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For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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Geoff the Medio
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#16 Post by Geoff the Medio »

noelte wrote:@Geoff: IMO, you suggestion won't work, because fo can only handle one race per planet
Uhm... I know...? And I specifically said so, and I quoted other people saying so, and nothing I suggested relies on there being more than one race per planet, and most of what I did suggest was intended to deal with consequences of this decision.

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#17 Post by noelte »

Maybe i missed something but how would Emigration work. isn't there a time where the race which emigrates and your own race is on the same planet?
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#18 Post by Geoff the Medio »

noelte wrote:Maybe i missed something but how would Emigration work. isn't there a time where the race which emigrates and your own race is on the same planet?
That's what Ablaze wanted, but I was saying that that wouldn't be allowed, and that we'd thus want ways to remove one race from a planet so as to make room for another... (whether by resettlement or "disposal")

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#19 Post by Ablaze »

noelte wrote:By now there are to possibilities for fo. First, you add the foreign people into you empire (with their abilities) or second, you can magicly convert the foreigns into your own species. Both choises are not very satisfying, but fo can only handle one species per planet.
It is my understanding that there is one species per planet, not one species per empire. This is a rather large distinction, and I would like to know which is the case.

If it's one species per planet then it seems to me that there is at least one reasonably satisfying option. Ignoring the fluff about ghost populations and emigration, you could allow someone to transport another race to a populated planet and just make the old population disappear.
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#20 Post by Daveybaby »

This is, IMO, one of the biggest problems to solve. I've been thinking about it on and off for well over a year now and i've yet to come up with a solution that feels right.

It seems to me, that multiple races per planet is the ideal way to go, because it allows so many interesting gameplay possibilities. However its next to impossible to find an efficient way of managing your planets unless you go the Moo3 route of having an inscrutable AI sitting between you and the game.

Having one race per planet is probably the most sensible choice. But you still have the problem of how to swap races on a planet. Having to completely empty a planet before it can be repopulated strikes me as very tedious, inconvenient and potentially micromanagey. One compromise which i think could work well is to allow a planet have an interim status during changover, where it can actually have 2 races on it - one outgoing and one incoming. This still leave a lot of problems to be solved though, such as:

* How are jobs allocated between the races during changover?
* How to avoid any potential exploits/advantages that might be gained by having every one of your planets in a state of transition.
* What if there is nowhere for the outgoing population to go?

And so on.
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#21 Post by noelte »

It is my understanding that there is one species per planet, not one species per empire. This is a rather large distinction, and I would like to know which is the case.
Having one race per planet is probably the most sensible choice. But you still have the problem of how to swap races on a planet.
One race per planet!! Multiple races per empire (as i know). I was adressing the swapping problem in cases you conquer a planet or get it as an gift.

Daveybaby adressed that issue in his last post
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#22 Post by Ablaze »

As far as I can tell, dave, your interim status during changeover and my shadow population are the same beast from different angles.

The best thing I have been able to come up with so far for my game is to have your main race and then all other races you conquer can be left as they are, or through the miracle of science can be integrated into your race.

Just thinking out loud here....
Do you think that given the proper technology we could integrate ourselves with a cybernetic race? Star trek did it.. we could become borg! How about with intelligent gas bags who live on jovial planets? That was done in the uplift trilogies. What about with beings of pure energy? We could have an energy phase and a flesh phase. What about with a sentient interstellar gas cloud? Well.. I can't imagine something like that would ever be a serious contender for galactic conquest, so why would we want to?
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#23 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Daveybaby wrote:It seems to me, that multiple races per planet is the ideal way to go, because it allows so many interesting gameplay possibilities.
I suspect that most of those interesting gameplay possibilities would be possible with multiple races per system, but still one per planet...

The only obvious (to me) loss is "infectious migration" where one race spreads through you empire, slowly displacing people on other planets, unless you have a policy to prevent this. (Could have lead to a strategy of giving a planet that's heavily populated with a race that likes your empire to another empire that has loose internal movement controls, causing the race to spread through the empire and influence them politically... would have been a downside to free / liberal governments.)
However its next to impossible to find an efficient way of managing your planets unless you go the Moo3 route of having an inscrutable AI sitting between you and the game.
I don't think the problem is efficiency so much as it is clarity... eg. +10.25% production because 57% of your population is race X, 22% is race Y and 21% is race Z...
Having to completely empty a planet before it can be repopulated strikes me as very tedious, inconvenient and potentially micromanagey.
Tedious or inconvenient if you pick a slow but politically acceptable method... If you want to avoid tedium, just use a faster, more "efficient" method to remove them. And really, if we designed everything around convenience, then wouldn't ships travel instantly to any planet you want, and wouldn't you have infinite production and everything researched at the start of the game...?

