I know that the immediate cause of his departure was interpersonal issues, but in the current game Wobbly stated how stressful the game was for him.
He also mentioned that a few games ago (when he decided to take a break), and I certainly experienced that a lot too.
Three things create that stress imho :
1 - We both know too much and too little about the enemy before the final confrontation starts
2 - The "winner takes all" nature of the combat system
3 - The "all or nothing" approach of Supply
[*] 1 : Information about the enemy
We know too much about the enemy, because we know all his Research and Policies.
This limits the ability to surprise each other, and is bit excessive.
And also provides a quite precise account of his Research Points per turn flow, if one cares to make the tedious calculations from the provided Tech list and turn of adoption.
In the same time, we know way too little : there is little ways to predict the enemy's military strength before it's too late.
That is imho a major factor of stress, as you have to play for dozens of turns without having any clue whether it will allow you to survive, basically making your agency real, but meaningless (since you have no idea of how it will actually influence the outcome of events).
[*] 2 : The combat system
The way the combat system currently works, balanced forces can end in a draw or (which is the most interesting case strategically) with one player destroying a little higher number of ships that he loses.
But a relatively small unbalance (which is what players strive to achieve in a 4X game, you're not supposed to fight fair but to try to get a better economy which will allow you to have more warships) very quickly means that you can destroy quite more enemy ships than you lose.
With, of course, cascading effects as the next fight will consequently be even more unbalanced.
Yes, this - the "concentration of forces" principle - is a core of all strategic thinking.
But it still means that if you are not at a relative military parity level when the enemy comes (while you have no real way to understand what this level will be), you have very little chance of surviving, and very little time to correct course.
[*] 3 : Supply
The binary nature of Supply (either you have it or not) means that there is basically no difference between fighting in enemy territory or fighting in you own territory, as soon as you're able to conquer a planet there.
Which means that guerilla tactics don't really work; once a superior force is in your territory, you're basically toast.
Of course it's a bit more complex than that, but the main factors that in other games make a partial victory not immediately transform into a total victory are not present in FreeOrion because of this binary Supply.
To address the first element, I proposed Achievements.
To address the second, if one day I finally get back to developing my Formation Combat System, that should definitely help.
To address the third, I have an indirect proposal.
Not to change the binary nature of Supply (I don't know how it could be possible, though we could make more things depend on being connected to specific buildings/resources rather than to generic Supply); but to make Supply more expensive.
My proposal would be to have an Influence penalty of 10 points (so, -10 Influence on the planet) for each conquered planet that isn't a Homeworld.
This Influence penalty would fade at the rhythm of 0,1 per turn.
A Military Policy (like "Civil Affairs Officer Corps") would rise this rhythm by 0,01 per turn since adoption of the Policy (capped at 20 or 30 turns I guess).
So if another player adopts this Policy, you know he's up to no good, and have time to adapt.
Diversity and/or Insurgency could rise this rhythm by 0,1 per turn.
A Tech from the Social branch (derived from Architectural Psychology or whatever) would reduce the penalty by two.
So if another player gets this Tech, it's time to pay attention...
Another Tech could reduce the penalty by two more, for Exobots planets.
Another Tech (derived from Translinguistics or whatever) could reduce the penalty by the difference between the Species' opinion for both Empires (zero if the first Empire was more liked).
It would still be also possible to prepare a raid against a unprepared enemy by stealthily accumulating enough Influence to pay the cost of conquering planets.
If well calculated, such a raid could be strategically significant and change the game balance, but it shouldn't be possible (except if the enemy has been entirely careless, or if you have near-infinite Influence) to completely destroy the enemy in one sweep.
It's also possible to launch a invasion where you give Independence to all the conquered planets so as to avoid the Influence penalty, but that would open opportunities to the defender, which is the goal there : not making attacks impossible, but making them more balanced, giving agency both to the attacker and to the defender.
Of course there's also my proposal of having more varied war types...
