Branching upgrades, conscription and advanced units

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VIPPangolinAdvisor

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~Proud to be a SONE~ And also a maker of hundreds of videos for Amplitude's games ;)

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VIPPangolinAdvisor

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54 700g2g pts

11 years ago

May 15, 2014, 11:17:54 AM

I know there are a lot of good suggestion threads already, however I'm pretty sure that at this stage of development it's good to brainstorm as much as possible. As such, another suggestion thread might not be a bad idea.

I'll focus on three features that I think could benefit EL a lot: branching upgrades, conscription and advanced units. They don't have anything in common per se but it would be wasteful to start a thread for every idea I have, wouldn't it?

Ok, let's start with the first suggestion

[HR][/HR]

Branching upgrades[/I]:[/B][/INDENT]

This is a spin-off of a suggestion a made a long time ago on VIP forums. Let me quote myself and then explain how I think this feature could be developed further

Ok, so we want a structure that will jumpstart player's empire but can be built only once, right? Cool. Let's take it one step further. Let's allow the player to choose from ~5 different starting improvements that are mutually exclusive!

The rationale behind this is allowing the players differentiate their playstyles right from the start. Normally, it is not until early mid-game that players get to create truly unique empires in a 4X game (I know that different factions/traits spice things up a bit but regardless of who you play, there are still usually some improvements that you always want asap). Let's give the player the ability to push his faction in a particular direction right when the game starts!

I know, traits and affinities fulfill the same role. But they act in different way - you pick your traits before the game starts, before you see how the world generated. But by allowing the players to pick from several different starting improvements, you allow the players to adjust their playstyles slightly to how the map turned out to be. You cannot lose your traits but you can lose the city with your unique improvement. Also, making an improvement always feels more, um, "impactful" then picking a trait if you know what I mean

With that said, here are some ideas for possible starting improvements:

Founder's Memorial - jack of all traits, leave as is but lower the cost to 50 industry.
Royal palace - for prestige-lovers, leave at 80 industry. +6 raw prestige and +10% prestige in a city. Doesn't give much benefit early on but can be quite invaluable later in the game.
Triumphal arch - +1 garrison unit slot on city, +1 city defence cap on city, gives two more starting units, 60 industry cost. Nice for people with paranoia, also quite useful for explorers and expansionists.
Monument to the gods - +10 happiness, +1 to prestige on city, costs 50 industry. Even more "jacky" then the memorial but not as useful early game.
Stones of knowledge - a free tech, +3 dust and science, costs 80 industry. A risky choice, considering that food and industry is essential early game but can be worth it.
Necropolis - + 1 prestige and some kind of bonus for the dark season. Industry cost depends from the bonus, I don't really know what would be the best bonus for dark season right now. Works similarly to royal palace since it doesn't help much in early game but get more useful as the game progresses.

All of this is merely a proof of concept. I really think that EL could benefit from forcing the players to make such a critical choice at the start of the game, especially since it's irreversible and you can go for only one of those improvements during a single playthrough.

As you can tell, that idea obviously wasn't implemented. But I think that the base concept is quite interesting and could help make EL experience more interesting as it gives the player more choices. Now, here's how I think this idea could be improved further: by having many alternative improvements that a player can chose from.

I imagine it to work somewhat like this: a player finishes researching Canal System, an era 2 tech. He/she now has to choose from one of the three versions of this improvement, all working in a different way. For example, version 1 is just the standard +30% , version 2 is +1 and +1 on river tiles with +10% bonus on city and version 3 is -20% building production cost on city. Those are obviously placeholder values, I'm just trying to make a point

This leaves us with three different versions of canal system, all focusing on industry but in slightly different ways. The original version gives a very simple buff but is probably the most useful in the long run. The second version is a good choice for warmongers and river lords; this set of bonuses would be very substantial early game and allow you launch quick assaults against your enemies. And the final version is very useful for those who want to construct expensive improvements in a developing city; lowered building costs will allow your weaker cities to catch up with your tech much more easily.

