quote: Original post by Goragoth
You are looking at this the wrong way. No, there has not been a world leader but that would be analagous to a galaxy leader in this game. Because it is in the future and people have managed to settle on many new worlds we are talking a whole different scale and if this were to truly ever happen I think that very soon individual planets would have governments and be very much like single countries are today.

Why do you think so, and who said this was set in the future?

The idea of united world governments analogous to current nations or even states/counties and Interplanetary Federations comes from the space opera genre of fiction - Star Trek and other such light fare. It is not based on reasoning or analysis; it is not science fiction (though it may qualify as sci-fi, that bastardized offspring). Ceteris paribus, what makes you think there will ever be a one-world government on Earth, for example, given our huge ethnic diversity and differences (yeah, yeah, we''re all the same under our skin; tell it to the KKK and the Black Panthers)?

quote: There would also still be incentive for trade as some raw materials may be more abundant on some planets and some planets may specialize in providing certain materials (eg food) but more importantly there would be specialization in terms of manufactured goods.

With interplanetary environments come potentially huge physiological differences (unless you pull a Star Trek and have virtually all species be humanoid), differences of anatomy and metabolism, differences of cuisine... Something as simple as manufacturing a toothbrush to fit 40,000 dental configurations becomes an industrial design nightmare. One solution is biological equivalents (see Farscape for an example), but the point is that this "huge galaxy" idea brings a ton of complications when considered beyond the cursory level.

On a higher level, who says the materials on Planet X are worth anything on Planet Y? On Earth, we may consider gold and platinum to be rare and precious metals, but on Venus (assuming there''s life), they may be the primary ingredients in their equivalent of sand. Gotta keep this in mind too.

Most importantly, though, all this focus on trade of goods with abstract entities moves away from the cardinal focus of this game: human interaction. We''re not designing a stock exchange or futures trading simulation here, we''re all about a political simulation where people wrangle and jostle for power! Power! Influence! That''s what we''re about. All this talk of militaries and killing and wiping out and going to planet X or Y or Z. Go play Warcraft or Starcraft or any of the 10 billion other unimaginative regurgitations out there. Either that or shed your preconceptions and come with an open mind to a completely different type of game, not analogous to pretty much anything you''ve seen before.

Yes, the revolution will be simucast.

quote: Original post by Diodor
As a designer you can''t control anything but the game mechanics. That''s the only thing we can discuss about. The game rules must allow human social interaction. And it is very easy to create rules that rule out the human factor.

"The game rules must allow social interaction" (emphasis mine)? Social interaction is the primary objective! Whatever rules exist do so for the explicit and sole purpose of furthering social interaction between players. Where we differ, I believe, is that I consider it possible that by leaving as much as possible up to the player, interesting gameplay will result (given the restrictions of this particular title). You, it would seem (correct me if I''m wrong), do not subscribe to this, and therefore attempt to create/ensure interesting gameplay situations. I think this is flawed because one person''s idea of "interesting" definitely differs from another, and this is what has kept me out of RTSes for so long. Tech trees and building factories and manufacturing units and destroying all entities I come across do not constitute strategy to me, nor do they make up interesting gameplay. Why do I have to go to war with them? Why can''t I reason with them? Why can''t I pack up and run away from them?

quote: I don''t understand how do moral convictions apply here. Why would I see the death of virtual civilians as a tragedy? I used to kill my own civilians in Age of Empires to replace them with military units (since the total number of units is limited) or bomb enemy planets with weapons of mass destruction in Master of Orion. It''s just a game.

Not when real people get on your case about it. Not when your actions have genuine, unpredictable repercussions. Not when other players may refuse to interact with you - effectively ostracizing you - as a result.

quote: The killing of civilians may hurt the attacker if they wouldn''t be so damn easily replacable as they were in MOO or AoE. But this is a game mechanic. Likewise, emphasising topology and knowledge of the map or approval of the people are game mechanics (and good ideas).

