Industrial Revolution

[Chris]

Theme: Industrial revolution, imperialism, colonialism, 18-19 century.

Mechanic: The most important asset is land which is obtained via exploration (at the beginning) and conquest (later). The more land you have the more buildings you can construct. Buildings are the base of economy and are extremely important.

Time: Rounds 1-3 months, turns given daily, turns processed by pressing EndTurn button (ticks are only for giving turns, not processing them, if player does not press the button nothing is produced/happens)


Here is a prototype (single player, no register or stuff) to test the economic part.
http://worldoflords.com/misc/games/industrialrevolution.php

For now I want to forge the economic part, army building, research, leaving players interaction for later. The project is at the early design stage, so I'm open to heavy gameplay changing suggestions (as long as the "get land, construct buildings" remains as primary mechanic).


Readings:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism (you play the role of European power, I wonder about inclusion of "new world" territories to allow resource exploitation and accessing new markets for industrial goods)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_colonialism (I lean slightly toward exploitation of lesser nations rather than full scale colonisation)

[Chris]

Braaains! I need brains

Don't tell me you are so deprived of ideas you can't share anything...

[dsheroh]

Time: Rounds 1-3 months, turns given daily, turns processed by pressing EndTurn button (ticks are only for giving turns, not processing them, if player does not press the button nothing is produced/happens)

Pressing the "End Turn" button daily is not an interesting decision.  Don't force players to do things which are so completely automatic, just process the turns daily and get rid of the meaningless button.

I suspect your intention is to have the button as a way of making players check in on the game daily, but that can be achieved without forcing a non-interesting non-decision.  Just record the last access time for each player (which I assume you're probably already going to be doing anyhow) and only process turns for players who have been on the site within the last 24 hours.  Same effect as a "click this or lose your turn(s)" button, but without making players mindlessly click a boring button every day.

Here is a prototype (single player, no register or stuff) to test the economic part.
http://worldoflords.com/misc/games/industrialrevolution.php

I took a brief look at that when you first posted it, but poking at it for a bit didn't yield any obvious sense of what was going on beyond "these buildings produce resources, which can then be used to build more buildings", so I closed the tab and went on with my day.  (That's the sucky part about prototypes...  Since you built it, all the relationships and cool stuff is blindingly obvious to you, but it's a crapshoot whether anyone else will see it at all.)

[Chris]

"End Turn" is not a decision. It is mechanic intended for player to control the pace of the game and reduce the time on site.  Without it you would need to login each hour to build stuff immediately after resources are accumulated (to not let the resources stay unused and reduce your further production). With End Turn button you have full control and can optimize everything perfectly.

"these buildings produce resources, which can then be used to build more buildings" that's all in the prototype, there is nothing more The prototype is just the base so we all speak the same language. The "all the relationships and cool stuff" is not there. The topic is about how/what/where put these cool things

[dsheroh]

"End Turn" is not a decision.

Well, yes, exactly.  That was my point.

One common theory of what makes a game fun is that it provides a series of interesting decisions.  If you have an element which is a purely rote "you must do this each day or you lose your turn" activity that involves no thought at all - something which is neither interesting nor a decision - then that element is more likely to be seen as a chore rather than as something which adds to the fun of the game and it should, therefore, be removed.  Based on your initial description of the "End Turn" button, I believed it to be such an element.

It is mechanic intended for player to control the pace of the game and reduce the time on site.  Without it you would need to login each hour to build stuff immediately after resources are accumulated (to not let the resources stay unused and reduce your further production). With End Turn button you have full control and can optimize everything perfectly.

To be honest, I don't entirely follow how needing to click "End Turn" once a day means that resources will be consumed appropriately, but not having an "End Turn" button would require you to log in every hour to manually spend resources, but, if this is true and the "End Turn" button really does give you "full control" and allow you to "optimize everything perfectly", then that implies that when to click "End Turn" is part of the game's strategy ("if I End Turn now, it will be more/less optimized than if I End Turn in five minutes") and, therefore... a decision.  Possibly even an interesting one. 

