This is based heavily off of the original Master of Orion's economic model, along with influences from Master of Orion II and Ascendancy. There are three kinds of production: Industry, Research, and Prosperity. Industry is used to build things. Research is used to develop new technologies. Prosperity is used to grow population and improve the environment. Unlike most other space 4X games, there aren't any specific buildings to construct on planets, only generalized infrastructure. Each type of production has its own infrastructure. (Basically, Industry has factories, Research has labs, and Prosperity has farms.) Right now I'm thinking that each type of infrastructure must be built using Industry, but that may change. Like in Master of Orion II, population is allocated to the three types of production. Each unit of population can support a certain amount of infrastructure. (This can change with more advanced technology.) Idle infrastructure (i.e. not employed by population) may incur maintenance costs, but I'm not sure about that yet. One important thing is trying to develop economies of scale, something that has been sorely lacking in just about all space 4X games. (Master of Orion II came the closest.) Research has always been pooled on a civilization-wide basis, so that's a non-issue. However, you can also choose to export excess Prosperity and Industry to other worlds. The idea is to encourage specialization among your colonies, which would hopefully lead to more interesting strategic choices. Of course, this system is far from complete. Some outstanding issues remain. For example, should Industry be able to be spent on more than one thing at once? I currently envision the spending categories for Industry to be the three types of infrastructure, ships, and defenses (basically the same categories as Master of Orion). If Industry can be spent on more than one thing at once, why not Prosperity, or even Research? Would this make things too complicated for the "average" space 4X player? In any case, I hope that some others will lend their critical eyes to my ideas in this post, and provide me with feedback. :)

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If Industry can be spent on more than one thing at once, why not Prosperity, or even Research? Would this make things too complicated for the "average" space 4X player?

I don't think it would be too bad, it just allows for multitasking if you want. It would be nice to be able to divide my industry amongst a series of queued projects instead of building them one at a time, that way i could field my fleet all at once, or conduct a wider (if slower) net of research.

Of course, doing that could have certain disadvantages, like not being able to update the design mid-production when i get a new piece of technology. The process of producing a single "prototype" to field test the validity of a design, and then put it into mass production would be kind of neat.

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Original post by RobAU78 One important thing is trying to develop economies of scale, something that has been sorely lacking in just about all space 4X games. (Master of Orion II came the closest.) Research has always been pooled on a civilization-wide basis, so that's a non-issue.

As you have noticed, pooling resources across the empire causes this explosion. It's the one big piggybank, spendable from anywhere that gets astronomically huge.

But some players balk at the idea of building freighters or tankers, and would rather spend their time in combat. (As for me, I like a universe full of cargo ships, deep space stations, and piracy).

In any case, if you don't wish to have such things in your game, it could be simulated by charging a moving fee. Any resources transported/drawn from other planets could cost something related to the transport distance.

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Original post by Gyrthok I don't think it would be too bad, it just allows for multitasking if you want. It would be nice to be able to divide my industry amongst a series of queued projects instead of building them one at a time, that way i could field my fleet all at once, or conduct a wider (if slower) net of research.

Right, although they wouldn't be queued - they'd be going on at the same time. But that's probably what you meant. :)

This sort of thing might not scale all that well, however. Maybe some kind of "governor" system like in the GalCiv games would help with scaling.

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Of course, doing that could have certain disadvantages, like not being able to update the design mid-production when i get a new piece of technology. The process of producing a single "prototype" to field test the validity of a design, and then put it into mass production would be kind of neat.

One idea that I like regarding ship construction is the ability to order entire predefined fleets at once. An issue with this mechanic, however, is how to allocate the construction among more than one planet (if that's even allowed). I'd say the best way to handle that would be to have a global interface for constructing fleets, and be able to add planets to the construction of a given fleet.

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Original post by AngleWyrm As you have noticed, pooling resources across the empire causes this explosion. It's the one big piggybank, spendable from anywhere that gets astronomically huge.

