Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

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Oberlus
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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#361 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 9:02 am Apart from that, I don't have Artificial Minds neither in the game nor in the FOCS files.
Is that how it was supposed to be ?
Why ?
I don't remember reading anything about that...
Geoff removed it from game, for it not being interesting (in the sense of just being an upgrade of NAI instead of somethin "different") or something like that.

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#362 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 8:58 am - First, you're still colonizing nearly everything, which is exactly what the Influence mechanisms were designed to prevent.
So if you complain that you can't colonize everything because of Influence cost, it's not a bug, it's a feature¹.
I'm not colonizing everything (I'm already depopulating some of my older colonies that are less productive; just making those colonies independent is not a sensible option because that makes those colonie easy targets for other empires to gain fully populated worlds if I don't defend them).
I'm not complaining about not being able of colonizing everything, but being unable to control a whole medium or larger galaxy.
- Second, and this is structural (and I warned about it before the Influence were in master, IIRC) : when an Empire has found its optimal shape considering Influence costs, he still has to conquer enemy planets, that will break the conqueror's Influence calculations.
That's what I am saying now, and what I said also before influence was implemented and before you talked about the subject for first time. So nothing new here.
There is a need for "vassalization" mechanisms, and ones that do not end with all the Galaxy being settled by vassals either (this second part being the hard part, I don't see how it's possible).
Call it whatever, but there is a need for larger empires.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#363 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 9:09 am
LienRag wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 9:02 am I don't have Artificial Minds neither in the game nor in the FOCS files.
Geoff removed it from game, for it not being interesting (in the sense of just being an upgrade of NAI instead of somethin "different") or something like that.
If I vaguely recall correctly, Artificial Minds was an extra tech after Nascent Artificial Intelligence, and the effects were moved to a policy unlocked by the latter, so there wasn't a need for an additional tech...?

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#364 Post by LienRag »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 9:29 am If I vaguely recall correctly, Artificial Minds was an extra tech after Nascent Artificial Intelligence, and the effects were moved to a policy unlocked by the latter, so there wasn't a need for an additional tech...?
Which policy ?

All I can see is Algorithmic Research, unlocked by Algorithmic Elegance, and which indeed replaces the effects of the tech (a bad idea imho, not in the general principle, but in the fact that it comes too early in the tech tree : at that stage a free bonus would be more rewarding).

Artificial Minds was the second part of NAI when Oberlus split it in two.
It brought a second flat +1 bonus when focused on Research.

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#365 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 9:14 am I'm not colonizing everything (I'm already depopulating some of my older colonies that are less productive; just making those colonies independent is not a sensible option because that makes those colonie easy targets for other empires to gain fully populated worlds if I don't defend them).
I'm not complaining about not being able of colonizing everything, but being unable to control a whole medium or larger galaxy.
Wobbly is, for both his Empires.
And he's the one who first complained.
I can't see what you're doing.

And yes, your last remark is sensible.
It should need work, though.


Oberlus wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 9:14 am Call it whatever, but there is a need for larger empires.
Why ?
There is a need to be able to play (and win) whatever the Galaxy size is, yes.
That is what we should focus upon (and making this fun and strategic, too).

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#366 Post by Oberlus »

Nascent AI doesn't unlock any policy.

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#367 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 9:57 am Wobbly is, for both his Empires.
He isn't.
LienRag wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 9:57 am
Oberlus wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 9:14 am Call it whatever, but there is a need for larger empires.
Why ?
There is a need to be able to play (and win) whatever the Galaxy size is, yes.
You answered it, yes.

Edit: also for the sake of controlling epic empires.
The idea of influence was to make it harder, not impossible.

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#368 Post by wobbly »

LienRag wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 9:57 am
Wobbly is, for both his Empires.
And he's the one who first complained.
I can't see what you're doing.
My own empire is in a physically small space. Filling a tiny section of the universe isn't actually more planets then if it was spread over a larger area.

Most of Danny's planets were already there. I built a place to put Replicon and Cray, put some exobots on asteroids. The tae ghris stack in the corner isn't for Danny, that's for o01eg.

Fact is you missed a chunk of the point. Danny's empire doesn't have influence issues. Most of its coming from Environmentalism. My empire doesn't have major influence issues either. I also have environmentalism and the 2 cray on resource specials. I did have issues with far less planets and no environmentalism.

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#369 Post by LienRag »

wobbly wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 10:21 am Fact is you missed a chunk of the point. Danny's empire doesn't have influence issues. Most of its coming from Environmentalism. My empire doesn't have major influence issues either. I also have environmentalism and the 2 cray on resource specials. I did have issues with far less planets and no environmentalism.
I don't know.
You are right to point that the broken Environmentalism is what allows all of us (I believe) to have enough Influence for our Empires, but without it Danyspin wouldn't be able to colonize everything without thinking much about it, it's not obvious that he wouldn't be able to have any Empire at all.

The main (and structural) problem I see is, again, that once we've defined an optimal size O for an Empire, there are still N empires of approximately the same size (in non-crowded Galaxies, Influence is now the limiting factor) and to win with current mechanisms (Singularity of Transcendance apart) one has to take NO planets...

And even worse, take them again after the losing Empires have resettled new planets .

