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How to represent military-industry in an online city-building game?
July 09, 2006 01:03 AM
Hello, We have a city-building game in the works. You may download a playable demo here: http://www.cityscapegame.com/ The game involves going online to trade resources with other players. We are planning to add military-industry to the game. I'd like to hear ideas about how this can be done in such a way that: - enhances the player's sense of sovereignty over his land - contains an inherent flexibility to represent current events, such as a crisis over missiles or nuclear weapons, or insurgency/counter-insurgency operations - does not distract from the city-building core mechanic So, I'm all ears. Kirby p.s. yeah we can't pay for your idea. but if we use your idea and we make any money, we'll make sure to make you happy too. :)
561
July 09, 2006 01:43 AM
Hmm. Lets see.
Having a military presents within your city should mean something to the player. The presents is an added protective barrier to those that desire to do harm to the cities land, deterring some of those who want to do harm.
Having a direct impact on the military will absolutely reap in the rewards to those players who take the time to spend the energy on the resource.
So really, let’s say the player can build:
a) Ground Troop Base
b) Air Base
In the military, there is a tremendous amount of training. So;
a) Allow the player to allocate city resources (money, new recruits, etc) to the bases.
b) Let the player decide where the training goes (ground troops, mobile troops, etc).
c) Let the player import resources from other cities (weapons, vehicles)
d) Give the ability to view progress on the bases as time goes on (See next paragraph).
Let each base have a high ranking official from each base update the player on what is going on. Troop level, troop deployment, moral, income to the base, etc. etc.
Don’t keep the basis just for military aspects. If there isn’t a war going on, allow the player to use the military to help in the cities upbringing. eg: security at a concert, or a sporting event.
When something does go wrong and the military becomes activated to take care of the problem, once they are finished, you could have military parades and aerial shows, increasing the citizen’s moral and likelihood of remaining in the city.
Allow the player to have an influence on the recruiting effort for the military. Place recruiting effort areas down on the city to increase the probability of new recruits. Make it random so that not every time you lay one down, you wont necessarily gain recruits – you may end up ticking off the citizens; starting protests and other such events.
When a natural disaster happens, let the player choose to use the military to assist the police (or to take care of the event all together). Though, against the norm, if the player uses them at the right time, they help. If they use them at the wrong time, it causes civil unrest.
This was all written fairly off the whim. If you’d like to discuss what I have written or anything else, you can contact me on AIM at ‘aim marine’.
Regards,
-Dave
Having a military presents within your city should mean something to the player. The presents is an added protective barrier to those that desire to do harm to the cities land, deterring some of those who want to do harm.
Having a direct impact on the military will absolutely reap in the rewards to those players who take the time to spend the energy on the resource.
So really, let’s say the player can build:
a) Ground Troop Base
b) Air Base
In the military, there is a tremendous amount of training. So;
a) Allow the player to allocate city resources (money, new recruits, etc) to the bases.
b) Let the player decide where the training goes (ground troops, mobile troops, etc).
c) Let the player import resources from other cities (weapons, vehicles)
d) Give the ability to view progress on the bases as time goes on (See next paragraph).
Let each base have a high ranking official from each base update the player on what is going on. Troop level, troop deployment, moral, income to the base, etc. etc.
Don’t keep the basis just for military aspects. If there isn’t a war going on, allow the player to use the military to help in the cities upbringing. eg: security at a concert, or a sporting event.
When something does go wrong and the military becomes activated to take care of the problem, once they are finished, you could have military parades and aerial shows, increasing the citizen’s moral and likelihood of remaining in the city.
Allow the player to have an influence on the recruiting effort for the military. Place recruiting effort areas down on the city to increase the probability of new recruits. Make it random so that not every time you lay one down, you wont necessarily gain recruits – you may end up ticking off the citizens; starting protests and other such events.
When a natural disaster happens, let the player choose to use the military to assist the police (or to take care of the event all together). Though, against the norm, if the player uses them at the right time, they help. If they use them at the wrong time, it causes civil unrest.
This was all written fairly off the whim. If you’d like to discuss what I have written or anything else, you can contact me on AIM at ‘aim marine’.
