@Tiblanc: Your idea could do, but I really want to emphasize shortage and its effect on the game. One of the reasons for this is that I believe a 4X game may tend to go on forever. If you deal a crippling blow to your enemy's economy (by, say, disallowing him permanent or temporary access to ability to produce shields or beam weaponry for example) it should lead to a downfall of that player and shorten the game. Always having alternatives just makes it artificially longer with comebacks, etc. I think keeping it more finite and black&white makes it easier to see the danger of space and plan accordingly. As a result, a player using a single base to mine a specific good will FEEL vulnerable, and so should he.

They would feel vulnerable. If all you do is mine low quality materials, you will get crushed by high tech ships because they can produce them more efficiently. You can still cripple another player by raiding his high quality mines. The difference is you cannot kill a player by capturing a single key planet.

There's no rule saying each resource needs to go through those number of steps.

There isn't, but its simpler to process from the player's perspective if there is a workflow they can relate to.
The idea of having each finite resource as a layer 3 resource is mostly so that a complex economy is easier to understand.
If building a component would require resources from each layer, it would quickly become overwhelming.
The human mind can process up to 7 items in parallel in their memory, so while having 3 layers will clearly exceed 7 different items, if each layer has 7 or fewer items, they can 'set' their minds for a specific task and refer to that specific layer and quickly grasp it all.
Thus, I would refrain from using different layers for the same tasks (building a component for example).

perhaps have the buildings be modules, and allow installing those modules on spaceships? would be cool.)

already part of the plan 'sort-of' for some ships/starbases.
I'm not sure I understood your suggestion overall though. Could you examplify through visual support?

So rather then having higher tier ships require a more rare substance then lower tier ships. What I was thinking of was having rare substances be important strategic assets.

Food for thought. I don't have an immediate feedback for that, but I'll keep that in mind, thanks.

Deadlock 2 had a nice quality system. There was iron, steel alloy, elernium (or whatever it was called), elernium allow. These all were the same "metal", you could just use iron all the time, no problem. But higher tier metals were worth more (you could refine iron into steel wich was worth 3 "metal points" as compared to "1 metal point" of iron). The game automaticly used up the highest (most efficient) metal type upon construction. So it was benefitial to make the higher tier metals, but if you forgot there was no problem in the form of stopped production.

I've actually considered having each resource break down into two different variants. The 'abundant/cheat' one and the 'rare/high quality' one. If you built with the best one, you have better component properties, etc. Here, what you are suggesting is that both of these would do exactly the same, but the yield from 1 'high quality' would be equal to 3 times the yield of a cheap one. It feels a lot like the high-yield minerals in Starcraft 2 right?
I'm trying to understand the proper advantages of such a system. Once I discover a planet, I would, of course, go for the high yield if its available. There wouldn't be any means for me, as a designer, to insure that these planets are always on the battlefront and are harder to defend, therefore, I don't see the risk-management aspect. Perhaps I'm missing something?

As for logistics, I already said why I dislike it in other topic, so I will just add to my thoughts. I like the complex layered production mechanics, I loathe micromanaging every single ship that carry supply of toilet paper to a distant colony of my empire (it's not worthy of my position of the emperor you know ). So I thought about fully automatic AI controled logistics. Something like Settlers had. You had to build the network (roads), you had to build supply depts (warehouses) and allocate enough resources for freighters (people that carry stuff). It was very interesting because you had to think about logistics in Settlers all the time, and the resources are comlex, yet you had never, ever, manually adjust the logistics (it's a system with heavily impotrant and complex logistics and zero logistics micromanagement, a very unique (and fun) combination).

