suggestion box - CW edition

[ixnay]

I have run into the same trouble repeatedly. While I agree that a certain amount of player error can enhance the game and contribute to the Fog of War, there comes a point where the unforgiving interface can doom someone to dust. And since this is a play-test, this is a good time to make suggestions like this.

I would also add some more suggestions for Vern:

1. Can we make this a 1-week turnaround instead of 2-week? I am schedule-challenged to begin with, and it would actually be easier for me to stay on-schedule if it ran weekly.

2. Will there be a second test game starting up at any point? I have made so many mistakes this game that I would love to run a new position the "right way". I don't know how labor-intensive this is for you, so feel free to shoot this down.

3. Tech levels seem to be going up too vigorously. At this point, I am making close to 30M research per turn, which is letting me jump old techs up very quickly. Maybe this is a feature? Maybe raising certain techs becomes ineffective due to the law of diminishing returns? I don't know. I remember reading hints of Energy-weapon-60 last game, and thinking maybe this was going too far or too fast. Maybe tech level costs should go up faster?

4. Was there ever a point where factory groups could enjoy an economy of scale? Like if you have at least 100k factories building something, they get a 10% discount? Or you could give them a small-but-growing discount the longer they make something?

5. Given that it takes 4 turns to produce a good out of a factory, I think it should take 4 turns to build the hull of a ship, depending on the size.

6. I still think hydroponic farms should consume life support capacity. Besides, life support (along with automation) becomes an early-game production end-zone. If you produce enough LFS (or AUT) to support, say, triple your current population, then you never need to make it again. Making Farms depend on LFS would keep LFS in the supply chain.

7. There ought to be an "armor" thing, at least for ships and orbiters.

8. Same thing for fighters. We ought to be able to build space fighters and carriers.

9. Same thing for space mines, automated weapons platforms, cloaking devices, etc. -- all the typical sci-fi ship technologies from the space operas.

[jwsosus]

I have to disagree with some of these points, as well as the previous message.

I don't mean this as any sort of personal offense to anyone, but if you need an error checker, then create one. I'm not a programmer, so I couldn't pursue it that way, but I ended up creating a spreadsheet in excel to verify my production resource needs, including PRO and AUT/USK. I also have one to verify adequate CNW and TPT capacity. Sure, it takes a while to enter the data, and for some reason, I haven't been able to get the resource needs exact, but it puts me in the ballpark.

For the other points:
1 - 1 one week turn around would knock me out of the game due to my amount of time commuting.
2 - I had this feeling too. I don't regret my start, but certainly see ways to improve it in hindsight. I'd love another test game.
3 - They do seem to be going up much faster than in the previous playtest game, but I don't know about going exponential.
4 - Challenging enough without adding that in. Interesting idea, but we're not creating a simulation. Also, as FCT TLs go up, groups may get smaller just due to a lack of need to so much output.
5 - Colonizing is already slow enough. Don't want to make it slower.
6 - Heavily disagree here. If anything, hydroponic farms are a form of LFS, as they add oxygen and humidity to the environment. Again, this isn't meant to be a simulator. If I were to suggest anything, it would be the opposite - eliminate FOOD and FRM and the 5-turn cache. But, that would be changing the basic game mechanics, which I disagree with doing, so I don't suggest it. FOOD and CNGD do serve as the driver for malcontents and rebels, police and SAGs, and I haven't thought of a better way to do that.
7 - there is. You could use STR-2 instead of LTS/SLS, and you could pack your ship with FOOD.
8 - fighters can exist, but the combat formulae don't permit them to be effective.
9 - It's a great game, do we need to change it?

[ixnay]

I don't mean this as any sort of personal offense to anyone, but if you need an error checker, then create one. I'm not a programmer, so I couldn't pursue it that way, but I ended up creating a spreadsheet in excel to verify my production resource needs, including PRO and AUT/USK. I also have one to verify adequate CNW and TPT capacity. Sure, it takes a while to enter the data, and for some reason, I haven't been able to get the resource needs exact, but it puts me in the ballpark.

I am on the fence. I see the fog-of-war stuff. It should be relatively straightforward to check ones orders. And player errors are made in just about every PBM game I have ever heard of. But if, in this case, the player is prone to such errors that they don't want to play, then it's not good. Maybe SOME of the error-checking suggestions could be implemented, or maybe we should just share some good spreadsheet tools.

