Demiansky

[quote]I don't see anything particularly bad about the prestige system. It makes sense. I agree that increasing the population the standard way seems more appropriate, but if we assume that we start with 10 ppl in a city, than think how long it would take for children to be born (I mean when they become full-fledged citizens). The things I don't like about prestige, is that it would be more suited for influence system. If we make it a birth-rate stat, will there be any influence to talk about

[quote]I have no idea what you mean by the "caliber" of the citizenry, they are citizens! the only Caliber of a citizen should be how much food he can eat, imo. I don't see how training units will make your citizens get "a bit rusty".[/quote] Calibur represents strictly their ability as stand in soldiers. When you aren't training professionals, your barracks spend their efforts drilling the masses with military technique on weekends or what have you. Almost no amount of ba

Also, there are many other interesting implications for equipment scores. For instance, if you have excess equipment scores throughout your city but not a whole lot of wealth, you might sign a "weapons trade" treaty with a friendly neighbor, allowing your weapons to be available in the free market between your empires. As a result, a certain percentage of your equipment growth would go to your trade partner, The equipment score of their cities goes up by the corresponding am

Pidgeon, all legitimate concerns, but there is no free equipment in this system. What it really is based on is the idea that your citizens have their own private lives, and you as a ruler are less of a Totalitarian Dictator and more of a minister when it comes to managing their lives. In other words, you don't own own the citizens. You build public works like mines, lumber mills, and weapon smiths with the taxes they give you and they get to use it when you aren't.&

[quote who="SolarBall" reply="12" id="2427542"]They use the same mysterious energy forces that allow galactic civilizations aliens to increase their population by billions in a few weeks, and somehow educating, training, etc. them as well. [/quote] Apparently Galactic Civ managed to explain their way out of that one by stating that the population didn't suddenly rise, rather, people that were already there decide to start paying taxes and be counted in census data, lol.</p

[quote who="Scoutdog" reply="25" id="2427444"]However, I for one would find an internally balanced tech tree increadibly dull to research. Where's the thrill of progression? [/quote] Well, I just mean that one route on the tech tree isn't consistenly superior to pursue with greater riggor than other parts. Otherwise a rational player who plays to win will always focus more on the route that yields better results.

[quote who="ikros" reply="9" id="2427427"] Great idea. I won't bother debating the details since we haven't really seen how the game works yet. But the broad concept seems promising. [/quote] True. Technically, a system like Call to Arms doesn't even really change the current mechanics of the game at all, it would just be a matter of adding a few extra features tacked on to pre-existing features.

[quote who="Scoutdog" reply="23" id="2427418"] if hidden techs are common enough, then you can predictably get a certain amount each game with minimal deviation, and your concern won't be an issue.That's assuming all hidden techs are the same. Getting a lot of weak techs is equivalent to getting a lack of big (or any) techs. [/quote] Hm... yeah, there'd have to be a lot of work put toward none of these techs becoming too unbalanced. But that's a balance issue not

[quote who="alway" reply="8" id="2425202"]Here's how it works: You see, after the cataclysmic event that destroyed the world, the fertility and growth rates of plants were severely limited. Hence the massive desolation seen in the wild areas of the world. However, due to the law of conservation of magical momentum, the growth and fertility rates can not overall be increased or decreased. So, this excess fertility and growth had to go somewhere. Thus, it went into the people of the wilderness.

[quote who="Wits" reply="6" id="2427241"]This is truly by far the best suggestion I have read on these forums. The system you propose is intuitive due to its reliance on historical mythos that many people are aware of; it is simple because of the small number of beautifully interconnected mechanics; and it is versatile because it can be linked nicely with diplomacy, adventuring or whatever other facet of the game the modders might later engage with. And, as an added bonus, it is new. Thumbs w

[quote]Also, somewhat off-topic. I was just thinking about being able to reabsorb military units into your population while they are not out marching or patrolling somewhere, or defending some mountain pass or what-have-you, and doing so without losing their training & equipment. It's been brought up a few times and I think I just though of a pretty painless way for it to be implemented... Have it so that armies fortified inside your cities contribute a percentage of their population cost

So I was reading Frogboy's tech thread and was excited about the prospect of "hidden techs," so I've detailed an idea for the emmergence of hiddens techs. I think the likelihood of a player getting a hidden tech should be contingent on the the player taking part in the activity of which the tech would be found. In other words, you are more likely to get more hidden techs related to woodworking if you are an empire that employs a lot of wood working, mor

