Reconsidering exploration: ideas to make it funnier

[Marla_Singer]

I strongly believe that exploration is made too easy in WTP. That’s a flaw which was already true in Vanilla Civ4Col and which has never been considered seriously. Rather than "helping the player", I've grown convinced over years that it just makes the exploration experience more bland. If you’re cautious enough with your scouts, being sure to maintain them in full health after fights against wild animals, you only have a really small chance to lose them, and they can easily explore the whole continent, from North to South poles, even before the middle of the game is reached.

Not only this doesn’t fit History, the US far west wasn’t fully explored untill the 19th century, but it makes exploration very bland. It ends up as a succession of goody huts opening and native tribes meeting that are chained one after the other with very little flavour. I personally feel exploration should be a big part of the game fun and spicing it up a bit would only make exploration feel more rewarding.

To start up the thread, here are some first suggestions in this regard.


Impassable territories

Ice : land exploration of Arctic wasn’t possible before the early 20th century because of lack of stable food supplies, and insufficient insulation for the crew against extreme cold. Looking for more realism, It would make sense to make that terrain type impassable for all units. Considering how little value those territories have, I hardly see what would be lost to the player here.

Jungle : vegetation is so thick in equatorial jungle that, even today, a modern full-power bulldozer cannot always « dig » into it. The only realistic way to travel into jungle is through rivers, even more in the Civ4Col period of time. As such, I think it would be great if jungle tiles were made impassable unless they are served by a river.

Maybe, just like for peaks currently, we could allow hardy pioneers on both terrains so that they could build improvements. This makes sense for gameplay reasons (as long as it's within the player's borders to avoid exploration exploit). I’m more skeptical at the idea to even allow seasoned scouts there though as that just doesn’t make any sense for a game supposed to end in the 19th century.



Food supply and surviving in the wild

There is something a bit weird in the game which is that a citizen living in the comfort of a town requires 2 food to survive whereas he doesn’t need anything to live in the wild.

An idea to make things more realistic in this regard would be simply that units would experience a 10% damage each turn they end in a territory which would have less than 2 food ressources which would mean tundra and desert, unless there is any food bonus such as oasis in which case they would get healed.



Exploring the seas

Having just read Stefan Zweig’s Magellan biography, it clearly strengthened my opinion that sailing exploration is really too easy in Civ4Col. Even worse, game mechanics makes it necessary in the end to discover every single ocean tiles to farm exploration points. Such a methodical exploration of the seas hasn’t happened in real life before motorboats were invented.

Here the idea would basically be to do the same thing as in tundra and desert. Units would experience a 10% damage each turn they end in a sea tile, unless it offers a food bonus supply in which case they would get healed. That’s precisely the way Magellan explored the South American shores. He established camps at the mouth of rivers because there was fish supply in those areas.

For gameplay reasons, we could consider exemptions for ships located in your own territorial seas (for defence), pirates (so that they wouldn’t be disadvantaged) and man-o-wars (so that war of independence wouldn’t get flawed).



Exploration points

Those changes would need to be play tested in order to have a better idea of their impact on the pace of exploration. If it’s significantly slowed down, then an adjustment on exploration points scale would be required.

As a matter of fact, on Marathon speed, it’s impossible currently to have all exploration points because founding fathers require 3 times more points whereas the map isn’t 3 times bigger. However, Marathon bringing absolutely no value at all to the game (as opposed to Civilization 4 in which it does bring depth to the game), I would even consider discarding totally so that new players wouldn’t pick that option believing it would be as fun as in Civ only to discover a super tedious game which wouldn’t bring the value WTP deserves.

 

[raystuttgart]

Generally I agree, that exploration is (too?) easy and maybe a bit bland.
That is why we tried to change it by implementing "Wild Animals", which - at least for me - made it a little more interesting.

However, while we agree in the general "Exploration is easy and bland", I do not really like the way you want to solve this.

- Impassable Tundra and Jungle
- Maybe allowing to move in those areas by rivers
- Damage in Terrains with no Food (again Tundra and Jungle - but also Mountains)
- Damage for Ships that do not end their turn on Food Bonus Ressources

And the worst:
Lots of exceptions to not break other games mechanics but thus making the game rules "inconsistent" / "unlogical"
(And that for almost every single rule.)

