.

As an ex-DM myself, I can certainly appreciate the points made by you in the summary. I lost count of the number of times when players drove me crazy and then I was playing with youths not adults like you probably do.

And 6000 pages of handwritten material!?!? Amazing stuff. :SURPRISED:

I like your description of the Council of Lords faction:

"A Lawful Good faction of Wizards, Warriors and Priests; dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge and the protection of all that is good and noble. It's seat of power is the mighty fortress Corsith, the epicenter of the historical Devastation. The Council is widely considered to be the most powerful faction of the Major 5, and it's supporters include 4 of the 10 countries. It is a good thing that this council is so strong since it is the only "good" faction of the 4."

My empire, the White Council is a Lawful Neutral group of Wizards dedicated to Order and Honor. Some similiarities here.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
Actually much more than 6000 pages now since i wrote that summary a long while ago. Every spell is written up for 5 differnt wizard classes and every clerical spell including unique spells for each of the 20+ deities..etc..etc...the "system" takes up about 10 large three-ring notebooks. it is loosely based on the old AD+D idea, but designed for intelligent adults
Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
WARNING: off-topic post ahead.

Me and my best friend designed an RPG that took years of development. It was a hybrid of Rolemaster and AD&D. The magic system was really unique and potentially devastating (assuming the characters put enough skill into it), but we ran into problems after several long months of testing among our players: the system needed a computer to run it.

Everything from the skill system to the spell point system to the combat system took a long time to calculate by hand. We had some shortcuts, like a spellcaster could use a pre-designed spell template that would affect a certain area at a certain duration, but changes to the parameters required recalculating the spell.

Anyway, all of the testers agreed that this was by far the best system they have ever played. And these were some pretty hard-core college-aged role players with several types of game systems combined between them: AD&D, Champions, GURPs, Rolemaster, Shadowrun, Traveller, and Tunnels & Trolls, maybe a couple of others that I have forgot about. But neither me or my friend had the time or the inclination to code everything into a computer. And, worse yet, it would have probably required individual notebook computers for all players to be fully effective.

But while the experiment lasted, we had a good time. Things went a bit slow because of the manual calculations and the frequent player changes (hey, these were university students who left town eventually one by one), but everyone involved had a good time while it lasted.

Those were the days. Now I have a nice, quiet life. :)
Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
"I have created a fantasy role-playing system, not a computer game. My resume is devoid of this particular effort since I am a physician by trade"

Oh, well, all you said initially was that you worked on role playing/strategy games... for all I knew that meant you are the creator of "Operation". THAT could go on your resume ;D.

Btw, has anyone ever seen that movie thats been floating around the 'net, entitled "Summoner Geeks"? I think you guys would get a kick outta that ;D.

To Gerakken:

2 things, 1: where is your name from, and 2: why not just run it over the internet? CHATROOM HO! You could use an RNG for the dice.

Or not ;P.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
To Gerakken:2 things, 1: where is your name from, and 2: why not just run it over the internet? CHATROOM HO! You could use an RNG for the dice.
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The answer to #2 first: it wasn't a matter of random number generators. What was needed was some real coding and I am way out of date with programming (BASIC and 6502 machine language do not count as code today) while my friend simply does not have the skill to program at all. To give you an example of some of the complexity, let me take a spell example.

Let's say that you want to cast a sleep spell on six targets to knock them out for an hour. First, you need the base mana cost of the spell. 20 points. Then you need to multiply it by 6 for the number of targets. Then you need to pay for the duration of the spell. Sleep has a base duration of 10 minutes, so that is 6 more added to the multiplier. Base cost so far is 20x12=240. Now the mage gets to divide that costs by his skill in that school of magic (say he is skill 5 in that school), so 240/5=48 mana. This assumes that there is enough mana to pay for the spell. If the caster wants to go into negative mana, he has to roll on a special chart to determine the side effects. That was a simple example. Area spells use a similar formula, but are trickier to calculate, and a lot of spells use different rules for base durations and special spell effects. So we basically had favorite spells at pre-set parameters already calculated out to speed the process along a bit. (One of my pre-sets was a 20' radius fireball. Was pretty nice most of the time, but got real nasty in tight quarters due to spreading out.) Trust me when I say this was real complex and you would need a computer to run it.

As for my nick, that is a long story related to a monster role-playing campaign. The simple explanation is that Gerak is a land from that campaign world, and a Gerakken is someone from that land.
Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Just my $0.02. Amazing, a physician who actually gets out into the 'real' world. I'm a PhD 'scientist' myself.

1) Returning to the Diplomatic screen almost every turn in order to trade/sell technology is nearly imperative. This is very tiresome.

I agree, although I do this only every 5-10 turns and only until I am the dominate power. Then there isn't much point.

2) One must completely examine the entire region available to your sensors in order to be sure a stray

You can use the ship icon on the mini-map to reveal enemy ships. This is what i do.

3) The tech-tree (within the software/game itself) is extremely poor. It should not be a mystery what each

Yes, I agree. Ralegh and I made a strategy document which has most of the useful tech trees. The tech tree in Civ3 was very well done, IMO. But I can see the difficulties with it being modular and customizable.

4) Managing systems becomes impossible to expedite intelligently in larger galaxies, to the point where i no longer play in anything larger than MEDIUM. The micromanagment becomes so horrific that the grand spectrum of the STRATEGY game becomes lost and 90% of your time is spent micromanaging resources.

This is almost edemic to these 4X games. If it's too simple, then the game isn't fun. If it's too complex, it's micromanagement hell. Which is why, like you, I stick with large or lower. Some players have done this successfully however. I think the trick is to have one or two planet governors and just face the fact that you will have huge production inefficiencies. Typically in my games there are only a few planets that are worth micromanagement anyway.
Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
You can certainly accept production ineffiencies (and fleet inefficiencies), but should this be necessary? You are right about TBSGs having micromanagment issues, but some games handle them better than others (MOO and MOO2 both handled it great, but like a previous writer alluded to, you only had fleets in transit from system-to-system, you never had a full 2-D map to deal with)

And i am imagining that at the Masochistic level, you are forced to deal with this level of detail in order to squeeze every little bit of production from your systems.

Again, this game was well-conceived...i was just trying to aid in the fine-tuning process.

And yes, Doctors are people too!!