Future Developments

Airships: Conquer the Skies

11 Oct 2018, 1 p.m.

So I've been chewing at game design to figure out how to best improve the game and address the issues in the previous post. So here's the basic plan for getting the game into a good final state.

Diplomacy

Not only is this the top requested item, it should also stop everyone being constantly at war with each other a little bit, engaging in little back-and-forth battles. Diplomacy needs to have concrete gameplay effects, though. If all you did was declare war when you wanted to fight and sue for peace when you didn't, that wouldn't actually be any different from what we have now. So diplomacy has to be about agreements, promises, and trust.

Espionage Update

Right now, espionage is a bunch of nice ideas that aren't very satisfying. Why spend cash burning down a building when you could just build a ship and use that instead? I'm still working on the details of it, but the idea is that espionage is something you can concentrate on if you like, and that will deliver results that you can't just get some other way.

AI Ship Redesign

AI fleets are meant to be varied in their appearance, strengths, and weaknesses, but this has led to some fleet designs being way better than others. The AI is also bad at fleet composition. I'm going to go over the designs and make them more even in overall power level while preserving and enhancing what makes them unique.

Fleet Movement Mechanisms

Right now, you can just send your fleet to zoom around the map, blowing stuff up. This is not how an actual war works, and it makes geography pretty irrelevant. I'm working on mechanisms to make fleet positioning and movement more restricted and more meaningful.

After those four items are done, I'll have another look at resources and city upgrades. Apart from that, I'm also working intensely with a number of players to improve the balancing in combat, and there will be some new modules and monsters coming your way.

All of this will take a while, of course! Right now, I'm working on an update that fixes the "low hanging fruit" of balance, gameplay, and user interface issues. Then I'll be working up to diplomacy and the required AI changes.

Mr. Anonymous11 Oct 2018, 9:35 p.m.I Think these are definitely some of the big problems With the game. Personally I love the game but I do think these need to be fixed. A rather complicated solution to the ship design AI problem is to, when designing a ship, run a genetic evolution programming thing. The game will run a bunch of random ship designs and have them fight an enemy, like the ship design of a faction the're fighting. They will look hideous and not work but one will not work better than the others. Take that one and make a but of slightly mutated versions of it and repeat the process. The result of doing this hundreds of times is the most epic ship fighting squad imaginable, and also the most hideous. Another solution is to let the internet submit designs. The top rated get to become enemy ships! I hope you use my ideas, and email me.
7112 Oct 2018, 12:23 a.m.Espionage - You could add some form of 'command' rating to each empire, similar to the ships, that influences how often you can issue move/attack/etc orders. Spying could also consume command (as opposed to money) , but be free with the right upgrades/bonuses and cause the enemy to issue erroneous move commands (e.g. send a defense fleet where it isn't needed, creating a weak point) or the like. Movement - Since coal is already a preexisting resource, you might consider adding it world map side as a movement limiter. Long range flanks would only be viable if you have ships with lots of coal built-in, or you include a largely defenseless 'coal transport' type ship that shares its supply with the fleet. Lots of other potential coal-ish things to play with too like stopping to scavenge fuel from the wilds or adjusting coal allocation for travel range versus combat time.
zwzsg6 Nov 2018, 6:49 p.m.About espionage: Currently spies are sent on a per town basis. This is rather cumbersome, considering how fast towns are captured and lost. I would like spies to cover a whole nation. Or at the very least a capital city and its satellite villages, if a nation is too much. I would very like to trade a constant money drain for the ability to see every fleet and defense of a whole nation. I would also quite like spies to be capable of industrial espionage. First, give spy an ability to let me see which tech has an enemy nation unlocked (assuming computer opponents are subject to tech tree, if not, would be nice if they did). Then, let me steal specific tech from an enemy nation. This would unlock one technology (or maybe one construction block, if this level of granularity is possible), without having to first research the prerequisites, and without the long wait/money cost. To make things more interesting, tie it into the conquest and combat mode by making it pop up a specific mission. Something like: You asked the spy to steal tech X, it found that it is located there, conquer this town / capture this building to steal the tech. Having to consider raiding a specific well defended base in the heart of enemy territory to gain a coveted tech would create more involving player driven emergent gameplay that just slowly nibbling at an enemy nation's frontier. The ability to skip some research stages would create more variety in each campaign playthrough.

Mr. Anonymous11 Oct 2018, 9:35 p.m.I Think these are definitely some of the big problems With the game. Personally I love the game but I do think these need to be fixed. A rather complicated solution to the ship design AI problem is to, when designing a ship, run a genetic evolution programming thing. The game will run a bunch of random ship designs and have them fight an enemy, like the ship design of a faction the're fighting. They will look hideous and not work but one will not work better than the others. Take that one and make a but of slightly mutated versions of it and repeat the process. The result of doing this hundreds of times is the most epic ship fighting squad imaginable, and also the most hideous. Another solution is to let the internet submit designs. The top rated get to become enemy ships! I hope you use my ideas, and email me.

7112 Oct 2018, 12:23 a.m.Espionage - You could add some form of 'command' rating to each empire, similar to the ships, that influences how often you can issue move/attack/etc orders. Spying could also consume command (as opposed to money) , but be free with the right upgrades/bonuses and cause the enemy to issue erroneous move commands (e.g. send a defense fleet where it isn't needed, creating a weak point) or the like. Movement - Since coal is already a preexisting resource, you might consider adding it world map side as a movement limiter. Long range flanks would only be viable if you have ships with lots of coal built-in, or you include a largely defenseless 'coal transport' type ship that shares its supply with the fleet. Lots of other potential coal-ish things to play with too like stopping to scavenge fuel from the wilds or adjusting coal allocation for travel range versus combat time.

zwzsg6 Nov 2018, 6:49 p.m.About espionage: Currently spies are sent on a per town basis. This is rather cumbersome, considering how fast towns are captured and lost. I would like spies to cover a whole nation. Or at the very least a capital city and its satellite villages, if a nation is too much. I would very like to trade a constant money drain for the ability to see every fleet and defense of a whole nation. I would also quite like spies to be capable of industrial espionage. First, give spy an ability to let me see which tech has an enemy nation unlocked (assuming computer opponents are subject to tech tree, if not, would be nice if they did). Then, let me steal specific tech from an enemy nation. This would unlock one technology (or maybe one construction block, if this level of granularity is possible), without having to first research the prerequisites, and without the long wait/money cost. To make things more interesting, tie it into the conquest and combat mode by making it pop up a specific mission. Something like: You asked the spy to steal tech X, it found that it is located there, conquer this town / capture this building to steal the tech. Having to consider raiding a specific well defended base in the heart of enemy territory to gain a coveted tech would create more involving player driven emergent gameplay that just slowly nibbling at an enemy nation's frontier. The ability to skip some research stages would create more variety in each campaign playthrough.