And my current project also features non-binary tech trees too.

Currently I'm looking at:

        // knowledge levels:        // 0 = UNKNOWN: not seen, not encountered        // 1 = RUMOURED: heard of through trade        // 2 = SEEN: seen via trade, or by spy/bard        // 3 = KNOWN: exists in towns, traded for, used in combat with        //             survivors [using a car, but unable to build one]        // 4 = EXPERIMENTAL: tought the production of, but not built.        // 5 = UNDERSTOOD: knowledge enough to produce.

This will allow for different levels of knowledge, and a kind of progression to be available. I've also made research projects no different from buildings/units. Each can have similar pre-requisites and allocation queues to complete. This should allow me to develop technology projects which vary greatly depending on what is being worked on, and from what sort of level is being built upon. In fact, I imagine quite a few projects will be "build prototype X" projects, that provide a prototype unit, as well as a chance to bump the tech level to "UNDERSTOOD" from merely "EXPERIMENTAL", shortening the build requirements, or making the unit better or some such.

I expect that making the various projects will require a bit more work than the standard tree, but I think it's certainly worth it for something that is the centerpiece of 4x gaming...

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Original post by craylox 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.

I disagree. Wargamers and 4x gamers share a common trait, in that the generally want a more complex game than your average gamer. It's why they play these games, because they offer a grander scope and more complex decision making than your average game. To get the complexity, you need lots of factors.

complexity does not require realism though.

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I disagree. Wargamers and 4x gamers share a common trait, in that the generally want a more complex game than your average gamer. It's why they play these games, because they offer a grander scope and more complex decision making than your average game. To get the complexity, you need lots of factors.

Ok, sure you can be complex for your specific audience, but it doesn't mean you have to be realistic. Point is realism has a lot of rules, and rules restrict, you don't want to be restricting yourself like that when designing a game.

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Original post by Telastyn complexity does not require realism though.

Ditto.

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Original post by Wavinator I disagree. Wargamers and 4x gamers share a common trait, in that the generally want a more complex game than your average gamer. It's why they play these games, because they offer a grander scope and more complex decision making than your average game. To get the complexity, you need lots of factors.

A good 4x game treads a fairly fine line between being too simple and too complex.

Too simple and the gameplay offers no interest. Too complex and the gameplay becomes a massive micromanagement headache that will only interest the most patient and dedicated players.

MOO3 is an example of a game that teetered on the wrong side of this line, and fell off the other side while trying to right itself. In their struggle for detail and realism, the developers found that they'd made the game far too complex. In order to alleviate these problems, they implemented AI managers that can win the game for you without the player actually having to *do* anything. The result is the worst of both worlds.

It's particularly hard for 4x games because the complexity needs to scale quite a lot. Managing individual cities in detail on a planet and dealing with combat on a small scale might seem fun at the start of the game, when the empire is small, but as the empire expands these will quickly become unmanageable.

As with perhaps all genres of game, the holy grail is depth rather than complexity or realism.

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Original post by Sandman MOO3 is an example of a game that teetered on the wrong side of this line, and fell off the other side while trying to right itself. In their struggle for detail and realism, the developers found that they'd made the game far too complex. In order to alleviate these problems, they implemented AI managers that can win the game for you without the player actually having to *do* anything. The result is the worst of both worlds.

Agreed. I never played MOO3, and you're making me glad that I didn't.

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As with perhaps all genres of game, the holy grail is depth rather than complexity or realism.

I guess my misunderstanding is that I see complexity as depth.

What would be a good example of a game that is simple and deep? I'm looking at the complexity as the total sum of all the things you have to know to play the game. Are you thinking of depth as a bunch of interesting factors that can be taken in stages?

Go is both simple and deep.

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Original post by Telastyn complexity does not require realism though.

While I agree that this can be a general truism, does it really apply to what we're talking about?

A good empire game gives us multiple victory conditions, diplomacy that has more than just a couple of options, espionage, research, exploration and a very robust combat model. A few have some interesting models of how people and aliens behave and good trade options.

If you're making a good 4x game you're going to have a lot of factors. Either those factors are going to be based on something the player can relate to (realism) or something they're going to have to learn (your made up rules). Take for example the modeling of people: Let's say you starve them. Either you're going to use realism to guide people's expectations ("the people riot or die off") or you're going to make them learn your own rules about how things work ("people sing and dance when starving" or whatever).

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Original post by Telastyn Go is both simple and deep.

Point taken, but would Go make a good 4x game if you changed the tiles to stars and the chits to fleets?

Well, the essential premise remains.

Games are made by their rules. Rules define how things work, who wins, how to play... Rules exist though to create meaningful choices for players of the game. Without meaningful choices, games are pointless and not fun.

The three areas we're currently discussing are measures of these rules and choices.

Complexity describes the number of rules in the game.
Depth describes the number of meaningful choices in the game.
Realism describes how close those rules come to the real life situation described by the game.

In go, there are only a few rules. A rule to describe how to start, a rule describing victory conditions, a rule to describe capture conditions, and a rule of Ko. Go has great depth, because the meaningful choices presented to players change as the game's state changes [based on previous choices]. The rules [complexities] remain constant.

Certainly 4x games require quite a bit of realism, as they generally try to represent real life well. Unfortunately, many real life rules do not provide a meaninful choice to people/players. It just burdens them with complexity with no benefit.

Take Civ3 for example. The resource model there isn't realistic. One deposit won't satisfy the entire world. The concept though of "tile x must connect by road to resource y" isn't exactly foreign to people. It's just used in real life differently than in the game. In that way the game adds complexity [and meaningful choice] without realism.