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Thread: Tech vs. Production

  1. #1

    Tech vs. Production

    I've been thinking about ways the game could be more balanced to support both "micromanagers" and people who only play a few minutes a day. In particular, I find the "land grab" strategy really distasteful, mostly because it locks less dedicated players out of contention, but also because I just don't find it fun.

    I'm still thinking this through, but the main gameplay issue I see with with "land grab" is that there is absolutely no downside to it. It is pretty trivial to grab empty planets, and gets easier the more you grab. There is nothing to lose by claiming as many outposts as possible. Where it gets a little crazy is the way tech skills are implemented in this game. Skills like Advanced Mineral Collection are applied immediately to every one of your planets, which means the bonus is multiplied by the number of planets you own, boosting your advantage even more.

    I realized today that this is a significant departure from how other 4X games (like MOO2 / Starbase Orion) work, in a couple of related ways:

    1. The MOO2 model builds in expansion limits by requiring you to keep your expanding empire fed, and the production of food draws from the same resources required to expand.

    2. In the MOO2 model, tech research requires resources, drawing from the same pool used to "fund" production and expansion.

    What this means is that you have to balance research and production objectives, which effectively puts limits on what you can do in either axis without gimping yourself. This is what I think is missing in Empire of the Eclipse, where if you spend the time it's possible to "do it all." I think this game would do well to add more checks and balances of that nature.

    One interesting implication of the MOO2 model is that expansion wasn't strictly necessary. While you could focus on expansion, which would provide more resources and certain strategic advantages, you could also focus on research that would increase production efficiency and provide technologies that would allow you to do more with a smaller empire.

    For example, terraforming was a very advanced technology that you would only reach by devoting a lot of resources to research. So, to get great planets, you could either explore and find naturally abundant worlds, or you could use research to turn your existing crappy worlds in to great ones. Either way was a perfectly valid strategy, they just involved different ways of making your way through the game.

    It's also important to note that very few technologies immediately applied to all your colonies or ships in the MOO2 model. Instead you had to build something that applied the new tech.

    I was hoping Empire would include this kind of parity, but it doesn't. Since research and production are decoupled, you can (and should) do both. I thought refineries and science labs would allow you to "do more with less," but their influence is so insignificant, there's hardly any point in building them.

    Anyways, I'll leave it at that for now, as I mainly wanted to generate discussion. What I am looking for is a way to be successful without land grabbing. Putting research and development on the same axis seems like one way to do it. I would love to see the mechanics retooled a bit so that research has a cost associated with it (other than time), and that focusing on research could be an alternate route to victory.

  2. #2
    Real User ravenzachary's Avatar
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    Good points.

    Three simple ideas for consideration:

    1) Make Outpost Ships more expensive.
    2) Create an orbital like Shipyards that limits planets you can control. Unlike Shipyards, don't cap it at 10 of these (only limited would be 1 per colony). For every one of these new orbital types, allow x number of planets to be managed, whether they are colonies or outposts.
    3) Allow x number of mining outposts to be managed per colony.

    As someone who wants to play for 5-10 minutes per session, three times her day, I too want to cripple the land grabbing strategy I put forth.

  3. #3
    Land grab does have downfalls. It becomes extremely hard to manage as you keep growing.

    But you are kinda missing the point on the game. The goal is to win by
    A. Trading
    B. Destroying Planets
    C. Collapsing Stars
    D. Holding Artifacts.

    Land grabbing does help with a huge improvement in resource income, but If you play smart, you could make just as much by Trading with other players.

    I personally did a land grabbing strategy and on burrows server own 250+ outposts and 15 colonies. It's sounds awesome, but it's becoming almost boring in the way due to a constant need to micromanage.

    I think your real goal is to limit players on the amount of planets they can hold. Well Devs actually working on improving this by "hiding" systems that are not assigned to players. What does that mean? Let's say the cap of players per game is 1300 but only 200 players join the game. What it will do is hide the other 1100 systems so that there will be nothing to grab.
    Conversely, if Devs set up a long sign up server and allow for more players to join, it will leave fewer planets to grab.

    However, if the fix is needed for balancing. I'd say reduce the number of galaxies from 16 to 9. Also spread players evenly between each galaxy. I actually found completely empty galaxies and pretty much landed outpost on every planet.

  4. #4
    The cost of outpost ships is certainly an issue. For one thing, they are effectively free once you reach a critical mass of outposts, which only further accelerates your ability to expand. Increasing the purchase price might work, but I would consider also eliminating the 25k CO they apply towards the outpost they create. I would also increase their build time.

    I like your other ideas too, but unless they make some changes to the power of colonies, I'm not keen on associating any of this with orbitals, since orbitals are effectively untouchable early in the game.

  5. #5
    Real User ravenzachary's Avatar
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    Not allowing Colonies and Mining Outposts to reclaim the ore used to make the ships could solve this problem.

  6. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Supamand View Post
    I think your real goal is to limit players on the amount of planets they can hold. Well Devs actually working on improving this by "hiding" systems that are not assigned to players. What does that mean? Let's say the cap of players per game is 1300 but only 200 players join the game. What it will do is hide the other 1100 systems so that there will be nothing to grab.
    Conversely, if Devs set up a long sign up server and allow for more players to join, it will leave fewer planets to grab.
    That's not quite what they're doing if I understand correctly. My understanding is that the galaxy is generated based on the number of people who sign up, not the cap. So if 200 people sign up, the galaxy is generated with 200 starting systems +whatever else it has. Those 200 starting systems would be hidden until people joined, so if 180 people actually log in and play, the other 20 starting systems will be hidden. This doesn't affect all the other systems that are in the game outside of starting systems.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by ravenzachary View Post
    Not allowing Colonies and Mining Outposts to reclaim the ore used to make the ships could solve this problem.
    Yah, that could make a big difference.

  8. #8
    All good points and I do agree that the early game land grab needs to be kept in check but I'll have to show my biases here and say that I'm not a fan of the population management aspects of most 4x games. I also really dislike having to go back and upgrade individual ships after researching a new technology. Philosophically the choices in Empire are more about what you want to research as opposed to research vs. production vs. population.

    The population growth changes that will be going in the next server update will help with the problem somewhat and will make investment in technologies like terraforming, planetology, and genetic manipulation more worthwhile. I also think a shipyard equivalent for planetary control could work quite well in addition to some cost tweaking on the outpost / colony ships themselves.

  9. #9
    Jet - In the planet defense thread we mentioned that we'll be nerfing the population growth rates pretty significantly with the next server update. Unmodified Terran Planets will take about 7.5 days to hit 400mu


    And yes, the fact that you don't actually loose any resources when you build a colony ship / outpost in the long run probably doesn't help.

  10. #10
    It does not matter if you make outpost ships more expensive and increase the build time. If person is determined, he will do it.
    You are actually digging a dipper hall for your self. Because if outposts ships become harder to make, players will find an alternative. They will start conquering other player planers.... Heck, it's way cheaper and faster!

    Guys, you need to look at this from all sides. Because it looks like you are shooting your self in the foot here...

    But going back to players that play 10 mins a day, vs. 2 hours a day. Well it's ether you play smart or play more, I wouldn't expect a person who only plays 10 mins a day to win...

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