[Abandoned] Research & Conquer

[OliverFA]

have you considered restricting nukes and zombies? losing your laboratory is essentially a losing condition.

if you decide to keep nukes and zombies, you may as well make it a losing condition in the XML because there's no chance to win without your laboratory. it gets to be too luck-favored at that point.

These are good points. Maybe we should restrict nukes and zombies. Anyone else have thoughts on this?? We wouldn't want someone knocked out in the 3rd round if someone sees they have a card for your capital.

I was thinking more about losing the labs, since you can't hit doomsday or any techs without it. There are a few maps we have that will eliminate you on a single nuke (pot mosbi, labyrinth) but that's not the issue for me. The issue for me is hanging out in one of these games with no lab and no chance to win, wasting my time.

You also must consider that since the doomsday have such a high neutral value, a single nuke could win you the game, or give it to someone else.

I believe this is why we had the basic techs being able to attack the labs. I think we should keep it as is for now and see about playing a pile of games with nukes to see how much it affects the gameplay. Nukes will warp the game substantially, but that's part of the fun of nukes. Zombies won't make too much of a difference for research, I think, since I most people will burn their troops on researches as they drop them (and if they're not doing so during a zombie game, they deserve to have a 40 sitting on their lab ).

There is still a big issue with nukes/zombies: The capital. A lucky opponent can blow your capital and that's all. perhaps that´s how we want it to behave, but just pointing it.

[OliverFA]

I have played several; games against the computer (on the beta site) and you basically get 3 troops per turn for about 5 to 7 turns then if you are lucky you all of a sudden jump to +9 ... So far I am not liking the early game at all. Right now I am thinking that both labs and capitals need an autodeploy of 3 for labs and 1 for capitals to make it feel like you are making early game progress.

Also propaganda and national pride make you defeat 20 neutral and one grants +6 and the other +2 (per capital) i think the +2 should be at least +4 but this needs more testing.

I also feel like sabotage is too high and could be dropped to 20 or 30 neutral.

I will let you know what I think as I play more games.

=D13=

I also think something has to be done for the early game. It has a pretty painfully slow start to it. Once you get your homeland, it starts to pick up to a reasonable pace. An autodeploy would help, but I believe the initial intention was to force the player to allocate all of their troops to give them better control over whether they want to put them into research or troops.

One adjustment I thought of was to have the original +1 per 3 land territories put back into place with Secret Conscription giving +1 per 6 extra (or a total of 1 for every 2 territories) and open conscription giving +1 for 1 territory. This would at least have you dropping 4 by round 2 on an average game. Another potential adjustment is to have the homelands worth +1 per 2 territories instead of +6 total. This would provide a smoother transition and make the initial moves go a bit faster, but would end up in 2 less troops per turn after the first few turns.

I think that bringing back the +1 per 3 land territories without any tech and dividing the homeland bonus in chunks could be a good adjustment that would keep the essence but at the same time improbe the overall experience. The Homeland could be +1 per 2 territories plus an extra 2 when holding the whole homeland, so the player has some bonus during the first turns while keeping the whole bonus once the full homeland is conquered.

Propaganda needs some work and IMHO always has at best and at worst just needs to be removed. I think +4 would be a reasonable adjustment. +1 per 2 homeland territories is another potential way of doing it as well. Now that we have transformations, I'd almost wondered about scrapping it and creating something like a "Security" tech that drops 1 troop on each mine owned and 2 troops on each capital per turn.

I also dislike propaganda (that's no secret). Can the new XML make conditional autodeploy? I did not know that!

There's a bunch of other thoughts I had as well, but I'll be finishing a few of the games I've started before putting them out there since a number of them involve tech costs and I'd like to give a few more games to get a better sense before making suggestions.

Yep, tech costs will be a complicated subject.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

have you considered restricting nukes and zombies? losing your laboratory is essentially a losing condition.

if you decide to keep nukes and zombies, you may as well make it a losing condition in the XML because there's no chance to win without your laboratory. it gets to be too luck-favored at that point.

