I thought of editing my first post, but I'll just reply the thread.
#1 System build queue (oops, make that planetary with system pooling)
Since there is no strategic difference in the position of the planets in a system, a whole system's production is pooled, the queue too.
With a good interface to manage similar planets/system. (a good step toward such an interface would be macro-orders,
imho).
#2 Pre-placement
Things are built locally (in a system) using local production capacity, so it must be pre-placed (system chosen). The actual planet in the system where the building is placed (if applicable) could be pre-placed or post-placed, I don't care much. Post-placement would only add a step, but it could be post-placed with pre-post-placement (i.e. you choose on production start, but in can be changed before completion). But it would still be in the same system.
#3 Intra-system production pooling (for buildings) would be automatic (with no penalty)
Inter-system production pooling (for buildings) would use supply lines
An idea that covers intersystem production pooling and stockpiling of leftovers. It's been deemed too complicated, but I don't think it is. The collaboration between systems could be done with a system similar to the the supply routes described in
this thread.
It may seem too implicate too much micromanagement, and talking about micromanagement may be too offtopic, so I enclose what I have to in an easely skippable quote if you find it too offtopic.
vishnou00 about the problem of micromanagement wrote:After two weeks on this forum, I understood tzlaine's (and probably others') concerns about micromanagement and "AI helper".
About the AI helper:
The point is, if it's manageable, the player is the best to do it, as no AI can compete with a human given an infinite amount of time. If a player rely on an AI to do this management, he is effectively not playing the game, not enjoying it and is boring to the other players (in a multiplayer game) and himself. He just shouldn't play that game.
The reason why one would turn to an AI is the issue that should be addressed. If it's because the management is time consuming, it's an interface problem. If it's because it's insignificant (the player don't care) it's a game design problem. The two combined (insignificance*time consumption) gives an indicator of game suckiness, or micromanagement. So if a feature is time consuming but equally significant, it is not a problem because it is only management, or playing a strategy game (which is the goal). If the feature is too time consuming for its significance, it should be made more significant or less time consuming.
My conclusion is that when playing a game with an epic scale (lots of difference of control between the humble beginning and the glorious ending) you end up with a lot more of significant things to do, but those things aren't less significant than in the beginning. In the endgame, tools to do things more quickly should be used to reduced time-consumption.
The alternative is to reduce the number of things to do, like the current trend globalisation of production. This, imo, reduce the sense of epicness, as you don't have more control, you just have the same control over something bigger (and the depiction of something bigger is lot less engaging than the depiction of a bigger number of same-sized object).
I think the significance of the parts of your empire should be constant to all the players (or spectators) and scale in number with the progression of a game, not the significance of your empire as a whole being constant (and parts having decreasing significance as the game progress), as external viewers (other players/spectators) may only see a part of your empire.
But this is a personal point of view and others can disagree, but I think the decision should be made as to what direction should the evolution of a game be: more elements to manage with interface tools to keep time constant, or a constant number of elements to manage.
I don't think this "we'll manage with better tools" opens the door addition that consumes incredible amount of time for their significance (ala civ franchise), even on a small scale. If things are insignificant on a small scale, they won't be anymore significant on a large scale, they shouldn't exist.
Now addressing specific posts of this thread:
noelte:
I thought
Aquitaine wrote:- We only want control over building things that matter: in this case, ships, wonders, or 'semi-wonders,' which are essentially things that are Really Important and occupy a planetary slot but aren't totally unique.
meant buildings were "ships, wonders, or 'semi-wonders'".
I'd refer to
that idea for collaboration of production and limitation on output capacity of the shipyards.
Aquitaine: I'm sorry, but why no system queue? Well, I already wrote why I like them (it's more like system free pooling).
Geoff de Medio: would you help me revive
this thread?
Ragnar and
PowerCrazy: an
idea to support the shipyard concept would require special attention to have it streamlined enough to require little attention, but some auto/abstracted-convoy should do the trick. It wouldn't be SMAC/Civ style supply convoy, they require way to much attention to setup.
I find the PP/turn limit weird to balance. A supply system would give player more control over the limit (softening the limit) and would be more natural to balance.
drek: you could've linked your thread of into brainstorming,
like so.
Please don't reply just to address some off-topic things I wrote, reply in a new thread in brainstorming.