Proper lose conditions

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Voker57
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Proper lose conditions

#1 Post by Voker57 »

I''m creating this to open a discussion about when an empire is considered defeated, continuing discussion in https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/issues/3059. Currently, it's either manual concede or hunting down every single ship, which makes a defeat largely a formality.

I propose for an empire to be declared defeated and all its outposts being dropped when it loses all population. This creates a non-frustrating and meaningful challenge to the attacker, and makes defeat status useful again.

Answering Oberlus' question:
So you mean you don't like L29Ah idea of giving conceded empires to an AI, right?
This is different issue, when a player manually concedes, that means they just don't want to play due to a technical issue or find remaining game uninteresting. In this case, AI should be inserted to provide at least some challenge to attackers.
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Re: Proper lose conditions

#2 Post by Oberlus »

For the ongoing MP game that triggered this discussion, have you tried asking swaq to concede so that outposts become easier to invade?
However I understand him not conceding right away so that he can still see the battle.

In the issue raised by L29Ah, the problem is not that the player has not conceded, but that a bug in how outpost troop malus effect is applied when there are no species removes the expected malus fro outposts.

Conceding and making outposts nearly undefended is not cool neither, except for the empire that is getting nearly-free outposts (at least, at a much cheaper cost that outposting them).
all its outposts being dropped
Would that mean letting the outposts to become planets (not outposted)?

That could clash with the restriction of not making colonies dissapear when a player concedes, which was a requirement from L29Ah to play.

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Voker57
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Re: Proper lose conditions

#3 Post by Voker57 »

Oberlus wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 11:25 pm For the ongoing MP game that triggered this discussion, have you tried asking swaq to concede so that outposts become easier to invade?
However I understand him not conceding right away so that he can still see the battle.

In the issue raised by L29Ah, the problem is not that the player has not conceded, but that a bug in how outpost troop malus effect is applied when there are no species removes the expected malus fro outposts.

Conceding and making outposts nearly undefended is not cool neither, except for the empire that is getting nearly-free outposts (at least, at a much cheaper cost that outposting them).
all its outposts being dropped
Would that mean letting the outposts to become planets (not outposted)?

That could clash with the restriction of not making colonies dissapear when a player concedes, which was a requirement from L29Ah to play.
You are confusing deliberate concession and forced dissolution. If a player concedes deliberately, they should be taken over by AI. If all populated planets are captured, outposts become free planets and ships disappear, to simplify defeat conditions and to avoid script bugs and the need for an AI.
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Re: Proper lose conditions

#4 Post by Oberlus »

Voker57 wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 8:28 am If all populated planets are captured, outposts become free planets and ships disappear, to simplify defeat conditions and to avoid script bugs and the need for an AI.
The present scenario, where swaq deliberately evacuated tens of planets (all his planets) is not the same as "if all populated planets are captured".

He didn't concede for a reason, presumably to keep looking the game until all his outposts are taken. I don't like forcing the player to concede just because there is a bug in the outpost defense troops malus (i.e., that it is not triggered when there are no species in an empire).

The effect of your suggestion:
  1. Kick out from game a player if s/he does total scorched earth (i.e. killing off all populations and leaving only outposts with their military attachments).
  2. Turn all his outposts into empire-less outposts that are the easiest to conquer because they lose all defense troop techs.
  3. Keep the bug in issue #3059, so that outposts would still not get their troop malus.
The effect of fixing the bug in issue #3059:
  1. Do not kick out players that commit total scorched earth.
  2. Let the remaining (species-less) outposts retain their defense techs (and so do not make them so cheap to conquer).
The pros of your suggestion, implemented in https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/pull/3068, is that it deals with players that do not want to concede despite having lost.
The cons are that it does not let players in allied forces to do total scorched earth tactics to prevent enemies from getting stronger (instead they are forced to keep playing to delay enemies growth while they know they can just die slowly), and that it kicks out players that might not be annoying but just interested on the game development.

