[Abandoned] Research & Conquer

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

There's a few different ways that I can think of approaching the bonuses. The one thing that I think we should make sure of is that at no time is a foreign homeland worth more than your original homeland.

One possible way of doing this is to make homelands worth 4 (or 1 for every 2) and foreign homelands worth 2 (or 1 for every 4). Then National Pride and Propaganda could either be +4 each or Propaganda could be just +2. Personally I don't like Propaganda only being +2, as it makes it pretty useless.

Another possible way that would help cut down on instructions is to have all homeland territories worth +4 or +1 for every 2, then have National Pride worth +4 for your own homeland. This way while foreign and national homelands will be worth the same for non-tech bonuses, national homelands have an opportunity to be worth more through tech. If this were to be the case, then Propaganda could either be +2 per foreign homeland or, as carl suggested, we could change Propaganda to a bonus per capital, which I like better. This helps make it more worthwhile to kill other players, since you'll be able to get a greater bonus and there will be many cases where taking a full foreign homeland itself would not be practical.

In any case, I think that I like +1 for every 2 for non-tech for national homelands, since it will help speed up the start of the game. I do agree that there should be significant consequences for someone breaking your national homeland though, so perhaps National Pride could be kept as a flat +4 for the full homeland, since there wouldn't be much pride in having a nation that's been successfully invaded by the enemy, now would there?

For the rest of it, I think for now my preference would be to have foreign homelands also be worth +1 for every 2, as it helps give a bonus for foreign homelands even when there may be 2-3 large stacks on some territories that are neutrals after someone's been capital eliminated. I also think that having Propaganda being a capital bonus would help as well, since it makes it a versitile tech and helps increase the potential for bonuses you get from invading someone else's homeland.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Something that I think we've overlooked in the explanations as well...

For 2-3 player games, researches are not cumulative. This should be mentioned in the legend somewhere. I'm not sure how the shortest way of explaining this would be though.

The other issue being whether National Pride will only count for the one nation that you own in 2-3 player games or if it will be for both.

[carlpgoodrich]

The one thing that I think we should make sure of is that at no time is a foreign homeland worth more than your original homeland.

I agree.

One possible way of doing this is to make homelands worth 4 (or 1 for every 2) and foreign homelands worth 2 (or 1 for every 4). Then National Pride and Propaganda could either be +4 each or Propaganda could be just +2. Personally I don't like Propaganda only being +2, as it makes it pretty useless.

Another possible way that would help cut down on instructions is to have all homeland territories worth +4 or +1 for every 2, then have National Pride worth +4 for your own homeland. This way while foreign and national homelands will be worth the same for non-tech bonuses, national homelands have an opportunity to be worth more through tech. If this were to be the case, then Propaganda could either be +2 per foreign homeland or, as carl suggested, we could change Propaganda to a bonus per capital, which I like better. This helps make it more worthwhile to kill other players, since you'll be able to get a greater bonus and there will be many cases where taking a full foreign homeland itself would not be practical.

In any case, I think that I like +1 for every 2 for non-tech for national homelands, since it will help speed up the start of the game. I do agree that there should be significant consequences for someone breaking your national homeland though, so perhaps National Pride could be kept as a flat +4 for the full homeland, since there wouldn't be much pride in having a nation that's been successfully invaded by the enemy, now would there?

For the rest of it, I think for now my preference would be to have foreign homelands also be worth +1 for every 2, as it helps give a bonus for foreign homelands even when there may be 2-3 large stacks on some territories that are neutrals after someone's been capital eliminated. I also think that having Propaganda being a capital bonus would help as well, since it makes it a versitile tech and helps increase the potential for bonuses you get from invading someone else's homeland.

I think everyone was ok with Propaganda being a capital bonus. For my comments below, I will assume this is the case.

I agree that with no techs, the foreign and domestic homelands should operate the same. This will save space and make the map less confusing (something we should also be aware of). You have some good points for why the homeland bonus should be +1 per 2 instead of +4 for all, but I still think there are more upsides to the latter. Here are my reasons:

• The main reason is that it gives players something to "break". Looking at the techs: SA, AR zeppelins, TSF's and doomsday are unbreakable, Probaganda is almost unbreakable (bc you are eliminate if its your last capital), and the conscription and mining techs are only breakable in an incremental way. National pride is the only bonus on the map that can be completely broken by taking one territory, and it's only worth +4. Making the homeland bonus +4 for all would make that an 8 troop swing, which is probably enough to get people to defend it.
• It will give players something on the map to "shoot" for in the early game. With mines probably coming later, this rewards players who do more on the map then just "get a card".
• It will give a bit more of an advantage to a player that plays aggressive and eliminates another player very early, because they will be able to hold a bonus that otherwise would not be available at all.
• It reinforces the idea that uniting your whole homeland is important, and not just controlling part of it.
• It will be much easier and shorter to explain: "Hold a homeland: +4" (1 line) vs. "+1 for any 2 in a given homeland" (probably 2 lines and more confusing IMHO).
• This would be the only thing that resembles a standard CC map (i.e. regular bonus regions). While this should not be a litmus test or anything of the sort, I think it might be comforting to people new to the map that their intuition is correct.

