I can't figure out how to get the message board software to let me quote the bit where Baron Munchausen says I have "a strange idea of fun" for liking games with "just one more turn" syndrome. That's my measure of a good 4X game! I dunno, maybe we just like different sorts of games, Baron. The JOMT syndrome is what made me stay up all night playing the original Civilization. Civ 2 also had long periods waiting for new tech, and then mass upgrades, although Leonardo's workshop made that a lot easier if you had it. The wait for new tech is part of what made it fun for me. Anyway, say what you want about gradual, incremental tech improvements vs. quantum leaps, but don't you dare badmouth my beloved JOMT syndrome
quote:
Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
That's one of the features that makes the current generation of 4X games better than MOO. It's not a matter of just choosing among a few techs that anyone else might also have chosen anymore, now there are real differences in what is possible for each race/empire. The "path" through the tech tree is much less predictable and if technologies were a bit less transparent there would be much less predictability to battle tactics, as well. Do we need to know that shields II absorbs exactly X number of points of damage? Do we need to know that ECM I reduces the enemy's chance to hit by exactly X percent? Not really. We just need to know that it's better than the previous Version, or better than not having it at all.
As I said, I like the idea of everyone having different techs and ships. This does make it hard to balance things but, as the Grumbling Grognard says, fun gameplay is ultimately more important that exact balance. I agree that sometimes games where you have to struggle, and even where you wind up losing, are often the most fun. However, if a game is too unbalanced, it's usually not much fun to play, either because you'll discover a can't lose strategy that makes it stupid to use any of the other possibilities, or else bad luck can make it impossible for you to win no matter how well you play.
What I'm not crazy about is not knowing what your techs do. SE4 is a strategy game, and you need information on your unit capabilities to plan a rational strategy. Again, maybe I'm just more anal than you, MB, and like more detail, but it drives me crazy trying to play a game where there's no manual to tell you how combat works or what your units can do.
This isn't to say that uncertainty is always a bad thing. Anybody remember the old "Panzergruppe Guderian" boardgame? In it, you had untried units, so one side of the counter only had the unit's type (infantry, armor, etc.) and movement printed on it, and you only got to flip the counter over find out what the unit's combat stats were once you actually used it in combat. A research system like this could be really cool: your researchers have invented a new gizmo and you have a general idea what it does, but you don't get to find out its exact stats until it's tested under battlefield conditions. Building a prototype would *really* be building a prototype in this system. But, of course, this is more an idea for SE5 than for a game that's going gold in October.
[This message has been edited by Jeb (edited 17 August 2000).]