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Mop Up...The Debate

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Mop Up...The Debate

Why do you hate Mop Up? I kinda like it.

from Elemental Forums

So I notice a lot of people posting about how they hate the "mop up" phase of a game and I often wonder why. I know the obvious. It can get tiresome to some players. After I've played a game for a long time and I'm in the late game and I've beaten an enemy, that's when I use "auto calculate" for the battles I know I'm going to win. That speeds up the mop up phase of any game. I can see how hunting down each and every family member may get tiring to some players. In a game like Elemental where the immortal Sovereigns have mortal children though, don't you think that would be necessary sometimes? I know when I play as the evil Empire I'll thoroughly enjoy doing just that.

We know it's true that for the player when your Sovereign dies you lose. That may not be entirely true for your enemies though. Yes they'll be destroyed, their lands become yours or go free but they don't remain loyal to him, his armies disband. For all intensive purposes that Sovereign and his faction are gone, but what about his heroes and his children? Unless they chose to die with their father they should still be present in the world. Either they work for you now, they're dead, or they roam free. I'd assume most children would want to avenge their father's murder and would come after me on principle. The evil ones may turn traitor and join me. Either way killing a Sovereign's left over family might be considered "mopping up" and might get tedious for some.

I'm not one of those people. Call me weird if you want, I like mopping up. To me it's an integral part of games like Elemental and other Grand Strategy games. I'm the guy that calls a "short game" playing Gal Civ 2 on the "Immense" map size with Domination being the only Win Condition. There are plenty of times in a long game when you defeat a large enemy empire only two have 2 or 3 other enemy empires left that are just as large or larger. Once you defeat the main army that nation posses they don't pose any real challenge anymore. Now you're left with five or six towns to destroy. I like destroying them. I enjoy destroying every last stone where they lived. Hunting them to extinction. Wiping them from the very face of existence. In a way it's like a reward for defeating the large army. Now the citizens are at your mercy. Sack the villages for gold and plunder. Sell the women and children into slavery, use them for human sacrifice, you know...the fun stuff ;)  Unless of course you're a "good guy" and you let them live, liberate them, free them from the oppressor, whatever you goody goody types do. Why you'd let them live is beyond me. Either way it's a necessary and realistic thing to have in any game of this genre.

Think about this...Say tomorrow night at midnight a small thermonuclear device goes off in Washington D.C. All of the US infrastructure is gone in one massive strike. Does this mean all the states go their separate ways? Will we stop being America? No, I doubt it. We'd reform a government until the mess can be sorted out and proper elections held when the crisis is over. In Elemental's case the kingdom may be gone, but his still living heroes and children would fight on in his name or for vengeance. They rise up as what we call in most games "rebels" and I Hope and Pray Elemental works like this as well. It would add far more depth and strategic realism then having them just disappear because their Sovereign was killed.

In my opinion, I hope the Devs Do Not Decide to "Nerf" any end game Mop Up from the game after seeing all the complaints. That's not how we all feel about it.

 

 

elemental
24,843 views 39 replies
Reply #26 from Elemental Forums Top

I almost never finish off games of GC2 (or most strategy games) that I'm winning. There's no fun in beating up on opponents once I know that I can.

I love austinvn's idea of the conquest-style master quest. The idea option of a final massive confrontation to settle the game is exactly what I want to play for. 

Ocie1's 'nothing left to loose' gambits is also pretty appealing. Making the mop-up more unpredictable and potentially challenging is all good. I've been thinking for a while about a sovereign being pushed into a corner and doing something drastic:

- Unleashing a plague that devastates both their own population and their opponents, but would result in a huge diplomatic penalty with every other faction who's people were killed in the plague.

- Casting a spell that turns all of their population into an undead legion. They get an instant army that requires no upkeep but lose _all_ income, trade, growth, research, resource harvesting etc.

A chance of something like that (or a vortex / Deamon being unleashed) might have big empires thinkng twice about picking off the little fish as well.

Reply #27 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting stupored, reply 26
I almost never finish off games of GC2 (or most strategy games) that I'm winning. There's no fun in beating up on opponents once I know that I can.