Now that I think of it, this bonus is relatively small. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but what do other people think about making both the homeland bonus and National pride a bit stronger (+5 or +6)? Along the lines of the first bullet point above, I think these bonuses should be strong enough to be relevant in the late game so the dynamic of "protecting" and "breaking" still exists. We should probably at least have the discussion.

[thenobodies80]

I'm really happy to see that finally this map has reached the graphics workshop, congrats!

Now, i know we've already discussed this, but the text in the legend of your small version leaves me perplexed...
I mean, on the big version it looks great but when i look the small one it seems a bit blurry and the shape of yours "i" letters doesn't help. Althought it is redeable, sometimes i read things like "Labs can assault all Bask Researches" ( ) instead of "Labs can assault all Basic Researches". And i have a perfect view
Did you tried with another, but similar, font for the lower right legend on the small version?
Again about the legend,the edges, pipes i assume, they look really clean. Everything else on the map refers to the concept of the movement, processing. I think you should try to give to those pipes a more dirty/used appearance, if you get what i mean
Is there a way to have red and green territories that look just a bit better through Vischeck? (considering that letters already do the trick)

[TaCktiX]

I'm really happy to see that finally this map has reached the graphics workshop, congrats!

We took our time, what can we say?

Now, i know we've already discussed this, but the text in the legend of your small version leaves me perplexed...
I mean, on the big version it looks great but when i look the small one it seems a bit blurry and the shape of yours "i" letters doesn't help. Althought it is redeable, sometimes i read things like "Labs can assault all Bask Researches" ( ) instead of "Labs can assault all Basic Researches". And i have a perfect view
Did you tried with another, but similar, font for the lower right legend on the small version?

I was looking for a font that fit the theme that I was going for while being less wide than Castellar (the other one in use in the legend areas). I'll do some fudging with the text size and see if that'll fix it, but if not I'll see about finding another font.

Again about the legend,the edges, pipes i assume, they look really clean. Everything else on the map refers to the concept of the movement, processing. I think you should try to give to those pipes a more dirty/used appearance, if you get what i mean

I'll be splitting the map into large and small versions, add some rustiness (gogo Google!) and some general wear on the large, and scale it down. The pipes as they have been have been clean enough to make a direct upscale a non-problem. I believe I can get away with the research frames themselves showing no wear, due to their size.

Is there a way to have red and green territories that look just a bit better through Vischeck? (considering that letters already do the trick)

I was aiming for colors that were not quite raw CC but fairly close. Consequently, red and green will of course look very close together, seeing as CC's own army counts have the same problem. As you note, the naming convention on the map makes the problem moot and it doesn't seem like a needed change.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I think everyone was ok with Propaganda being a capital bonus. For my comments below, I will assume this is the case.

I agree that with no techs, the foreign and domestic homelands should operate the same. This will save space and make the map less confusing (something we should also be aware of). You have some good points for why the homeland bonus should be +1 per 2 instead of +4 for all, but I still think there are more upsides to the latter. Here are my reasons:

• The main reason is that it gives players something to "break". Looking at the techs: SA, AR zeppelins, TSF's and doomsday are unbreakable, Probaganda is almost unbreakable (bc you are eliminate if its your last capital), and the conscription and mining techs are only breakable in an incremental way. National pride is the only bonus on the map that can be completely broken by taking one territory, and it's only worth +4. Making the homeland bonus +4 for all would make that an 8 troop swing, which is probably enough to get people to defend it.
• It will give players something on the map to "shoot" for in the early game. With mines probably coming later, this rewards players who do more on the map then just "get a card".
• It will give a bit more of an advantage to a player that plays aggressive and eliminates another player very early, because they will be able to hold a bonus that otherwise would not be available at all.
• It reinforces the idea that uniting your whole homeland is important, and not just controlling part of it.
• It will be much easier and shorter to explain: "Hold a homeland: +4" (1 line) vs. "+1 for any 2 in a given homeland" (probably 2 lines and more confusing IMHO).
• This would be the only thing that resembles a standard CC map (i.e. regular bonus regions). While this should not be a litmus test or anything of the sort, I think it might be comforting to people new to the map that their intuition is correct.

Now that I think of it, this bonus is relatively small. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but what do other people think about making both the homeland bonus and National pride a bit stronger (+5 or +6)? Along the lines of the first bullet point above, I think these bonuses should be strong enough to be relevant in the late game so the dynamic of "protecting" and "breaking" still exists. We should probably at least have the discussion.