[Chris]

You get 1 turn per hour (24 daily). You can store 100 turns (so you have to be online once per 4 days for max efficiency). When you click End Turn everything is processed (and you lose 1 turn of course).

It's just a normal "End Turn" button, like in Heroes of M&M, Civilization or hundreds of other games.

End turn is not the "fun" part, it is the "reduce player's stress" and "reduce the need to be online constantly" part.


If the turns were auto processed and with assumption you have 1 brick and 1 brickworks which produce 1 brick per turn and brickworks costs 1 brick to build:
- When you are online on turn 1) and spend 1 brick to build another brickworks you will be getting +2 bricks on turn 2) and will have accumulated 4 bricks and 2 brickworks on turn 3) .
- If you were not online you would have 3 bricks and only 1 brickworks on turn 3).

[CygnusX]

I made a game like this once (and played one or two).  It can be great if done correctly.  My experience is as follows:

This game will be extremely difficult to balance.  Situations in which more land = more resources = more army = more land tend to grow exponentially.  In the end, I was not able to balance my game.  But then again, at the time, I was looking for 'perfect' and 'fair' solutions to problems.  Perhaps you will have more success.

I recommend different countries with different army units.  It will greatly increase the replayability.  No more than 4-6 units per country would be needed (IMO)  

In a game like this, part of the fun comes from outsmarting your opponent.  A good way to allow this is through pre-planning requirements.  In other words, make the task of building and attacking require multiple steps.  Such as Exploring requires Explorers requires Academies requires Resources.  Or, your army is unable to travel to the destination because you haven't scouted a path... and scouting a path takes time (works better if people are sorted into teams).  Or, you cannot recruit any more Soilders because you do not have enough recruits.  This lets players who are capable of managing prerequisites have an advantage over those who simply react to a situation.

Also, I dislike the 'reduce stress' aspect that you've discussed about the 'end turn' button.  I know making things less stressful for the player sounds like a good idea, but please reconsider after reading this article:

http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html

Other than that, it looks fun.  Good luck with the project.

[saljutin]

End turn OR real time timers will always be problem
both have + and - effects
but in general: "end turn" allows more strategical game AND "RT timer" reward player to be online at particular time

so if Chris wants to create game for audience who like to play more strategic its ok

BUT!

"end turn" allows stacking of dangerous things. On RT timer I send 1000 troops and they need 2h to go there and back meaning I need to be online every 2h to send troops to achieve maximum damage possible in that day, on other hand "end turn" allows stacking of turns (in Chris case 100 turns) so in 5minutes I can perform 50 attacks (2h=2 turns) and other player cannot do anything to prevent me doing that...
So what is the real stress for casual player? Come online and see attack incoming or come online and see someone spend 100 turns to destroy everything u had?
And what is stress for really active player? Come online and see attack coming 5min after its sent so you have 55min to react or be online for whole day and have ur whole kingdom destroyed in 1 minute?

[Chris]

Strange. Turn based games are very old and quite popular. I can't imagine every single person on this thread to never play Heroes of M&M or Civilization or any other turn based game. Also when I was making countless turn based single player games for our coding challenge no one said anything, nor was surprised. But when it is about BBG then suddenly there is a huge, maybe not oposition, but controversy to the end turn idea... Why is it?

Another interesting thing, in my entire life I saw only one english language BBG with EndTurn button (and it was translated Czech game). It seems no one, absolutely no one, makes these.

