Culture?

I doubt we'll have satellites too early on, but using them to expand culture/energy grid later on could be cool.

Wodan said:

I like the idea of a range of transmitted power. That makes the most sense to me, out of all the things tossed around.

One question was how does it make sense for another civ's borders to push yours out? How about this: transmitted power requires specific harmonics / frequencies, and is encoded so that only your own equipment can use it. Different harmonics interfere with each other. So, it makes sense that one civ with stronger transmitters or whatever will be able to push its borders further.

Transmitted power also makes sense in how it enables units to repair (heal) faster.

By the way this would be "low grade" power. Enough to run a sensor net and minor things like that, but nothing on the scale to enable a hovertank to run (in other words, vehicles require their own power plant despite this energy grid).

Plus, transmitted power is a technology that we (Earth) don't have right now, so we have license to make up how it functions. i.e., we can do whatever we want for good gameplay.

Wodan

Click to expand...

I had the same idea for the "conflicting frequencies". However, there seems to be some call for something that is an abstract idea like culture as opposed to a more concrete idea like distributed or "wireless" power. I'm not saying abstract is bad and concrete good, but my opinion is concrete.

Would anyone be against coming up with a timeline (say, by Sunday) of two (or even three) separate, very defined ideas for "culture" and then putting it to a vote the next week? Luckily, the outcome wouldn't affect gameplay TOO much, but does affect how we might think about gameplay.

Nope not too soon. I'll vote whenever distinct ideas are presented.

Gerikes said:

I had the same idea for the "conflicting frequencies". However, there seems to be some call for something that is an abstract idea like culture as opposed to a more concrete idea like distributed or "wireless" power. I'm not saying abstract is bad and concrete good, but my opinion is concrete.

Click to expand...

No, I think you got this slightly wrong.

The abstraction enters where we try to explain "why" energy or power transmissions confer the benefits/penalties they do. The idea of "conflicting frequencies" is intuitive and good. I like it.

However, I would also like to see the "grid" capable of transmitting something less obvious and more abstract like psi or resonance fields (progenitor technology). This is in addition to power/energy and could possibly be made available later in the game. Hence, I suggested the name Psych Grid to allow for more flexibility in concept design and to avoid confusion with the SMAC/X Energy Grids (Secret Project and progenitor commerce). This should, of course, be seen as part of a larger set of concepts that we want in Planetfall.

Would anyone be against coming up with a timeline (say, by Sunday) of two (or even three) separate, very defined ideas for "culture" and then putting it to a vote the next week? Luckily, the outcome wouldn't affect gameplay TOO much, but does affect how we might think about gameplay.

Click to expand...

As long as the idea I have suggested is understood, I do not mind it being rejected. Let's say we use your original idea of wireless power as template for setting up the "culture" concept. Detail it, and I will add my idea and you can decide if you want to use my ideas as part of this concept. If my ideas are rejected we would have one less option in the poll.

May I suggest that 1 paragraph write-ups be done for each option? Either assign one person to do all the write ups, or farm each write up to each original proposer. This doesn't have to take a lot of time.

Wodan

Rubin said:

The abstraction enters where we try to explain "why" energy or power transmissions confer the benefits/penalties they do. The idea of "conflicting frequencies" is intuitive and good. I like it.

Click to expand...

I'll do a write-up in the next day or so taking what I've originally thought and any rethinking due to discussion. You might look at it and say "no way", and have your own idea to write up for Sunday.

As long as the idea I have suggested is understood, I do not mind it being rejected. Let's say we use your original idea of wireless power as template for setting up the "culture" concept. Detail it, and I will add my idea and you can decide if you want to use my ideas as part of this concept. If my ideas are rejected we would have one less option in the poll.

Click to expand...

I was saying each person (or people with similar ideas) comes up with a paragraph or two of their ideas, and we'll use those to describe the ideas in the poll thread. It would be silly if I were to write all of the ideas, because I would clearly have a bias, although I would try my hardest not to let it show.

How many different ideas are there, exactly? I considered my interpretation to be unique enough to constitute its own idea, so if it isn't seen as running too close with the others, should I try to sum that up? More importantly, can I get some feedback first, if that's the case?

