Planetary Resource Distribution

[Bigjoe5]

Tzlain's stockpile solution is ok, but what if the capitol and 2 other systems get cut off from the rest of the empire? IMHO,
{x=pop. in splinter/total pop., stockpile in splinter=total stockpile(x)} is NOT a complex algorithm. The only way the player wouldn't understand is if we didn't tell him. It's really fairly intuitive. The UI can simply switch between the stockpiles depending on what planet you have selected with the capitol splinter being the default.

What's also fairly intuitive to suppose that I can prevent more supplies getting to/from a system by putting more ships over it. Complex for the designer/programmer, perhaps, but extremely simple and logical for the player, which is what we want. I really don't see any reason to make it all or nothing.

[Geoff the Medio]

IMHO,
{x=pop. in splinter/total pop., stockpile in splinter=total stockpile(x)} is NOT a complex algorithm. The only way the player wouldn't understand is if we didn't tell him. It's really fairly intuitive.

If you only consider the simplest case, then you don't consider the complicated cases that break the algorithm. For example, more can occur than just breaking a few systems off the main lump for a while, then reconnecting them. You could instead have a few systems separate, then a few others, then half of the ones in the first group separate from it while half those in the second group are connected up to the other have of the first group while a third group detaches from the main group... and now the "main group" is about the same size as the detached lumps, so most of the empire stockpile is actually unavailable to the main group, etc. Keeping track of all this is not simple to understand for the player.

The UI can simply switch between the stockpiles depending on what planet you have selected with the capitol splinter being the default.

Showing just a particular system's stockpile isn't easy to use, as you've got to click around to see all the individual planets' stockpiles, or check a big list of planets... So instead of a single number +/- change, you've got dozens of numbers to check on.

What's also fairly intuitive to suppose that I can prevent more supplies getting to/from a system by putting more ships over it. Complex for the designer/programmer, perhaps, but extremely simple and logical for the player, which is what we want.

It's not that simple if the player wants to be able to predict exaclty how many supplies will be stopped. More / less is more compilcated to understand than yes / no.

[tzlaine]

To add to what Geoff is saying, you also have a real problem when you stockpile and planets are captured. What happens to the stockpile? Where does it exist exactly? Can you place it explicitly all at one planet that is unlikely to be captured, to avoid losing stockpile? This road leads to excessive micromanagement.

Also, when planets leave/enter a sub-empire of size N, does 1/N of the stockpile leave with a leaving planet, or can I say that I want ot keep that part of the stockpile locally? It's better to avoid all these questions and KISS.

Even without directly addressing these issues by allowing the user more control (leading to more micro), we still have a bitch of a UI problem. How do you represent stockpiles in several different possibly-changing-every-turn sets of planets in different sub-empires in a way that is clear and understandable at a glance? The answer is you probably can't. If you can it will be hard and time-consuming to pull off, so you need to have a really good justification for needing the extra complexity. So far I haven't seen one.

[Bigjoe5]

If you only consider the simplest case, then you don't consider the complicated cases that break the algorithm. For example, more can occur than just breaking a few systems off the main lump for a while, then reconnecting them. You could instead have a few systems separate, then a few others, then half of the ones in the first group separate from it while half those in the second group are connected up to the other have of the first group while a third group detaches from the main group... and now the "main group" is about the same size as the detached lumps, so most of the empire stockpile is actually unavailable to the main group, etc. Keeping track of all this is not simple to understand for the player.

Actually, the algorithm works no matter how many splinters there are regardless of when they happen. How simple it is to keep track of for the player is dependant on the UI. It's not essentially a complicated system. In your example, the first group would have the same stockpile as the second group, then have half of their stockpile cut off as another splinter is formed. Then that stockpile is reintegrated into the second groups stockpile as those two splinters become one, etc.

