I've been playing around with ideas for a 4X game as well.
A few of the things I've been tossing around are:

Make the research tree an actual tree. Instead of having a small number of schools you keep researching all through the game (So you end up with Social Sciences level 24, Economics level 19 and Physics level 32), a tree where researching one technology makes one or more new ones become available.
I know, this sounds exactly like the tech tree in Civilization, and yep, it is essentially the same. However, a few twists could be added:
First, each branch doesn't have to be a distinct technology. It could be a mini-"school", something that can be researched partially, just to get access to a different tech further down in the tree, or fully, in a sense mastering the technology, maybe creating new applications for the technology, or maybe providing bonuses to existing ones.
And second, separating theoretical and applied science. MOO3 planned to do this, but it got canned. I still think it's an interesting idea though. The overall tech tree could represent the theoretical science only. Upon reaching a node in the tree, some actual uses for the technology can become available for research (Like you might research nuclear fusion as a theoretical science, and once that is done, you get access to researching specific applications, like a fusion drive or fusion rifles.

These two systems could affect each others, so for example, researching all the applications for nuclear fusion would make you better at the theoretical science as well, or having a larger theoretical foundation could provide bonuses to the practical applications.

Another idea is that ground battles should play a much bigger role. Ships should essentially have a support role only.
From a "realism" point of view, the person actually standing on a planet controls it, no matter how many hostile ships are in orbit around it. Of course, having a fleet blockading or bombarding a planet can soften it up or even kill off everyone, but you can't really take possession of the planet until you've landed troops on it. If the planets are split into regions (as in MOO3), these ground battles could even be drawn out over several turns, giving both sides time to transport reinforcements to the planet, for example.

From a gameplay point of view, it would allow much deeper strategy. Ship battles take place in space. Space is really hard to apply tactical thinking to. You don't have cover, weather, terrain or anything else that can be used to gain an advantage. So space battles tend to become repetetive, as they are purely about superior firepower, and positioning of the fleets, with no other factors playing in.

If the focus was on ground battles, these above factors could be used to allow some actual tactical decisions. Further, ships would then have different purposes, such as bombarding a planet, or intercepting a transport fleet (If the enemy troops can't reach your planet, they can't conquer it, no matter how many battleships they have). Ship combat would still be essential, but only as a support role.

If it wasn't 3:40 am now, I'd probably be able to remember some more ideas... But it is, so I can't :P

Original post by Icefox
Wuntvor:
I've looked at Warring Factions, but don't really understand what you mean with the research system... it seems like you could say "Give me a better ship hull, I want speed and manuverability!" and get a design that's about the same tech level of, but very different from a hull you might get if you said "I want armor and weapons!". Is this sorta how it works, or am I being original for once? Regardless, it sounds like a neat idea...

Sorry for not replying earlier, forgot I had posted in this thread.. :)

Anyway, that's sort of how it works. Basically, there are several areas, and depending on how the focus was set, you are more likely to get one type of research or another. It's really quite complicated and not very intuitive (because you never know what you are going to get and there are some hidden variables as well), but I like the general idea.
The result is what you described, though. You may have to choose between armor that is cheap, has an ok armor rating but is really heavy and one that is more expensive but is less heavy or whatever, you get the idea. I liked it a lot because it means noone else will have exactly the same ships as you do (unless you traded them your blueprints).

Very glad to see so many people working on 4X ideas! I love this genre.


I don't really care what graphics you have, but I'd really like to see these areas changed:

• Why are there almost never any solar systems? I'd rather have less stars to deal with an more stars with planets. One thing I really disliked about MOO was how two fleets would line up and just shoot each other. I know it's supposed to be an abstraction, but it really hurts the sci-fi feel.
  
• More creative exploration rewards and dangers. Like the huts in Civ, this could be as simple as a text message and interesting events: Encountering ancient plague ships that infect a colony when the ship returns; encountering and either rescuing or dissecting another culture's ship before you even have diplomatic relations with them; etc.
  