From what I've read, the distinct ideas are:

-Working tiles to claim them from the environment
-Memetic transmission as culture
-Psych-Grid
-Hybrid Meme-Energy-Psych-Psi Grid
-Expansion, as a generic term for faction-specific building effects
-Energy Grid, as a method of supplying power to improvements
-Energy Grid, as a maximum range of power transmission
-Energy Grid, as a method of determining legal ownership or industrial loyalty of land

GRM7584 said:

How many different ideas are there, exactly? I considered my interpretation to be unique enough to constitute its own idea, so if it isn't seen as running too close with the others, should I try to sum that up? More importantly, can I get some feedback first, if that's the case?

From what I've read, the distinct ideas are:

-Working tiles to claim them from the environment
-Memetic transmission as culture
-Psych-Grid
-Hybrid Meme-Energy-Psych-Psi Grid
-Expansion, as a generic term for faction-specific building effects
-Energy Grid, as a method of supplying power to improvements
-Energy Grid, as a maximum range of power transmission
-Energy Grid, as a method of determining legal ownership or industrial loyalty of land

Click to expand...

See, that's the thing, the your idea of the "pysch-grid" might be different from my idea of the "psych-grid" might be different from another idea of the "psych-grid". Rather than use terms that are new and possibly confused, we'll each need to describe exactly what the concept of "culture" represents. It wouldn't even need to discuss gameplay, just what those colored tiles represent.

I agree with a big helping of that, Gerikes, and it makes a lot of sense when summarized as such. I'll still provide my outlook...

Gerikes, I am somewhat agreeing with your view and would not object if this goes into the mod.

I think I am wasting my time on balancing connotations and denotations here. Maybe you fail to grasp what I am talking about, just don't like the idea of the presented abstraction or see no need for a general concept that can be used as a "joker" or "wild card" throughout explaining the sci-fi universe we are trying to create. I don't really know.

I offer flexibility on concepts via abstraction (less detail) and I would have liked to see the "Energy Grid" adjusted to allow for something more than just plain power and all the trivial explanations on how power or energy is important in territorial dominance.

In SMAC/X happiness and unhappiness are represented by talents, psych and drones. Even if its just the wording I get a sense of something more and something else than simply drones being unhappy citizens and psych being a measure of how much "luxuries" or "happiness" is being distributed. These SMAC/X terms are still mysterious to me in that I do not know exactly and in detail what the terms denote.

Its a little glimpse of magic because "my" SMAC/X universe is different from "your" SMAC/X universe.

Rubin said:

Gerikes, I am somewhat agreeing with your view and would not object if this goes into the mod.

I think I am wasting my time on balancing connotations and denotations here. Maybe you fail to grasp what I am talking about, just don't like the idea of the presented abstraction or see no need for a general concept that can be used as a "joker" or "wild card" throughout explaining the sci-fi universe we are trying to create. I don't really know.

I offer flexibility on concepts via abstraction (less detail) and I would have liked to see the "Energy Grid" adjusted to allow for something more than just plain power and all the trivial explanations on how power or energy is important in territorial dominance.

In SMAC/X happiness and unhappiness are represented by talents, psych and drones. Even if its just the wording I get a sense of something more and something else than simply drones being unhappy citizens and psych being a measure of how much "luxuries" or "happiness" is being distributed. These SMAC/X terms are still mysterious to me in that I do not know exactly and in detail what the terms denote.

Its a little glimpse of magic because "my" SMAC/X universe is different from "your" SMAC/X universe.

Click to expand...

I understand where you're coming from. I realize that your idea is almost 90% in agreeable with mine, you just take that extra step and say that the Energy Grid become a Psych-grid and that it's effect is more than just electromagnetic induction. In the end, I just am really attached to my idea, and part of that is the idea that the energy grid is just that, and that is has nothing to do with psych or happiness. I may be alone in that sentiment, and maybe everyone else likes the idea but are with you in thinking that the idea of "psych" should also be part of this.

The closest I would go to a Psych-grid is what I mentioned here:

When I read your article, I thought of a "Psych Field" some kind of new force ("Psi") that can be emitted similar to radio waves, and those waves could be picked up by humans who can then transfer them into a procedure to release endorphins (handling the "happiness") or picked up by machines to transfer directly into energy to power those machines. Your Psi channels can be run on certain frequencies that, on all channels, machines and humans get mostly the same effect, but Native Life Forms, who are much more sensitive to the Psi frequencies, will behave friendly or hostile based on the frequency you're running (which is determined from your Planet value).