A) It is very one-sided and unbalanced if we dot this only for specific Terrains / Features. (Tundra and Jungle)
It would be very unfair for Nations that start in these regions.

B) It will be extremely difficult to teach this to AI.
AI is already now not using exploration as efficiently as Human Players do.

C) It will simply slow down exploration. But will it really make it more fun?
With your current rules it might even lead to some areas being never explored.

D) It is a lot of effort and can lead to lots of side effects and bugs.
(We might even cause problems to logic for settling and logic for indoor professions - that do not like impassable terrain.)

E) On Mapsize Gigantic Scouting the whole map does take a while.
I personally never had any urge to slow it down considerably.

------------

We agree considering the "disease".
(Exploration could be more fun.)

But I absolutely do not agree about the "cure".
(Because Exploration would not become more fun just more tedious and confusing.)

------------

If we want to make Exploration more fun, we need to find something that:

A) Does not only have negatives but also positives.
(Meaning also small chances for rewards.)

B) It is not about slowing it down. It is about making it more interesting / challenging.
(Just slowing things down is not really fun.)

C) Just recoding lots of core game mechanics and additionally adding lots of exceptions again is not really the solution.
(We will just make the game more difficult to maintain and potentially have lots of bugs and side effects.)

We would need to have something like more "Enemy Units" / more "Dangerous Event".
(A feature that has threats / risks but also chances / rewards.)

It would be ok for me if sometimes a Scout would die.
(But sometimes you should also get a reward with equivalent value.)

Summary:
Risks + Rewards = Fun
Slow = Tedious / Boring
Complicated + Exceptions = Confusing / Inconsistent

------------

Currently however I am missing another idea like "Wild Animals" to make Exploration more risky / more rewarding / more fun.
Maybe we can have more Events or something like that.
It needs to be simple though and not mess with other core mechanics too much.

 

[Marla_Singer]

I never mentionned impassable tundra. Only impassable ice.
And if that leaves polar ice caps unexplored, it would only be realistic as those weren't explored untill the 20th century (seas could still be explored though). Anyway, polar regions have nothing to offer to gameplay anyway so I hardly see the bother.

And sorry but polar regions aren't dangerous because of wild animals but because of its extreme cold, so I don't believe wild animals are the solution.

 

[raystuttgart]

I never mentionned impassable tundra. Only impassable ice.

Ok, I misunderstood that one.

And if that leaves polar ice caps unexplored, it would only be realistic as those weren't explored untill the 20th century.

I am not arguing against immersion at all.
I am looking at the perspectives gameplay, balancing, efforts and technical risks.

Compare it to being medical doctor:
Basically you asking me to make your child sick just because you want it to be prettier.
In this case I would say no, because a healthy child is better than a pretty child.

We need to find a new solution that allows: healthier + prettier
("Wild Animals" went into the right direction but it might not have been enough.)

 

[Marla_Singer]

I agree with you about finding ways to make exploration more rewarding.

Allowing access to exploration founding fathers is already a good incentive to explore the map, but we could think about other things as well. All suggestions are welcomed.

 

[raystuttgart]

Agreed.

But we also need to consider this:

... gameplay, balancing, efforts and technical risks.

We cannot just always look at immersion only.
(It really is a huge misperception that immersion only equals fun / a good feature.)

 

[Marla_Singer]

Agreed.

But we also need to consider this:

We cannot just always look at immersion only.
(It really is a huge misperception that immersion only equals fun / a good feature.)

Well, limitations aren't necessarily unfun either. Let's imagine that my seasoned scout would reach an unexplored desert and that ending the turn on a desert tile would generate a 10% damage. I would need then to choose between taking the risk or not. Damaging can kill the unit after 10 turns, but it also exposes it to a more lethal risk in case it is attacked by a wild animal. These things are all fun to me.

Now it all depends on the availability of scouts. And a too high exploration "fatality rate" would discourage players if they are too tedious to build (a solution may be to make them cheaper to buy in Europe), so I totally agree this indeed needs to be balanced. But if done well, it has no reason to be less fun.

 

[ConjurerDragon]

I strongly believe that exploration is made too easy in WTP

I agree.

