See that sounds like a good idea!

Currently I think that level 1 cities don't cost food at all. So you can make endless cities with +1 gold, +1 mat, +1 tech, +1 arcane. All of which no upkeep nothing. (For Empire)

Although I'm still minded that terrain should affect something (see reply #25).

In general, the reasoning behind some terrain stuff is that in general, you the Sovereign, are using your power to 'clean up' the wastelands and making it habitable and usable. Note that when you build on arctic terrain, the terrain changes from arctic to grassland (or fallen).

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On a humourous level, it would depend on the hill/forest versus the desert. Some hills don't have anything useful and some forests don't have the sort of wood needed for practical use. This is the idea behind old growth forests; a tree that is 5 years old doesn't provide usable material at all. On a serious and abstract level, sure... but it also discounts that materials is such an abstract concept. You can draw usable material from many places not just hills and forests. It's not that I don't agree that terrain should play some factor, I just think we can make something more interesting.

Humourously, it depends on the efficiency of the government, rate of taxes, and what exactly you're taxing. Considering you draw every unit from the general population, taxes may be less important than an oath of military service. It also depends on the population; a bunch of peasants are going to be more likely to pay you in food rather than money. Serious level, that's the idea behind specialization/level up bonuses.

The housing will be different but the usable space will be pretty much the same. I've lived in both cold and hot climates; the major difference is behavior -not- housing. I don't burn more wood in cold places; I dress warmer. And many materials will insulate just fine so you don't need a constant fire. Snow, for instance, makes really good insulation. 

As to the city example... no, I wouldn't agree. Not in context of a fantasy world. In a fantasy world, you can have a metropolis in the middle of a desert with Aladdin and Jasmine running around... when there's no river or other source of water nearby. That you can have cities made of ice and gold. That you can have a 'kingdom' be little more than a guy on a hill in the middle of the plains. That you can have massive old growth forests with sentient trees living in it that also doesn't have a major city near by that uses it for lumber. I think Elemental has logic... but it's fantasy troll logic. I think this is the feel that they are trying to make. However, I will agree that this requires that the usual 4X player suspend their disbelief more than normal to accommodate an atypical setting.

Again, I don't necessarily disagree that terrain shouldn't have some role. I don't think it playing such a major role really suits it. I'd rather have the game be "Elemental is like MoM or Civ but..." rather than "Elemental is MoM or Civ, period". I'd rather have the game have it's own unique aesthetic and appeal rather than be a generic fantasy world with 4X mechanics. I'd rather allow the fantastic cities we see in fantasy even if it doesn't make as much real world sense because in fantasy words, terrain plays a role because it's interesting not because it's realistic. I'd rather see a game mechanic that guided these aesthetics and worked rather than the gameplaying saying one thing and the fiction saying the other.

Now, this also doesn't mean Civ style terrain bonuses don't work. They could work for Elemental. But I don't think they would work 'as-is'; they'd need to be changed heavily to fit what Elemental is going for and likely, other mechanics. Food and manpower are supposedly the limiting factor in the game; having to apply manpower to things and having to balance people dying with people immigranting/birthing based on terrain, that would allow for terrain to start to play a role in Elemental without just being "Hills = Hammers".

Hi Sagittary,

Although I respect your opinion, and agree with some of your ideas. I have a feeling that you are arguing from both sides of the fence at once. You'll make real world comparisons to proof your point, then you'll say that real world logic does not apply. I mean, you can't have it both ways. Well, actually you can if you want. But I think I'll abstain from debating any further.

In any case, I guess I did have a skewed perception of what elemental is and will be. I'm an old man, and played 4X games since I was a wee lad. So I guess I have these concepts ingrained to strongly that I'm fighting to adapt to this new way of doing things.

Again thanks for all the feedback and pardon this old mans folly. Maybe it's one of my first "I'm too old for this Sh!t" moments.

LOL

Regards,

V

I think a good system would be this:

If you put down a city where there are no resources at all, and don't set up a trade caravan to supply it, each level that the city is should produce -1 food, and -1 materials.  That would begin to eat away at your growth if you continued to build like that, and it would make you think more about food and materials resources before you build.