These are good points. Maybe we should restrict nukes and zombies. Anyone else have thoughts on this?? We wouldn't want someone knocked out in the 3rd round if someone sees they have a card for your capital.

I was thinking more about losing the labs, since you can't hit doomsday or any techs without it. There are a few maps we have that will eliminate you on a single nuke (pot mosbi, labyrinth) but that's not the issue for me. The issue for me is hanging out in one of these games with no lab and no chance to win, wasting my time.

You also must consider that since the doomsday have such a high neutral value, a single nuke could win you the game, or give it to someone else.

I believe this is why we had the basic techs being able to attack the labs. I think we should keep it as is for now and see about playing a pile of games with nukes to see how much it affects the gameplay. Nukes will warp the game substantially, but that's part of the fun of nukes. Zombies won't make too much of a difference for research, I think, since I most people will burn their troops on researches as they drop them (and if they're not doing so during a zombie game, they deserve to have a 40 sitting on their lab ).

There is still a big issue with nukes/zombies: The capital. A lucky opponent can blow your capital and that's all. perhaps that´s how we want it to behave, but just pointing it.

Anyone playing nukes on the map will know the risk and accept the possibility of inflicting it upon their opponents with open arms I don't see very many people playing nukes on this map, but I think it's still worth keeping the option open if it doesn't completely break everything.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I have played several; games against the computer (on the beta site) and you basically get 3 troops per turn for about 5 to 7 turns then if you are lucky you all of a sudden jump to +9 ... So far I am not liking the early game at all. Right now I am thinking that both labs and capitals need an autodeploy of 3 for labs and 1 for capitals to make it feel like you are making early game progress.

Also propaganda and national pride make you defeat 20 neutral and one grants +6 and the other +2 (per capital) i think the +2 should be at least +4 but this needs more testing.

I also feel like sabotage is too high and could be dropped to 20 or 30 neutral.

I will let you know what I think as I play more games.

=D13=

I also think something has to be done for the early game. It has a pretty painfully slow start to it. Once you get your homeland, it starts to pick up to a reasonable pace. An autodeploy would help, but I believe the initial intention was to force the player to allocate all of their troops to give them better control over whether they want to put them into research or troops.

One adjustment I thought of was to have the original +1 per 3 land territories put back into place with Secret Conscription giving +1 per 6 extra (or a total of 1 for every 2 territories) and open conscription giving +1 for 1 territory. This would at least have you dropping 4 by round 2 on an average game. Another potential adjustment is to have the homelands worth +1 per 2 territories instead of +6 total. This would provide a smoother transition and make the initial moves go a bit faster, but would end up in 2 less troops per turn after the first few turns.

I think that bringing back the +1 per 3 land territories without any tech and dividing the homeland bonus in chunks could be a good adjustment that would keep the essence but at the same time improbe the overall experience. The Homeland could be +1 per 2 territories plus an extra 2 when holding the whole homeland, so the player has some bonus during the first turns while keeping the whole bonus once the full homeland is conquered.

Propaganda needs some work and IMHO always has at best and at worst just needs to be removed. I think +4 would be a reasonable adjustment. +1 per 2 homeland territories is another potential way of doing it as well. Now that we have transformations, I'd almost wondered about scrapping it and creating something like a "Security" tech that drops 1 troop on each mine owned and 2 troops on each capital per turn.

I also dislike propaganda (that's no secret). Can the new XML make conditional autodeploy? I did not know that!

There's a bunch of other thoughts I had as well, but I'll be finishing a few of the games I've started before putting them out there since a number of them involve tech costs and I'd like to give a few more games to get a better sense before making suggestions.

Yep, tech costs will be a complicated subject.

I'm not a 100% sure on the conditional autodeploy, it's more of an impression that I got from bigWham when he posted somewhere about the new transformations XML. He was supposed to put a post up about it somewhere, but I've never been able to find it when I go hunting. Isaiah supposedly is using the code in his new Defend America map, so maybe he can give some details on what exactly the XML upgrade does.

I also thought of the +1 per 2 and +2 extra for all homelands idea, but wasn't sure how well describing it would fit into the legend.

