Hey everyone. As some of you may know, I'm (slowly) working on a space-strategy game. One of the most important elements in such a game is planetary management - now that you've colonized some planets, you need to build stuff on them (otherwise, what good are they?). However, I'm having some dilemmas as to what exactly to implement. My main sources of inspiration so far are a couple of oldies-but-goldies (at least I think so), Ascendancy and MOOII. In many ways, those two games are diametrically opposed in terms of planetary management, hence the dilemmas. So I'm putting these questions out to fellow gamers to see what the target audience would like best. 1. Should more than one of a given structure type be built on a planet? Or should each be limited to only one of any given type? I'm not talking about things like shipyards, where more than one would be redundant. (Or would they? Okay, no tangents...) 2. The two games agree in two of three areas of planetary production: industry and research. The other area in each game is similar, but not the same. MOOII has farming while Ascendancy has a more general "prosperity," which ties into how fast a planet's population grows. So far, I know that industry and research will be included, but I'm not sure about the "third function." Any ideas? 3. How should the production capabilities of a planet be handled? MOOII has them effectively distributed uniformly, but this is because only one of each structure type can exist on a planet. Ascendancy, on the other hand, has different squares which aid the different kinds of production (or don't), which seems to be tied into being able to build more than one structure of each type. Again, what do you guys think would be the best way to do this? Personally speaking, I know for sure two things that this game will have: a build queue and a good autobuilder. I think any space-strategy game definitely needs these, else many players will feel bogged-down in "micromanagement." Anyways, I'm anxious to hear everyone's thoughts on this. - Rob

I'm assuming you're making a classic empire building game. Ultimately you have to decide what kind of time frame you want the player to play your game for. If it's a 40+ hour game, you may want the player to have more control over colonies, especially in the beginning of the game. That would mean more time working on colony-player interaction and less on an autobuilder.

I think MOO3 was a good example of a hands-free autobuilder (yeah, it was complicated and over my head, but it was good). If you want more of a hands-free gameplay, this is what I'd shoot for.

now, to answer your questions in order:

1. I always had a great deal of satisfaction building every possible improvement on a planet that I could. If you can build more than one building, if nothing else, that would rob me of satisfaction. Also, the building options could become unruly later in the game.

If you're going to do it this way, I recommend having basic building types (ie: shipyards, farms, towns, etc.) and then having new tech upgrade the type of building you can build, instead of giving you a new type. If you think of it, improvements haven't changed much in function since the dawn of time.


Maybe occassionaly you can build a new type of building. Maybe you have to build farm level 1 before you can build level 2. You'd have to tweak it.

2. For planetary growth (I assume that's what you're asking for), I think you should take into consideration real human growth. There must be a food supply, medicine, and room. You could have a colony death rate that medicine helps to lower, a colony birth rate that increases (or falls if you want to be realistic) with the wealth of the colonists. If there isn't any room the desire for people to have children falls and if there's no food left that'd lower it too.

Or maybe having no room left increases the death rate, since people aren't smart enough to stop making babies.

3. I haven't played Ascendancy, so I'm not sure what you're talking about.

I'd spend some time and just think about one area. If you sit and think about something for a while, you're sure to come up with a solution that's interesting and might not have ever been tried before.

If you want a good example of the elements in colony management, i recommend Outpost 2: Divided Destiny for a great example. The game plays like an empire builder trying vainly to be a RTS, but its got colony management down cold. You have to manage power level's, colony morale (which effects birth rate, and is effected by disasters, deaths, and unmet needs), living quarters, Nursery's & medical facilities to reduce infant mortality rates.

As for colony management, i'd would probably have to go with MOOII's interface, while you could only get one of each kind of building, the streamlined interface helped making economic and stragegic decisions simple, leaving more of the players thinking on the actual strategies of growth and conquest, rather than micromanagement of colony affairs.

*edit* Having just looked at Ascendancy, it looks very much like Outpost 1. This form of system (now that i remember it) is actually a pretty good way of doing multiple building types, but i would also make population management more highlighted, like picking up individual people and putting them into the industial area's (ala old school Colonization).