• A changed scoring system for some aliens so that they can really play in an alien way. Right now it's mine, research, create, conquer; it'd be nice if certain races got weird things like "religious crusade / jihad" or the ability to use ships as bases for a nomad culture
  
• Ability to randomize stats for the race once you're an expert player, balance be damned-- I want the excitement of the unknown, even if I get my but kicked!
  
• Numbers based tech system. I don't like tech trees to run out. While it might be silly to have a +5000 Armor tank for a terrestrial 4x game, you could easily have this for shields. I'd like the choice of improving a tech or advancing to the next tech. To help balance this you could create a sort of system where newer techs eventually automatically trump any lower techs, no matter how many points you've put into them. This lets you create decadent empires vs. high-tech upstarts.
  
• Neutrals! It's impossible to run dozens of AIs, but neutral empires would be inert empires that don't really want to take over the map but can be traded with, conquered or allied with. Since they have no AI, they really offer only war material as allies, no fleets.
  

I could probably go on forever [smile], but I'll just leave you guys with that.

Slightly offtopic, but in response to the -alien- idea proposed by Wavinator:

I'm actually planning on implimenting something like this for my game. It is fantasy 4x, not space, but the concepts transfer. I aim to make the undead and dragons playable species along with the semi-standard humanoid races. Each will spawn units differently, and have differing goals on what to do with the world.

The difficult part will be balance of course, but I expect a few interdependancies between the species [undead won't spawn without humanoids dying, dragons don't build well without undead minions... things like that] will help prevent one from dominating too much.

A few words about tech trees, mostly based on the annoyances of Civilization...

First of all, don't make the techs binary; that is, you can't invent all mathematics all of a sudden. It's just ridiculous. A better approach could be to have a percentage (or just an integer number if there is no maximum). First you learn Mathematics 1, which could represent simple arithmetics. Mathematics 2 could represent geometry and trigonometry. And so on. You can still keep it abstract by giving them abstract names.

Secondly, you shouldn't invent one tech all of a sudden. Assuming that you get new unit types from new techs, you should be able to build prototypes at the early stages of research, improving the quality as you go. Building prototypes could even give you a bonus to the research speed. Developing new weapons should in many cases improve the weapons gradually, not a huge amount all at once.

Separating science and technology would be neat too. By researching some technological advancements would give a research speed bonus to the corresponding scientific advancements and vice versa. Also, the scientific and technological trees would have prerequisites from each other, eg. you can't develop biology (science) beyond a certain point before you develop the microscope (technology), and you can't develop the microscope (technology) before you develop optics (science).

Stealing and trading technology is silly, if you don't require any prerequisites. How can you expect the other faction to learn nuclear physics if they can't even add? Being able to learn regardless of the method of acquiring the knowledge should have prerequisites.

Instead of simply stealing the advances in the tech tree, you could steal technology (not the theory but the actual physical manifestations, ie. units etc.). Having units of a certain technological advance without having the advance would give you a bonus in learning that advance. This would also motivate the separation of science and technology. You could learn to build something even if you didn't understand it by studying examples, instead of just doing theoretical research.

Allow the factions to develop several advances in parallel. That'd be only realistic and would allow more freedom to the player.

(Also you could make science and technology local; if you have two cities on the opposite sides of the world and a technological advancement is made in the other, it should take time and effort to reach the other city. Granted, it would increase complexity and micromanagement, but it's and idea.)

I've been working on a game type that's somewhat similar to 4x, so I've been thinking alot about it over the months. Also, I've played just about every 4x game there is (well, alot of them are the same anyway, so it sure feels like that).

First off, while it's nice to customize your ships in a space game, it's a pain if you're actively researching. If I discover shields level 3, and shields level 3 are in every way better than shields level 2, all my designs should automatically update.

I liked the simplicity of the civ series, because you knew the strengths and weaknesses of each unit. An infinite variety of new ships gives me a headache and an information overload. This is really more personal preference than anything else, some people like these huge spectrums and immediate obsoleteness.