I already advocated for having the Influence bonus given by the Cultural Archives rather than the Imperial Palace so it's not destroyed at conquest¹ and also re-evaluated (at least +5, having Influence problems early is useless for the gameplay), but that in now way will be enough to tackle the problem.

My old Nomes proposal could help I believe, even if I made it without having experienced directly the Influence mechanisms.

¹ Of course, that prevents rebuilding it when it's conquered, which is a problem: so maybe split it in two ?

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#370 Post by wobbly »

Something woryh clarifying. Is the intention to have an optimal size? I've never seen any of the devs say that though I could of missed it.

A system with declining gains is a completely different matter.

Which is it actually meant to be.

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#371 Post by LienRag »

wobbly wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 11:14 am Something woryh clarifying. Is the intention to have an optimal size? I've never seen any of the devs say that though I could of missed it.

A system with declining gains is a completely different matter.

Which is it actually meant to be.
No, no one AFAIK clearly stated that as an objective.

And you are right, declining gains doesn't mathematically mean a maximum size (if they decline asymptotically).

But the way it was done (rising Influence costs per planet with capped Influence production per planet due to the absence of infinitely boosting techs for Population and Influence per population), it clearly leads to a maximum size, and probably an optimal size before that (when the player doesn't have to put all his planets into Influence).

IIRC Oberlus, with his usual keen mathematical sense, even proposed to have this optimal size dependent on the Galaxy size (which IIRC again had been rejected).


What had been explicitly stated as an objective though was to avoid colonizing all the Galaxy.
And as long as Influence takes only the player's Empire into account, there's no way to prevent that (the weaker players - in terms of number of planets - will always be able to settle planets that the bigger Empires leave alone for lack of Influence).
I don't know how to have an Influence formula that also take other Empires' number of planets without unbalancing completely the game, though.

Note also that diminishing gains will by themselves (without rising costs) only slow the colonization of all the Galaxy, not prevent it.

If it slows it down long enough to allow victory of one player before the colonization of all the Galaxy occurs, that's good enough, but I'm not sure that's what is happening (since it apparently slows down military conquest in nearly the same proportions).

I guess my proposed Equatorial specials could help a little bit as they can provide long-range Supply that can allow to abandon planets between them, but that probably shouldn't be the only answer.

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#372 Post by Oberlus »

Some (one, two tops) mid-game tech could increase influence-focused IP output, without policy, maybe with a building involved. And also several policies, with some exclussions among them.
One late-game tech to reduce IP upkeep. Also several policies.

We already have policies that increase unfocused IP output. These will be balanced with everything else.

And one end-game tech (more expensive than black shields) to put a cap on influence upkeep to allo for huge galaxies to be doable.

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#373 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 4:35 pm
And one end-game tech (more expensive than black shields) to put a cap on influence upkeep to allo for huge galaxies to be doable.
Putting a cap on Influence upkeep is basically removing the Influence constraint from the game, unless this cap is above the maximum Influence production that an average planet can produce (and if it is it doesn't really solve the problem if I'm not mistaken).

We should find other ways to make getting some control of huge Galaxies doable, imho.

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#374 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 6:18 pm
Oberlus wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 4:35 pm
And one end-game tech (more expensive than black shields) to put a cap on influence upkeep to allo for huge galaxies to be doable.
Putting a cap on Influence upkeep is basically removing the Influence constraint from the game, unless this cap is above the maximum Influence production that an average planet can produce (and if it is it doesn't really solve the problem if I'm not mistaken).
The cap would be something around 50% of maximum end-game IP production per medium planet with average influence species, forcing to have 50% of your planets set to influence.
If the cap is greater than 100% average end-game IP output it means it's useless (no one will even reach it) and not worth adding to the game.

If you find any other way to allow for infinite growth that is not infinite tech upgrades or anything like that, please say it. I can't.
I still prefer using galaxy size to weight colony upkeep. The argument against is was that it would imply different galaxies having different upkeeps per colony at start, that being confusing for the player. I disagree, I think it is not confusing (not more tha multiple other mechanics in the game), and there are instances of games whose costs of stuff depend on dimensions of the map. But unless that is accepted by devs, a cap is the only way I can think of.

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Re: Sixteen game on the multiplayer slow game server

#375 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 6:39 pm If you find any other way to allow for infinite growth that is not infinite tech upgrades or anything like that, please say it. I can't.
Since infinite growth is what the Influence mechanism was supposed to abolish, the easier way of allowing it would be removing the Influence mechanism...

It is true that other objectives than abolishing infinite growth (like limiting it) can be assigned to the Influence mechanism, but they would need to be thought out completely and AFAIK they aren't.


Oberlus wrote: Sun Jul 11, 2021 6:39 pm I still prefer using galaxy size to weight colony upkeep. The argument against is was that it would imply different galaxies having different upkeeps per colony at start, that being confusing for the player. I disagree, I think it is not confusing (not more tha multiple other mechanics in the game), and there are instances of games whose costs of stuff depend on dimensions of the map. But unless that is accepted by devs, a cap is the only way I can think of.
The idea of having different Galaxy sizes is to have different game experiences.
Currently, it means for a Galaxy above a certain size to not be able to play (because the enemy will be able to evade your armies whatever you do, since you're too constrained by influence), so you have a point.
Note that the progressivity of Influence upkeep can be dependent on the Galaxy size, it doesn't have to be the initial upkeep cost...

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