[Edited by - Gyrthok on November 17, 2004 1:49:47 AM]

You could have one of each type of most buildings, and many where it makes sense, like living quarters, farms etc. Unless colonists take care of building these themselves, which makes sense since you're gonna need a lot and it'll be a hazzle for the player when he gets a few colonies up and running. But it still makes sence to let the player build many of some buildings. More than one shipyard would of course lead to higher ship production. More labs would make research faster. You could regulate it with workforces instead, but there's a limit to how many people can work in one building.

I think the board game 'Big City' is a great tool for thinking about city design. This entire game is based around city building and is remarkably interesting with just a few types of buildings.

You have to consider the strategic impact of allowing multiple buildings. In MOO2 the reason for limiting the player to one of each building was a means to force the player to expand by limiting the value of each indvidual planet. If you can find a means to achieve this and allow multiple buildings then you should be all means.

An idea that springs to mind of how to achieve this is through space. if you take the MOO2 resource division then you can think of space in these terms.

A planet's surface has a number of units of space,a unit of space can be in one the following states.
1)Urban - The number of units of space devoted to urban determines maximum population.
2)Agriculture - The number of units devoted to agriculture determines the maximum food production, actual value is based on the number of works devoted to agriculture.
3)Manufacturing - The number of units devoted to manufacturing determines the maximum mineral production, actual value is based on the number of works devoted to manufacturing .
4)Research- The number of units devoted to Researchdetermines the maximum science production, actual value is based on the number of works devoted to Research.
5)Facilities - Each facility takes up a number of units of space.
6)Unused - Units of space not yet assigned.
7)Unusable - Units of space which you can not use for what ever reason.

So in this way the player has to balance space with their desires for that planet. If they want to create a bread basket planet they could devote most of the planet to agriculture. At the same time if there is no unused space on a planet then the player has decied what existing infurstructure they want to give up in order to continue to expand.

New space units of space could become available to a planet with the advent of certain technologies such as aquatic and suberterrainin construction.

First off, I'd like to thank everyone who replied to this topic (so far). I'm going to respond to each of you individually.

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Original post by Numsgil I'm assuming you're making a classic empire building game. Ultimately you have to decide what kind of time frame you want the player to play your game for. If it's a 40+ hour game, you may want the player to have more control over colonies, especially in the beginning of the game. That would mean more time working on colony-player interaction and less on an autobuilder.

Time-wise, I'd like to make the game as flexible as possible. That's why I want to include both a build queue and an autobuild option. Those who want more detailed colony management don't have to use them, while those who don't can take advantage of them. Middle-of-the-road players can utilize the build queue.

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Original post by NumsgilI think MOO3 was a good example of a hands-free autobuilder (yeah, it was complicated and over my head, but it was good). If you want more of a hands-free gameplay, this is what I'd shoot for.

I've played MOO3 many times, though the game wore out very quickly for me. Regarding its autobuilder, yes, it's very hands-free and I believe it is relatively smart. Ascendancy's autobuilder is terrible.

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Original post by Numsgilnow, to answer your questions in order: 1. I always had a great deal of satisfaction building every possible improvement on a planet that I could. If you can build more than one building, if nothing else, that would rob me of satisfaction. Also, the building options could become unruly later in the game.

The thing with building more than one of each building type is, you'd have to have a finite amount of space on each planet upon which to build. Being able to build and build ad infinitum would be very boring.

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Original post by NumsgilIf you're going to do it this way, I recommend having basic building types (ie: shipyards, farms, towns, etc.) and then having new tech upgrade the type of building you can build, instead of giving you a new type. If you think of it, improvements haven't changed much in function since the dawn of time.

That's a good idea. I was actually thinking of doing something along those lines. In Ascendancy, when you discover upgrades for existing facilities (e.g. Industrial Megafacility is the upgrade for Factory), you have to destroy the existing ones in order to build the better ones. I'd like to make an "auto-upgrader" that does this for you.