1 - 1 one week turn around would knock me out of the game due to my amount of time commuting.
2 - I had this feeling too. I don't regret my start, but certainly see ways to improve it in hindsight. I'd love another test game.
3 - They do seem to be going up much faster than in the previous playtest game, but I don't know about going exponential.
4 - Challenging enough without adding that in. Interesting idea, but we're not creating a simulation. Also, as FCT TLs go up, groups may get smaller just due to a lack of need to so much output.
5 - Colonizing is already slow enough. Don't want to make it slower.
6 - Heavily disagree here. If anything, hydroponic farms are a form of LFS, as they add oxygen and humidity to the environment. Again, this isn't meant to be a simulator. If I were to suggest anything, it would be the opposite - eliminate FOOD and FRM and the 5-turn cache. But, that would be changing the basic game mechanics, which I disagree with doing, so I don't suggest it. FOOD and CNGD do serve as the driver for malcontents and rebels, police and SAGs, and I haven't thought of a better way to do that.
7 - there is. You could use STR-2 instead of LTS/SLS, and you could pack your ship with FOOD.
8 - fighters can exist, but the combat formulae don't permit them to be effective.
9 - It's a great game, do we need to change it?

1 - wouldn't want anyone to drop the game!

2 - the main problem with restarting would be for those people who are actually happy with their positions. we have all invested hours into this game, so it might suck for them to restart. anyone else want to chime in here?

3 - the high tech expansion might be mitigated by the fact that upgrading from Energy Weapon 59 to Energy Weapon 60 doesn't significantly upgrade performance (36000 damage up from 34810 damage - 3.4% bump), while costing 59M research.

4 - I could have sworn that in some earlier version of EC factory groups did get a quantity discount. Anyway, this wouldn't add much complexity -- it would just add incentive to dedicate production lines, and cost to retool.

5 - I hear you. But expounding on this, instead of making ship hulls take longer to build, what about making different products take different lengths of time to build? For instance, Consumer Goods could be produced in one turn, while hyper engines could require 8 turns. This would probably cause so much recoding as to be impossible, but I thought I'd throw it out there. Another option -- what about making ship hulls static, once built? So that it's expensive or impossible to expand or shrink a ship?

6 - Farms presumably include livestock, which causes pollution. And everything needs clean water, which can be considered part of LFS. As for removing food/farming from the game, sure, that's possible. Basically you could abstract away all the needs of your population, and just have to pay maybe a maintenance cost in terms of "resource points" to maintain ship/colonies, population, etc. But that might just make this game like most other space empire games, and diminish the awesome supply-chain planning and tactile sci-fi feel of CW.

7 - Yes. You can simulate armor by using STUN and FOOD. To me, that's a hack. I'd rather see an armor option. With tech levels.

8 - Fighters? The size and scope of production goods that go into a space-drive, a weapons rack, life support, etc, looks more like corvettes or gunboats than fighters. Plus the whole food thing. I just always like using fighters in other games, and think it would add a new weapons platform dimension to the two we have (beams and missiles).

9 - I will concede that we don't need to make CW more like other games. So no, we don't necessarily need cloaking devices. But each new game seems to have a few new items or rules-tweaks, so it's worth brainstorming. Beamers and Robot Probes have added to the game, in my humble opinion, and they are new.

[Ramblurr]

but if you need an error checker, then create one.

I find this PoV frankly, insulting to players, and indicative of the exact mindset in PBM gaming that led to its stagnation, decline, and potential failure as a mode of gaming in the modern world.

PBM interfaces were obtuse and not user-friendly in the past because it was a limitation of the medium. This limitation no longer applies.

What is the game about? Is it a game of Interstellar exploration, colonization and conquest? Or is it game about creating programs and spreadsheet to model data with a space empire theme? The latter sounds like a fun university project for data modeling or programming courses, not a game.

Unless the obtuseness is a game mechanic, it should be smoothed out as much as possible given the medium.

[jwsosus]

Again, I did not mean to offend anyone, and I stated that up front. I recognized that I had the same need, and I found a way to take care of it that worked for me to a certain extent. Some of the current and previous players in the game are/were programmers, and found ways to create programs that met their needs. I'm not a programmer.

As far as what is the game about, that includes planning, detailed production, resource use, and population dynamics - it is NOT a typical 4X game. Different people like different details in their games, and EC/CW is one of a very few that are made for people who like this detail. There are many games that meet the typical non-detailed 4X mechanism, and frankly, many of them have now gone visual for playing either in a real-time, or in short-time turn based format. People who like that format have many other places to look, and typically either don't look, or don't stay with EC/CW. I love the concept of PBM games, but there aren't many out there that have a mechanism that appeals to me.