What I would like to see if shields level 3 are different than shields level 2:

Have an option to prompt the player to update all their ship blueprints and docked ships when a new tech is doscovered. If an outdated ship docks somewhere, have a toggle on it to prompt the player to upgrade its systems. This helps keep the infinite variety manageable.

Also: have some kind of counter that displays the relative weakenesses of each ship. For instance, shields level 3 give more shield power but also take more power to run. Which means there is less power to run engines and weapons. So shields level 3 give +20 shields -5 power, and -5 power means that beam weapons and engines lower by 3 each.

Then comparing different ship components becomes intuitive instead of a headache. All ships can now be compared on an equal ground. That battleship is 500 shield, 650 hull, 300 beam weapoins, 0 missile, 0 kinetic, 450 engine, 20 top speed, etc. So my 10 shield and hull, 4 missile ship is obviously inferior. And I know by about how much.

An argument against this would be that it seems to artificial. But just think of the numbers as a kind of unit label. Length is measured in meters, energy in Joules, and shields in Numsgils. [lol] So comparing two shields becomes simple.

Part 2:
Tech trees should be interrelated. Moo does this to a point, but I prefer a smoother system. In my game, all actions are skill based. Because of this, an increase in one skill gives an increase in several others. Simply put: a 5 point increase in psychology should give a +1 increase in Medicine, diplomacy, Entrepeneurship, etc. Psychology might not be a very useful skill by itself, but it adds some nice benefits to other skills.

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Original post by Wavinator Very glad to see so many people working on 4X ideas! I love this genre.

Good points, Wavinator! I'd like to add onto them.

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Original post by WavinatorI don't really care what graphics you have, but I'd really like to see these areas changed: Why are there almost never any solar systems? I'd rather have less stars to deal with an more stars with planets. One thing I really disliked about MOO was how two fleets would line up and just shoot each other. I know it's supposed to be an abstraction, but it really hurts the sci-fi feel.

Have you ever played Ascendancy? It has a "System Display" showing the planets, ships, etc. in a given star system, and it's also where all ship actions occur (movement, combat, etc.). I've thought about implementing something like this in the 4X game I'm working on. However, since I don't plan on making star lanes (I don't really like them), I'm not yet sure how to handle ships leaving and entering systems...

One could handle ship combat directly in the System Display, thereby eliminating any need for MOO-style ship combat. (Though I actually like the way MOO handles it - maybe allow for different formations and such instead of just lining up on either side, though.)

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Original post by Wavinator More creative exploration rewards and dangers. Like the huts in Civ, this could be as simple as a text message and interesting events: Encountering ancient plague ships that infect a colony when the ship returns; encountering and either rescuing or dissecting another culture's ship before you even have diplomatic relations with them; etc. A changed scoring system for some aliens so that they can really play in an alien way. Right now it's mine, research, create, conquer; it'd be nice if certain races got weird things like "religious crusade / jihad" or the ability to use ships as bases for a nomad culture

I definitely agree here. MOOII had a little bit of that - sometimes a system would have a "space monster" in it or alien artifacts. GalCiv did a much better job, IMO - there were many different random events and the player would have to choose a course of action for each one. I plan to implement something like GalCiv's approach in my game.

Wouldn't "religious crusade / jihad" fall under the conquest category?

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Original post by Wavinator Ability to randomize stats for the race once you're an expert player, balance be damned-- I want the excitement of the unknown, even if I get my but kicked!

Heh, heh... this could be done...

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Original post by Wavinator Numbers based tech system. I don't like tech trees to run out. While it might be silly to have a +5000 Armor tank for a terrestrial 4x game, you could easily have this for shields. I'd like the choice of improving a tech or advancing to the next tech. To help balance this you could create a sort of system where newer techs eventually automatically trump any lower techs, no matter how many points you've put into them. This lets you create decadent empires vs. high-tech upstarts.

Personally, I'd rather have each technology be unique and the entire tech tree *not* divided into different "fields" or whatever. Ascendancy's tech tree is most like what I'd want to see, although I think it was too small.