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Original post by NumsgilMaybe occassionaly you can build a new type of building. Maybe you have to build farm level 1 before you can build level 2. You'd have to tweak it.

Reach for the Stars, another space-strategy game, does something like this. It has different levels for different kinds of planetary production, and you have to get to one level before you can get to the next one.

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Original post by Numsgil2. For planetary growth (I assume that's what you're asking for), I think you should take into consideration real human growth. There must be a food supply, medicine, and room. You could have a colony death rate that medicine helps to lower, a colony birth rate that increases (or falls if you want to be realistic) with the wealth of the colonists. If there isn't any room the desire for people to have children falls and if there's no food left that'd lower it too. Or maybe having no room left increases the death rate, since people aren't smart enough to stop making babies.

For space-strategy games' purposes, the "colonies" are the entire planets themselves. That's how both Ascendancy and MOO2 operate. In real life, a colony would start in a small portion of a planet (or more than one thereof) and sooner or later spread over the planet's surface. However, I think doing that in a game would be too complicated.

What would be interesting, I think, is to take your idea and make it a variable in the gameplay of each species. Since each species should be different, each one will have a gameplay different (somehow) from all the others. Having different planetary growth factors for each species would contribute to that concept, I think.

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Original post by Numsgil3. I haven't played Ascendancy, so I'm not sure what you're talking about. I'd spend some time and just think about one area. If you sit and think about something for a while, you're sure to come up with a solution that's interesting and might not have ever been tried before.

This is true. :)

- Rob

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Original post by Gyrthok If you want a good example of the elements in colony management, i recommend Outpost 2: Divided Destiny for a great example. The game plays like an empire builder trying vainly to be a RTS, but its got colony management down cold. You have to manage power level's, colony morale (which effects birth rate, and is effected by disasters, deaths, and unmet needs), living quarters, Nursery's & medical facilities to reduce infant mortality rates.

I've never played Outpost 2, but if I'm correct, it's pretty similar (in premise) to the first Outpost, right? If so, then since the game deals with a single planet, I think there's too much detail to apply its model to an entire galaxy of planets.

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Original post by GyrthokAs for colony management, i'd would probably have to go with MOOII's interface, while you could only get one of each kind of building, the streamlined interface helped making economic and stragegic decisions simple, leaving more of the players thinking on the actual strategies of growth and conquest, rather than micromanagement of colony affairs.

I agree with streamlining.

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Original post by Gyrthok*edit* Having just looked at Ascendancy, it looks very much like Outpost 1. This form of system (now that i remember it) is actually a pretty good way of doing multiple building types, but i would also make population management more highlighted, like picking up individual people and putting them into the industial area's (ala old school Colonization).

In Ascendancy, each planetary structure takes up 1 unit of space and 1 unit of population. The number of structures possible on a given planet at a given time is dependent upon the size of the planet and the population at that time. Are you saying, then, that you'd rather have different amounts of people required for different structure types?

- Rob

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Original post by Schultz You could have one of each type of most buildings, and many where it makes sense, like living quarters, farms etc. Unless colonists take care of building these themselves, which makes sense since you're gonna need a lot and it'll be a hazzle for the player when he gets a few colonies up and running. But it still makes sence to let the player build many of some buildings. More than one shipyard would of course lead to higher ship production. More labs would make research faster. You could regulate it with workforces instead, but there's a limit to how many people can work in one building.

Both Ascendancy and MOO2 handle population in the following way. For each planet, there's a "base population amount." Then there are different structures you can build that can increase a planet's population beyond its base amount. With both games, though, only one ship at a time can be built at a planet. As far as I know, all space-strategy games do that.

- Rob

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Original post by Dunam I think the board game 'Big City' is a great tool for thinking about city design. This entire game is based around city building and is remarkably interesting with just a few types of buildings.

I hadn't heard of that game, but I'll have to look into it. Thanks. :)

- Rob