...
Impassable territories

Ice : land exploration of Arctic wasn’t possible before the early 20th century because of lack of stable food supplies, and insufficient insulation for the crew against extreme cold. Looking for more realism, It would make sense to make that terrain type impassable for all units. Considering how little value those territories have, I hardly see what would be lost to the player here.

Just for understanding - you mean LAND-ice here, right? Because SEA-ice is already impassable to both ships and land units (only wild animal tend to get caught below ice occasionally in my games.

Jungle : vegetation is so thick in equatorial jungle that, even today, a modern full-power bulldozer cannot always « dig » into it. The only realistic way to travel into jungle is through rivers, even more in the Civ4Col period of time. As such, I think it would be great if jungle tiles were made impassable unless they are served by a river.

Perhaps better: Impassable unless served by a river OR having a path cleared by a pioneer who created a road (or chopped down the jungle) for other units. After all the Inkas already tried to expand into the Amazon basin and the spanish explored quite a lot beyond river banks (not all exploration looks like Klaus Kinski on a raft like in the Wrath of Aguirre), e.g. the expeditions in search of El Dorado
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Dorado#The_search_for_El_Dorado

And it is a mainstay of stories and movies that the hero makes himself and his party a path with his machete... And the natureloving native living as one with their forest is such a staple of storytelling that having them being unable to pass the jungle they live in would seem strange...

Or if impassable is too harsh, simply raise the movement cost of tiles that contain jungle. Or - if that is possible - make it impassable jungle for the civilized units but passable with higher movement cost to outdoor types (e.g. Hunter).
I personally find the movement speed, e.g. of Seasoned Scouts with the Founding Father that raises all scouts speed by +1 and the promotions like Exploration and Forced March to be far too fast. So either the promotions need to be curtailed, the wilderness be made more dangerous (so that no unit can afford to take all +speed promotions and rather takes some +power ones too) or the movement cost of squares need to be higher.

Maybe, just like for peaks currently, we could allow hardy pioneers on both terrains so that they could build improvements. This makes sense for gameplay reasons (as long as it's within the player's borders to avoid exploration exploit). I’m more skeptical at the idea to even allow seasoned scouts there though as that just doesn’t make any sense for a game supposed to end in the 19th century.

Wouldn’t that only let to players exploring the map with pioneers instead of Seasoned Scouts? I do not think that would make sense as hunters travelled the wilderness too on animals footpath´s and those would then have to wait for a pioneer to clear a path...

Food supply and surviving in the wild
There is something a bit weird in the game which is that a citizen living in the comfort of a town requires 2 food to survive whereas he doesn’t need anything to live in the wild.
An idea to make things more realistic in this regard would be simply that units would experience a 10% damage each turn they end in a territory which would have less than 2 food ressources which would mean tundra and desert, unless there is any food bonus such as oasis in which case they would get healed.
Maybe for both gameplay and coding reasons we could consider exemptions for military professions.

So units would eat as before within a city, be maintained within cultural borders without additional work and outside those would need to forage from the land they are passing? How would that work with land transports like a stage coach or a wagon train? Is the game even able to do those calculations for passengers if they are not walking on foot themselves? And would the "less than 2 food" square not have to let additional units starve if the first unit foraged his food from the square (e.g. if more than 1 unit is in a square)?

Exploring the seas
Having just read Stefan Zweig’s Magellan biography, it clearly strengthened my opinion that sailing exploration is really too easy in Civ4Col. Even worse, game mechanics makes it necessary in the end to discover every single ocean tiles to farm exploration points. Such a methodical exploration of the seas hasn’t happened in real life before motorboats were invented.

Here the idea would basically be to do the same thing as in tundra and desert. Units would experience a 10% damage each turn they end in a sea tile, unless it offers a food bonus supply in which case they would get healed. That’s precisely the way Magellan explored the South American shores. He established camps at the mouth of rivers because there was fish supply in those areas.

Once again, for gameplay reasons, we could consider exemptions for ships located in your own territorial seas (for defence), pirates (so that they wouldn’t be disadvantaged) and man-o-wars (so that war of independence wouldn’t get flawed).

Do you know the DoAne mod? Instead of punishing exploring units with damage it limits the amount a unit can "memorize". The unit has to return to civilization (Europe or a city) so that the explored area stays explored. If it travels further than the limits of the memory of that unit then on returning to a city only part of the explored area stays explored. That was a mechanic that I liked in that mod.