Regards,
-Dave
145
July 09, 2006 09:53 AM
I guess it really matters on how you plan on the game working at the political level.
If it's a city-state system, then having your own military and military industry makes perfect sense. However, a military industrial complex is very expensive and only worth it for governments (20 Million people or countries that have significant natural resources). Not to mention that now you have to worry about figuring out how to pay thousands of soldiers (not an insignificant task).
I'm seeing a few problems with your system design though.
Closed economic system. In the real world, nothing exists in a vacuum. Trade is the basis of economic growth (though not the sole basis for it, like the US government thinks it is). Trade going both directions isn't a bad thing, since if you spend $100,000 elsewhere and they spend $100,000 on stuff from you, you both benefit to the tune of $100,000. Spending money is a good thing, 10 people have an income of $1000 every 2 weeks and they spend all of it every 2 weeks, figure 10% is eaten up in taxes (more, but we're being lazy here), so they spend their $9,000 (10k minus taxes) in 2 weeks. Now that's $9,000 in the economy and since the cost of most every product is labor (manufacturing, etc...), figure that $8,500 goes to employees. Now they spend their money in 2 weeks again and after the 10% taxes, $7,750 goes out into the economy again. We'll say $7,000 of that goes to labor wages. Those people spend their money ($6,300 after taxes) and so on and so forth. After just a month and a half, that first $10,000 has turned into over $25,000 in economy. Many people have spent money that got them necessities such as housing and food and luxuries, like widescreen HD TVs. Your people are happy and you've received taxes to pay the city's bills. The nice thing about taxes is that they go right back into the system, just like everything else. The only money that actually leaves the system is money that is 'saved' (well, much of this goes back in through bank loans, but that gets back into the system at a much slower rate than the 2 week cycle). If those same 10 people had just saved their money, that $10,000 would have turned into $9,000 worth of savings, instead of $25,000 worth of gross civic product. Money doesn't get spent and people lose their jobs because nobody's buying anything and you start to go "Wow, now I understand why Japan went through a 10-15 year economic slump when all their citizens were saving loads of money", but that's another discussion.
It's difficult to provide *everything* that your citizens need. Food, plastics, metals, etc... Without a high level of natural resources in your city-state, it slowly gets more and more difficult to grow your city and develop everything that you need. Thus, again, the need for trade. You need to build your city so that it is providing something that is needed elsewhere. Intellectual property, manufacturing (meaning that it's close to natural resources of some kind), import/export (near an ocean or large lake or preferrably both), vacation spot (should be a clean and safe city, not to mention having a single or multiple 'spots of interest') or even possibly being something like a military town, where your city tries to negotiate for a military base to be placed there. This gives you a guaranteed income, but it's a relatively low average income (at least in first world nations).
Something else to remember: All vaguely major cities are built on some body of water, whether it's an ocean, lake or river. Chicago, New York, London, Paris... with a very few exceptions, major cities were started a hundred or more years ago, when overland transit was definitely *not* the fastest way to go, so rivers were the basis of locomotion. Some 'newer' cities, that have only recently started developing (in the grand scheme of things) are out there, such as Denver, but when you look at the suburban development in these areas compared to the suburban development in cities that are older and are built on bodies of water, it's difficult to really compare Denver's 'sprawl' to older cities' sprawl. Even Detroit, which is a decrepit city (compared to other major cities) has a rather extensive sprawl, with millions upon millions of people living within 30 miles of the downtown area.
The real debate is how large of a city you want to target with your city game. are you looking at cities around the 100-250k population mark or cities in the 1+ million population mark? Eventually at either level you'll start running into the limits of the city size on the path of development. However, mattering on the growth of the surrounding area, you will eventually end up with a city that is dependent upon the suburbs for population and needs to start growing up, replacing older, short buildings with newer, taller buildings. Just look at New York and Chicago, where they commonly are replacing 2-3 story buildings with 25-50+ story buildings. A good portion of the 'population' of Chicago actually resides outside of the city. So now we get to worry about how we get rid of these older buildings that are now defunct, parking within the city (or possibly finding an alternative to people driving). Many things become a balance. Mass Transit has to be built above the need and driving in the city will always be preferable to riding a bus/train, so your transit system needs to maintain a capacity above what is being used. Your roads system still needs to be maintained though, as a good portion of the working population of your city will still be driving themselves (or carpooling).