I will grant that the order writer allows for huge, or even catastrophic mistakes, errors, or fat-fingers. I recognize that an error checker would be helpful, but didn't want to pressure the moderator to deal with it in the short term, as he is correcting other details. I do have to say that the moderator has been equitable about fixing the things that are truly catastrophic to a player's position, and letting you learn from the lesser ones. I myself have said in the past that one should be defeated by other players, and not by the order writer. While I still agree with that statement, I try to play more carefully now.

As far as what may have led to a decline in PBM players, I think you might find that many left because of age, some left because of cost (although running a game costs money), and the younger generations can play many games for free, or can play games (for money even) that offer more instant gratification rather than requiring the patience that goes with the PBM format.

[Pool Boy]

I would like to see Beamers capable of transporting people. Either only once you reach a certain tech level, or separately having to research it. And maybe only then can you beam them in system, and only max orbital distance of say, Beamer tech level divided by 10.

It would also be nice to develop HEN/BEamers, where you could beam things between systems, again either separately researched, or only when you receive a high tech level. And then you can only beam, say and 1/2 or 1/3 the range of your HEN tech.

Just some ideas.

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

ASC can fly, right? Why can't they transport themselves instead of using TPT capacity? Historically, real combat aircraft have been both shipped and flown to combat zones. I understand it is cheaper to ship them due to fuel constraints, but the military just doesn't sit back and wait for a cab!

[The Dread Pirate Roberts]

Conditional orders.

For anyone who ever had an OBC end up in the wrong tactical coordinates (like I did) or had a ship JMP out of system before it was ready, no explanation is needed.

IF "S1234,TMV,0,0,0" {
S1234,STP,OBC
list of stuff
}

IF "S1234,DOC,C1234" {
C1234,LOAD,stuff
S1234,JMP,8,3,9
}

Do you know what I mean?

[Roy Bean]

I WANT A TURN PREVIEW RESULTS CAPABILITY -- NOW!

Basically, I want to see if the orders I have crafted, as entered, will screw anything up in my plans when the turn is run. While I am sure this is not an easy thing to do, IT WOULD ENHANCE THE EXPERIENCE GREATLY for me at least.

Nothing makes me want to drop this game more than when I realize I have yet again made a crapload of mistakes mainly due to miscalculating TPT capacity, or LFS capacity, or that I won't have any food on a ship, or crap like that. Or turn sequencing. There should be an EASIER way to re-do orders that are in a bad sequence than deleting the out of ordered set of say, ASSEMBLE orders and re-entering them all in the order so you can prioritize what gets done first without having to re-enter a bunch of orders.

Theres should at least be a WARNINGS TAB in the interface showing you all of your failed orders (and reason code), places where you lost a lot of POP, ships with no/low FUEL (or LFS, or food, etc). Where rebel activity has increased. All of this should be in ONE TAB, maybe color coded in RED or yellow depending on the severity of the problem area.

There is a Move button in the Order Writer. Select an order, click the Move button, an entry box appears, enter the new order number, click ok.

---

but if you need an error checker, then create one.

I find this PoV frankly, insulting to players, and indicative of the exact mindset in PBM gaming that led to its stagnation, decline, and potential failure as a mode of gaming in the modern world.

PBM interfaces were obtuse and not user-friendly in the past because it was a limitation of the medium. This limitation no longer applies.

What is the game about? Is it a game of Interstellar exploration, colonization and conquest? Or is it game about creating programs and spreadsheet to model data with a space empire theme? The latter sounds like a fun university project for data modeling or programming courses, not a game.

Unless the obtuseness is a game mechanic, it should be smoothed out as much as possible given the medium.

Just so you know, the official plan is to add an order test feature. It will allow players to submit orders for testing which will return a report of what would go wrong.

[sfatula]

My suggestion is people play the game to actually try and win! It's supposed to be an individual game, what I see is everyone banding together with all their friends in some mega alliance. Gee, real hard to do well if 80% of the players in the game are in the same alliance. That's risking it.

Talked to Vern about this already. I guess in a real game, this would not happen if you cannot intentionally join the same game. But where's the sporting in this game!? I guess it's "safer". So much for newbies though.

Playing anonymously has shown me a lot about how that works. Which is what I was trying to test, how much do pre game friends come into play? Basically, the entire game is being decided by it. So, it needs to change before going to real games. Would never join such a game as is. It's ridiculous.

Not sure why it's so difficult to attack someone you know. It's a game! Mix it up. Try and win individual victory.