General feeling after two games

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LienRag
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General feeling after two games

#1 Post by LienRag »

I played a classic game recently with different settings to try a cramped space, and it made me think of a point in later game.
Before Species-Empire relations (so as I played it in that game), once the game is in middle stage, when outposting a planet the question of which Species to put in it is usually mono-dimensional, "which Species adapted to this planet is the most productive ?".
But now in the soon-to-be released 5.0 version, there has been a little bit more strategic thinking added on the topic of "do I really want to colonize this planet ?", which is good. But on the choice of Species, it's mostly still "which Species adapted to this planet and with a positive Stability is the most productive ?" so not much has been added to the gameplay...
Choosing which planet to colonize and with what is a big strategic choice, it should not be just an optimization of production values, but rather something like "I want to do that here, so what is the best Species for that objective ?".

I guess one way to help that is to add more diversity to military abilities of Species (like having a "good interplanetary defence" trait, "good planetary shields" also maybe, have planetary defence types vary with species - like Abaddoni using big underground guns and Phinnert a lot of small fighters), but more importantly to have Stability effects much more dependant on topology (for example, dislikes for a building using a n/d formula, with n the intensity of dislike and d the distance)...
Also have Policies that allow for a variety of implementation across the Galaxy ? Especially if my Nomes proposition is resurrected...
Even without Nomes, that would mean that both the likes/dislikes and the boni/mali of a Policy would be distance-dependant from the nearest Administrative Center.

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Re: General feeling after two games

#2 Post by LienRag »

I also played the latest test game, and I must say that I'm completely lost in the maze of new Policies.

Actually, if I understand correctly, the game has seen a major and silent overhaul on the way it works strategically : instead of having, as before, to fix one's objectives in military, research and production terms and then picking along the ways the Policies that fit these objectives, the game is now about choosing carefully (from the Galaxy topography and other factors) the Policies that one wants to use and then adapt one's military, research and production strategy to these Policies.

I'm not sure that it's a bad change in terms of strategic deepness; but it's a huge change and if it's overwhelming for me, it will lose completely all the new players that still are introduced to FreeOrion as a somewhat classic 4X game.
Also, nearly nothing of this is documented anywhere but in some of Oberlus' posts about the deep testing he does, and we cannot expect new players (nor returning players) to all know where to look for these posts...

A bigger problem is that we basically have no real fluff for all these Policies to make them quite coherently understandable by a beginner...

I mean, when a player start with a Homeworld, a colony ship and some military, the fluff makes everything quite obvious for anybody who has ever seen or read a Space Opera. Ditto for the Research tree and production options, it's quite easy to understand what an Industrial Center is and does (yes, one has to check the Pedia to know how much the Industrial Center adds and to what, but the fact that an Industrial Center adds industry is intuitive), there's a global cognitive coherence that helps integrate all these new things and concepts and learn the details along the game experience.

We don't have that so far for the Policies (at least to many of them), and especially we have no big and easily understandable framework to make the player intuitively get which Policy is an Empire-defining one and which one is just a minor bonus that one can grab along the way...

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Re: General feeling after two games

#3 Post by Oberlus »

I agree there's a lack of documentation to give coherence to the set of policies.

I particularly feel it for certain policies:

- Diversity: what is exactly doing the policy to increase stability and research of all planets and influence of capital? It is not the fact of having several species, the policy does something, what is it? Is it about propaganda/indoctrination for capital-species to tolerate/like other species? Is it about not granting privileges to capital species or granting privileges to non-capital species? (No, this is not, since the effects are for all species). For research, if it is just about the extra knowledge you get from combining the efforts of different species with different ways of thinking then I can't find a need for a policy, just having the species should suffice.
Also, the fact that you need 5 species to get a bonus is counterintuitive: 3 species with no Diversity is much better than 4 species with Diversity.

- Something similar happens with Racial Purity: it doesn't seem to do nothing (also, in this case, it actually does nothing in terms of game effects, it's just a requirement for other policies).

- Conformance: how we make population more conformist (tolerant to disliked policies) and less thrilled by liked policies? No idea what could be the fluff for this.

- Industrialism: what is this about? Promoting the industrial work among population as the best one can do for society? It's quite ambiguous and lacks any techy explanation.

- Indoctrination: several other policies seems to be about indoctrination (to instruct in a doctrine in a way not allowing for dissent), like Conformance, Industrialism, Diversity, Divine Authority, Propaganda or Racial Purity.