 

[raystuttgart]

That was a mechanic that I liked in that mod.

I feel bad for saying that because I do not want to talk bad about another mod.

And in fact, DoaNE did try to go new ways and experiment more than most other mods, which is an achievement in itself.
(So please forgive - it is usually a matter of available time for modding of course. Not necessarily a problem of skills.)

• A lot of the game mechanics in DoaNE were really AI-unfriendly. (AI never knew how to handle them properly.)
• DoaNE did not fully consider all side effects and several aspects were not adjusted or balancing not properly done.
  
• Several game mechanics some players liked were really hated by more casual players.

To be honest the "Scouts can only memorize so much exploration" concept felt a bit artificial for me.
It would also not really make exploration itself more fun, it would just slow it down.

 

[raystuttgart]

Hi guys,

I have been thinking a bit and I slowly but surely start developing a new game concept.
(I might need some time to get the full game concept and technical concept done.)

Not sure how I will name it yet.

Something like "Exploration Site" / "Dangerous Site" / "Special Point of Interest".

Basically it will be an Improvement (not exactly like Goody Hut) that is however spawned similar to Goody Huts.
But when you enter the "Exploration Site" it will not directly trigger. You can however start an "Exploration Quest" (by Button).

When you do so, it will trigger a small "Story" / "Quest" chain with several dialogues following each other. (You know what I am talking about when you played Stellaris.)
Some dialog chains might lead to huge rewards (e.g. getting a new Unit / a huge Treasure / discovering a Natural Wonder), others to very negative outcomes (e.g. Wars with Natives or death of your Scout).
Basically it will be like a mini-game with some story and a bit of random outcome.

For AIs the outcome will simply be random based.
(AIs will trigger it automatically and generally treat it like Goody Huts.)

 

[OzzyKP]

For what its worth, I like all of Marla's suggestions. As she said, the health loss on a tile would be a fun strategic decision to make when exploring. Is it worth pushing on through this inhospitable desert looking for that lost city of gold, or should we turn back? Impassible jungle & ice sounds good too.

 

[Atlas627]

I think exploration is boring because it is so uniform. I am only going to use like 20% of the land I uncover at most, and so much of the land is just "decent". I want to find bays that are particularly rich, plains that are particularly fruitful, deserts that scare me away, and mineral veins for a gold rush. I want to fight over that river delta and rush to claim that strait.

Part of this might be that I play with 1-tile cities (I'll get around to switching to 2-tile at some point), but to me the map is about potential city sites, and the potential city sites just aren't that varied. And the map already has plenty of interesting elements to make exploration a worthy gameplay element on its own! The variance in uses and needs is already pretty good...but just not good enough. Maybe the exploration storylines will allow us to create extra-rich resources to make this more interesting?

 

[raystuttgart]

Maybe the exploration storylines will allow us to create extra-rich resources to make this more interesting?

devolution also had the idea to spawn "Natural Wonders".
(Something like special unique Terrain Features.)

But the gameplay concept for these "Natural Wonders" is still missing.
(What game effects should they have?)

Maybe we could also have special unique Bonus Ressources.
(But can this really be done without breaking the balance?)

There are other ideas around as well, that might make "Exploration more fun".
(But they are still missing the full fledge game concepts yet.)

Summary:
I do believe there are ways to make "Exploration" more interesting and fun by simply adding more diversity, small unique surprises and maybe stories.
I would just not want to make it slow and tedious and I also don't want to code dozens of game feature exceptions (and thus introduce inconsistencies and bugs) or break balancing ...

Problem:
We are currently missing graphical modders in the team.
Community support considering new graphics is currently also very limitted.
Our possibilities to add things like that are thus really limitted because we would need to scrap the graphics from somewhere.

 

[OzzyKP]

I think exploration is boring because it is so uniform. I am only going to use like 20% of the land I uncover at most, and so much of the land is just "decent". I want to find bays that are particularly rich, plains that are particularly fruitful, deserts that scare me away, and mineral veins for a gold rush. I want to fight over that river delta and rush to claim that strait.