Sorry, what "explosion" do you mean?

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But some players balk at the idea of building freighters or tankers, and would rather spend their time in combat. (As for me, I like a universe full of cargo ships, deep space stations, and piracy). In any case, if you don't wish to have such things in your game, it could be simulated by charging a moving fee. Any resources transported/drawn from other planets could cost something related to the transport distance.

Hmm... I think that for "capitalized" production (i.e. saved up from previous turns), there should be a cost involved for use. Otherwise, production that has been generated in-turn can be exported/imported at no cost.

I don't know about the "average" gamer, but I'm starving for depth, so I'd welcome this kind of flexibility. Although I'd miss building the individual buildings because of the sense of character they give a colony, I like that you're moving more toward what a large planet would be (that is, a single factory or "interrogation center" doesn't make sense on a planetary scale).

In terms of scaling, the one pet idea I've always favored is a tiered system where detail collapses and becomes inaccessible, meaning that at first you're dealing with things on the provincial level, then continental, then planetary and then maybe system-wide (or even sector if you want to scale higher). But I've never been able to put the idea to a practical test so I don't know how complicated it would be in reality.

In terms of prosperity and research, what about the idea of a list of concurrent "Programs" you could enact? These could have the taste of futuristic government programs that confer effects on one or more given colonies but which have to be maintained.

I recommend this only if there is any gameplay / point to running an empire. If you're going for your typical 4X, then I wouldn't recommend it, because the point of those games is about killing the other guy. (My wishes stray more toward a futuristic empire sim, so they may not be relevant to where you're going).

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Original post by RobAU78 Quote: Original post by AngleWyrm As you have noticed, pooling resources across the empire causes this explosion. It's the one big piggybank, spendable from anywhere that gets astronomically huge. Sorry, what "explosion" do you mean?

At the start of many 4x games, the player's income is that of their home planet. Several turns down the road, the player conquers a second planet. Now their income is considerably larger, and with this newfound wealth they are able to accelerate the process of expansion. A few turns later they take a third planet. Even more resources become available, and the player's rate of growth quickly skyrockets. The game is pretty much over as soon as the player's income dwarfs that of all the AI players.

The accelerating income has traditionally been improbably difficult to balance. Fluctuations in the starting layout of the map become the determining factor of who wins. The player re-rolls until he has a winnable starting map, then wins. Usually early and by a lot.

It may have something to do with the granularity of the income, compared to the number of planets owned. For instance, if it took several dozen planets before profit really started to accelerate, then the map differences would be marginalized, averaged out.

Startup costs and overhead reduce the profit margin. Everything starts to have pre-requisites, until it takes way too many turns to accomplish a goal. The game becomes a depth-first tree traversal of an ever-expanding set of pre-requisites. This could be good, if fulfilling the prerequisites feels like playing the heart of the game, if it is satisfactory in itself. For instance, if it includes conquering planets.

[Edited by - AngleWyrm on January 29, 2009 8:33:31 AM]

I recommend taking a look at Anacreon ( http://www.neurohack.com/anacreon/ ) to see how THAT handles setting planet specialization.

In short, there are five resources, each with a different purpose. Food is necessary for planets to function. Ambrosia is a drug that can speed up production and has a side effect of making people addicted. The other three resources affect industry, ship production, and ship refueling.

Every planet can be self-sufficient, producing all the resources it needs to function, but this is inefficent. You designate a certain resource to be focused on, and set up supply chains via freighters to deal with the rest.

One interesting thing is that tech levels vary per planet.

I'd also recommend looking at the Europa Universalis games, especially Victoria and Crusader Kings. They're historical and not set in space, but they're very relevant. Victoria in particular focuses hugely on infrastructure, and Crusader Kings has an interesting system in place where you get to determine the balance of power in a province between Peasent, Burghers, Clergy, and Nobles, which effects taxes, loyalty of these groups, and what kinds of troops get fielded in these provinces (which is also relevant because, as in Anacreon, tech levels vary per region).

