Brainstorm about how to make late game more interesting

[stmartin]

HoTK needs to be more interesting in middle to late game. Or if it can't, it needs to speed up in late game, allowing the dominating faction to win quicker, thus less repetitive task.

Here's my personal guidelines:

1. introduce more base-level game element: for example, hero allegiance, which means you have to really manage you heroes well, or they will betray, rebel, or split away from your empire.

2. Or make the strong faction even more strong, like kenjister suggests in strategy discussion thread, I paste here:

Spoiler :

I agree that something needs to be done to adress late-game stagnation. What to do is an interesting dilemma though. We can't have an Armageddon count, stability doesn't exactly speed up the late game as much as change the very dynamic of the whole thing, and UHV's are simply an alternative that you may or may not achieve.


Perhaps you can implement a political will counter for each faction. This counter would be similar to war weariness, but you would want to keep this counter as high as possible. The counter would start at a base level (determined by your leaders "will") and would largely decrease for each unit lost. It would also increase for each unit you have (checked once every month or two), making it largely dependant on the size of your army.
For example let's say your faction has a count of 45. You lose a few troops defending the homeland, the counter goes down to 42. You then attempt a huge counterattack with your legions and fail miserably due to enemy reinforcements. They then take a city. Both those events would drop the count to 19. Next turn the monthly check is done and the count goes up by 10 for troop levels. If you're sill below a set number (in this case it could be 30) bad things would begin to happen to your country when enemies approach such as cities flat out surrendering. If the counter goes down by an insanely large amount and hits 0, then the faction flat out surrenders. The point of this whole thing would to model crushing defeats that totally breaks a faction's will to fight (in the late game) and cause the leader to surrender. Of course victory in your own land would be treated in a very positive manner and perhaps lead to bonus troops appearing in your cities. The famous rulers would have a very high base "will" and also a bonus to will increase everytime the check is done. I know it's really huge idea, and would be extremely hard to implement (not to mention, possibly very slow), but I was thinking that the game needed to reward quick decicive victories, and punish inept defence of the homeland. Of course for it to truely flow, there would have to be dynamic leader change, as to better model weak willed rulers taking control of the throne.
Just throwing the idea out here! feel free to criticize, I don't really this would ever make it in, but without ideas we'd be nowhere!

Would like to hear from more players about whatever relevant idea you come up with.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

I don't want the strong factions to get stronger (the whole point of having different civs is to allow the little ones to win).
How about some [national or world] projects like
--Red Cliff which immediately obliterates 1/2 of a enemy stack, which can be reusable after it's "recharged" for x turns.
--The Taming of Meng Huo could be built as a project also, switching all barbarians at that time to your control and brings them to your capital.
--The Usurpation of Sima Yi (or Incident in Gaoping Tombs) which gives a special unit that when used on an enemy, splits an empire into 2, one half going barbarian randomly.
--Zuo Ci's Teleportation Device, works like an airport between the city that has that wonder and any other friendly city.

 

[Kenjister]

I don't disagree with the premise that strong civs shouldn't be stronger... except for when the late game tedium sets in with build stack, conquer, rinse and repeat. I figure the game needs a nice double-win mechanic to allow a civ that gets to critical mass the ability to win quickly. As such I support mechanics that allow small civs to win, since those would mainly be in the early game (to give those small civs footholds) while also favoring the addition of mechanics that allow the large civs to win quicker in the end. What do you think about that AP? (just trying to see where you stand on this issue)

I also like your idea's btw, they all seem to fit, though perhaps the usurpation event could be tied to a more stability thing if it gets implemented.


Finally, just to throw this out there, in my idea of the use of "will" could also have stinging effects on big civs that fail an invasion attempt, possibly aiding the small civs under human control.

 

[gunnergoz]

I don't know much about the period, to be honest, but would it be feasible to enhance the "family/clan" side of the game to include sons and daughters that could be married off to build alliances, to be held captive or perhaps to succeed the leaders in the game? Or is the time period involved too short to permit such a thing? I have enjoyed such elements in other games about dynastic wars.

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Finally, just to throw this out there, in my idea of the use of "will" could also have stinging effects on big civs that fail an invasion attempt, possibly aiding the small civs under human control.

Like Shu's invasion of Wei. That actually sounds about right, but how to implement?

I think the Emperor Civic should be available after Imperial Academy, and whoever adopts it sets the "doomsday" clock ticking, e.g. more and more cities which have at least 10% of your culture will defect to you if their owners don't have Emperor civic. This will allow peaceful ones to be able to still win a cultural win, while those bent on conquering and reuniting China will have an advantage. (The Emperor civic is underutilized due to the fact that almost nobody except Li Jue and Yuan Shu adopt Rebellion).

 

[Kenjister]

The time period isn't too short to have dynamic leader changes, though there were very few political marriges on a kingdom scale (with the exception being Lady Sun aka Sun Shang Xiang)
Perhaps it's time to add aging to the heroes and the leaders. Though once again, that would require more heroes to be born (to replace the old ones) and would possibly slow down the game quite a bit.

