Replace Victory with Achievements

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Geoff the Medio
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Replace Victory with Achievements

#1 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I'd like to propose reworking the concept of "Victory" as it exists now, and replacing it with something more flexible and which gives more incremental and varied goals for players.

There are a few similar discussions but I don't feel like searching and linking them all now.

Current one can "win" a game of FreeOrion by researching the transcendence tech, or by defeating all other empires. These goals are rather boring or tedious, and don't give much motivation to do creative / different varied things in game.

Instead, I'd like to have a wide range of "achievement" style goals be recognized by the game. These would be rather varied in difficulty and complexity, and one could accomplish multiple in a single game. They would also have the goal of encouraging lots of different play styles and experimentation, as well as providing medium-term goals to guide players to explore the game mechanics and content.

A few of these would replicate the existing victory conditions, such as researching a particular tech or defeating all other empires. They should probably be augmented with some requirements for galaxy setup as well, such as defeating all other empire in a galaxy with at least 100 stars and 6 AI opponents at typical max aggression.

Some ideas. Some of these would have additional requirements like minimum galaxy size, starting number of empires, minimum aggression settings, etc...
-Make peace with all other empires ("peacemonger" victory)
-Research the transcendence tech ("tech" victory)
-Research all techs
-Lose 50 ships in a single combat
-Defeat at least 25 enemy ships in a single combat without losing a single ship in that combat
-Have at least 15 different species in your empire
-Produce 100 ships on the same turn that all cost at least 100 PP
-Have 50 systems resource supply connected together
-Have 50 system resource supply connected together while you control only a single planet
-Control 75% of the galaxy's population (typical "domination" victory)
-Eliminate all other empires while you control only a single planet ("one city/planet challenge")
-Exterminate all species in the galaxy other than the one on your capital planet, while there are at least 3 other empires in the game that control populated planets
-Exterminate all other species without the remaining species being xenophobic
-Have an empire with at least 30 planets populated where all have been terraformed at least once.
-Destroy all space monsters in the galaxy
-Have at least 150 space monsters visible to your empire
-Control at least 50 space monsters
-Destroy in combat 50 enemy ships in a battle where you only use space monsters
-Have at least 50 unowned native populated planets visible to your empire
-Have at least 100k PP stockpiled
-Have an empire output of at least 8k RP/turn
-Have an empire output of at least 10k PP/turn
-Have an empire output of at least 10k PP/turn when not using the production focus
-Have an empire output of at least 10k PP/turn without ever using the production focus during the game
-Defeat at least 100 enemy fighters in a combat without having any flak cannons in the battle
-Defeat at least 100 enemy fighters in a combat without having any flak cannons or using any fighters in the battle
-Explore the whole galaxy (minimum 500 stars)
-Defeat all other empires within 100 turns
-Control the Experimentor planet

Many of these are already implementable with FOCS, though some additions would be needed for things like numbers of ships lost in a combat.

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em3
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Re: Replace Victory with Achievements

#2 Post by em3 »

Many of those should be parametrized by galaxy settings ("-Have 5% of entire galaxy supply connected together").
Also, there could be tiers of such achievements, with earlier ones being just an incentive to try something new:
-Control at least 1 space monsters
-Control at least 10 space monsters
-Control at least 50 space monsters

Other suggestions:
-All monsters in galaxy are under your control

There should be an UI for displaying them, and a way to keep track of achievements already unlocked in previous games.
https://github.com/mmoderau
[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - Randall Munroe, title text to xkcd #556

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MatGB
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Re: Replace Victory with Achievements

#3 Post by MatGB »

I have wanted a reworking of the way we handle victory for ages but it's never been a priority and would require someone doing lots of backend work beyond me.

Specifically I've wanted the ability to select victory conditions so that if the Experimentors are deselected they don't appear, etc. But this more nuanced approach might be more interesting, especially for multiplayer, if different conditions can be scripted to have different values you also help scenario design and can have a way of having a 'win' that isn't conquer that last remaining AI outpost and/or wait until the Experimentors start launching and smack them.