I'm not formally opposed to simplifying this, but I have a few needs I want to cover.
Most games that deal with automated freighters are hard to understand, and more often than not, you just have to build more freighters until you have too many and everything is accounted for.
Also, I want freighters to consume fuel, as other ships do, so that an empire without fuel simply cannot survive. It is the thirst for fuel (much like petroleum on earth) that forces you out of your well-developed planet onto the unknown. It is necessary for everything, thus you 'always' need more. If you could just send 1 explorer, colonize many planets, and freight all the fuel back home, it wouldn't make sense.
Star Knights and MOO series have poor freighter systems.
I like where you're headed with roads and whatnot, but this is space, and well, roads aren't quite possible. I can think of ways to achieve this, such as starports, warpgates, etc.
Lastly, you need to understand how to assign 'needs' to each planets, an export/import system that makes sense. If Planet A needs good 'x', it needs to know from which planet (B) it will get it, and why. Is it because it is the closest 'exporting' planet?
Manual control helps to optimize this process, because you know more about each planet's role in your empire than an AI ever could. I have yet to see a 4X game that comes even close to doing this right. Because I couldn't figure out a better way, I've decide to do it manually.
The other main reason why I like it to be manual is that it doen't make an artificial line between freighters and ships. You *could* theoretically use a warship to move goods. The goods would be more protected. Or you could send warship escorts with your freighters, etc. Also, you could use your freighters for something else. Moving them to fetch fuel, or carry supplies as a support ship for your warfleet. There are a number of new strategies that emanate from having freighters as 'normal ships'.
Also, if the freighters are large enough, the micro-management isn't so bad: you can send 1 freighter every 10 turns with a massive shipment of goods.
If you see any other way to go about it, I'm all ears!

I was thinking maybe like that. You define sectors (groups of planets) then assign transport ships to the sector (freighers, fuel carriers, passenger liners) and the AI had to manage these. You can see these routes, where each ship go to, what it carries, etc. But you can't change it. You can only adjust global, empire wide, priorities (what to carry first) and decide which sector (or to be more precise a local AI transport company ) gets how many freighters. I think I would find it quite fun.

Fun, but you couldn't micro-manage when necessary. If you see your freighter line will get intercepted, you need to move to the closest planet you can and wait for reinforcements. This is part of strategy, and this simplified system really takes away. In the end, your opponent isn't playing you, he's playing the poor AI of the game, and this hurts.
As a reference, imagine in Starcraft: the game would really get boring if you have to manually control each harvester independantly (and I fully agree). But imagine if you could no longer control them when they are harvesting, and they get under attack. A good SC player knows when to move harvesters, and where to move them. He knows when to use them as meatshield, (or in the case of scv, as repairmen). The 'economic' units of good games tend to have a lot of strategies built around them. If you automate freighters, you lose that ability.
Further expanding on starcraft 2: when I was playing actively, I was a diamond level player (top tier). This is a decent level to be at competitively, yet, this isn't master or grandmaster league. I've raked a lot of wins as a Protoss by doing early pushes with Zealots (a lot of players did). Often, the enemy could repel that, but you just had to realize that if you had added 1 additional PROBE to the forward push, you could get away with an easy win. I've done that, a lot of pros have as well. Its just one example where creative use of economical units matters. I guess that's also why I'm hellbent on having freighters behave like normal ships.

They would feel vulnerable. If all you do is mine low quality materials, you will get crushed by high tech ships because they can produce them more efficiently. You can still cripple another player by raiding his high quality mines. The difference is you cannot kill a player by capturing a single key planet.

I would tend to agree, and though the victory is inevitable, it leaves you hoping. One of my main concern with Galactic Civilization is that it allowed this to happen, and it was the most unfun situation I've seen in any 4x games. With a tech tree so vast, you could reach a point in a game where there was no way you could win whatever you did, whichever winning condition you were aiming for, but the game wouldn't let you know that until 10-20 turns later. The aftertaste of that was so bitter that it felt like an utter waste of time. It was frustrating. The opposite also happened a lot: you got simply stronger than everyone else, that one of your ships could probably annihilate all other warfleets in combat without taking a single hit. Yet, the game allowed you to expand at will and play sim city.
I want an environment that's thoroghly balances, where its hard to gain any form of an advantage. Ships, themselves, won't overpower each other that much. It is the resources you have under your control that determines whether you can rebuild a fleet and continue waging war. So if your opponent's strategy is superior (he has intelligence that confirms capturing planet X would cripple your ability to stay in the fight) then so be it, even if his fleet is largely inferior. This means he's taken advantage of the knowledge he has to even the scores. Besides, if you have a 'rich planet' you should definitely put it out of reach. Building starbases on the fore-front is a risk: it can allow your reinforcements to jump straight into the fray and sustain a military push, but it can also be your downfall if its overrun. Think about the Death Star's destruction in Star Wars, and imagine how the empire can recover from that.
Yet, like I said, it shouldn't all be decided on a single planet. Otherwise, this means your are a bad strategist with a poor economy. You need to stretch your empire deep, and then choose the planets you will develop. Sometimes, it means neglecting a faraway rich planet just because it is not within your real area of influence, too far off to really contribute to your economy substancially: it requires more military forces to keep within your area of influence than the resources it yields. That, too, is recognizing good strategy.