Click to expand...

Your response to this was:

While the Psych Grid in itself is an entity (consisting of transmitters, emitters, structures, waves, etc.) Psych is NOT an entity. Psych is an abstraction, a concept. It can denote entities or particulars like the "force field" you describe, but such a force field would only be one component among many that are part of the Psych abstraction and therefore part of the Psych Grid.

Click to expand...

To which I decided that while I was ok with a Psych Grid with transmitters, emitters, structures, waves, etc., I didn't like the idea of expanding the idea of culture to include abstractions such as drugs or propaganda.

Gerikes, I think you are missing an important factor in your evaluation--and this is what I was referring to when trying to account for the reasons why my idea failed.

Drugs and propaganda are part of the Civ4 culture abstraction; whether these are included in your connotations or not is irrelevant. The strength of the concept lies in its lack of denotation.

Your "Energy Grid" has a scientific explanation; its simple, highly detailed and rigid. As a player, you already lost me. You told me what to think and unlike me, you are happy about it. I may differ from other players, though, so its not all bad (except for me, of course).

The important factor you are missing is that my Psych aspect is flexible. For example, if you are unhappy with the broad term Psych to account for wireless power transmission, you can freely remove this particular from the abstraction. This does not mean that you need to remove wireless power from the Psych Grid... the Psych Grid is simply the common term for the "entity" (the grid structure) that conveys 1) wireless power and 2) Psych. (You may still dislike the idea, though.)

I used "happiness" as a general term (an abstraction to denote another abstraction) and perhaps this was what lost you. The important part was not "happiness" but an abstraction we could use to explain several "mechanics" or features of the Planetfall universe.

Rubin said:

I think you are missing an important factor in your evaluation--and this is what I was referring to when trying to account for the reasons why my idea failed.

Click to expand...

I don't personally like the idea of abstracting culture to that degree; or rather, using civ 4's cultural abstractions and adding more aspects to them (power generation, psi control, etc), but I think the idea is entirely workable, and I wouldn't have any opposition to seeing that system in-game if a majority preferred it. You can hardly call the idea a failure if we haven't had a final vote on an idea yet. I think any of our ideas are workable and would be received favorably by players, so long as they made sense and were easy to explain in the pedia.

Rubin said:

Gerikes, I think you are missing an important factor in your evaluation--and this is what I was referring to when trying to account for the reasons why my idea failed.

Click to expand...

Your idea hasn't failed. There hasn't even been a vote. You do a great job explaining your ideas, and I understand why you think they would work better. And maybe they would. Maybe we want to build a game like you believe, where we want to have that abstraction, that freedom to think on our own what the different concepts mean. Or maybe we want a game like me where the story has interesting quirks that go deeper into describing the world.

You are a very good communicator, I can understand what you're saying. I think we just disagree.

Drugs and propaganda are part of the Civ4 culture abstraction; whether these are included in your connotations or not is irrelevant. The strength of the concept lies in its lack of denotation.

Your "Energy Grid" has a scientific explanation; its simple, highly detailed and rigid. As a player, you already lost me. You told me what to think and unlike me, you are happy about it. I may differ from other players, though, so its not all bad (except for me, of course).

Click to expand...

I don't know how different you are from other players, but I know that we're different enough to disagree on this. I don't equate that freedom of imagination as constantly a good thing. You may see it as "telling you what to think", I think of it as "telling you a story".

The important factor you are missing is that my Psych aspect is flexible. For example, if you are unhappy with the broad term Psych to account for wireless power transmission, you can freely remove this particular from the abstraction. This does not mean that you need to remove wireless power from the Psych Grid... the Psych Grid is simply the common term for the "entity" (the grid structure) that conveys 1) wireless power and 2) Psych. (You may still dislike the idea, though.)

Click to expand...