[OliverFA]

I'm not a 100% sure on the conditional autodeploy, it's more of an impression that I got from bigWham when he posted somewhere about the new transformations XML. He was supposed to put a post up about it somewhere, but I've never been able to find it when I go hunting. Isaiah supposedly is using the code in his new Defend America map, so maybe he can give some details on what exactly the XML upgrade does.

If that was possible, it would be great. An alternative could be to have a "security"/"partisan"/"resistence" territory with that autodeploy which is initially neutral and gets accesible with the tech (conditional border). That territory can be bombarded from the capital, but in order to "travel" to and from it you need to own the tech, which means that you will only be able to do it on your homeland.

[isaiah40]

Conditional autodeploy was not in the works before I went on my sabbatical, so I assume it still isn't in the works. Transforms right now are set up so you can increase or decrease values depending on the regions. e.g., neutrals only, other players only, self only, or all players. The transform I will be attempting to use on Defend America is a conditional one where if you hold region A + B and lose B then region A will lose X amount per turn down to 1.

[dolomite13]

As far as nukes go... what we could really use is a way to exclude territories from the "cards" so that we could remove possibility of nukes hitting certain territories. A an "exclude>" to individual territories would be fantastic although probably a bit of work to add to the game engine. I know this has been proposed a few times that mapmakers be granted the ability to do this or something like this.

=D13=

[OliverFA]

As far as nukes go... what we could really use is a way to exclude territories from the "cards" so that we could remove possibility of nukes hitting certain territories. A an "exclude>" to individual territories would be fantastic although probably a bit of work to add to the game engine. I know this has been proposed a few times that mapmakers be granted the ability to do this or something like this.

=D13=

If the exclude tag gets implemented later, the XML can always be updated.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Deep Mining doesn't override Mining tech, so I'm getting triple the bonus instead of double.

[OliverFA]

Deep Mining doesn't override Mining tech, so I'm getting triple the bonus instead of double.

Fixed and uploaded the new XML the the XML check thread. Also the same problem was affecting Open Conscription and Secret Conscription.

Thanks so much for noticing it, Tanarri.

[isaiah40]

Just played a game with saxibot, took him out in 21 rounds (there were some of those annoying bad dice), and my first impression is that the neutral amounts are good as they are. I first went for my homeland, and then divided my men between my lab and homeland so I can stack on the lab and still take a card. I then just went for each tech. That is my first impression, but will have to play some real games to get a better feel.

[OliverFA]

Just played a game with saxibot, took him out in 21 rounds (there were some of those annoying bad dice), and my first impression is that the neutral amounts are good as they are. I first went for my homeland, and then divided my men between my lab and homeland so I can stack on the lab and still take a card. I then just went for each tech. That is my first impression, but will have to play some real games to get a better feel.

I feel that the neutrals on the land are ok, but on the tech sides they could need a small adjustment.

[Gilligan]

i thought i posted this, but apparently not.

can we chance the color of SE? I have a hard time noticing which ones belong to the bonus. I know I can tell by the name, but it would be so much better if it could be told at a glance like the other colors. perhaps use a pink-ish shade?

[OliverFA]

In a 2 players game with Tanarri we are in round 14, and we both are rushing to get the Doomsday Device. I get the feeling that this is too early. The game will be over soon. I feel like the Doomsday Devicr cost should be risen and / or placed after the TSF

[isaiah40]

In a 2 players game with Tanarri we are in round 14, and we both are rushing to get the Doomsday Device. I get the feeling that this is too early. The game will be over soon. I feel like the Doomsday Devicr cost should be risen and / or placed after the TSF

I'm reading this in that to get to the Doomsday device, you have to go through the TSF?? That could work. Right now I'm not seeing the TSF being used. Maybe change it to bombard all the opponents researches?

Here is the update to fix the color problem. I changed the outer glow on the neutral regions due to color blind issues on the homeland areas.

Large:

Click image to enlarge.