There is also a lack for a minimally comprehensive set of government policies, and incoherence in the way some can be combined:

We have Confederation: a union of sovereign estates (worlds) freely united for purposes of common action (defense, foreign relations, internal trade...).
We have Feudalism: a hierarchical system in which each world owns obedience to stronger ones, with the central world ("king") ruling over all others.
Then we can have a Feudal Confederation, which makes no sense at all since in Confederation each world stays in the league freely but in Feudalism they owe obedience and to leave the "union" you must gain and keep your sovereignty by military force.
We have Technocracy: rule by the experts, administration boosted by technology and technological bureaucracy.
We have Divine Authority that can be seen as a Theocracy: ruled by (the representatives of) God.
We don't have anything else related to how worlds are ruled.
The lack of Confederation can be seen as an implicit Dictatorship form of government.
A Technocratic Confederation makes sense. A Theocratic Confederation makes little (just some) sense, since a Divine Authority implies ruling the same over all worlds, while Confederations implies cultural differences, religious freedom, etc.


All this adds up to a big mess in my mind that makes it harder to design or improve current policies.


Does it make sense to have a Democracy policy or it would overlap with Confederation?

If I don't adopt Colonialism I am not a colonialist empire? But isn't Centralization and Metropoles doing something similar to what Colonialism is about, concentrating resources from colonies in the central planets?

What about a Republic? Would that be like a centralized, democratic government?

So my Empire is a Dictatorship at start unless I adopt Confederation? I'm having a really bad time with the fact that an empire starts with no policies, in a sort of ambiguous state. So I think documentation needs to let the player know what kind of empire/government is an empire with no policies (probably a form of mild Dictatorship). But I hope that in the future Vezzra's Origins will allow to start a game with policies adopted, and so we could make "no policy" a form of (bad/chaotic) anarchism.

I'm slowly working on all this (several pages in a doc), and one day I'll present a PR.

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Re: General feeling after two games

#4 Post by Vezzra »

I know I haven't contributed much (or probably better, practically nothing) to the design discussions for quite some time, but now and then I feel the urge to say something. Like now ;)

I think we treat too many things as "policies", which actually are very different concepts. Or can only all be subsumed (@native speakers: can I say that this way? Or is there a better term?) as "policies", if you use a very broad definition of "policy".

Take the "Feudalism" and "Reserve Tanks" policies for example. The first is actually a form of government, the latter a policy in the strict sense about fuel management on your ships. Throwing all these very different concepts and things into one bucket and treating them as as something similar is counter-intuitive, and I suspect one reason why the current system is a confusing mess. In terms of game mechanics these things might be technically similar (which is why we can handle them the same way in the code), but conceptually they are different things, and that is what counts when it comes to intuitivity.

We might need to separate things a bit more here. E.g. take all the policies which actually represent different forms of goverment and have them in their own category, with their own type of slot ("Government Type"). You always have one, and exactly one, "Government" slot (as an empire usually only can have one form of government concurrently ;)), and it always is filled with one of the government form policies currently available to you. Switching government form costs IP.

That of course is just a thought, first idea that came to my mind when pondering the problem at hand.

Botton line is I think there is more structure needed with the policy mechanic. Having one huge pile of "policies" of actually very different things is bound to create confusion.

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Re: General feeling after two games

#5 Post by LienRag »

I agree that there is probably a confusion at the conceptual level that causes the indecipherable mess that we have now at the implementation level...

And yes, your "government" policy slot may be a good idea, but maybe it's not the only way to do it ?
It's a bit too similar to "political regimes" that other games have imho.

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Re: General feeling after two games

#6 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I take from this discussion that the "fluff" descriptions behind policies need to be fleshed out...
Oberlus wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 11:03 am- Diversity: what is exactly doing the policy to increase stability and research of all planets and influence of capital?
My conception of policies like this is that they are a way for the player to control the values or ideals the empire promotes or encourages or seeks to embody, or the structure and organization of the society in the empire. By adopting such a policy, it causes the planets and population in the empire to act differently, which leads to the benefits or penalities of the policy.

