Should Firaxis put more emphasis on a changing gameplay/mechanics through the game?

[dh_epic]

Hey Sir Schwick, that's a very valuable meditation.

More than criticizing the early game for being too simple, my focus is on making the modern age more meaningful and interesting. This means new concepts that make it possible to mount a comeback, or make it possible to open up a whole new battleground. But it also means old concepts would have to be phased out, to keep gameplay complexity manageable.

 

[Vael]

Having the gameplay vary from age-to-age has always been one of my biggest wishes for Civ-games. Getting new stuff to play with like RRs, aircraft and the like is great but I wish things were more different.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

If I've understood the concept of the DRU Sir Schwick posted about, the increase of DRU:s is one part of the problem, another one is the way it has been solved in earlier civs. Automated workers takes away much of the micromanagment but also the control from the player. To manage the infrastructure or pollutioncontrol one had to take control of one worker at the time to achieve the level of control required for the problem at hand.
It's not a good solution to a problem if you give up the control over whole features because the micromanagment is not worth the level of control you gain. Automation in any aspect isn't a very good solution, it just relieves the player from too much micromanagment when it really would be better to change the model at hand to better fit the current gamesituation.

At the same time the level of DRU:s should be kept down, the level of control has to be moved up. That way the DRU:s would not only have a greater impact they'd be more fun also.

 

[dh_epic]

True, automation is not a solution for a lot of things, because what you gain in convenience you lose in competitive advantage. Remembering to do some really little things helps you get a big advantage.

And the high level strategies don't mean much in comparison when there's one high level strategy that everyone follows.

 

[Vael]

I'm usually like to MM things pretty heartily but an automated AI was good enough (does the things I would do 80+% of the time) then I would easily use automated most of the time. It's a good solution IMO, because you can MM the few Workers which are important to you, or have them do tasks the AI doesn't while the rest go on their merry way and take care of things for you. That way it is kind of like a mix, allowing you to focus on a few important things without having to go through the tedium, particularly later in the game.

 

[mhIdA]

I'm with Dida, and I vote NO, because I think the gameplay shouldn't change through the game but since the begining.
A model of options from 3 to 5 wich manage what actually is doing by workers actions and build units or improvs.
A new whole gameplay system instead of focus in tasks of do this, build that:
- If you are an warmongering and have a militaristic path strategies just choose option of build armie with several degrees of ofensive/defensive.
- If you want an economical strategie just choose option of increase our wealth with several degrees of taxation on farmers/merchants.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

Vael - The automated workers do nothing for the gameplay, they just make the workerunit system bearable in the modern era. What strategic challenges do this system bring? To try and keep your automated workers away from enemyborders?
I'd rather have a high level control of all the workers(edit: -> workeractions). Infrastructure - High priority, Pollution control - Low priority, Next build - Railroad between Dallas and Chicago, if territories are implemented you could give orders Focus on Roads in Texas, or if you'd like more control perhaps you could mark out the places you'd like to have roads, mines or irrigation on the map.
This way you would control your workers easier/more. You would play the game 'more' and be left to take more important decisions.

However this might be one of the rts-interface aspects that is to come in the game, you mark out on the map what you want, draw a road - and the automated workers come and build the road, you point out where to build a mine - the automated workers scurry away to build this mine. This would be easier than assigning each individual worker to certain tasks.

 

[Vael]

You're right, it doesn't really add anything... but that goes hand-in-hand with adding new game mechanics as the game goes along. Once you have so many Workers and such a large empire that managing them becomes a chore... you sweep them aside in exchange for something else which fits into the context of the game better.

I believe the best solution is part of what you suggest - directed automation. I don't anticipate we'll ever see something along the lines of 'territories' in a (unmodded) Civ-game, so that would make it more tricky to impliment properly. I don't think this problem can be truly 'solved', only tackled in such a way to make it less of a chore. You're really not going to find a way to make handling 200 Workers on a huge map 'fun' without altering something else in a bad way.

 

[dh_epic]

I think directed automation would be a vast improvement. I think it's rather silly that one of the most important decisions you'll have to make is which square to irrigate first, and how you can build a road from town to town in 5 turns instead of 6. Why are these the factors that help you get ahead? Why are these even important? Who am I, an accountant?

