How could 4X be fun till the end? (endgame discussion)

[Nerdfish]

PvP games don't have endgames - 2 players play for keeps, and when it's over it's over.

That's the problem right there. play to turn 20 then everyone type gg and quit. Game features that does not come into play in 20 turn become irrelevant.
This leads to very boring games. We are trying to fix this by introducing systems that so the game doesn't get decided quickly by snowballing.

 

[Jolly Joker]

That's not a question of the VCs, but a question of how the game scales - that is, how fast you can acquire how much "power" and what you can unlock with that power to add even more power. If your 2 starting heroes are at level 15 turn 12 and you've cracked a couple of Dungeons, things escalate fast, but no victory condition will change something about that.

Instead you have to re-scale things in order to slow the power increase to the point players can screw up and snowballing hasn't started when they get contact.

You know, how it is; even if the players are roughly equal in skill, the faster the power increases, the bigger the difference that just one turn can make.

Of course there are those who say that snowballing is good because it amounts to clear victories without any fooling-around...

Mind you, if you've checked what Ninjew said - he's all for playing without settling, but no one is interested, although many complain.

 

[Fenraellis]

There are multiple people that would be willing to play without settling being an option. Merely controlling sectors around pre-existing settlements. I'm generally in favor of minimal player-controlled settling, myself. Partially for aesthetic reasons, and partially to appreciate the randomness inherent to placement of modifying structures, such as Landmarks in this case.

 

[Jolly Joker]

Well, you can mitigate the importance of settling (in AoW3) by setting a different minimum distance between settlements. I'll write something about that in the next Gazette.

 

[Draxynnic]

Starships won't work because if you have enough of them to evacuate the planet without the winning force being able to prevent that, said starships could simply turn around the battle on planet. Or simply destroy it. Or something like that. That's why I said the orbit isn't a friendly place for a losing force - if it was, it would probably at least be able to forc a stalemate.

How do we know that there isn't something that makes it hostile for anything to remain in orbit for long? It might be possible to shoot up into space and leave or to come down rapidly, but actually remaining in orbit could be a deathtrap. It's actually not hard to imagine ways in which this could happen: an object in orbit could have missiles fired at it, for instance, but an object that is just shooting upwards at escape velocity might be virtually impossible to shoot down by a missile that has to catch up with it.

And that's assuming that other empires have an incentive to even try. An evacuating population is essentially ceding the planet, so unless there's a greater war going on, there's no benefit to shooting them down as they evacuate (capturing them before they evacuate so you can press them into service, sure, but if shooting them down is just going to kill them, there's no real reason to do so except out of spite). It might even be considered a war crime to do so.

Broadly speaking, though, I consider evacuation to be something that would matter in games with more than two players. Declaring an evacuation in a 1v1 is essentially a surrender. In larger games, however, it could be a means of ordering eliminated players: players who evacuate are scored based on how much population they successfully evacuate. The player who ultimately wins would be considered the winner regardless of whether other players evacuate - their incentive to prevent evacuations, however, is to maximise their gain from defeating an opposing empire. In the meantime, however, one player defeating another gets less of a snowball than if they were able to absorb the defeated player's entire empire.

(This would also allow for evacuation to be a partial process: instead of having a "successful" evacuation or no evacuation at all, every citizen you get off-planet counts!)

If you don't have the resources to battle, avoid it. Don't expect mercy. Of course I take the last word. And I'm not insisting on negative perspectives. YOU make the suggestion, YOU have to think about how it could work, instead of throwing in half-baked ideas and then attack others that are not satisfied with half-baled ideas, but want a bit more than that.

"Winning" a debate by tireless rebuttal until the other party gives up all hope of finding common ground is not a victory unless you've actually swayed the third-party observers.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

edited. original comment wasn't useful.

I was chatting on the explorminate forum, and one of the things that came up, from Mezmorki, was the concept of time as a resource.

Specifically, how most 4x games allow you to pick x and then y and then z, so the challenge there is which is better first.

Games would be better, form a strategy game perceptive, if time as a resource were better modelled, or more specifically (because a turn counts as a time resource) what if the choice wasn't x, then y, then z, but

X OR y OR Z, and you might never get the chance to get the other choice again.

It requires considerable more thought and design chops to get right, but imho it's a worthy goal.

AoW3 comes close to this because there are more things you want to do than you can realistically do, most of the time. On larger maps, against AI, it breaks down a bit, but in multiplayer, it excels.