So I still prefer to fix the bug and not force player concession.

Anyways, the workaround PR, that would force the losing empire (if not willing to be kicked out) to keep at least one non-monster ship, does work as a workaround for the outpost troop malus bug.
But I'm against putting it into the MP server now if swaq doesn't want to concede, since he wasn't aware of it (or the bug) beforehand and he could have kept a scout in the corner of his space.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Proper lose conditions

#5 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Voker57 wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 9:18 pmI propose for an empire to be declared defeated and all its outposts being dropped when it loses all population.
"loses all population" means "has no populated planets and no colony ships", presumably?

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Voker57
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Re: Proper lose conditions

#6 Post by Voker57 »

Oberlus wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 9:59 am The present scenario, where swaq deliberately evacuated tens of planets (all his planets) is not the same as "if all populated planets are captured".
Functionally the same. He caused this condition.
He didn't concede for a reason, presumably to keep looking the game until all his outposts are taken. I don't like forcing the player to concede just because there is a bug in the outpost defense troops malus (i.e., that it is not triggered when there are no species in an empire).

The effect of your suggestion:
  1. Kick out from game a player if s/he does total scorched earth (i.e. killing off all populations and leaving only outposts with their military attachments).
  2. Turn all his outposts into empire-less outposts that are the easiest to conquer because they lose all defense troop techs.
  3. Keep the bug in issue #3059, so that outposts would still not get their troop malus.
The effect of fixing the bug in issue #3059:
  1. Do not kick out players that commit total scorched earth.
  2. Let the remaining (species-less) outposts retain their defense techs (and so do not make them so cheap to conquer).
The pros of your suggestion, implemented in https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/pull/3068, is that it deals with players that do not want to concede despite having lost.
The cons are that it does not let players in allied forces to do total scorched earth tactics to prevent enemies from getting stronger (instead they are forced to keep playing to delay enemies growth while they know they can just die slowly), and that it kicks out players that might not be annoying but just interested on the game development.

So I still prefer to fix the bug and not force player concession.

Anyways, the workaround PR, that would force the losing empire (if not willing to be kicked out) to keep at least one non-monster ship, does work as a workaround for the outpost troop malus bug.
But I'm against putting it into the MP server now if swaq doesn't want to concede, since he wasn't aware of it (or the bug) beforehand and he could have kept a scout in the corner of his space.
The bug still has to be fixed, since it stems from poorly-written FOCS. Staying around to look is an exploit of game mechanics and should not be linked to defeat flag. Looking around can be implemented separately. Lose condition change is needed not because I want to kick people out (albeit it's annoying that you can stay in game at will, even after essentially losing) but to make the game calculate the winner properly.
Geoff the Medio wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 1:10 pm
Voker57 wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 9:18 pmI propose for an empire to be declared defeated and all its outposts being dropped when it loses all population.
"loses all population" means "has no populated planets and no colony ships", presumably?
No populated planets. Colony ships can be tricky to capture and would serve the same purpose, staking off the "defeated" status.
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Re: Proper lose conditions

#7 Post by o01eg »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 1:10 pm
Voker57 wrote: Sun Jun 21, 2020 9:18 pmI propose for an empire to be declared defeated and all its outposts being dropped when it loses all population.
"loses all population" means "has no populated planets and no colony ships", presumably?
Proposed in https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/pull/3068 implementation leaves empire alive if it has colony ships (or any other ships).
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Re: Proper lose conditions

#8 Post by Geoff the Medio »

I'm content to go with whatever reasonable elimination condition is the most popular or for which consensus is reached... be that having no populated planets or ships, no populated planets or colony ships, no populated planets, or something slightly more complicated like no populated planets for 3 turns in a row...

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Re: Proper lose conditions

#9 Post by LienRag »

What about "no populated planets or colony ships" warrants immediate defeat, and if there are colony ships it switches to "no populated planets for 7 turns in a row" ?

A player being able to send a colony ship away would need to settle it quite away from the main combat zone in order to rebuild its empire, so giving some time to do so would be more fair...

