The Merchant Marine

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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utilae
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#16 Post by utilae »

Geoff the Medio wrote: The idea would be to give economic / non-military might some way to cope with a blockade. If there's no way to get past a blockade without actually shooting your way out with a bigger fleet, then just blockading an economic player's systems would doom them, since they couldn't do much about it.

If, rather, there are techs the economic player can research which allow X% of his/her unblockaded internal trade to pass by blockaded worlds, then the economic player can potentially survive the blockade.
Some ideas to get past blockades without fighting:
-Ground Based Stargate
-Cloaked Freighters
-Super Long Range Transporters (transports cargo)
-Rail Gun Cargo Launching System (hard to intercept bullets)

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#17 Post by Sapphire Wyvern »

Geoff the Medio wrote:If each system along the path can take its own chunk off the supply getting through, as a % or as a constant deduction, then it becomes necessary to micromanage your blockades in order to optimize their function. You'd have to be sure to evenly spread around all your blockading fleets so that there's no minor crack in the blockade, where one path is slightly better than all others. If there was a crack, all supply would go through it, and any excess blockading you had elsewhere would be completely wasted, necessitating keeping this carefully micromanaged.
You're absolutely right. Why didn't I think of that? :)
If we want to make fleet supply slightly more interesting, the rate of supply (or cost) could decrease (or increase) according to the shortest length path from the fleet to a supply source. This actually makes it even easier to block a fleet's supply lines, as you now get some benefit by blocking the shortest path, even if you can't completely surround the fleet and cut off all possible supply pathes.
This sounds good; those are all excellent points. If we go for rate, though, it should be instantaneously applied according to the entire route length each turn - keeping track of some kind of hypothetical supply latency (ie the blockade gets lifted as System A on turn k, therefore supplies arrive at System B on turn k+n) would be a veritable nightmare programmatically.

I'm also not in favour of having players decide how much supply to send (whether by including supply ships or some other factor). That seems to be too much micromanagement; it's the sort of thing that XOs worry about, not Admirals.

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#18 Post by Sapphire Wyvern »

utilae wrote:
Geoff the Medio wrote: The idea would be to give economic / non-military might some way to cope with a blockade. If there's no way to get past a blockade without actually shooting your way out with a bigger fleet, then just blockading an economic player's systems would doom them, since they couldn't do much about it.

If, rather, there are techs the economic player can research which allow X% of his/her unblockaded internal trade to pass by blockaded worlds, then the economic player can potentially survive the blockade.
Some ideas to get past blockades without fighting:
-Ground Based Stargate
-Cloaked Freighters
-Super Long Range Transporters (transports cargo)
-Rail Gun Cargo Launching System (hard to intercept bullets)
Ground Based Stargate: a planetary building. When calculating blockade calculations, calculate blockade percentages normally; then set all worlds in the empire with a GBS to the minimum blockade percentage amongst those worlds (usually 0, I would think). So traffic is automatically routed through the GBS network to the least blockaded world(s).

Cloaked freighters: I think freighters should automatically benefit from Imperial cloaking technology. Are we going for all-or-nothing MoOII/Star Trek cloaking tech, or the more fine-tuned/realistic Stars! cloaking paradigm? I'll discuss this more in my Electronic Warfare thread (coming soon!)

Super Long Range Transporters: how would this help against a blockade?

Rail Gun Cargo Launching System: Ooh, this is cool. It should do two things: 1) reduce blockade percentage; and 2) be useful as a ground-based planetary defense system (ie enormous mass driver!) :D

The (Economic) Blockade UI
What we should have is a "Blockade" meter for each fleet at a system & "Blockaded" meter for each system. The blockader gets a "Blockade" meter for each fleet (only displayed at unfriendly systems to reduce clutter) that displays the proportion of trade blocked. 0 = totally ineffective blockade, 20 = marginal, 100 = perfect blockade.

For the blockadee, there is a "Blockaded" meter (only displayed on systems with hostile fleets to reduce clutter), and its value is equal to 100-(proportion of trade blocked), so Blockaded 0 means you're completely shanked, Blockaded 20 is pretty bad, and Blockaded 100 is complete trade freedom. I think it needs a better name though; having a meter named "Blockaded" or "Blockade" with a value of 100 being good is a little counterintuitive, but we still want a consistent convention where maximising the meters is always a good thing.

This is to be consistent with the UI conventions applied to the other aspects of economic management.

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#19 Post by utilae »

Sapphire Wyvern wrote: Super Long Range Transporters: how would this help against a blockade?
Isn't it obvious. Istantly transport cargo from one ground location of a planet to another ground location of a planet.

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#20 Post by Sapphire Wyvern »

utilae wrote:
Sapphire Wyvern wrote: Super Long Range Transporters: how would this help against a blockade?
Isn't it obvious. Istantly transport cargo from one ground location of a planet to another ground location of a planet.
Oh. Transporters in the Star Trek sense. <smacks forehead> I was just thinking Transporter == Freighter and couldn't see the benefit of long range ships if they were still going to be intercepted.

