Q.

• Should a player's actions always succeed?
  
• All other things being equal, in a combat, should the same unit win every time?
  
• Should a Panther Tank *always* defeat a Sherman tank one-on-one?
  
• Should a Musket always do X points of damage?
  
• Or should there be a random fluctuation in the system, allowing the improbable to happen?
  

I thought I should explain myself fully to everyone. My idea of how to make a game seems to be somewhat 'unique', here. I seem to be a lone voice in the wilderness.

I believe that a 'sim' is actually more of a 'puzzle', than a game. Caesar 3, Pharoah, Railroad Tycoon 2 -- playing those is a matter of figuring out the 'if-this-then-that' puzzle. Once you've mastered that, 'figured out' the puzzle, the game becomes repetitive. If you play a scenario in exactly the same way, it will turn out exactly the same. If two players do exactly the same things, their civs turn out the same.

This is where the emphasis on 'build order' comes from. 'Build Order' is the dominant game concept these days. From so-called RTS's to 'Civ' clones, 'build order' passes for strategy.

It has become clear that many here want a 'sim' type of game for Clash. I push my 'optional' rules systems because I want to avoid Clash becoming a sim puzzle that people tire of after they've learned how the equations react.

If the player can always predict what can happen then the model is a failure IMO. (At least if its an important part of the game.) But I think the deterministic riots model is so complicated it may defy prediction anyway! I don't think determinism is such a sin in a complicated model, because the chance of Ever being under the exact same conditions is vanishingly small. If it is too predictable in a way the player can exploit, then I would vote strongly for putting randomness in it. But that is easily done if we decide its needed.

Should we continue here, or there?

The basic idea of chaos theory is that a simple deterministic model can become very unpredictable when iterated many times.

When you iterate a function, you plug the result back into the input side of the equation. If you keep doing this, you can quickly get wild results. In fact, an infinitesimal difference in the input can result in an infinite difference in the eventual result.

For example, think about the equation x=(x^2)-.5

This is a very simple equation, but its behavior gets very complex when you stsrt experimenting with its iteration. To prove my point, I will bore you by describing a very small part of the complexity of this equation:

Let's start by iterating some values. For the first example, I'll choose 1.5 as the initial x value and iterate, rounding to four decimal places:

x0=1.5
x1=(1.5^2)-.5=1.75
x2=(1.75^2)-.5=2.5625
x3=(2.5625^2)-.5=6.0664
x4=36.3013
x5=1317.2833
The eventual value of x will be infinity.

Now look at another value:

x0=1.25
x1=1.0625
x2=.6289
x3=-.1045
x4=-.4891
x5=-.2607
x6=-.4320
The eventual value of x will be an irrational number whose first ten digits are -.3660254038.

As you can see, some initial values of x will result in infinity. For other values of x, the eventual value is a fixed number. For two initial values (the fixed points), the output is the same as the input. And for a lot of other points, the system settles into a cycle.

In this simple example, it is possible to find the fixed points mathematically. I already described one of them, and the other is an irrational number whose first ten digits are 1.366025404. No value will go to that value, but if it is input, the equation will output that same value. This value is a border between points that go to infinity and those that go to the fixed point.

I could keep describing different things about this equation for pages, but I think I have made my point. The simple equation can be complicated and unpredictable. Unless you know the math and do a lot of work, you cannot predict which values will go to infinity and which ones will go to the fixed point.

Now consider the equations in Clash. There are hundreds of them and they are much more complex than the equation detailed above. They will interact with each other in complex ways every time the system is iterated (when the "End Turn" button is pressed).

I think that trying to predict the events in Clash will be like trying to predict the weather. You might be able to predict a few days, or turns, in advance, and you might see big storms coming from a longer way away, but beyond a certain time period all predictions will be useless. You have probably heard the example about a butterfly somewhere being able to mess up weather predictions all across the world. It has been proven that the tiny effects of the butterfly flapping its wings can change major storm systems on the other end of the world.

That comes from chaos theory. And it is my opinion that there will be thousands of these "butterflies" in Clash.

Unlike other games, there will be a lot of things going on that the player does not see or cannot influence. The ecology model will alter the landscape. The social model will change the way the people think. The tech system will produce surprising and unexpected results because it is much more complex than the simple x RP's=new advance systems of the past.

