[Abandoned] Research & Conquer

[OliverFA]

About the bonus structure, I seem to remember that the original spirit was what Tanarri says, but there is no need to resort to memory. This evening I'll look at the XML file where it is implemented (the huge one of 400KB with dozens and dozens of continents) and post what is exactly implemented there.

[RedBaron0]

You could color code the cardinal direction to match the color on the map for the dials as an alternative, and/or also bold the corresponding cardinal direction as Tan suggested.

[isaiah40]

I'd be great to get some feedback on this issue as well, particularly from Oliver if he's still around.

Hello! I am not only around, I am fully back (as you can see by my golden rank icon) but I don't want to hijack the project. I think that it's fair to acknowledge that Isaiah is the one who has the last word at this stage of the project about what to do and what not to do.

However, I am happy to provide my advice and comments, but please take them as suggestions not as something that I want to impose.

And of course, I am making the XML for this.

About the bonus structure, I seem to remember that the original spirit was what Tanarri says, but there is no need to resort to memory. This evening I'll look at the XML file where it is implemented (the huge one of 400KB with dozens and dozens of continents) and post what is exactly implemented there.

Even though I am now doing the graphics on this one, I won't be radically changing the game-play except if need be. Oliver just let me know what needs to be changed to match up with the XML!

You could color code the cardinal direction to match the color on the map for the dials as an alternative, and/or also bold the corresponding cardinal direction as Tan suggested.

I can try this! I can't believe I didn't think of this!

[OliverFA]

Hi again! Those are the value directly from the XML file:

Standing Army: +3 minimum reinforcements (for a total of 6). OK
Secret Conscription: +1 army per each two regions (instead of each three). Wrong
National Pride: +6 armies for owning your whole homeland. OK
Mining: +1 army per each mine. Wrong
Sabotage: Bombards mines. OK
Propaganda: +2 per capital held. OK
Top Secret Facility: +6 autodeploy. OK
Standing Army: +12 minimum reinforcements (for a total of 18). OK
Open Conscription: +1 army per each territory. OK
Deep Mining: Doubles mining bonus. OK

Each homeland: +6 OK
Each capital: +3 OK
Losing Condition: Holding at least one capital. OK

Doomsday Device: In the XML it does not have the +75 autodeploy. To be honest I don't remember if that was a mistake I did or if we decided to remove it.

[ender516]

I searched for "doomsday" in this topic, and had a quick look at the last (oldest) posts. There, the Doomsday Device was marked in the legend as "Victory". So that suggests that, initially at least, it was a winning condition. Further review of the history is in order, but I'm at work right now.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I'd be great to get some feedback on this issue as well, particularly from Oliver if he's still around.

Hello! I am not only around, I am fully back (as you can see by my golden rank icon) but I don't want to hijack the project. I think that it's fair to acknowledge that Isaiah is the one who has the last word at this stage of the project about what to do and what not to do.

However, I am happy to provide my advice and comments, but please take them as suggestions not as something that I want to impose.

And of course, I am making the XML for this.

And I totally agree that it's Isaiah's project and he should have final word on what's done. It's just that he mentioned speaking with TaCKtiX regarding the conscription bonuses and TaCKtiX said that we were going with +2 per 3 regions and +3 per 3 regions for Secret and Open Conscription. It sounds like TaCKtiX misremembered the bonus (unless I'm just forgetting a change that was made) and said that instead of the +1 for 2 regions and +1 for 1 region that we working with originally. I think going with how it's set up now (the seemingly misremembered version) detracts from how important of a tech Open Conscription was originally intended to be, which essentially was a comparible end-of-game option to the Doomsday Device. Perhaps looking at an example of the bonuses would help put my concern in perspective. Say someone had 30 territories, here's how the bonuses look currently.

Normal - 10 troops
Secret Conscription - 20 troops
Open Conscription - 30 troops

This essentially means that by researching Secret Conscription you are gaining 100% extra troops than you were previous to owning the tech and by researching Open Conscription, you are only getting 50% extra troops. To me, that makes Secret Conscription sound like more of an advanced tech than Open Conscription. The way it was set up before, this is what the bonuses would look like:

Normal - 10 troops
Secret Conscription - 15 troops
Open Conscription - 30 troops

This means researching Secret Conscription gives you 50% extra troops and researching Open Conscription gives you 100% extra troops, compared to what you would be getting prior to owning the new tech. This makes Open Conscription seem much more valuable and much more like an advanced tech.