Just to be honest though, it sounds like you want a game more like Civilization but with more of a city building element to it. It would be interesting to see how a game like that would go over, I always have problems with Civilization because there aren't any large civilizations that last anywhere near as long as the game lasts, the longest being the Roman Empire, which lasted varying amounts of time, mattering on what you consider to be the actual Roman Empire. Some people think it lasted 1500 years, others think of it lasting longer or shorter. I do like the idea though. Kind of like the sports games, you can get really granular and control the players, you can just call the plays and let the players do their thing (kind of like Civ), or you can play it in more of a dynasty role and just handle the money. It would be interesting to see how a game like that would work out. Let people control the level of granularity that they have for cities and the time scale.
I think that's enough for now... I'll check your game out sometime soon to see what else I can think of. Wow, I know too much useless crap.
[Edited by - solinear on July 9, 2006 10:53:26 AM]
If it's a city-state system, then having your own military and military industry makes perfect sense. However, a military industrial complex is very expensive and only worth it for governments (20 Million people or countries that have significant natural resources). Not to mention that now you have to worry about figuring out how to pay thousands of soldiers (not an insignificant task).
I'm seeing a few problems with your system design though.
Closed economic system. In the real world, nothing exists in a vacuum. Trade is the basis of economic growth (though not the sole basis for it, like the US government thinks it is). Trade going both directions isn't a bad thing, since if you spend $100,000 elsewhere and they spend $100,000 on stuff from you, you both benefit to the tune of $100,000. Spending money is a good thing, 10 people have an income of $1000 every 2 weeks and they spend all of it every 2 weeks, figure 10% is eaten up in taxes (more, but we're being lazy here), so they spend their $9,000 (10k minus taxes) in 2 weeks. Now that's $9,000 in the economy and since the cost of most every product is labor (manufacturing, etc...), figure that $8,500 goes to employees. Now they spend their money in 2 weeks again and after the 10% taxes, $7,750 goes out into the economy again. We'll say $7,000 of that goes to labor wages. Those people spend their money ($6,300 after taxes) and so on and so forth. After just a month and a half, that first $10,000 has turned into over $25,000 in economy. Many people have spent money that got them necessities such as housing and food and luxuries, like widescreen HD TVs. Your people are happy and you've received taxes to pay the city's bills. The nice thing about taxes is that they go right back into the system, just like everything else. The only money that actually leaves the system is money that is 'saved' (well, much of this goes back in through bank loans, but that gets back into the system at a much slower rate than the 2 week cycle). If those same 10 people had just saved their money, that $10,000 would have turned into $9,000 worth of savings, instead of $25,000 worth of gross civic product. Money doesn't get spent and people lose their jobs because nobody's buying anything and you start to go "Wow, now I understand why Japan went through a 10-15 year economic slump when all their citizens were saving loads of money", but that's another discussion.
It's difficult to provide *everything* that your citizens need. Food, plastics, metals, etc... Without a high level of natural resources in your city-state, it slowly gets more and more difficult to grow your city and develop everything that you need. Thus, again, the need for trade. You need to build your city so that it is providing something that is needed elsewhere. Intellectual property, manufacturing (meaning that it's close to natural resources of some kind), import/export (near an ocean or large lake or preferrably both), vacation spot (should be a clean and safe city, not to mention having a single or multiple 'spots of interest') or even possibly being something like a military town, where your city tries to negotiate for a military base to be placed there. This gives you a guaranteed income, but it's a relatively low average income (at least in first world nations).
Something else to remember: All vaguely major cities are built on some body of water, whether it's an ocean, lake or river. Chicago, New York, London, Paris... with a very few exceptions, major cities were started a hundred or more years ago, when overland transit was definitely *not* the fastest way to go, so rivers were the basis of locomotion. Some 'newer' cities, that have only recently started developing (in the grand scheme of things) are out there, such as Denver, but when you look at the suburban development in these areas compared to the suburban development in cities that are older and are built on bodies of water, it's difficult to really compare Denver's 'sprawl' to older cities' sprawl. Even Detroit, which is a decrepit city (compared to other major cities) has a rather extensive sprawl, with millions upon millions of people living within 30 miles of the downtown area.