I'll concentrate on the tech system because I think that it best illustrates the difference between Clash and previous games. In Civ 2, techs were bought like any other commodity. You paid a certain number of RP's and you got an advance that was fully operational and did not change for thousands of years. Nothing had any impact on them once you got them. This was simple. This was boring. This allowed players to create build orders for their techs so they could climb the tech tree the same way every time.

Our tech system is different. All of the techs are changing at the same time, and lot of the tech change is not controlled by the player. Social forces, military actions, economic activities, climate patterns, and natural disasters will all have subtle influences on the technology levels. As the system is iterated, these "butterflies" will be able to have a big impact on the technology the player has access to. The player will never be able to predict exactly what will happen. The player will have to react to the unpredictable effects of these "butterflies" that iterated themselves based on simple equations.

In other words, no player will ever be able to create a build order for our tech system. They will not be able to control it like they could control Civ 2's tech growth. While you can usually predict what techs a good civ 2 player will have at a certain time, I can guarantee that you will not be able to predict where the techs will be at any given time. Chaos theory shows that a difference of 1% in a single social attribute could result in big tech changes after the game mechanics are iterated 300 times.

And all of this happens even though there is almost no randomness in the tech system. Simple equations will produce complex and unpredictable results when iterated hundreds of times.

Yes, I have studied 'chaos' theory, as probability is now fashionably called. OO programing, as you might have notices, works hand in glove with 'chaos' theories.

And the funny thing is, the basic mantra of 'chaos' theory is that the outcome of even the most complex systems *is* predictable, as far as producing patterns. You can find order in chaos. That's where the name comes from, in fact.

That's what's biting us here.

Look, ya''l, we have experience to work from. Clash is not going to be as complex as Caesar 3. Caesar 3 becomes repetitive. Sim City is more complex. It gets repetitive.

Have ya'll ever played Settlers 3?

There may never *be* another game as complex as that one. And yet it's *very* build-order oriented. It becomes very predictable, once you've played a few hours of it. It's still a fun puzzle, but not really a game.

My idea of a game involves 'conflict'.

Two sides with different goals. They can either work together, or against each other.

SimCity had no technology change.
There was no military conflict.
For practical purposes, there were no other cities or governments.
The landscape did not change, and food production was not considered.
There were no religions, no social groups, and no general patterns of thought in the population.
There were no characters or personalities.
It only had a crude representation of the economy.

There is a big difference between detail and complexity. SimCity was a very detailed representation of a relatively simple thing. The player did a lot of micromanaging of little things, but the scope of the model was extremely limited and there was nothing happening behind the scenes that could have a big impact on things. With the exception of the disasters, everything in SimCity happened as a direct result of player action. There were no "butterflies".

There was nothing like social attributes that evolve over time and affect the technology tree, which affects economic activity, which affects the country's ability to wage war. There was nothing like the gradual climate change that affects farm yields and forces migrations. There was nothing like the wars and conflicts that have long term impacts on the economy and society.

The other games are also like SimCity. They are very detailed models of simple things. There is no scope and no sense of long term events. They are puzzles because the player is responsible for everything. In Clash, we have thousands of things happening that the player is not controlling.

Yes, there is some order in unchanging equation systems. But if things are constantly being altered, you have a situation where you will never know exactly what will happen. If the -.5 in my equation above changed periodically, you would never be able to figure out exactly which values would go to infinity.

The weather is like that. Sure, they may know that hurricane season is a certain time, but no one will be able to predict a month in advance where a hurricane will hit.

Sim City 3000 is actually a *very* complex interaction of several 'systems', including other 'cities', terrain, technology advancement, an extremely complex econ and trade system, and on and on. It's far more complex than *anything* in Clash, and I don't mean just detailed . . . altho it is that, too. Believe me, it's really *too* complex. It's not all that much fun (to me), after the first few weeks, when the 'new game' sparkle has worn off.

And then take Caesar 3. Even more complex than Sim City. Includes other nations, terrain, combat, religions, social classes, even individuals and characters. Still predictable.

Then take 'Settlers 3'. Even more complex. The econ supply chain is amazing! You have to get a woodcutter to build a plow for the farmer to grow crops, and the like. The complexity is astounding. But still predictable.

Railroad Tycoon 2 has all the same things (except combat) -- tech, characters, terrain, other countries, other railroad companies run by other characters, a 'stock market', a 'bond market', banks, etc.