 

[Dknight99]

Introduce advisors in the mid game?
I think controlling large empires need to have drawbacks especially territories that's far away from the capital. I remember playing Legends of Revolution and I'm constantly worried about stretching too far in fear of uprisings in my secured fronts. I suppose this can be done through peasant uprisings or barbarian invasions. Perhaps this can keep large civilizations in check, and some thing for large empires to worry about.

 

[stmartin]

I don't want the strong factions to get stronger (the whole point of having different civs is to allow the little ones to win).
How about some [national or world] projects like
--Red Cliff which immediately obliterates 1/2 of a enemy stack, which can be reusable after it's "recharged" for x turns.
--The Taming of Meng Huo could be built as a project also, switching all barbarians at that time to your control and brings them to your capital.
--The Usurpation of Sima Yi (or Incident in Gaoping Tombs) which gives a special unit that when used on an enemy, splits an empire into 2, one half going barbarian randomly.
--Zuo Ci's Teleportation Device, works like an airport between the city that has that wonder and any other friendly city.

hehe, interesting ideas, although a bit overpowered, gonna include them.

I don't know much about the period, to be honest, but would it be feasible to enhance the "family/clan" side of the game to include sons and daughters that could be married off to build alliances, to be held captive or perhaps to succeed the leaders in the game? Or is the time period involved too short to permit such a thing? I have enjoyed such elements in other games about dynastic wars.

There definitely were such things in this period, and this is very interesting, I believe sooner or later it will be in the Mod.

Like Shu's invasion of Wei. That actually sounds about right, but how to implement?

I think the Emperor Civic should be available after Imperial Academy, and whoever adopts it sets the "doomsday" clock ticking, e.g. more and more cities which have at least 10% of your culture will defect to you if their owners don't have Emperor civic. This will allow peaceful ones to be able to still win a cultural win, while those bent on conquering and reuniting China will have an advantage. (The Emperor civic is underutilized due to the fact that almost nobody except Li Jue and Yuan Shu adopt Rebellion).

This sounds like a good double win mechanic.

The time period isn't too short to have dynamic leader changes, though there were very few political marriges on a kingdom scale (with the exception being Lady Sun aka Sun Shang Xiang)
Perhaps it's time to add aging to the heroes and the leaders. Though once again, that would require more heroes to be born (to replace the old ones) and would possibly slow down the game quite a bit.

There are enough random heroes to replace the dead already

Introduce advisors in the mid game?
I think controlling large empires need to have drawbacks especially territories that's far away from the capital. I remember playing Legends of Revolution and I'm constantly worried about stretching too far in fear of uprisings in my secured fronts. I suppose this can be done through peasant uprisings or barbarian invasions. Perhaps this can keep large civilizations in check, and some thing for large empires to worry about.

Give your cities to heroes to govern as a reward for their service, and if the hero is too ambitious than loyal, and he is far away from your capital, he will become a new leader and start a new faction, persuading some of your units and heroes to side with him at the same time.

 

[Kenjister]

I'm really loving the idea of heroes governing cities and the possible chance of revolt. I also really like AP's Emperor civic idea, though 10% culture might be near impossible to get in the late game unless it was contested territory to begin with. I actually think the Emperor civic should be the gateway to victory, almost as a requirement to win the game by Conquest of Domination.

Oh, and adding Deng Ai and Jiang Wei would make the lategame more interesting too... it would be nice to see some more historical guys running around the lategame. (Plus it's always fun to nurture a hero to greatness!)

 

[ORION11380]

How about another option for victory condition? Given the current map layout, Domination is really not feasible, leaving only cultural, conquest, and diplomatic victories as options.

What about a production type victory, like the Spaceship victory? But instead of building a spaceship, you build a political infrastructure. The components can be something like

1. Mandate of Heaven

2. Will of the People

3. Favorable Omens (a huge part of Chinese culture, like the River Spirits returning the jade seal, the Moon when ZhangHe led the navy to liberate Formosa from the Dutch, or the South Wind at RedCliff. Signs fabricated by the creative spiritual leaders to support their cause...)

And I'm sure we can think of a few more...

 

[AnotherPacifist]

Well, just turning the culture dial up will get you lots of happy faces. It is kinda just an iteration of cultural victory. A "spaceship" or production victory would probably be inappropriate for the period since the only objective (for the big civs anyway) is to reunite China.

We need UHVs!!!

 

[Kenjister]

All this discussion about projects has really got me thinking! How about having the Emperor civic as sort of the "ultimate" government option (basically buff the bonuses it gives now through the roof, though keep the benefits in the same area) which is only attainable through either building the Temple of Abdication or by declaring yourself Emperor by building the projects listed by ORION, such as popular support and auspicious omens.

 

[deadliver]

Like Shu's invasion of Wei. That actually sounds about right, but how to implement?

I think the Emperor Civic should be available after Imperial Academy, and whoever adopts it sets the "doomsday" clock ticking, e.g. more and more cities which have at least 10% of your culture will defect to you if their owners don't have Emperor civic. This will allow peaceful ones to be able to still win a cultural win, while those bent on conquering and reuniting China will have an advantage. (The Emperor civic is underutilized due to the fact that almost nobody except Li Jue and Yuan Shu adopt Rebellion).

Very cool idea man.