In the case of diversity, it causes the population to value and seek out other species and to interact with them where possible, leading to idea exchange and thus more effective research when a more diverse set of species is available to interact with. It also causes the population to be more satisfied that the empire is functioning and structured well when there are lots of species in it, making the planets in the empire more stable, and making the population look more highly upon its leadership and thus generating influence at the capital.
the fact that you need 5 species to get a bonus is counterintuitive: 3 species with no Diversity is much better than 4 species with Diversity.
I don't see a problem in principle... A society that doesn't care about having a diverse set of species doesn't have a penalty from not having a diverse set of species. A society that does value having a diverse set of species has a penalty when it does and benefits when it does.
Racial Purity: it doesn't seem to do nothing (also, in this case, it actually does nothing in terms of game effects, it's just a requirement for other policies).
Racial Purity should have numerous penalties on planets in the empire with species different from the capital. The idea is that there's a cost, but it lets you do something powerful.
Conformance: how we make population more conformist (tolerant to disliked policies) and less thrilled by liked policies? No idea what could be the fluff for this.
The empire or its society holds conformance with others as an important virtue. Society will somewhat police itself, and thereby discourage any extremist individuals or deviations from the orthodox or officially promoted behaviours and beliefs. It's not like Indoctrination where the empire actively imposes or impresses beliefs and values unquestioningly into the population, but rather a value or ideal for society.
Industrialism: what is this about? Promoting the industrial work among population as the best one can do for society? It's quite ambiguous and lacks any techy explanation.
Promoting industrial output and development to and by the population. Seeking to structure society in a way that encourages and celebrates increased productivity over other goals.
Indoctrination: several other policies seems to be about indoctrination (to instruct in a doctrine in a way not allowing for dissent), like Conformance, Industrialism, Diversity, Divine Authority, Propaganda or Racial Purity.
There is a difference between having beliefs and values, and brainwashing a population to hold those beliefs and values unquestionably without critical thought. Whatever the empire's other policies / values are, indoctrinating the population to accept them is modelled as a way to make the population more stable. Also, specifically for Conformance and Propaganda Broadcasts, they are prerequisite of Indoctrination, so it's reasonable to observe that they are somewhat similar ideas... But the concept was that Indoctrination is another step up in intensity from the society valuing conformance over individuality or using propaganda broadcasts to spread the imperial message.
There is also a lack for a minimally comprehensive set of government policies
What specifically do you feel / think is missing that needs to be represented?
...incoherence in the way some can be combined:
That's partly why there are exclusions. If a combination doesn't make sense, it can be prohibited.
Does it make sense to have a Democracy policy or it would overlap with Confederation?
"Democracy" is usually described or conceived of as a combination of things, which I'd probably rather have a few separate policies for. There might be policies likes "Representation" and "Plebicites" for represntative and direct democratic lawmaking. The "Liberty" policy already exists and would be an important part of a "Democracy". But part of the issue with policies to define how legislative decisions are made is that there needs to be some in-game effect from them, and I didn't have good ideas for what those policies would do aside from represent those ideas. The stuff that exists now is biased towards stuff that I could find in-game effects for... Suggestions are welcome.

Perhaps they don't all need direct gameplay effects, though? As long as enough species like policies that would be associated with "Democracy", then they'd be appealing to adopt for the species stability boosts. Might be an interesting contrast to other disliked but directly beneficial policies...
If I don't adopt Colonialism I am not a colonialist empire? But isn't Centralization and Metropoles doing something similar to what Colonialism is about, concentrating resources from colonies in the central planets?
Colonialism is effectively about extracting productivity from nearby neutral planets without owning them. So if you don't adopt it, you won't do that, so won't be operating colonies, so in that sense, no, your empire wouldn't be colonialist. Centralization and Metropoles are about how the empire is oriented around one or a few important politcally / socially / influentially dominant planet(s), and are not about extracting resources from non-empire-controlled planets.
What about a Republic? Would that be like a centralized, democratic government?
Depends on your definition of "Republic", I suppose. I'm not an expert in political science, but I'd assume a republic could be rather non-democratic, as long as it has nominal representatives of the population that do the governing. A "Representation" policy would cover that, I guess. The republican represntatives could also vote or reach consensus or otherwise engage in politics on the imperial level but not be "elected" by the planets / regions / populations they represent, as well.
I'm having a really bad time with the fact that an empire starts with no policies, in a sort of ambiguous state.
Either some sort of origins mechanic, or perhaps a starting policy choice could be added. My conception was that, since empires currently start on a single planet, having no policies adopted is a primitive single-planet-focused government, whereas most of the adoptable policies are about how to run an interstellar empire, and aren't as relevant when there's just a single planet starting out expanding into the galaxy for the first time, and wouldn't necessarily be already adopted. But particularly for "values" type policies, having some initially adopted is probably reasonable.

There could perhaps be a scaling cost for social slot policies that depends on how many are adopted, with it costing nothing to adopt one if no other policies have been adopted, or something similar.
Vezzra wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:31 pmTake the "Feudalism" and "Reserve Tanks" policies for example.
Reserve Tanks is the extreme example here that could easily be cut, and perhaps should be due to be rather boring / lame / narrow scope. Some of the other military policies are somewhat closer to the social and economic ones in scope, like Terror Suppression or Martial Law, and perhaps Engineering Corps and Exploration.