Adding complexity didn't change the level of predictability in those games. Why would it be any different in Clash?

Perhaps you're not considering the effects of replay. You don't do the math in your head, you 'test', thru gameplay. The way you 'predict' what will happen is by playing a scenario, doing x, watching the results, then replaying and doing y.

After you've played with the game for a few weeks, you will know exactly what to expect from the govt policies. Mark has what, 200 saves of Civilization on his PC? After that kind of play, Clash's default govt system will be *very* predictable.

By thinking no one will 'master' the system, you're not taking into account how smart gamers *are* (and how much time some of us have on our hands). There will be some 14 year old in Lithuania that will run those tests and figure it all out, then build a web site showing charts and graphs of exactly what to expect and when, complete with build orders and scenario walk thrus. Just like all the other, highly complex 'Sim' Civ games.

In the other games, the player controlled almost everything, which meant that if the player did the same thing, the game did the same thing.

In Clash, things are independent. The market makes its own decisions. The population have a direct influence over tech growth. Little things will have a chance to grow and change without the player becoming aware of them, and then they will suddenly pop up and demand attention. Even if a player does exactly the same thing, the independent things in the game will do different things and create a different game.

The other games put the butterflies in jars and attach strings to their wings. The player can manipulate them and the air currents never get out. But as far as I can tell, we have them all flying loose. They are not controlled by the player, and the impact of their actions can spread unhindered.

Basically, we have a dynamic world and the other games had a theater. They relied on the player's script while our models will run without a lot of player control.

You're mistaken.

The other games are *exactly* what you're trying to build.

Caesar 3 is one of the neatest, in that regard. Everything is independent of the player. Your citizens walk around living their life without you. All the player can control is building buildings and setting government policies. The people in your city wander your roads on their own, looking for the things they want (jobs, access to religion, consumer goods like food, etc).

Railroad Tycoon 2 is even neater -- there's an 'economy' that operates without you, creating booms and depressions, altering the course of everything.

I never said that there was no uncertainty in Clash. The ecology model is a big jumble of random events and processes just waiting to mess up things. The disaster model is about the same thing. I thought there were a lot of random fluctuations in the social and riots models as well. The population model will have randomness, in addition to being affected by the randomness of the social model. The economy and technology models are intertwined with all of these, so they will both be affected by all of these random events. The game will be chaotic because the effects of all of these random events will spread throughout the entire system.

I agree with your comments about player intelligence. I have been saying for a long time that we should eliminate micromanagement opportunities so the players don't have a chance to manipulate things. For example, I wanted the foul play in politics to happen randomly, without direct player control. I wanted province boundaries to be fixed so players cannot fine tune them. The other games let players control too many things, which means that the game is controlled by the player.

My ideal of Clash is a game that forces players to react to changing circumstances and does not let them impose their rule on the world. My models mostly run on autopilot. I made sure that the tech advancement operates mostly without the player, just as it did in real life. (Players can only add a few RP's to supplement all of the things that are done automatically.) The ecology model is almost entirely uncontrolled by the player and the population model also runs automatically, based on info from the social model that I assumed would do random things.

If the player must react rather than act, fine control and build orders will be impossible. I think that our models are independent enough and random enough to be chaotic and force the player to react.

Determinism vs randomness: I am the prowd owner of SimCity 3000, which I don't play, for one reason because I couldn't find the right solution to the "Puzzle" (so my cities always either stagnated or plunged me into debt), but chiefly because I ran out of disc space and I had to uninstall it (along with CtP) to make space for Baldur's Gate (which was definitely worth the space). I have greatly enjoyed the Caesar 3 demo and have also played the Settlers 3 demo. The "winner formula" is always present in strategy games (though less in RTS warfare games, where tempo is the chief issue) and I can cite even more extreme examples, such as the Heroes of Might and Magic series (which is tremendous fun nevertheless) and the Imperialism series. In civ2, there are more than one winner formulae, but they are also limited. What is bad about civ2 is that, in contrast with other games, winner formulae tend to be based in extremism instead of balance: it's all caravans, or all spies, or all howies, or all settlers: if you play all of them, you will probably lose. We need to take care of that too; it's more interesting to try to achieve some balance. I don't think that the existance of a winner formula has anything to do with a chaotic or deterministic system. Even in a chaotic system, there are solutions which are safe enough to be repeatedly implemented; whether they are always optimum is another issue.