You make a number of good points. I would agree that having it a flat bonus for holding the entire homeland would be the best way of having both the homelands and National Pride operate.

I also agree with raising the homeland and National Pride bonuses. This would would provide a number of benefits:

• It would speed up the early game through being able to obtain a higher homeland bonus
• It would provide another viable tech to shoot for that would be a good alternative to Standing Army
• By raising it to +6 and leaving the neutral cost at 20, the turn cost would be 3.3. This I feel would be comparable to the Standing Army turn cost of 4, since National Pride can be broken by taking any one of 4 locations.
• As carl points out, having the homeland with National Pride worth +12 would make it a bit more useful later in game as well, while making it worthwhile to break and further encouraging attacks on homelands.

All in all, I really like the idea of having it be one bonus for all territories held and raising the bonus to +6 for both homelands and National Pride.

Does anyone else have any other feedback or should we finalize this?

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

In the interest on kick starting the progress on this map again, below is a summary of the different discussions that have been on the table gameplay wise in the last couple pages.

SA and AR - +3 troops and 15 neutral for SA and +12 troops and 60 neutral for AR seem to be the concensus. Are there any objections to these or can they be finalized?

TSF bonus - +6 autodeploy and 30 neutral was the last suggestion made, to which carl and I agreed, but have not gotten feedback from anyone else since. Is there more discussion to be had here or should this be finalized?

National Pride and Homelands - The suggestions here have been for +6 bonus for both National Pride and all homelands, regardless of whether its a national or foreign homeland. Also suggested has been keeping the neutral for National Pride at 20. Any thoughts on these proposed values or should this be finalized as well?

Doomsday Device prerequisite - I think the two ideas that have been put forward for these have been to let it remain as having no prerequisite or having TSF be the prerequisite. I believe the idea of Zeppelins as a prerequisite has been discarded due to the difficulty in implementing it through code. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this one. Any thoughts from anyone in either direction?

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I had poked around the other tabs of the spreadsheet and looked at the Progess tab. In the notes under SA and AR, it says to invalidate Conscription up to a certain number. If I read this correctly, it sounds like SA and AR are being coded to be a minimum territory bonus of 6 and 18 as opposed to +3 and +12 troops respectively. I am confused as to which the techs are supposed to be. I recall discussions in the past about SA and AR being 'as if' they were a minimum territory bonus, but I because of the description on the map I thought they were just a straight reinforcement bonus that gave you a minimum of 6 and 18 troops but didn't have any relation to the minimum territory bonus at all.

Are SA and AR intended to be just reinforcement bonuses or are they intended to be a way of raising the minimum territory bonus? If the latter, then I think that the tech description on the map needs to be updated to reflect this. If they are intended to affect the minimum territory bonus specifically, then I think it may be worthwhile to reopen them to discussion regarding the neutral value, since I would think that they'd be worth slightly less if they're not going to provide a consistant +3 and +12 bonus.

Could we get feedback from Oliver or TaCktiX on this one?

[TaCktiX]

SA and AR are reinforcement bonuses. SC and OC do the minimum territory bonus change, in a different manner.

[Victor Sullivan]

What topics are we discussing atm? I'll try to read up, but I generally don't have that kind of time. You guys post a lot Hopefully I can keep up once I get up to speed. I have many pennies and at least 2 to give to this map, I hope you'll accept my donation

[carlpgoodrich]

In the interest on kick starting the progress on this map again, below is a summary of the different discussions that have been on the table gameplay wise in the last couple pages.

SA and AR - +3 troops and 15 neutral for SA and +12 troops and 60 neutral for AR seem to be the concensus. Are there any objections to these or can they be finalized?

TSF bonus - +6 autodeploy and 30 neutral was the last suggestion made, to which carl and I agreed, but have not gotten feedback from anyone else since. Is there more discussion to be had here or should this be finalized?

National Pride and Homelands - The suggestions here have been for +6 bonus for both National Pride and all homelands, regardless of whether its a national or foreign homeland. Also suggested has been keeping the neutral for National Pride at 20. Any thoughts on these proposed values or should this be finalized as well?

Doomsday Device prerequisite - I think the two ideas that have been put forward for these have been to let it remain as having no prerequisite or having TSF be the prerequisite. I believe the idea of Zeppelins as a prerequisite has been discarded due to the difficulty in implementing it through code. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this one. Any thoughts from anyone in either direction?

VS, the above is a pretty good summary of where we are at the moment. I think the thing that needs discussion right now is the Homeland bonus (the no-tech bonus for holding homelands) and National Pride (the tech that increases the bonus for holding your homeland). So far, only Tanarri and I have commented on it, agreeing that both the bonuses should be +6 (so holding your homeland and National Pride is worth +12) so that it is a relevant bonus in both the early and late game.

The discussion on the doomsday device (particularly whether it needs a prerequisite) is largely dependent on how much space is left, so I think we need to finalize all the other techs/gameplay issues and then see what TaCktiX says about the graphics.