I've actually considered having each resource break down into two different variants. The 'abundant/cheat' one and the 'rare/high quality' one. If you built with the best one, you have better component properties, etc. Here, what you are suggesting is that both of these would do exactly the same, but the yield from 1 'high quality' would be equal to 3 times the yield of a cheap one. It feels a lot like the high-yield minerals in Starcraft 2 right?

I'm trying to understand the proper advantages of such a system. Once I discover a planet, I would, of course, go for the high yield if its available. There wouldn't be any means for me, as a designer, to insure that these planets are always on the battlefront and are harder to defend, therefore, I don't see the risk-management aspect. Perhaps I'm missing something?[/quote]Well, the elerium could be considered highyeld minerals, but it's less important. The important one was iron (mineral) and steel (factory product). It was fun changing iron to steel for better efficiency.

As for "risk-management aspect" I don't get it. Why would anyone want to tie resources with risk managemnet? Risk management is for combat or maybe diplomacy, not for economy. Economy is mostly a peaceful activity. I think you try to solve too many things using too many tools that were not meant for this. If you make it so the player needs to worry about intercepting lines and risk each time he tries to produce something his brain will meltdown

Further expanding on starcraft 2: when I was playing actively, I was a diamond level player (top tier).[/quote]Oh, that explains a lot Well, I don't think 4X games have much (or even anything) in common with RTS games. Experience from these probably will do more harm than good.

In RTSes micromanaging is the part of the game, also it never slows the game because it's realtime. But 4X are turn based (at least majority) so micromanagement can kill that kind of game because the turn will take forever.

Oh, that explains a lot Well, I don't think 4X games have much (or even anything) in common with RTS games. Experience from these probably will do more harm than good.

In RTSes micromanaging is the part of the game, also it never slows the game because it's realtime. But 4X are turn based (at least majority) so micromanagement can kill that kind of game because the turn will take forever.

I disagree. RTS's can be 4X, and can be good 4X games. Think of it logically, in a 4X you explore, expand, exploite and exterminate. There is no way you can convince me that the Age of Empires style of RTS does not fit that classification.

Also, micromangement can work in a TBS. Take a look at Civilization 2 and Civilization 4, the most successful TBS games, and based completely on micromanagement. What helps to control MM is optional automation. For instance, the city governor in Civilization, rally and way points in RTS's, the command hierarchy of Hearts of Iron 3 (where you could automate entire theatres of war or any point down to individual units if you wanted to). Using good automation allows the player to eliminate MM in areas they're not immediately interested in, so they can focus on MMing the areas they are focused on at that point in the game.

I disagree. RTS's can be 4X, and can be good 4X games. Think of it logically, in a 4X you explore, expand, exploite and exterminate. There is no way you can convince me that the Age of Empires style of RTS does not fit that classification.

Well, maybe this indeed is logical, but it's not how I feel I like 4X games, I don't like RTSes (with many exceptions). I would not buy a 4X strategy that was advertised as having any similarities to RTS.
Again, you might be completely correct, I don't see any flaw in your reasoning, but the 4X lover in me can't agree with what you said

Also, micromangement can work in a TBS. Take a look at Civilization 2 and Civilization 4, the most successful TBS games, and based completely on micromanagement.