Randomness should exist where you'd expect it. A phalanx shouldn't have the slightest chance to bring down a stealth fighter, but a WWII AA gun should. But F_Smith is right about saying that some games have butterflies into jars. The most recent discovery made at the civ2 strategy forum is (coincidently appropriate with our discussion) that an instant revolution (with 0 turns into anarchy), can and definitely will always occur in a certain sequence of turns that they have found out and printed in a table to be used as reference. If you think about it, the thing is ridiculous: would it be so difficult for Sid Meier to make the # of turns in anarchy random? The same applies to science beakers and many other things in the game.

F_Smith:

I simply do not understand why you won't accept the solution that if things in Any model are too predictable (so that its not Fun) we can simply add some randomness to the model.

All:

Caesar 3 is *very* complex. It's a good puzzle. It's a world that runs on autopilot, in which the player as ruler is constantly reacting to changing circumstances and has little or no direct control. It is very much like what you seem to be describing. You ought to play it. The people aren't stupid, they act in many ways very *real*. It's a cool, good sim. I hear 'Pharoah' is even better, too.

As I said, I believe a great game has turns based upon conflict. And that conflict *requires* short term, turn-by-turn unpredictability. So I built this model for running the govt, based upon those criteria. I, personally, like it very much. If you, or the others don't, I respect that. Ya'll should probably not use it.

I like to have control in the game. I wanted to write a politics game in which you had more 'realistic' control (within reason) of the government.

* * *

Axi:

I hope I didn't give the wrong impression -- I do not feel Clash has no randomness. My comments are meant to be about the govt policy selection process only, in this case. In rambling and raving I may have made it sound like I was complaining about more than I really was. Other parts are fine, I'm sure, and I know the riots model delivers probabilities.

I'm only talking about actually running the govt, on a turn-by-turn basis.

* * *

Mark:

That is the currently accepted solution.

I have not demanded any changes to the default game at all. I'm perfectly content to leave the default game as ya'll designed it.

This is all just about my 'optional' system, which seems to have invited a firestorm of excellent constructive criticism.

This is just about something that I found fun. A system seemed to build itself when I did the analysis, so I wrote it up alongside the 'default' one. It seems to work extremely well, and I find it very fun. It probably is only a personal preference, no one here seems to find a politics game fun at all. I am probably the only one that would enjoy a game about policy negotiations. But that's suppose to be the beauty of Clash, right?

I want to play a ruler, and set the military on autopilot, I can do it. You want to play a warlord, and set the govt on autopilot, you can do that.

Besides, 'randomness' isn't really the goal.

The way to make a great game is 'conflict'. That's how you create unpredictability -- the outcome of a turn is based on the choices that two different sides make.

Mark: Good idea. Have you ever played an old game called "Global Conquest"? It let players choose what type of random events they wanted, and I think it worked well. We can let player (and scenario designers) alter the type and magnitude of random events. That should be a good addition to the game.

F_Smith:

quote: Adding 'random' events to a game usually annoys me. I hate it when a 'random' event sets me back in these types of games.

I agree. I hate that too. That is why I have been trying to reduce the randomness and unpredictability in the political games. I would hate it if the 'random' outcome of a bribe prevented me from raising important war funds. That is exactly why I have been trying to improve your good model by adding automatic escalation of foul play. Instead of a 'random' event setting me back, my agents will go to the next step and get the thing passed by harsher means.

For a start, I'd like to point out to F_Smith that Chaos Theory is not probability, nor in any way related to probability theory. Furthermore, it does not say that "...the outcome of even the most complex systems *is* predictable." Chaos theory deals only with systems where all of the mechanisms are known and completely deterministic - that is, theoretically predictable. It simply ignores non-deterministic systems.
It does show that minute differences in starting conditions can change the eventual condition of a system completely out of recognition, and therefore that given non-perfect data about the condition of such a system, predictions of it's future state will grow increasingly inaccurate as time goes on.
It also showed that there were systems where, for a certain range of starting states, the system will not;
1) Converge or diverge, that is it will neither approach a given state continually nor go towards infinity (where infinity is a relevant concept.) Richard's sequence is an example of both these types of behaviour, for different values.
2) Repeat it's current state.