Suffice it to say, these wordy explanations make it seem much more complicated than it really is. Basically, the game doesn't even have to keep track. It just reintegrates the stockpile and then uses the algorithm on each splinter at the beginning of each turn. The player will easily be able to keep track of three or four stockpiles, since they're fairly easy to deal with.

Showing just a particular system's stockpile isn't easy to use, as you've got to click around to see all the individual planets' stockpiles, or check a big list of planets... So instead of a single number +/- change, you've got dozens of numbers to check on.

The only way each planet wil have it's own stockpile is if every single planet is blockaded, in which case, he'll only be paying attention to the planets on which he has building projects.

It's not that simple if the player wants to be able to predict exaclty how many supplies will be stopped. More / less is more compilcated to understand than yes / no.

The player shouldn't need to figure that out. The blockader won't have sufficient info about the enemy's empire for it to matter, and the defender won't be able to do anything about it since he's not the one determining the magnitude of the blockade. The number is given to him without him having any control over it. More/ less is logical, wheras yes/no can be really cheap.

Edit: Sorry, I just realized that redoing it every turn for each splinter would totally eliminate the point. The algorithm does, in fact, still work, but it might be a little too hard to follow for the player.

[Bigjoe5]

Regarding partial blockades, I have not changed my position. The main arguement against it is that it is too complicated. But how? Take the situation in which a player is blockading someone with a few frigates. It makes sense to him that only a few supplies are being stopped. It would be difficult for him to know exactly how many supplies he is stopping, but it would be completely impossible for him to apply that information effectively because he isn't going to have extensive knowledge or control over what the supplies are used for, so it doesn't matter that he can't exactly know.

The blockaded player, on the other hand, won't have to figure out exactly how many supplies are being stopped because the number is being given to him. He won't be able to calculate how many more supplies will be stopped if the other player adds a few more frigates to his blockade force, but that doesn't matter either, because he has no control over it. You could argue that he could use the knowledge for planning in his empire, but if he can use that specific information to do any good, then there is definitely too much micromanagement in the game.

So basically, the player who is blockading doesn't need specific information and the player who is being blockaded has as much specific information as he's ever going to need. Therefore, the only thing that makes it more complicated is the fact that more ships=more blockade, which is definitely not too complicated for the player to understand and in fact adds a new strategic element. For example, if I can just park the bare minimum required for a blockade there, then there's no real decision to make besides yes or no. This way, I'll not only have to decide yes or no, but if yes, how much. This forces the player to carefully consider the distribution of his forces, how many ships he has to spare, and the overall importance of blockading this planet in the first place. All these are good things that we want to make the player think about, therefore I think we should include partial blockades in the game.

[eleazar]

* Should blockades be possible?
Yes

* What can cause a blockade?
1) Armed, hostile ships controling a system
2) The destruction of a neccesary Distribution Hub

* How widespread are the effects of a blockade, and what rules determine the range of a blockade, or which systems are affected?
Resources can be shared between between adjacent systems, or along a network of adjacent systems. To bridge a gap, an outpost, the "Distribution Hub" can be built in uncolonized systems.

If a neccesary system is blockaded, or neccesary hub is destroyed, then resources can only be shared between the individual networks of adjacent systems.

For the following questions a distinction between direct and indirect blockades needs to be made.
* A colony who's system is controled by a hostile fleet is under a direct blockade.
* Colony(s) cut off from the rest of an empire (particularly the part with the capitol) are indirectly blockaded. Note, a direct blockade in one system may cause an indirect blockade in other system(s).

* What happens during a blockade?
** Can a blockaded planet send out any resources?
A directly blockaded planet cannot. An indirectly blockaded planet can send/recieve resource from any planet in it's fragment of the empire.

*** What happens to excess resources which can't leave the planet?
If the resources can't be used they are wasted-- with the possible exception of food which seems to neccesitate a local stockpile during blockades.

*** Is there a difference between sending out resources, and those resources actually arriving somewhere they can be used or stockpiled?
Resources must be able to reach the capitol to be stockpiled.