My other concern is if it remains the way it is now, then since the player is getting twice the bonus than they were previously, the neutral value on Secret Conscription should be increased appropriately as well, if not by double then at least close to it. This would essentially kill Secret Conscription as an option as an early'ish game tech and viable tech route, which I feel would significantly damage the gameplay potential, since at that point you've only got two major research routes to take: National Pride/Propaganda/TSF/DoomsDay sit and build route or the Mining route. The previous way you also had the Conscription expand-as-quick-as-you-can route as well.

Sorry if I'm coming across at all pushy here, I will happily respect any final decisions Isaiah makes regarding the map, but I feel this is an important gameplay issue and it's a change that seems to have been made by Isaiah only based on information TaCKtiX provided him with--information which, as far as I can remember, isn't correct. It's a very easy mistake to make when you've been away from the development of the map for more than a year since it's only the difference between increasing the troop amount or decreasing the region amount of the standard +1 per 3 region bonus.

EDIT: Oops, I wrote this before I realized there was another page of posts, so the tone's different than I would have written it if I had known. I'll keep the post up since I think the thoughts are still worth putting out there.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I searched for "doomsday" in this topic, and had a quick look at the last (oldest) posts. There, the Doomsday Device was marked in the legend as "Victory". So that suggests that, initially at least, it was a winning condition. Further review of the history is in order, but I'm at work right now.

Originally the Doomsday Device was a Victory Condition. When Losing Conditions were implemented on the site, we quickly decided that owning at least one capital should be a Losing Condition. Since we made this change, we opened up the discussion on what to do with Doomsday Device and decided to make it +75 autodeploy and allow it to bombard all land regions.

[ender516]

Okay.

I am not sure it is important at this point, but I also vaguely remember that the change from +1 for 1 to +3 for 3 was intended to reduce the number of continents in the XML. With collections available now, this might be less of a concern.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Okay.

I am not sure it is important at this point, but I also vaguely remember that the change from +1 for 1 to +3 for 3 was intended to reduce the number of continents in the XML. With collections available now, this might be less of a concern.

That was the precise reason it was changed from +1 for 1 to +3 for 3. With collections, we should be able to put it back to +1 for 1 and it's a suggestion I'd recommend. Collections will make a huuuuuge difference to the bulk of the XML.

[isaiah40]

Okay.

I am not sure it is important at this point, but I also vaguely remember that the change from +1 for 1 to +3 for 3 was intended to reduce the number of continents in the XML. With collections available now, this might be less of a concern.

That was the precise reason it was changed from +1 for 1 to +3 for 3. With collections, we should be able to put it back to +1 for 1 and it's a suggestion I'd recommend. Collections will make a huuuuuge difference to the bulk of the XML.

Yes it is changing back to the above.

[OliverFA]

It's great to be able to return to +1 for 1. That makes me very happy!

Also, Tanarri helped me to remember. Yes, it was decided that +75 autodeploy in the Doomsday Device is a de facto winning condition, but spices up the map and is way cooler because it really feels like a nuke. The player who researches it gets a huge amount of troops to obliterate his opponents as he pleases

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

And I totally agree that it's Isaiah's project and he should have final word on what's done. It's just that he mentioned speaking with TaCKtiX regarding the conscription bonuses and TaCKtiX said that we were going with +2 per 3 regions and +3 per 3 regions for Secret and Open Conscription. It sounds like TaCKtiX misremembered the bonus (unless I'm just forgetting a change that was made) and said that instead of the +1 for 2 regions and +1 for 1 region that we working with originally. I think going with how it's set up now (the seemingly misremembered version) detracts from how important of a tech Open Conscription was originally intended to be, which essentially was a comparible end-of-game option to the Doomsday Device. Perhaps looking at an example of the bonuses would help put my concern in perspective. Say someone had 30 territories, here's how the bonuses look currently.