[Victor Sullivan]

Thanks, carl (and Tanarri). I am about to suggest something you probably won't like. I am suggesting a neutral cut across the board. The way I see it, games on this map are going to take awhile, as it is gonna take quite awhile to build enough troops at the start. Here is what I am suggesting (note that I changed the effects of the techs as discussed already between you guys, but adjusted the labs' and TSFs' autodeploys):

BASIC RESEARCH

Laboratory: +1 auto-deploy
Standing Army: +3 reinforcements, 10 neutrals
Secret Conscription: +1 army per 2 held, 23 neutrals
National Pride: +6 reinforcements for holding own homeland, 18 neutrals
Zeppelin Strikes: bombards mines, 35 neutrals
Mining: +2 per mine, 27 neutrals
Propaganda: +2 per capital, 18 neutrals

ADVANCED RESEARCH

Top Secret Facility: +4 auto-deploy, 20 neutrals
Activated Reserves: +12 reinforcements, 40 neutrals
Open Conscription: +1 army per 1 held, 60 neutrals
Deep Mining: Double mine bonus (+4 per mine?), 50 neutrals
Doomsday Device: +75 autodeploy, bombards all land regions, 150 neutrals

I also strongly believe the Doomsday Device should only be able to be assaulted from TSFs and not labs.

-Sully

[carlpgoodrich]

Sully, its good to hear a fresh perspective, and I think you raise a good point that warrants consideration.

The one thing I really disagree with you is the autodeploy on the lab. This was a major discussion-topic a while ago and it was decided that any free autodeploy on either the map or the tech tree would take choice away from the player, which goes against the basic principle of the map. The autodeploys on the lab and capital were turned into a deployable bonus for holding a capital, which you always hold (losing condition) so the minimum deployable is 6 (if I remember the numbers correctly).

Also, the labs will start with more than 3 (I forget what the current number is, but I think its between 6 and 12). If the beginning game is too slow, I think increasing this is a better option than decreasing the neutrals, IMHO. I am a bit worried about making the tech tree too easy at the beginning because one of the main choices players will have to make is how much to they want to protect against the very aggressive player. If they want to protect a lot, there should be a downside (takes an extra turn to get a tech).

[TaCktiX]

Alrighty, I am a fan of the updated neutral counts as per Tanarri and carlpgoodrich. We've got a general paradigm of per-turn going here, and while I respect your well-thought-out adjusted values, Victor, I want to have a solid and agreed-upon system, as it's going RIGHT out the door when Beta hits (beat that for a run-on sentence). In other words, as long as we have an internally consistent set of researches, we should be able to do quick adjustments to neutral counts in relation to how the map is playing. I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up with a list like yours in the end, Victor, but I'm done with ping-pong on what the neutral values are. It's a lot of extra work to put all those pretty little numbers in the boxes

And for Doomsday Device, as the text is written right now, it can only be attacked by a TSF.

I've just gotten back into the groove of working on the map, for now I'm going to update the source copy with the adjusted text and values. I'll be adding the graphical tweaks as the week goes on.

Fastpost EDIT: Labs start at 6, as shown on the map.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

Thanks Sully for your thoughts, it's nice to see you back in the thread

I do agree that as things are set up now, the beginning of the game is likely to drag. It's something that I know I, and I suspect many others, have been aware of for quite some time. I too have struggled with whether to suggest a neutral cut across the board for techs or to find some other way to help prevent this. In the end, I have ended up deciding that a neutral cut across the board for techs would not only speed up the beginning of the game, but would speed up the later rounds of the game as well, perhaps a bit too much.

As it stands now, I think most of the basic techs will take around 4 turns to pay themselves back, on average, and most of the advanced techs will take around 5 turns, give or take, depending on what a player has on the board at the time. I think that these turn costs, in terms of repayment, are good to go with as it forces the player to make some plans a few turns in advance to make sure that they'll be around long enough to see the return on their investment; hence adding to the strategy of the map.

Now the problem, as you've pointed out, is what happens when you take into consideration the cost of these techs from a 'how long is it going to take to build the troops to actually research this tech' perspective. I think from around the beginning of mid-game onwards there are no problems with the neutral values from this perspective. Early game, however, when you're dropping 6 per turn, some of these techs can take a bit longer to research and hence it may take longer to get the deployable troop count up high enough to make the map move quick enough in the beginning of the game.

A few solutions that I've thought of for this problem include raising the capital deployable bonus, raising the homeland bonus (which is being discussed), and raising the starting value of labs or capitals. By playing with these values, it's possible to help the early game without affecting the mid to late game. Most of these, I think, would be good topics to discuss later on once we've finished nailing down the techs and can have a solid foundation to figure out a few different scenarios for how long it will take to get deployable troops up to a specific number.