** Can a blockaded planet receive any resources?
A directly blockaded planet cannot receive any resources.

** What share (if any) of the global stockpile does a planet have when a blockade begins?
When a system is blockaded, it should recieve it's share of the empire's food stockpile according to population. This gives the planet a bit of time to switch production over to "food".

* Are less physical resources: research and trade, effected the same way food, minerals, and industry are?
I believe research, which is essentially information should be exempt from blockades, and possibly trade. Though if that turns out to be unbalanced, a technobable explanation could be devised to make it blockadeable.

I think we should use exactly the same system for determining redistribution as we use for supply. That is, to distribute/receive excess resources, you must be able to trace a route to/from another system, based on your/the other system's supply meter, and the presence or absence of blocking factors (enemy ships, etc.).

That used to be my general opinion. I still think that blocking factors should be the same. So why have i proposed that planetary supply can't make a jump through empty systems without a Distribution Hub?

1) Indirect blockades become too difficult
With tzlaine's version, as the length of supply lines grow it becomes increasingly difficult to sever one part of an empire. The only feasable way to create a indirect blockade it to nearly or completely surround that portion of the empire. Empires have more "shape" than in MoO, but they are still rather amorphous entities. The possibility of a clean, surgical stike to lop off part of an empire becomes rather small.

2) Building Distribution Hubs allows the player to shape his empire.
The player can plan where to put the hubs to connect the various parts of his empire. He might build a single well defended "spine" for his empire, or rely on multiple, scattered supply paths. It the sort of high-level strategy that i believe FO is trying to emphasize.

3) "Road building" can be fun
I tend to enjoy building the infrastructure of my empire in 4X games such as Civ or SMAC. While this aspect is not normally included in 4X space game (expect for stargates), i think it can work. It's a very macro-level game-play element, and is simpler than the infrastructure aspects of land-based 4X games, and so shouldn't consume much time.

4) Clearer interface
It's rather easy to design a simple, clear interface for this proposal where supply flows along definite lines. I haven't been able to think of an equally understandable way to display long, indefinite supply lines between planets.

Links:
"Redistribution & Blockades: a simple solution": viewtopic.php?p=26823
"Display of Starlanes and Supply Lines": viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1797

[Bigjoe5]

*** What happens to excess resources which can't leave the planet?
If the resources can't be used they are wasted-- with the possible exception of food which seems to neccesitate a local stockpile during blockades.

Food is a good point that I didn't consider. Perhaps starving should be the natural consequence of being seperated from all the farming worlds. If this is too harsh a consequence, then splitting the food stockpile is certainly managable.

1) Indirect blockades become too difficult
With tzlaine's version, as the length of supply lines grow it becomes increasingly difficult to sever one part of an empire. The only feasable way to create a indirect blockade it to nearly or completely surround that portion of the empire. Empires have more "shape" than in MoO, but they are still rather amorphous entities. The possibility of a clean, surgical stike to lop off part of an empire becomes rather small.

One would hope that empires won't be getting cut in half regularly. It should be very difficult to seperate more than a little bit of an empire from the rest. It also adds more strategic choice. Where to expand? Risking passing the choke point and risk getting cut off, or risk going closer to the massive super power? If it's too easy to blockade, it just gets annoying for both sides.

[eleazar]

One would hope that empires won't be getting cut in half regularly. It should be very difficult to seperate more than a little bit of an empire from the rest. It also adds more strategic choice. Where to expand? Risking passing the choke point and risk getting cut off, or risk going closer to the massive super power? If it's too easy to blockade, it just gets annoying for both sides.

I'm not sure what the "It" is you are refering to-- a system like i'm proposing, or one where planetary supply lines work the same as fleet resupply.

Reguardless, i believe what i'm proposing offers more "strategic choices". With the other system it doesn't matter as much where you put colonies, anywhere that you can conveniently fly will usually be fine, at least for resource distribution.