Well, the primary question is about quantity of micromanagement. In Civilization 2 you can have like 10-20 cities (and you are actively discouraged by the game to have more cities), in Stars! you can have like hundreds planets and have no penatlies if you get more. This is a completely different story As they say, the difference between a medicine and a poison is in the quantity
Besides, take a look at Civilization 4. They completely killed micromanagement whenever they could compared to previous series. Yes, Firaxis defintiely sees micromanagement (even though in Civilization there is not too much of it) as the root of all evil.

What helps to control MM is optional automation.[/quote]I don't agree with that one. Master of Orion 3 tried to do it, it was an epic fail. After MOO3 I became convinced that partial (optional) automation in principle is a veeery bad thing. Either make it always manual or always fully AI controled. Maybe it's not always true and it could work but... so far I have seen it do much more harm than good. If it's too much for a player to handle then make it simplier. Don't make tools that will play the game for me. I'm the player and I want to play the game myself. I definitely don't want to decide if I want to do something automatic or manual. The game is supposed to make me do it all manually. If I'm resorting to automation (in a turn based game) it means I'm BORED and that I find the game TROUBLESOME, and these are cardinal sins for a game... Really, as a player I don't find "yeah, the city management is boring, but we make it so you can turn an AI governor to do this chore for you" a valid excuse. If you made these cities then make managing them FUN, so I would never ever want to give away the management of it to the computer. And if there are too many cities to handle then limit the number (whatever way you want, I don't know or care how, I'm a player ) until I can handle these without resorting to delegating tasks to AI.

[quote name='BRRGames' timestamp='1353274535' post='5002108']I disagree. RTS's can be 4X, and can be good 4X games. Think of it logically, in a 4X you explore, expand, exploite and exterminate. There is no way you can convince me that the Age of Empires style of RTS does not fit that classification.

Well, maybe this indeed is logical, but it's not how I feel I like 4X games, I don't like RTSes (with many exceptions). I would not buy a 4X strategy that was advertised as having any similarities to RTS.
Again, you might be completely correct, I don't see any flaw in your reasoning, but the 4X lover in me can't agree with what you said

Also, micromangement can work in a TBS. Take a look at Civilization 2 and Civilization 4, the most successful TBS games, and based completely on micromanagement.

Well, the primary question is about quantity of micromanagement. In Civilization 2 you can have like 10-20 cities (and you are actively discouraged by the game to have more cities), in Stars! you can have like hundreds planets and have no penatlies if you get more. This is a completely different story As they say, the difference between a medicine and a poison is in the quantity
Besides, take a look at Civilization 4. They completely killed micromanagement whenever they could compared to previous series. Yes, Firaxis defintiely sees micromanagement (even though in Civilization there is not too much of it) as the root of all evil.

What helps to control MM is optional automation.[/quote]I don't agree with that one. Master of Orion 3 tried to do it, it was an epic fail. After MOO3 I became convinced that partial (optional) automation in principle is a veeery bad thing. Either make it always manual or always fully AI controled. Maybe it's not always true and it could work but... so far I have seen it do much more harm than good. If it's too much for a player to handle then make it simplier. Don't make tools that will play the game for me. I'm the player and I want to play the game myself. I definitely don't want to decide if I want to do something automatic or manual. The game is supposed to make me do it all manually. If I'm resorting to automation (in a turn based game) it means I'm BORED and that I find the game TROUBLESOME, and these are cardinal sins for a game... Really, as a player I don't find "yeah, the city management is boring, but we make it so you can turn an AI governor to do this chore for you" a valid excuse. If you made these cities then make managing them FUN, so I would never ever want to give away the management of it to the computer. And if there are too many cities to handle then limit the number (whatever way you want, I don't know or care how, I'm a player ) until I can handle these without resorting to delegating tasks to AI.
[/quote]

I too am a huge 4x fan. However I don't mind playing a 4x RTS (if it's stelar). I prefer TBS though.