The real debate is how large of a city you want to target with your city game. are you looking at cities around the 100-250k population mark or cities in the 1+ million population mark? Eventually at either level you'll start running into the limits of the city size on the path of development. However, mattering on the growth of the surrounding area, you will eventually end up with a city that is dependent upon the suburbs for population and needs to start growing up, replacing older, short buildings with newer, taller buildings. Just look at New York and Chicago, where they commonly are replacing 2-3 story buildings with 25-50+ story buildings. A good portion of the 'population' of Chicago actually resides outside of the city. So now we get to worry about how we get rid of these older buildings that are now defunct, parking within the city (or possibly finding an alternative to people driving). Many things become a balance. Mass Transit has to be built above the need and driving in the city will always be preferable to riding a bus/train, so your transit system needs to maintain a capacity above what is being used. Your roads system still needs to be maintained though, as a good portion of the working population of your city will still be driving themselves (or carpooling).
Just to be honest though, it sounds like you want a game more like Civilization but with more of a city building element to it. It would be interesting to see how a game like that would go over, I always have problems with Civilization because there aren't any large civilizations that last anywhere near as long as the game lasts, the longest being the Roman Empire, which lasted varying amounts of time, mattering on what you consider to be the actual Roman Empire. Some people think it lasted 1500 years, others think of it lasting longer or shorter. I do like the idea though. Kind of like the sports games, you can get really granular and control the players, you can just call the plays and let the players do their thing (kind of like Civ), or you can play it in more of a dynasty role and just handle the money. It would be interesting to see how a game like that would work out. Let people control the level of granularity that they have for cities and the time scale.
I think that's enough for now... I'll check your game out sometime soon to see what else I can think of. Wow, I know too much useless crap.
[Edited by - solinear on July 9, 2006 10:53:26 AM]
July 09, 2006 04:42 PM
Quote:
Give the ability to view progress on the bases as time goes on...
Don’t keep the basis just for military aspects...
Allow the player to have an influence on the recruiting effort for the military...
Nice thoughts!
Quote:
Closed economic system. In the real world, nothing exists in a vacuum...
Closed in the sense the world is a closed system. The system works because "spending" does not by itself multiply wealth. You need the ability to *create value* to spend the money on! The economy is fundamentally decided by the individual and collective productivity of your sims. Money is a measure of that productivity and is also a grease in the machine.
Quote:
it sounds like you want a game more like Civilization but with more of a city building ...
The game is set in the modern era. The territory controlled by a player is fixed.
***
What should the military *do* besides the civic duties described by Dave. I'm working along these lines:
- each City State belongs to an Alliance, consisting of 1 or more cities.
- a city may produce Combat Units (probably company units given the population scale in the game). Combat is initiated when a unit moves into a non-allied city. If the attacker is victorious, he is considered to Occupy the defending city.
- an occupied city remains in control under the original player. However he may no longer produce regular military units, and must pay a 40% tax on all income to the occupier. He may have an option to produce insurgents.
- occupation continues until 1) the occupying Alliance grants Citizenship, 2) the occupier withdraws (e.g. due to insurgency), or 3) the occupied city is liberated by another Alliance.
- each unit is described by Morale, Organization, Equipment, Strength. (I won't elaborate for now)
I'd like a way to add air power and missiles to the above mix.
Kirby
324
July 09, 2006 08:47 PM
For the political side of the military look at some of the issues facing the military bases presently. Take into consideration the finacial benefit a base brings to a community in extra jobs (civilian contractors) and the bad things like extra traffic, noise problems from jets to artillary.
On actual military responses it should depend on the type of base. Contrary to popular belief, military bases serve very specific purposes not like the one base does it all paradigm in computer games. Some are air bases, tanks / artillary, special forces, support, ships, training, staff, and search and rescue to name a few. Each of these types of bases are different in size, the number of personnel, the quantity of jobs, and cost to run.
But this might be too much detail for what you are looking for.