[OliverFA]

Hey guys! I have not disapeared, just went on holidays for Christmas and New Year. As always, thanks for all the good, interesting, and useful comments.

I am trying to catch up with all the stuf pre-holidays. If I have time, tomorrow I can answer the thread from the work. But I can't promise anything. At the very last, I would answer on Sunday, so the week won't end without me reading and answering all the coments.

About the XML, as you know, it's almost finished. Just needing to be updated for the balance changes we are discussing here, and for adding the map coordinates. Everything else is done.

[Victor Sullivan]

Thanks for your consideration, I'll be playing many, many games when this goes to Beta so as to help you guys refine the neutrals I still think some neutral values could be lowered a tad, but as per TaCktiX's request, I won't comment on them. I will, though, comment on the bonuses up for discussion:

SA and AR - +3 troops and 15 neutral for SA and +12 troops and 60 neutral for AR seem to be the concensus. Are there any objections to these or can they be finalized?

Nope, this sounds fantastic.

TSF bonus - +6 autodeploy and 30 neutral was the last suggestion made, to which carl and I agreed, but have not gotten feedback from anyone else since. Is there more discussion to be had here or should this be finalized?

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to disagree with you and carl here, Tanarri. I believe the TSFs were much better as 15 neutrals and +3 auto-deploy. Basic research can assault their advanced techs, and I believe that we should promote going through the TSFs to get the advanced research, rather than through basic techs. I also believe the reasoning behind going for the TSFs is for the advanced research access, not the auto-deploy and it should therefore be lower. In short, low neutrals, low auto-deploy.

National Pride and Homelands - The suggestions here have been for +6 bonus for both National Pride and all homelands, regardless of whether its a national or foreign homeland. Also suggested has been keeping the neutral for National Pride at 20. Any thoughts on these proposed values or should this be finalized as well?

This seems okay. I feel like there might be some issues with this, but it would require beta testing to say for sure.

Doomsday Device prerequisite - I think the two ideas that have been put forward for these have been to let it remain as having no prerequisite or having TSF be the prerequisite. I believe the idea of Zeppelins as a prerequisite has been discarded due to the difficulty in implementing it through code. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this one. Any thoughts from anyone in either direction?

I've already stated my view, but I'll say it again, briefly: TSFs ONLY.

-Sully

[carlpgoodrich]

TSF bonus - +6 autodeploy and 30 neutral was the last suggestion made, to which carl and I agreed, but have not gotten feedback from anyone else since. Is there more discussion to be had here or should this be finalized?

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to disagree with you and carl here, Tanarri. I believe the TSFs were much better as 15 neutrals and +3 auto-deploy. Basic research can assault their advanced techs, and I believe that we should promote going through the TSFs to get the advanced research, rather than through basic techs. I also believe the reasoning behind going for the TSFs is for the advanced research access, not the auto-deploy and it should therefore be lower. In short, low neutrals, low auto-deploy.

I actually agree with you here (+6 and 30 was a bit of a compromise), although I believe the idea is that basic techs are required for the corresponding advanced tech to work, in which case the value of TSFs is mainly just the autodeploy.

That being said, I don't think there has been a real discussion on this, and maybe it would be a good thing to allow advanced techs without their basic counterpart (again, this allows for more varying strategies as someone can go for an advanced tech faster at the risk of not getting any bonus for a while). I actually kinda like this, as it allows for bigger risks and faster rewards. Also, the legend would be pretty simple "advanced techs can be assaulted by TSF or corresponding basic tech" and short (2 lines max). For auto/neutral, I agree something smaller for both than +6/30, although with the extra power it would have maybe +3/18 or +3/20 would be reasonable.

[TaCktiX]

We'll need to check with Oliver to see if the OC XML is written to override the SC XML or whether they depend on each other. That's the kicker for being able to do advanced without basic.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I'm afraid I'm gonna have to disagree with you and carl here, Tanarri. I believe the TSFs were much better as 15 neutrals and +3 auto-deploy. Basic research can assault their advanced techs, and I believe that we should promote going through the TSFs to get the advanced research, rather than through basic techs. I also believe the reasoning behind going for the TSFs is for the advanced research access, not the auto-deploy and it should therefore be lower. In short, low neutrals, low auto-deploy.

I actually agree with you here (+6 and 30 was a bit of a compromise), although I believe the idea is that basic techs are required for the corresponding advanced tech to work, in which case the value of TSFs is mainly just the autodeploy.

That being said, I don't think there has been a real discussion on this, and maybe it would be a good thing to allow advanced techs without their basic counterpart (again, this allows for more varying strategies as someone can go for an advanced tech faster at the risk of not getting any bonus for a while). I actually kinda like this, as it allows for bigger risks and faster rewards. Also, the legend would be pretty simple "advanced techs can be assaulted by TSF or corresponding basic tech" and short (2 lines max). For auto/neutral, I agree something smaller for both than +6/30, although with the extra power it would have maybe +3/18 or +3/20 would be reasonable.