Reduce stress. Interesting article, I'm still thinking about it. But I stightly lean toward hope that I can make an addictive game without using "dirty tricks"

"end turn allows stacking of dangerous things." - Hmmm, I though the solution for this would be obvious to everyone... OK, maybe not for dsheroh but he does not play this kind of games so he is forgiven Especially Saljutin, since his Galactic Lords is very, very similar to my designs, so shouldn't his mind work similar to mine? Does really playing eurogames changed my way of thinking so much that no one would thought about the same solution I would?
I think I'm getting to the root of the problem why my concepts are sometimes confusing to players...
(I will answer this later, first I would love to read what you would say about this)

[CygnusX]

Old Games:
I played both Heroes of MM and Civilization.  However, the way I think we're reading your post is that you don't have to wait for other players to take their turn.  In other words, I could use all 100 turns while you've used none.  For this, I guess I don't see the 'obvious' solution.

The Article:
I don't believe the article is about 'dirty tricks'.  Rather, I think it hits at a core aspect of the theory of fun.  Namely:

Infrequent, Collectible Rewards for good decision making
Punishment for failing to make a decision (not playing)
Punishment for poor decisions

The fun aspect, imo, then comes from: 1) being able to fail in a safe environment.  2) the reward for success.

Time:
What separates many bbs games from modern games is the time commitment.  When I think of designing a turn based bbs, I typically do not want to ask the player to be active for a long period of time (unlike most new games where I'll often site on the couch for an hours at a time).  Rather, I want them to log in frequently, but for very short periods of time.  The challenge then becomes a question of how frequently I want the average player to log in.  And then, I must design around this frequency. 

Solution?
So, how do you keep things fair for those who can't log in frequently, but lets those who can stay active?  The only solution I'm aware of is a max turn limit.  Only allow a player to accumulate 2 days worth of turns, and if they fail to use their turns during this time, then give them no more (and let them know they're not getting any more).  They can use all of their turns at once, or every hour when they receive them.  There are no penalties or advantages for using turns more or less frequently.   

[Chris]

The solution is connected with terms like "networth" and "army per acre of land". Actually, I think there are hundreds games that use this solution... Anyone can "quess" it now?

I typically do not want to ask the player to be active for a long period of time (unlike most new games where I'll often site on the couch for an hours at a time).  Rather, I want them to log in frequently, but for very short periods of time.

Why?

[CygnusX]

I typically do not want to ask the player to be active for a long period of time (unlike most new games where I'll often site on the couch for an hours at a time).  Rather, I want them to log in frequently, but for very short periods of time.

Why?

Its personal preference.  As much as I enjoy a good bbg, when I play them, its usually because I don't have access to 'regular' games such as starcraft, diablo, halo, etc.  This could include times such as at work, between classes, or when I get home but before my girlfriend is due to be over.  So, frequency wasn't the issue.  Committing large quantities of time is.  So, when I design a game, I always have that in mind.  I try to allow for quick in-and-out as one option, and the 'use all my turns at the end of the day' scenario for people who simply can't log in during the day.

[dsheroh]

Strange. Turn based games are very old and quite popular. I can't imagine every single person on this thread to never play Heroes of M&M or Civilization or any other turn based game. Also when I was making countless turn based single player games for our coding challenge no one said anything, nor was surprised. But when it is about BBG then suddenly there is a huge, maybe not oposition, but controversy to the end turn idea... Why is it?

I've spent more hours than I care to think about playing various games in both the Civ series and the HOMM series (as well as a ton of other turn-based strategy games).  None of them, however, allowed you to "save up" turns.  If you and I are playing a game of HOMM, then I take one turn, you take one turn, I take one turn, and so on until the game is over.

The "controversy" here has nothing to do with it being a BBG, but rather is because it sounds like you're talking about a model where players can "stack dangerous actions" by accumulating turns, then executing several turns in a row without other players taking any turns in between.

For discussion, I posit the game HOMMAT ("HOMM, Accumulated Turns").  It's just like HOMM, except you get one turn per hour and can accumulate up to 50 unplayed turns, so that you don't "need to login each hour to build stuff immediately after resources are accumulated (to not let the resources stay unused and reduce your further production)".