On actual military responses it should depend on the type of base. Contrary to popular belief, military bases serve very specific purposes not like the one base does it all paradigm in computer games. Some are air bases, tanks / artillary, special forces, support, ships, training, staff, and search and rescue to name a few. Each of these types of bases are different in size, the number of personnel, the quantity of jobs, and cost to run.
But this might be too much detail for what you are looking for.
174
July 10, 2006 03:27 AM
Let's assume the city is part of a larger country and for purposes, of the computer game, that the military provisions of the city significantly impacts the total military strength of the country.
Say you have the option of building one or more types of military buildings.
Type A
Barracks, Special ops centers... they drain money periodically, take space, but they add very strongly to the military strength of the country. They also increase the demand for Type B buildings.
Type B
Weapons factory, Arsenal... they make money by selling weapons to the government. You can set a high price, which means more profit, or a low price which means more military strength.
Type C
Bunkers, Anti Air defence... Have some of these and they boost city confidence. Have many of these and it lowers city confidence. It also has a considerable one time cost. They have more effect in tactical positions. (Like bunkers near a beach, anti air around city center)
Building these buildings is a way to keep the government happy (and in the case of the flexible B, to make money).
-If the game works with scripted events the reward could have government development grants, while a lack of them could have scripted terrorist attacks. With scripted events it's also possible that the government demands a certain building.
-If the game has unlockable buildings, a positive government approval rating may unlock new buildings.
-Maybe they only have a positive effect if 'the country is at war' and having them gives you spoils of war: Immigrants, Money and yes, Oil.
-If you want to add a more philosophical touch you can pit the citizens against the government with you in between: A larger percentage of the citizens want no military presence, while the government does want it. So any military buildings decreases citizen approval rating and increase government approval rating. ICBM's are applauded by the government because 'mutually assured destruction = mutually assured survival'. Citizens may threaten to go on strike with action boards such as We voted for a mayor, not a major!
[Edited by - Dunam on July 10, 2006 3:27:20 AM]
Say you have the option of building one or more types of military buildings.
Type A
Barracks, Special ops centers... they drain money periodically, take space, but they add very strongly to the military strength of the country. They also increase the demand for Type B buildings.
Type B
Weapons factory, Arsenal... they make money by selling weapons to the government. You can set a high price, which means more profit, or a low price which means more military strength.
Type C
Bunkers, Anti Air defence... Have some of these and they boost city confidence. Have many of these and it lowers city confidence. It also has a considerable one time cost. They have more effect in tactical positions. (Like bunkers near a beach, anti air around city center)
Building these buildings is a way to keep the government happy (and in the case of the flexible B, to make money).
-If the game works with scripted events the reward could have government development grants, while a lack of them could have scripted terrorist attacks. With scripted events it's also possible that the government demands a certain building.
-If the game has unlockable buildings, a positive government approval rating may unlock new buildings.
-Maybe they only have a positive effect if 'the country is at war' and having them gives you spoils of war: Immigrants, Money and yes, Oil.
-If you want to add a more philosophical touch you can pit the citizens against the government with you in between: A larger percentage of the citizens want no military presence, while the government does want it. So any military buildings decreases citizen approval rating and increase government approval rating. ICBM's are applauded by the government because 'mutually assured destruction = mutually assured survival'. Citizens may threaten to go on strike with action boards such as We voted for a mayor, not a major!
[Edited by - Dunam on July 10, 2006 3:27:20 AM]
July 10, 2006 04:42 PM
I see two aproaches you can have here: the simple one and the complex one. So far, everything in your game is very complex, but your focus is on city management, right? If you bring this amount of complexity to the military side (conquering another city, for example), you will have huge troubles, but also an awesome game.
My sugestion would be to skip the fighting alltogether, and focus on the presence of the military. Something like, having 500 armored tanks gives a boost for your population happiness, they feel more secure and things like that. You could also leave the responsability for developing the military to the Alliance lider, but your city can still produce tanks and sell them to the union. Maybe you can sell tanks to other alliances as well.
Problem is, what would they be good for without combat happening? I don't know, but I can figure out any combat system for your game that will look good but won't be a pain to be implemented.