This also ties into maintaining tension.

I think for a game to be interesting, the choices need to be interesting (in research, for example, not just unlocking +105 power) and restricted (something we don't get much of. I mean things like if I choose flak armour, i can't get electric armour, or at least not for a long time) and require commitment (here i am thinking specifically of things like deploying your army to zone x. Game loses tension when you can deploy many armies, to all zones. Endless Space 2 has a mechanic, quite annoying sometimes, where your fleets can't just change direction on a dime. They have to carry on into another system, and then turn around. It feels a bit artificial (starlanes apparently) but it does make you think carefully about committing your fleet to movement..)

I'll post more later when I can think of more concrete ways to put this in an Aow game.

edit:

I think, in larger games, which are where the end game slog becomes more apparent, there is the issue of having lots of resources, making decisions feel less relevant.

I don't just mean more gold and mana, I also mean more production and more armies.

To illustrate what I mean, having arcane study show up in your research book before turn 10 on a medium map makes it much more valuable than on a super large map, turn 30.

Basically, relative value of resources and abilities varies heavily depending on map size.

Is there a way to scale the mechanics so it's not so swingy?

Or, do we effectively try and design 2 different games, with subsidiary mechanics that kick in on larger maps, longer games?

One way to do the latter, which has been done in other games, is resources required for upgrades and new units, being unlocked by research, later in the game.

There is danger of obsoleting earlier technology and units, but done well, it could serve to keep the mid and late game more tense and interesting (I think mods here will help lower tier units maintain utility, especially as i believe cosmite is used for higher tier mods. So in theory, your basic vanguard marine with 3 cosmite mods could be quite the dealer of death)

For example, with cosmite, research could reveal new cosmite sources, randomly around the map - that changes your priorities, gives more interesting decisions, keeps the game fresh.

I think having depleting cosmite mines would also help this idea.


An additional factor contributing to the late game slog/tedium etc, one we haven't mentioned here i don't think, is the neccessity of player (physical, not mental) input increasing to manage larger empires, more armies etc.

At it's most basic, it means more clicks needed per turn.

I'll come back to this later, but alt-tabbing my current game is causing issues.

edit:

There is some validity in considering the settings used, and I wish more people would post their settings when they discuss issues, such as saying The AI is spamming t4 units.

But one mustn't let legitimate criticism be brushed aside by simply saying change settings, else that amounts to "play the game right, or shut up," which helps precisely no-one.

I imagine most people are too lazy/have too little time/have too many games to actively work with a games parameters to find the fun.

So the default settings, which I assume will be medium maps again, should have a core set of mechanics that scale well, and that means everything involved, like number of clicks.

So, in a nutshell:

- too little tension/interest and;
- too much busywork

Stopping snowballing, and introducing alternative victory conditions, and things like new resources being unlocked improves the tension/interest aspect.

Scaleable UI addresses the second. By this I mean a UI that requires the same clicks for one city as it does for 10, 15 or 20 cities.

Ditto 3 or 30 armies.

That's the holy grail imho.

I would propose expanded adjacent hex rule, and larger stack sizes (especially unlocked through research) as I feel both mechanics would lessen the clicks needed to get to the same result (and also defuse the split stacking debate as well) but I know that won't change.

So, the corollary of larger armies, and therefore fewer battles, is fewer armies and the same number of battles towards the end as the beginning.

 

[Jolly Joker]

I think you can simulate the either/or research thrill by making techs constantly more expensive. This may happen in many ways, for example:

1) After a certain number of researched techs, all remaining techs become X% more expensive.

2) After EACH researched tech each remaining tech becomes Y% more expensive.

3) The last X techs of a tier are lifted to the prices of the next higher tier.

For "lots of work tedium" - it's the direct consequence of people's desire to play BIIIIIIIG maps. If you play medium UG maps with 8 players, things will be tight. You'll have contact fast, hostile actions fast and be out of terrain fast, meaning you won't have hundreds of units. Game will be a flurry. Play XL, and the biggest problem isn't winning, but managing all the troops. Also, the game becomes repetitive.

The key to this is scaling. A game should be finished, when all is researched, a certain number of the best unit is built and a certain number of big battles has been fought. I never play XL maps - they are just too large. I might reconsider with 12+ players - but what would that gain? Games function well in a certain environment, but pick the wrong size and the wrong settings and things start to fall apart.