Ironically, the pseudo random number generators that would provide the 'random' element you are looking for, F_Smith, work on precisely these principles, so you are stuck with Chaos Theory one way or another.

Sorry if that bored you, but I wanted to set the record straight. There's too much bad pseudo-scientific literature around these days.

Second, Richard said:
"I have been saying for a long time that we should eliminate micromanagement opportunities so the players don't have a chance to manipulate things.... The other games let players control too many things, which means that the game is controlled by the player. My ideal of Clash is a game that forces players to react to changing circumstances and does not let them impose their rule on the world."

Errrr... the game being controled by the player, eh? Terrible. Ummm... but isn't that why we play Civ and Smac? The idea of a player reacting to a series of random problems might be pleasing to a designer, but it's not going to be much fun to play, at least not for the average Civ fan. For me, the idea is to build an Empire which will resist the external forces arrayed against it. Look at how agravating things like the AI entity and empire-wide revolts due to running out of gold are in CtP! If the player doesn't control their own empire, then the game has absolutely no relationship with Civ, and I humbly suggest coming up with a new title.

axi, you said
"What is bad about civ2 is that, in contrast with other games, winner formulae tend to be based in extremism instead of balance: it's all caravans, or all spies, or all howies, or all settlers: if you play all of them, you will probably lose."

If the formula is balanced between all of these, then I think you will end up with one optimal formula. Extremism must be an option, otherwise Adam Smith's rants about the Law of Diminishing Returns become true, and you end up with a rather pedestrian, optimal strategy.
Inevitably, it's easier to play an extreme game because it involves less decisions, and usually far fewer really critical decisions. In my experience you can achieve a balance between the styles in Civ and especially in Smac, but you have to be good. Over on the Smac boards it's known as playing hybrid style. Overall it is potentially more powerful than other styles, because they usually encounter a percentage of 'unwinnable' games (in MP.) Only a hybrid can expect to succeed - or loose - from any position.

But again, the system isn't 'random', it's 'outcome is produced by conflict'.

That introduces uncertainty into the game, I feel, without randomness.

The Politics game's outcomes are not 'random'. You will have control over that tax increase. You can also choose randomness, take a chance, offer a smaller bribe, that sort of thing. But even then, you still have control over that randomness, and can decide exactly how big a chance to take.

Similarly, the 'riots' model's outcomes are not purely random. You have control over the probabilities.

I was talking about purely 'random' events like the weather, earthquakes, etc.

And yes, that's the same Caesar 3 we're talking about. It's a Roman Sim City.

But again, Sim City isn't quite the 'fluff' piece you seem to write it off as.

Especially Sim City 3000. It's a much bigger piece of software than we're going to write, it's systems are *much* more complex -- and detailed. Our 'game scope' is larger, the entire world versus one city. But the complexity of the interacting systems in Clash will be a mere shadow of what they put into SC3k.

Caesar 3 is really good, for what it is.

* * *

On a side note:

Your question about saving and reloading made me think.

That's the kind of tactic I use when solving a 'puzzle' game or adventure game. I have to get to the next 'point' in the puzzle, so I save to make sure I can continue solving it to the end.

In a 'game' against other 'players', you would never even consider reloading like that.

I think you also are thinking about a 'puzzle' game when you talk about absolutely having to have that tax increase now. If it's a puzzle, and you are trying to get to the next 'level', then it makes me mad too to lose when I've gone so far.

---
I have been saying for a long time that we should eliminate micromanagement opportunities so the players don't have a chance to manipulate things. . .The other games let players control too many things, which means that the game is controlled by the player.
---
---
My ideal of Clash is a game that forces players to react to changing circumstances and does not let them impose their rule on the world.
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By this I meant giving the player about the same power that historical figures had. IMO players should mot be able to dictate every detail of research, building placement, resource gathering, etc. This gives them too much power. Historically, rulers did not order things like tech research. Tech grew without their supervision and when something big happened as a result of this (like the printing press), the rulers had to react to the disruption caused by the new tech.

When a player is able to manipulate everything, their civ becomes like a machine. Farmers, scientists, and builders are doing exactly what the player orders. The players are imposing their will on every aspect of their civilization. They are controlling every little thing. That is the flaw in "sim" games, which include some excellent games that I enjoy playing. Often, the player's civ or city becomes merely an extension of the player's will. That is fun in a way, but it is not what I want for Clash.