Yeah, well in this game you can''t "replace" units. In fact, you have no direct control over "units". Your only way of mobilizing military forces is through the channels afforded to you by your social status (member of senate, president, Navy Admiral, whatever). If you''re just a banker, you can''t mobilize national military forces at all, but you can attempt to coerce someone else (with the appropriate access) - or give them a very "compelling" reason - to do it for you. If, as a banker, you kill civilians (or really, as anyone), you face trial and a jury, but being a banker you can get a good lawyer to get you off. Even if you can and you do go to prison, you can conduct business with associates who come to visit, you can make phone calls... You might even have internet access and a library.

quote: I think we may have different definitions of "balance". In my mind, the point of "balance" is to keep the game world interesting, unpredictable.

Define interesting. Explain why it is the responsibility of the designer to keep things "interesting", and how he/she can do that when a precise defintion for "interesting" is unavailable.

quote: Many scenarios like "nuclear winter", "dark overlord", "corruption", "civilisation", etc. must be countered.

Why?

This is the part I just don''t get. If the player is going to play in a boring fashion, why should I try to throw excitement at him/her? Why can''t I just respect their preferences and leave them to their boring virtual existence - mirrors of their probably pathetic real lives (I mean, when you get domestic in a game that affords you political and economic opportunity...)

I think too many designers - and aspiring designers - feel the need to force gameplay on the gamer. Back off, and let me play the game the way I want! I bought/downloaded it after all!

quote:
Original post by Oluseyi

You, it would seem (correct me if I'm wrong), do not subscribe to this, and therefore attempt to create/ensure interesting gameplay situations.

Yes, that is correct. And since it's confessions time, I'm also guilty of thinking largely around the concepts of games like Master of Orion or VGA Planets. Units, economy, technology, controlled planets... I have medieval Japan as a model for the political simulation, with feudal warlords fighting each other, pledging allegiance, forming and breaking alliances until a state of order is reached (with the Shogun the winner and the rest of the surviving players keeping their ranks in the Shogun's power structure).

quote:
I think this is flawed because one person's idea of "interesting" definitely differs from another, and this is what has kept me out of RTSes for so long.

No, I believe "interesting" is a fairly simple and universal concept that can be applied to any game from chess to Starcraft. I'll try a definition: the level of interestingness of a game is the thinking time needed for a person of a certain IQ to reach the best decision in an average game situation, given that he understands the rules of the game. A game stops being interesting in certain situations. As soon as victory or defeat are obvious the game is not interesting anymore, because the best decision is obvious. When there is only one decision to make, the game is not interesting anymore, even if the results of the game are unknown.

quote:
Not when real people get on your case about it. Not when your actions have genuine, unpredictable repercussions. Not when other players may refuse to interact with you - effectively ostracizing you - as a result.

What are the game mechanics that make all those people so angry? Because they definitely won't do anything simply for the sake of the little virtual people.

quote:
This is the part I just don't get. If the player is going to play in a boring fashion, why should I try to throw excitement at him/her? Why can't I just respect their preferences and leave them to their boring virtual existence - mirrors of their probably pathetic real lives (I mean, when you get domestic in a game that affords you political and economic opportunity...)

You won't have a conspiracy if the cost of spies is too small and everyone knows everything about everyone else. You will have an evil overlord taking over of the world thanks to his willingness to micro-manage hundreds of units if the rules allow that. Game rules determine how can a player interact to the world. Good social gameplay like convincing someone to join a perilous enterprise won't occur unless the game rules offers perilous enterprises to join.

This is a real online game, which means all kind of players will attend. The game rules must ensure a few ill-minded players won't spoil the game for everyone else.

quote:
I think too many designers - and aspiring designers - feel the need to force gameplay on the gamer. Back off, and let me play the game the way I want! I bought/downloaded it after all!

Game rules that allow freedom of expression are a holy grail of game design. They are as desirable as they are rare.



[edited by - Diodor on November 6, 2002 10:45:34 AM]

Well, Someone has finally voised an issue that has been bothering me for a while -
''Why should the game be "Intergalactic"?''