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Re: General feeling after two games

#7 Post by defaultuser »

I hesitate to chime in very much because I haven't tried any of this stuff past the 04.10 stable release, but that's because it sounds like a micro-mangement horror to me. I'm probably wrong but I'd have been more onboard if you'd started with a few small steps towards the goal and implemented those and got them settled and tested. I realize your goal is a bit step to 05.00 but I think some easier increments would have made sense.

I don't intend to disparage the fine work that you all have done over the years, but this is my honest opinion as a long-time (since 2015) player. Take it for what it's worth.

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Re: General feeling after two games

#8 Post by Ophiuchus »

defaultuser wrote: Thu Dec 02, 2021 11:52 pm I realize your goal is a bit step to 05.00 but I think some easier increments would have made sense.
if you wanted to participate in the beginning/in something smaller, the minimal viable version of it was available i think two years ago. but what existed was less polished/helpful so not really for players rather for developers.

we now have basic mechanics (influence points, and policies to spend them on) and some content and are able now to see what is possible and what is good/bad. so now it is time to shape it up and then polish.

i think simple content could help to ease the pain/getting used to the new mechanisms. something like a trodden path, easy to see, sensible to most players expectations and still give some benefit. then one could learn the other policies and mechanisms in time for mastery and more benefits.
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Re: General feeling after two games

#9 Post by Ophiuchus »

LienRag wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:01 amthere has been a little bit more strategic thinking added on the topic of "do I really want to colonize this planet ?", which is good. But on the choice of Species, it's mostly still "which Species adapted to this planet and with a positive Stability is the most productive ?" ...
Choosing which planet to colonize and with what is a big strategic choice, it should not be just an optimization of production values, but rather something like "I want to do that here, so what is the best Species for that objective ?".
Especially in the early game colonisation changed a lot for me. I do a lot more thinking about supply than before. I often hold off colonisation, e.g. in case I am going for centralisation. If I am going for metropoles, for most planets' productivity does not matter at all, so choosing the species there is not as restricted - pity that one does only have one species in the beginning.

So when and where to colonise changed.
LienRag wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:01 am I guess one way to help that is to add more diversity to military abilities of Species (like having a "good interplanetary defence" trait, "good planetary shields" also maybe, have planetary defence types vary with species
i agree that could help. maybe also depending on the planet or system (e.g. other planets or sun type). Defense has a connection to the topology of the map.
in the beginnning you do not have a choice, but this also might influence acquisition of species.
LienRag wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:01 am but more importantly to have Stability effects much more dependant on topology (for example, dislikes for a building using a n/d formula, with n the intensity of dislike and d the distance)...
i also would like to have something like this. some reason to build some parts of your empire different from another part. keep your Sly far from the gas giant generator cluster.

maybe we should add an economic policy which allows such "cluster specialisation"(?).
underlying should be probably some mechanism to lower stability with a bigger empire (or reward greater stability by higher bonus).
the main driver for adopting such a cluster specialisation policy would currently be the dislikes for build-at-many-places buildings like the gas giant generator (and the scanning facility).

I am not sure if we have more mechanisms for that than the mixing of species and likes/dislikes. so if you keep your empire to a few/compatible species your stability will actually increase.
The designated mechanism for its-getting-harder-if-your-empire-is-bigger is influence. So some connection to influence would be good, e.g. ways to burn influence to increase stability. I think the policies which trade influence for stability or some big-empire benefit are: terror suppression, dream recursion, indoctrination and maybe engineering corps).

side-note: i think a way to query effects would be good for players (similar to how one queries objects), so you can e.g. search for effects (i.e. buildings, techs, policies..) which e.g. create (or at least change) influence, show minimum-stability... I basically had to go through all policies to find the relevant ones. whipping up something should not be too hard if we have an AST available (i think the python parser gives us that?); implementing it inside of effects classes also would work (e.g. registering changes_target_influence flag per top-level content).
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Re: General feeling after two games

#10 Post by Vezzra »

LienRag wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 4:31 pmAnd yes, your "government" policy slot may be a good idea, but maybe it's not the only way to do it ?
Sure. My suggestion was only the first thing that came to my mind, and I used it to illustrate better what I meant. There are certainly other ways to make policies more structured.

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Re: General feeling after two games

#11 Post by LienRag »

Actually I thought of something : all the "random boni" that are many Policies with not really coherent fluff nor conceptual organization in a greater framework are actually perfect fits for a "leader" mechanism.