The way that TSFs and advanced techs were currently proposed was for the advanced techs to require the basic techs in order to function. As carl points out, this would mean that TSFs are primarily a bonus that somebody makes a decision to invest in when they're planning a tech heavy strategy. The previous arguement for TSFs being at +6 is that much lower and there wouldn't be a signifcant enough bonus for them to give a solid push in researching. Any higher and they become too good at gaining tech and the neutral value would need to be raised, resulting in them becoming a mid-late game tech. Carl had argued that they should be an early game tech, as mid-late game most people will be dropping at least 6 troops in research per turn, and hence they're just another bonus. Early game the fact that they autodeploy makes a much bigger difference.

There had been a short discussion regarding basic techs being required for the advanced ones to work. The logical arguement being that you can't learn how to drill deeply for minerals if you haven't learned how to drill/mine for minerals. You can't build a computer without knowing electronics. These are a couple examples, but i'm sure you get the idea. The theme arguement also says that the map is based off of 4x games, which you always need to have the basic tech in order research and use the higher tech.

I'm always happy to hear counter discussion, but I have to admit having played dozens of 4x games, it would probably be hard to convince me that the basic tech shouldn't be necessary for the advanced tech.

[Victor Sullivan]

I understand your thinking, and agree with you in some respects. Seeing your argument, I agree that the basic tech should be required for the advanced tech, but I still stand by my position on the auto-deploy and neutrals of TSFs. Remember, TSFs can assault any tech, so it's worth it solely because you have a constant supply of troops to assault the basic techs as opposed to none with the labs. In addition, TSFs are the only thing that can assault the Doomsday Device, another incentive, since you'll inevitably will have to get it for that aspect. I might be willing to compromise at +4 auto-deploy, but certainly no more.

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

I understand your thinking, and agree with you in some respects. Seeing your argument, I agree that the basic tech should be required for the advanced tech, but I still stand by my position on the auto-deploy and neutrals of TSFs. Remember, TSFs can assault any tech, so it's worth it solely because you have a constant supply of troops to assault the basic techs as opposed to none with the labs. In addition, TSFs are the only thing that can assault the Doomsday Device, another incentive, since you'll inevitably will have to get it for that aspect. I might be willing to compromise at +4 auto-deploy, but certainly no more.

TSFs can assault any tech, which I see as being a minor advantage. The only benefit that I could see here is if someone was trying to take two techs in a turn and one of them was an advanced tech. You'd then be able to assault one tech and use the remainder to take the other. Given the neutral values on most of the techs, I'm not sure that I can see this happening very often.

TSFs being able to attack Doomsday is definitely an incentive to take them, but I would consider this a reason to increase the 'turn cost' or to add an extra 5-10 to the neutral value of the TSFs in comparison to Standing Army. I see the auto deploy bonus as being separate from this. If anything, I would think that a higher neutral value than 15 should be on TSFs if for this point alone.

The fact that TSFs autodeploy into the tech tree itself is a disadvantage, when you compare it to either Standing Army or Activated Reserves (the other two that give a flat bonus). If a player decides to take TSF and weakens themselves in doing so, that bonus isn't going to be of any use to them if someone is coming to take their capital.

I do agree with the 5 turn cost ratio that you had with the +3 to 15 cost. I think it's appropriate given the benefits, even if it does have the disadvantage of autodeploying. The thing that I'm hung up on is that from my understanding (and TaCktiX or Oliver can confirm/deny this) is that the main point of TSFs is to provide the player with an option for pursuing a tech heavy strategy. This is accomplished by forcing the player to make an investment (the neutral value) in exchange for a notable boost in research. The other part of this is that in order for it to be a distinct bonus for itself, it needs to be an early-mid game bonus, so it can't cost a huge amount.

After taking a look over the neutral values for the other techs again, I think it maybe 30 neutral is a bit too high to have it come in early enough, and think that 25 may be more appropriate. Perhaps +5 with a 25 neutral would work? My concern is that if the bonus is too low, then it will diminish how significant of a tech boost it will give and affect its purpose of being there in the first place. I really think that +5 is even getting too low for it to have a substantial effect, but I also realize that if the neutral value is too high, then it will cease to be a distinct bonus of its own. Heck, if there was support for it, I'd almost be inclined to suggest +6 with a 25 neutral value. That would give it a 4.16 turn cost, which may be too low.

Is there a particular reason you want to see it so low in bonus and neutral value?

[carlpgoodrich]

It seems like Tanarri can go as low as +5/25 and Sully can go as high as +4/20. The difference is relatively minor and I think is something that can wait until Beta. I vote for letting the mapmakers pick one for now and then see what happens in Beta.