 

[Nerdfish]

Broadly speaking, though, I consider evacuation to be something that would matter in games with more than two players. Declaring an evacuation in a 1v1 is essentially a surrender. In larger games, however, it could be a means of ordering eliminated players: players who evacuate are scored based on how much population they successfully evacuate. The player who ultimately wins would be considered the winner regardless of whether other players evacuate - their incentive to prevent evacuations, however, is to maximise their gain from defeating an opposing empire. In the meantime, however, one player defeating another gets less of a snowball than if they were able to absorb the defeated player's entire empire.

(This would also allow for evacuation to be a partial process: instead of having a "successful" evacuation or no evacuation at all, every citizen you get off-planet counts!)

"Winning" a debate by tireless rebuttal until the other party gives up all hope of finding common ground is not a victory unless you've actually swayed the third-party observers.

I have an additional comment about unleashing the reckoning along the same lines.
Basically it's a mechanism to transform a player empire into an endgame crisis in Stellaris.
It's a pretty involved process that can't be done in a couple turns. However, the crisis created is a match for even the most powerful empires.
In multiplayer, a person who does this should lose immediately, and be ranked dead last for DOOMING US ALL.
In single player, doing this should only be an objective in specific missions.
The writers can be especially sadistic by requiring an evacuation from that specific crisis in the first mission of the next campaign

P.S. The game should remind newbies that they really should not complete the operation to trigger the crisis, something like "you should not do this" in bold red letters.
there could be a rare achievement for beating an empire transformed into a crisis, and winning the game.

 

[BloodyBattleBrain]

I have an additional comment about unleashing the reckoning along the same lines.
Basically it's a mechanism to transform a player empire into an endgame crisis in Stellaris.
It's a pretty involved process that can't be done in a couple turns. However, the crisis created is a match for even the most powerful empires.
In multiplayer, a person who does this should lose immediately, and be ranked dead last for DOOMING US ALL.
In single player, doing this should only be an objective in specific missions.
The writers can be especially sadistic by requiring an evacuation from that specific crisis in the first mission of the next campaign

P.S. The game should remind newbies that they really should not complete the operation to trigger the crisis, something like "you should not do this" in bold red letters.
there could be a rare achievement for beating an empire transformed into a crisis, and winning the game.

Is this similar to forming a horde in Total war?


I like this idea.

 

[Nerdfish]

Is this similar to forming a horde in Total war?


I like this idea.

Kinda, you have control over the horde in Rome, but a reckoning cannot be controlled.
Whoever does this is out of the game when the transformation takes place.
Basically, it's a situation where someone is so hard pressed that they'd consider MAD.

Spoiler: Stellaris Reckoning

 

[Jolly Joker]

Yeah, you always wanted the guy who screwed up his or her game to be last anyway to be able to screw everyone elses game just for fun as well.

Something like an escalated screw you might be fine, though. I mean, if you were screwed FIRST - backstabbed, say, got gang-mobbed, double-crossed, that kind of stuff -, THEN showing a very stiff middlefinger might be cool. Still, even in that case, what might be really cool would be a CHANCE-BASED reckoning.

So basically every screwing action against a player would earn the screwed player I've-been-screwed points, whereas the screwing players would get points deducted (negative balance possible).

At any time, a player with a positive I've-been-screwed balance could start a reckoning, but the severeness of the event would be chance-based, depending on the amount of points the starting player had. So, as an example, with 1 point, you'd have a 95% chance that the reckoning would consist of a lone T3 landing somewhere, 1% for 1 T4, 1 % for 5 single T4s over the map .... while with 10 points there might be a 60% chance of a full-on desaster.

 

[Quark02]

Throwing something I and Dr_K were discussing in Discord for quick multiplayer fun: simple VC-s. Think Empire Quests simple - the first human player to Heptatopia wins. The first player to Pure Good/Evil wins. First to Paragon (first T4 unit) wins. For PF, might even have "first to make peace with 3 NPCs". Optional VC-s that can be turned on (opt-in). Think of it like Beacons victory made quick and easy.

This would only work for multiplayer games with pre-agreed RMG settings (ie some may want No Settling for Heptatopia, or no indie towns (only Settling)), but for a quick bout, why not?

 

[Jolly Joker]

Just agree to meet at turn X with your best stack triple at OK Corral and gun it out.

 

[Nerdfish]

Throwing something I and Dr_K were discussing in Discord for quick multiplayer fun: simple VC-s. Think Empire Quests simple - the first human player to Heptatopia wins. The first player to Pure Good/Evil wins. First to Paragon (first T4 unit) wins. For PF, might even have "first to make peace with 3 NPCs". Optional VC-s that can be turned on (opt-in). Think of it like Beacons victory made quick and easy.

