ckessel

Join Date 01/2008

+15

Secret victory conditions

Heh, just earlier I was thinking "Sheesh people, the game isn't even beta for 6-8 months. Give them a shot at what they want to create first before spewing ideas."

And yet, here I am spewing.

One of my favorite PBM games, Alamaze, had secret victory conditions. Every kingdom in the game has a random (though tailored to the kingdom somewhat) secret victory condition in addition to the normal ones, though secret was the typical way to win and a "normal" win was considered a total ass kicking.

I think something like that might be cool in a 4X game. Rather than the same old goals, you'd have winning goals slightly shifted each game. In Alamaze, you could "research" an opponents secret victory condition, so if you got suspicious about someone say, spreading into a million villages, but staying away from powerful towns and cities, you might research and see if they had some sort of secret "ubiquitous presence" type victory condition.

Brad has already talked about multiple paths to victory in Elemental and that military is only one means. I think making part of that victory condition hidden (but researchable) might provide a real boost to the tension and give you a reason to never quite ignore some middling power kingdom that's behaving a little oddly. It'd also be an aspect of "spying", if the game has that, or the creation of a unit or hero ability or spell or some such to gain that special info.

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There's some hope, as they've already got the "player-specific" quest victory thing going:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/329219

3. The mechanics in Elemental are a bit different than the typical 4X game because even in terms of warfare, there are very different paths. For instance, Player A may have a huge army ready to steamroll but Player B may have an incredibly powerful sovereign who can wipe out vast armies and Player C may have built up an incredible well of mana that can be used to decimate vast swaths of the world and all three of these things could come together at once based on which path players take and of course all 3 could lose to Player D who wins through the quest victory condition if they're not careful.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/926/926924p1.html

While this is a strategy game, it will have a storyline. You'll play as a hero character that has an epic quest to accomplish (think of something along the lines of having to throw the One Ring into Mount Doom); the completion of this epic quest can win the game. However, there are other heroes who have epic quests of their own to complete. You know the quest status of the other heroes, and they know your status, so it's a race to completion.

Not quite secret victory conditions, but that is a good idea. For balance purposes It might have to be an on/off game-config option that turns off the part of your screen that tells you about the quest progress of other players. I imagine the devs cringe every time they hear the words "make it an option", but I don't think that one would be an overly massive headache.

Oh, andas far as not spewing ideas at this point, remember that they did ask for it

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One idea would be giving a player a much harder secret goal than their public goal(s). That'd give the player a choice between going for the easier and faster goal knowing that they'll face increasing opposition with every step or going for a tricky goal but not having to face the diplomatic problems. That would be an interesting choice.

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Quoting xthetenth,

reply 2

Yea. Or a hybrid, such as a military victory requires X accomplished, which is a publicly known condition for any player. In addition though, there are some secret hidden provisions you need to fulfill as well. If you're, say, the Death army for example, maybe you also have to have completed some particular heinous goals like have razed towns or completed a "free the demon" quest or something.

Given it sounds like heroes have their own agenda, perhaps your hidden requirements come in the form of the heroes you take on. If you take Sir Galahad into your employ, then he requires you find the holy grail before you can claim victory.

The cool thing about the secret victory clauses in Alamaze was the change from game to game. One time it might require high gold levels, another might require certain artifacts. You couldn't necessarily expect the path you took to victory last time would be well suited to your victory conditions the next game.

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This kind of idea doesn't really work against the AI, I'd imagine. The idea of secrecy is after all a thing that mostly relates to human players. But it would certainly be a nice touch in a multiplayer game.

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I think such a things would add a layer of intrigue but it would have to be implemented correctly or it would ruin the game fundamentally.

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Quoting Tiavals,

reply 4

Yea, there's have to be a relatively small set of hidden conditions if the AI is going to understand it. Or, emphasis of core elements (X types of certain cities/buildings/heroes/artifacts) such that you can program the AI to tilt a little in favor towards that facet.

Rapidly divergent or unique conditions would be really tough to program an AI to try an accomplish.

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Quoting ckessel,

reply 6

Quoting Tiavals, reply 4This kind of idea doesn't really work against the AI, I'd imagine. The idea of secrecy is after all a thing that mostly relates to human players. But it would certainly be a nice touch in a multiplayer game.

Yea, there's have to be a relatively small set of hidden conditions if the AI is going to understand it. Or, emphasis of core elements (X types of certain cities/buildings/heroes/artifacts) such that you can program the AI to tilt a little in favor towards that facet.

Rapidly divergent or unique conditions would be really tough to program an AI to try an accomplish.

Maybe that extra AI processing can be done by another CPU core, as Core 2's are now widely available, but if you used this as a option for enhanced secret victory conditions there should be a off toggle so single core players could play the game too.

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