Indo-Europeans

Interesting discussion! With all this, one might ask: How can this be played …? And if so, is it fun? Is a breakdown enjoyable? Even as the end of the game?
Does the player still have influence or is the game increasingly becoming a documentary?
Sure, it’s good to think about the basics as early as possible. From my point of view, I do not feel like my role in the game / as a player. Think, only after an early beta you can say something about it.

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Hey, welcome back @tschuschi
You’re right, this is one aspect we didn’t discussed so far. The truth is that however hard the work to balance the game, there will always be some players disappointed, either because their preference is to build the perfect town and want to avoid any crisis, or because they like challenging game and just get bored when they feel like nothing happens.

However, I think there may be several regulations:

  1. Such nasty events could be defined by options, either in frequency or in gravity;

  2. If the game is well finished, probably the various features will naturally create limitations.
    Thinking for instance about the number of citizens you have in your settlement, this should be technically possible in game, once settled down, to reach a number of 10,000 citizens, by receiving migrants, managing correctly your resources, if we have a feature to take a tribute from surrounding tribes, etc.
    But without making the game a documentary (meaning the player has to really act to progress, instead of just waiting in front of the screen), in such a case there should also be natural limitations: plagues, more losses in case of floods or natural disaster, jealousy from other tribes if you flourish too much, meaning then harder trade and diplomacy, raids, higher tributes if you’re failing to submit.

Concerning the crisis like the Bronze Age collapse, which is only one example in a long list of similar troubles, they were basically a sum of various issues, whose detail is not really known whens peaking about chronology: climate issues like drought or growing salinity of the soil; growing social inequalities that may create uprisings, that needing suppression by the power; tendency of local potentates or authorities to seize the opportunity and try to affirm their independence; meaning also a lack of efficiency in the army being busy keeping the order, so weaker defenses when facing foreign invasions, etc.

All in all, that’s the history of every human culture, so I’m sure A.C. may easily use all of those points through its gameplay to create interesting situations that will allow an alternance of advances, stagnancy and downgrade phases.

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I think in historical games you will always have boundaries. The task is not to make it boring and repetitive, but there were already a variety of suggestions what could happen in the endgame, even so in the context of a single migration event. Tributes, raids, acculturation. By the way, did I mention Indo-Europeans brought the plague to Europe? There could be a probability for each outcome, so you would never know what you’re facing.

For the fun aspect, I don’t see it as a breakdown, but as a challenge. As @Orlanth said:

I love the feeling when I finished and polished a city, like in Caesar 3, but it gets boring so fast. Rebuilding, however, is extremely fun, when you know you are over a hardship and can look forward again. So if you’re the kind of person who just wants to build their city, you can do that after the disaster. Disasters and war are going to be optional either way I think, so the full sandbox mode will still be there. The sandbox mode in Caesar 3 was like the first strategy/building game I ever played properly, so I still have a heart for sandboxed, but I would also like the game to have more challenging modes.

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Hey, welcome back @tschuschi
You’re right, this is one aspect we didn’t discussed so far. The truth is that however hard the work to balance the game, there will always be some players disappointed, either because their preference is to build the perfect town and want to avoid any crisis, or because they like challenging game and just get bored when they feel like nothing happens.

Actually I was careful to cover this point in some detail. I wont retype it, read up.

Interesting discussion! With all this, one might ask: How can this be played …? And if so, is it fun? Is a breakdown enjoyable? Even as the end of the game?
Does the player still have influence or is the game increasingly becoming a documentary?
Sure, it’s good to think about the basics as early as possible. From my point of view, I do not feel like my role in the game / as a player. Think, only after an early beta you can say something about it.

This is an issue with these types of games. Many players hit reset if they lose a cutting edge position even if the position itself is salvagable. There are exceptions to this, in those games where setbacks are totally inevitable then people play on, but they fit a grimdark survival genre and that doesn’t apply here.

Disasters midgame will have that negative dynamic, however an endgame is genuinely different. Its like a boss challenge, the idea is to weather it and thus some losses are acceptable because the finish line is in sight.