Crusader Kings also has an interesting approach to having AI governors manage your province. In that game, you have personal characters. Namely, a king, and his family. Your king has stats. One of these stats is called stewardship. You can only personally control one province per each point of stewardship you have. Any more than that, and provincial production efficiency starts to tank, and you look like an easy target. So, you have to make people in your court into vassals and give them provinces. Vassals also might end up having conflicting loyalties, and if you use THEIR troops in battle too much they might get mad at you.

I think some of the issues with basebuilding in 4X games is a symptom of a problem endemic to the genre: What level of control/management are you trying to simulate?

Personally, I'm not a fan of tactical combat in 4X games (like in MoO2 or Space Empires) simply because it's on a very different level from the managerial/grand strategy aspect of the rest of the game. Base micromanagement falls into the same problem. It's reasonable for a ruler to subsizidize certain industries. It's somewhat reasonable for them to command certain buildings be build in a 4X on land game. It's not really reasonable for them to be doing it in a 4X in space game.

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Original post by Wavinator I don't know about the "average" gamer, but I'm starving for depth, so I'd welcome this kind of flexibility. Although I'd miss building the individual buildings because of the sense of character they give a colony, I like that you're moving more toward what a large planet would be (that is, a single factory or "interrogation center" doesn't make sense on a planetary scale).

My focus is on strategic depth. IMO, constructing individual buildings on planets is tedious - especially when you have to choose where to construct them.

Let me explain in more detail what I mean. Ascendancy and Galactic Civilizations 2 both divide planets up into tiles on which the player can build facilities. This allows for multiple facilities of the same type to be built on the same planet. While a finite number of tiles per planet is a nice restriction (i.e. it prevents the player from following the "build everything everywhere" approach), in my experience it's a chore to figure out just what you want to build where. Maybe it's just me, but the fact that the tiles aren't just in a list, but distributed over a map of the planet, implies that I should take the time to literally place them, instead of just adding them to a build queue or whatever. It seems like this is done to (try to) stimulate immersion, but I think it just adds tedium.

On the other hand, games like Master of Orion II and the first Galactic Civilizations don't have build tiles, so only one of each facility type can be built on a planet. However, this seems to lead directly to the "build everything everywhere" approach. There's no real incentive to specialize, because you can only build things on planets with their own industry. So if you want to ramp up food production on a world, all other things being equal, you'll need to ramp up the industry first, so you can build the food-producing facilities more quickly. Maybe there's a balancing issue here; in almost all of my MOO2 games, my income grows so quickly that, before mid-game, I don't need to worry about maintenance costs on my planets, so again, there's no reason *not* to build everything everywhere.

Finally, I know one major objection to the above will be your ability to simply buy facilities outright (except in Ascendancy). My opinion here is that "rush-building" is essentially a cheat. Instead of using extra production to build things more quickly than otherwise, you're magically able to insta-build something just because you have enough money saved up. While I agree that realism shouldn't trump all other considerations, I find this feature to be sufficiently *unrealistic* to dislike it as a 4X game mechanic.

/rant :P

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In terms of scaling, the one pet idea I've always favored is a tiered system where detail collapses and becomes inaccessible, meaning that at first you're dealing with things on the provincial level, then continental, then planetary and then maybe system-wide (or even sector if you want to scale higher). But I've never been able to put the idea to a practical test so I don't know how complicated it would be in reality.

When talking about the provincial and continental scales, this seems similar to MOO3's Dominant Economic Activities (DEAs), which I think failed miserably. On the other hand, I do like the idea of arbitrarily grouping planets together to form larger economic units. The production outputs would be aggregated among the member planets, and planets outside of the grouping (or other groupings) could only interact with it as a whole.

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In terms of prosperity and research, what about the idea of a list of concurrent "Programs" you could enact? These could have the taste of futuristic government programs that confer effects on one or more given colonies but which have to be maintained.