[quote]I am highly, highly concerned about this sort of system, because if it isn't done exactly right, you get "cheap" victories or losses where you get RNGd a string of either crappy techs or awesome techs that you were never expecting to come out together in a million years. I and a LOT of other people like at least some assurance of getting what you pay for.[/quote] A very legitimate concern. However, if hidden techs are common enough, then you can predictably get a certain

I'm definately thinking more along the lines of what Frogboy is thinking. Basically, there are a good number of techs that are there almost every single game, and then a plethora of goodie techs that appear occassionally and have a specific niche value. I think, however, that hidden techs should have certain triggers that raise the probability of them being visible and researchable. These triggers could be almost anything. Hidd

I guessed every game but Dominions, lol. I'm impressed that you listed Ascendancy--- what an incredible game. It didn't have play mechanics quite as conscielient as Master of Orion 2, but it had the most creative and original setting of any space 4X game. Setting wise, it was the most original game ever made (check out the Tone Rebellion, by the Logic Factory, too.) When I played Ascendancy, I felt like I was in a distant alien star cluster. Glad to see it's

[quote who="pigeonpigeon" reply="3" id="2426812"]Interesting idea but there are two major flaws I can see with this system: 1) Experience. If the hordes of troops you get from a Call to Arms melt back into the population, what about any experience they might've gained? How in the world would you keep track of that? Even if doable, I can think of no way for it not to be messy, without retaining those soldiers in some way (for example, all those squads still exist, but are

[quote]I like it! But you gotta make sure that the CtA armies are well balanced. The CtA army should not be able to beat the trained units, except if it's a huge army... but that would kinda ruin the idea of CtA armies... coz you can just train a lot of superior units.[/quote] Yes, I would never expect that Call to Arms citizen soldiers to ever be as effective as professional soldiers with the same equipment. After all, a citizen soldier training on the weekends isn't the same a

What calibur and equipment level of soldiers might appear during a Call to Arms would be contingent on a number of factors. First, it depends on how well they have been drilled. Rather than receiving a one time training period like your professionals do, they will be drilled, when citizens aren't working presumably, by your free barracks buildings when they are not currently training professional units . So in other words, if you don't have a buil

If anything has been used to exhaustion in strategy games it’s the way in which you recruit units. In games like Total War, Civ, and pretty much any other of their kind, building units involves setting a “build project” in a city followed by a period of time that must elapse. <

[quote]Yes exactly. The key point for modders will be having some kind of standardization in properties. Probably we could organize them into libraries so that multiple people don't all start implementing the 'lumbering' trait in different ways. Because if that happened then if you were using multiple mods you might have no idea what the lumbering trait really means for each unit that has it.[/quote] Yes definately. I can see different traits having a sort of World of Warcraft l

[quote who="pigeonpigeon" reply="18" id="2426006"] Well, you at least have to recognize the implications of making a spell kill all standards of soldiers equally. You will always target the best units first. If too many spells have this effect, you will have a massive collapse in broad spell utility. Well I never said all standards of troops. I am only referring to the same type of unit with different experience levels... The more I think about it

Okay, fine, I'll post :-) An interesting idea, but I'm wondering how these different environments will effect resource acquisition, and whether the different races gain different bonuses to sort of even the playing field, so to speak. Either way, there might be a few problems...

[quote]Game design that allows one to simultaneously use units of various skill levels, preferentially using the best when all else is equal, is to you not good game design?!?! Unlimited exceptionals, leading to armies of solely/mostly exceptionals, is to you better game design?!?! We'll have to agree to disagree on this.[/quote] Words can have multiple meanings or be used in different contexts. Either way, I think we both agree that game mechanics that enc

[quote]Appart from limiting how many ubber units the player can recruit, the game could force how armies are composed/formed: - 0-1 Heroes leading the army - 0-1 Elite units - N normal units - Whatever That mirrors how armies (or taks forces) are organized in real life and it's used also in some games (Warhammer comes to my mind). This allows small elite armies that are good for hit and run strategies or strategic attacks against lightly

[quote]I just don't agree with you. I don't see why combat experience should aid in surviving against magic damage. Increasing actual hitpoints would result in all magic damage spells being less effective against more experienced units and I just don't see the sense behind that. Some effects on the other hand, sure maybe. Perhaps battle-hardened veterans would be more resistant to mind effects or something. But they shouldn't be any less vulnerable to a lightning strike, a blast of fire or ic