In this case, I'm trying to frame the delay as the cost of a certain option available to the player (slow emigration) that can be weighed against benefits of that choice, in comparison with other options, making for an interesting player decision (how to deal with a planet populated by a race that isn't useful). The player could accept the race that's there, even if it's not ideal for his/her purposes, or could remove the race and repopulate, and deal with any costs associated with that choice.
* What if there is nowhere for the outgoing population to go?
Then you can't use emigration to depopulate a planet. Find and mark an appropriate planet, kill the population, or leave them on the planet.

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#24 Post by utilae »

I would like to avoid having more than one race/species on a single planet.

I would rather one of the following happen:
1)The conquered race is killed off.

2)The conquered race becomes your race slowly. So if zoigs take over a pogwog planet, then the pogwogs become zoigs, preferably instantly.

3)My favourite. The conquered race is sent to POW(Prisoner Of War) camps. In the case of FreeOrion these will be prison outposts. A while ago I mentioned the idea of building outpost ships that could be sent to asteroids or moons to setup prison outposts.
Last edited by utilae on Fri Feb 11, 2005 9:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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#25 Post by Daveybaby »

Geoff the Medio wrote:I don't think the problem is efficiency so much as it is clarity... eg. +10.25% production because 57% of your population is race X, 22% is race Y and 21% is race Z...
But how do you handle job allocation in that situation? If you have the planet doing (say) 50% research, 25% farming and 25% mining, and some races are better at some jobs than others, it can become a bit of a chore (and a UI mess) to manually assign species to jobs, especially if the mix is changing on a turn by turn basis. And, as moo3 showed, having a complex algorithm or AI helper do it for you just frustrates and alienates the player.
Tedious or inconvenient if you pick a slow but politically acceptable method... If you want to avoid tedium, just use a faster, more "efficient" method to remove them.

And really, if we designed everything around convenience, then wouldn't ships travel instantly to any planet you want, and wouldn't you have infinite production and everything researched at the start of the game...?
I'm all for having pros and cons to choosing a certain strategy (in terms of gameplay effects), in fact i think its essential. However, the game shouldnt penalise a player (in terms of enjoyment, micromanagement tedium, or just plain hard work) depending on what policies they choose to implement. I dont want to be in the situation where i'm thinking: "i want to be nice to race X for valid strategic reasons (or just out of misplaced sentimentality), but its such a tedious process i cant be bothered... i will just go with the evil dictator approach... again".
* What if there is nowhere for the outgoing population to go?
Then you can't use emigration to depopulate a planet. Find and mark an appropriate planet, kill the population, or leave them on the planet.
But the problem is that this stuff will be changing on a turn by turn basis. On turn X there might be enough space to relocate a race, but the next turn you might lose a planet, or population already on the target planet grows a bit, using up some space, or any one of a dozen other things might happen.

The problem is how do give the player the ability to manage this stuff without imposing a horrendous mess of tweaking to perform every turn.
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#26 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Daveybaby wrote:But how do you handle job allocation in that situation? If you have the planet doing (say) 50% research, 25% farming and 25% mining, and some races are better at some jobs than others, it can become a bit of a chore (and a UI mess) to manually assign species to jobs, especially if the mix is changing on a turn by turn basis.
You set the planet to 50% research, 25% farming and 25% mining. There is no need to break down work assignments between species.
Tedious or inconvenient if you pick a slow but politically acceptable method... If you want to avoid tedium, just use a faster, more "efficient" method to remove them.
... the game shouldnt penalise a player (in terms of enjoyment, micromanagement tedium, or just plain hard work) depending on what policies they choose to implement. I dont want to be in the situation where i'm thinking: "i want to be nice to race X for valid strategic reasons (or just out of misplaced sentimentality), but its such a tedious process i cant be bothered... i will just go with the evil dictator approach... again".
Ok, that's reasonable... but is having to wait for a planet to depopulate really that tedious? Just having to wait a few turns to get what you want is not necessarily "tedious"... The delay is of strategic importance, as much or more than it is just annoying to the player... and if it is annoying, then it falls under the same category as an acceptable annoying required to make this a playable game, like the limited move speed of ships or non-infinite production capacity. It's not like this will require huge amount of micromanagement and checking up each turn:
-Assume that at some point after gaining political control of a planet, you'd decide you want to colonize it
-Oh no! It's already got a population of another race... what to do?
-On some UI element (planet screen, empire-wide migration/population summary screen) you mark the planet for emigration.
-If you don't have a planet marked for immigration by that race, some UI feedback complains that there's nowhere to immigrate. This could be sitrep, or a little warning icon or somesuch...
-The game tells you how many turns it will take to emigrate, possibly with a counter showing time remainingon the appropriate screens (summary, or maybe on galaxy screen or system view), that updates each turn.
-You also order a colonization mission to that planet. This could involve making a new colony ship, or just sending an old one. It starts heading to the planet. If it gets there before the emigration is done, it waits, then colonizes when possible. (Alternatively, see below... you wouldn't need a new colony ship to repopulate, but instead would pick a new race to immigrate to the planet after it is completely depopulated)
-The player is informed when emigration is done, and / or that colonization (or immigration with new race) has started (the player can cancel this if they want, just like with regular colonization orders before ending the turn)
-Alternatively, the player could order a colonization of a planet, and would specify which race of those available (ie. one of the races on planets the player owns, excluding the race already there), and the emigration order is automatically given. (Or would mark the planet for both emigration (assumed to mean current race) and immigration with X other race. The immigration would automatically start when the emigration finishes, w/o further player input, though with a sitrep notice)