Well, I was thinking something along those lines. For Prosperity, you could decide how much to use on improving the environment (soil enrichment, terraforming, etc.) and how much to use on population growth. If morale is included as a game mechanic, Prosperity would be the obvious choice of production type to use for improving morale. Research could be allocated between multiple concurrent technologies. Is this what you were thinking?

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I recommend this only if there is any gameplay / point to running an empire. If you're going for your typical 4X, then I wouldn't recommend it, because the point of those games is about killing the other guy. (My wishes stray more toward a futuristic empire sim, so they may not be relevant to where you're going).

4X games with multiple victory conditions seem a lot closer to simulation-type games than those without, IMO. But even if the only way to win is to kill the other guy, there can be different strategies to pursue. Also, specialized planets leads to more diverse "terrain", which is otherwise rather lacking in space 4X games. How you deal with a planet under threat by an enemy may differ if it's e.g. a vital food-producer vs. one of several industrial hotspots.

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Original post by AngleWyrm At the start of many 4x games, the player's income is that of their home planet. Several turns down the road, the player conquers a second planet. Now their income is considerably larger, and with this newfound wealth they are able to accelerate the process of expansion. A few turns later they take a third planet. Even more resources become available, and the player's rate of growth quickly skyrockets. The game is pretty much over as soon as the player's income dwarfs that of all the AI players. [Snipped more interesting stuff.]

Okay, I see what you mean now. It does seem like a common strategy in many 4X games is to stockpile a lot of money, and then "rush-build" a lot of units/ships/whatever that you then use to take over your enemies. This is why I see "rush-building" as basically cheating. Ironically enough, RTS games (which often have a related "rushing" strategy) always have a certain amount of time elapse before you're done building something, which mitigates "rush-building" there.

Unfortunately, nothing can be done about players "re-rolling" over and over until they get maps that look favorable to them. But I agree that economic differences should not get big before you have at least several planets.

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Original post by MeshGearFox I recommend taking a look at Anacreon ( http://www.neurohack.com/anacreon/ ) to see how THAT handles setting planet specialization.

Sure, but do you have any feedback on my idea?

The simulation of facilities seems sound. Placing tiles was for me just pointless busy work in GalCiv2, and while it was possible to do better than the AI in MOO3, I found myself cursing the AI for not being able to do such a mundane and repetetive job.

One advantage to your facilities as a list is that it could be possible to queue them up, and even save off different planetary build orders.

Something that the RTS world seems to do well is tech trees that are based on constructed facilities. A factory that churns out Mark-I starships, that can be upgraded to build Mark-II starships.

It localizes both production and research, making a given planet valuable, and the loss of facilities meaningful.

[Edited by - AngleWyrm on January 29, 2009 10:23:26 AM]

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Sure, but do you have any feedback on my idea?

I think the basic idea is fine, but you haven't really developed it much. Which is why I was suggesting other implementations to look at :)

The problem with placing buildings on particular structures in Galciv2 is that there's not any strategy to it. Tile X produces more food. Okay. Build a farm there. Tile Y has a research bonus. Do you see where this is going? There's no CHOICE in regards to what you build. I mean, you CAN choose, but there's only one GOOD choice.

The thing is, I think Galciv 1's starbases, and to an extent Galciv 2's asteroid mines, are a much purer and... direct way of addressing the problem. Don't put bonus resource tiles on the planets. Have them floating in space. Sure, you don't need to make much of a choice as to what starbase you build where, but on the other hand, you DO have a lot of options in how you build UP those starbases.

(Starbase building was also a bit more worthwhile in GC1, as sprawling empires had efficiency problems as they'd require you to colonize a lot of suboptimal planets which would be massive resource sinks).

In regards to base building, though, I think just having a limitted number of total slots to build stuff in would be better. Like Space Empires 4 does, only, hopefully, your game would have more interesting facilities.