Xiphos

[chrisjenkinson]

Hi all,

I am currently working on a strategy PBBG called Xiphos - http://www.xiphosgame.com/

Here is my current description:

Welcome to Xiphos, a casual persistent browser-based game set on the islands of ancient Greece. You lead a small community exiled from your home, settling unknown lands.

    * Grow your population, fulfilling their needs and desires.
    * Trade with other players across the islands to get the resources you need to expand.
    * Partner with other players on your own island and combine your strengths.
    * Build a metropolis to rival Athens and Sparta.
    * Nothing to download, nothing to install.

At the moment you can build your city and manage the population. I have not yet developed trading - this is my next big task. I have yet to develop a tutorial. There is no real "multiplayer" element to the game yet - trading and chat will be its two key components. I would appreciate your comments on the game so far and what you would suggest in the way of improvements. You do not currently need to confirm your email address on registration - it won't send you an email either, so please feel free to "make up" an email address if you prefer.

Thanks,
Chris

[CygnusX]

I never got the email verification...  its been 5 minutes.

[chrisjenkinson]

There is no email verification (yet). You can go ahead and log in right away.

[chrisjenkinson]

I've just pushed another update live. In this update the main new game feature is the addition of buildings. At the moment only one building can be constructed, the shipyard. A shipyard is needed to construct boats, and seeing as Xiphos is an island-based trading game this is quite handy! I have put this live as a precursor to the development of the resource trading functionality, the next major update.

I have also added a tutorial to help ease people into the game. It is a start, but by no means complete

Here are two screenshots. The first is a screenshot of a new city page, just after some citizens have been assigned to their duties. It shows the basic city information, the resources stored in the city and information about buildings - as a new settlement Chrisopolis is yet to construct any.

The second image is a section of the new tutorial. The sample task displayed is the same as it appears in the task panel - of course there are far more tasks available than just fetching wood!

I would very much appreciate people's comments on Xiphos so far. My priorities at the moment are to get the main features implemented - the next key feature being trading - before working on stylistic elements, so please forgive the rough and ready appearance.

Note to people who have already created an account and a city - this update significantly changed cities and thus I have removed existing cities from the database. Your accounts still exist so please feel free to log in and lead another city. First player to build 10 boats wins!

Thanks,
Chris

[Edit: removed screenshots as they're quite old now. Check the latest post for up-to-date screenshots.]

[Chris]

Register is broken: The server returned a "500 Internal Server Error".

So, the game premise is to collect population with progressive upkeep/trouble/obstacles and constructing buildings that rise caps of worker occupation.

The Civilization health system has one problem, it was designed for several cities, you use it with one city only. The purpose of it is to limit the size of one city. You can not limit the size of one city, because your player has only one city, there is no expansion of cities. This is the thing that would potencially cause the most problems, keep an eye on this.

Bronze as a tool is bad. Confusing and not really compatible with the scale of the game. The things on the left (citizens) provide workforce, the things in the middle (resources) are used up to make other commodities, the things on the right (buildings) are tools that make productivity of workers better or that rise caps of workers occupation. If you really have to use bronze, convert it to tools and move to buildings part of the page.

The most important thing, drop here some examples of buildings effects, this is the most crucial thing that will define the game right now. I'm especially curious which builkdigns model you have chosen (is it RedDragon worker cap riser or Civilization global bonus?)

[chrisjenkinson]

Register is broken: The server returned a "500 Internal Server Error".

How embarrassing. I've fixed this. To those who care, it was due to a lack of understanding of PostgreSQL sequences which Doctrine uses for columns defined as autoincrement. When restoring users from the old database I did not update the sequence so was getting primary key insert errors.

So, the game premise is to collect population with progressive upkeep/trouble/obstacles and constructing buildings that rise caps of worker occupation.

The first half is true, yes (at least at the moment). I'm designing middle- and end- game elements which will be particularly team-based. The second half is not quite true, however, it is health which acts as the break on population. Food resources contribute to a healthy city, as could buildings if I added that (but I haven't at the moment).

The Civilization health system has one problem, it was designed for several cities, you use it with one city only. The purpose of it is to limit the size of one city. You can not limit the size of one city, because your player has only one city, there is no expansion of cities. This is the thing that would potencially cause the most problems, keep an eye on this.

Indeed, and I will keep an eye on it. However, it is not substantially different in outcome to having to upgrade your palace/town hall with an additional new resource each level. It is, I think, more realistic but not really more challenging (and in fact can be better as you can grow faster if you have a very healthy city).

