Topic: Looking good

[Pijus_Magnificus]

I'm not saying that the Grand Startegy aspect has to be forsaken. I've always understood that this game would have two different aspects, and one of them would be tactics, or if you want grand tactics.
I have nothing to say about the Grand Strategy issue, I think is great, but it would be a shame if after all your carefully designed strategy your plans are wasted in one or a number of AI v AI battles. I'd like to be able to influence the result of a battle at least a little bit.
I think there's room on this game for an agressive player who conduct his/her policy through war, and s/he should be able to have the same degree of control as a player more politics-orientated.
I think...

[Philj]

I don't think we're too far apart - I 'm probably a bit anal with my use of terms (far too much proof reading and reviewing in my early working life).

Strangely I've never seen 1813 in the bargain bins in Melbourne (for less than A$60 anyway - maybe that is equivalent to the US$5 I read somewhere).  I also thought it was a good concept but did it fail from flying too close to the sun or from poor execution.  If teh former, that is what I fear for Imperium.  

Where I want you, in Imperium, is to try and immerse you into the thoughts and mindset (or at least what I believe to be the thoughts and mindsets) of a Roman Consul, Carthaginian Patrician, or Hellenistic King. In other words, when you declare war in the game, you do so for much the same reasons as they would have done. When you sue for peace, you do so because you know not to do so would be ruinous (unless you're Roman, in which case you stiffen your upper lip and mutter something about the Phyrros and Claudius). Essentially, I'd like to give the kind of people who roleplay and write long AARs in EU the chance to roleplay and enjoy a strategic game in Ancient Rome, without constantly having to rein themselves in from perfectly sensible (in a gaming sense), but utterly unhistoric behavior.

If you nail this, a plausible battle resolution module will be a bonus.  I too don't like relying on the AI for battle resolution.  I have another PC game, Hannibal, in which your main input into the battle is how fast you click the button to disengage before you are wiped out - a downside to more powerful faster machines.  Mind you under Sun Tsu's Art of War, I found it often a benefit to allow the AI to handle some of the worse match-ups.

[Demonic_Emperor]

Anyway, to get back to Imperium. Where I want you, in Imperium, is to try and immerse you into the thoughts and mindset (or at least what I believe to be the thoughts and mindsets) of a Roman Consul, Carthaginian Patrician, or Hellenistic King. In other words, when you declare war in the game, you do so for much the same reasons as they would have done. When you sue for peace, you do so because you know not to do so would be ruinous (unless you're Roman, in which case you stiffen your upper lip and mutter something about the Phyrros and Claudius). Essentially, I'd like to give the kind of people who roleplay and write long AARs in EU the chance to roleplay and enjoy a strategic game in Ancient Rome, without constantly having to rein themselves in from perfectly sensible (in a gaming sense), but utterly unhistoric behavior.

A noble goal, but one I imagine will be very difficult to achieve.

In EU, while I've not written any AARs, I always try to play historically, making decisions that I think the rulers at the time could have made, never really trying to conquer the world.

I have played many strategy and war games in my life, yet not once have I played one at a grand strategic level that prevents "snowballing" in a realistic and elegant way. Whether the game claims to be historical or not, if an aggressive player wants to conquer the world, the world will be conquered.

About declaring war and making peace, it's hard for me to envision a scenario where the player declares war for a reason other than the acquisition of territory and wealth, and where the victorious player does not aim in peace negotiations to take as much from the defeated power as possible.

As you've said on earlier occasions, manpower (or at least *quality* manpower) will be severely restricted in Imperium, as well as disloyal provinces being a burden beyond a certain % revolt risk. I think those are some very good ideas which isn't really modeled well in any other game.

I really hope you get things right, and everything turns out to have the desired effect. It seems like Imperium will turn out to be a very unique game.

[MicaByte]

Well, it is probably impossible not to make situations where there is an advantage to either letting the AI control the battle or doing it oneself, but it's one thing that needs to be minimized. Balancing, balancing...

Regarding snowball-conquests, I really think very few games actually make any attempt to actually prevent this; EU is rather unique in that respect. And as such, I'm not against allowing world conquest - its the holding together of the conquest through subsequent generation that I think should be difficult (as it was in reality).

Declaring wars - most wars are declared for material gain, so this is fine by me.

Sueing for peace - lots of issues to be taken into consideration here; especially how to keep wars from dragging out into the unending.