(note that just because I used a lot of bullet points doesn't mean this would be too complicated to use or understand)

Between when the player orders colonization or emigration (and reimmigration) for the planet, there's no interaction / micromanagement required. Whatever micromanagement is required in the whole process is not much more than (or is less than) what is required for normal colonization of an empty planet without issue of a pre-existing race (ie. where to build a colony ship from, how to get it there, etc).

One thing we should probably do is allow colonization of planet in systems you control exclusively, and already have a colony in, without building a colony ship. This would be like a system build project (ie. no "system colony ships") you'd click the "colonize" button on the planet, and a build order to build a colony would be put on the production queue, and would take X turns, after which you get a colony on the planet with whatever race you picked when ordering the colony. The new colony would have almost no population, but would then be a valid immigration target. (Alternatively, a new colony could have no population, and you'd pick what race can immigrate to it after its built.) You could even make a new colony in a system with a race other than the one(s) already in the system, so if you get one single planet full of some race you want to move out, you don't have to make a colony ship specifically for that race (maybe even at that system, depending how we do things...) to make a new colony for that race somewhere else.
* What if there is nowhere for the outgoing population to go?
Then you can't use emigration to depopulate a planet. Find and mark an appropriate planet, kill the population, or leave them on the planet.
But the problem is that this stuff will be changing on a turn by turn basis. On turn X there might be enough space to relocate a race, but the next turn you might lose a planet, or population already on the target planet grows a bit, using up some space, or any one of a dozen other things might happen.
Any one of a dozen things might happen, but is it really that likely that they will happen often enough to require player adjustment each turn? I think you're exaggerating the problem here...

For the growth of target planet population, just don't pick planets as immigration targets that are almost full, and you won't have this problem. As well, IMO we should adjust the population growth formulas so that planet don't always completely fill their available space in most cases, leaving room for immigration. Perhaps fully populated planets have very low birth rates, so natural death causes a population drop, unless you boost it with immigration (much like many modern western countries actually...)

This is also somewhat of a self correcting system for larger empires, I think... in that the larger your empire, the larger the set of potential immigration destinations, so the more you can mark, so the less likely you are to have sudden changes that need attention again. If you only mark planets for immigration that are in war zones or other systems you might lose or lose access to, then yes, you'll run the risk of losing your immigration targets and having to pick another... but that's a strategic issue in of itself as well.

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#27 Post by Daveybaby »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
Daveybaby wrote:But how do you handle job allocation in that situation? If you have the planet doing (say) 50% research, 25% farming and 25% mining, and some races are better at some jobs than others, it can become a bit of a chore (and a UI mess) to manually assign species to jobs, especially if the mix is changing on a turn by turn basis.
You set the planet to 50% research, 25% farming and 25% mining. There is no need to break down work assignments between species.
So how is (say) the mining output of the planet determined?

If (say) you have 25% of the population is Species 1, which produces 2x farming and 2x mining, and 50% is species 2, which has 2x research and 1.5x mining, and the remaining 25% is species 3, which is 1x everything? There is no way for the game to know what mix to use, because it doesnt know the player's priorities. Do we allocate species 1 to farming or mining? Or split them 50/50 across both? Do we allocate all of species 2 to research, or allocate half of them to mining?