Bronze as a tool is bad. Confusing and not really compatible with the scale of the game. The things on the left (citizens) provide workforce, the things in the middle (resources) are used up to make other commodities, the things on the right (buildings) are tools that make productivity of workers better or that rise caps of workers occupation. If you really have to use bronze, convert it to tools and move to buildings part of the page.

I'd appreciate it if you went into more detail here. My thinking is that some tasks need bronze to carry out - bronze being a key resource in Classical Greece. However, farming wheat does not actually use the bronze (or the tool) up - you have the wheat, and also your original tools. Thus Xiphos requires the bronze to merely be available. I am not fully clear on what you are suggesting.

The most important thing, drop here some examples of buildings effects, this is the most crucial thing that will define the game right now. I'm especially curious which builkdigns model you have chosen (is it RedDragon worker cap riser or Civilization global bonus?)

Currently I can add buildings which have a health bonus, or are required to complete a certain task (like shipyards for boats). I have not coded in productivity bonuses, though I am planning to. My buildings are Civ-style, or Anno 1404-style, rather than Caesar/Zeus style - you don't need population in your buildings for them to work. If you're building a boat, they're probably working in the shipyard though the game does not make it explicit in that manner.

I do think (or hope), however, that is the addition of trading which will define the game at the moment!

Thanks for your comments they are very helpful. Sorry you couldn't register - should work now.

Chris

[Chris]

You don't have Anno 1xxx style economy. You have Ceasar style economy. You need workers to produce raw resources, that's definitely opposite of Anno style where workers were not even present. Also you can't put in the same sentence Civ or Anno style, these are opposite Civ & Ceasar/Zeus are worker based economy, Anno is buildings based economy.

I know you meant only buildings in your post which make some sense then, but still, you have to look broader at the whole economy system. And in a broader view Civ and Anno are opposite things, you have to choose one. For more details read the "Buildings and Population" topic on Game Design board.

I mean, it is extremely dangerous if a designer put workers into the game and think of it as anything even remotely similar to Anno.

An important note. If you have manually assigned workers that make raw resources then you almost always should have also buildings that make resources employing workers. I mean, you already have workers allocation and players are used to the concept anyway. These concepts are compatible and make a nice combo. It is not a hard rule, since Civ break it, but generally it is a desirable thing (Colonization).

Bronze as a tool would be more clear after you solve the workers vs buildings puzzle. I don't think I can explain it more before this (since it is just expansion of the thought of the source of productivity and categorization of assets).

[chrisjenkinson]

I think you have misunderstood me slightly. The part of the buildings in Xiphos which is like Anno is the fact that they do not contain a worker (or group of workers).  I was not talking about the economy as a whole.

An important note. If you have manually assigned workers that make raw resources then you almost always should have also buildings that make resources employing workers. I mean, you already have workers allocation and players are used to the concept anyway. These concepts are compatible and make a nice combo. It is not a hard rule, since Civ break it, but generally it is a desirable thing (Colonization).

I agree they are compatible, and can make a nice combination, but they don't have to require each other, as you point out they do not in Civ. I am not sure why they are necessarily desirable together. I am planning to stick to the Civ building model in the meantime and see how it goes. Hopefully any problems with it will become apparent.

Thanks,
Chris

[Chris]

Do buildings have levels?

[chrisjenkinson]

No - internally, buildings are a special type of resource.

[Chris]

You want the player to construct, let's say, no less than 3 buildings per day because constructing buildings is definitely fun. Assume the game is played in 3 month rounds after which everything is cleared and start fresh. With these numbers you need 3x3x30=270 unique buildings. Even if you manage to code these the player will be unable to grasp such huge number of building types.

Civilization style buildings are not possible in BBG

You either have to make building level or building quantity.

[andrewjbaker]

Erm... Chrisopolis?!?! And to think my account got canned cos' of a poor choice of city name...

[chrisjenkinson]

Yes, well, how about that.

[Chris]

So, which route you will go about buildings? Would you make levels or several buildings of the same type or just ignore it and stick with very few buildings constructed during the game? Or maybe you found another way?
I'm curious, since I face this dilemma on some projects too

[chrisjenkinson]

At the moment I am going to ignore it and stick to very few buildings. I will write about it all here though. I wrote a chat script, now I need to work on trading. Then comes adding more "fun". It might be the case that adding buildings adds the fun a lot more easily than adding other stuff. I'd like to try something new though and resist the temptation to clone other PBBGs which use buildings at the moment however.

