Omega Cities v4 <waiting for XML update>

[natty dread]

I will only be changing names of the cities.

My vote fgoes to inventing names - enables players and TOs to consider the map to be wherever and whenever they like in their imagination.

Already done

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    Ams
    Ber
    Chi
    Dub
    Edi
    Fra
    Ga
    Hel
    Ind
    Jak
    Kat
    Lux
    Mad
    Nai
    Ome
    Par

[Riskismy]

Heh. That would require quite a bit of imagination not to associate with real places

[natty dread]

That's just one possibility. There are others... I'm not sure on the city names yet, hence why they are not on the map. I will probably come up with some kind of names for them.

[carlpgoodrich]

Cool map natty! Just looking at this for the first time, its a bit hard to get a feel for how games will play out without knowing what neutral values you are thinking (especially for the buildings). I like that the factory bonus is tied to the mines (food refinery/farms, etc.), that concept of playing both the map and your city works well for this sort of map.

One thing I would really like to see is the concept of "you gotta feed your army." I wish there was a way to cap the number of reinforcements you get by a formula that includes farms. For example, consider the formula:

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max deployable = 15 + 10 * MINIMUM( (# of farms) OR (# of corresponding barracks, food refinery, and recruitment center) )

Here, the base cap is 15. However, if you have a farm AND a barracks AND and a food refinery AND a recruitment center (were the latter three are in the same city) then you can get up to 25. If you have two farms and two sets of barracks/food refinery/recruitment center then you can get up to 35. Of course the numbers are arbitrary, but this is a way to force players to really build up their post-apocalyptic empire in a somewhat more realistic way.

[TaCktiX]

I think that's a cool idea and it's certainly something that can be incorporated into a future map (assuming that Upkeep is added to the XML by Lack, which it isn't yet). However, Omega Cities is already trying to do a LOT of stuff and adding upkeep over top might be a bit much for trying to balance everything out. I would say that a "third" research-type map would be an excellent way to apply upkeep.

[natty dread]

Cool map natty! Just looking at this for the first time, its a bit hard to get a feel for how games will play out without knowing what neutral values you are thinking (especially for the buildings). I like that the factory bonus is tied to the mines (food refinery/farms, etc.), that concept of playing both the map and your city works well for this sort of map.

Thanks! It's very early in the development, so there hasn't been time to think of neutral values much. I'm sure we can work that out in gameplay.

One thing I would really like to see is the concept of "you gotta feed your army." I wish there was a way to cap the number of reinforcements you get by a formula that includes farms. For example, consider the formula:

Well, that sounds like a cool idea. But I'd rather concentrate on the XML features we have now. If we get new features while the map is in gameplay (or here) then we can take those in account when designing the gameplay.

Also, like Tacktix said, the map already has a lot going on for complexity. There's a certain limit to how much a CC map can reach for realism... certain things used to give more realism in other, more complex strategy simulations do not necessarily go well in the CC format, which is, in the end, a very simplistic format.

I'd say OC is already touching on that limit, and pushing the envelope on complexity.

Anyway: the farms are already an important resource, being the most abundant one of the three resources (villages-farms-mines) so you could say that it already encourages players to go for the farms.

You could think of it this way: the farms already produce food for your armies, so you don't need to worry about that. But if you conquer those farms and take over the food production yourself, you get the food for free, so you can spend more on armies and have larger armies. Does this make sense?

[carlpgoodrich]

Ya, I guess it might be a bit much, and since its not doable with the current xml, its a moot point anyways. I just thought it was a cool idea and wanted to throw it out there.

[natty dread]

Ya, I guess it might be a bit much, and since its not doable with the current xml, its a moot point anyways. I just thought it was a cool idea and wanted to throw it out there.

Hey, it's all good. It's always good to throw in ideas... eventually, some of them should be good ones

[OliverFA]

I think that's a cool idea and it's certainly something that can be incorporated into a future map (assuming that Upkeep is added to the XML by Lack, which it isn't yet). However, Omega Cities is already trying to do a LOT of stuff and adding upkeep over top might be a bit much for trying to balance everything out. I would say that a "third" research-type map would be an excellent way to apply upkeep.

I agree. Let's just do one thing at a time. Well... not just one, but let's try not to do too many things at a time

And let's cross our finger for upkeep

[OliverFA]

Ok, I found a bit of time to leave some feedback about the current state of the map

- About the city names, if you really don't have imagination for making up new names, use names of small cities. Use Google maps and zoom in at some place of the world. Then copy the name of that unknown city you just found,

- I am happy that you finally decided to turn Missile Strike and Air Strike into killer neutrals I think that gameplay will greatly benefit from it.

