How do you feel about potentially "game unbalancing" random events?

I don't feel bad at all.  In MoM it was very obvious that late game abilities were unbalanced.  Spells like "armagedon" and "great wasting" were so increably powerful there is no way they could be balanced.  But that is the point.  By the time you reach that point you probebly are already most of the way to a conquest victory anyway, or somebody else is because you've been focusing on research.

I feel that it will make the game interesting.   I always felt like it was an entirely different game based on if I would expect these kinds of spells late game in MoM.  For example, the life domain had no uber spells (or at least not as crazy as say... chaos or nature) so I had to rely entirely on military might.

the point I think is to ensure everything before end-game is balanced, so if it actually makes it to end-game then somebody has to pull out the stops and win.   If everybody has super broken uber-spells, then really it is balanced.  whoever gets it off first is basically the victor (or the one best able to recover from the blows of the other wizards.)    Its one of the things that makes me so excited to play a master of magic sequel multiplayer.

I'm all for them as long as they are optional elements of the game. It would also be nice to trigger them during game play from time to time with unknown results prior to triggering however.

Woah, I misread that.     Events, not spells   ;  I'm sorry.

Yeah, events are fine.   If you want to play 'tournement style' or something, then let it be turned off.   But for random play, I don't see why not.  I mean, it can be fun sometimes to recover from a random super-disaster late game (I hate it early game though, because I'm a perfectionist and if my early game is messed up then I tend to throw a fit in single player mode.  I can't help it.)

I'd like a settings tab with at least three tiers.

No events.  For the hardcore balance freak, MP ladder nuts, people that absolutely hate luck, that sort of thing.

Minor events.  For those of us that don't like receiving a ranger when everyone has basic shield tech.  Yeah, you know what I'm talking about you damned Arnorians.  All the entertainment of the events with none of the cataclysmic effects.  Someone reveals a location here, you find a rebel unit there, but no dragons offer their services out of the blue in return for first pick of the corpses.

All events.  Self explanatory.  Every now and then, a volcano decides the prime real estate of the capital is a great place to live.  I enjoy this style occasionally, but ranger wins and losses in GC2 are fairly irritating.  The +10 planet quality radial boost, I loath beyond description.  When it turns the entire bloody map of 50+ desolate rocks into prime real estate, ruining my small game halfway through.

Thanks for the second reply - I read the first one and I was kinda

Also thanks Psychoak and Spartan, yes I would like to see something like that - I guess usually random events are a toggle at game setup, so that would make sense.

yeah, I don't know what happened there.  I guess I just got to excited about the unbalanced spells and my brain 'filled in the blanks' when I read your post.

I really like psycloak's tier idea.  I'm all about the options that aren't hard to do, and really it would be pretty easy to have events orginized into tiers rather than 'no events' and 'events'.  Have maybe  -  'tournement events' that are only very super minor events that maybe could even help force balancing (if somebody steals all the good resources early game, then maybe the 'discovered mine of gold' or 'arranged marraige that puts this neutral city now under your control'  events would trigger to help ensure at least the game was balanced for sure early on.  - Then minor events like psycloak suggested, 'fat dwarf king gives you gold because he's nice' or 'pirates raid a town, you lose some gold, but your unit there gains some experiance because he fought them off."  - major events where events would be rare, but everytime they happened it really effects the game, so only those unbalancing events, and lastly - all events!    I mean, I'd love to give feedback on that kind of thing in the beta.  

With such a supportive beta community I don't see why we (the fans) couldn't help do that kind of thing with SD (I mean they'd have to program it of course) but we could possibly make a thread of all the events found in the game once we have them and orginize them into  the different sets once we actually see them.

I imagine the game unbalancing events are like 'your town pissed off a god, now all your first born children turn to frogs' > MASSIVE population hit to a town.   or possible 'great rains come and the world floods.   Sucks to be you (except the guy with the random floating island)'  or maybe something along the heaven vs. hell great fights where deamons and angels flood the world(s) of elemental in a fight between neutral factions (suggested in another thread, but I don't remember which).

which reminds me... why isn't there already a 'random events idea' thread?