What I'm saying is that yes, Civ-style works. The humour bits were suppose to be humour. However, while it works for Civilization, it does not work for Elemental, a fantasy game. As much as it would be nice to represent a bit of realism (however you want to mimic it), ultimately, Elemental is a work base on fantasy. And while we can apply -some- realism to the game, we can not apply pure realism to it. Look at the arguments on champions - in no way is it realistic for one person to take out an army (not without very special circumstances) but that's what people expect out of the fantasy genre. They expect that one guy can literally walk onto a battlefield and hack 42 people up on his own with no allies around. They expect a certain level of cinematic reality rather than pure reality.

In the same fashion, cities in the fantasy genre do not follow realistic rules, not entirely. Most of the time, writers of fantasy don't consider how a city the size of New York gets water... when the city is on the top of a mountain. These are realistic considerations and would be realistic system to model. But ignores the fantastical nature of the setting.

The realism I use in my examples is to demonstrate two things. The first is that such models aren't perfect and can be as gamey as they are accurate; they don't necessarily promote terrain usage just game usage. As such, they also tend not to encourage the sort of wacky cities we see and that's the second point. Would it be a good system? Yes. Would it be a realistic system? Yes. Would it model the fantasy genre? No, not particularly.

A terrain system that, instead of mimicking resources in a realistic sense, modeled fantasy elements that pertain to Elemental, that would be a better system that supports the fiction and enhances the ideas the game is trying to promote.

It's not (entirely) about being that stupid kid that needs to get off your lawn. It's about applying the systems of old and making them fit into a new situation. It's about not just being a fan, it's about being a designer. Most games honestly don't make new stuff up so much as just use it in interesting ways. It's that that makes a game standout and feel unique rather than merely derivative or evolutionary.

There's no reason that X-Com doesn't work as a game. But you certainly wouldn't replace all the graphics of X-Com with elves and swords and assume that you could pass it off as a fantasy game (at least, not without some tweaking...). It wouldn't fit and wouldn't really represent certain aspects. You couldn't take a super hero MMO, replace the graphics with sci-fi trappings, and expect it to work in the new setting. It's still all good mechanics... it just doesn't fit the new situation.

I don't blame you for feeling odd. It's the conflict between the needs of the 4X genre and the needs of being fresh. As a 4X player, you expect certain things and certain conventions. It's always a balance between designing something to be a good game, designing something to backup the intended feel, and designing something that appeals to what the audience expects and wants.

@ Sagittary

Alright,

I never advocated the fact that I wanted Elemental to be a life simulator. If anything, you are the one that kept pushing my ideas further. For example when I talked about it being logical that the Labor Pit would give more material if placed near a forest/hills. And then you debated about wheter or not minerals where present or if the trees where old enough. I mean, let's not get carried away here. You even start talking about city infrastructure...

This is the part I feel you took the conversation and went off road. How is asking if terrain could affect cities have to do with comparing XCOM with a Fantasy TBS? If anything you are the one who said how the SR-Dependent city model in Elemental is "meant" to behave/emulate like the planets in GalCiv2. It's not like the concept I was referring to came from a completely different genre and was never applied to a fantasy setting. Elemental IS a 4X game (with extra stuff).

The only point I was trying to make, I can't believe I'm saying it again, is that I just wanted  to see terrain have "some kind" of effect. That's all. Never specified to which extent, nor did I want the game to become into a realistic city builder. I think there is a game for that.

In any case, I thought I had said it in my last post... but I didn't, Terrain does revert to "Fallen" land as you place your settlements. So there isn't any "Arctic" city because it just turns into Fallen Land. Only Forest, hills and mountains remain. So for the major part, this whole discussion is partially irrelevant.

Let's just say that I feel the current city model borrows more from an RTS than a TBS. Buildings function the same regardless of terrain, city/base placement is solely focus on resource nodes and strategic choke points. I think this is a bit why it's feeling a little odd when thinking of things like Influence and mobs spawning. In an RTS it's fine that you have 1 base far away from another, there are no mechanics to start messing with that. And the AI will most definitely not start buildings bases in all the free land it sees. (There is no point to it) It's not the case in elemental, I think the 2 styles of base/city building come into conflict in a TBS setting.

So, Sagittary, I applaud your cunning use of rhetoric, feels good seeing somebody actually debating his points rather then just going into character assassination or plainly say "But it's a stupid idea". I have to say that you did exaggerate/misinterpret some of my qualms with the current system, not sure if it was on purpose to better justify your point, or because I poorly explained myself. (I have to say I had a hard time narrowing down what was my main issue with the current system.)

