Long-longturn

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Corbeau
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Long-longturn

Post by Corbeau »

With the progress of LT43 I have a feeling that the long-discussed long-longturn game is starting to emerge beyond the horizon. It's slower than standard LT and some conclusions can be made already. (For those who don't know, LLT would be a game that would be played through at least a year, probably more, even a few years have been mentioned.)

So, for now, my comments on LT43 that may be relevant for LLT.

1. This may sound strange, but I have a feeling Gunpowder actually came on too fast. It's not yet fully on, there are rumours that "a few" nations have it or may have it very soon. And as this go on, more an more will join in and things will accelerate. I'll make a wild guess that by T75 a significant number of people will have it. I think usually Gunpowder is discovered by T50 in normal LT games so this is a bit slower, but not much of a paradigm shift.

2. I think that full tech sharing compensates pretty much for bigger sci-box and that, generally, science progress is at a similar level with standard LT games. This may change as time progresses due to more expensive later techs, we'll see. Keep in mind that a more expensive tech means a bigger discount due to techleak ;)

3. The room seems to be a bit too tight. This isn't necessarily bad, I've had (and am still having) fun suppressing our local Ghengis Khan with my allies, but it did throw us back a little bit (although, actually, not as much as I feared).

So, how does this experience serve ideas for LLT.

Tech definitely needs to be even slower than in LT43 (with caveat that we are yet to enter the Age of Expensive Tech; as it is now, the game will probably end by T200, but let's wait and see).

Also, I would be VERY MUCH in favour of "tech exchange by diplomats", so no sharing through diplomacy, but instead "stealing/transferring" it by envoys. It worked in LT40, although sometimes it depended on luck too much and all the parameters weren't completely clear. But I'd definitely go with trying to lift the "one steal per city" limitation.

The main issue may be that people won't have much to do in the first stages of the game. Also, long periods between scientific discoveries may be a bit anticlimactic. So, a few ideas regarding those.

I'd introduce some more techs and buildings. Maybe decrease the effect of the current ones so that Marketplace doesn't give you 50%, but you separate it into two improvements that give 25% each, or even better, separate the Luxury and Gold effect, each one having its building.

Of course, increasing the number of improvements shouldn't go too far because, once all impovements are built, we are left with building military units with not much else to do but go forth and use them, fun for all and no huge fallback if you get entangled in a war.

(A minor detail, but for a LLT game I'd definitely introduce another tech so that with Gunpowder you get "Hand Cannoneers" (Att: 2, Def: 2, HP: 20) and only after that a tech for Musketeers)

And now for the most important part.

With a very long game, people are going to get very bored if there isn't stuff to do. This is especially true for the first few dozen turns, while there is the primary expansion, cities are small, production is low, neighbours are very scarce and there is almost no conflict. And this will get only worse in a long and slow game.

So, my first thought about fixing it was: fill the land up with AIs so that everybody has something to bash without feeling guilty, creating bad blood or throwing other people out of the game. BUT, then I got a better idea: at the beginning, every player controls MORE nations that are actually delegated to him (or something). One is his primary, while all others have a dual purpose: for their neighbours they are cannon fodder so that there is more fun, while for the player controlling them, they are the means of annoyance and slowing down his opponent without actually destroying them.

Furthermore, this would add to the historical accuracy because the land through which ancient tribes and civilizations expanded were not empty: conquest and assimilation was a regular occurrence and I feel that there is far too little of that in LT. And, again, having people control more nations in the beginning would fix this.

Eventually, of course, a number of these auxiliary nations would vanish, Primary nations would expand their territory and things would become more compact.

But maybe this approach requires a test game? How about it? Four nations per player, 150 land tiles per nation, see where it gets us?
jwrober
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Post by jwrober »

Since LT43 is my first attempt at LT I can't say much about the number of turns. I do like the current pace of play and the tech tree is following nicely. It is confirmed that some nations already have gunpowder at of T63 (and probably got it sooner before tech trading happened). That seems too early for me as its only 925BCE in the game. The concept of a game that goes for 300+ turns is interesting.

I would be in favor of making it harder to get to gunpowder/navigation so that nations are learning it closer to 250 to 500 CE (between turns 110 and 125). But to make things more fun in the interim, I think we need some different units along the way. One idea is to get a Trebuchet with Feudalism. This would be an upgraded catapult with an A: 7, D: 1, M: 3 and HP: 15. You would be able to upgrade your cat's to trebuchet's. Keep pikeman at feudalism as well. I would also give another attacking sea unit at magnetism. We can call it a Carrack and have it be an upgraded Trieme with an A: 3, D: 2, M: 9, HP: 15. Lastly I would like to see an upgradable swordsmen that we can call Legion when you get Republic. Its stats would be A: 6, D: 2, M: 3, HP: 15. These would all be good units to wage war with while we are trying to get to gunpower and then metallurgy.

I like the idea about creating smaller city improvements that break up the positive effects. I also think that we would want to look at how wonders are done. I mentioned the same in another thread.