[Chris]

Workers being allocaled to buildings was done in only a few games, I would not call it cloning...

Anyway, trade:
There are 6 trade goods, player select 3 that he can produce (some trade goods are better).
There are many neutral islands, each neutral island has 1 trade good that they want to buy the most.
There are 5 Greek cultures, all players on an island (player's island, not neutral island) share the same culture.
Each player gets 10 merchants per day. When they send the merchant to the neutral island their commerce rating vs that island increases, also the neutral island shifts slightly in the direction of the player's culture.
Player send ships to sell goods. The amount he can sell depends on neutral island's culture and commerce rating and on how many of these type of good were sold on that island in the last week. The price depends on the type of good.
Player can always sell 1 unit of each type of good on an island regardless of other rules (but since ship carry 12 goods it is a waste of cargo space, still you can always count on some profit even if your commerce rating is non existant and market is saturated).

BTW, again on cloning. If you think you don't clone anything it means only that you don't know enough games

[chrisjenkinson]

Thanks for those comments. I'd already been thinking about neutral islands and culture. I'll write something longer when my thoughts are more developed for some comments! Thanks!

[DJK]

Looking good, best of luck Chris.

[Chris]

Still not working: http://xiphosgame.com/city (blank screen).

Also the server is very slow.

[chrisjenkinson]

It's the update city/island script, it's a bit slow at the moment (I was focussing on getting it working to start with, not making it fast). It's become obvious I need to improve it - I've started working on it and hopefully should have an update today or tomorrow which will speed things up.

Should be working now though.

[chrisjenkinson]

All the speed problems should be solved! I rewrote the update script so you shouldn't have any problems.

(famous last words).

[chrisjenkinson]

I've just added sending resources to other players. Here's my blurb about it:

In Xiphos you can send resources to other cities on your island. You'll want to do this for a number of reasons - perhaps a mutual swap or to help a new player.

What will you need to send resources? Obviously you'll need enough resources to send! You are also limited in the total resources you can send - 10 for each citizen you have in your city. For example, if your city has 30 people, you'll be able to have 300 resources heading to other cities at one time.

Transporting resources will take a short time, but not too long. I'm also thinking of allowing players on an island in collaborate in building roads on their island between each city, which will cut transport times.

I've read the threads on this forums about dealing with multis and so on with interest. That's why I've decided you won't be able to send resources to other cities on different islands. Players will use the trading mechanism which is anonymous. I won't discourage multiple accounts. Collaboration is organised at the island level (with competition between different islands), and it will be (very) unlikely to get two cities on the same island. If people want to play with two cities then they are more than welcome!

I've also added forums and a chat channel.

Here's a screenshot:
[Edit: removed screenshots as they're quite old now. Check the latest post for up-to-date screenshots.]

[chrisjenkinson]

It's been over a month since my last update - but I'm delighted I've finally got the trading system working and I believe that I've fixed (most of) the bugs - thanks particularly to the guys on IRC.

So, trading! The trading system in Xiphos is similar to those used for modern commodities trading. Here's the features:

• Buy any resource in exchange for any other resource - no standard currency needed
• If you need the goods more urgently, offer to buy for a higher price, your offer will be met before someone offering a lower price
• Single market across the game world.
• Graph showing prices of matched trades over time

Screenshot:
[Edit: removed screenshots as they're quite old now. Check the latest post for up-to-date screenshots.]

This will enable cities to grow above the 50 population limit, as in Xiphos as a city grows the citizens become more fussy and demand additional food resources (currently figs, barley and wheat) before expanding.

Please let me know your comments and questions!

Chris

[Chris]

I think you should make monetary exchange, not barter. Historically speaking, it is very unrealistinc for an advanced civilization like Greek to use primitive barter. They had advancecd banking system, credits (they even had 2 separate words for credit with intrest and for credit with no intrest, actually they were more sophisticated than we are nowadays ), bill of exchange. Especially in Athens.

[chrisjenkinson]

Thanks Chris - I will be including drachma as a resource type which will be exempt from trading capacities (i.e. you can transport as much drachma on boats as you have, while you can only transport a limited amount of wood, wheat, etc. depending on the no. of boats), so if people wish to use a monetary exchange to trade then the system will allow that. Of course in Xiphos you play as a small group of people settling an island almost from scratch so an advanced banking system is way off!