Part of this might be that I play with 1-tile cities (I'll get around to switching to 2-tile at some point), but to me the map is about potential city sites, and the potential city sites just aren't that varied. And the map already has plenty of interesting elements to make exploration a worthy gameplay element on its own! The variance in uses and needs is already pretty good...but just not good enough. Maybe the exploration storylines will allow us to create extra-rich resources to make this more interesting?

Actually, my proposal to rebalance agriculture vs. industry would result in the need for more city sites and could thus lead to more relevant exploration.

 

[Tugboatspotter]

There is a mechanic in FFH2 mnai with extramodmod (I think) which makes the strength of spawned barbarians or animals dependent on distance from civilization.

Could something like this be implemented? Safe to explore areas around settlements but increasingly deadly the further you venture.

Perhaps this could also be reflected in the aggression of natives. The further they are away from starting settlements the more likely the natives are to attack your units.

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Civ 5 and I think 6 as well had natural wonders that were like 'mega bonus' tiles and they also provided happiness when you discovered them (it was a little different in Civ6 but there was and 'era' bonus for finding them.) (I also think there were a bunch of different natural wonder mods for BTS which could probably be implemented without too much extra work) . These sites were also often 'multi tile sites' so you could get 2-5 special tiles that all gave the land a boost.

I think this would be a lot of fun. There was the 'fountain of youth' event in Col or 4Col I forget but it basically spammed you a bunch of units in your home port if you were the one to find it. I don't suggest that as the answer, but it was an exploration based reward.

I think natural wonders would be the best/efficient/quickest method to adding exploration incentive. As they are just using 95% of the bonus/feature code that already exists. You can also make unique interactions and bonuses by using a bonus or a feature (like how cutting down trees gives you a blob of wood) you could potentially do the same with destroying an ancient temple versus working it long term.

This would add the 'New places to build incentive' plus the 'wonder of exploration' incentive and an 'urgency' incentive as you want to be the one to find and control these sites.

Balance would be more or less taken care of by having enough wonders and having a spread of wonders across the different terrain types (So that no matter the environment you start in you have a good chance of finding a wonder) as well as competition to be the one to gain control of them.

The other thing we had in FTTW was animal lairs (I had plans to expand this further with other points of interest but didn't get there) but you had lairs spawn at the start of the game and these would periodically spawn a specific creature/unit at specific rates until the lair was destroyed. This could make the map more dangerous and wild(lairs) vs tamed land(destroyed lairs). As well as potential lump rewards like a blob of fur for destroying an animal lair/bandit camp/native warband camp. etc. With the incentive to explore and discover these quickly to control the population of baddies.

 

[raystuttgart]

Well, I have been thinking about this a bit again.
Basically I fully agree with Marla:

1. Exploration in WTP is relatively boring and bland (too little variety and risk)
2. Exploration in WTP is even a bit overpowered (too many rewards from Goodies and Native Villages - especially in early game)

------

In other games and even mods this would be relatively easy to solve.
Especially in SciFi or Fantasy mods (e.g. in FFH2).

• Spawning stronger monsters further away from settlements
  
• Adding locations with higher risk vs. rewards (e.g. dangerous sites)
• Having certain techs as prerequisite to pass certain terrains

Then you would be limited in your exploration early game but could still explore everything late game ...
It would most likely be fun and not just tedious.
And AI could most likely understand these rules, or at least could be taught to do so relatively easily ...

------

But it needs to be immersive and fit to the historic scenario.
Thus everything else I could imagine currently would most likey just be tedious or an effort and performance nightmare.
And all those things would also be difficult to teach to AI.

• Limiting Movement range by distance to Colonies, Forts, Monasteries, Missions in Native Villages, Trade Posts in Native Villages, ...
• Limiting Movement range by either some kind of supply system or some kind of distance based movement cost system ...
• Making Natives in further distance more aggressive and killing Scouts from time to time ... (similar to raids on Treasures - without War)

I really hate such "distance system" - mostly because they are difficult to implement performantly.
They are also incredibly difficult to balance for different MapSizes or MapTypes (e.g. Continents or Island Maps).

------

Summary:

I am missing a good concept to improve Exploration to make it more interesting and more challenging.
It should only be difficult in early game - not impossible throughout the whole game.