I love austinvn's idea of the conquest-style master quest. The idea option of a final massive confrontation to settle the game is exactly what I want to play for. 

Ocie1's 'nothing left to loose' gambits is also pretty appealing. Making the mop-up more unpredictable and potentially challenging is all good. I've been thinking for a while about a sovereign being pushed into a corner and doing something drastic:

- Unleashing a plague that devastates both their own population and their opponents, but would result in a huge diplomatic penalty with every other faction who's people were killed in the plague.

- Casting a spell that turns all of their population into an undead legion. They get an instant army that requires no upkeep but lose _all_ income, trade, growth, research, resource harvesting etc.

A chance of something like that (or a vortex / Deamon being unleashed) might have big empires thinkng twice about picking off the little fish as well.
End of stupored's quote

Those are all Great ideas IMO.

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Reply #28 from Stardock Forums Top

Just to refine the idea of 'nothing left to loose' gambits -

Making the mop up more interesting and unpredictable is great; however, from a design point of view, the gambit should be a bid by a realm that is getting marginalized to propel itself back into competitiveness or self distruct and thus shortening the mop up. Essentially, these realms would mop themselves up if the gambit fails.

However, the more I ponder, the more I think there are better solutions than 'the ancient powerful unit' approach ala Precursor Ranger.  Flipping a weak realm into a force with a simple roll of chance probably isn't very 'fair'.  My preference would be for these gambits to inject more variance into the world - making things a bit more wild - possibly affecting all realms and the land itself in some small or large ways.  I'd almost prefer if no direct benefit to the weak realm happened except maybe defensively.

BTW, like all the other comments in the thread.

Reply #29 from Elemental Forums Top

My opinion is that in Elemental we have a chance of changing the Mop Up phase into something different thanks to the nature of how it's being developed.

As has been mentioned already, the use of spells can help here as you'd be able to clean up quickly once you've defeated the bulk of your enemies forces. This isn't really changing the Mop Up phase, it's really just making it faster as I doubt we're going to get an 'I.W.I.N.' spell so you'd still have to do a bit of cleaning up. That's fine with me. As the OP mentioned though, what happens with the Sovereign's children and their heroes? Do they just disappear? This is where I think we can makes things a little different.

Instead of having them disappear, have them spread out and form their own 'strongholds' - basically a form of Dungeon where the Child or Hero is the end boss and gives an item or some reward, similar to the dungeons already planned to be included. It's optional, because your enemy is already defeated, and anyone would be able to kill them, so adding a modifier to increase the reward for the person who killed the Sovereign of their faction would entice you to 'Mop Up' while changing things up from the mere 'Move to [x], Auto-decide battle, move to [y], auto-decide battle'.
Would this work?

Reply #30 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting ZehDon, reply 29
I doubt we're going to get an 'I.W.I.N.' spell 
End of ZehDon's quote

Actually, that's one of the victory conditions.  "The spell of making" roughly defined as the "I.W.I.N." spell.

Reply #31 from Elemental Forums Top

No no, sorry, I understand that - that's not what I meant. We don't get a spell which we cast which just destroys all our enemy's remaining cities and buildings, we have to actually put some thought in to it.

Reply #32 from Elemental Forums Top

We don't get a spell which we cast which just destroys all our enemy's remaining cities and buildings
End of quote

Who knows, maybe that's exactly what this 'Spell of Making' is, making all the enemies dissapear...

Reply #33 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Ocie1, reply 28
Just to refine the idea of 'nothing left to loose' gambits -

Making the mop up more interesting and unpredictable is great; however, from a design point of view, the gambit should be a bid by a realm that is getting marginalized to propel itself back into competitiveness or self distruct and thus shortening the mop up. Essentially, these realms would mop themselves up if the gambit fails.

However, the more I ponder, the more I think there are better solutions than 'the ancient powerful unit' approach ala Precursor Ranger.  Flipping a weak realm into a force with a simple roll of chance probably isn't very 'fair'.  My preference would be for these gambits to inject more variance into the world - making things a bit more wild - possibly affecting all realms and the land itself in some small or large ways.  I'd almost prefer if no direct benefit to the weak realm happened except maybe defensively.