Suppose, then, that you and I are playing a game of HOMMAT.  Further suppose that we keep rather different schedules and the game starts just as you're going to bed, so that I get 8 turns before you take your first.  Even though you still get those same 8 turns when you wake up, I potentially have a major advantage by virtue of having been able to get to various resources and fortify them before you could react.  You then go to work while I continue to take my turns each hour and, when you get home, the map looks completely different because, again, I've taken several turns while you did nothing.  Then you take your turns and, my positions start to fall rapidly because you're using, say, 10 hours worth of turns in five minutes, while I can do nothing but watch as wave after wave of attacks hits me.  (Even if I'd saved turns to respond with, the simple fact that I'm reacting would mean that I wouldn't be able to execute my turns as quickly as you, since you would know your objectives and how to most efficiently pursue them, while I'd lose time evaluating your actions and determining how to best respond.)

It could still be a decent game, but the flow and strategies would be fundamentally different than those in a more conventional "I take one turn, you take one turn" game, such as HOMM or Civ.

[Chris]

I see. It is not about turns, it is about amerigames mentality. It is about the assumption that you build some kingdom then launch an attack and eliminate other players. Indeed, amerigames design style would lead to serious degeneration with turns stacking. Now that you mentioned it, even games that used the same mechanic I thought of were in their core amerigames. They always had some "strange" oddity like defensive units dying which seemed as if the designers stopped one step before the ultimate and natural solution, they used the mechanic merely to slow down the degeneration without changing the nature of the game.

When I look back all my games in last years were eurogames. Even when I copied amerigames I modified the mechanic so these were turned into eurogames or at most a mix of ameri-eurogame. I got used to eurogames mentality so much that I forgotten that everyone starts with amerigames mentality even if they would prefer eurogames later. Yes, I should assume that everyone is amerigame player and if I don't covey the basic premise they will be confused...

How about this:
The game is about building an industrial country and collecting victory points for various task and achievements like culture, conquest, colonization, trade, diplomatic actions and scientific progress. There is no early player elimination, everyone can play from the start to the end and no other player can destroy you, althrough they can hurt you by competing for the same limited resources. The players are ranked at the end of the round by victory points collected which shows how well they did.

The combat can be initiated only versus a player that have no less than 70% of your land total. Which means you can not "farm" or destroy much weaker players, the combat is always between more or less similar strength players. There are also no combat casualities so no matter how many times they attacked you your army will be intact. So there won't be any snowball effect when you lose army and start losing more land and are having smaller and smaller army which means less land that can be defended. 
(if this is not enough there might be some additional protective mechanics like "the player with less turns used total gets a combat bonus")

There would be secondary combat (vs colonies) which is less restrictive,  you can initiate colonial combat vs player that have no less than 40% of your colonial land.

Its personal preference.

Funny how personal preference affect our design. I came to exactly opposite conclusion (play once per day only, no frequent logins required) for the same reason of my playing habits

[dsheroh]

I see. It is not about turns, it is about amerigames mentality.

Well, no, I would say that (for me at least) it's not about either.  It's about the flow of time[1] within the game.  The examples so far have been of combat because that's where the anomalies are the most immediately detrimental, but they still occur in a game with no early elimination or even with no direct competition whatsoever.

Let's posit an industrial-revolution-era game, IRAT, which is turn-based and allows for players to accumulate turns, with each turn representing one year of game time.  Suppose you and I are playing IRAT and have both reached the turn corresponding to the year 1880, then you have to spend some time away from the game.  While you're away, I develop the steam turbine in 1884 (as happened in the real world), allowing me to produce steam-powered ships with vastly increased cargo capacity.

I then give you one of these ships.  Which was built in, say, 1888 using technology invented in 1884.  And you receive it in 1880, since that's the turn you're at.  This bothers me greatly.