Normal - 10 troops
Secret Conscription - 20 troops
Open Conscription - 30 troops

This essentially means that by researching Secret Conscription you are gaining 100% extra troops than you were previous to owning the tech and by researching Open Conscription, you are only getting 50% extra troops. To me, that makes Secret Conscription sound like more of an advanced tech than Open Conscription. The way it was set up before, this is what the bonuses would look like:

Normal - 10 troops
Secret Conscription - 15 troops
Open Conscription - 30 troops

This means researching Secret Conscription gives you 50% extra troops and researching Open Conscription gives you 100% extra troops, compared to what you would be getting prior to owning the new tech. This makes Open Conscription seem much more valuable and much more like an advanced tech.

My other concern is if it remains the way it is now, then since the player is getting twice the bonus than they were previously, the neutral value on Secret Conscription should be increased appropriately as well, if not by double then at least close to it. This would essentially kill Secret Conscription as an option as an early'ish game tech and viable tech route, which I feel would significantly damage the gameplay potential, since at that point you've only got two major research routes to take: National Pride/Propaganda/TSF/DoomsDay sit and build route or the Mining route. The previous way you also had the Conscription expand-as-quick-as-you-can route as well.

Sorry if I'm coming across at all pushy here, I will happily respect any final decisions Isaiah makes regarding the map, but I feel this is an important gameplay issue and it's a change that seems to have been made by Isaiah only based on information TaCKtiX provided him with--information which, as far as I can remember, isn't correct. It's a very easy mistake to make when you've been away from the development of the map for more than a year since it's only the difference between increasing the troop amount or decreasing the region amount of the standard +1 per 3 region bonus.

EDIT: Oops, I wrote this before I realized there was another page of posts, so the tone's different than I would have written it if I had known. I'll keep the post up since I think the thoughts are still worth putting out there.

Sorry if I'm being pushy with this, but it'd be great to get feedback from anyone on this, even if it's disagreeing with me. I just think it's a very important gameplay issue that really should be discussed.

Thanks!

[koontz1973]

isaiah, can you post a neutrals map for me or point me in a direction of one please. Then I will look at Tanarri points.

[isaiah40]

isaiah, can you post a neutrals map for me or point me in a direction of one please. Then I will look at Tanarri points.

Give me a few hours to get one posted with all neutrals and starting #'s.

[EricPhail]

I haven't commented on a map before (and only read pages 1, 89 and 90 so what I say may already have been said)

Things I noticed:

The 888s map on p89 has a territory (MH3, top left corner) with no numbers

In all copies of the legend I've seen the phrase "A lab assualts only its own Basic Researchs, TSF and Doomsday Device" appears twice. Is this intentional?

(looks cool by the way)

edit: from OliverFAs post
National Pride: +6 armies for owning your whole homeland. OK

the tech description says it's for matched lab and homeland, which is correct at the moment? (for that matter which was intended?)

edit2: wait nevermind works by definition unless labs can be lost

[isaiah40]

National Pride: +6 armies for owning your whole homeland. OK

the tech description says it's for matched lab and homeland, which is correct at the moment? (for that matter which was intended?)

Thank you for commenting Eric! To collect the National Pride bonus you need to hold for example SW Lab and SW Homeland. The homeland is designated on the map with the outer glow.

[EricPhail]

Glad for that answer Isaiah.

would like an answer on my questions re: territory MH3 not having a number in the 888s on p89s small
and the duplicate entry in the legend if possible though

[isaiah40]

Glad for that answer Isaiah.

would like an answer on my questions re: territory MH3 not having a number in the 888s on p89s small
and the duplicate entry in the legend if possible though

The 888's are only there to show how they fit, so one territory not having it does not matter really. Duplicate entry has already been deleted for the next update.

Provisional Starting Numbers: I think that some of them need to change especially the mines. Some of the mines start at 5, others at 2 or 3. I believe they should all start with the same number.

Click image to enlarge.

[EricPhail]

Drops is beyond my knowledge so I can't really help you there. (but i'd favor ones in a kingdom getting one value all others getting a different one probably 5 and 3 respectively)
However one or two other things:
Legend: Having the lab entry above the researches assualt nothing one seems to make more sense to me

Also it may be wise to allow the researches to assault (or more commonly reinforce) back to the lab for two reasons:
1. avoids troops getting trapped if a basic research kills an advanced one with troops left over (given these locations can't be attacked by foes, or card sets dropping extra troops there
2. allows the possibility of re-taking the library if it gets killed due to nuclear spoils

on that note can certain territories be programmed to never drop as cards as nuking capitals would be instant death in larger games, and nuking libraries very annoying, also nuking the neutral doomsday device would be rather distorting.
(Actually perhaps this map should have a disclaimer: don't play with nuclear spoils)

[ender516]

There is no way currently to restrict territories from becoming spoils.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

National Pride: +6 armies for owning your whole homeland. OK

the tech description says it's for matched lab and homeland, which is correct at the moment? (for that matter which was intended?)