If it's planet to planet, wouldn't that be identical to the GBS system?

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#21 Post by The_Commentator »

I think Trek-like Transporters may be an equivalent technology to Ground Based Stargates within different civs in the game.

--T.C.

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#22 Post by utilae »

I think there are some differences between ground based stargates and super long range transporters.

Stargates is a two way system where there is a security risk of an enemy coming through the gate. Transporters are only one way.

Stargates limit the size of the object going through, transporters do not. And ultimately maybe transporters need alot more power and can still transport objects of any size.


Overall, they are very similar.

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#23 Post by The_Commentator »

Right.

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#24 Post by utilae »

We could make transporters deadly by allowing nukes to be transported into an enemy ship like on Stargate Atlantis.

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#25 Post by skdiw »

Geoff the Medio wrote:The idea would be to give economic / non-military might some way to cope with a blockade. If there's no way to get past a blockade without actually shooting your way out with a bigger fleet, then just blockading an economic player's systems would doom them, since they couldn't do much about it. If, rather, there are techs the economic player can research which allow X% of his/her unblockaded internal trade to pass by blockaded worlds, then the economic player can potentially survive the blockade.

Of course we'd need to make ways for the blockading player to get better at blockading to compensate... so maybe an intial blockade with start-of-game equipment and techniques against start-of-game default freighters blocks 75% of enemy trade. Then the blockaded player researches stealth or engine speed or somesuch, making his/her freighters able to get past 50% of the time. Then the blockading player researches better sensors or engines or specialized blockading equipment, and can get the % back up to 70.

The balance of power between blockades and evading blockades could also swing back and forth, much like offense vs. defense tends to do in some games.
I think you forgot the macro-game: military suppose to beat up growth players so enemies should be able to blockade an econ player and beat him.

Blockade should be simple like if significant enemy ships are in the system, there will be no trade in or out of the system. Incrementalling decrease the amount of trade each turn is fine, but I wouldn't get too fancy any further like with techs. Anybody can make the counterarguement just as easy. I could say I have advanced cloak detector so I can see your cloak trade ships. Or, I can say, I can make my blockade deadly by transporting nukes to your trade ships.



I think you guys are making the issue way too difficult and spend way too much energy on insignificant minor details. Remember this is a 4X game, not simPirates.
:mrgreen:

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Significant Insignificance

#26 Post by The_Commentator »

Sometimes, it's the focus on insignificant details that makes a game worth playing.

--T.C.

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#27 Post by Geoff the Medio »

skdiw wrote:I think you forgot the macro-game: military suppose to beat up growth players so enemies should be able to blockade an econ player and beat him.
It's not just "military" vs. "growth". If it was, then there would be no need for blockades at all, since you could just invade and take over the system. This would also seem to make any economic strategies ineffective, since any military strategy would beat it every time, and the only way to defend against a military strategy would be a military strategy of your own.

Rather, the idea is that "military" is actually two things: ships and ground troops. The situation in which you'd blockade a planet without invading it would be that you have the ship strength to gain space superiority in a system, but don't have the ground troops to take a planet, and don't want to or can't kill the planet's population from space.

So, a strong ships player can significantly hinder an economic player by blockading his/her worlds, but needs troops to actually take the planet. In defense, the economic player who doesn't want to focus on ships can make a lot of ground troops to prevent any invasion, and then develop ways to circumvent the blockades without building a ship-based military. In order to actually take planets after achiving space superiority in a system, a player would need to bring some ground troops, or could use some cultural and espionage stuff (however it's implemented) to take the planet without ground troops. Alternatively, economic warfare of some sort could be used to cripple the planet without even having to bring ships. Or perhaps cultural methods could be used to make the planet's population strongly pacifistic, so that they are strongly opposed to any military (ship or ground troop) presence in their system, so that a player who has both string ships and military wouldn't be able to effectively defend his/her planets against other empires' ships attacks without crippling unhappiness and waste. Or biological warfare could be used to decimate a planet's population, whilst blockading the system to prevent any help from arriving... or perhaps biological warfare could be used defensively, so that any invading troops get sick and die, making the planet impervious to ground assault.

It's all a web of strategies and counterstrategies. The ability to circumvent a naive ship blockade makes the economic strategy viable, which fits into the whole big picture. IMO these aren't insignificant details, bur rather are significant big picture game design issues.

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#28 Post by Sapphire Wyvern »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
skdiw wrote:I think you forgot the macro-game: military suppose to beat up growth players so enemies should be able to blockade an econ player and beat him.
It's not just "military" vs. "growth". If it was, then there would be no need for blockades at all, since you could just invade and take over the system. This would also seem to make any economic strategies ineffective, since any military strategy would beat it every time, and the only way to defend against a military strategy would be a military strategy of your own.

Rather, the idea is that "military" is actually two things: ships and ground troops. The situation in which you'd blockade a planet without invading it would be that you have the ship strength to gain space superiority in a system, but don't have the ground troops to take a planet, and don't want to or can't kill the planet's population from space.