 

[Loppan Torkel]

@Vael - That's why I suggest a more flexible civ where instead of ending up with 200 workers, automated or not, the workers should be considered being phased out at some point in favor of a better, abstract system, where the build-up of one's civ's area still gives one some strategic options - spend more money to get the railroad done or focus on research. This wouldn't make the game a chore just because it's a large empire. It could also bring some clearer negative effects on having a large empire - the cost to keep it well would be higher.

I understand some of the examples I given would be tough to implement, and some would probably not work out well either way, but it's just thoughts on how it could be done differently....

 

[KrikkitTwo]

@Vael - That's why I suggest a more flexible civ where instead of ending up with 200 workers, automated or not, the workers should be considered being phased out at some point in favor of a better, abstract system, where the build-up of one's civ's area still gives one some strategic options - ....

That is why gameplay should not change from age to age, but throughout the whole game.. All ages should have that 'high level strategic feel' even if you are only currently battling for the fate of which tribe will dominate the Baja penninsula.. it should be a 'high level' game (which means enough groups of units/cities/civs for effective management options, but not too many to overwhelm them.)

 

[mhIdA]

Loppan Torkel: '...instead of ending up with 200 workers, automated or not, the workers should be considered being phased out at some point in favor of a better, abstract system...'.
That's why I prefer a game without worker units.
If instead workers we have popunits worker every turn in tiles to farming (irrigation), to mining or allocate to public works (roads, RR, tied to economic improvements) is so much better than 10, 20 or 100 workers that at some point of game are useless, .
As an example if we have a city sized 1, wich mean 10000 of population easily we assign 0.8 farmer popunits to irrigation every turn, wich simulate how many people work in agriculture in ancient times. To not have tiles overpopulated by farmers popunits we could have only 4 or 5 farmers popunits irrigating the tile.
If we extend this concept to other popunits like miners, artesans the gamaplay mechanics chnge and and MM decrease .

 

[Loppan Torkel]

@Krikkitone: I agree, the game shouldn't change from age to age, it should change when it's needed. As it is now it's unitbased throughout the game, some features were made abstract in civ3, such as trade and espionage, but otherwise you usually move units around. This works well in the early ages, there's no need to make it more 'high-level' by abstracting it. It doesn't make the game any funnier if you have to reallocate your only gold from infrastructure to farming and vice versa every second turn to keep your first city prosperous. This could be done by micromanaging your only worker instead, which would be ok by me - You have to make some fairly important decisions and it doesn't take too much time.

@mhida: A totally workerless system might work, I think the workersystem works well up to a certain point though. But I think it's hard to imagine how your system would work out, it doesn't seem to be very 'overviewable'. Would you for example have control over which tiles that are railroaded? And if you do wouldn't this still bring a lot of MM?

@dh epic: I agree directed automation would improve things a lot, but it would be even sweeter if you could allocate resources to different projects in a special 'worker-window'. Just so you could have an overall slider and then label the importancy for different project - high, medium, low.

Regardless of the workersystem, my overall point is that the game could be better off if the gamemechanics aren't static.

 

[mhIdA]

Loppan Torkel
Roads, RR only connect cities and this with resources. It works like this: you select capital city/province and choose option 'connect all cities' and the suboptions 'fast', 'medium', 'slow', wich gives the # of turns to complete and public workers popunits allocate to this infraestructure.

 

[dh_epic]

I agree, Loppan Torkel. While I was disappointed to see Caravans and Spies go, it didn't mean they cut out Trade or Espionage. Caravans and Spies were the mechanism, but Trade ane Espionage were the high level strategies.

The key is finding that balance between abstraction and detail. I think workers could use a LOT more abstraction. (Espionage and Caravans, on the other hand, could use a bit more detail.)

 

[mhIdA]

dh_epic
Sending workers make several tasks, like irrigation, mines, roads or RR, even in an automate way is detail. Note that mining, roads, RR, irrigation or farming as I prefer is works that people do for mileniums and not 1 task to increase food, production (shields), or commerce in city radius. But allocate popunits to permanently jobs, (the graphical aspects is other thing) in a kind of some social engineering, given the tech advance is high level strategie as you said, whatever the way we do it (interface).