In a game of this type it would seem scale is largely irrelevant. All we really need is a world that can be divided into enough units to house all the players and virtual population very comfortably.

I actually think using 20/21th century scenario will provide a few advantages, the one being hardest to duplictae being the fact that players will instantly understand the physical world mechanics and quickly can go on to more interesting issues (There is a large group of people that are put of simply by the mention of anything remotely Sci-Fi)
Other samller advantages are that we can use geography properly, e.g. if a player moves to an island in the middle ofthe ocean, he knows that that affords him a large degree of isolation, whereas he will probably have no idea what the effects of moving into the ''crab Nebula'' are. (Although this is really just a by product of the first point)

Then I would like to comment on the current issue between Oluseyi and Diodor. ''How much control is necessary''

I may be wrong but it''s starting to seem that when Diodor talks about controls and limits he is doesn''t mean restrictions by the code but rather providing bonuses/penalties (not hard coded ones but social ones) to encourage a certain type of play.

quote:
You won''t have a conspiracy if the cost of spies is too small and everyone knows everything about everyone else. You will have an evil overlord taking over of the world thanks to his willingness to micro-manage hundreds of units if the rules allow that.

Which would mean the main issue is who should provide those bonuses/penalties. The coder or the player. I tend to agree with the side that says these should be provided by the player, not the coder.

My main reason being that in reality,where these balances exist, they are provided not by ''God'' or ''Mother Nature'' (or whichever you prefer) but by man. More precisely, by man''s selfishness!! The same source that drives man to try and control the world also drives him (when he realises his first drive is highly improbable) to prevent anyone else from controlling it. People don''t tolerate murders basically becuase they don''t want to be killed!

If players in this game encourage crime they themselves will become victims of crime. Killing (whether NPC or player) will be frowned upon becuase players don''t want to die! Playes will either work together to prevent it, or they will have to spend small fortunes preventing it from happening to them!

Plus the fact that the masses provide the main consumer for business oriented players. The deaths of large numbers of players in a community will cuase other in that community to become extremely paranoid. Of course this will provide an increase in security related businesses but large decreases in almost every other area!. So while the viability of killing your own citizen to win a war is questionable :-? (Imagine America threatening to destroy Washinton unless Saddam falls into line ). It will be extremely offensive to the other human players on whom you rely for the income to fund your troops (whether it be the citizens you tax, or countries you trade with). And if a player sets manages to set themselves up a the ''big brother'' of the world (a la US). then any chaos incited anywhere will be detrimental to them as it will show the rest of the world that they are not as much in control of the situation as they would like you to believe!!
(The real life similarities should also prove interesting)

quote: ''Why should the game be "Intergalactic"?''

Considering the title of the thread is "Testbed for intergalactic political machinations" I think that most people would assume that the game is Intergalactic, although true, it would be possible to do it differently

quote: Most importantly, though, all this focus on trade of goods with abstract entities moves away from the cardinal focus of this game: human interaction.

Exactly! Human interaction - that''s why I envision a galaxy (game world) that consists only of humans, no aliens. Several hundred (thousand?) years in the future when we have settled many hundreds of planets. If you look at history there is a definite trend at globalisation, at communities getting closer together, and it is entirely plausible that once we head off into space to colonize other planets that those planets will essentially become nations. Especially since one group of people will reach a planet, colonize it and claim it as their own. Perhaps our visions of the future differ here but I don''t think that we''ll find hundreds of intelligent beings out there, maybe one or two but mostly harsh worlds that will terraformed and a few with non-intelligent lifeforms. If this is not set in the future then this point is moot of course and I''ll shut up.

As for the romans, no the military did not make the things that made the romans an advanced civilization but if they had not conquered other nations so aggressively and exploitet them do you really think they would have had the resources to build such a civilization? How much of ancient Rome was created through the sweat and blood of slaves (from conquered nations)? Also, don''t forget that military action can often invigorate a slumping economy through arms production and the like (after all preparing for war was how Germany managed to come out of the great depression, not that it was good in the long run). You may not like war but for a nation it is not always bad (although for the general population it generally is). If the game is designed right all this discussion will be irelevant anyway though because it is the players choice anyhow, not the designers.

quote: Original post by thelurch
In a game of this type it would seem scale is largely irrelevant. All we really need is a world that can be divided into enough units to house all the players and virtual population very comfortably.

