DESIGN: Stockpiles

Past public reviews and discussions.
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Thumper
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#31 Post by Thumper »

PowerCrazy wrote:Ok lets think about this. In a typical specialized empire. I have 7 planets. 1 food, 1 mineral, and 5 others. here comes the evil drektopian fleet. It appears that their intelligence is good, and they decide to blockade my Mineral Planet. Now what happens? First my empire wide stockpile can no longer replenish as the only input into the system (the minerals) can no longer reach the empire level. Thus all my industry planets will EVENTUALLY run out of fuel.

Now lets say the drektopians blockade doesn't seem very effective to them. So they scoot over to my food planet. Now my empire has a problem. as ALL of my food is being produced at that ONE planet all my other planets begin to starve.

We can have an X Turn grace period or we can begin the starving immediately it doesn't matter for now. So after X turns, the starving begins. Now the planet being blockaded doesn't really care. They have lots of food but they are out of a job as they can't get any minerals so the ones not farming are sitting there idle. Meanwhile the rest of the empire suffers some kind of penelty (starvation).
And this is as it should be if you put all of your eggs in one basket.


Thumper

PowerCrazy
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#32 Post by PowerCrazy »

WE all know how good trade is etc. Sid Meyer (among others) Have tried to incorporate this concept in many of their games. But It seems unnecessary to me. We are alien races with the sole intent to rule the galaxy, all alliances are temporary as are most trade agreements. I'd rather command a fleet and take what i need, rather than trade for it.
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Nightfish
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#33 Post by Nightfish »

What exactly is your point thumper? I can't seem to understand what you want to tell us here.

Nightfish
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#34 Post by Nightfish »

PowerCrazy wrote: We are alien races with the sole intent to rule the galaxy, all alliances are temporary as are most trade agreements. I'd rather command a fleet and take what i need, rather than trade for it.
That is your way of playing things. You know, what you say here sounds awfully similar to the stuff MoO2 die hard fans say. "My way of playing is the only way to the light!" and all that. You like to play that way, others like to play differently, they forge alliances and go for an allied victory or whatever. I think this whole "I want to rule the galaxy and smash everybody else flat"-thing gets really boring after a while. I do hope our game will provide more ways for things to work.

Aquitaine
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#35 Post by Aquitaine »

Let's keep this thread on topic, please.

Aquitaine

(p.s. I have no idea what you mean either, Thumper)
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

jbarcz1
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#36 Post by jbarcz1 »

I reeeeaallly want the game to support a diplomatic playing style. I actually like playing the diplomat and trying to be a good, peaceable neighbor from time to time. Makes me feel like a nice guy.

Stockpiles would enhance the diplomatic game in that they'd allow you to trade mins and resources, but the problem with that, as I see it, is that its too easy for a player to build up huge stockpiles at the end-game and suddenly have a limitless resource supply. By game's end, with stockpiles, mining will be unnecessary, because your stocks are so big.
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drekmonger
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#37 Post by drekmonger »

jbarcz1 wrote: By game's end, with stockpiles, mining will be unnecessary, because your stocks are so big.
good point.

Maybe the solution is to make things at end game really really expensive--so you'd have to save up the entire game to afford some of the big ticket items.

Aquitaine
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#38 Post by Aquitaine »

If we use Drek's system of 'global stockpile = all local stockpiles' -and- make things expensive enough so as to advantage specialized worlds (e.g. even a large empire still has a small number of specialized farming worlds) -and- add in some modifiers for graft/empire size, then we should be able to fight off the 'limitless stockpile' thing.

Or we could do like they do in HoI and just put a hard cap on stockpiles that makes no sense but works. :)
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

PowerCrazy
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#39 Post by PowerCrazy »

haha. In most games i am a warmonger. However by imposing a resource trade onto gameplay you are forcing all players to participate in the trade. Those who don't want to trade don't have to of course. But they will be outproduced. I was merely reffering to the precedent set by the previous Mooish games. You can set up interempire trade routes but that is all abstracted. I don't really care if they are trading marbles or tires. All i care about is the bottom line. This isn't Tradewars or anything. Its an empire building game which in my opinion should focus more on the 4X elements rather than economics.

About stockpiles. Unlimited stockpiles wouldn't be too bad (we could even research to increase them) Especially if SSDs and such make it into the game. A ship so big it takes around 1000000 minerals to build it. Also do we need a large initial investment in ships or just an investment over time? If my Orion Globe (tm) take 1000 minerals to build and i only have 600 but i get 100 a turn do i have to wait until i get all 1000? This should be decided pretty soon.
Aquitaine is my Hero.... ;)

drekmonger
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#40 Post by drekmonger »

PC:
I think when people talk about trading from their stockpile, they mean as a diplomatic action....like 'I'll give you 5000 minerals in exchange for Wakka Gun technology"

jbarcz1
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#41 Post by jbarcz1 »

It might be possible to come up with a way to balance the stockpiles so that they aren't bloated by end-game, but I think it's easier to just eliminate them. Either that, or make the resources finite (i.e. each planet only has X amount of available minerals), but I think we voted on infinite resources a long time ago.
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Tyreth
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#42 Post by Tyreth »

All nations participate in trade, that's the way it is. It's just that nations under duress (eg NK) have to do their trade secretly or illegally.

Any warmongering nation will have the disadvantage of being unable to trade. The advantage, of course, is that (if they are any good) they will have a lot of new planets and booty.

Aquitaine
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#43 Post by Aquitaine »

This is modeled (quite well, I thought) in MOO3 with the harvesters. that was one of my favorite things about MOO3, actually. I may even load it up and try it again, haven't seen it since the patch.

I'm not keen on the idea of finite resources. Some MOO games are loooong, and what do you do with 20 planets that are out of resources? that would make the eXpansion the biggest X since you're always at risk of running out of stuff (and/or force us to have a nanotech tech branch to do more with less).

I think limited stockpiles are the way to go. Perhaps what that limit is could depend on your tech, your race -- so if a giant Space Nightfish shuts down all your shipping and stockpiles can't get out, your super-shrinka-tech means you get by longer on your local stockpile until the Drektopians can obliterate the Nightfish.
Surprise and Terror! I am greeted by the smooth and hostile face of our old enemy, the Hootmans! No... the Huge-glands, no, I remember, the Hunams!

Thumper
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#44 Post by Thumper »

Personally I don't see the problem. Once your Empire develops a Matter Converter anything can be made into anything else. I.e., toxic waste into food or minerals, food into ship hull plating, etc.

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#45 Post by Bastian-Bux »

Nope, developing a matter convertor allows you to comvert energy into matter and vice versa. BUT, developing a true replicator (instant assembling of complicated material things out of less organized matter or energy) is another thing. And some materials (Dilithium anyone?) might not be replicable at all.

Matter conversion and even more Replication will help you a lot with your minerals, but they won't be the final solution.

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