Small:

Click image to enlarge.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

In a 2 players game with Tanarri we are in round 14, and we both are rushing to get the Doomsday Device. I get the feeling that this is too early. The game will be over soon. I feel like the Doomsday Devicr cost should be risen and / or placed after the TSF

I'm reading this in that to get to the Doomsday device, you have to go through the TSF?? That could work. Right now I'm not seeing the TSF being used. Maybe change it to bombard all the opponents researches?

Yes, that's the idea Oliver was suggesting for TSF. TSF originally was set up so you needed to own it in order to research the advanced researches, including Doomsday Device. That has since been removed and the neutral value never got adjusted. 45 neutral for +6 autodeploy is just not worth anyone's time and will never be used the way it is now.

I don't think giving an option to bombard other players researches is a good idea though. That would be way too insanely powerful. Sabotage is bad enough as it is and needs some pulling back, as you'll begin to notice in a few of our 1v1 games. Allowing bombarding of researches would just be way too much.

[OliverFA]

With the new XML, we could require the basic research AND the TSF for each advanced tech.

Bombarding other techs not only is too powerful, but also would go a bit against the concept, as acquired knowledge is difficult to be forgotten, at least during the period of time covered in a gameplay.

[OliverFA]

I'll be travelling next days and could miss some turns in our test games. Apologies in advance.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Having started around 25-30 games and giving some thought to possible solutions for how slow the start is, as well as how much the Conquer aspect of the map suffers, I'd like to start by putting the following changes up for discussion. I have a few more thoughts as well, but these I think will give a good start to fixing the starting rounds of the games at least.

• Change homeland bonus from +6 to +1 per 2 homeland territories
• Add +1 per 3 land territories non-tech bonus
• Change Secret Conscription to +1 per 6 regions (or alternatively +1 per 2 regions and add overrides standard land territory bonus)
• Reduce Secret Conscription neutral to 15

Making the above changes will change the start of the game from:

• 1 to 7 territories = 3 reinforcements
• 8 territories = 9 reinforcements

to the following bonus amounts:

• 1 territory = 3 reinforcements
• 2 territories = 4 reinforcements
• 3 territories = 5 reinforcements
• 4 to 5 territories = 6 reinforcements
• 6 to 7 territories = 8 reinforcements
• 8 territories = 9 reinforcements

I believe this will help immensely in the starting of the game to keep the game flowing well. As it is it takes an average of 5-6 turns just to take your homeland so you can do anything constructive. This is presuming a player starts off by going for their homeland, which as far as I'm concerned is the only viable option given the current gameplay, which is another problem which needs to be discussed seperately.

What do you guys think?

[OliverFA]

First of all, apologies for the delay in answering. As I said I was travelling, but also had to take care of an unexpected work task, so that took all my time. I'll pass to comment the suggestions now.

[*]Change homeland bonus from +6 to +1 per 2 homeland territories[/*]

My alternative proposal it's to make both of them. +1 per 2 homeland territories, and +3 for the whole homeland. So when a player has the full homeland it becomes +6 as it is now, but parcial homelands still provide some income.

[*]Add +1 per 3 land territories non-tech bonus
[*]Change Secret Conscription to +1 per 6 regions (or alternatively +1 per 2 regions and add overrides standard land territory bonus)[/*]

I think it's a good idea to provide the standard 1 per 3 bonus and give the player the option to double that bonus (Secret Conscription) or triple it (Open Conscription). Gives an additional incentive to expand early in the game.

In the map I would say "Extra +1 per 3 territories" pero each of them. I think that could be easily understood.

[*]Reduce Secret Conscription neutral to 15

I would not reduce the neutrals as with the proposed changes players would have acces to more deploys earlier in the game.

Also, I would propose those changes:

- Raise National Pride neutrals to 30, to make it consistent with Standing Army. If Standing Army costs 15 for a +3, National Pride should cost 30 for a +6
- For the same reason, reduce Top Secret Facility neutrals to 30. Alternatively make Top Secret Facility a requirement for the advanced techs. That would justify the additional 15 cost.
- Mobilize Army: I know I am ammending myself here, but I would raise the deploys from 9 to 12 (and yes, you were right in saying that this is more consitent with the map legend).
- I think that neutrals for mining and conscription are ok, because by the time a player researches the advanced versions the owned land is bigger so the bonus is also bigger.