- If I remember correctly, you said you did not want to have "research-like" territories. Yet "Military academy" seems like a research for me (conquer one, the effects will be felt in all barracks). Or are they cumulative? In other words. Having 2 barracks and 2 Military Academies, Will give you 26 armies or 46 armies?

- I understand that Recuitment Centers cannot affect hexes surrounding cities because some cities are in the corner and have less hexes near them. But I still dislike this "+1 per village and city". I will try with a different suggestion again. Instead of what I said the first time. What if each Recruitment Center raised the maximum territory bonus? Base territory bonus is 10, but it is raised by 3 per each Recruitment Center you have.

Well, that's all for the moment.

[natty dread]

- About the city names, if you really don't have imagination for making up new names, use names of small cities. Use Google maps and zoom in at some place of the world. Then copy the name of that unknown city you just found,

I can think of city names, I just don't have it as the first priority right now...

- If I remember correctly, you said you did not want to have "research-like" territories. Yet "Military academy" seems like a research for me (conquer one, the effects will be felt in all barracks). Or are they cumulative? In other words. Having 2 barracks and 2 Military Academies, Will give you 26 armies or 46 armies?

I think it is also supposed to be cumulative up to 6 buildings.

- I understand that Recuitment Centers cannot affect hexes surrounding cities because some cities are in the corner and have less hexes near them. But I still dislike this "+1 per village and city". I will try with a different suggestion again. Instead of what I said the first time. What if each Recruitment Center raised the maximum territory bonus? Base territory bonus is 10, but it is raised by 3 per each Recruitment Center you have.

That would be kinda a weak bonus IMO... you'd have to first gather all the 40 territories for the first rec renter to matter, then you'd have to grab 12 territories just to get a +3 bonus... it would be a disproportionally small reward for the amount of work required. No one would ever take it...

I'm not sure if you understand it's function though... I should probably make it clearer, but It doesn't give +1 per each pair of village+city, instead, it gives +1 for each village and +1 for each city.

I could make it only give out +1 for each village. But on the realism side, wouldn't it be better that you could recruit from both cities and villages?

[OliverFA]

- If I remember correctly, you said you did not want to have "research-like" territories. Yet "Military academy" seems like a research for me (conquer one, the effects will be felt in all barracks). Or are they cumulative? In other words. Having 2 barracks and 2 Military Academies, Will give you 26 armies or 46 armies?

I think it is also supposed to be cumulative up to 6 buildings.

Then, having 3 barracks and 3 military academies will give you 3+3+3+10*3+10*3+10*3=99 armies. Bonuses escalate as you conquer more and more cities. Is that the way it was intended?

I'm not sure if you understand it's function though... I should probably make it clearer, but It doesn't give +1 per each pair of village+city, instead, it gives +1 for each village and +1 for each city.

Yes. I understood it was +1 for each couple. Maybe a bit of rewording would make it a bit more clear

I could make it only give out +1 for each village. But on the realism side, wouldn't it be better that you could recruit from both cities and villages?

Yes. And on the realism side I suppose that it would make more sense +2 for cities and +1 for villages. After all cities are bigger than vilages. Isn't it?

[natty dread]

Then, having 3 barracks and 3 military academies will give you 3+3+3+10*3+10*3+10*3=99 armies. Bonuses escalate as you conquer more and more cities. Is that the way it was intended?

Minus the upkeep costs. 99 - (3*12) = 63.

Yes. And on the realism side I suppose that it would make more sense +2 for cities and +1 for villages. After all cities are bigger than vilages. Isn't it?

I suppose, but on the other hand, I don't want that one building to be over-powered either, and the cities are already getting a higher autodeploy.

Also, you could also consider that even though cities are bigger than villages, you are already using the workforce of the cities for lots of other things, while villages have more "available" people. After all, in this post-world-war-3 scenario, the cities are the strongholds that have all the opportunities, and villages are the "slums", gatherings of poor people trying to get by, who are easy to enlist to your army by promising them money they can use to take care of their families...

Yeah, we're kind of overthinking this at this point. Let's just consider it mainly from the perspective of balanced gameplay

On the wording, how about I just make it "+1 for each Village or City"?

[OliverFA]

Then, having 3 barracks and 3 military academies will give you 3+3+3+10*3+10*3+10*3=99 armies. Bonuses escalate as you conquer more and more cities. Is that the way it was intended?

Minus the upkeep costs. 99 - (3*12) = 63.

