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Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/23/2005 7:49:48 PM   
bluemonday

 

Posts: 233
Joined: 6/20/2005
Status: offline 		This is a fun game, but after numerous playings (both solo and PBEM) I'm left wondering why a lot of things were done the way they were. The suggestions I have are structurally too fundamental to be incorporated into any CoG patch even if the designers agree with all of them, buit I think for future releases, you guys should consider some things. Just my opinion, feel free to disregard.

1. The game design feels way out of balance. CoG seems to be primarily a wargame in what the player can do that matters. The whole game is driven by the military movements, obviously. Yet the number of choices in the military game is surprisingly small: move your armies/corps, place depots ... and that's about it. In most games, my turn takes less than five minutes. That's not bad in itself, but it shows that in a game with so much detail, a lot of that detail is pointless.

2. By contrast, the economic game, which has so much opportunity for player interaction, actually doesn't need it. I have the option to manipulate all sorts of sliders, but in practice I rarely touch them after turn 1. I used to be really anxious for the release of the "economic primer." Now, I totally don't care because I realize it doesn't matter at all. The economy just runs on autopilot apart from some gross manipulations like changing the tax rate. Yet there are so many things in here that are differentiated for reasons unknown to me. Why are Luxuries and Spice separate items if they're both controlled by the same slider? Likewise, most developments don't really make much of a difference. There are some you really need in certain cases (Barracks) and some that are pretty much useless relative to ultimate return-on-investment (Banks/Farms). This is because the games generally end long before any of this infrastucture investment pays off. And even in long games, these end up not having much direct impact on your turn-to-turn considerations. Note that the most important improvement is directly tied to military, and thus one of the most important considerations in the game (Upgrades) is a military consideration, which reinforces point #1 above. This is a wargame, but without enough ways to actually get involved in the war.

3. The diplomatic game, which should be a big part of the game, has far too few options in some areas and too many in others. Feudal Rights and Royal Weddings seem to be relatively worthless in most situations because the most games don't last long enough for them to matter, yet there are numerous times when the system feels too crude for me to achieve anything I need to. Coordination with allies is a big problem, and while I may spend years building up good relations with a nation, someone else can easily get that nation to declare war on me (even if the two nations hate each other) by offering some long-term Free Passage rights, which under rational circumstances would be considered totally worthless. In a period where so much depended on diplomacy, this is a major disappointment.

Rather than creating a game that simulated the Napoleonic Wars, I feel like the designers created a program that simulated the Napoleonic Wars in that so much goes on without the player's input (or even concern) that I often feel like I'm only manipulating the top layer of a system that in many respects is moving along without me, but because it is so static, I don't really care.

In the next game, I'd carefully consider what effects you want to have and then evaluate each aspect in terms of player decisions. If the player chooses this avenue, what will the effects be? If the answer ends up being "well, not much in the end," just abstract that part out. There is nothing more pointless than micromanagement than doesn't even give you any tangible effect. That way, you can concentrate your development time on building systems that really matter. Having things go on "under the hood" is fine, but they should be presented to the player at a level where his input matters. Showing a bunch of irrelevant factors isn't helpful: combine them and present them as an aggregate effect.

I have no opinion on the tweaks to make the game more "historical" by restricting the movement of Turkish fleets so they don't end up in the Baltic. That's fine if you want to do it. But note that of all the suggestions players have been posting about the game (for improvements, not necessarily bug fixes), 99% of them have had to do with military matters (corps doctrine, troop types, etc.). That part of the game needs to be seriously fleshed out. The other parts need to be constructed so that they interact efficiently with this part, not so that they float along separately, having an overall effect but not really being part of the game the player is playing.
Post #: 1
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/23/2005 9:20:36 PM   
sage

 

Posts: 204
Joined: 8/5/2004
Status: offline 		From what I've played, I agree that the economic game seems to be over complex. Complexity is not a bad thing, but, as you point out, when it doesn't actually matter very much, it's unnecessary. In this case, the detail just seems to add confusion (that's not resolved by the manual).

One of the things I love about Sid Meier's games is that the games are very complex, but have nothing unecessary. By unecessary, I mean "mucking with <blank> is irrelevant or ineffective".

(in reply to bluemonday)
Post #: 2
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/23/2005 9:31:14 PM   
ericbabe


Posts: 11927
Joined: 3/23/2005
Status: offline 		The design rubric was that players should be able mostly to ignore their economies if they chose to do so (with the exception of money and food spent for supply), and that tinkering with the economy should be mainly about getting bonus resources, squeezing a bit extra out of what you get if you choose to ignore the economy. Since Sid Meier was mentioned, an analogy might be to the city screens in the Civilization games in which you can either accept the default income the AI picks for you, or else -- if you choose to -- rearrange the income yourself in order to fine-tune your economy.


Eric



(in reply to bluemonday)
Post #: 3
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/23/2005 10:04:37 PM   
bluemonday

 

Posts: 233
Joined: 6/20/2005
Status: offline
quote:

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

Since Sid Meier was mentioned, an analogy might be to the city screens in the Civilization games in which you can either accept the default income the AI picks for you, or else -- if you choose to -- rearrange the income yourself in order to fine-tune your economy.