I'd hate to be playing a fun multiplayer and have someone 'win' simply by building a starlane bore into the experimentor system (we need to fix that at some point anyway), but if there was a running score for all players and you knew that player X was getting close to victory anyway that could be fun.

So cautious approval from me, especially if the relevant values are scriptable or changeable in the UI and you can choose a target at game start.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Starionx
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Re: Replace Victory with Achievements

#4 Post by Starionx »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Current one can "win" a game of FreeOrion by researching the transcendence tech, or by defeating all other empires. These goals are rather boring or tedious, and don't give much motivation to do creative / different varied things in game.
I have never finished a game for this very reason.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Replace Victory with Achievements

#5 Post by Geoff the Medio »

MatGB wrote:Specifically I've wanted the ability to select victory conditions so that if the Experimentors are deselected they don't appear, etc.
Options about whether to include particular content would be a separate feature. The "Defeat Experimentors" achievement could always be present, but would be irrelevant for games in which they don't appear.
I'd hate to be playing a fun multiplayer and have someone 'win' simply by building a starlane bore into the experimentor system (we need to fix that at some point anyway), but if there was a running score for all players and you knew that player X was getting close to victory anyway that could be fun.

So cautious approval from me, especially if the relevant values are scriptable or changeable in the UI and you can choose a target at game start.
You're describing more customizable victory conditions. I'm describing getting rid of formal "victory" conditions, and just having the achievements. Some would replicate existing victory conditions, but wouldn't be treated as a "victory" that would / should end the game.

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Krikkitone
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Re: Replace Victory with Achievements

#6 Post by Krikkitone »

There is a similar idea on the civ forum.

The basic idea is that the game gets boring because it snowballs.

It snowballs because everything you do in the early game has to help you set up for a late game victory.

The idea would be that the Only victory is a "Points" victory.

You could do things (achievements) to get points throughout the game.

So someone might win the game because they accumulated enough points in the first 250 turns even though they were wiped out in the last 50.
(although Surviving to the end of the game should give a chunk of points itself)

This way you can decide to "point chase" at any point in the game, because sacrificing late points for early points could make sense.

(It also would mean that conquering a vast swath of the galaxy and then losing it some 10-100 turns later due to rebellions would still be worthwhile, because you accumulated massive points in that time period (the Roman/British/Mongol victory)..and for the conquering itself (the Alexander/Napoleon/Hitler victory))

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em3
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Re: Replace Victory with Achievements

#7 Post by em3 »

I'm beginning to like this point victory, as long as an alternative exist - Victory for the first player to achieve any of the achievements on a list (that would be decided when setting up game).

This would enable emulating current/classic goal-oriented gameplay.
https://github.com/mmoderau
[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - Randall Munroe, title text to xkcd #556

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Replace Victory with Achievements

#8 Post by Geoff the Medio »

em3 wrote:I'm beginning to like this point victory, as long as an alternative exist - Victory for the first player to achieve any of the achievements on a list (that would be decided when setting up game).
As long as one can set a point threshold to win, and then set the point value for each achievement or pick which achievements to enable, that could be used to set up a "any of these" victory condition.

LGM-Doyle
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Re: Replace Victory with Achievements

#9 Post by LGM-Doyle »

I like this idea, particularly replacing a game ending victory with achievements.

I had not considered using achievements to direct players to explore/understand mechanics.
My feeling is that there should be a distinction between the immersive narrative achievements and the more mechanical ones.

We should consider adding a page to the main window to track achievements, so that the available achievements are discoverable.

Here are some more:
  • ambush (from stealth) and destroy X ships.
  • telepathically steal X ships.
  • destroy a planet/star
  • control X of each special resource
  • collect (i.e.) move X planets to within Y jumps of your capital
  • find the Experimentor homeworld
  • build at least one of each hull (or each hull in a particular line of hulls)

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Oberlus
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Re: Replace Victory with Achievements

#10 Post by Oberlus »

Some more suggestions:

- Reach turn X (100 maybe) without losing a single planet.
- Reach turn X (100ish) without building a single warship (no weapons).
- Exterminate the population of X enemy planets (bombardment rampage).

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