So, a strong ships player can significantly hinder an economic player by blockading his/her worlds, but needs troops to actually take the planet. In defense, the economic player who doesn't want to focus on ships can make a lot of ground troops to prevent any invasion, and then develop ways to circumvent the blockades without building a ship-based military. In order to actually take planets after achiving space superiority in a system, a player would need to bring some ground troops, or could use some cultural and espionage stuff (however it's implemented) to take the planet without ground troops. Alternatively, economic warfare of some sort could be used to cripple the planet without even having to bring ships. Or perhaps cultural methods could be used to make the planet's population strongly pacifistic, so that they are strongly opposed to any military (ship or ground troop) presence in their system, so that a player who has both string ships and military wouldn't be able to effectively defend his/her planets against other empires' ships attacks without crippling unhappiness and waste. Or biological warfare could be used to decimate a planet's population, whilst blockading the system to prevent any help from arriving... or perhaps biological warfare could be used defensively, so that any invading troops get sick and die, making the planet impervious to ground assault.

It's all a web of strategies and counterstrategies. The ability to circumvent a naive ship blockade makes the economic strategy viable, which fits into the whole big picture. IMO these aren't insignificant details, bur rather are significant big picture game design issues.
Another situation in which a blockade could arise is similar to historical events: if your fleet is powerful enough to kill the fleet at the system, but not powerful enough to crack the fixed (ground-based) defences. I'm thinking Napoleonics and the blockade of the French fleets here.

Whether this can arise will depend on the game balance for fixed defences. It certainly wouldn't arise in MoO II, where a fleet of significance can usually crack fixed defenses like an egg. (Of course, "fleet of significance" is all relative...)

Having strong fixed defenses (or at least, less costly ones compared to an offensive fleet) would be a good thing for the game design IMO because it means that economic/diplomatic/espionage/tech oriented races won't have to match the projective force capability of their military opponents in order to have a chance of survival.

Strong fixed defences also mean that blockades can arise even against a military player who is out to destroy systems (using bombs, biological weapons, etc, that require planetary proximity to deploy) rather than conquest.

On the other hand, strong fixed defenses discourage raiding. I'd quite like to see raiding be an effective part of the military player's tactical toolkit, so that's a mark against it.

Maybe we need to have a discussion on this sub-topic as well.

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#29 Post by Sapphire Wyvern »

skdiw wrote: I think you forgot the macro-game: military suppose to beat up growth players so enemies should be able to blockade an econ player and beat him.

Blockade should be simple like if significant enemy ships are in the system, there will be no trade in or out of the system. Incrementalling decrease the amount of trade each turn is fine, but I wouldn't get too fancy any further like with techs. Anybody can make the counterarguement just as easy. I could say I have advanced cloak detector so I can see your cloak trade ships. Or, I can say, I can make my blockade deadly by transporting nukes to your trade ships.

I think you guys are making the issue way too difficult and spend way too much energy on insignificant minor details. Remember this is a 4X game, not simPirates.
I didn't forget the macro-game.
In what way does having a good blockade model impinge on the macro-game?

In what way does having to have a significant fleet (rather than one frigate with no shields and a laser cannon) to blockade a major Core World make the macro-game worse?

In what way does having superior technology improve the effectiveness of your economic and military tactics make the macro-game worse? If you have cloaking technology, pinnacle engine tech, etc, why would having Fred Flintstone's Fleet in your system affect you in any way? Technology should improve *all* use of the military, not just combat.

These are all *good* things.

As for tech affecting blockades, I mainly see the tech side of the blockading as being something that you get alongside other benefits. Got stealth tech? Then you can run blockades better, as well as building cloaked cruisers. Got good scanners and engines? Then you're better at levelling a blockade, as well as knowing where the enemy fleet is and your ships are more maneuvrable. (I assume that transporting to shielded ships will be banned for balance reasons, just like in Star Trek). I suppose if we're running short on applications we could make the blockade modifiers into applications in their own right, but at the moment I wouldn't recommend it; it's a bit over-specialised, and breaks the "internal trade is automatic" model.

Seriously, as long as everything is intuitive to the player and doesn't require additional UI to manage the system, it's all good. I think it's fine to have complex mechanics behind the scene to make tactics that *should* work into tactics that *do* work. We're designing a computer game, not a board game, so we can have systems that involve formulae and record keeping without reducing the quality of game play at all.

There's more to winning a war than fleet numbers and quality. Too many 4X games neglect this.

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#30 Post by utilae »

For those worried about making blocading too complex with all sorts of techs affecting blocades:

We have a simple blocade system. Basically having one enemy ship or more in a system blocks all cargo to or from that system. If freighters have weapons, then the fleet strenth of freighters compared to the blocade determines automatically (eg no space combat) which is destroyed.

We also have two variables
-ChanceCargoGetThroughBlocade
-ChanceCargoStopped

These variables would work like computer systems in Moo2, eg +150 ship attack and the other player has +100 ship attack, so you only have +50 ship attack in the end.

A tech could alter those two variables (above), eg Stealth Shield would increase ChanceCargoGetThroughBlocade % while also making a actual ship you build be invisible (if it is equiped).

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