Or do we just have an equal mix of each species in each activity, in which case the whole point of having diverse species characteristics is lost.

Note that this may or many not apply to FO (well, of course it doesnt apply at all if there is only one species per planet, hehe) i'm just interested in finding a workable solution to the problem, cos its one of the things that Moo3 tried and got pretty badly wrong, where i havent yet thought of a better solution.



Re: emi/immigration, i can see your point. As long as the game dissuades the player from micromanaging their population too much things shouldnt get too messy.

I still think it should be possible to have the 2 species (incoming and outgoing) share the planet during its transitionary period. Possibly the outgoing population could still contribute to the planet's economy (maybe at a reduced rate to dissuade the player from swapping planets every 5 minutes). This would make things much simpler for the player, i.e. they set up the emigration and immigration on the same turn, and it all (hopefully) takes care of itself after that, with alerts/sitrep reports if something does go wrong.

Note that in this case the complex situations i described for work allocation shouldnt apply - a simple even mix of populations across all jobs could be applied, since its only a transitionary phase.
This is also somewhat of a self correcting system for larger empires, I think... in that the larger your empire, the larger the set of potential immigration destinations, so the more you can mark, so the less likely you are to have sudden changes that need attention again. If you only mark planets for immigration that are in war zones or other systems you might lose or lose access to, then yes, you'll run the risk of losing your immigration targets and having to pick another... but that's a strategic issue in of itself as well.
I guess the default in this situation could always be: "go to any valid destination", where a valid destination would be any planet already occupied by that species (that wasnt being emigrated itself).


Some possible other penalties for forcing a population off-planet:
:arrow: Increased unrest. Nobody likes being forced to move.
:arrow: Transportation costs.
:arrow: Some populations (depending on various factors such as: species psychological makeup, environmental preferences between the source and destination planets, how they feel about you, their status within your empire) might just refuse to move voluntarily, so you would have to forcibly move them. i.e. the number of population moved per turn becomes proportional to the number of troops you have stationed on the planet.
:arrow: Diplomatic penalties. The Zogg empire might not like the way you are treating members of their species.

The diplomatic penalties point above raises some interesting issues. If, say, you conquer a Zogg planet, then make peace with the Zogg. Does the Zogg empire care what you do with the population of the planet? Would they accept a forced repatriation of the Zogg back into their empire? Would they, in fact, insist on repatriation? Would they care if you wiped out the population of the planet? What if the population of the planet you captured weren't of the Zogg species, but were still valued members of the Zogg empire? Some interesting gameplay possibilities there.
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#28 Post by noelte »

So how is (say) the mining output of the planet determined?

If (say) you have 25% of the population is Species 1, which produces 2x farming and 2x mining, and 50% is species 2, which has 2x research and 1.5x mining, and the remaining 25% is species 3, which is 1x everything? There is no way for the game to know what mix to use, because it doesnt know the player's priorities. Do we allocate species 1 to farming or mining? Or split them 50/50 across both? Do we allocate all of species 2 to research, or allocate half of them to mining?
S2 => Research.............==> 50 * 2xR .......................=> 100R
S1 => Farming/Mining....==> 12.5 * 2xF + 12.5 *2xM => 25F + 25M
S3 => Farming/Mining....==> 12.5 * 1xF + 12.5 *1xM => 12.5F + 12.5M