He also mentioned that a few games ago (when he decided to take a break), and I certainly experienced that a lot too.
Three things create that stress imho :
1 - We both know too much and too little about the enemy before the final confrontation starts
2 - The "winner takes all" nature of the combat system
3 - The "all or nothing" approach of Supply
[*] 1 : Information about the enemy
We know too much about the enemy, because we know all his Research and Policies.
This limits the ability to surprise each other, and is bit excessive.
And also provides a quite precise account of his Research Points per turn flow, if one cares to make the tedious calculations from the provided Tech list and turn of adoption.
In the same time, we know way too little : there is little ways to predict the enemy's military strength before it's too late.
That is imho a major factor of stress, as you have to play for dozens of turns without having any clue whether it will allow you to survive, basically making your agency real, but meaningless (since you have no idea of how it will actually influence the outcome of events).
[*] 2 : The combat system
The way the combat system currently works, balanced forces can end in a draw or (which is the most interesting case strategically) with one player destroying a little higher number of ships that he loses.
But a relatively small unbalance (which is what players strive to achieve in a 4X game, you're not supposed to fight fair but to try to get a better economy which will allow you to have more warships) very quickly means that you can destroy quite more enemy ships than you lose.
With, of course, cascading effects as the next fight will consequently be even more unbalanced.
Yes, this - the "concentration of forces" principle - is a core of all strategic thinking.
But it still means that if you are not at a relative military parity level when the enemy comes (while you have no real way to understand what this level will be), you have very little chance of surviving, and very little time to correct course.
[*] 3 : Supply
The binary nature of Supply (either you have it or not) means that there is basically no difference between fighting in enemy territory or fighting in you own territory, as soon as you're able to conquer a planet there.
Which means that guerilla tactics don't really work; once a superior force is in your territory, you're basically toast.
Of course it's a bit more complex than that, but the main factors that in other games make a partial victory not immediately transform into a total victory are not present in FreeOrion because of this binary Supply.
To address the first element, I proposed Achievements.
To address the second, if one day I finally get back to developing my Formation Combat System, that should definitely help.
To address the third, I have an indirect proposal.
Not to change the binary nature of Supply (I don't know how it could be possible, though we could make more things depend on being connected to specific buildings/resources rather than to generic Supply); but to make Supply more expensive.
My proposal would be to have an Influence penalty of 10 points (so, -10 Influence on the planet) for each conquered planet that isn't a Homeworld.
This Influence penalty would fade at the rhythm of 0,1 per turn.
A Military Policy (like "Civil Affairs Officer Corps") would rise this rhythm by 0,01 per turn since adoption of the Policy (capped at 20 or 30 turns I guess).
So if another player adopts this Policy, you know he's up to no good, and have time to adapt.
Diversity and/or Insurgency could rise this rhythm by 0,1 per turn.
A Tech from the Social branch (derived from Architectural Psychology or whatever) would reduce the penalty by two.
So if another player gets this Tech, it's time to pay attention...
Another Tech could reduce the penalty by two more, for Exobots planets.
Another Tech (derived from Translinguistics or whatever) could reduce the penalty by the difference between the Species' opinion for both Empires (zero if the first Empire was more liked).
It would still be also possible to prepare a raid against a unprepared enemy by stealthily accumulating enough Influence to pay the cost of conquering planets.
If well calculated, such a raid could be strategically significant and change the game balance, but it shouldn't be possible (except if the enemy has been entirely careless, or if you have near-infinite Influence) to completely destroy the enemy in one sweep.
It's also possible to launch a invasion where you give Independence to all the conquered planets so as to avoid the Influence penalty, but that would open opportunities to the defender, which is the goal there : not making attacks impossible, but making them more balanced, giving agency both to the attacker and to the defender.
Of course there's also my proposal of having more varied war types...
Statistics: Posted by LienRag — Mon Sep 23, 2024 4:56 pm