Yes quantity of MM can cause headaches. Again back to Civ2 in the early game it was nothing to manually manage 20 workers. But in the later game when you could have a hundred workers it was an absolute nightmare. Choosing one of the automation commands is what I'm talking about with "optional automation". In the end game you want to focus on anything but workers, so you set and forget about them. (Note here: the quality of the automation should not detract from the actual point of automation, specially in Civ's worker case haha). As a GOOD example of optional automation, look at Colonization's (the original) custom house and wagon links. The player manually transports good via wagon and ship from the New World to Europe. You can set a trade link for a wagon which automatically moves goods from one place to another (ie: from inland to a harbor). Then using a custom house the harbor automatically sells those goods to Europe. This is GOOD optional automation which eliminates mundane boring MM.

Agreed MOO3 was a tank. But one example does not invalidate the hundreds of successful automation examples. ;)

Yes quantity of MM can cause headaches. Again back to Civ2 in the early game it was nothing to manually manage 20 workers. But in the later game when you could have a hundred workers it was an absolute nightmare. Choosing one of the automation commands is what I'm talking about with "optional automation". In the end game you want to focus on anything but workers, so you set and forget about them. (Note here: the quality of the automation should not detract from the actual point of automation, specially in Civ's worker case haha). As a GOOD example of optional automation, look at Colonization's (the original) custom house and wagon links. The player manually transports good via wagon and ship from the New World to Europe. You can set a trade link for a wagon which automatically moves goods from one place to another (ie: from inland to a harbor). Then using a custom house the harbor automatically sells those goods to Europe. This is GOOD optional automation which eliminates mundane boring MM.

Well, as a player I never considered defining a trade route or "Go" unit's command as an automation... These are like the basic interface stuff.

Maybe let's divide it like that:
- automated carrying an order WITHOUT any decisions involved - pathfining for a unit, and all forms of setting "source" and "destination" for a unit/transport (colonization's wagon links)
- delegating to AI tasks that involve decisions - city governor, automated worker

If we talk about automating things that do not involve decisions of any kind I fully agree. These are always good, no exceptions.

If we talk about giving to the hands of AI any real decisions, then it's a different story. I would divide these in 2 kinds. Trivial decisions, like worker automation, well, it's the necessary evil, I don't like it, it's a poor design but it does not bother me too much. The second is strategic decisions, like what to build in a city. That's the pure evil. It takes away the decisions I, the player, should make. It means there is something really wrong with the game, it starts playing the game for me. The second one is very hard for me to accept.


As for Civ's workers, I agree with what you said about Civ2, but there is an interesting thing they did with these in Civ4. First, they gave workers movement of 2, which was a brilliant decision. Now you need much fewer workers because you were not wasting time for movement (most of the time workers move on undeveloped high movement cost terrain or need to cover long distances). It made it both faster, more efficient and less troublesome because you could always move and issue an order in the same turn. But even more genious decision is what they did with the terrain improvements. They made making improvements FUN In Civ 1-3 you were just building roads and irigation on flatlands and mines in mountains. Not any real decision I would say, just a chore... But in Civ 4 it looks completely different. You actually think what to build on what terrain (well, maybe it's not the most important strategic level decision and maybe it's not that hard decision, but it's still a real and valid decision to make). You click on the city, check what it has, what it needs, on what it specializes and then make a decision. Then once you made up your mind you recall that in 4 turns you will have technology ready that will allow making a certain improvements better, so you go and check techs screen and start thinking if it's worth switching to another improvement type. And finally, once you confirmed and really are ready to go you recall you planned to change an economic policy to "planned economy" which will change yet another improvement, so you go to the internal politics screen and reconsider once again
They did a great thing here, they didn't focus on making better automation for workers, they focused on making the decisions involved FUN and meaningful so the player won't WANT to use any automation at all. They haven't cured the symptoms, they stroke in the core of the problem.

I disagree with your analysis of Civ4's workers, but that's a design issue rather than any other issue. In Civ4 the decision simply became "can I build a mine? Yes, build it. No, build a farm". ;)

We have strayed far from the topic though now, best we return to the regular scheduled program.