Just to end things with a touch of clarity. I never wanted for the whole city building system to get flipped upside down, nor did I want to take Civilization and put fantasy skin on it. I just wanted to take inspiration from great 4X games and try to see if some of it could fit inside Elemental.

Thanks for the epic feedback,

V

Short form: Taking the Civ-style system and putting it into Elemental does not make it any more evocative and expressive of the mechanics and aesthetics of the game than taking chess and replacing the pieces with characters from Lord of the Rings does no more to make chess about Middle-Earth.

A Civ-style system can work. It just can't work -as is-. It would need to be changed and tweaked to suit the intended game design. In Civ, it's not a matter of resources - it's a matter of speed of production because everything is always producing. As such, terrain produces resources. In Elemental, it's is about resources and their availability. As such, terrain would need not to produce resources but something else - manpower for instance or housing limitations. The same basic system can work (X tile produces Y thing)... but we have to relate that system to Elemental.

$.02

When I initially read the back story (ravaged land, yadda yadda, we're all post-apocalyptic fantasy peasants with hoes) I imagined a kind of mechanic like Alpha Centauri. i.e. Tile improvement would be a core feature. In AC, you literally have to prune back the native flora to get workable bases (at first). Instead, rare food resources (ok, player only, the AI doesn't have this limitation) determine at least starting cities (caravans, later on make this less important). At the moment, barring certain specials, there's literally no distinction (aka strategy) in infrastructure planning of towns.

I also expected there to be at least some type of stab at an "ecology" rating (whether it be the good guys increasing it, or the bad guys hoovering up dangerous radioactive fall-out mana to use for evil things) and it be purposeful for your strategy. The land "greenifies / falls", but I expected to be much more involved in the process.

Meh.

EDIT:

Following a discussion with sagittary, it appears we didn't understand each other properly and to some extent agree with each other. So no need for this post, for all is cleared up.

Now... back to the subject at hand

V

Shorter form: I am agreeing with you (terrain should have an effect).

As of this writing, we only have one model of reference (Civilization) therefore it is the only model we can refer to as to using terrain. But I am disagreeing with that - not with you - as a matter of reference; I disagree that the Civilization model and implementation should be used.

What I am not getting - terrain needs to be used/not used - is not what you seem to think I'm not getting.

If you can suggest a means of using terrain - any means - that is something to talk about. The debate isn't about whether or not using terrain is right or wrong or whether Civilization is right or wrong. The debate is that we don't actually have a suggestion to work with. We have an idea (use terrain!) but that does not yet translate into anything we can call a game mechanic.

That's what I'm asking. How would you make terrain matter in a method that would suit the design of Elemental?

That is, we have the constraints that Elemental is resource-poor, that it is technology-poor, that it is a fantasy world, and that, as Del suggests, that certain aspects (improvements, recovering the land), are a core aspect of this and thus need to be respected.

What changes do we make or what system do we use that will fit those requirements?  I am trying to poke your brain to see what ideas you have.

I'm not looking for for a fight. I'm not looking to challenge you or your conceptions. I'm looking for ideas.

You're assuming that because I'm discussing with you that I'm 'against' you and that I'm assuming Civilization (and against that).

Civ is just a reference and just an example. That is, Civ does X. Okay, well, if we take X and add Y then subject Z, maybe that will work. No? Well let's try method A. Does it work for what we want to achieve? No? Add B. So on and so forth.

I am poking you, the slumbering giant, not to be a dick and act obtuse, but to see what dreams you're thinking about. I want to know how you would do things beyond the broad strokes of K. I'm trying to get you to brainstorm when you answer me because until and unless you return ideas and rational of a system, the only thing I can do is keep asking you what you want and how you envision that.

Because to me, saying "We need X" or "Let's make a 4X game" is a meaningless statement. I am looking for something more than that. When you say "We need X", I ask "Why?" because I want to know what you envision.

Because chances are, when you say X, there is a whole lot of references and gameplay and what have you that goes with it that that isn't being communicated. I don't know that thought processes. I don't know how you see the game playing. I just have a statement that encompasses all that. 

And when you return something, I will ask why again. Not because it's bad or wrong but because these are the questions that need to be asked. Players will ask "Why this" or "Why that". If something works a certain way but other things work in other ways, players will see that. If we make something one way but players are looking for something else, we need to be able to ask ourselves what the players are looking for and what we're not doing. If only part of something isn't working, then I will disagree with that specific part. If all of it isn't working, then I will disagree with the whole.

