Thoughts on the adventure line of research

from Elemental Forums

As I understand it, both from reading the forums and a fair bit of gameplay, the difficulty of map locations and random mobs scales with your adventure research level (if I’m wrong about that, some of what follows won’t make much sense).  This has led me to adopt the strategy of delaying researc of adventure techs (except for a few early doses to find new resources) until the mid to late game when I have sufficient war tech to destroy anything that pops up.  Here’s one thought for reforming the system a bit (developers, do with it as you will).

Rather than linking mob-level and location level with research, those could advance as turns pass.  That would change the incentive for researching the adventure techs and make them more relevant earlier on.  Once higher level locations start appearing, it will make sense to research the questing line to get access.  At the same time, decoupling mobs and locations from research will eliminate the disincentive to research adventure during the early game and make an adventure-focused strategy more viable. 

It also strikes me that a nice tweak would be to have new locations spring up only outside the zone of influence of each civilization.  Even better, it could be much more likely for new locations to spring up in unexplored areas.  This would create an incentive to explore (apart from searching for new city sites) and also be a good counterpoint to early expansion.  The faster you expand, the further you will have to go to find higher level locations that won't appear until later in the game.  As it is, I spend a fair amount of time with miscellaneous champions wondering around my cities to pick up all of the new locations.  This feels like work to me, and also strikes me as a bit odd – where did all of those treasure chests come from that suddenly appear around my cities?  I don’t have the same problem with the appearance of resources.  It makes sense to me that as you develop technology, you would come to recognize the value of resources that previously you had ignored.

I got thinking about this because my optimal strategy has involved a fair bit of staying close to home – except when I go to war with neighbors.  I’d like to see bigger rewards for exploration.   

This has the makings of a great game, and I’m already enjoying myself.  Thanks stardock.

 

elemental
3,526 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

WHile I can understand where you're going, I don't think making quests/mobs/etc increase with time is good, if for no other reason than predictability. As it is, you have no idea when new things pop unless you're leading the way in adventure tech. If the game simply scaled them up, you could then easily plan for Turn 100, level 3 mobs appear. Doing it dynamically (mobs scale based on some system) could work better for this but then that takes away from various scenarios that might be interesting. In one game, I noticed the NPC tech level was high but the notable level was still 1. This made for a somewhat different feel to the wilderness compared to other games and certainly influenced how things were approached. 

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I see your point, Sagitarry, and agree that some degree of unpredictability certainly helps things.  Maybe the AI I've been playing against (set to challenging and hard) just aren't researching adventure techs enough. It feels like I'm largely driving the increased difficulty - which feels all too predictable.  Maybe there could be some sort of blend of time and research, or time and randomness (each turn there is a percentage chance of advancing mob and location difficulty). 

In either case, I'd like to see new locations pushed away from civilization/city centers to expand the impetus for exploration.

Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting sagittary, reply 1
WHile I can understand where you're going, I don't think making quests/mobs/etc increase with time is good, if for no other reason than predictability. As it is, you have no idea when new things pop unless you're leading the way in adventure tech. If the game simply scaled them up, you could then easily plan for Turn 100, level 3 mobs appear. Doing it dynamically (mobs scale based on some system) could work better for this but then that takes away from various scenarios that might be interesting. In one game, I noticed the NPC tech level was high but the notable level was still 1. This made for a somewhat different feel to the wilderness compared to other games and certainly influenced how things were approached. 
End of sagittary's quote

 

Well no reason to have a fixed turn either, just make it between 80-120, ...

 

Sure still somewhat predictable, but variable enough to be overly annoying.