Understood - that's a good design rubric. HOWEVER, it breaks down here because

(a) there are a lot more resources (some of which are duplicated - I really don't get the two kinds of luxuries thing)

(b) much more importantly, the resources in the Civ games only affected the city they were being produced in. Thus, moving one settler from a food-producing square to a shield-producing square could increase your production 3x (and cut your growth to zero). The scale of production was relative to that one city. In CoG there is nothing like this effect because everything is dumped into one giant pool. So in order to increase my production of x by an amount that is significant for any given purpose, I have to go through numerous cities, cranking up x and dialing down y and/or z. Often, it just isn't worth it so I try to use other game mechanics to shortcut it. Why worry about horse production when I can just go attack some Russian cav divisions and make them surrender (easy in Detailed Combat)? So the economic system feels more and more irrelevant.

I'm not suggesting that the answer is to make the production scales dependent on individual cities/provinces -- I'm saying that given the "total resource pool" that is obviously the most "realistic" method of depicting production is what is trying to be a historical game, the Sid Meier city formula doesn't work. You need a new paradigm, and it needs to be balanced internally. Right now it is not.

I agree that the economy can be left mostly to its own devices, but when you introduce so much detail, having it run itself makes it feel irrelevant if it can't be profitably manipulated a good portion of the time. The manipulations needed to manage food and money are far too many for the payoff. Each mouseclick/slider change by a player needs to mean more. In the Civ example, one switch was huge, and you ended up doing it fairly frequently (to build a unit you needed, or to crank up population). Here, it takes 20 switches. And it's not even huge in the end, just adequate.

(in reply to ericbabe)
Post #: 4
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/24/2005 3:51:52 AM   
Alaric_31

 

Posts: 65
Joined: 7/5/2005
Status: offline 		Greetings, i think is about difficulty in a greater degree than any other factor in the game, playing in easy or easiest give you very much resources and impact on what resources to produce, the game have a great potential, but play as sweden at power -3 in the hardest level and with all others powers at +3 and your impact in the game will be marginal at it's best, not bad thing, another problem is that most players seek fast game short terms, but again the game can be played trough 180 months, with 180 months and without limit in victory conditions (highest glory at end wins) you have much time to see what impact your developments cause in the game, i want to say, respectfull for yours oppinions that games at 1000 glory can be finish very fast, when a battle can give a nation around 50 glory and a surrender gives around 100, one more thing to say for multiplayer games, i have test that in a game with all nations set to human player the difficult setting still affect the income output, i encourage strong that if you want to have a greater impact in the game play at easiest difficulty rather than in default setting.

with my best regards,

alaric.

_____________________________

There is no plan of battle that survives the contact with the enemy.

(in reply to bluemonday)
Post #: 5
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/24/2005 4:30:32 PM   
Uxbridge


Posts: 1505
Joined: 2/8/2004
From: Uppsala, Sweden
Status: offline 		It seems some people are annoyed because there is a lot you can do with the economic system, but with very little effect (I'm now refering to several posts in general, more than this one in particular). Personally I don't agree with this disappointment. The historic time span of the game is short, 1792-1815. That any nation could do much to alter their economic posture in that brief period seems very unrealistic to begin with. Therefore I like the fact that new installations take long to establish and even longer to take effect.

Also, it's fundamentally a game of military strategy, not an empire building Age of Empires or Civ. The fact that the economy is there, though, running mostly by itself in the background, excludes the need of odd and abstract game objects. I don't think the economy should be there for players to create huge monster economies, but as a target for the opponent to try to destroy.

Whether the economic model really works or not, however, I can't tell until someone tells me how ...


(in reply to Alaric_31)
Post #: 6
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/24/2005 6:47:41 PM   
bluemonday

 

Posts: 233
Joined: 6/20/2005
Status: offline 		I know you're not just replying to me, but my objection is not that you "should" be able to build your nation into an ahistorical economic powerhouse using the economic system - simply that there is no reason to build such a system into the game if the player's impact on it is so limited. Doesn't it seem odd to put something into a game that is largely out of the player's control?

As for "odd and abstract game objects," we can argue the definition of "odd," but there are plenty of abstract and arbitrary objects in the game as it stands. Consuming luxuries (why three types? why not two or four?) to increase National Morale? Everything in the game is an abstraction at some level. My argument is that it's much better to abstract out things that the player isn't involved with, unless you see the game not as a game, but some kind of Napoleonic world simulator. And I would then argue that as a simulator, the game needs a lot of work because whatever economic simulation it achieves is made irrelevant by the diplomatic nonsense that happens, as well as the ahistorical behaviors (Turkish fleets in the Channel, etc.)

It seems silly to me to spend the development resources on a game system as detailed as the econ in CoG and then not have players be able to have much impact on it. What a waste of resources, no? They could have been better spent on improving the military systems. And the more complicated you make something, the more likely you are to simply confuse the player. One guy posted that he is done with the game until WCS explain the econ because he can't even feed his population and has no idea how all the numbers are interacting. I don't see the point of including detail that the player cannot really use.