I don't have any original ideas - most of the MoM ones were good. Magic short (Magic stops accumulating) and good/evil moon as well as certain types of magic becoming doubly powerful are, I think, pretty much gimmes. Same you lose random amounts of gold for whatever reason, population decreases due to famine or whatever. Building destroyed due to meteors/volcano, etc.

A few other ideas:

All magic enhancements to all units are stripped.

No teleportation for a time.

A very tough critter randomly spawns and starts attacking anyone's nearby units until it is taken care of.

A town/units revolting.

I think something like this would be really cool.  Or several that each attack different players.  Gates of the underworld opens up and demons come out is an option.    Some events may be unbalancing and this would be it.   I can see how a monster appearing back behind your front lines would be a problem unless other players face the problem as well.

Actually, now that I think about it, a single monster could still work without being to stupid broken.  I guess some sort of world destroyer like cthulhu that would teleport around the map and slowly walk towards wizard capitals (he'd have to walk slowly or stop to ruin the land or something to give time for armies to come to stop him).  After a certain amount of damage is delt with him (something fair for an army charging I guess based on the amount of time the game's been active, obviously early game can't compete with the fire power of near end-game monster) He'd decide this meal wasn't worth it and he'd teleport somewhere else in the world and attack another channeler.   Eventually he will either get a channeler and feast on their power (or whatever he wants.  I imagine cathulhu wanting wizard brains or essence or something.  Some beast may just want a nice populous city to munch, or maybe a magic node to steal? crystal, whatever) or decide he's been beaten up so much there must be a better, less troublesome, world to ravage and he could go there instead.

Its still a bit unbalancing since the first wizard hit will have to scramble to drop what he's doing and take out the beast, at which point other wizards could take advantage (the moment guys leave the front lines to fight a huge monster, other guys cold do a quick push to capture a few cities while bolstering forces back home to prepare as well, but they too would need to be preparing as well, so it wouldn't be just stupid.)

I'm just posting to throw my support behind Psychoak's tiered events options. Personally I think just those three choices (no events, minor events, all events), possibly with the addition of another option that makes non-global events scale with game length (Denryu's idea), would be perfect. Oh, plus a slider to dictate the frequency of events. The combination of those options would allow for many different event-related ways to play the game, running from none at all to events being extremely frequent and important, in a pretty fine gradient.

However, I'd also love the ability to disable specific events - at least the major ones. Whenever a game has major events, there are always many people who absolutely despise a couple specific ones, and if there's no way to disable just those they (me :P) are forced to disable all major events.

I would also like the AI to take into account the event settings. If all events are allowed and they're set to occur very frequently, it might be worthwhile to prepare for certain eventualities (there may be some things you can do that will mitigate the effects of several events all at once, for example), while if there are no events at all then the AI should take that into account.

Hate 'em. Thankfully GC2 let you turn them off.

I think this is similar to the spells available idea, where I proposed a customizable spellbook option with saved 'sets'.

So you have a list of all the random events with a check-box option available to which you want and which you don't.  Then you'd also be able to add your own via the custom-user-content SD is proposing (if it goes beyond models and such).  Then you could have saved pre-sets that are the different sets like what psychoak suggested. 

That might be tough if you have something that scales events to the negth of the game, unless with the check boxes (for allowed, not allowed) you had several settings for like 'all around'  'early game' or 'late game'.    Maybe a slider to scale events so you could get really complex with something like its mostly likely to occure  mid game or something like that.

examples:

-|-------- = early game

---|------ = kinda early-mid game

-------|-- = late game

---------| = only after 2000 turns or something like that (thats where I'd imagine I would but most of the crazy unbalanced events.  I think thats where they would really spice things up)

saved pre-sets of course would be a must in an option like this since it would be a nightmare to set that everytime.