This would only work for multiplayer games with pre-agreed RMG settings (ie some may want No Settling for Heptatopia, or no indie towns (only Settling)), but for a quick bout, why not?

That doesn't solve the end game problem. Cutting out the game means nobody sees end game contents regardless ...
There can't be a fun late game if there is no late game

 

[Nerdfish]

Yeah, you always wanted the guy who screwed up his or her game to be last anyway to be able to screw everyone elses game just for fun as well.

Something like an escalated screw you might be fine, though. I mean, if you were screwed FIRST - backstabbed, say, got gang-mobbed, double-crossed, that kind of stuff -, THEN showing a very stiff middlefinger might be cool. Still, even in that case, what might be really cool would be a CHANCE-BASED reckoning.

So basically every screwing action against a player would earn the screwed player I've-been-screwed points, whereas the screwing players would get points deducted (negative balance possible).

At any time, a player with a positive I've-been-screwed balance could start a reckoning, but the severeness of the event would be chance-based, depending on the amount of points the starting player had. So, as an example, with 1 point, you'd have a 95% chance that the reckoning would consist of a lone T3 landing somewhere, 1% for 1 T4, 1 % for 5 single T4s over the map .... while with 10 points there might be a 60% chance of a full-on desaster.

The Stellaris reckoning transform the player empire into a fleet of powerful ships + one super boss, whose strength increases with each planet consumed.
The AOW version could turn all remaining city into dwellings that spawn 4 T3 + 2 T4 per turn for the next 6 turns, at end of those turns the dwelling burns down and all the spawned stack attack the nearest city, and if they capture it, they turn that city into the same dwelling and repeat the process.
This may sound insane, but only something like this is enough of a threat to a map-spanning empire. The remaining players may have to temporarily team up to stop it. However it'd be a rare event because someone have to be willing to go to an extraordinary length to be a troll.

 

[Fenraellis]

That doesn't solve the end game problem. Cutting out the game means nobody sees end game contents regardless ...
There can't be a fun late game if there is no late game

While the first statement is certainly correct, I would imagine the second to be fairly relative to the individuals involved.

 

[nvc for the soul]

I am not sure if it is already mentioned, but please consider making an interesting end-screen, with interesting low-level data, and possibilities to compare these data to other competitors.
So not like AOW3, but more like Age of Empires II.

Translating this to AOW3 this could mean, basic data like for example:
Combat
Killed
Number of units killed (+per unit-type), Total production value of units killed,
Number of heroes kiled, Number of leaders conquered
Produced
Number of units produced (+per unit-type), Total production value of units produced
Number of heroes enlisted
Lost
Number of units lost (+per unit-type), Total production value of units lost
Number of heroes lost
Levels
Number of hero levels gained, Highest achieved hero level

Economy
Buildings
Number of buildings produced (+per type: military, economic etc), Total production value of produced buildings
Cities
...
Etcetera

If you are able to compare these low-level data with other human-competitors (as oppononent or ally in a coop-game) you infer interesting differences and learn from other playstyles.
For instance in AOW3, when compared to my human-coop-ally, I seem to produce far more low-level units in comparison to high-level units. But atm I do not know a) if this is really the case (no hard numbers), b) if this is the case (which I assume atm), to what extent I play different from my friend.
In short: I want to know how I play differently from others and able to learn to check these basic statistics.

Based on these low-level data you can aggregate scores to scores per domain (combat, research etc) and compute an overall score. As long as it is clear and transparant where these scores are based on.

Going more to topic: with an interesting end-screen with comparison options, you feel extra motivation to give your best to the end -> that is at least my experience in Age of Empires II...

 

[Jolly Joker]

Lol, there's a bot at work who respectfully disagrees with me, no matter what.

 

[nvc for the soul]

I respectfully agree

 

[FinnegansFather]

In general, 4X games can only stay compelling to the end, at least on a consistent basis, if they pivot from symmetrical competetition versus peers to some sort of interesting asymetrical challenge against something else. Stellaris tried this, but, in my opinion, they did not really pull it off.

Trouble is, to do it well would require something akin to designing a second game to graft onto the first one. And playtesting will inevitably focus on the quality of the first one. But in theory, it could be done.

(I have not read through the 6 page thread, so excuse me if I am just repeating an idea.)