You say the game is "fundamentally a game of military strategy" yet it's actually fairly abstract in that respect. It doesn't make much sense to me to design a game of military strategy where the economic system is more detailed than the military system, and then to have the economic system be mostly beyond the player's reach. I think it's bad design. Games are all about abstraction. Good design is about carefully choosing what to abstract and what to model in detail. The idea that a designer would choose to model something in detail in a strategy game that can confound the player, but which the player has very limited control over, doesn't make much sense to me.

Again, if the econ system is meant to be "historically accurate" in limiting what economic options/effects are possible, that's fine. To me, that is a perfect reason to make it as streamlined as possible.

And to answer Alaric's point about turning the difficulty level down to have more impact, that's not a solution because (1) I'm not looking to necessarily artificially increase the impact I have - I just want to have the impact be commensurate with the level of detail I'm forced to deal with, and (2) at lower difficulty levels there is no need to do anything but move your armies around - everything else totally takes care of itself. So while there may be more opportunity to have more economic impact at lower difficulty levels, it paradoxically is even less important.

(in reply to Uxbridge)
Post #: 7
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/24/2005 8:09:56 PM   
Titanwarrior89


Posts: 3283
Joined: 8/28/2003
From: arkansas
Status: offline 		I agree with you! Overall I wouldn't change a whole lot of the automatic econ system. It needs some tweeks but I would not make any major changes to it. I like it.
quote:

ORIGINAL: Uxbridge

It seems some people are annoyed because there is a lot you can do with the economic system, but with very little effect (I'm now refering to several posts in general, more than this one in particular). Personally I don't agree with this disappointment. The historic time span of the game is short, 1792-1815. That any nation could do much to alter their economic posture in that brief period seems very unrealistic to begin with. Therefore I like the fact that new installations take long to establish and even longer to take effect.

Also, it's fundamentally a game of military strategy, not an empire building Age of Empires or Civ. The fact that the economy is there, though, running mostly by itself in the background, excludes the need of odd and abstract game objects. I don't think the economy should be there for players to create huge monster economies, but as a target for the opponent to try to destroy.

Whether the economic model really works or not, however, I can't tell until someone tells me how ...





_____________________________

"Before Guadalcanal the enemy advanced at his pleasure. After Guadalcanal, he retreated at ours".

"Mama, There's Rabbits in the Garden"

(in reply to Uxbridge)
Post #: 8
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/24/2005 8:41:57 PM   
bluemonday

 

Posts: 233
Joined: 6/20/2005
Status: offline 		What do you like about it? Just the kind of simcity feeling of role-playing immersion?

(in reply to Titanwarrior89)
Post #: 9
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/24/2005 8:44:43 PM   
Uxbridge


Posts: 1505
Joined: 2/8/2004
From: Uppsala, Sweden
Status: offline 		Why do I always have to break my own rule of listening but never talk. Now look what happened!

Your’re quite right about many of the issues you’re addresing as not being quite to ones liking. I have been frustrated about many things too. Some nights ago I played as Sweden, allied to Prussia and Austria and being at war with Russia. We were all fighting on Russian soil, when suddenly I realised that Russian armies were fighting around Hanover at the same time as Prussian armies were outside Smolensk (!) …

I’m also very irritated about some issues in detailed battle. You start with no inclination on the enemys whereabouts and in no battleorder worthy of the name. If by chance the enemy is there, he’s usually next to your undefended wagon park. And there are several things stated in the manual that I can’t figure out how to do. yes, there you go …

Since I’m not really in disagreement with you, and since I was adressing the opinion that it is bad that one can’t do more with the economy in general, I will refrain from going into debate about this.

I suppose that in many ways it’s a matter of taste. When I bought this game, it was with a hope that it would in some way portray the Napoleonic period. So your term ”Napoleonic simulator” is not too far off the point. If CoG had been about a war in space, with the exact same game engine, but with soldiers replaced by flying machines and provinces by planets, I would never even have looked at it. The Napoleonic times has always fascinated me; not only the battles, but everything around them as well. I am of the opinion that economy, home polictics, diplomacy and war made up the Napoleonic wars, and that they should all be there in the game. Even if economy is dull, wich it should be, I like it were it is.

It is very possible that the economic model should have been made in a completely other way, thought. I don’t know the game well enough to say yet. But, all in all, I think CoG is the best try to portray the Napoleonic wars yet to have been released for computer use, and I dearly hope that most of the major issues concerning it will be worked out between the developer, testers and players.

(in reply to Titanwarrior89)
Post #: 10
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/24/2005 8:47:19 PM   
Uxbridge


Posts: 1505
Joined: 2/8/2004
From: Uppsala, Sweden
Status: offline 		My reply above was to BlueMonday, not TitanWarrior. I started writing (slow), ate, and then someone got in between. Sorry.