Of course I'm just throwing out ideas because I like the concept.  It would be a lot of checking math and computer logic for the random event AI to scale event chances, but I don't think it would be too hard to throw in such a feature that checks what is available and what isn't. 

How the AI responds to mega events is important, too.

If a huge, pissed-off dragon spawns between several kingdoms, will the AI awknowledge the threat, put aside differences, and help you take it down? Or will the player be forced to deal with such threats by himself? If aliens invaded earth, don't you think we'd all team up to fight them (I hope so)?

Nope. I would of course side with the Aliens for the proposed "dictator of earth" post they've promised me.

Or in other words, why would I want to help my enemy fighting of a dragon, if that dragon devours my enemy for me?

Totally agree. Imho that was really missing in GalCivII. I generally liked most major events, but some of them annoyed me to no end when they happened.

Also if you give the player the option to disable certain major events, you can make much more imbalancing and diverse events which won't be liked by some, but can be very fun for certain segments of the players. Since I hope player made events will be possible with a scripting engine, it would be helpful for that option anyway.

You wish! YOUR sort will be the first against the wall!

The ONLY problem I have with being able to turn of specific events, is that you have, at game setup time, a complete menu of all the possible events.

There is something to be said for going about your business and having an event that you have never seen before occur. Dealing with the completely unexpected has something to be said for it. I guess the "option" is always there not to go in and peruse the events in advance, and that's probably the route I will take early on - just leave all events enabled and not "peek" to see what is coming my way. And of course being in beta, will probably have a good grip on all the random events by the time the game is released anyhow....

I want lots of crazy things to happen from day 1, but that's just me.

Wait, they promised this position to you too, Vandenburg?! I sense a conspiracy...

But in concordance with the original post, I am all for random events, as long as long they don't unblance gameplay... Unfortunately, I haven't seen a game (with random events) yet that has effectively demonstrated them without some balance issues. Although I think GalCiv is the best ive seen so far imo.

And what is this suppose to mean Jonny? Are you discrminating against Pegasi?

In the end, I want all kinds of stuff to happen. Both small turn-based events (as in Dominions 3), random locations and such (as in GalCiv2), to other events (for example, building a new city (like colonizing a planet in GalCiv2), or truly major superevents (some triggered by a number of things, others completely random).

Edit: There are some that infuriate me, thought. As an example, getting an extra city in Civ3; Not to be confused with getting an extra settler. Suddently, without you having a say in the matter, there's a spontaneous city in the middle of nowhere, that may break your intended pattern of cities. I realise that a lot of events may have a greater effect, but this is basicly an implementation matter. For example, an extra settler achives basicly the same thing, but without being annoying as hell.

Oh, I just had a thought.

User generated random events

So anyone can design random events (when in the game they can occur, duration, effect(s), other?)

So you can have your world a tectonically unstable planet with earthquakes the norm rather than the exception...

Or magic system that never has a "power outage" - or at the other extreme having access to power VERY sporadic.

Lots of potential there - or it could really foul up the game if the AI was not able to intelligently deal with all the CR@P we throw at it!

I was more specifically referring to people who collaborate with aliens.. aliens are very fickle! However now you mention it!

I had just assumed this would be on offer, I certainly hope it is I mean with SD's promise to vet everything for quality I love the idea of being able to download a pack of canon faithful high quality random happenings that can occur in a game I play 5 months after launch or whatever. Would be a great way of keeping the game from ever getting stale (along with all the exciting potential modded units/races etc too) having events occuring that i've never encountered before every time I play for as long as I want to keep coming back to the game.

 I'm actually all for massive random events but, as many have already stated, as long as the AI has to deal with it too (and properly, no cheating). I think an excellent example of a massive random event that affects all players (Human/AI) is one that was included in the Fall From Heaven II mod for Civ IV. Can't remember what it was called but it was introduced beautifully, something about all civs struggling to exist and that only hte strong of each civ would survive. Basically all farms,plantations (but not mines or workshops/windmills) were wiped from the map and therefore all large cities suffered a falloff in pop. Very well done, caught me by surprise and loved playing through it. What i'm trying to say is that random events would be cool as long as you *know* that all players will suffer equally from whatever it is.