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Re: Proper lose conditions

#10 Post by Voker57 »

LienRag wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 7:11 pm What about "no populated planets or colony ships" warrants immediate defeat, and if there are colony ships it switches to "no populated planets for 7 turns in a row" ?

A player being able to send a colony ship away would need to settle it quite away from the main combat zone in order to rebuild its empire, so giving some time to do so would be more fair...
Much more complicated to implement than other suggested variants.
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Re: Proper lose conditions

#11 Post by Ophiuchus »

I did not have time to read carefully but the thread questions struck me as not helpful/too short sighted.

I think there are multiple questions which should be all addressed
  • winning/loose conditions - in the sense to determine which player/team wins formally. but hiding a single ship/colony somewhere should not make a lot of difference. I think it would be even ok if a defeated player could rebuild the empire - without being able to win anymore.
  • access to the game after defeat - probably most players would like to have a look how the game progresses further. this should not affect gameplay. e.g. a player can get vision if someone grants ally status regardless if there are any assets left or not. Maybe also see overlapping vision (e.g. commonly known info).
  • what happens to the assets of defeated players - conquerors should be able to acquire spoils of war. i think it would be good if the assets of a defeated player are harder to acquire than before admitting defeat. that would make for some interesting exit moves. on another note i would also make buildings non-scrappable by default.
I think we should look for a sensible defaults, but i think people will have very different ideas and would like to play different games, so in the end we should have different options for the assets and scriptable automatic loose conditions.
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Re: Proper lose conditions

#12 Post by Ophiuchus »

Voker57 wrote: Mon Jun 22, 2020 8:21 pm Much more complicated to implement than other suggested variants.
Thats BS
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Re: Proper lose conditions

#13 Post by o01eg »

We can check empire for 3 states.
  • Alive - empire meet all requirements to be alive, this way nothing happened with empire, and death flag is unset if it was set.
    Death Flag - empire doesn't meet all requirements to be alive but still meet some requirements to not be eliminated right away, this way death flag is set and if it was set more then N turns empire marks as eliminated.
    Eliminated - empire doesn't meet any requirements to be alive or to be rise death flag, empire is marked as eliminated.
Also we can use FOCS script alike statistics to choose state.

But I prefer to not implement death flag support in 0.4.10.
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Re: Proper lose conditions

#14 Post by Geoff the Medio »

o01eg wrote: Tue Jun 23, 2020 1:30 pmBut I prefer to not implement death flag support in 0.4.10.
Yes; for v0.4.10 there should be, as now, a simple loss condition based on the immediate gamestate. That is currently no planets owned and no ships owned. https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/pull/3068 makes it no population and no ships. The question for now is: should it be just no population, regardless of having ships or not?

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Re: Proper lose conditions

#15 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Tue Jun 23, 2020 5:45 pm
o01eg wrote: Tue Jun 23, 2020 1:30 pmBut I prefer to not implement death flag support in 0.4.10.
Yes; for v0.4.10 there should be, as now, a simple loss condition based on the immediate gamestate. That is currently no planets owned and no ships owned. https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/pull/3068 makes it no population and no ships. The question for now is: should it be just no population, regardless of having ships or not?
There are situations that could be unfair for a player without population but with ships:
- Having a strong army that can serve a purpose in the game (possible mostly in allied games, if he moved most of his army to an ally's space before losing the colonies).
- Moving a ship to an ally system to be gifted a colony.
- Having troop ships to conquer other colony.
- Maybe more.

For that, I'm against the condition of defeat when just no populated planets.

Having ships should be enough to not be automatically defeated.
The drawback of that is that a troll player could hide some scout somewhere just to annoy other players. However, I think that can be avoided by using LienRag's idea of a countdown when a empire has no population, adjustable via a game rule (so that server admin could completely disable the countdown by setting it to 0, meaning winners must kill all remaining ships, or setting it to 1 so that one turn without population is enough to force defeat).

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