(in reply to Uxbridge)
Post #: 11
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/24/2005 10:38:11 PM   
bluemonday

 

Posts: 233
Joined: 6/20/2005
Status: offline 		Got it. I would just clarify that when I meant "Napoleonic simulator" I meant that as a term to distinuish it from a Nepoleonic "game." Obviously, both are about Napoleonics. But to me, a game is all about the player, whereas a simulator is about creating systems that model real-life interactions and generate "realistic" results without regard for elegance or player interaction or the idea of gameplay. Something may not be very interesting from a gameplay standpoint in a simulator, but if it models real-life behavior accurately, it's not so important that it's not fun. So that was what I meant: if people are just looking to see detail because it makes them feel that the game is "really" taking into account these various factors, even though you have little control over them, that's fine. But it's not what I'm looking for in a game.

And it goes without saying that a simulator is trying to model events as closely as possible to what historically could have happened. So the wacky events currently possible in the game don't make it a very good "simulator," yet the limited ways the player can interact with CoG don't make it as good a "game" as it could be.

(in reply to Uxbridge)
Post #: 12
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/24/2005 10:54:44 PM   
mogami


Posts: 12789
Joined: 8/23/2000
From: You can't get here from there
Status: offline 		Hi, I am still confused a bit.
1. DO players think they cannot in just 3 or 4 years totally moderize their economy? (I have now done this playing all 8 nations. The key is simple DON'T try it during a major war. But if you can get 3 or 4 years peace your Army will be the largest in the game.
I think the economic model is far too generous regarding the process of turning pre industrial revolution feudal economies into something designed and ran by Albert Speer.
Here we have a Europe that in peacetime was always on the verge of famine solving all it's problems while also engaged in the largest conflict in history to that point.
The players in COG can forget the war and just build their nation. Doing this provides enough points to stay in second or third place while transforming your Army into a well trained high morale and large force that when the time comes can be unleashed.
So anyone who thinks they can't actually use the COG system for development or to manage their economy has not been playing the same game I am. You have far too much control for it to be realistic. However it is fun. Since the motives for the conflicts is missing COG is really an 8 nation free for all. The more humans in a game the more fun it becomes because while they may not be historic Alliances Alliances are one of the keys to the game. In a 8 human game of COG no solotaire nation can win. The best Alliance will win.
Solo against the AI it is simply the AI dogpiling onto the nation with the highest score. SO it is sound to not be in 1st place. Just stay at peace and develop. Then when your army is the most advanced and largest you crush the AI.

(In online or PBEM games it is important not to pick one of the nations already at war. Of course the 1805 scenario is too short to see the development method fully. The 1792 scenario has France/Prussia/Austria at war. The other 5 nations can remain aloof and simply build while those 3 kill one another.)

< Message edited by Mogami -- 7/24/2005 11:03:21 PM >

_____________________________






I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!

(in reply to bluemonday)
Post #: 13
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/24/2005 11:35:17 PM   
bluemonday

 

Posts: 233
Joined: 6/20/2005
Status: offline 		I think you misunderstand what I mean by "the economic system." Obviously, you need to build developments to upgrade your military abilities, but as I pointed out in the first post in this thread, this is mostly about upgrading a very few provinces and building a high-morale army and that's it. Most of the things to build are not worth it. The choices are very obvious, leaving a lot of choices totally unused.

To reiterate my complaint about the economic system: there is too much detail and too much going on with resources and resource management that is stereotyped and irrelevant to the player. Once I set my production of resources I almost never change it. I also have certain upgrades in certain provinces that I build, and know going into the game that these are the only builds that make sense. There are lots of provincial developments but many of these are totally superfluous. Of course you can make improvements to your economy, but they are always the same, and 90% of the things in the game don't matter to gameplay. It would have been better to keep the remaining 10% and develop the game around them.

(in reply to mogami)
Post #: 14
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 3:13:09 AM   
ericbabe


Posts: 11927
Joined: 3/23/2005
Status: offline 		Thanks for your feedback on all this. I am looking at new economic models for other engines, so am keenly interested in input on this issue.


quote:


(a) there are a lot more resources (some of which are duplicated - I really don't get the two kinds of luxuries thing)


Some parts of the COG economy I'm very pleased with, other parts I'd redo if I were redesigning the game. (The economy did go through two major re-designs.) I tend to like games with big complicated economies that so interwoven that it becomes hard to wrap your brain around them -- I was a big fan of the old "Guns and Butter" game, for instance, which was mostly an enormous flow chart of resources. I'm getting the sense, however, that most people would prefer a simpler economy that is more responsive to their control. In sequels we will move toward simpler economic models...

quote:


(b) much more importantly, the resources in the Civ games only affected the city they were being produced in. Thus, moving one settler from a food-producing square to a shield-producing square could increase your production 3x (and


In the versions of Civilization that I played things like lightbulbs and gold were produced in the cities but accumulated at the national level.


quote:


because everything is dumped into one giant pool. So in order to increase my production of x by an amount that is significant for any given purpose, I have to go through numerous cities, cranking up x and dialing down y and/or z. Often, it just isn't worth it so I try to use other game mechanics to shortcut it.