[Victor Sullivan]

The way I see it, we want to promote the use of TSFs, the whole research line in general, while still making conquering the geographical map a viable option, of course. To address some of your points:

TSFs can assault any tech, which I see as being a minor advantage. The only benefit that I could see here is if someone was trying to take two techs in a turn and one of them was an advanced tech. You'd then be able to assault one tech and use the remainder to take the other. Given the neutral values on most of the techs, I'm not sure that I can see this happening very often.

Even so, it's an advantage and certainly anyone who has the TSF early on would use it instead of labs to assault basic techs and it instead of basic techs to assault advanced techs.

TSFs being able to attack Doomsday is definitely an incentive to take them, but I would consider this a reason to increase the 'turn cost' or to add an extra 5-10 to the neutral value of the TSFs in comparison to Standing Army. I see the auto deploy bonus as being separate from this. If anything, I would think that a higher neutral value than 15 should be on TSFs if for this point alone.

See, but simply adjusting the Doomsday Device neutral count would be a much better solution, rather than raising the TSFs' neutral count. I'm afraid I don't see your point with the Standing Army tech.

The fact that TSFs autodeploy into the tech tree itself is a disadvantage, when you compare it to either Standing Army or Activated Reserves (the other two that give a flat bonus). If a player decides to take TSF and weakens themselves in doing so, that bonus isn't going to be of any use to them if someone is coming to take their capital.

Right... So how is this reason to up the neutral value, if it's weaker?

I do agree with the 5 turn cost ratio that you had with the +3 to 15 cost. I think it's appropriate given the benefits, even if it does have the disadvantage of autodeploying. The thing that I'm hung up on is that from my understanding (and TaCktiX or Oliver can confirm/deny this) is that the main point of TSFs is to provide the player with an option for pursuing a tech heavy strategy. This is accomplished by forcing the player to make an investment (the neutral value) in exchange for a notable boost in research. The other part of this is that in order for it to be a distinct bonus for itself, it needs to be an early-mid game bonus, so it can't cost a huge amount.

Right, which is why I suggested 15... Still not seeing your point...

After taking a look over the neutral values for the other techs again, I think it maybe 30 neutral is a bit too high to have it come in early enough, and think that 25 may be more appropriate. Perhaps +5 with a 25 neutral would work? My concern is that if the bonus is too low, then it will diminish how significant of a tech boost it will give and affect its purpose of being there in the first place. I really think that +5 is even getting too low for it to have a substantial effect, but I also realize that if the neutral value is too high, then it will cease to be a distinct bonus of its own. Heck, if there was support for it, I'd almost be inclined to suggest +6 with a 25 neutral value. That would give it a 4.16 turn cost, which may be too low.

Hm. I see your points here, but remember it's a requirement for the Doomsday Device - that's important in it of itself.

Is there a particular reason you want to see it so low in bonus and neutral value?

The TSFs can't have too high of an auto-deploy, as it diminishes the cost of the Doomsday Device (and everything else, really, though more so the Doomsday Device), and in order to support its use in other ways, I feel it needs to have a low neutral count.

-Sully

[-=- Tanarri -=-]

The way I see it, we want to promote the use of TSFs, the whole research line in general, while still making conquering the geographical map a viable option, of course. To address some of your points:

Perhaps the difference of opinions stems from a difference in believe of the use TSFs have in the game.

TSFs can assault any tech, which I see as being a minor advantage. The only benefit that I could see here is if someone was trying to take two techs in a turn and one of them was an advanced tech. You'd then be able to assault one tech and use the remainder to take the other. Given the neutral values on most of the techs, I'm not sure that I can see this happening very often.

Even so, it's an advantage and certainly anyone who has the TSF early on would use it instead of labs to assault basic techs and it instead of basic techs to assault advanced techs.

TSFs being able to assault basic techs instead of the labs is not an advantage beyond the bonus that you get for owning it. If I'm missing some sort of potential strategy, please let me know. The TSFs being able to assault advanced techs directly instead of using the basic techs is an advantage, but considering it only makes sense to work on one advanced tech at a time, except for maybe when you're about to take it and need to split troops between the advanced tech you're about to take and the next tech you want to work on. I think that this advantage isn't as big as the autodeploy disadvantage.

TSFs being able to attack Doomsday is definitely an incentive to take them, but I would consider this a reason to increase the 'turn cost' or to add an extra 5-10 to the neutral value of the TSFs in comparison to Standing Army. I see the auto deploy bonus as being separate from this. If anything, I would think that a higher neutral value than 15 should be on TSFs if for this point alone.

See, but simply adjusting the Doomsday Device neutral count would be a much better solution, rather than raising the TSFs' neutral count. I'm afraid I don't see your point with the Standing Army tech.

I can agree with you here. Any factors involving TSFs being able to attack Doomsday should not affect it directly, since as you mentioned it would be a lot more effective to just add the extras to Doomsday itself.