Max out all foci. Assign up to 50%/25%/25% of the pop to R/F/M.
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#29 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Daveybaby wrote:So how is (say) the mining output of the planet determined?
Hypothetically, if you have 25% of population giving 2x to farming, and the rest givign 1x, then you get (0.25*2 + 0.75*1) = 1.25 bonus to farming. The bonus you get for a particular race is the percentage population of that race times the bonus for that race (if 100% of the population was of that race). You don't worry about breaking down which portions of the population are working which jobs.
Or do we just have an equal mix of each species in each activity, in which case the whole point of having diverse species characteristics is lost.
Not sure what you mean by "equal mix"... However in the above, there are benefits to researching on a planet that has lots of a race that's good at research. I don't see why you think it's necessary to let the user break down jobs between parts of the population. (Though if you did want to do this, you could probably do it automatically by what each race is good at, and using planet focus to decide what jobs to give population of a particular race in cases where the population is the best at two or more things and there's not enough population to do all of both)
Possibly the outgoing population could still contribute to the planet's economy (maybe at a reduced rate...
Having complicated formulas for production (similar to the above example for how to calculate farming with two or more races), is precisely the reason Aq gave to not have multiple races...
...to dissuade the player from swapping planets every 5 minutes).
Doesn't my suggestion accomplish this as well? You've got to spend time moving the population out before you can move population in to replace it... you lose productivity in the interim. (Though probably get to keep infrastucture if the migrations are peaceful)
This would make things much simpler for the player, i.e. they set up the emigration and immigration on the same turn, and it all (hopefully) takes care of itself after that, with alerts/sitrep reports if something does go wrong.
I don't see how this is any simpler in this respect than my suggestion. You set up emigration and immigration the same turn, and the immigration automatically starts when the emigration finishes.
...might just refuse to move voluntarily, so you would have to forcibly move them. i.e. the number of population moved per turn becomes proportional to the number of troops you have stationed on the planet.
viewtopic.php?p=18196#18196
:arrow: Diplomatic penalties. The Zogg empire might not like the way you are treating members of their species.
More so, the zogg species of the Zogg empire might not like it, so that pro-you factions in Zogg grow less popular, and anti-you factions grow more popular. This all works to make the political / diplomatic consequences of actions make sense and be necessary even in multiplayer games, rather than just being "artificial" AI routines that only exist to establish settingi. ie. if an empire is enraged at you, it's because their people hate you / the anti-you factions are population amongst their people, and if they don't do what those factions want, their empire's government would collapse or they'd get massive unrest / productivity loss, etc.
The diplomatic penalties point above raises some interesting issues. If, say, you conquer a Zogg planet, then make peace with the Zogg. Does the Zogg empire care what you do with the population of the planet? Would they accept a forced repatriation of the Zogg back into their empire? Would they, in fact, insist on repatriation? Would they care if you wiped out the population of the planet? What if the population of the planet you captured weren't of the Zogg species, but were still valued members of the Zogg empire? Some interesting gameplay possibilities there.
viewtopic.php?p=18187#18187

If you capture an enemy planet, during continued wartime, you could
-Threaten to massacre their population unless they make peace with you. Depending on their race disposition, their population might demand that they make peace, to avoid this.
-Massacre their population without demands, enraging their population, leading them into a holy-war / revenge situation where they can't make peace with you because their population hates you so much

If you capture an enemy planet then the war ends, their population would probably be unhappy since large numbers of their race are under foreign control. Their population might start to demand they get the planet back... leading to diplomatic or military solutionsn being rather urgent, meaning you can demand large payments to return the planet, or keep it, driving up unrest in their empire. However the planet itself under your control won't be very happy, and might rebel or demand to rejoin its empire (especially if this is encouraged by the other empire using cultural or espionage tools)

In all these cases, the "demands" and such could be done through changes in faction popularities.

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#30 Post by Impaler »

I have read DaveBabby's "Racial Status" list for his project and realy liked it, by assigning a minor race a status the player sends a very clear message as to what the "goverment" is doing to that populatin segment.

I think something along these lines should be used in FO, the only thing I would add is a continuation of the scale to inculde statuses above equal. In essence you could have "Honored Guests" "Patron Race" "Benevolent Lords" and highest of all "Living Gods" to indicate minor race being held in higher esteam then the controling race of the planet. These statuses are ofcorse the complete antithisis of the negative settings like "Slaves" and "Vermin".

My proposal for dealing with Mixed Race planets would be an addition to the "Granual" concept I proposed earlier. Basicaly the Raw population of the Planet is compared to a fibinatchi sequence or similar exponential sequence. Say a planet has 100 population. On a Fibinatchi sequence of 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144 the number 100 falls between the 10th and 11th positions. Thus the total population is evenly divided into 10 Granuals each of size 10 (in likly event of fractions the remainder is droped). These 10 granuals can then be assigned by the player to all the various jobs/tasks and functions like research/farming/mining with the population of each granual having a work output based of the planets social meters and other paramiters.

Minor races handled by keeping a seperate running tally of their population . All these populations are added together to be compared to the Fibinachi sequence, then the granuals are divied up amoung the races present acording to their proportions. In the preceding example of 100 population and 10 granuals lets say that their were 30 pop units of an alien race on the planet, they would recive 3 of the granuals. These alien race granuals can now be used by the player just like normal and they recive all the bonuses and penalties assosiated with that race. The the specific skills and talents of alien races remain un-diluted and the player efficiently "sees and feels" their effects on output.
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