My sentiments exactly, the title of the thread notwithstanding. You analyses on familiarity of scale and immediate transferrence of "experience" are also spot on.

quote: I may be wrong but it''s starting to seem that when Diodor talks about controls and limits he is doesn''t mean restrictions by the code but rather providing bonuses/penalties (not hard coded ones but social ones) to encourage a certain type of play.

If so then I have greatly misunderstood him. He talks of game mechanics being all that the designer can control; if that is the case, then how can a designer cause the players to give each other social incentive towards mutually beneficial behavior? I posit that it''s best for us to leave the determination and application of incentives to the players precisely because their own selfishness (as you so correctly pointed out) will motivate them to work, in global contexts, for the greater good.

quote: Original post by Goragoth
Considering the title of the thread is "Testbed for intergalactic political machinations" I think that most people would assume that the game is Intergalactic, although true, it would be possible to do it differently

The more important question is "what does the scope of the game being intergalactic add to the game?" I can''t really see any major benefit of the intergalactic scope, and think that the title was generated when the idea was still a bit fuzzy in bishop_pass'' mind. Keep in mind that the original thread was simply titled "Online game idea - politics & conquest."

quote: If you look at history there is a definite trend at globalisation, at communities getting closer together, and it is entirely plausible that once we head off into space to colonize other planets that those planets will essentially become nations.

Current political science contends that the globalization impulse is offset by "nationalism" (some call this McDonald''s vs Jihad). As much as world governments seem to be getting ever closer to each other and communications is shrinking our planet into a global village, there is no shortage of separatist and independence movements. Globalization tends to result in the smaller entities and all their distinguishing characteristics - culture, language, cuisine, etc - being subsumed, which is a loss to us all. Thus, I for one do not believe in planets becoming analogous to nations in the near future.

quote: Especially since one group of people will reach a planet, colonize it and claim it as their own.

Really? A small group of people will just colonize an entire planet as their own? Subdue all lifeforms that may exist on said planet and establish their supremacy? Man, they must be some baaad dudes!

The whole space colony idea is contingent of massively superior technology, but falls short because it fails to consider scale. Some cultures/societies in human history have been able to colonize others, but the scale on which those occured is nothing close to planetary. I''m not so sure that effort will scale so linearly, meaning that the amount of firepower and resources necessary to colonize a planet with even rudimentary sentient lifeforms may be unreasonably large. These are completely tangential issues, but I''m trying to challenge you all to consider these accepted norms of sci-fi junk from a sociological and scientific point of view.

quote: As for the romans, no the military did not make the things that made the romans an advanced civilization but if they had not conquered other nations so aggressively and exploitet them do you really think they would have had the resources to build such a civilization?

I don''t recall the Egyptians needing to conquer other nations so aggressively to build their empire. Nor the Chinese (of course, you can argue that they probably had all the people they needed within their own borders).

quote: Also, don''t forget that military action can often invigorate a slumping economy through arms production and the like (after all preparing for war was how Germany managed to come out of the great depression, not that it was good in the long run).

Emphasis mine. Germany post-WWII was so messed up the allies had to come up with the Marshall plan. Why? Because the poor economic state of Germany would have had a tremendous backlash on them otherwise. In countries where war has ended/been suspended without a similar grassroots development program (aid doesn''t count), what has occurred? Take a look at Somalia, Rwanda, Liberia...

How much is the "War on Iraq" going to cost the US? Given our already bad economy, and the fact that modern warfare isn''t as production-/manufacture-intensive as it was 50 years ago, how does that help an already sagging economy?

quote: If the game is designed right all this discussion will be irelevant anyway though because it is the players choice anyhow, not the designers.

