To the NESing Community

[Luckymoose]

Turning a player want for conservative election results into a military coup is fairly extreme.

 

[spryllino]

EQ, how do you work out NPC diplomacy? Did you mention that you got someone else to do it for you? If so, I feel that one of the main flaws in your NES is that they aren't very good at it; or alternatively you aren't very good at it. Your NPCs are invariably tactless, predictable, and unable to see their own interests, and can never be persuaded by anyone to do anything, and they maintain the same outlook on everything, and they never act moderately or behave temperately, and often declare war without negotiating first, which makes them pretty much impossible to deal with.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Nice thread.

 

[Warman17]

EQ, how do you work out NPC diplomacy? Did you mention that you got someone else to do it for you? If so, I feel that one of the main flaws in your NES is that they aren't very good at it; or alternatively you aren't very good at it. Your NPCs are invariably tactless, predictable, and unable to see their own interests, and can never be persuaded by anyone to do anything, and they maintain the same outlook on everything, and they never act moderately or behave temperately, and often declare war without negotiating first, which makes them pretty much impossible to deal with.

From my own experience having trying to mod NPCs dynamically is a hard thing to do. Especially if you have dozens to think about. For small and even medium states I usually have them act pretty lamely and only try to have NPCs act "human" if they're major players.

 

[spryllino]

From my own experience having trying to mod NPCs dynamically is a hard thing to do. Especially if you have dozens to think about. For small and even medium states I usually have them act pretty lamely and only try to have NPCs act "human" if they're major players.

Well, I'm sure your NPCs are atrocious then, if you can't be bothered to do them properly. I won't be coming near one of your NESes any time soon. I've seen them done excellently in most NESes I've played in though, and I reckon that any mod that follows what you've just said is being lazy, which is a real let-down in a mod like EQ who produces such quick updates and clearly puts a large amount of time and thought into them, especially given how much influence NPCs can easily have on the game. A bit more time and thought on the NPCs can't do any harm.

 

[SKILORD]

I'm trying something new with Pieces, the NPC's are going to pretty much act like Civ V city states in that they are designed to be less significant than individual player factions, they can give missions, ask to borrow stuff, but eventually the goal for most of the NPC's is to prompt faction development (are you trying to be peaceful or trying to be mean, let me drop some ultra-pacifists nearby and see how you react) and to eventually be assimilated into a player faction (peacefully or not). That way I can move on to the next NPC, characterize them a little, and then try to find someone who wants them in their faction, all the while kind of prodding the players through targeted diplomacy to at least do something, have some sort of grand vision.

It strikes me as a good method of approaching it, at least on a fresh start map, it would be much more problematic with predrawn boundaries.

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I would also characterize the Wanderer as an NPC, but he's a different beast altogether.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

I've noticed that trend in your NPCs SKILORD, and it'll be interesting to see how that turns out, and whether some NPCs will get very developed, or if they'll just end up as PC fodder.

 

[SKILORD]

I guess it depends on whether people keep sending their orders

PC Fodder is good, I want nice strong PC's so that they can help me get to the bottom of the story.

I need you ready to deal with phase 2, when it gets to phase 2. But phase 2 is on the other side of Death Rays and we are a ways from Death Rays.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Interesting, what Skilord says is actually not far from what I'm doing. The only difference really is that I'm using RNG to choose between different attitudes the various NPC governments can pick. I do that whenever they have some srt of regime change.

 

[North King]

Eh, I try to make NPCs as dynamic and interesting as possible. Yes, PCs should be the protagonists, but make an NPC interesting enough and someone will come along and play it.

 

[SKILORD]

I mean, the small timey nature of my NPC's doesn't stop them from being interesting, One Korea led by Pop Sensation Rain, or the Neter and half-Neter factions are pretty neat and all of them are built in a way to be unique from other similar (alien, nation state, or independent) NPC's.

The real problem is the tendency for these sort of driven to assimilation NPC's to be all up on another player's borders, but I'm working on spreading them out.

 

[Luckymoose]

NPCs should be well thought out and have personalities defined by their political agenda and climate.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

Yeah, that's how it'd be in an ideal world. In the real world though, I don't know the time commitments of other moderators, I do the best I can in the time I have while still providing quality and timely updates.

 

[Lord_Iggy]

Well, for me, that's one of the easier bits. I have a very firm idea of what's going on, the tricky bit is getting that vision put out for everyone to read and see.

 

[North King]

Well, for me, that's one of the easier bits. I have a very firm idea of what's going on, the tricky bit is getting that vision put out for everyone to read and see.

Yes, precisely. Deciding what to do is really a very quick process for me.

 

[spryllino]

RNG isn't really good enough when the NPCs ought to be acting reasonably as opposed to randomly.

 

[EQandcivfanatic]

As with what I said, with my NPCs I think out several alternatives for them, then let RNG decide which one. With Capto Iugulum I've been also having NPCs do basic things to keep up with player nations. I.e. building roads, upgrading armies, and eventually even creating their own designs and so forth for armies. It's only when it comes to stuff outside of the basic rational things, such as invading someone, joining a war, or radical government polcies, that the RNG truly comes into play.

 

[TheLizardKing]

I view my NPC's as a way to keep things interesting in the game, and a way to allow me to sort of play as well. Of course, I have my minor 'throw away' NPCs, that usually follow whatever the local power is doing, but I also have a substantial amount of NPCs that have an opinion on almost everything. My NPCs also build their economy up, like EQ said to stick with the PCs. It's also not un-common for my NPCs to start wars on their own, more often then not with other NPCs, so long as it's IC and reasonable. To give the world a slightly more realistic feel, of course.

 

[spryllino]

As with what I said, with my NPCs I think out several alternatives for them, then let RNG decide which one. With Capto Iugulum I've been also having NPCs do basic things to keep up with player nations. I.e. building roads, upgrading armies, and eventually even creating their own designs and so forth for armies. It's only when it comes to stuff outside of the basic rational things, such as invading someone, joining a war, or radical government polcies, that the RNG truly comes into play.

But that's completely bonkers. No nation chooses their declarations of war randomly on the basis of an RNG; they choose to declare war if it suits their interests, and if it doesn't, they don't declare war. That's quite as silly and irrational as it would be if all the players rolled dice to determine whether they declare war or not.

 

[Jason The King]

But that's completely bonkers. No nation chooses their declarations of war randomly on the basis of an RNG; they choose to declare war if it suits their interests, and if it doesn't, they don't declare war. That's quite as silly and irrational as it would be if all the players rolled dice to determine whether they declare war or not.

I once thought that's what EQ meant as well. He explained that he first chooses likely outcomes based on in-game events, and then lets the RNG choose from among those likely outcomes.

I'd imagine a good example would be, say, Britain's reaction to Nazi invasion of Poland. Outcomes: continue peace but highly condemn action, trade sanctions, seek to form coalition against Nazis, give aid to Poland, or declare war on Nazis, etc. Then different weight will be given to the different options, and the RNG is rolled.

At least thats what I understood from what he explained.



I haven't had much contact with you, so I'm not sure if you've moded any games yourself. But you have to understand...with 30+ human orders each turn, and dozens of NPCs, it gets overwhelming to play each NPC as if it were human. That would be close to you sending orders for dozens of countries each turn. And he still has to write the update and carry out player orders, which in itself takes hours.

I always found EQ's handling of NPCs more then satisfactory. Especially when I compare it to my own handling of NPCs in my old NESes.