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Original post by Wavinator Neutrals! It's impossible to run dozens of AIs, but neutral empires would be inert empires that don't really want to take over the map but can be traded with, conquered or allied with. Since they have no AI, they really offer only war material as allies, no fleets.

Great idea here, I've thought of it too. GalCiv has neutrals, but they're annoying in that they're basically more AI players that they don't tell you about in the manual. So, neutrals should definitely be more limited than the "normal" AI players.

- Rob

Well I read through this thread as I myself am designing a 4x game. Though the thing I noticed while reading was the over emphasis on realism, it's like you lot want to make a simulation. I mean it's a game. Sure some peope will want the added realism, but I doubt the majority do.
All this talk on technology trees, if it's going to interesting, fun, and not too complex, then realism shouldn't get totally in the way.
Personally I think too much realism will take away from any 4x game, not to mention the audience will want a 4x game and not a simulation.
Just my thoughts. :)

I'm really surprised only one person mentioned Stars!, and only for the purpose of describing the production queue. I consider Stars! to be the premiere 4X game. It's only real drawback in my opinion is its utilitarian interface, which turns off many gamers. I never played any Master of Orion longer than 15 minutes, but I keep coming back to Stars!.

I've thought about the star system problem myself. Stars! doesn't have systems of planets, only isolated planets. (I don't know why the game is called "Stars!" either, because there is no mention of stars in the context of the game. It should be called "Planets!".) As I envision it, each habitable node would, in this case, be a star system with multiple planets. Whereas moving between extra-solar systems takes years (many turns), moving between homogeneous (same-system) planets would take only one turn. Remote mining planets within the same system would be substantially more efficient than remote mining distant worlds. Different players could occupy different planets within the same system, making for some heated conflicts.

Alternately, you could say one player gets the benefit of controlling all planets in the system, but I prefer the former. I don't know if GalCiv let separate players control different planets in the same system. I never got into the game because I thought it was boring, too much like chess.

I'm very opinionated when it comes to 4X games, but there are few things about Stars! that I would change. The foremost would be: better graphics, better diplomacy, more flexible tech tree, more flexible race design — Stars! may have a top-notch race editor, but it could use some more options. I especially like the idea of "lower fuel efficiency versus better armor." This would make a great racial characteristic.

Wow, so many awsome ideas!

In my game at least, I'm not going to bother with anything smaller than a solar system, at least at the moment. I can do a lot of handwaving to justify myself, but it's just handwaving. It's simple, I'll stick with it for now and play with it later.Though I DO like the idea of nomad star-roaming fleets...

Anyway. I do love "random event" type things, and MOO1 actually did a decent job of those... But I'm not sure I like neutral empires. Space Empires 4 had some of these, and basically they just sat in their own star system and waited for you to conquor them. Unless they have much more tech than you (like the New Orions in MOO3), everyone just nods at them and thinks "What nice fellows. Shame I'll have to ravage their planets and mine their system to a shattered husk to fuel my war against the X's".

The thing with ships auto-upgrading, is you don't always want them to. If I better engines and armor, but to fit them on to my trusty old cruisers I would have to reduce their weapons loadout, that should be my choice, not the computer's. Of course, you should be ABLE to refit ships if you need to, but it shouldn't be automatic.

One tech system I thought up and thought was sorta neat was this: It's much like Civilization's, where each technology has various prerequisite advances (we'll leave the issue of incremental development a la Grim for another day). However, instead of saying that you MUST develop X and Y to get Z, it says that you must develop X, and say, two out of A, B, C, D or E to get Z. Realistic, maybe not, but in terms of gameplay it lets you follow many different paths through the tech tree, so not every player would get exactly the same things at the same time. In fact, I'd probably do it so there are a fair number of discoveries that are randomly left out, because it just doesn't occur to your scientists. Learning something from someone else (discovering it from artifacts, whatever) can then open new branches of research, give you a different path to discover something, or really not be all that useful. This adds replay value and uniqueness, of course depending on how complex the tree is and whether you set it up so each player gets 20% or 80% of the total tech tree.

Anyway. Keep brainstorming, my minions! It's awsome to read! *whipcrack*