I don't see how that makes it flexible. I could just as easily rename the "Energy Grid" to "Psych Grid". In fact, I'm sort of leaning that way now. We could also add new ideas to this now renamed "Psych Grid" whenever we wanted. We could make the Psych grid deal with planet life, plant growth, unit morale, special abilities "recharging", whatever we see fit.

For right now, however, I think the idea of "wireless power" or "wireless energy" is the uniting factor of all these things.

I don't see how this discussion will help anything aside from bringing us faster to carpal tunnel. You describe your ideas fine, and I hear you. We just disagree. That's why there should be a vote.

Haha, Gerikes, you twist my points. I am, of course, not advocating concepts that literally go like this:

When colonists arrive at the planet, they start building a place where you can train things that you can use to do things outside the place. You must understand that you need another thing to effectively manage your things outside.

Perhaps you are deliberately misunderstanding my point, but telling a story is a bad idea. This is not a novel we are writing but a game mod and we are severely limited in storytelling. We create abstract models and those are the ones we need to describe. Too rigid and you'll lose players like me.

As you can perhaps see from this we are verging on a discussion on realism and I shall not take part in that.

I already presented my views on realism and detail and judging from the posts in this private forum I think the general interest aims at more realism and more detail. This makes it pointless for me to try work in the opposite direction and since we already have a detailed and realistic "Energy Grid", why not just use this? I am not excited about the "Energy Grid", but its a good idea and it works as a concept.

GRM7584, there are many very, very good ideas in this private forum and--not surprisingly--many of them conflict. I am hoping that we get rid of the good ideas that fail to become favored by the majority--even if the ideas make sense and are workable. Its much easier to get rid of the bad ideas, but we don't really have any of those around here

Hence, I deem it pointless to keep the idea of a Psych Grid alive. Of the remaining ideas, my vote goes to Gerikes' "Energy Grid".

Rubin said:

Perhaps you are deliberately misunderstanding my point, but telling a story is a bad idea. This is not a novel we are writing but a game mod and we are severely limited in storytelling. We create abstract models and those are the ones we need to describe. Too rigid and you'll lose players like me.

Click to expand...

If I'm misrepresenting your point, then my apologies. I mean this with all due respect, but I guess I'm not making a mod for people like you.

Hence, I deem it pointless to keep the idea of a Psych Grid alive. Of the remaining ideas, my vote goes to Gerikes' "Energy Grid".

Click to expand...

Could you at least put your idea into a paragraph so that when we can vote on it? If you're right, it fails, and we won't use it. If you're wrong, and it wins, then we do the right thing. Why are you so against at least giving it a chance?

GeoModder said:

Well, I have this inclination to let certain facilities for certain factions double up the functions. Like a Spartan barrack gives the (normal) +[insert number] effect on morale/XP, but in addition gives a +[insert number] effect on culture/expansion. A lot like the unique building concept in Warlords. It would also omit the need for the Spartans to build (hologram) theatres so to speak.

Click to expand...

I'm disinclined to "eliminate the need" for something like that...why not split RecCommons up per faction and give each RecCommons a unique trait parallel to the faction flavour, like so:

All RecCommons generate +2.
Spartans: Arena, +2 Unit XP
Gaians: Forest Garden, +1 (or maybe +1, based on Lal's commentary...)
Morgans: Casino, +10%
UN: Reading Room, -1
Hive: Feeding Bay, +1/, whichever the Garden doesn't get

I just had a thought about the idea of having to "claim land from the planet", and it also might work well with Maniac's idea of arcology bases eventually being able to stealth themselves: How about Fungal Towers acting as "Barbarian cities", with every so many patches of fungus inside the "city" providing a point of "culture" and fungus growing in a square when it accumulates so many points of "Barbarian culture"? That way, eventually factions will have to actively work to "claim land from the fungus" (or at least mount a serious offensive to eradicate the fungal tower, as it'll have a few worms guarding it, and they could get a bonus for being "in their cultural boundaries" instead of just for being inside the fungus), and maybe switching to a hybrid-ecology doctrine could increase the rate of "cultural exchange" between you and the "barbarians".

Maybe even better; if the code from the Mongol mod in Warlords was used, those Fungal Towers could spawn units depending on the type of plot they are on.
I think earlier this week somebody ported the Warlords code to BtS, so the basics are ready.

Sounds like roughly what I was thinking, yeah.