This was how it was in the Civ that I played. When I wanted technology faster I had to flip through each city and pick the squares that gave more lightbulbs, click to get scientists in each city, etc.


quote:


Why worry about horse production when I can just go attack some Russian cav divisions and make them surrender (easy in Detailed Combat)? So the economic system feels more and more irrelevant.


Well, surrendered cav may provide too many horses. I could decrease it... it's currently 50 horses, I think; could be as low as 15 maybe. I also think artillery are too easy to capture.

quote:


I'm not suggesting that the answer is to make the production scales dependent on individual cities/provinces -- I'm saying that given the "total resource pool" that is obviously the most "realistic" method of depicting production is what is trying to be a historical game, the Sid Meier city formula doesn't work.


Well we pool resources nationally simply so that the player with 50 provinces under his control doesn't have 600 separate resource pools to keep track of. That would actually be more realistic -- having separate levels of horses in each province -- but it would make the game less enjoyable.

quote:


You need a new paradigm, and it needs to be balanced internally.


I'm not quite sure what you mean by "balanced internally." It sounds good...


quote:


I agree that the economy can be left mostly to its own devices, but when you introduce so much detail, having it run itself makes it feel irrelevant if it can't be profitably manipulated a good portion of the time. The manipulations needed to manage food and money are far too many for the payoff. Each mouseclick/slider change by a player needs to mean more.


Well, admittedly there are plenty of sliders that can be changed that have little effect on the economy. I guess I just don't have this experience when I play the game -- tend to increase food production with just a few changes to a few provinces, for example.


quote:


In the Civ example, one switch was huge, and you ended up doing it fairly frequently (to build a unit you needed, or to crank up population). Here, it takes 20 switches. And it's not even huge in the end, just adequate.


In Civ when I had, say, 30 cities and wanted to increase scientific output maximally I'd have to tweak each city by hand...just increasing lightbulbs in one of the thirty cities wouldn't make any difference in the number of turns it took to get the next tech.

In COG, I guess I just never do anything that takes 20 adjustments of labor allocation. Some of our beta testers in-house love to sit to poke at their labor allocation pools in our m-player games endlessly (or until we shout at them). I figure it is a matter of playing style.


Eric


(in reply to bluemonday)
Post #: 15
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 3:17:01 AM   
mogami


Posts: 12789
Joined: 8/23/2000
From: You can't get here from there
Status: offline 		Hi, As Russia I build developments in every province. A single development can be complteted in 2 to 6 months meaning in the 3 years 1792-1795 every province gets at least 6 improvements. The exception are the already largely developed provinces. (The only provininces where you can't do a worth while development other then barracks are those that begin already developed)

Austria has a large number of mostly undeveloped provinces.
Spain
Turkey

Britain only has 9 provinces half of them are well developed.

I don't think I could set production on turn 1 in 1792 and never adjust it all the way to 1807 (my economy would be a shambles) I do a lot of adjusting. It does matter how many provinces I have producing wine or spice. It impacts my trade, my future developments. as well as my Army.

Are you just playing the 1805 scenario

Developments are simple what it takes 5 people to do at level 1 1 can do at level 5. (Or building from level 1 to level 5 results in 5 times the output. )


< Message edited by Mogami -- 7/25/2005 3:19:36 AM >

_____________________________






I'm not retreating, I'm attacking in a different direction!

(in reply to bluemonday)
Post #: 16
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 4:59:13 AM   
Uncle_Joe


Posts: 1985
Joined: 8/26/2004
Status: offline 		For feedback purposes, I'd say that a pretty good functional and fun economic system can be found in either Imperialism or Imperialism 2 (by SSI). While neither was hyper-realistic, they both allowed for an awful lot of diversity. There was a lot of player input and a lot of sense of accomplishment as the game progressed.

What I would love to see is a game that has the simple elegance of the Imperialism (1&2) econ model but with a deeper diplomatic and military system of more recent titles like CoG.

Currently, CoG's econ model is so 'black box' that the player is guessing what to do rather than deciding. Sure, you can upgrade 'x' or 'y', but there is no concrete knowledge of what that will do. Compare that to the simpler (in some ways) econ in Imperialism 2 and you can see where I think it fails. The player feels more or less along for the ride, maybe giving vague directions and hoping for the best. In the Imp2 model, the player is in the driver's seat.

Also, Imperialism (2)'s econ model was 'national'. You didnt have to monkey around with 8 sliders in 22 different provinces (176 sliders...). You had one main production screen, one main industry screen, and one main transport screen. You made improvements on the game map by using various specialists. These in turn showed up on the other screens in the form of increased resources or production.

All in all, I think that CoG's econ system might work, but without having some form of hard knowledge as to what you are doing, its just guesswork, not decision-making. That can be called 'realistic' if you want, but its not fun (IMO). I'd rather have fewer things to fool with and have the effects be more noticeable.

Player FEEDBACK is the best line of defense for a complex system. If random factors are affecting something, spell them out. Without knowledge of what is influencing what and which things are in your control and which arent, its easy to grow frustrated and lose interest in the econ system completely. I know I did just that in the beta and I suspected it would happen to others that crave understanding the nuts and bolts of the system.