BTW, like all the other comments in the thread.
End of Ocie1's quote

 

Like rising a giant volcanoe in your territory/city, its Caldera would be defensive place for your remaining army/sovereign, however the city would be damaged some-what, in a less than desired economy of sorts.

In addition, said volcanoe would explode, ect, reverting much of the land around it (and possible decimate nearby armies too) into hellish terrain.

Reply #34 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting KellenDunk, reply 30



Quoting ZehDon,
reply 29
I doubt we're going to get an 'I.W.I.N.' spell 



Actually, that's one of the victory conditions.  "The spell of making" roughly defined as the "I.W.I.N." spell.
End of KellenDunk's quote

Am I the only one who will disable that victory condition? :D

Reply #36 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tormy-, reply 34



Quoting KellenDunk,
reply 30



Quoting ZehDon,
reply 29
I doubt we're going to get an 'I.W.I.N.' spell 



Actually, that's one of the victory conditions.  "The spell of making" roughly defined as the "I.W.I.N." spell.



Am I the only one who will disable that victory condition?
End of Tormy-'s quote

I plan on playing with it at first just to see what it's like. When I sit down to play a really long game I'll probably turn it off then. Along with any other Win Conditions that make my game shorter.

Reply #37 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting ZehDon, reply 29
what happens with the Sovereign's children and their heroes? Do they just disappear?
End of ZehDon's quote

I'm going from memory here so I might be off, I think what happens is: Sovereing X marries a few children off to Sovereign Y's family. If sovereign Y dies, then faction Y's remaining family (along with territory, armies, heros, etc) are most likely to declare their allegiance to sovereing X since they're related. It gets more complicated if there's blood relations to several different factions and lines of succession but that's the gist of it.

I like the dungeon idea though and it would be neat to see a family member or hero decide to go rouge if they didn't feel inclined to join a particular faction.

Reply #38 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting SavageBananaMan34, reply 3
In conclusion, the goal of the game is to give the player a victory as soon as the player knows he is going to win or turn the entire match on its head with some extreme random event so that the player no longer feels secure. Imagine if in Lord of the Rings, after surviving the battle at the Black Gate and watching Sauron die Aragorn had to hunt down every orc encampment and then go after the corsairs in Harad. That's boring. Once the ring is in the fire, the viewer knows it's over, and similarly once the player knows it's over the game should reward him with a victory screen at the climactic moment. Unfortunately games can't read minds so it's all about balancing the victory conditions to require real dominance to acquire but also be immediately achievable as soon as this dominance is gained.
End of SavageBananaMan34's quote

In point of fact, Aragorn actually did spend then first several decades of his rule leading a campaign to mop up the Orcs and Human nations who had been loyal to Sauron. It's just not important to the story, so it gets tucked away into the appendix at the end of the book.

Whether it's a story or a game, you focus on the parts that are interesting and fun, and the stuff that comes before or after can be compressed and summarized. If every Sovereign but yours is dead, then there's nobody really capable of opposing you. Victory is inevitable, it's just a matter of time. It's not that you don't still have to defeat what's left of their armies, or that every city instantly becomes loyal to you - it's that those events are inevitable and there's no question of your ultimate victory.

Some people might like the option to watch that phase of the game, just for closure or whatever, but nobody should be forced to play it out. What I can imagine is, in a game like Civilization, you'll get a screen saying 'You Won! Do you want to keep playing?' So you can mop up after you've met the victory conditions. I can also imagine having the whole process happen automatiaclly - let the player watch an accelerated version of events as you take one city after another, but without manually sending out armies to do it.

Reply #39 from Elemental Forums Top

Mopping up is tedious when the game insists you do it.  Once someone has ve clearly won the game it should congratulate them, give lots of juicy statistics and ideally a narrative to show how it happened, and then ask if you want to keep playing, as which player, and let you mop up or max the tech tree or trace your descendents for a 100 generations.