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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0022180AI War 2Gameplay IdeaNov 17, 2019 11:57 am
Reporterdonblas Assigned To 
Severityfeature 
Status newResolutionopen 
Product Version1.007 The Player/AI Arms Race Intensifies 
Summary0022180: Having the number of structures scale upwards with galaxy map size
DescriptionSure I get it, but what I'm saying is a 40 planet galaxy and a 150 planet galaxy have the same amount of AIP reduction in them, which seems to strongly discourage playing on bigger maps

No I mean, I can have 10 max. At 40 planets there are 10. At 200 planets there are 10.

Hmm, looks like the code for that is done in Core, and loads integers from XML, so no modding for me.
TagsNo tags attached.

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BadgerBadger

Nov 11, 2019 1:54 pm

manager   ~0054508

I don't think any of this code is in Core...

donblas

Nov 11, 2019 1:54 pm

developer   ~0054509

Original report from Zaeron, with comments from StarKelp, VengefulWight, and others.

Chris_McElligottPark

Nov 11, 2019 5:10 pm

administrator   ~0054517

It's something that I'd definitely be open to making scale with the galaxy size. Right now it doesn't for these specific things, but for some other things it does.

Overall I guess my feeling, though, was that you'd incur about the same amount of AIP in a large galaxy as in a small one, by nature. So having an increase in reduction might make it a lot easier on a higher-planet map if there are a lot more reducers.

Generally speaking the map size mostly determines how hard it is to get to things in general, and how spread out things are, and thus how much you can create a core empire area for yourself.

So... sure, I guess you could say that large maps are discouraged in general to some extent, in that they're inherently more challenging to do a lot of things on, since you overall aren't expected to take more planets. The AI in a global sense doesn't get any stronger from being on a larger map; it only will have more strength if you're capturing proportionately more planets. Yes it has more total ships, but a larger percentage of them will just never ever see combat.

Strategic Sage

Nov 11, 2019 7:59 pm

reporter   ~0054522

I think the scouting situation changes that a little. On the really big galaxies you pretty much have to conquer more planets, unless you want to use a ton of your hacking for scouting which would make it really hard to get a credible end-game fleet.

Chthonic One

Nov 17, 2019 11:55 am

reporter   ~0054606

All chess boards are 64 tiles, not all AI War 2 games are 80 star.

While I fully support this idea, and believe Thotimx is right about scouting, the situation is quite complicated. Also, keep in mind that now there is a deep strike response, so there's even more incentive to having it.

Say you're on an X map. Increasing the number of planets from 100 to 200 only in theory increases the number of planets you need to take for scouting by 1. Now on a spiral snake map, it increases it by an untold amount. Increasing the maximum scouted planets from 8 to whatever will also make it easier, while reducing that, or having it scout border planets only, will increase that.

Now these are all options to make it easier or harder, but it also shows how complex a problem it is. How many planets should you the player be expected to capture just to get your scouting information in a typical game? This should be our baseline.

From here, when the map is generated, before things are placed, we can now observe. How many systems will you need to take in this situation to scout the universe? Is it more or less than a typical game ? Is it because you chose an option to make it harder on yourself? These are the questions we can ask ourselves at this point in map generation to decide on how many AIP reducers to place.

Here are some of the problems we need to consider for such a change:
1. What is the expected number of planets one would need to scout the universe?
2. How much of a difficulty increase is it to need to capture 1 extra planet over expected for your scouting information?
3. Should this change with map style, or are certain maps simply expected to be easier or harder?
4. How do we model the scouting options? Do they have any effect on this at all, as they could be seen as directly adjusting the difficulty?
5. Do we just make more data centers, or do we wish to add more major data centers, or scale the coprocessors as well?
6. How do we deal with the science and hacking points? Do we scale that back in response to the larger map?
7. Could we instead introduce a new project that consumes science and/or hacking points to provide AIP reduction similar to the super terminal that only appears on the larger maps?
8. Could we scale AIP cost for taking a planet similar to option 6, and possibly in addition to 6?
9. Could we scale scouting with the map size to try to ensure a lower AIP cost?

I can't think of any more questions at this point, but we should explore this topic, as it has some definite balance implications, and could have a more elegant solution than just adding more AIP reducers. After all, AIP reducing only helps so much. After a while, you're stuck on the floor but still at a MkIII response.

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
Nov 11, 2019 1:53 pm donblas New Issue
Nov 11, 2019 1:54 pm BadgerBadger Note Added: 0054508
Nov 11, 2019 1:54 pm donblas Note Added: 0054509
Nov 11, 2019 5:10 pm Chris_McElligottPark Note Added: 0054517
Nov 11, 2019 7:59 pm Strategic Sage Note Added: 0054522
Nov 17, 2019 11:55 am Chthonic One Note Added: 0054606