At any rate, I suspect that a lot of things running behind the scenes in CoG's econ are going to require a bit of tweaking. Currently we cant even give good feedback on that because I dont think anyone truly understands the econ. We can sense trends and make broad strokes, but any form of hard analysis is impossible at the moment. Even players who have had the game for a LONG time (like Ralegh) are doing a lot more things by 'feel' rather than by knowing that 'x' action will have 'y' reaction.

I'm still looking forward to the econ primer and the first few patches help out. Until then, I'm playing here and there and testing for bugs, but I cant really get deep into the game while I still have no real idea of how the underlying mechanics work. The number of posts expressing frustration recently informs me that I'm not alone either. Here's hoping we can help turn the game into something that has a lot of replay value and can be the base from which future titles can spring!

_____________________________


(in reply to ericbabe)
Post #: 17
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 5:34:53 AM   
Ron

 

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quote:

I'm getting the sense, however, that most people would prefer a simpler economy that is more responsive to their control. In sequels we will move toward simpler economic models...


Why? Because of a handful of the most vocal? To be honest I am suprised by your response. I for one don't want "a simpler economy that is more responsive to their control" nor do I look to Sid Meier as the god of historical design nor the Civ games as the paradigm of historical simulation. If you "tend to like games with big complicated economies that so interwoven that it becomes hard to wrap your brain around them" then make them and I will buy them just like I bought CoG. My sentiments regards the economy echo Mogami's in many ways. Yes write the economy 'white paper' so we can get a better feel of the underpinnings of the game and tweak/fix what needs to be done, but don't dumb it down or spell it out in black and white so any dolt can figure it out. I'm reminded from several years ago when CM first came out and the cries of those who wanted CM to be something it wasn't, who wanted the 'black box' to be transparent etc etc. The designers of CM listened to that what matched their vision of the game and ignored the rest.



Ron


(in reply to Uncle_Joe)
Post #: 18
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 6:03:34 AM   
Ralegh


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quote:

ericbabe
I'm getting the sense, however, that most people would prefer a simpler economy that is more responsive to their control. In sequels we will move toward simpler economic models...


Eric - please DO NOT do this. You are very very close to a really really good economic system.

a) The complaint is that too much of the stuff has too little impact - thats a valid complaint.
--- Buildings: Its OK for some buildings to be powerful over the long haul and others to give immediate benefits, and still other buildings to only be worthwhile in certain cities (ports and banks for example). We need to clarify this for the players however, and a few need to be rebalanced. [eric and I have a seperate discussion on using COURTS against waste, and improving the impact of banks/farms/factories by letting them influence waste over the goods they influence]
--- Goods:

  • Wool and Cotton are completely interchangeable, and there is soo much of it in the game that they are silly. Make a textile require (3 wool) or (1 wool and 1 cotton) and this will change fast.
  • IMHO Timber, Iron, Spice, Luxeries and even Wine/Horses work fine - they are issues for some countries but not others, there are things you can do about them, etc etc.
  • Food is a pain just beause the game doesn't warn you when supply will cause population die off - an adviser should warn you when you hit End Turn, giving you a chance to go back and fix it up. Otherwise it is fine.
  • I remain of the view that the extra consuption of textiles should give the player something - NML or culture or cash: SOMETHING. I am also of the view that waste on textiles is too high, but agree that you having a different view is reasonable.



b) You have advisers for people who don't know or couldn't be bothered, and detailed control for people who want that. This is EXCELLENT. All we really want is to reduce the laboriousness of the month-to-month interactions. I often think I would like a more streamlined approach, but the area that really needs it is trade, not province control. There are a few places where the info the user needs to make decisions could be made available ont he screen where they do things - stuff like that is actually cosmetic.

c) Some players would like to understand how the numbers are generated - you can choose to do that, or not, as you wish. It is certainly a fact that the people at the time didn't really understand how the numbers came about (and I would argue that economics still don't!). The BUG is that many of the numbers that are provided don't go together in any obvious way - on one report it is gross and on a screen it is net, in one place it is last months actuals and in another this months prediction, all without any clue to player of what is acutally happening.

d) If you want to do something cool to enhance the eco in sequels, [assuming we have clarified the screens/reports by then] think about the user giving the adviser instructions - he could be given priorities (use x percent of labour to build up buildings, aiming to improve our cash flow for example; use y percent of labour to produce goods for trade). [Some of the logic the advisers used could be reused by the AI - if indeed you don't have some this code already.]

_____________________________

HTH
Steve/Ralegh

(in reply to ericbabe)
Post #: 19
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 6:35:30 AM   
jchastain


Posts: 2164
Joined: 8/8/2003
From: Marietta, GA
Status: offline 		As usual, I agree with Ralegh. Don't dumb the game down, just rationalize a few of the components that are slightly out of balance and provide better warnings for players when something is seriously out of whack.

(in reply to Ralegh)
Post #: 20
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 6:52:44 AM   
TheHellPatrol


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Ralegh

quote:

ericbabe
I'm getting the sense, however, that most people would prefer a simpler economy that is more responsive to their control. In sequels we will move toward simpler economic models...