Once a player picks one of the three alternative improvements he/she can only ever build that one improvement and the two alternative versions are locked for the rest of the game. This brings more meaningful choices to Endless Legend and allows you to further customize your empire as the game progresses. After all, real empires change as the the time moves forward; why wouldn't the factions in EL be the same? Someone who starts with an attitude of a warmonger could eventually settle down and try to create a more peaceful empire (especially after he/she already achieved the goal of conquering someone's city ;P )

Now, I'm not suggesting that every improvement should have alternatives - that would overdo it. We need to still have those regular, stable structures that every player can make, otherwise this game could turn to a mess. And sometimes alternative improvements are simply not necessary and/or impractical and/or potentially imbalanced. However, having 1 or 2 alternative improvements each era would be nice.

Now, what are the pros and cons of this suggestion?

Pros:[/B]

More meaningful choices for the player
Ability to "overcome" your starting faction traits, especially useful when you're in a game with only vanilla factions
You're not limited to only adjusting your playstyle to the faction you control - you can now adjust your faction to your playstyle
In a game with several identical factions, they can grow different over time, increasing the diversity

Cons:[/B]

Requires a new UI element / window pop-up
Will take some time to implement
Will be more difficult to balance properly

I do think that the pros outweigh the cons of alternative upgrades, however it is possible that the time schedule for EL's development is too tight for such change (then again, we wouldn't have early access if nothing we suggest can be implemented and the devs encouraged us to throw ideas at them several times :cool. At worst, it could be expansion material. Either way, let me know what do you think of that!

Oh btw - what if player A has version 1 of some improvement, player B has version 2 of the same improvement and then player A takes over player B's city? Two things could happen - either player A keeps version 2 of the improvement in that one city OR the improvement is changed to version1. Both solutions have their own pros and cons and I don't have a favorite here.

[HR][/HR]

Conscription[/I]:[/B][/INDENT]

It's a thing. In the time of need, rulers would force some of their people to join the army and die for the glory of the empire / die to save the empire from savages. Peasants were an important (if somewhat unreliable) part of medieval armies. So why not have conscripts in EL too?

I imagine this mechanic to be an alternative way of creating an army - without the need to spend an ungodly amount of industry. Conscripts are regular starting units with no equipment that cost barely any (let's say 10% of regular unit's cost) to make but require you to spend opulation: to train them (similar to settlers). A potential way of limiting the player is to only allow conscription in cities with 4 or more population. After all, developing cities wouldn't be able to handle conscription and it's a nice way of preventing Broken Lords from spamming conscripts

This opens room for some more tactical choices during the war - should you sacrifice some of your population to defend against a more powerful enemy? It could save your city but cripple it so much that it won't be worth having any more. Or maybe, you want to invest in an empire-wide conscription to create a poweful army and finally kill the last enemy player who was resisting you for so long? Conscription would allow for some fairly interesting late-game all-in strategies, something we don't see too often after early-game.

Optional - limiting conscript's strength:

From a reality standpoint, lack of equipment is the only thing that the conscripts are usually lacking. They're less experienced then professional army, more likely to panic and in general not as efficient. However, gameplay-wise, I think that such implementations would simply make conscripts too weak to even consider spending population on. But let's discuss the possibilities anyway.

Option 1 - Conscripts disband after X turns. A simple and effective way of limiting the players from swarming the map with conscripts. Also reflects on the fact that peasants are likely candidates to become deserters and leave the army as soon as possible. But the game already has good tools to limit a player who wants to go too heavy on conscripts. One of those tools is dust. The more units and armies you have, the more dust you have to use so over-investing in conscripts could quite easily ruin your economy completely and force you to disband your army.

Option 2 - Conscripts have negative traits. Again, makes sense. You wouldn't expect a consript to fight as well as a professional soldier could. However, lack of equipment is already a big enough penalty and slapping some more debuffs would be an overkill. You can, however, change things around a bit - allow equipment on conscripts but give them a very harsh penalty in combat.

Ok, but what about late game? Era 1 basic units with no equipment will surely be utterly wrecked!

True. There are three ways around it though:

1) As eras progress, you unlock technologies that give you more conscripts per opulation:. For example, in era 4 you could spend 1 population and get 3 conscripts. This reflects well on the most common use of peasants and conscripts - as meatshields.

2) See "Option 2" above. Giving conscripts a debuff but allowing the player to equip them with weapons and armour could fix this issue.

3) See "advanced units" below. Same idea will work well with conscripts.

Ok, let's talk about pros and cons of conscription:

Pros:[/B]

Should be easy to implement
Expands your choices during the times of war
Makes building "tall" empires more viable (it's easier to make conscripts with few powerful cities then a bunch of 4 population cities)
Fits the fantasy theme of the game (every decent fantasy needs filthy peasants, right?)