As for "risk-management aspect" I don't get it. Why would anyone want to tie resources with risk managemnet? Risk management is for combat or maybe diplomacy, not for economy. Economy is mostly a peaceful activity. I think you try to solve too many things using too many tools that were not meant for this. If you make it so the player needs to worry about intercepting lines and risk each time he tries to produce something his brain will meltdown

Well the vector of Starcraft is resource risk-assesment. You capture a new resource field, knowingly that it could mean your downfall. It brings you nearer to your enemy, and less 'settled'. So is space. Untying them is actually impossible. Your opponent may always opt to take out your richer planets, and most established ones. Choosing to develop planets on the outskirts is thus, a risk, whether you keep it in mind or not.

Oh, that explains a lot Well, I don't think 4X games have much (or even anything) in common with RTS games. Experience from these probably will do more harm than good.

In RTSes micromanaging is the part of the game, also it never slows the game because it's realtime. But 4X are turn based (at least majority) so micromanagement can kill that kind of game because the turn will take forever.

VGA Planets is also very competitive. The fact you have more time to think through your turn and issue commands doesn't make it any less challenging. I want something balanced and challenging as well. This may be different than the majority of 4X games out there, and the niche may be smaller, but I think it merits attention. I haven't seen a serious effort in that direction in decades.

I disagree. RTS's can be 4X, and can be good 4X games. Think of it logically, in a 4X you explore, expand, exploite and exterminate. There is no way you can convince me that the Age of Empires style of RTS does not fit that classification.

Sword of the Stars is even a better example: Real-time, yet, definitely 4X.


As far as the OP is concerned:
I'll try two models: one using layer 1 resources only, and one using 3 layers with few resources.
There's nothing like prototyping it and getting feedback. I think we've gone as far as theory can go. Besides, its clear we're appealing to very different crowds here.

I would tend to agree, and though the victory is inevitable, it leaves you hoping. One of my main concern with Galactic Civilization is that it allowed this to happen, and it was the most unfun situation I've seen in any 4x games. With a tech tree so vast, you could reach a point in a game where there was no way you could win whatever you did, whichever winning condition you were aiming for, but the game wouldn't let you know that until 10-20 turns later. The aftertaste of that was so bitter that it felt like an utter waste of time. It was frustrating. The opposite also happened a lot: you got simply stronger than everyone else, that one of your ships could probably annihilate all other warfleets in combat without taking a single hit. Yet, the game allowed you to expand at will and play sim city.
I want an environment that's thoroghly balances, where its hard to gain any form of an advantage. Ships, themselves, won't overpower each other that much. It is the resources you have under your control that determines whether you can rebuild a fleet and continue waging war. So if your opponent's strategy is superior (he has intelligence that confirms capturing planet X would cripple your ability to stay in the fight) then so be it, even if his fleet is largely inferior. This means he's taken advantage of the knowledge he has to even the scores. Besides, if you have a 'rich planet' you should definitely put it out of reach. Building starbases on the fore-front is a risk: it can allow your reinforcements to jump straight into the fray and sustain a military push, but it can also be your downfall if its overrun. Think about the Death Star's destruction in Star Wars, and imagine how the empire can recover from that.
Yet, like I said, it shouldn't all be decided on a single planet. Otherwise, this means your are a bad strategist with a poor economy. You need to stretch your empire deep, and then choose the planets you will develop. Sometimes, it means neglecting a faraway rich planet just because it is not within your real area of influence, too far off to really contribute to your economy substancially: it requires more military forces to keep within your area of influence than the resources it yields. That, too, is recognizing good strategy.

In essence, you want to destroy the slippery slope while allowing fatal blows if the enemy is careless and have a strong focus on economics.

How about associating rare resources to a given counter? You retain the base resources used in every ship. For advanced components, you add a rare resource. Its counter component would require another rare resource.

If creating a new base requires a lot of resources, you end up with a few refining/production bases and lots of mining planets. Players would then target specific planets based on the rare resource mined there. If you're building armored ships, then you could target armor piercing resources to make it harder for your enemy to counter your fleet.

Also, you would be unable to mine everything. Even if you have lots of planets, fuel costs would prevent you from ferrying it all. Choosing which resource to mine, ferry and refine becomes part of your overall military strategy. That will reduce the slippery slope effect.