Eric - please DO NOT do this. You are very very close to a really really good economic system.


I agree, why stoop down to a lower level and be a follower instead of a leader? Learning the economy <cough>, let me rephrase that: Getting more familiar with the economy was a major struggle for me at first and like Uncle Joe i had all but given up due to frustration and the overwhelming appearance of COG as a whole. Many hours later i must say that the economy is one of the greatest features for people like me who are micromanaging orientated. No i don't know why "x" gives "y" for certain, but i do know that a little of both with some "z" thrown in for good measure should be sufficient.
I want something i can wrap my brain around, and as Ralegh pointed out, people have the advisors if they want simpler just like they have a choice of quickbattles vs. hexwar.
As i have stated in the beginning: Textiles and Waste MUST be tweaked/changed, they are too hard to get in quantity when you consider how much you lose to waste. Your on the right path, the Player needs more info at his disposal...not less details.


_____________________________

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Henry David Thoreau

(in reply to Ralegh)
Post #: 21
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 6:57:04 AM   
Uncle_Joe


Posts: 1985
Joined: 8/26/2004
Status: offline 		There is a HUGE difference between 'dumbing down' and 'making it comprehensible'. Just because a system is complex, it does not have to be cryptic. IMO, make it as complex as you want, but provide the player with the information needed to make sound decisions. Having a complex system that no one really understands is just smoke and mirrors IMO. Also, how the heck can you even tell if there IS bug anywhere in it when players cant figure out what the results are supposed to be (the variance in the reports and turn to turn outpout are HUGE).

Complexity for complexity's sake is bad. If there are real decisions to be made in that complexity, then its fine (of course not every player wants lots of complexity but that is another matter). If the resource system were to be finely balanced such that the player had to juggle this and that to make it work out to his advantage, thats OK IMO. But I'd say about half of the resources in the game are pretty irrelevant or require little or no player interaction after the initial setting is done.

At any rate, obviously no game can be all things to all people. I'm sure a lot of folks really dig on the current 'black box' econ. If that is the intent of the econ, then thats fine...make the numbers consistant and let it go. If the player is intended to have real (educated) input into this aspect of the game, there is a good bit of work to be done IMO.

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(in reply to jchastain)
Post #: 22
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 7:03:02 AM   
TheHellPatrol


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe

Also, how the heck can you even tell if there IS bug anywhere in it when players cant figure out what the results are supposed to be (the variance in the reports and turn to turn outpout are HUGE).

I thought i was the only oneLOL. For a control freak like myself i was losing sleep over COG...trying to fill in the blanks.


_____________________________

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Henry David Thoreau

(in reply to Uncle_Joe)
Post #: 23
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 5:15:38 PM   
ericbabe


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quote:

ORIGINAL: TheHellPatrol
Also, how the heck can you even tell if there IS bug anywhere in it when players cant figure out what the results are supposed to be (the variance in the reports and turn to turn outpout are HUGE).


I think all this is is simply the difference between gross and net, combined with the fact that economic production is variable. I admit this is not as clear as it should be, and for the second patch I want to produce a master report showing gross-to-net for each resource.


Eric

(in reply to TheHellPatrol)
Post #: 24
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 5:15:46 PM   
ericbabe


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe
There is a HUGE difference between 'dumbing down' and 'making it comprehensible'. Just because a system is complex, it does not ...


I agree, but it's easier to comprehend (and to make comprehensible) simpler systems. I just don't hear any feedback from people who prefer the complicated economic model, and it takes up a lot of development time and UI space.

I don't mean to say we should have a completely dumb model, but one where cause/effect are more simply correlated. For instance, presently farms give +10% food production...which sometimes results in a zero increase in food production, which is made even more complicated because this might only be an average of a zero increase, since .1 food production corresponds to a 10% chance of producing a bonus food. Something better might simply be "1 level of farms = +1 food" and then perhaps wrap the cost of the farm improvement into the base food production level of the province, so that it's easier to build farms in Ukraine than in, say, Benghazi or Norway.


Eric

(in reply to Uncle_Joe)
Post #: 25
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 5:15:53 PM   
ericbabe


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quote:


Eric - please DO NOT do this. You are very very close to a really really good economic system.


Thanks for that, and I agree with every point of your analysis for improvements to the system, but I think you and I are the only ones in the Cosmos who have this opinion.


Eric

(in reply to Ralegh)
Post #: 26
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 5:15:58 PM   
ericbabe


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Uncle_Joe
Currently, CoG's econ model is so 'black box' that the player is guessing what to do rather than deciding. Sure, you can upgrade 'x' or 'y', but there is no concrete knowledge of what that will do. Compare that to the simpler (in some ways) econ in ...


The notion I had was that players should be able to understand the economy in terms of "this helps that" -- build farms to increase food, send out merchants to increase money, etc. The notion was that with experience players should then be able to figure out the relative strengths and weaknesses of the various causes and effects. Even when I put out a whitepaper on the economy, you'll still have to solve some polynomials to figure out the exact numbers for your economic plans. For my game playing style, this is pure bliss, but I've gotten the strong impression from user feedback that this is just too much for players, that players don't enjoy working with an economy for which they have to develop a feel based on experience. (I like economics though...I often relax after a long day's work by looking for patterns in statistics on nationmaster.com.) As mentioned, the economy shall be simplified in future sequels.