Now, yes, you could just say "add something to the trades table which remembers that the ship was sent in 1889, so I won't receive it until then", but you still into the same problem in reverse[2]:  While you were away, someone else was catching up on their turns and sent you a bunch of resources that you received in 1880, but they exceed your storage capacity and will be lost at the end of your turn unless you send them to another player first.  Since I've promised you a cargo ship in the future, you send the excess resources to me before ending your 1880 turn - but I'm up to 1895 by now and wondering why you put them onto a boat that takes 15 years to arrive, even though we're neighbors, not to mention wishing I'd had them in 1883 when I trashed my economy by putting too much into that steam turbine research so that I could be the first to invent it.

And then someone else who'd only been up to 1870 comes along, stacks his actions, and invents steam turbines in 1882...  Now who gets credit for being the first to invent it?  I'm getting a headache trying to reconcile these timelines...


Unless you have a game setting which includes time travel or some other explanation for why each player would be moving through time at a different[3] rate, then you have to either keep all players on the same timeline (i.e., no accumulated turns/time), allow no game mechanical interaction between players (chat is OK, but not any form of trade, diplomacy, or combat between players, nor maps on which more than one player is present), or limit your audience to people who either don't notice or don't care about the inevitable temporal anomalies and paradoxes that will result.

In the more common "energy" BBG model, this an issue because (even if the "energy" is called "turns") there's no distinct sense of completing a turn or the resulting implied passage of game time.  Actions take place in real-world time and your supply of energy/stamina/turns/whatever just limits how many actions you can take at once.  When you add in an "end turn" button, that creates an implicit flow of game time separate from real-world time and things get weird if players each move through the game's timestream at their own pace instead of being marched through it in lockstep like they are in a more conventional turn system.


[1]  As I previously commented in your "turn-based vs. time-based" thread, turns are essentially a proxy for time, whether you're talking about game time (in HOMM, each turn represents one day of game time), real time (if you get one turn per hour, then each turn represents that hour of real time), or both.

[2]  Trying to keep time consistent in this way also creates a huge new problem of having to not only remember the game state during all past turns (so that, when you come back to complete your 1880 turn, you see the world as it was in 1880 rather than how I see it in 1890), but also projecting the results of what you do in 1880 to determine their consequences on my 1890 world, which will inevitably conflict with what happened when I played through the intervening turns...

[3]  ...and very inconsistent - sometimes taking 1 turn/day, other times taking no turns for a week followed by 7 turns in a matter of minutes

[Chris]

I then give you one of these ships.  Which was built in, say, 1888 using technology invented in 1884.  And you receive it in 1880, since that's the turn you're at.  This bothers me greatly.

That's still amerigames mentality In eurogames, which were designed explicitly for 3+ players and with prevention of kingmaking in mind, you absolutely are disallowed to give stuff to other players for free. Also unrestricted trade in its traditional form is not an option (only some kind of auctions, indirect selling, neutral market, etc).

And then someone else who'd only been up to 1870 comes along, stacks his actions, and invents steam turbines in 1882...  Now who gets credit for being the first to invent it?  I'm getting a headache trying to reconcile these timelines...

Simple, you do not credit players for "being first at something" in this kind of games.
It could be done via "the player who discovered something in the earliest turn used total not realtime", but this still is not an elegant solution and will lead to some problems you described (but not all of them).

allow no game mechanical interaction between players (chat is OK, but not any form of trade, diplomacy, or combat between players

You are half right half wrong. It's true that eurogames design style limits these things but not to the extend of "not any form", these are still available in some form but with strings attached.

[dsheroh]

I then give you one of these ships.  Which was built in, say, 1888 using technology invented in 1884.  And you receive it in 1880, since that's the turn you're at.  This bothers me greatly.

That's still amerigames mentality In eurogames, which were designed explicitly for 3+ players and with prevention of kingmaking in mind, you absolutely are disallowed to give stuff to other players for free. Also unrestricted trade in its traditional form is not an option (only some kind of auctions, indirect selling, neutral market, etc).