The fact that TSFs autodeploy into the tech tree itself is a disadvantage, when you compare it to either Standing Army or Activated Reserves (the other two that give a flat bonus). If a player decides to take TSF and weakens themselves in doing so, that bonus isn't going to be of any use to them if someone is coming to take their capital.

Right... So how is this reason to up the neutral value, if it's weaker?

As above, as far as the turn cost ratio goes, I do agree that it should be lower and more inline with the Standing Army turn cost ratio. Earlier you had asked what I was talking about in regards to Standing Army. I was using SA as a reference point, since it and Activated Reserves are flat bonuses dependent only on owning the tech, much like TSFs are.

As previously mentioned in the quote below, the other point of the neutral value being higher is to force a player to commit a noticable amount of resources towards a research heavy strategy. I think our differing views are based on a fundamental difference in what we believe TSFs should be. My understanding from previous discussions and feedback (which I believe included Oliver) about TSFs is that they were to be a method by which a player could make a concious decision to play a research heavy strategy.

What it comes down to is that the lower the neutral value is, the more everybody will use it regardless of how much or little they care to focus on a research strategy. The higher the neutral value is, the less people will use TSFs all the time and the more it will become an option for research heavy strategies only. To me, the question of balancing TSFs lies in a balance of not making the autodeploy too high, making the neutral value high enough to discourage it from being used by everybody all the time, and making the neutral value low enough that it remains a viable choice in the early/mid part of a game.

I do agree with the 5 turn cost ratio that you had with the +3 to 15 cost. I think it's appropriate given the benefits, even if it does have the disadvantage of autodeploying. The thing that I'm hung up on is that from my understanding (and TaCktiX or Oliver can confirm/deny this) is that the main point of TSFs is to provide the player with an option for pursuing a tech heavy strategy. This is accomplished by forcing the player to make an investment (the neutral value) in exchange for a notable boost in research. The other part of this is that in order for it to be a distinct bonus for itself, it needs to be an early-mid game bonus, so it can't cost a huge amount.

Right, which is why I suggested 15... Still not seeing your point...

The point that I had above, that I think I addressed above in this post as well, is that I believe 15 is too low of a neutral value to be a concious investment that only research heavy strategies would make. At 15, it becomes the next obvious choice to take next to Standing Army, regardless of your strategy, since everybody will need to devote at least a few troops towards research if they want to have any chance. In order for it to be used only by players who are looking for a research heavy strategy, the value needs to be higher. After reviewing the other techs again, I had picked 25 neutral because it's around the average of the basic techs, which makes it high enough for someone to have to give a second thought about it compared to some of the other techs and low enough that it could still be used early/mid game.

After taking a look over the neutral values for the other techs again, I think it maybe 30 neutral is a bit too high to have it come in early enough, and think that 25 may be more appropriate. Perhaps +5 with a 25 neutral would work? My concern is that if the bonus is too low, then it will diminish how significant of a tech boost it will give and affect its purpose of being there in the first place. I really think that +5 is even getting too low for it to have a substantial effect, but I also realize that if the neutral value is too high, then it will cease to be a distinct bonus of its own. Heck, if there was support for it, I'd almost be inclined to suggest +6 with a 25 neutral value. That would give it a 4.16 turn cost, which may be too low.

Hm. I see your points here, but remember it's a requirement for the Doomsday Device - that's important in it of itself.

Doomsday Device I see as the end tech for players with a research heavy strategy, hence TSFs will always be a natural choice to already be owned by players pursuing that strategy. Players pursuing other strategies that don't already own TSFs will be wanting to go after other techs anyway, such as Open Conscription. I'd have to double check the stats, but I believe a player who owns 1/3 of the board and the OC tech will get the same bonus ratio as Doomsday offers and all of those troops will be deployable. Hence, for someone following more of a conquer strategy, OC is a much better tech to aim for and is obtainable sooner than Doomsday.

Aside from that point, as you mentioned above, any hinderance of TSFs being the prerequisite for Doomsday can be mitigated by adjusting Doomsday's neutral. Even at 25 neutral, I'm not sure that those extra 10 troops compared to your 15 suggestion would make a big difference compared to the 200 that's sitting on Doomsday. With a neutral that high, worst case it will slow someone down by a turn maybe to have to go through the extra 10.

Is there a particular reason you want to see it so low in bonus and neutral value?

The TSFs can't have too high of an auto-deploy, as it diminishes the cost of the Doomsday Device (and everything else, really, though more so the Doomsday Device), and in order to support its use in other ways, I feel it needs to have a low neutral count.

-Sully

Effectively diminishing the costs of the techs is the entire point behind TSFs, as it aids a player with a research heavy strategy in getting more techs to compensate for the small amount of land they'll be owning. Sure, other players wouldn't have the autodeploy from TSF, but they would have the extra troops they would be getting from whatever other tech they decided to research or from the extra land they own if they're focusing on a conquer strategy with the Conscription techs.