Eric

(in reply to Uncle_Joe)
Post #: 27
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 5:16:04 PM   
ericbabe


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quote:


Why? Because of a handful of the most vocal? To be honest I am suprised by your response. I for one don't want "a simpler economy that is more responsive to their control" nor do I look to Sid Meier as the god of historical design nor the Civ games ...


Hi Ron,

Thanks for that. The decision to dumb the economy down in sequels is based on the dozens of users who have posted that they think it too complicated / hard to grasp combined with the fact that I have never read a single post in praise of the complicated economy. Also factored into this decision is that complicated economic rules take much, much longer to balance and tweak than simpler economic rules. I spent weeks simply running the game and tweaking production values and economic constants to try to get relative production values that would make the economy interesting and roughly in line with what I could gather were historical production levels.

Eric



(in reply to Ron)
Post #: 28
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 7:03:28 PM   
bluemonday

 

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quote:

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

Thanks for your feedback on all this. I am looking at new economic models for other engines, so am keenly interested in input on this issue.

Thanks for the detailed replies.


quote:


I tend to like games with big complicated economies that so interwoven that it becomes hard to wrap your brain around them -- I was a big fan of the old "Guns and Butter" game, for instance, which was mostly an enormous flow chart of resources.

That's fine, but I think it has much less appeal than something with more player control. Again, I'm not arguing that I should be able to build Turkey into an economic powerhouse (although paradoxically in the 1792 scenario, I can) but that things I can't change should be part of the underlying system, and the things I can change should be more obvious and accessible.

quote:


In the versions of Civilization that I played things like lightbulbs and gold were produced in the cities but accumulated at the national level.

Yes, but in CoG there are no comparable resources to lightbulbs (research) so this really isn't a good basis for comparison. And gold, while it accumulates at a national level, isn't manipulated with sliders except for feedback from other sliders. So the two examples you cite don't compare to CoG models. The two things in Civ that compare to CoG are food and shields, with the latter being roughly horses/iron/timber etc. In each of those cases, they accumulated at the city level in Civ, but accumulate at the national level in CoG. Thus, much more manipulation is required for the same effect.

quote:

quote:


You need a new paradigm, and it needs to be balanced internally.


I'm not quite sure what you mean by "balanced internally." It sounds good...

You actually illustrated exactly what it means in one of your responses: "Well, surrendered cav may provide too many horses. I could decrease it... it's currently 50 horses, I think; could be as low as 15 maybe. I also think artillery are too easy to capture."

Exactly. There are two ways to obtain a resource, hard way via production, or the super-easy shortcut (capture). They are out of balance internally (wrt one another).

There are plenty of other examples in your system - like Ralegh points out, "Wool and Cotton are completely interchangeable, and there is soo much of it in the game that they are silly." Yet I can trade excess wool/textiles to other nations for far more valuable commodities - thus, there is another way to end-run balance: simply make the easy/overabundant stuff and trade it to the unwitting AI for more valuable stuff.

quote:

Something better might simply be "1 level of farms = +1 food" and then perhaps wrap the cost of the farm improvement into the base food production level of the province, so that it's easier to build farms in Ukraine than in, say, Benghazi or Norway."


And cap the level of farms for Benghazi and Norway so that they can't be developed into breadbaskets by some overzealous player willing to pay the cost, so that it first into your idea of historical production. That's the kind of relationship I would love to see, but that's just me.

If you were to keep the many details in the system, there are a lot of things that need explaining, and much, much more UI information. Heck, I'd like to see the contribution to output from each resource slider on the actual slider/summary screen. But whatever choices you make, you definitely want to set the system so you don't get counterintuitive results. The stuff I posted a while back about how I was raising a slider and it initially increased output of a resource, then decreased it, the increased it again (all while incrementally raising the same one slider) is the kind of counterintuitive thing that drives normal players nuts. My feeling is that once a system reaches the level of complication that you see this kind of interaction, something needs to be simplified, if only to assure the player that the system is actually not bugged.

EDIT: had a sentence fragment in there.

< Message edited by bluemonday -- 7/25/2005 7:06:57 PM >

(in reply to ericbabe)
Post #: 29
RE: Some thoughts and suggestions for future games - 7/25/2005 7:29:55 PM   
Naomi

 

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From: Osaka
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quote:

ORIGINAL: bluemonday

And cap the level of farms for Benghazi and Norway so that they can't be developed into breadbaskets by some overzealous player willing to pay the cost, so that it first into your idea of historical production. That's the kind of relationship I would love to see, but that's just me.

EDIT: had a sentence fragment in there.


Is base production (while others being equal) equal across provinces now? Put differently, do two provinces produce same amounts of food under equal conditions (population, farm level, etc)?

(in reply to bluemonday)
Post #: 30
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