Or the complex mode... you build planes, missiles, tanks, soldiers, inteligence agencies, send satelites to monitor your enemies, even build nuclear missiles. The problem is... who is going to build an effective waste management when you can just build nuclear bombs and nuke everybody off?
EDIT - oh, I almost forgot: your game is really awesome, I loved the demo! Even if it keeps the squares look (and I've seen you have equaly great graphics), it will be really good. About your question, if I ever get any concrete idea I'll post them here,but right now all I managed to come up with was 'hey, don't do the fighting thing'.
My sugestion would be to skip the fighting alltogether, and focus on the presence of the military. Something like, having 500 armored tanks gives a boost for your population happiness, they feel more secure and things like that. You could also leave the responsability for developing the military to the Alliance lider, but your city can still produce tanks and sell them to the union. Maybe you can sell tanks to other alliances as well.
Problem is, what would they be good for without combat happening? I don't know, but I can figure out any combat system for your game that will look good but won't be a pain to be implemented.
Or the complex mode... you build planes, missiles, tanks, soldiers, inteligence agencies, send satelites to monitor your enemies, even build nuclear missiles. The problem is... who is going to build an effective waste management when you can just build nuclear bombs and nuke everybody off?
EDIT - oh, I almost forgot: your game is really awesome, I loved the demo! Even if it keeps the squares look (and I've seen you have equaly great graphics), it will be really good. About your question, if I ever get any concrete idea I'll post them here,but right now all I managed to come up with was 'hey, don't do the fighting thing'.
July 10, 2006 07:11 PM
Quote:
Original post by IronGryphon
...Take into consideration the finacial benefit a base brings to a community in extra jobs (civilian contractors) and the bad things like extra traffic, noise problems from jets to artillary...
Sure. These effects actually integrate nicely to the existing game systems. The base will be a big buyer of different types of supplies. Of course they provide jobs also. Noise pollution can simply be considered a form of air pollution.
Although combat units live on the global map rather than the city map, the base function can actually integrate into the operation of units. It can serve as a supply point, for example, and generate traffic toward cities at the front.
Quote:
Type A
Barracks, Special ops centers...
Type B
Weapons factory, Arsenal...
Type C
Bunkers, Anti Air defence...
These are three good types to have. Type A trains and houses units, Type B supplies Equipment, Type C boosts your terrain defense bonus.
Quote:
I see two aproaches you can have here: the simple one and the complex one. So far, everything in your game is very complex, but your focus is on city management, right? If you bring this amount of complexity to the military side (conquering another city, for example), you will have huge troubles, but also an awesome game.
Ahh, someone with practical game development experience! It's the prime trade-off I deal with *each day*: do I go for simplicity to streamline gameplay, ease development, or do I go for complexity to enrich the experience?
I appreciate that you liked my demo! The reason I want to attempt the military dimension is this: SimCity 4 (with Rush Hour) is just very, very... very good at what it does -- so much so it intimidates the hell out of me ;). It's one thing to make boxes twirl around the map to entertain someone for 30 minutes, being top 50 in sales 3 years after release, is quite quite another thing!
I don't have a dozen successful games in my portfolio, I don't have a multi-million dollar team, and I am not Will Wright. I just have programming skills (which got much better over the course of this project), and a deep personal interest in economics and societal systems. So, in a way, complexity of simulation is *all I have to offer* ;).
Going online to trade, and to war against other city states, is an extension of this thinking. I don't have a dozen transit systems or 40 different buildings types, I only have the blood, spoils, and tears of war and trade.
Quote:
Problem is, what would they be good for without combat happening? I don't know, but I can figure out any combat system for your game that will look good but won't be a pain to be implemented.
Or the complex mode... you build planes, missiles, tanks, soldiers, inteligence agencies, send satelites to monitor your enemies, even build nuclear missiles. The problem is... who is going to build an effective waste management when you can just build nuclear bombs and nuke everybody off?
My first pass design is roughly this. Your buildings crank out unit counters, which exist on a separate global map, where each city is *one tile*. This is the only map view that is shared among players -- the city maps live on player machines. Unit counters fight each other in a sort of slow Civilization mode.
btw I really liked your "build an MMORPG game game" idea. Hmmm after I unwrap my head from this design doc thing I might have something to add to your thread.
Kirby
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