Aside from a bit of crime and unrest, the people in current games don't do anything signifigant on their own. They don't create global corporations that demand player's attention. They don't invent things on their own that cause large societal disruptions. They don't mismanage their farmland and then migrate elsewhere in search of jobs. This is what I mean by reacting. The player, like real life governments, should be forced to deal with surprises created by independent agents. The civ should not be controlled entirely by the player.

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I don't like short term unpredictability that forces players to try to micromanage and fine tune their policies. The player should feel steady and in control over the short run, while long term chaotic forces are lurking beneath the surface waiting to strike.
---

Let me give a few examples here:

In Civ 2, you had to micromanage the farming and resource gathering. You placed all of the little people on the proper squares. Every time the population grew or was about to grow, you had to do it again because the people would do stupid things like going to unimproved grassland when you had a harbor and offshore platform. If you didn't manage this properly, you could lose units the city was supporting or the city would go to unrest because they moved off the trade arrows that gave them luxuries.

You also had to micromanage all of those settlers and engineers. You irrigated, dug mines, made all the little roads, and altered terrain. Instead of leading a country, you spent a lot of time being a foreman ordering little things.

This required a lot of tedious micromanagement. Things were so twitchy that the player constantly had to manage them. Yet despite the nasty little surprises that cropped up everywhere, there were no big changes that demanded big actions. Farmland never went barren. Forests were never depleted. Nothing big and unusual ever happened in the hundreds of turns of micromanagement.

I din't want that in Clash. The farming will go on mostly automatically. People improve the infractructure and choose farmland wisely. The people will usually take care on themselves. The player will not have to give a lot of thought and effort to the farming . . . until the ecology model decides that years of improper farming techniques have turned one of your best agricultural areas into a dust bowl.

The tech system is another example. In Civ 2, you had to micromanage those trade arrows and beakers, build all the libraries, and select the next advancement. But there were never any big changes that required big action (with the possible exception of the Great Wall becoming obsolete).

In Clash, the player will not have to micromanage the tech like that. Tech growth will happen steadily and automatically if you manage the economy and society well. The player will not have to give a lot of thought and effort to the tech system . . . until someone in your civ develops something like the printing press or factory system that causes profound economic and societal changes that must be dealt with.

I like Mark's idea of giving the player the chance of defining the level of randomness. It's clever. However, we have to see that this is not as straight forward as it appears. F_Smith's political system has more random than the "default" negotiation system, but it is another system. What I'm saying here is that F_Smith's system is not "the default system, yet with more random things", but another thing. So, Mark's idea can be useful for a lot of sections of the game, but won't make F_Smith and people like him happy.

It seems to me that the only model where the random vs deterministic issue has sense is in the govt model, and more precisely, in the policy-setting section. So maybe we shouldn't generalize this topic the way we're doing it.

I had an idea. Somehow, F_Smith's political system now appears to me as a short-run political system. It's like the micromanagment side of what the default govt system is. In the mil model, you can play unit by unit every single battle or simply give the overall military strategy. Maybe we should see it like that in the political system. If I want to play the overall political game just with broad decisions over long periods of time (centuries, FE), then I'd choose the default negotiated system. But if I want in any particular time to play politics in their details, then I would push a button and switch to F_Smith's system. How does this sound to you all?

If we agree on that, our main goal would be then to take care of the switching between the two systems for compatibility. In other words, switching to one or the other shouldn't destroy what was achieved previously.

In terms of AI, we should only code for the default system. Going to political micromanagement would be only a (human) players' option and within it, the player cannot tell the AI to make things for him, because it doesn't make much sense to switch to detail-level politics if you're not gonna participate in it.

BTW I locked the old Gov thread. Could you start a new one soon? It doesn't have to start with anything serious, since you can edit any summary in later. Also, please put in a link back to the previous one at the top.

LGJ:

I agree with every word. I share all those goals.

It's the proposed solution we're discussing.

We should eliminate that kind of micromanagement need by improving the 'unit' AI.

* * *

Rodrigo:

That's exactly how I've coded it already. That's exactly what I've been asking for. The two systems are fully compatible. We could even have different people using different systems within the same game, altho it might be tricky to 'balance' . . .

People who don't want to play politics just don't. People who don't want to play military combat just don't.