Hence why the Collapse is an excellent endgame, but a similar tragedy midgame will be faced by a player reset.

Player resets are a major psychological issue, only very few IIRC 6% of players ever complete a Total War game.

You do have get a relaxed post victory rebuild for those who just want to build their perfect city. In fact the Collapse helps there as the threat is gone, most rivals are dust so a survivor victorious city can rebuild in glory if the player likes, and I think they would. It is a reward phase, before the game is ended as a showcase phase.

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I’ll leave aside your historical inaccuracies and your contemptuous tone. You definitively should ask the devs to rewrite their banner, which is totally misleading.

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A good example and total war typical. The game feels fair and honest for a long time. Your empire works perfectly and you are diplomatically in balance. And then, all of a sudden, the Huns / “Golden Horde”, etc., declare war on you and have infinitely invincible armies out of nothing. All over. And all of a sudden, your empire’s revenues fall below a level you can no longer afford to finance your existing armies. Impossible to set up new ones anyway. At this moment, the game is unfair, the AI ​​cheats and you lose the fun because you can not win. Not because of bad strategy or tactics but because of unexplained symptoms. This has nothing to do with challenge, that’s just stupid.
This feeling should not convey AC, it should remain comprehensible and plausible to the end. Probably it will be finally, one could end perhaps in a review, a text on a stele about …?

I think too and as already described, first see how the developers imagine the implementation.

Here was the reward (or penalty) in migration or emigration, as a measure had a detailed order. Not directly comparable.

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I was always with you in my thoughts :wink:

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I’ll leave aside your historical inaccuracies and your contemptuous tone.

Try again, you might succeed.

You definitively should ask the devs to rewrite their banner, which is totally misleading.

I am not seeing your point here. There is nothing contradictory with the banner shown, and it doesnt specify period beyond ‘ancient’.

A good example and total war typical. The game feels fair and honest for a long time. Your empire works perfectly and you are diplomatically in balance. And then, all of a sudden, the Huns / “Golden Horde”, etc., declare war on you and have infinitely invincible armies out of nothing. All over. And all of a sudden, your empire’s revenues fall below a level you can no longer afford to finance your existing armies. Impossible to set up new ones anyway. At this moment, the game is unfair, the AI ​​cheats and you lose the fun because you can not win. Not because of bad strategy or tactics but because of unexplained symptoms. This has nothing to do with challenge, that’s just stupid.

Sorry but I must disagree with you there. You are looking at one particular set of games the Medieval Total War series. Yes Mongols are brutal, particularly if you play eastern factions. However I am referring to a trend where players restart if their game goes against them, even if left in a recoverable position.
Most strategy franchises experience this phenomena. Sid Meier redesigned Civ 1 because people rest during universal societal declines in playtesting and decided to remove the feature altogether.
We know of the example of Total War stats because of steam, and it covers all the games in the franchise, not just Medieval and Medieval 2.

There was an article on this phenomenon, but I cant find it right now.

Now there will be other factors, people can get bored of long games and abandon them.
However the problem remains that people like ti win against the computer, and if it doesn’t look like thats happening most will restart for a more positive gaming experience. It’s a human psychology thing. Endgame calamities can offset this, because its the endgame.

Yes, I remember the article - “how strong may an AI be” etc … The frustrating thing is that the player “sees” and decides and the AI “knows” and decides. If the AI still cheats, the game is dead because rules have been broken. In the case of Total War one weakness was always diplomacy, another was the administration of the cities. That could have been solved smarter, but it would have been very time-consuming. The sale was o.k., why think and work …?

That’s the usual way to help AI, because AI is never a true AI. Deep learning can change this but for now AI is only a set of rules and sets of rules work well in limited environments but fail in complex scenarios. We assume our AI is not going to be magic and we know it will have flaws like in any other game with rules based AI. Obvious flaws will be patched, but it will never be a true AI.
-No, we don’t have the time not the resources to try to build a deep learning based AI for now-

In AC we want to embrace this kind mechanic.
We find ourselves playing other city builders and strategy games and reaching the point of steamrolling were the game lost all interest. At that point lots of players start again, because the beginning is the most interesting part. So we should not be afraid incorporating that kind of resets in the game itself to keep it interesting. This situations were not frequent and usually they were not a lost everything situation:

Being conquered should be part of the game, but that will mean political or cultural change, interesting disruptions in the city, not a lost everything situation. Epidemic outbreak can wipe lot of your population but buildings are not lost, while a earthquake can do the opposite.