- Doomsday device. It can be researched too soon. So I would place it after Top Secret Facility (to make it more difficult to achieve and to give TSF a bigger part in the game) and probably also raise the 200 neutrals. In one of our games Tanarri and myself raced to get Doomsday Device very early (turns 10-15) and we had a very small portion of the map.

- And then there is the sabotage thing, but I think that's better left to the end after everything else has been discussed.

[isaiah40]

[*]Change homeland bonus from +6 to +1 per 2 homeland territories[/*]

My alternative proposal it's to make both of them. +1 per 2 homeland territories, and +3 for the whole homeland. So when a player has the full homeland it becomes +6 as it is now, but parcial homelands still provide some income.

Yes we should do this.

[*]Add +1 per 3 land territories non-tech bonus
[*]Change Secret Conscription to +1 per 6 regions (or alternatively +1 per 2 regions and add overrides standard land territory bonus)[/*]

I think it's a good idea to provide the standard 1 per 3 bonus and give the player the option to double that bonus (Secret Conscription) or triple it (Open Conscription). Gives an additional incentive to expand early in the game. In the map I would say "Extra +1 per 3 territories" pero each of them. I think that could be easily understood.

If we do this, then each player will have 6 men minimum at the start of each turn. +3 for the Capital and then the +3 min standard reinforcement. We can still do the double and triple bonuses.

[*]Reduce Secret Conscription neutral to 15

I would not reduce the neutrals as with the proposed changes players would have acces to more deploys earlier in the game.

Also, I would propose those changes:

1 - Raise National Pride neutrals to 30, to make it consistent with Standing Army. If Standing Army costs 15 for a +3, National Pride should cost 30 for a +6
2 - For the same reason, reduce Top Secret Facility neutrals to 30. Alternatively make Top Secret Facility a requirement for the advanced techs. That would justify the additional 15 cost.
3 - Mobilize Army: I know I am ammending myself here, but I would raise the deploys from 9 to 12 (and yes, you were right in saying that this is more consitent with the map legend).
4 - I think that neutrals for mining and conscription are ok, because by the time a player researches the advanced versions the owned land is bigger so the bonus is also bigger.

5 - Doomsday device. It can be researched too soon. So I would place it after Top Secret Facility (to make it more difficult to achieve and to give TSF a bigger part in the game) and probably also raise the 200 neutrals. In one of our games Tanarri and myself raced to get Doomsday Device very early (turns 10-15) and we had a very small portion of the map.

6 - And then there is the sabotage thing, but I think that's better left to the end after everything else has been discussed.

1 - This makes sense.
2 - So you would need to hold TSF before you can get National Pride, Sabotage, Propaganda and Doomsday Device? Or just require you to hold TSF (which is totally worthless since when are you going to attack your own researches?) before you can get to Doomsday Device?
3 - This is already at +12! Or am I missing something??
4 - So far I don't see too many going for more of the land area. Most of us are going for the techs.
5 - See point 2
6 - I think we can use the Sabotage to bombard the TSF instead of the mines?

[OliverFA]

[*]Change homeland bonus from +6 to +1 per 2 homeland territories[/*]

My alternative proposal it's to make both of them. +1 per 2 homeland territories, and +3 for the whole homeland. So when a player has the full homeland it becomes +6 as it is now, but parcial homelands still provide some income.

Yes we should do this.

Cool

[*]Add +1 per 3 land territories non-tech bonus
[*]Change Secret Conscription to +1 per 6 regions (or alternatively +1 per 2 regions and add overrides standard land territory bonus)[/*]

I think it's a good idea to provide the standard 1 per 3 bonus and give the player the option to double that bonus (Secret Conscription) or triple it (Open Conscription). Gives an additional incentive to expand early in the game. In the map I would say "Extra +1 per 3 territories" pero each of them. I think that could be easily understood.

If we do this, then each player will have 6 men minimum at the start of each turn. +3 for the Capital and then the +3 min standard reinforcement. We can still do the double and triple bonuses.

