Placement limits

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LienRag
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Placement limits

#1 Post by LienRag »

IIRC there was an error in the FOCS in one of the new buildings (Imperial Regional Administration maybe ?).
The check on distance from a similar building was made in general, not specifically for the Empire trying to build the thing.

It has been corrected, but as a general principle (not for this building specifically), it could actually be very interesting to have buildings that cannot be placed too close from another building (either this one or another; for example a "neutrino sieve" that could not be build less that five starlane jumps away from another "neutrino sieve" but also not less than six jumps away from a Collective Thought Network) either from the same Empire or from another one.
That would allow for passive-aggressive actions against Allies in "Highlander-style" diplomatic games, which would certainly spice things up.

But even with enemies, it would create a rush to build the building where it can block the enemy, and a lot of other interesting strategic interactions...
And if the cost is heavy, it's also a game of bluff since one doesn't want to start an instance of such a building and never complete it due to the enemy having completed its one first¹.

I'd like to have some of these build-at-a-distance buildings be Defensive ones, but then putting them at choke points would be obvious and I'm not sure that they'll really add to the strategic aspect of the game (no-brainers usually don't). Maybe restricting them to very specific settings (like a small planet in a system with a medium planet) so that the chance that they'll be buildable on choke points is low² ?

It's also possible to have a new Trait for Native Species : autosensible.
That would make either impossible to build a Colony of this Species less than a fixed distance of any other Colony of the same Species, or give heavy Stability penalties for each Colony of the same Species nearby.
If the Native is an interesting Species (not unbalanced, but with things like Good Influence, Artistic trait, Good Population,...) then putting a Colony where it would prevent the enemy to have one but still not preventing yourself to put others elsewhere becomes strategically interesting.

¹Actually that part would need some predictability to be really strategic and not pure luck : to be interesting, the building would need to have other constraints (like being buildable only on specific Planet Environments, only on specific Planet Sizes, only on Planets that already have another building, only in a system that has some requirements like Star type, presence of Asteroid belts, ....).

² If a player is able to make them a choke point by the way he settles the Galaxy, then it's a result of his brilliance, and is not a problem.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Placement limits

#2 Post by Geoff the Medio »

LienRag wrote: Sat Dec 11, 2021 10:03 pmit could actually be very interesting to have buildings that cannot be placed too close from another building
A problem with this type of restriction is that if the limits are based on distances between buildings that players can produce, one then needs to have a way to break ties where multiple empires produce conflicting buildings on the same turn. FreeOrion is simultaneous turn, unlike Civ games where players do their turns in a defined order that breaks any potential ties and makes one-per-planet wonders work without this issue.

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LienRag
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Re: Placement limits

#3 Post by LienRag »

Nicely spotted, I didn't think of that.
For the same player, it's quite easy to forbid that.
For different players, maybe we can not resolve at all the tie and consider that if they did both succeed in finishing the building at the exact same time then they deserve to both builidings them ?
That would open an exploit for allied Empires but just giving some penalty for proximity will limit the interest of those exploits ?

The other solution would be to have some (documented, of course) criterion to break tie (which may be specific to each building) and destroy the one that scores lower.

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Vezzra
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Re: Placement limits

#4 Post by Vezzra »

Another approach would be to actually allow to build such buildings too close to each other, but if you do that, your building won't work.

o01eg
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Re: Placement limits

#5 Post by o01eg »

Vezzra wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 6:09 pm Another approach would be to actually allow to build such buildings too close to each other, but if you do that, your building won't work.
I suppose both close building shouldn't work. Maybe even produce some penalty for both sides until someone decided to remove its building.
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Vezzra
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Re: Placement limits

#6 Post by Vezzra »

o01eg wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 7:14 pmI suppose both close building shouldn't work. Maybe even produce some penalty for both sides until someone decided to remove its building.
I agree.

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