Cons:[/B]

Could potentially result in players somewhat ignoring industry and focusing on food as a primary way of making armies (some balancing will be needed)

[HR][/HR]

Advanced units[/I]:[/B][/INDENT]

We all know that devs don't want the players to have more then 3 unit templates per faction (+settlers). I personally agree with this decision but I think there is a way to satisfy people who want more units without giving them more units. Sounds illogical and impossible? Keep reading.

As the time goes on, technology on Auriga reaches new stages and people learn how to use dust more and more efficiently. I think that this could be reflected on your units in a better way then by "just" giving them weapons made of some exotic alloys.

My idea is that (starting from era 4) your basic unit templates change to reflect your technological progress. Your people evolve, grow smarter and become stronger, which is reflected by improvements you create in your city. Same thing can be said about your units. So in era 4, there can be a technology which upgrades the template of your basic unit and makes it more powerful.

For example, advanced version of a Forager gains an ability to self-destruct on death, dealing a decent amount of damage to nearby units. It's a nice addition to a unit that can already come back from the dead if you don't lose a battle (last stand anyone?). Similar small additions and skills can be unlocked for Necrodrones in era 5 and Proliferators in era 6, reflecting on the advancements of the player who owns those units.

Following gameplay changes, advanced units also look slightly different. In DotE you can fight blue big scary crystal dudes or red big scary crystal dudes - the red ones have AoE attack so when you see them you immediately know that you're in for a world of pain. EL can be no different. Advanced Stalwarts have their armour imbued with sacred energy (fancy particle effect around the armour) while advanced Proliferators grow arms with mouths that help them reach enemy corpses and plant eggs in them from afar (new grotesque model).

Visual changes can be as smal

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lynxlynx

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lynxlynx

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100g2g pts

11 years ago

May 15, 2014, 4:24:34 PM

That is a very long writing, which i almost entirly disagree with.

1st Turn choice

Choice and strategy is not something you do once, but a constant turn, by turn strategy. Also to make strategic decision you need informacion not just guessing.

When we choose 1st buildings there is not much informacion to base on. Not long before we made decision of faction choosing. So founder stone is ok building.

About specializacion

There is generally not enought different buildings in game. Since most of them are multipurpose, or multi directional. Like Empire Glory gives both flat prestige, and per worker prestige, which makes it spam building in every city. In similar way dust rafinery or Alchemy Workshop are spam buildings no matter if we plan to specialize this city in science/research.

Each region is different, and i bet it is desired to in same empire could be a very different cities. However you can/t research all buildings in short time. So the choice on empire scale will be made with research choices.

Unfortunetly for now there is just a few buildings/tech which are worth time, and we have clear winners. Especially tier I FIDS building, and dust printers.

The correct answear would be to make more buildings, especially tile based. And generally balance them out (so more effective will be more expansive). The trade off would be time consumed for building, and research time, to some degree upkeep.

Faction choice

This is choice we made very early of the game.

Faction should influence your gameplay. This is why factions exist. Also EL seems to tend towards asymetric play, with faction being sometimes very different. While Civ5 is more symetric, having just minor perks.

For me it is most desired to be forced to change my strategy basing on faction played, or starting location, or my neighbours.

Right now, i do not feel players are limited by faction, since no matter the faction, or situacion i take the same tech in order: slavery, foundry, mint, seed, library, sewers, rookery (some fillers). Rapid expanse to 3 city, empire plan happiness, 6 cities. Around age III switch to dust production and buyout everything. From the other side with current difficulty rolling face over keyboard could be also winning strategy.

Historical References

Are false friends. EL is not Civ5 nor Total War (even thou looks like brainchild of these two). We have necro bugs, dust hungry floating armors, and golems (and that is not even end of the list). Basing design around medieval western europe is limiting imaginacion and cripping gameplay.

Some lessons, like "settlements fallow presence of food, resources and communication tracks", are quite universal.

Others, like "we have feudal kingdom with peasants and nobles", are human/culture specific.

Conscription

You can make one using any unit chasis, and give them just tier I crudle iron weapon. We can even buy them using dust (should not be very expansive).

Industry used for unit creation is mostly fair.