[Edited by Geoff - Fixed quote]

[Bigjoe5]

I assume you're talking about the second "it" in that quote. I meant one where it works the same as fleet resupply. At any rate, you may be right. It will be hard to determine something like this without playtesting.

The strategic options I'm talking about are more based on colonization. The "road" you build and it's vulnerability is based on where you colonize. This adds one more thing to think about in one element of the game as a replacement for adding another (IMO) unnessecarily complicated element. Also, I really don't think that empires should be being cut in half regularly. Cutting off several badly placed colonies should be a valid tactic. A long string shaped empire or an empire that chooses to pass a choke point will be more vulnerable to this kind of thing. This encourages the player to consider empire shape. Cutting an empire in half should only be a valid tactic for warlike empires with lots and lots of ships.

This method doesn't really take the strategy out of colony placement at all.

[eleazar]

Also, I really don't think that empires should be being cut in half regularly.

IMHO with my proposal they wouldn't regularly be cut in half, unless that empire is very badly planned, or strongly outclassed. But it would be possible with clever manuvering/strategizing, and not only the coup-de-grace given to a greatly outnumbered empire.

[Bigjoe5]

IMHO with my proposal they wouldn't regularly be cut in half, unless that empire is very badly planned, or strongly outclassed.

I disagree, as you know, but this is all hypothetical. Again, something like this can probably only be solved with playtesting. If people are cutting empires in half too regularly with your idea, we go to mine.

[Geoff the Medio]

*** What happens to excess resources which can't leave the planet?
If the resources can't be used they are wasted-- with the possible exception of food which seems to neccesitate a local stockpile during blockades.

** What share (if any) of the global stockpile does a planet have when a blockade begins?
When a system is blockaded, it should recieve it's share of the empire's food stockpile according to population. This gives the planet a bit of time to switch production over to "food".

This is a good point... A complete blockade against a planet that doesn't produce its own food would be particularly devastating in a very short time if we have no capacity to store food locally, if no food means immediate starvation.

I'm not sure that having a separate stockpile splitting system just for food is the best solution for this, though... All the UI and understandability issues mentioned above regarding splitting of stockpiles still apply.

Might an alternative solution be to treat food just like minerals - only one stockpile in a single location per empire - but to instead change how a shortage of food affects a planet? There's no reason we have to have a shortage mean immediate starvation (at least for all races). Rather, we could have a cumulating health penalty each turn that a planet has a food shortage, which would quickly cause health to drop low enough to stop growth, then slowly die off, then quickly die off as the famine continues.

[Without distribution hubs] Indirect blockades become too difficult
With tzlaine's version, as the length of supply lines grow it becomes increasingly difficult to sever one part of an empire. The only feasable way to create a indirect blockade it to nearly or completely surround that portion of the empire.

I may have missed a point or not be getting an obvious assumption here, but if distribution hubs are added onto the fleet supply system, then won't that make it even harder to cut off systems from eachother? Don't we need to reduce the range of inter-planet supply from that of fleets in order to make hubs necessary and supply connections non-redundant enough to allow fairly easy blockading? Are you assuming that the distances between populated systems will typically be much larger than the distances fleets can be supplied? (I guess we'll have to make some extra-good widely-separated planet specials and make it prohibitively expensive and unbeneficial to populate most systems between the good ones... which is probably not a bad thing anyway...)

3) "Road building" can be fun
I tend to enjoy building the infrastructure of my empire in 4X games such as Civ or SMAC. While this aspect is not normally included in 4X space game (expect for stargates), i think it can work. It's a very macro-level game-play element, and is simpler than the infrastructure aspects of land-based 4X games, and so shouldn't consume much time.