Frankly, whether we use one model or another, it doesn't matter to me as long as we're willing to ask ourselves if it works for the game we're making. If we can ask questions and it all still works, great! If not, we change things or use something different.

I say all this not to be condescending or patronizing. I say it because I am apparently not being clear in my desire to ask you what you're thinking.

Hey Sagittary, You commented in one of my earlier post that it seemed I had changed my perception on wheter terrain should be used to an effect.

Given the fact that terrain all converts to Fallen/Grassland (Empire / kingdom), we have to "rule out" any type of "city bonus/limitations" related to, deserts, swamps and artic. As only moutains, hills and forests remain following the land mutation.

Maybe there could be a few interesting concepts to visit:

(Terraforming the land for your Empire/Kingdom)

A little "history" / mise en scene:

* In earlier games it apparently cost you essence points to change the face of the land in order to be able to build on it. I think Frogboy's logic was that losing essence points was rather drastic. I agree that losing essence is a little too much.

* People have been complaining that expansion in the game is way to quick. (I love land rushes in early on in 4X Games, but I guess it's not for everyone)

* This being a 4X game, I think we should find a way to make terrain matter one way or the other. Or to find a way to tie in Terrain & Game mechanics while respecting the Elemental universe.

Concept:

It would be nice to see somekind of benefit/consequence/requirement about changing the face of the land before OR after you build your settlement/Buildings. Without it being too severe as opposed to being completely "free" and inconsequential.

Example A )

Before you can build your city, you'll need to cast a spell 'Infuse' the square where you wish you build your new settlement with a spell that will make it change to your faction's terran type. Rather than be able to build anywhere at anytime. One could also make so that, you CAN build on a square that has not been converted, but you would suffer penalties like 'less prestige, slower production, etc...'.

In this way, depending on if or not the city was built on "fallen" land, it will determine some limitations of the city. (50% prestige, population cap, building tiles cap?)

Example B )

After building your city, your area of influence slowly (overtime) starts converting squares of land to your faction and will allow you to build on those squares only. (Or do like in example A, buildlings built on non kingdom specific terrain will receive penalties to their intended purposes. Increased upkeep?)

We could have a building designed to help speed that process, or your caster could maintain a spell on that city to speed up the process. Or "even better" make a "shaman" unit that has to go to a land square and make prayers/sacrifices/incantations so to bring the land to your kingdom/empire's side. This could introduce a Good vs Evil fight for land, and you could have spells that you could use to "attack" your opponents, by changing the land near their cities, making them pay more upkeep or whatever detrimental effect we can come up with.

Conclusion:

This type of idea would probably satisfy some of the issues with land/city rushing, as yeah... you could spread quickly, but you wont' be able to do so without economic or detrimental effects. So taking your time, and making sure you properly "convert" the land will prove beneficial. (Things should be balanced so that rushing will never be as good as someone who takes the time to nurse his cities. We have to make sure that it's not tipped on the other side either, where having 1 city is sufficient to win. :))

To deal with "city spamming", there could an be 'Empire' & 'Kingdom' "Terraforming/infusing/cleansing/corruption magical towers" that could be build outside your influence, and slowly converting the land around them AND spreading your influcence slowly. That way you could link the influence of your distant cities with a series of outpost. This would remove the need to put a city in every square inch so that the AI dosen't jump on it it would also help with mobs that attack your caravans in between cities. These towers could be required extra upkeep during conversion times, and dwindle down with time. So that it couldn't allow some one to spam them, as they would choke themselves with upkeep.

This could also add an interesting element to enemy conquest. Should you conquering a member of the opposite alignment (Kingdom <-> Empire) then extra time would be needed to convert the land back to barren, and back to your own terrain. This would make wars longer as one couldn't spread fast, for he'd end up with cities "costing him, money/mana/wtvr" or that city could be extremely unproductive. I think it would be really nice to see this good land vs bad land front, where you are trying to convert the world to your image.

Hell this could even be a new victory condition, (covert more than 75% to Fallen / Graslands) Since we are apparently trying to rebuild the world.

This could also create an interesting dynamic, although you have good political relations with members of your allegiance (Empire / Kingdom), you would have an insentive on wanting to conquer their lands, as they already are 'Fallen / Grasslands'.

Before I just keep going i'll leave it at here for now, and see what the feedback sounds like.

Keep on sharing your ideas people!

Thanks,

V