Thank you for commenting Eric! To collect the National Pride bonus you need to hold for example SW Lab and SW Homeland. The homeland is designated on the map with the outer glow.

I'm not sure if it's specified anywhere, but each player starts with a matching capital and a lab. The labs can't be attacked from anywhere, so the lab is used to determine what your original nation is.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Drops is beyond my knowledge so I can't really help you there. (but i'd favor ones in a kingdom getting one value all others getting a different one probably 5 and 3 respectively)
However one or two other things:
Legend: Having the lab entry above the researches assualt nothing one seems to make more sense to me

Also it may be wise to allow the researches to assault (or more commonly reinforce) back to the lab for two reasons:
1. avoids troops getting trapped if a basic research kills an advanced one with troops left over (given these locations can't be attacked by foes, or card sets dropping extra troops there
2. allows the possibility of re-taking the library if it gets killed due to nuclear spoils

on that note can certain territories be programmed to never drop as cards as nuking capitals would be instant death in larger games, and nuking libraries very annoying, also nuking the neutral doomsday device would be rather distorting.
(Actually perhaps this map should have a disclaimer: don't play with nuclear spoils)

First, thank you for the time you're putting into the map Eric, it's always great to see new faces contributing

I hadn't thought of this before and you raise a very good point. When the map's gameplay was originally hammered out, nukes didn't exist so we didn't have to worry about it. I do think it'd be a good idea to allow researches to attack the labs. It would make nuke games playable, since otherwise the loss of the lab would completely kill the research for a player for the entire game.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Glad for that answer Isaiah.

would like an answer on my questions re: territory MH3 not having a number in the 888s on p89s small
and the duplicate entry in the legend if possible though

The 888's are only there to show how they fit, so one territory not having it does not matter really. Duplicate entry has already been deleted for the next update.

Provisional Starting Numbers: I think that some of them need to change especially the mines. Some of the mines start at 5, others at 2 or 3. I believe they should all start with the same number.

Hi Isaiah, a few things that jumped out at me:

* Visually speaking, I think having TSF be the first listed advanced research makes a bit more sense, since to me at least, it more intuitively goes along with it being able to help with the research of advanced techs.

* The neutrals were originally designed to have homelands have a base neutral of 2, the territories bordering the homelands have a base neutral of 5, one more territory out further having a base of 3, the next set out having 2, and the next set 1. Those with mines have one extra neutral troop. The neutrals were laid out this way so it would be increasingly more difficult for someone to get closer to an opponents homeland, thereby making it a bit harder for an early elimination of those who chose to focus more effort on research.

* Mines should be at +2 per mine.

* Open conscription should read +1 troop per region


Hope this helps

[isaiah40]

Hi Isaiah, a few things that jumped out at me:

* Visually speaking, I think having TSF be the first listed advanced research makes a bit more sense, since to me at least, it more intuitively goes along with it being able to help with the research of advanced techs.

* The neutrals were originally designed to have homelands have a base neutral of 2, the territories bordering the homelands have a base neutral of 5, one more territory out further having a base of 3, the next set out having 2, and the next set 1. Those with mines have one extra neutral troop. The neutrals were laid out this way so it would be increasingly more difficult for someone to get closer to an opponents homeland, thereby making it a bit harder for an early elimination of those who chose to focus more effort on research.

* Mines should be at +2 per mine.

* Open conscription should read +1 troop per region


Hope this helps

Yes it does. I can move the TSF up to the top of the Advanced Researches no problem.

The neutrals make sense now, so I have no problem with them.

For the Mines and Open Conscription here is Oliver's post on the values which the current map has. viewtopic.php?p=4150015#p4150015

[OliverFA]

edit: from OliverFAs post
National Pride: +6 armies for owning your whole homeland. OK

the tech description says it's for matched lab and homeland, which is correct at the moment? (for that matter which was intended?)

edit2: wait nevermind works by definition unless labs can be lost

That's right. By definition a player can't lose his lab