But if you are in panic because you only want to build a pretty diorama without the risk, don’t worry, you will be able to turn off many of these mechanics.

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Right! I often go that way…Often, however, it is because games then degenerate into work, become too complex, with no real meaning. Or that just comes in routine and it gets boring.

Would like to help avoid both … :wink:

Now deep learning programming is much more of what I do LOL though I don’t think most of the models I have made would interact with your game. I would be curious to know more about your AI. Is it just a complicated response algorithm or does it have a heuristic component?

I love this idea ! I think that most of the players who reset their games after a disasters (or the lost of their cities) is because the game do not allows the player to fully recover.

Disasters can be sort into two categories :

  • Zonal which are tie to the environment : inundation, volcano, landslide : these one should affect the player early on and hardly to teach them where to place a city (when they are still a nomadic tribe)
  • Global which can happen anywhere : earthquake, disease, fire, conquest by enemies : more mid game, should be seem as a challenge but also an opportunity (earthquake/fire : to rebuild with better layout/building, disease : the one who survive are less likely to fall ill, conquest : new technologies/building/trade)
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Those are all good ides, I like them.

I agree tschushi

I agree. That would add a lot of weight to the game itself. Make it stand out. Im looking forward to the beta to test these ideas.

Another point of view for both end game and the incorporation of ability to play a expansion is.

  1. You can continue to play the game with advancements and the abilities of Neolith time for as long as you want even into the 20th century but a automatic save at year 1234 is made and that is what will be imported into a roman expansion.

  2. Same as #1 but the auto save is generated at population 1234 regardless of year. Or for that matter some other arbitrary set of conditions.

  3. Same as above but the auto save is generated when you satisfy a set of tech tree conditions. Yes I know there is not a tech tree but there actually is its just not displayed.

  4. Finally you conquer Rome with out reaching any of the above result you cant play the expansion with your city you need to replay than game and stop before conquering Rome if you want to play with your existing city in other words make the choice to play the game as a intended city builder not a strategic conquering game.

PS this end game in my opinion offers the best of all worlds and attracts the most possible players.

Referencing my post about a expanding sandbox also applies to this discussion
https://forum.ancient-cities.com/t/history-vs-game-play-discussion-and-the-world-map-solution/5175/50?u=jrpjim

This aspect raises the question of whether a real time running exists alongside the gameplay. As an option about? After all, there were civilizations in Australia and South America that until recently were trapped undetected in the early Neolithic. They were just lucky.
But seriously, do you want to play PC “hide and seek”? Think AI should already give some progress on which the game is oriented. Maybe depending on the region more or less fast. It will probably not go without meeting with the AI, if it is to remain exciting. We will see…

Dieser Aspekt wirft die Frage auf, ob ein realer Zeitlauf neben dem Gameplay existiert. Als Option etwa? Es gab immerhin Zivilisationen in Australien und Südamerika, die bis vor kurzer Zeit unentdeckt im frühen Neolithikum feststeckten. Die hatten einfach Glück.
Aber im Ernst, will man am PC “Verstecken” spielen? Denke, die AI sollte schon einen gewissen Fortschritt vorgeben, an dem sich das Spiel orientiert. Möglicherweise je nach Region mehr oder weniger schnell. Es wird wohl nicht ohne Begegnung mit der KI gehen, wenn es spannend bleiben soll. Man wird sehen…

I had a fun idea in my mind
What if you build a big city but it gets to easy and you want to start over. Instead of starting over you give the option to send a group off people (same amount you start with in the beginning) and start a new city. But now you can trade with your older city and you can repeat the process untill you have multiple big cities and the big cities trying to the most important and show their dominance. Throw in changing cultures etc and restarting doesn’t require to start from 0

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