I mean, there's no logical inconsistency with having a great Fulver logistician able to make fuel tanks provide greater fuel when on reserves, it's not something lame that'll make the player go "WTF ?" (or just lose ability to understand what Policies are about) like it is when the same random bonus is made into a Policy.

Also, a "leader" mechanism is a great asset for interesting Policies, as "peer promotion" could let new leaders emerge quickly (while maybe displeasing older leaders) while "Terror suppression" would also suppress the emergence of new leaders in terrorized planets...
It also leaves the opportunity to have leaders defect to other Empires when they are not happy, a mechanism that could help separate "they can hate me as long as they obey me" stability mechanisms from "win hearts and minds" ones.

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Re: General feeling after two games

#12 Post by wobbly »

defaultuser wrote: Thu Dec 02, 2021 11:52 pm I hesitate to chime in very much because I haven't tried any of this stuff past the 04.10 stable release, but that's because it sounds like a micro-mangement horror to me. I'm probably wrong but I'd have been more onboard if you'd started with a few small steps towards the goal and implemented those and got them settled and tested. I realize your goal is a bit step to 05.00 but I think some easier increments would have made sense.

I don't intend to disparage the fine work that you all have done over the years, but this is my honest opinion as a long-time (since 2015) player. Take it for what it's worth.
In my opinion the worst of the micro has been ironed out now and its a good time to start playtesting and giving feedback.

The one big barrier to playtesting single player is that the AI doesn't yet understand influence and will perform very poorly.

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Re: General feeling after two games

#13 Post by LienRag »

I agree with Wobbly, but there's a steep learning curve.
Begin by just avoiding Influence debt, I'd say.
You'll learn the use of each Policy by trial and error later, that would be my advice.

And don't hesitate to ask questions here, for many questions there are no other places you'll find answers (documentation has progressed, but is still far from covering everything).

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Re: General feeling after two games

#14 Post by Daybreak »

LienRag wrote: Sun Nov 28, 2021 12:19 am I'm not sure that it's a bad change in terms of strategic deepness; but it's a huge change and if it's overwhelming for me, it will lose completely all the new players that still are introduced to FreeOrion as a somewhat classic 4X game.
Also, nearly nothing of this is documented anywhere but in some of Oberlus' posts about the deep testing he does, and we cannot expect new players (nor returning players) to all know where to look for these posts...
It is all ready hard for new players to start this game. I know it took me a long time to get it, and many will just give up. Here is that evidence - Has anybody played the game lately? (https://www.freeorion.org/forum/viewtop ... 61#p109742) Considering the silent majority probably did not even sign up to ask.

I am guessing we have no way to determine how many new people play or continue to play. I don't know if there is a way to determine installs, and uninstalls.

In the thread - Testing Government and Influence, I said we should be able to turn off the Government and Influence features, so not to lose new players, but I am now guessing they will be too far integrated into the game to do that. I myself will continue to play 4.10 and have recently been thinking of moving back to 4.9, as the AI's seem to be better/harder, before the production changes.

So, I don't think it will matter if the newgame is documented at all. I think it will be the death of freeorion. Over time current players will leave for whatever reason, and without new players...........

Now all of the above matters little based on the direction you are taking the game. If its for your own enjoyment and you want more srategic deepness then thats fine. If the direction is to grow the player base, then are the changes aligned with that direction.

There is a reason Minecraft and candy crush were so popular with the masses - they were simple to learn and play. Lol not saying we need to go in that direction.

I hope that makes sense, and I say I am not being critical. I applaud what you have achieved.

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Re: General feeling after two games

#15 Post by Ophiuchus »

Out-of-game documentation makes only sense for a stable version. I think we should try to prepare some media etc when we start with release candidates.
Besides current work which is happening (stability mechanism, mostly content): UI needs quite some improvement for stability, Default values need to be changed. In game documentation needs love. AI needs quite a lot of love.
Daybreak wrote: Sun Feb 06, 2022 10:15 pm I am guessing we have no way to determine how many new people play or continue to play. I don't know if there is a way to determine installs, and uninstalls.
For snap i know a number of alive systems which did not uninstall the game. "Everybody" uses the current-at-the-time stable snaps and it seems the players rarely change versions.
Daybreak wrote: Sun Feb 06, 2022 10:15 pm So, I don't think it will matter if the newgame is documented at all. I think it will be the death of freeorion. ....

I hope that makes sense, and I say I am not being critical. I applaud what you have achieved.
I think you think the new features are too complicated to be learned?
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