There would be no choice at all, since if enemy has greater army we will burn our cities to defeat him, and then take his cities instead.

Also enemy armies does not pop out of thin air. We already made decision of not scouting, not building armies, just happy city buildings.

If conscripts will be even elss useful than tier I weapon basic units, they will be also useless, since they will bump out off regular army armor, or be single shoot by range, or will cost more upkeep than able to deal dmg. Which brings some educational value (why peasant rebelions werent very effective), but is not very interesting from gameplay point of view.

Having "free" units which are competent at combat with regular army is hard to balance, and i mean impossible.

As a faction specific gimmick, maybe. As for every faction, nope, not all factions even have peasants.

Advanced Units

Actually devs want's players to have 3 faction templates, and 3 more from minor factions + how many variants you can squize.

Current system can offer more than already implemented:

- Mineral choice alters unit stat

- Accessory/trinket slot offers special traits

- Weapon choice can alter defensive/offensive focus, or determine which unit type our unit will counter. (like longbow against flyers, but great xbow against heavy units).

- General skills could futher specialize your army.

- Some unit templates could have unit perk, like flying, healing, life drain, infestacion, sweep, tiny bears spawn...

- Leveling up units make them more effective and resilent, and in the end all that matters is more killing power.

This will not bring much over what is possible with current system.

There are problems with implementing visual change with armor upgrade, new models for upgraded templates will not make things easier.

What could be a good idea:

Banelings, more banelings. The whole idea of unit which explodes with friendly fire aoe upon death is ok. However it could be minor faction, or mercenary only unit.

Code-wise

Everything which is code-wise easy to implement will be (maybe) done by modders.

From my perspective there is still much to do.

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Lulz!

Two

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Lulz!

Two

19 200g2g pts

11 years ago

May 15, 2014, 4:57:39 PM

I quite like the idea of branching upgrades, especially with my own idea in tandem as far as what workers could do for cities as well. Perhaps the improvement could give some sort of base bonus and you could choose what the worker bonus would be, such as what the OP suggests for Canal System.

I'm not sold on conscription, but I do like the idea of advanced units, or at least that your base units could gain some different traits ala SC2. Since there is also the mechanic of experience on units, could this also happen through gaining more levels? It'd be kinda cool to see levels also meaning the unit gaining more versatility, so having an elite troop of warriors could open up more game play options than simple stat upgrades. Might also mean more to keeping your units alive so they could get there.

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Seek

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Seek

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13 700g2g pts

11 years ago

May 15, 2014, 5:48:01 PM

It's stuff like this that makes me want a social policy/civic system in EL more and more: "branching upgrades" (ie, choosing direction for the empire) idea is great imo but doesn't require it's own mechanic, social policy system in Civ5 does this handily and with some flavor. Ditto wrt Conscription (many interesting strategies came from this in Civ4), ditto for Advanced Units (choose global upgrades in civic tree).

The Empire Plan is rather bland in this regard, with repeating effects being chosen over and over throughout the game. The concept is decent, but it needs more interaction (ie, choices are rather minimal and are repeated often, choosing every 20 turns feels arbitrary) and a more lasting effect (ie, if you've invested heavily into military branch for the entire game, it should shape your culture and make it more difficult to suddenly switch full bore into another branch). More interesting effects such as Pan's ideas here being incorporated into it would be great too.

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Kingsguard

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Kingsguard

Old Fanatic

24 500g2g pts

11 years ago

Jun 8, 2014, 4:40:34 PM

That's an awesome suggestion you made here.

What the strategy players love (in my opinion and by my "experience"), is to have a large choice about tactics and strategies. So, branching upgrades would be a true opportunity to enlarge the tactics choice.

Atm, Endless Legend doesnt contain much choices. You build everything, you make some units and you destroy your ennemies. Offcourse that's an alpha launch so its not a problem.

But anyway, adding more strategy/tactics choices is always a good idea for me.

Moreover, as lynxlynx said, "There are problems with implementing visual change with armor upgrade, new models for upgraded templates will not make things easier. "

The visual change of the armors is the most important part in "army customization" in my opinion (And without army customization, the game would not be the same...). So, new models would be a good thing. More variations, more happiness !

Social policies would be a great thing too... But we dont want that EL become a Civ 5 clone ^^

About the conscription, the issue is to balance it. Why not ?

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