Strategic Resources

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 »

Zanzibar wrote:We could, arguably have moo3 style specials...
Indeed we could. Having some specials act as "resources" that enable things or given wide-ranging bonuses to particular types of equipment does not preclude the possibility of planet-localized bonuses as well.

Impaler
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#17 Post by Impaler »

Perhaps we should look at Rise of Nations as a good model for Strategic Resorces, there done much in the style that DaveBabby proposes (aka bonuses rather then critical keys to advancment). Also we could adopt a modification of the Civ3 unit focused style but the Resorces will only Reduce the Cost of a particular unit (or in our case the Cost of a particular component of the Star Ship so for example Xenon Crystals Cause all Nutrino Cannons to cost half as much, Dilithim makes your ships move +2 and Ferronium adds 30 points of armor to your ships).

I am in favor of some means of storage and trade and some way inwhich your resorces are consumed in proportion to the amount that you use them. Idealy something simple like 1 unit per turn in Maintanence and a one time non refundable 10 to initiate Construction.
Fear is the Mind Killer - Frank Herbert -Dune

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Geoff the Medio
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#18 Post by Geoff the Medio »

There's no need to pick only a single function for resources. There can be a wide variety of them, with a wide variety of effects. They can:

-Do Nothing :shock:
-Unlock a building/ship/tech at a planet
-Unlock a building/ship/tech throughout an empire
-Give a local-only bonus to a meter
-Give an empire-wide bonus to a meter
-Reduce the cost of a building/ship at a planet
-Reduce the cost of a building/ship throughout an empire
-Give a bonus to the effectiveness of a class of ship part built locally
-Give a bonus to the effectiveness of a class of ship part on any ship owned by an empire
-Supply a whole empire with one source
-Supply multiple allied empires with one source
-Have a limited extraction rate (X units / turn)
-Have no limit on extraction rate
-Have a limited total amount available, after which the "well runs dry"
-Have no limit on the amount available to be extracted
-Regenerate in supply after extraction
-Be stockpilable and tradable in numbered amounts
-Allow construction of things that require certain amounts to build (X units / turn for Y turns, like PP or other resources)
-Unlock or enhance "normal" or "standard" ship components or building types
-Unlock or enhance only "extra" or "special" ship components, building types, troop types
-Require only a single source at one location to work
-Require multiple sources at any several locations to work
-Require several sources at specific locations to work
-Work at differing levels of effectiveness depending how many sources are available
-Be required for maintainance of things they permit to be built
-Only work at planet with specific focus, meter levels, population, size, environment, orbitting a certain star type
-Only work for certain governments, races
-Work automatically without further investment
-Work only after building a special extractor or enabler building
-Be located on asteroid fields and require a special mining colony to be established, or mining ship to be dispatched
-Stack
-Not Stack
-Have only positive effects
-Have negative effects as well
-Have negative effects whether or not the resource is being used
-Have negative effects only if the resource is being used
-Have negative effects in proportion to how much of the resource is being used and where
-Have positive effects in proportion to how much of the resource is not being used for a building project or maintainace

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#19 Post by emrys »

[sarcasm]Equally, we could simply replace the game with a pencil and paper and tell players to write their own ideas down.[/sarcasm]

Whilst resources could be used in many ways, we should choose one/some/all of them, and then think through any problems we forsee with that usage, ensuring we sort out as many potential pitfalls as we can before we suggest to the coders that they include it. They really won't thank us for saying "resources can be used in any of these fifty ways, and it's your problem to fix any problems that arise... see you down the pub"

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Geoff the Medio
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#20 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I wanted to provide a contrasting view to the people who kept suggesting very limited sets of effects for resources, based on this or that game's model, but without any particular reason why we should only use that limited model.

So far the only problems with a specific model have been:
-Civ3-style resources that unlock important units are too imbalancing
-Civ3-style resources suck for trading purposes
-Having to find multiple sources for a particular resource / effect might be annoying

I encourage people to give similar problems with any of the models in the above list... or suggest more models, but avoid "we could use resources like game X..." without a reason not to use any other systems.

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#21 Post by emrys »

It's worth noting that "we could use resources like game X..." doesn't need to include "a reason not to use any other systems." since it doesn't actually imply not using any other system (that would be "we should only use resources like game X..."), just that the writer thinks this one would work.

The alternative to suggesting a list of things that would work, would be to start from a list of everything possible, and knock them off one by one. Although this apparently works well in sculpture, it might not be the most efficient paradigm for game development.

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#22 Post by Zanzibar »

Ditto to what emrys said above. Just because I suggested we use resources/specials like moo 3 doesn't mean we can't use other systems as well. I'm very much in favor of resources/specials giving you some bonus or penalty (or a combination of bonuses and/or penalties). Just because you don't have a specific resource like dilithium crystals shouldn't make it a game killer. However, having something like dilithium crystals could for example give you a +2 to speed on the galaxy map, +1 to speed in combat and like, -5% to morale (they have to be mined using slave labor). Or well, something like that. Would make life rather interesting, anyways. Of course, if we are going to do something like that (2 bonuses and a negative) we should also allow the player and AI to choose whether or not they want to USE that resource/special or not. Just my $.02 worth.
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#23 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Ok, sorry if I misinterpreted the intended exclusivity of anyone's proposals. :? I shall endevour to mentally insert an "also" where appropriate for the remainder of this thread.

I guess this particular subject is more open to a variety of simultaneously included options than most... usually someone advocating a position is in favour of that position and not any of the others, partly because there can be only one chosen. :shock:

In my defence, Davebaby seemed to get a similar vibe:
Davebaby wrote:Of course, you could have a mix resource types, i.e.
... unless I misinterpreted that as well... :?

emrys: Wouldn't you need to list things that would work before you could compile a list of what was possible? ... unless possible is a much weaker condition than working... though it seems rather unlikely that something that wouldn't work has much of possibility of being included :P

I think in this case, listing as many options as possible, and knocking some off the list for whatever reason would be a good way to go. I assume we want a variety, so listing all possibilities seems like a good way to achieve that... (Though I'm not sure I see the distinction anyway...)

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#24 Post by emrys »

'Possible' is indeed a much weaker condition than 'work' (i.e. work succesfully, in this game, without causing major headaches)

e.g. A 'vital resource, of which there is only a very limited number of sources (or one), which you must have at a particular stage of the game in order to stand a chance of being competative' idea is possible, but it's also not going to work...

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