I didn't factor the upkeep costs. That's a good counterbalance

Yes. And on the realism side I suppose that it would make more sense +2 for cities and +1 for villages. After all cities are bigger than vilages. Isn't it?

I suppose, but on the other hand, I don't want that one building to be over-powered either, and the cities are already getting a higher autodeploy.

I don't think there is anything bad about some building being overpowered. It just has to be countered in another way, like with higher cost or the upkeep. Otherwise games become too balanced and a bit boring. But yes, it makes sense that people at cities are doing a lot other things than just going to war. So +1 for each of them is good

Yeah, we're kind of overthinking this at this point. Let's just consider it mainly from the perspective of balanced gameplay

You re right. Discussions could always continue forever. I think I already warned you a few pages before so it's good that they have to stop at some point

On the wording, how about I just make it "+1 for each Village or City"?

I prefer "+1 for each village. +1 for each City". But that's just a matter of personal preference. Your solution is also good.

Cheers.

[Victor Sullivan]

How is the 6 building limit going to be programmed in the XML?

[natty dread]

How is the 6 building limit going to be programmed in the XML?

Easy. We are going to use the feature that is going to be programmed in the XML that allows collection bonuses to be represented with a single continent.

Then we'll just make 6 of those collection-continents for each building. For example, the continent "3 factories" will give out +6 for each mine you hold, if you also hold 3 factory buildings. The continent "5 food refineries" will give out +5 for each farm you hold, if you also hold 5 food refineries. And so on.

[natty dread]

New XML feature has been added that allows setting a limit for a maximum amount of starting positions each player gets.

Obviously, with 16 possible starting positions here, and each city being a powerful one, I think we could maybe use that here. I mean, 8 cities each seems a bit much for a 2-player game, especially when the bonuses only cumulate up to 6.

So, what would be a good maximum amount of starting cities?

Current city amounts per game type (without the limit feature):
2 player = 8 cities
3 player = 5 cities
4 player = 4 cities
5 player = 3 cities
6-8 player = 2 cities

I was thinking 3 or 4. 4 would only affect 2 and 3 player games, while 3 would affect 2-4 player games.

Of course, if we set the maximum to 2, then every game type would have the same amount of cities per player. That might be an interesting feature.

So it's either 2, 3 or 4. At the moment I can't decide between them. Ideas, comments?

[Riskismy]

Seems like you want to use the XML feature just to use it. Why do you want to limit the number of starting positions?

Personally, I think this is a huge map, and no matter how the cities are distributed it's gonna take a long time to 'take off'. No point in making it take even longer imo.

[natty dread]

No, I'm not using it "just to use it".

It's because of the gameplay type of this map. Each city is really strong, and has a huge growth potential, bonus-wise. So having 8 cities in the start for each player in a 2 player game - or even 5 cities in a 3 player game - seems really excessive.

I want there to be a balance between expanding to other cities and building your existing cities. Limiting the amount of cities a player starts with would accomplish this nicely on the smaller game types, without affecting the gameplay of the larger ones negatively.

Furthermore... in a 2-player fog game, you wouldn't know where your opponent is right from the start. So you'd have to use your wits to find him - or simply send out your aircrafts...

2 might be a bit too few though... I'm thinking a limit of 3 or 4 would probably be best. Probably will go with 4...

[Riskismy]

I see what you mean. 4 sounds good.

[Victor Sullivan]

How is the 6 building limit going to be programmed in the XML?

Easy. We are going to use the feature that is going to be programmed in the XML that allows collection bonuses to be represented with a single continent.

Then we'll just make 6 of those collection-continents for each building. For example, the continent "3 factories" will give out +6 for each mine you hold, if you also hold 3 factory buildings. The continent "5 food refineries" will give out +5 for each farm you hold, if you also hold 5 food refineries. And so on.

Oh, duh. I was thinking of them as continents instead of territories for some reason.

I see what you mean. 4 sounds good.

I agree.

[carlpgoodrich]

351 territories. 16 starting positions. 160 buildings in 16 cities. 291 land territories.

Has anyone noticed that your math here doesn't work?

[natty dread]

351 territories. 16 starting positions. 160 buildings in 16 cities. 291 land territories.

Has anyone noticed that your math here doesn't work?

Should be 376...

I forgot to carry the one.

[carlpgoodrich]

Now I'm even more confused... where did you get 376 from? Do you mean 451?

[natty dread]

Actually, that's also incorrect...

Actually the 351 was correct, the math was just wrong.

Land territories = 191
Buildings = 160

Total = 351

So this will be the 2nd largest map after all.