I agree with that. I''m just cautioning that the game design shouldn''t be approached from a primarily militaristic POV. If that''s what you''re after, go write a wargame.

quote: A small group of people will just colonize an entire planet as their own? Subdue all lifeforms that may exist on said planet and establish their supremacy? Man, they must be some baaad dudes!

Your vision of the universe is in major conflict with mine I think. By colonizing planets I think of planets like Mars that have no life or planets that have no intelligent life. I think that at most there are one or two other races out there in this galaxy that can be classified as intelligent as such. I''m not suggesting they would be wiped out or conquered but I think there is a lot of space out there that (through the use of advanced technology) harbour human life.

As to my point about war, no this should not be a war game. War should not be the focus but I would argue that there needs to be a military aspect and that it should be important. No matter what way you look at it war is an important part of human history and without any wars things would be very different today (not to say that war is a good thing, because it isn''t). As much as we might not like it humans are an agressive life form. I bet if you did a poll on people playing any of the Civilisation games what percentage would try to win by conquest the first time around, probably most. Not the point I guess. Anyway, there are some benefits of war (which includes cold wars too because they would not be possible without actual military power backing them). I would argue that if you took away WW I, WW II, the Cold War, and all other wars this century that technologically we would be far behind where we are now. We would certainly get there eventually and heck, at the cost of a lot less lives and suffering too, but I do have a point.

Perhaps there has been a trend away from violence (eg bloodsport like they had in the roman times are unthinkable today) and that in the future (if that is indeed where this would be set) wars and military power would be largely irrelevant but I''m not sure that this would apply (unless some technology came along such as inpenetratable shields that make invasions impossible) because there will always be people that will be power-hungry and agressive. Not all people are good and want to get along with everybody else. War should not be a primary focus by any means but I think it would be fatal to ignore military power completely.

quote:
If so then I have greatly misunderstood him. He talks of game mechanics being all that the designer can control; if that is the case, then how can a designer cause the players to give each other social incentive towards mutually beneficial behavior? I posit that it''s best for us to leave the determination and application of incentives to the players precisely because their own selfishness (as you so correctly pointed out) will motivate them to work, in global contexts, for the greater good.

I agree completely. The difference is I think working together for the greater good is conditioned by a proper design of game mechanics. If working together does pay, the players will work together. But I also want that given the right circumstances, backstabbing is more rewarding than working together, destruction more profitable to the individual than construction etc. The challenge is to get the game mechanics in that narrow zone where the right action is not obvious, where one has to ask himself whether it is better to betray or to be loyal, and ask himself whether it is better for his ally to stay loyal or betray, and not reach a conclusive answer, and need to factor social information in as well.

If analyzing the simulation based information offers a conclusive answer as to what one should do, he''ll do just that without bothering with the social stuff.

quote:
Original post by Oluseyi

I agree with that. I''m just cautioning that the game design shouldn''t be approached from a primarily militaristic POV. If that''s what you''re after, go write a wargame.

Wargame or economic, intergalactic or planet-based, chess like or first person shooter I don''t think it matters. As long as the game stays interesting and offers the players actions that can either hurt or benefit them and other players in non-obvious ways, with varying degrees of risk and rewards involved, as long as information (including beliefs and plans of the players) can change decisions, and it can be shared or hidden, social interaction will ensue.

I agree that the militaristic approach is wrong if by militaristic you understand the simple "command and conquer" or "total annihilation" mindset. Military is about a lot more than that, including alliances, betrayals, tricks, mind games, and so on and so forth. Military as in Sun Tzu''s Art of War is more than enough to base a political game on.

The way I see it our job is to identify problems that can destroy the uncertainty from the simulated world and fix them.

I am against relying on what the players will do or think. It is possible to create a game that allows complex modern political interaction, and the players can''t leave the stone age and never reach that gameplay. Modern societies are in fact very fragile and depend on a set of beliefs of their members and on some complicated policies of their leaders to keep the order. Getting the players to the point where they share a similar set of beliefs can pose significant problems, which must be addressed.