A key thing here is going to be implementing the concept of loyalties, and the sieges of cities. More cities fell in this time period (in EU time period as well, I believe) due to treachery than from actual siege operations. Since sieges are going to be really ruinous, being able to convince cities to surrender will be quite vital. An idea is to implement something like the following: If you behave in an abnormal manner - e.g., such as fighting to destroy a Kingdom even after they have offered good peace terms (often, you'll have the chance to vassalize), then latter cities will tend to be less and less willing to change sides (seeing that you're generally behaving in an irrational and unreasonable way).

This could be one of the ways the game engine might try to slow down potential "conquor the world types" like myself. The important thing for me however, is that it makes sense in the context of the historical period and the game (which I think something like the above would). Anything that lowers the "immersion" in the game (such as arbitrary limits on what you can annex) is a bad thing, IMO.

[Markus Aurelius]

I might as well throw my opinion in here as well.

The thing I look for in a game is tactical battles. Simple. Shogun is great, but the AI isn't great and the battles themselves are hard to manage once they get more complicated and large.

Historical accuracy for me is important too. I'd like to be able to tell the difference between the period in roman times. Be it the type of armor the calvery/infantry had, or the type of tatics/battle formations available.  And quite frankly i'd like to be able to lay seige to a great city and use the Roman engineering marvels to take it down.(ramparts, towers, etc.)

And dammit if there are 50000 men in the battle field I want to see a HECK of alot of realistic sprites. None of this 1 unit equals 100 guys stuff. :-D

But hey thats just me :-)

[MicaByte]

Then I hope Imperium doesn't dissappoint you too much.  

Scale is (hopefully) going to be 1:50; with the limit for armies set at 100,000 men for each army. I fear we shall be unable to do much better than that, on our (lack of) budget.

Not all that much difference in the armies over the period of this game; the primary difference will probably be the Roman conversion from maniples to cohorts. Otherwise most armies will remain unchanged throughout (right, there are a few changes in the east with introduction of Cataphracts and such, but not much).

You may well be a bit dissappointed with the siege ability of the Romans; it will be only late in the game that they will be really good at the technical sides of the siege, and even then, they'll probably not be any great shakes at the technical aspects (remember that what Caesar primarily besieged were basically small hamlets - the few times he faced a real challenge: Alesia, Massilia -he usually ended up starving them out). Roman strength in this case will be their logistics; for the real great sieges, you need to get hold of some of the Greek states and their great siege engineers. Hmm - maybe I should add Archimedes as a historical character in the game...

[Philj]

Screw Archimedes   (Sorry - hope I've got my bad jokes out of teh way for the week)

Anyway, with a turn based system, I assume most elements will be modular.  It may be easier to refine or add on a more complex tactical system when the top level is stable.  As long as there is sufficient detail to interchange between teh two levels.

[MicaByte]

Anyway, with a turn based system, I assume most elements will be modular.  It may be easier to refine or add on a more complex tactical system when the top level is stable.  As long as there is sufficient detail to interchange between teh two levels.

Yes.

[Apollonius of Tyre]

Hi all,

A question.
Surely not every combat can be depicted in the tactical subgame.

For two reasons, the countless skirmishes, massacres and acts of brigandage that make up warfare in the ancient med will need to be handled in an abstract fashion:

first, it would be impossible to program every random act of violence;
second, the game would become unplayable.

So the question is, what is the threshold at which a combat gets depicted in the tactical subgame?

If the threshold is quite high, say at the level of a consular army, then the tactical subgame can be quite detailed because a player will rarely fight more than one major action per year.

On the other hand, if the threshold is low enough to account for the taking of each and every city, then we have to account for quite small forces and many actions and sieges (I'm thinking of Hannibal's operations in Southern Italy).

[MicaByte]

Threshold for a battle is about the 15,000 man per side level.

The problem with an incredibly refined tactical model is that of AI. Since I can't throw larger and larger armies at the player (e.g., as in the Total War games and just about every other game with tactical combat), the game system must be simple enough that the AI can win regularly with equal forces.

[Apollonius of Tyre]

*grins*
I haven't yet met an AI that can match a human so that will be a major breakthrough.

Loved the links from this site btw. Spent most of yesterday perusing them instead of working.

[MicaByte]

Make the game simple enough (or fast enough), and it will trash you. The challenge (major challenge  ) of course, is keeping it interesting as well.