This is an interesting point. The system proposed has an advantage as well... In Civ, typically one has to keep building roads and other improvements for the whole game, which becomes a huge chore by the end when you've got dozens or hundreds of workers running about. But for FO, we're (I think) proposing to have planet supply ranges grow with time. This means that at the end of the game, there is less need for hubs between planets, since they can make connections on their own without need for hubs to be built. This means that there's a need and use for more psedu-micro in placing hubs at the start of the game to keep the player busy, but at the end, the need for micro (hopefully) disappears before it can get excessive.

[Krikkitone]

*** What happens to excess resources which can't leave the planet?
If the resources can't be used they are wasted-- with the possible exception of food which seems to neccesitate a local stockpile during blockades.

** What share (if any) of the global stockpile does a planet have when a blockade begins?
When a system is blockaded, it should recieve it's share of the empire's food stockpile according to population. This gives the planet a bit of time to switch production over to "food".

This is a good point... A complete blockade against a planet that doesn't produce its own food would be particularly devastating in a very short time if we have no capacity to store food locally, if no food means immediate starvation.

I'm not sure that having a separate stockpile splitting system just for food is the best solution for this, though... All the UI and understandability issues mentioned above regarding splitting of stockpiles still apply.

Might an alternative solution be to treat food just like minerals - only one stockpile in a single location per empire - but to instead change how a shortage of food affects a planet? There's no reason we have to have a shortage mean immediate starvation (at least for all races). Rather, we could have a cumulating health penalty each turn that a planet has a food shortage, which would quickly cause health to drop low enough to stop growth, then slowly die off, then quickly die off as the famine continues.

I think that Might be a good idea

Perhaps instead of Health -50, cap 19 let "Starving" give -20 and -5 for each turn the Starvation continues (probably still cap at 19, so the population slowly drops)

In any case, if there are going to be potentially 'local' stockpiles, the game should store the stockpiles as planetary at times, and report to the player the available stockpile... so the "Global stockpile" doesn't exist, each turn local stock piles are added to their planets production, and sent to the empire, and at the end of the production turn, the excess is redistributed into local stockpiles. The "Global (or Splinter) Stockpile" [the value shown to the player in the general empire screen] would be calculated from the Local Stockpiles rather than the other way around.

The Redistribution principle would be based on consumption (as Food and Minerals seem to be the only thing with a Local stockpile making sense... Money might be stockpilable, but will probably be able to bypass blockades) so Food is sent to Local stockpiles based on population, Minerals are sent to Local stockpiles based on Production.

[utilae]

That's a good idea.

When food/x resource is generated, it goes to local stock pile this turn. Next turn it moves to global stockpile. That way there is always a local stockpile. Though without some kind of 'savings' policy the stockpile would not help survive a blocade.

[Krikkitone]

That's a good idea.

When food/x resource is generated, it goes to local stock pile this turn. Next turn it moves to global stockpile. That way there is always a local stockpile. Though without some kind of 'savings' policy the stockpile would not help survive a blocade.

Well, It would Never move to the Global stockpile... there would Be no global stockpile

Essentially there would only be a Local stockpile

so
Turn X you start with this situation
World 1
produces 25
consumes 5
Stockpile 10

World 2
produces 5
consumes 15
stockpile 5

["Global Stockpile value" (reported to player)= 5+5=10]
Turn X economic action
Global production
From World 1 = 25+10-5=30
From World 2 = 5+5-15= -5 (needs 5 food/minerals)
30 Global Production
5 global consumption

25 Excess

Local stockpiles are created from the Excess

5/(15+5) * 25 on World 1
15/(15+5) *25 on World 2

so turn X+1 (assuming no change in consumption or production)
World 1
P=25
C=5
Stockpile=6.25

World 2
P=5
C=15
Stockpile=18.75

["Global Stockpile value" (reported to player)= 6.25+18.75=25]

This would mean that stockpiles could be captured (or at least eliminated, in conquest they might be destroyed)

Since only Food and Minerals would have any reason to have local stockpiles, because they are used for consumption, the local stockpiles could be made based on consumption.