 

[devolution]

Some quick comments:

- We could spawn "native raiders" i.e. always hostile native units on the barb team. Place small stacks of them to guard goodies.
- Raiders could also target lightly defended cities.
- Pirates could raid coastal land (Arrr!)
- Impose a "soft" distance cap by preventing units from healing when too far from friendly territory / structures etc.
- Introduce ammunition to make non-melee units loose effectiveness unless regularly supplied.
- Ships should not heal unless when stationed in a friendly city \ port. This would nerf privateers\pirate a bit which are a big problem for the AI.
- Promotions should not provide healing (currently 50% per promotion)

 

[Lib.Spi't]

Ok lets take these three things and see if they can fly here.

• Spawning stronger monsters further away from settlements
  
  Crocs or Alligators (I always forget which is which where)
  Pirahna's
  Elite Tribal Warriors (Temple Guardians, Cannibals, Pigmy(Spelling?) Tribes, etc.) They could have big bonuses for combat in jungle, etc. or chosen terrain as their tactics deal damage in unconventional ways. Laying traps, attacking from the canopy, killing men while they sleep in camp, etc.
  
  
• Adding locations with higher risk vs. rewards (e.g. dangerous sites)
  
  Lost Cities
  Abandoned Temples
  The Fountain of Youth
  Sacred Caves and Coves
  Sacrificial Sites
  Wild Tribal Villages (Oh hello goodie hut, OH NO IT'S CANNIBALS AGAIN!!)
  
  Dark Paths to the Jungle Heart:
  
  River Bank Terrain (These could be spawned adjacent to rivers and could be easier to traverse than Jungles, but they are home to dangerous creatures that could make mince meat of standard scouting parties. Alligators, piranhas, etc.)
  Dense Jungle (Impassable until Tech unlocked) (or perhaps only passable by certain units, often 'walling in' River Banks)
  
  The combination of River Banks lined with Dense Jungles would create dangerous in roads to the Dark and Mystical Jungle, the deeper you go the more dangerous and potentially rewarding they become. Some Civs like Aztecs/Incas could start with terrain passable and live in the heart of the jungle leading to wealthier trading connections with these golden civilizations.
  
  
• Having certain techs as prerequisite to pass certain terrains.
  
  Bonuses to travel along river banks (think taking canoes along)
  Dense Jungle Travel (Machetes)
  
  New Unit:
  Conquistador (or unit ability if they exist already)
  Mid-Late Explorer, bonuses to travel and combat in jungle areas, negating bonus strength of stronger 'Monster' Units from above, allowing them to do battle on a much more even playing field, opening up 'Dangerous' Exploration Sites and areas.

 

[raystuttgart]

I am trying to reduce the variation a bit to have less effort and risk for implementation.
(Otherwise we need too many graphics and too many code changes e.g. for placement and spawning.)

Dangerous Sites:

During Map Generation additional "Goody Hut Types" would be spawned.
(Basically it is just an expansion of the Goody Hut System with new XML settings for spawning and defenders needed.)

• Ancient Native City* (guarded by 2 Hostile Natives - but not spawning further enemies - high reward)
• Hostile Native Village (guarded by 1 Hostile Native - spawning further Hostile Natives that wander around - medium reward)
• Animal Lair (guarded by 1 Wild Animal - spawning further Wild Animals depending on Plot Type that wander around - low reward)

*Only an Ancient Native City could still trigger reward events "Fountain of Youth" or "El Dorado".
Hostile Native Village and Animal Lair would get an additional specific reward event of their own.

The current Goody Huts "Ancient Ruin" and "Burial Site" I would leave as they are - also for AI.
(The technical system changes in the Goody Hut System would generally allow them to spawn Units as well though.)

But since we would have more Goody Hut Types these old Goody Hut Types would be generated less often.
(The total number of Goody Huts would not change though.)

The new "Spawning Goody Huts" should get new Goody graphics though.
(Maybe existing graphics from Civ4BTS mods could be reused though. )

--------

For a more dynamic system (for Pirates and Pirate Ships), we already have planned Pirate Nation and Pirate Raids.
(It is of course much more effort than the suggestion above.)

Other Gameplay Change that might help to "make Exploration more interesting":

Healing / Resting of Ships only possible in friendly Cities (including Native Villages, Allied AI cities and your own).
"Healing while Moving" given by specific Promotions (e.g. "Ship Carpenter") would not be impacted though.

Techs:

We simply currently do not have them.