You're still missing my point.  Even if it's a strictly limited trade where each of us must pay exactly prescribed amounts so that nobody gains any possible chance for an advantage over anyone else... I'm sending you something in 1890 that you receive in 1880 - 10 years (turns) before I sent it, 8 years (turns) before it was built, and 4 years (turns) before the technology to build it was invented.  You're sending payment to me in 1880 which I will receive in 1890 with no explanation for where it was during the intervening decade, nor for why it takes 10 years for you to send things to me while I'm sending things back in time to you.[1]

Again, it has absolutely nothing to do with amerigames, eurogames, the nature of competition/cooperation, game economies, mechanical advantages, or anything of the sort.  It's about the flow of time within the game and maintaining a coherent narrative of in-game events.

allow no game mechanical interaction between players (chat is OK, but not any form of trade, diplomacy, or combat between players

You are half right half wrong. It's true that eurogames design style limits these things but not to the extend of "not any form", these are still available in some form but with strings attached.

I wasn't saying that eurogames prevent all game mechanical interaction.  I was saying that you must prevent any meaningful interaction between players if you are going to allow each player to exist in his own personal timestream while still maintaining a coherent overall sequencing of events.  If a player in one timestream can affect events in another timestream (e.g., by trading from one timestream to the other), then you get de facto time travel and you must either explain the time travel or limit yourself to players who don't care about unexplained violations of causality (which were the other two options on that list).


[1]  Note that this could be the basis of an interesting game itself, with some sort of temporal "law of equal exchanges" used to provide an in-game explanation for whatever limits are in place on how players can interact.  ("In order to send something back in time, something suitable must be sent forward to take its place.")  Perhaps even progressively loosen the restrictions as players get closer to being on the same turn number, since they're making shorter temporal transits.  But that's far from being an industrial revolution game (unless you add in a major dose of steampunk to justify the time travel), so probably not immediately relevant here.

[Chris]

But you can not send anything to anyone. There are no payments of any kind. These feature simply won't exist. It's not even about the time paradox or stacking turns, I wouldn't be able to do these even if this was realtime due to multiaccount concerns (I'm not gonna spend my life inventing market anti cheat countermeasures and supervising it heavily like codestryke).

I know what you mean by time paradox here, but with the remaining features this simply will be unnoticable.

As for "meaningful interaction" well, considering you are everlasting games player nothing that is acceptable in round based games will be enough for you Free round based games have plenty of restrictions (multiaccounts) that limit interaction, that's the type of the genre. By stacking turns I merely made the already existing "problem" more visible, it does not created the core of these problems. These would exist even if this was 100% realtime game.

The game is to be competitive, if it is competitive it will attract cheaters, I can not fight cheaters other way than disabling trade feature or at least severly limit it (the same goes for all/most cooperative features). I can't really see how could I do it other way...

[Chris]

What do you think about alternative versions of the same product? Like cannon (the same quality) that can be made either with steel or copper?

I think I will remove population as "cost" of the building. What can be other uses for population other than taxes? I also though it could determine max army size, but that's all...

[pixlepix]

The number of workers in a factory, so production?

[davidjwest]

Another interesting thing, in my entire life I saw only one english language BBG with EndTurn button (and it was translated Czech game). It seems no one, absolutely no one, makes these.

http://www.midnightmu.com has an "end turn" button, but it's called "night" instead!  However, this is based on an old 1984 computer game.

 

[Chris]

By BBG I meant massive multiplayer. Old LoM is "local" multiplayer (with up to 16 players per game instance), also it has REAL turns (which is the current player has to press EndTurn before next player can start). By "BBG EndTurn" I meant massive BBG and turns being processed independently (one player can take turn 5 while other can be at turn 120), this is a completely different mechanic.

But yeah, technicly you could count this as "seeing a BBG with EndTurn button"

I will reprase it then to be more accurate "I have never seen an EndTurn button, except for RedDragon, in any massive multiplayer non instanced browser based game"