I think that's good because instead of deciding if you out your 3 reinforcements in man direct techs like we do now, we will decide between 6 land, 6 tech, or a mixed 3-3.

[*]Reduce Secret Conscription neutral to 15

I would not reduce the neutrals as with the proposed changes players would have acces to more deploys earlier in the game.

Also, I would propose those changes:

1 - Raise National Pride neutrals to 30, to make it consistent with Standing Army. If Standing Army costs 15 for a +3, National Pride should cost 30 for a +6
2 - For the same reason, reduce Top Secret Facility neutrals to 30. Alternatively make Top Secret Facility a requirement for the advanced techs. That would justify the additional 15 cost.
3 - Mobilize Army: I know I am ammending myself here, but I would raise the deploys from 9 to 12 (and yes, you were right in saying that this is more consitent with the map legend).
4 - I think that neutrals for mining and conscription are ok, because by the time a player researches the advanced versions the owned land is bigger so the bonus is also bigger.

5 - Doomsday device. It can be researched too soon. So I would place it after Top Secret Facility (to make it more difficult to achieve and to give TSF a bigger part in the game) and probably also raise the 200 neutrals. In one of our games Tanarri and myself raced to get Doomsday Device very early (turns 10-15) and we had a very small portion of the map.

6 - And then there is the sabotage thing, but I think that's better left to the end after everything else has been discussed.

1 - This makes sense.

Ok

2 - So you would need to hold TSF before you can get National Pride, Sabotage, Propaganda and Doomsday Device? Or just require you to hold TSF (which is totally worthless since when are you going to attack your own researches?) before you can get to Doomsday Device?

TSF would have adjacencies to the techs we define as "advanced" which are Mobilized Army, Deep Mining and Open Conscription. Then we code each basic tech as requirement. About the Special Researches, they would be accessed through the TSF but would no require additional techs as the advanced techs do.

3 - This is already at +12! Or am I missing something??

Yes you are right. I got confused.

4 - So far I don't see too many going for more of the land area. Most of us are going for the techs.

I think with the changes in the bonus scheme (partial homelands and +1 per 3 without tech) that will change.

5 - See point 2

I would make the attack route through TSF t require to research 45 additional neutrals and perhaps also raise the 200.

6 - I think we can use the Sabotage to bombard the TSF instead of the mines?

if TSF was required to get the effects from the tech that could work. But I am a bit sceptic about it. I would invent a completely new tech.

[isaiah40]

Okay let's not worry about having the minimum reinforcements for now as we can easily add it in later. I say this because if we go with the +1 for 2 then players will be getting the extra man each turn until he/she holds the entire homeland which will make it easier and faster to occupy the entire homeland.

So let me get this straight:
TSF --> Mobilized Army with conditional border of Standing Army
TSF --> Deep Mining with conditional border of Mining
TSF --> Open Conscription with conditional border of Secret Conscription
TSF --> Doomsday Device

If this is correct then I will get an update done this weekend sometime

[OliverFA]

Sorry for taking one day to answer (at least that was before the weekend ). Yes, that's right, or at least I agree with it I will update the XML also this weekend so we have both changes

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I've been trying to find time to comment on the above properly, but have too many games running and life got a bit busier too.

I agree with the TSF being an advanced tech requirement, the +1 per 2 homeland territories, and the +1 per 3 land territories in general. Something will have to get figured out with the conscription techs now that the normal +1 per 3 is being added.

I've also wondered about reducing the amount on standing army a little to make it more appealing as an option to take first before the homeland.

I've also wondered about reducing Secret Conscription neutral to make conquest more appealing earlier on.

I'd like to see something done to make enemy homelands more appealing to take to encourage more combat between players on the map.

Sabotage really needs to be gimped or removed. I personally think gimped would work better. Oliver suggested in one of our games to make it a killer neutral and more of an operation rather than tech. Maybe a killer 20 or 25 would be suitable?

The last thing I wanted to mention is conditional autodeploys are possible through the new transformations code. I think figuring out something to use this new code with would be neat. Possibly remove or change Propaganda to use the code since I don't think it's very useful the way it is now.