Achievement based building and unit bonus (Resolving the game being won in the first 10 min & then spending the next 2 hours going through the motions)

from Elemental Forums

When writing other thread Might & Magic (Resolving the bigger empire is always better issue) gives me an inspiration to resolve the problem of “the game being won in the first 10 min &  then spending the next 2 hours going through the motions”

In traditional TBS, when you want to increase the productivity of building troops, you build one more barrack; when you want to research spells quicker, you need to build one more Academy.  Player simply need to grab more land to get more power, not a lot of thinking is involved because land = power.   What if SD develop the game differently, so that more land does not automatically means more power?   CIV 4 has tiny bit of that already; like the curium the world once will give your empire naval forces more speed.    

Achievement based bonus for units:
What if all your Admiral (a unit) automatically gains 100% stat when your empire has win 5 naval battle consecutively without any unit lost?    And they gain additional 100% stat when you win the next 20 again?  What if all your Hobbit units gains “Giant Slaying” special ability after you killed 50 Giants?

Achievement based bonus for buildings:
How about all your “Academy of Fire” will produce 200% additional  research points when you empire has 2 active volcano?  (so you want to cast a volcano spell on your own land…)   Or maybe your mana node will produce 300% more mana if you managed to stay in peace for 50 turns?

The examples and the creativity of what kind of achievement/bonus for units and building is limitless (and you can do the same to Sov, Economy, etc).     A small sized empire will not necessary mean it is a weak empire, because it might have already achieved so many goals that all its infrastructure/units are super powered up.   And the game won’t be won in first 10 minutes, because it take time & effort to achieve these achievements.  When your opponent acheived a significant bonus, you will be kept worried and struggling.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Shorter title for the post, please. Its too long and most people will not see all of it until they open the post (assuming they do so at all). You're supposed to sell the post, not try to rush explain the whole thing.

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What if SD develop the game differently, so that more land does not automatically means more power?

Currently, they 2 game mechanics that are supposed to slow things down.
-First, placing cities without fertile land costs essence. Spending essence in this way will limit maximum mana capacity of your soveriegn, thereby limiting the mana you can use for your spells. You may even run out of essence they by preventing a player from placing towns just because they felt like it.
-Second, more towns increases maintaince costs. Too many towns and you'll be feeling the financial pinch.

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Consider using a different name for what you call "Achievements". There are a lot of games out there that uses that term for player achievements. Basically, its a system of braging rights, or stuff for a player to do. Using the term "achievements" keeps getting me thinking about that, and not a bonus system for units and stuff.

Example

Try "Unit badges", "Traits", or just plain old "Bonuses".

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Achievement based bonus for buildings:
How about all your “Academy of Fire” will produce 200% additional research points when you empire has 2 active volcano? (so you want to cast a volcano spell on your own land…) Or maybe your mana node will produce 300% more mana if you managed to stay in peace for 50 turns?

Sounds more like a circumstances bonus than anything else.

Say this sentence out loud "Do I lose my fire research achievement when the volcanos burn out?".

Try this sentence instead "Do I lose my fire research bonus when the volcanos burn out?".

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

That would be even worse. The player who is wining the fights has his units become stronger? sounds like a fast way to start snowballing to me.

CIV 4 has tiny bit of that already; like the curium the world once will give your empire naval forces more speed.

This is also one of the very few places where they do that, and it does not have much of an effect because it stops working after anyone techs refidgration.

This is a very intresting idea, but the way you have it setup would only help the side that is already winning.

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Why can't I edit my post?

Edit: I did some talking with some people at stardock, and now I seem to be able to edit from forums.impulsedriven.com

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Gaining those bonus is definitely an acheivement, instead of circumstancial, or bragging right.  In order to receive those substantial bonuses, the player has to plan and execute well.  It may take them dozen and dozen of turns of careful planning and excellent execution to receive those.

I haven't mentioned in OP, but the conditionals to receive those bonuses should not over favor those big empires.  A unit bonus may be bestowed if one's empire has been peaceful for 40 turns, or it has been ranked number one in terms of trade revenue, # of alliances, # of trade routes established. # of fishing towns established etc   

Developers can be creative in setting those conditions.   Players who failed the initial landgrab can work on these acheivement bonuses in order to regain their initial lost.  This is one of the tools the dev can use to make the mid-game important.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

If the bonuses are worth more then land-grab, why would anyone land gab ever? If they are not worth as much as land grab, they won't matter, since the land-grabbers will win anyway. And any land-grabber with even a spit of sense will be on the lookout for tiny countrys doing weird things and intervene to keep them from getting bonuses.

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Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

That is a good point, there should be a good balance between landgrab and the non-landgrab related bonus.   All those non-landgrab related bonuses should favor non-conquer related conditions.   Those conditions may include those who are great in maintaining world peace, spying, keeping alliance, completing quests; i.e. anything but conquest.    


Hopefully, this is a great way to make EWOM to differiate EWOM from other games.  And the more discussion about this, the better.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

Honestly, i think civ4 only had one bonus for actions, and it worked pretty well. The Magellan's Trip thing. First person to circumnavigate the globes gets +1 to ship movement. As long as your tech was not miles behind and you had at least 1 port city you can manage it. And the bonus really didn't effect much so it was more of a silly bragging point then a real bonus. Any bonus in game that relies on odd actions is likely to cause odd behavior in players and cause the players to skip the good sense decisions in favor of getting the bonus.

Basically, unintended consequences love this idea.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Cerevox, reply 7
Honestly, i think civ4 only had one bonus for actions, and it worked pretty well. The Magellan's Trip thing. First person to circumnavigate the globes gets +1 to ship movement. As long as your tech was not miles behind and you had at least 1 port city you can manage it. And the bonus really didn't effect much so it was more of a silly bragging point then a real bonus. Any bonus in game that relies on odd actions is likely to cause odd behavior in players and cause the players to skip the good sense decisions in favor of getting the bonus.

Basically, unintended consequences love this idea.

I won't say those are 'odd' actions, instead SD should develop them to require meaningful long term actions, with a huge meaningful effect on the strategic level.   Not all buildings & units need to be 'acheivement' related, otherwise it will be too much.  Maybe there are 2 such buildings & 2 such units per fraction, that will be enough.  

And probably many of those 'action' is ranked.    For example, if a trading post building provide acheivement bonus giving 400% more trading income, when you are ranked 1st in terms of the total area of world being discovered (i.e. map exposed to u  either via travel or diplomatic map sharing).    There maybe a chart showing which players are your closest competition, in terms of world map area discovered.    Any player interested in getting this bonus, will think hard to get ahead to become the 1st, or preventing another player bypassing you in this aspect.

I really think this can add a lot to the mid game.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Climber, reply 8

For example, if a trading post building provide acheivement bonus giving 400% more trading income, when you are ranked 1st in terms of the total area of world being discovered (i.e. map exposed to u  either via travel or diplomatic map sharing).   

What happens if you have several empires competitive very late in the game where it may be extremely likely that 2 or more empires have mapped the entirety of the world?

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

In that case,  the first one achieve the objective will be rated as 1st in Rank.   The exact conditions of how to receive the acheivement bonus should be fine-tuned when there is more play-testing.