And it is also not isolated. Every phase of the game should have a 'general' level and a 'detailed' level of play. I personally don't like random disasters, and would turn those off -- even tho it is 'realistic'. They're not fun, to me, in a game.

But economics, ecology, all these things will need an 'basic' setting and an 'advanced option'.

And the 'advanced' option should be more than just a more detailed sim, it should be a clever 'game' in and of itself. A 'conflict' based set of rules.

* * *

Mark:

They produce exactly the same results.

You say the two govt systems produce exactly the same results... I don't know what you mean by this. FE if ruler political power = 51%, it is quite possible for your system to produce 0% as a policy result (ruler wants 0% and gets it automatically), where the default model gives 75% (with the current one using ruler power/2 as a 'correction to what the people want). For the 75% you could have a case where the people want 100% but the ruler corrects by the max 25% to 75%. How are these the same result? They are almost diametrically opposite!

If you mean the two systems both answer the same questions, but give different answers, that isn't the point. That was the problem I was referring to about different results. I meant if they give substantially different answers to the same question there will be trouble in balancing between the two. And also switching between the two.

The two systems both output 'policy' values.

Yes, switching between the two would create govt changes -- altho that is the point of the different game option. Likely you would have to select this option at the beginning, and not be allowed to switch during a game.

So the two options are 'balanced' against each other, in that they can both be used by different players to arrive at policy values. As you said, they both answer the same questions. They have the same output -- 'policy' values.

And we can plug in any other 'policy' value determination options, too.

Here's another option I'm going to code in tonight, just because it should be there and is so easy to implement -- The option for the player's policy prefs to simply *be* the govt policy. One option should be to turn all this govt stuff off completely. Some people won't want to deal with the political side at all.

quote: Every phase of the game should have a 'general' level and a 'detailed' level of play. I personally don't like random disasters, and would turn those off -- even tho it is 'realistic'. They're not fun, to me, in a game. But economics, ecology, all these things will need an 'basic' setting and an 'advanced option'. And the 'advanced' option should be more than just a more detailed sim, it should be a clever 'game' in and of itself. A 'conflict' based set of rules.

I always wanted something like this, but I didn't think it would be practical in many cases. For example, what could we do to make the tech model simpler or more complex? All I can think of is making trees with more or less complexity, while keeping the equations the same.

However, the ecology model can easily be altered like this. It is essentially a collection of processes, so it would be easy to take some out, add more in, or change them. I can think of many possible complexity levels for the ecology model:

0: No ecology modeling. Ideal for battle scenarios.

1: Like Civ 2. Economic inputs depend on terrain. The terrain never changes naturally, but you can alter it. Ideal for slow computers or low bandwith multiplayer.

2: A "bare bones" version of the current model. A few of the processes are used to make the terrain change in simple ways. Ideal for those who don't care about the model.

3: A simplified version of what I am working on. This will probably end up being the default for a normal game.

quote: Originally posted by F_Smith on 09-04-2000 04:08 AM And it is also not isolated. Every phase of the game should have a 'general' level and a 'detailed' level of play. *snip* But economics, ecology, all these things will need an 'basic' setting and an 'advanced option'.

Ummm, This would Double the AI work, which is arguably the hardest part of the whole project. I really prefer having at least most of the simple models just be stripped down versions of the 'micromanagement version'. That way you write one AI for the complicated one, and for the simpler one all you do is change the player interface. The AI then handles all the depth based upon the player's general orders.

For the cases where Only the player can use the alternate, and there is no AI needed, I've got no serious problem with the proposal. But again we may then have balance issues since the detailed model may be advantageous to the standard one, or vice versa.

Well, they could turn tech advancement off, they could prefer a fully automated tech system they never make any choices in, or they could prefer to actually select tech 'goals'.

Richard: Can you e-mail me the lattest version of the ecology model? roquijad@cec.uchile.cl

I haven't done any official project work on Ecology for a couple months, but I have been experimenting with a lot of stuff and trying new ideas. It's not anywhere complete yet, but when it is I'll post it and e-mail it to anyone interested.

I'll bump up the ecology forum. For a good understanding of the model, read the Version 2 post and everything I've posted after it.

F_Smith: The current tech system can be pretty close to being automated. An AI governor could easily take care of the whole thing. The human player will interact with the model mainly by choosing major research categories or "goals."