 However, minor events that could unbalance the game would piss me right off. In fact i've often restarted many Civ games just to get the extra good tech or settler from one of the villages, as i *knew* how much of an advantage this would be for me later in the game.

I like random events. Random events are good.

I want there to be a slider for the chance of a random event happening per turn. Minimum would be zero, maximum would be 5% or so. The slider will go in jumps of 0.5%.

Ideas for random events:

A) Quests (like in civ4). All players get the quest, the first to coplete it get the prize.

  1) 'First player to build 12 forges gets the prize'.

  2) 'Slay the Dragon (and loot his horde)'

B') Political decisions.

  1) 'Your settlers have encountered a tribe of natives what shall we do with them?', where you need to choose a course of action, like 'enslave them'/'slaughter them'/'assimilate them'/leave them alone'. These kinds of events should have consequences, forcing the player to choose between short term bonus to long term bonus.

C) Map changes.

  1) Large map area is being changed plains-->grassland or hills-->mountains.

  2) Discovered a new resource.

D) Complex. Here's an example I would kill to see implemented.

'A scout barges into your throne room. He informs you the the great blue dragon Cakhol'amok has been sighted near the hamlet of Mulenheim. What are your orders Your Excellency?'

Options available: 1) 'Send the troops and dispose of this vile reptile' 2) 'Send a cart with {specify amount} of gold to the wyrm' 3) 'Send a messanger to the creature, and invite him here to see me'. 

If chosen option 1, you get an Elder Blue Dragon near one of your hamlets.

If chosen option 2, depands on the amount you sent, he will either accept the tribute or attack you.

If chosen option 3, depands on the streangh of your empire, the dragon might actualy come peacefuly. You can then negotiate with him for his services/protection.

I like the idea, got my vote.

In general, I like the idea of random events- as well as they are really "random" in the sense that, after a few games I will still see new random events. In Civ IV the veriaty was a bit lacking to my taste.

is that before or after the sword of the coast expansion?  I felt that (at least in the fully expanded version) they had plenty of bizzar random events like finding whatever (it changes a lot) and being able to choose if you are going to turn this into an advantage or sacrifice something to make it an even greater advantage.

Maybe they will let us write up our own random events, or include additional random events in those updates.  I mean, honestly if elemental v. 1.2 > 1.3 changes included adding 10 extra random events that would be a nice treat for those who purchased through impulse.

I like the 'random' events in GalCiv 2 too, when you found a colony how often you'd find something that wasn't noticed on 1st sweep like a hidden pirate base or a strange gas.   I feel it happened maybe almost too often in GalCiv 2, but they were fun when I had to pick.  I often felt bad when I kept picking the mean responces even though I wanted to be a nice guy.  They were just so often the best idea, and were not always so bad (I mean, no worse then I feel focing children to attend public schools are anyway, you know.... exposing to brain pods at the sacrifice of some pain or something.  Its for the 'greater good' in the end.)

I agree with Landisaurus on this one, my problem is that more often than not, your options are:

Stupid Good: getting an annoying negative bonus.

Ambivalent Neutral: doing nothing, getting a penalty and getting hated.

Insane Evil: Everyone hates you, but at least you get some loot.

The problem with this kind of hardcoded events, is that it sometimes force the player to choose between bad options. This isn't bad in itself, but it is bad when it's forced. In many of these events I can think of a fourth option, which wouldn't be evil and still get me some loot.

Example time:

Event: you have found a small primitive colony on the planet you just settles.

Option #1: let them live in a preservation. Planet's size -20%.

Option #2: Do nothing. -1 planet's morale, -10% growth (because the natives will have to be killed by the civilian authoroties before their lands can be settles)

Option #3: Kill them all. -2 plant's morale. Very bad publicity.

My option: annex/assimilate them into your civ. +3 to starting population.