As with Corbeau, this would give a bit more to historical accuracy as we all know there were A LOT of years with simple weapons of war.

Good Stuff!
Corbeau
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Post by Corbeau »

Actually, a Trebuchet is a good idea. But I would make it as cumbersome as possible. In reality, trebuchets weren't "units", they were devices that were assembled on the spot. regardless of the sped of units in a ruleset, I'd give Trebuchets movement=1, ignore effects of roads but also can't climb mountains and go through forests.

I'm not why would you need another attacking ship at the same time as Frigate. Generally, it's best to avoid this.

Also, we should be very careful with new units because of the icons: adding icons into a tileset is less trivial than editing rulesets (I think... well, it is for me, I tried, failed, ok, maybe it is simple, but I didn't manage it). So if there are going to be new units, they better be tied to the existing ones in some way so that they can use the same icon but then the players know that they must check which instance it is before attacking.
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Sketlux
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Post by Sketlux »

Well, as for new units: I've been working on many, many new units. I provided primarily sprites in cimpletoon for units that have been in the pipe line for years but were lacking the art. In theory we could have 14 new units. The list hasnt been updated the past weeks but you can find it here:

http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/User:JTN/ ... aringhouse

Rows complete in all 3 grafics are:

-Quinquireme
-Cog
-Junk
-Steamship
-Locomotive
-Dredger
-Icebreaker
-Container ship
-Ancient diplomat (emissary)
-Sam (Romb)
-Abrams tank (modern tank)
-Technical pick up
-Missile sub
-Dromedarii (not in the list but completed today)

Im currently working on more and have offered to provide if you ask... You can see the current status here:

http://forum.freeciv.org/f/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=90253

So if you wanna see new units with proper sprites help bringing them to the next Freeciv version. Art isnt the hold-up anymore... As always feedback is very much appreciated... (I merely get some feedback so I dont know if what Im producing is good enough or even technical correct...)

Designing a trebuchet is high on my list and will be completed in a not too distant future. As for different ships, you will find plenty of new ones in the list I just mentioned! Instead of an upgraded Swordsman a Samurai could do the trick and is also high on my list
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Sketlux
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Post by Sketlux »

Talking of the trebuchet. In my "siege unit" list are also a battering ram and siege tower. My thought behind is the following:

Battering ram:

-Kind of a medieval cruise missile that opens the wall (for a turn only? Or destroys them completely?) but in any case its a single-serving unit that can only succeed with a probability.

Siege tower:

-infantry units can attack as if the city has no walls (also single-serving? Only for one unit?)

Trebuchet:

-Stronger attack than catapult but needs to fortify before it can attack?

Just some thoughts...
Corbeau
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Post by Corbeau »

Well, more units may be fine, but I just don't feel the need for many more. The whole problem with this is that occasionally tech progress was too fast so that even in with the present number of units, they became obsolete before they got built in a sufficient quantity to start a war. So adding more would only increase this problem.

The only exception I see may be the gap before the Musketeers. In my ruleset I tried to bridge it with Militia, but I had problems with the graphics. So, if you ask me, that is the one thing that would be helpful. And yes, maybe the Trebuchet.

However, I fell that he only thing that makes sense regarding the siege class units (catapult-cannon-arty-howitzer) is that they absolutely should have the Bombard flag - only damage enemy, can't kill, but receive no damage themselves when attacking.
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Sketlux
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Post by Sketlux »

Ok. Doesnt sound too enthusiastic... Well, I guess a samurai or an arbalest could close the "musketeer gap". Arbalest is a late medieval crossbow wich would make sence in my opinion to fill the gap.

My ideas behind the new units is are following:

1. Separate military research and civilian. Making military advancement a matter of choice but for economic reasons depandant on civilian.

2. Similar units that can be researched suitable to the players needs without the need of having to research them both.(Dromedarii vs. Horseman for example)

3. Maybe give a player random unit from a pool of similar units to emulate different approaches of developement to tech around the world.

4. Introducing unit transport. I dont like the invisible sending of units via airports. I like the idea of physically transporting units via the map (Chinook, Airbus Beluga..). But also counteracting that process via antiaircraft like
the 8,8 gun, SAM, Romb and the Flakpanzer. Here the Flakpanzer could also defend himself relatively good against ground units but the romb is more effective against aircraft. SAMs could be planted like (invisible) mines around the map and prevent intrusion into your airspace.
jwrober
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Post by jwrober »

Corbeau wrote:I'm not why would you need another attacking ship at the same time as Frigate. Generally, it's best to avoid this.
You get the frigate at Navigation, same era as Gunpowder. I am suggesting we get an attacking sea unit at Magnetism when the transport Caravel comes online. E.g. an upgraded Trireme.


I like the slow movement of the trebuchet "unit". As for graphics, maybe we can update the sprites a little. Add a "T" onto the catapult and a "C" somewhere on the carrack.

I would like to consider the Legion at Republic as an upgraded swordsmen. Follows history well. Can put an "L" on the swordsmen sprite or something.
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Sketlux
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Sketlux
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