Global Triumph

i think the proposed idea is pretty good, but some things can be done to give players an incentive to grow.  If in addition to a set amount, and a small percentage based on total land, a player were to recieve a higher percent for the land that had a base of some king built on it, or land that was occupied.  this requires players to sacrifice something to get something. if all they must do to get money is expand, there is no cost to that. if they must pay to create units which return some percentage of the resource of the land the occupy, then maybe a balance can be found. 
another option that would drastic change the game is a specific unit or base type that returns a large percent of the occupied lands resources.  a player would have to build a 'mining colony' or something to get money.
thanks for the interesting game that doesnt eat all my time

You might try introducing upkeep based on units out in the field. That tends to counter the income from a large territory if you base income on size.

Hey Jonny.  Ever think about the RTS style of money making?  You could keep money making pretty constant for everyone like it is now but then add groups of sectors that contain "high density materials" that you have to create a "factory" on in order to harvest these materials.  I'm thinking spice here from the DUNE series or Tiberium from C&C.

It would be fun to duke it out over materials with someone.  That would give us something cool to fight over :-)

Anyway, good game.  So far it's been pretty fun

I'm still pretty new at this, so these might be terrible suggestions, but ...

1. Adding a third category for troop movement. "Move" for moving within your own territory, "attack" for attacking an enemy and "develop" (or something like that) for conquering unclaimed territory. You could then drastically reduce how far units can move on undeveloped land to slow down rapid growth. (You could also include some sort of cost/expense for acquiring new territory.)

2. Add "support" vehicles, make them expensive, then make it so that other units have to be within a certain distance of those vehicles at all times. (And if a support vehicle is destroyed, units can't move until they're back within range of one.

3. Add a "morale" factor that makes big players' attacks less effective against smaller players. (But don't make it come into play when smaller players attack big players.)

4. Make players keep a "cash reserve" on hand that somehow coincides to how much land they have.

I think you have to increase the amount of income you get from land, why else would we fight each other then to have what the other guy does? Here are a few suggestions for cash flow and it might make attacks and strategy more pointed.

1) Resources are only fully utilized if adjacent or within a specified distance to a unit or Partisan (non fighting/attacking unit with minimal defense), bases of operation would have a larger radius of influence,
2) Large distances from your capitol would also nullify income without the use of some sort of railway or water way transport armada.

In doing so, larger countries would have more to defend and upkeep, it would allow for gorilla attacks by smaller countries, major targets for larger countries. You might want to build in a repair schedule and cost for rail lines and bases.

As for players joining at a later date give them a moratorium on when then can be attacked, call it countries in development. Also you can give them a late start bonus to help them get their military up and running to defend themselves.

Just thoughts, i think this game is gonna be great.

Have you thought of adding terrain like mountains, swampland or desert?

First, to address the money collecting units/bases suggestions...

I'd like to keep the game more focused on overall strategy, like a general directing fronts in a world war (planes come in here, tanks roll forward here, etc.).  Having to micromanage money collection, I think, would have too much of a real-time/mission-type focus.

Generally speaking, the more land a person owns, the more resources they can draw from it.  So, I'd prefer to find a good balance with income and not make it something players need to focus on (at least at this point).

That's an interesting idea.  I'll have to give that some more thought.

I also like the moratorium idea.  That would likely tie into the treaty code (checking whether or not an attack is allowable), which I'll probably be getting to soon.

As for the late start bonus, that's actually been in place since the game launched.

I believe if you do add this "morale" factor into play, I can see the game coming out as an overall tie because everyone will be as strong as everyone else.  There'd be stand-stills all over the place.  It's a great idea, don't get me wrong, but you gotta look at the big picture and you'll see that this game will last even longer than it's supposed ta be.  Just thought I'd throw that out there.

BenJamin

I like the idea of a "fixed" allowance with land based augmentation.  I am not sure if your setup would allow but what about a degrading income from land, a relatively large income when first "improved" and as time passed, the sector would produce less to a point of some minimum.  This would promote expansion but would not make the income grow so big that you could steamroll over people.

This is off topic, but I would love to be able to relocate my capital within my borders in the future (at some HIGH cost).  I could foresee taking an island, relocating to there and defending that.

Speaking of this island thing, It would be nice to be able to create this "stronghold" and by collecting an allowance, then you can continue to stockpile troops and defenses without having to empire build.  There will be plenty of people who want to "Rule the World" while some will try to hold onto their little piece of the world.

One other thought.  Might want to have troops have a continual cost of maintenance.  This would be a "tax" for the HUGE countries that want to build massive armies to blitz borders.

Allow me to expand on this suggestion:

Say Country A is 1000 squares and Country B is 500 squares, or 50 percent of Country A's territory. If Country A attacked Country B, Country A's troops would fight at something like 80 percent effectiveness. (The reduction in effectiveness has to be considerably less than the difference in the size of the two countries, or, as you pointed out, no one could ever win.)

Another alternative would be to base the "morale factor" on a player's start date rather than their size.

I have no idea how difficult this would be to implement, or if it's even possible, but the benefit would be that it would deter larger countries from picking on considerably smaller ones. It would also add to the strategy, because you'd have to decide how long to wait before that little neighbor got big enough to be a threat.

Not trying to start an argument, Ben_Jamin, but just thought I should explain the idea a little better.

No worries man, just thought I'd point out a flaw that you just explained now.  Thanks.

As for the "moale" part, I believe we can do without still.  When you start a new country they already have a butt load of cash in their pocket (found out from a friend who has just started please duely note) and has enough to start up a decent army.  Also, I'm sure the new country isn't going to start right by a huge country that is showing a path of destruction like Ithlien was showing when he/she was still on.  (Apologize to Ithlien for not knowing you personally.)  That would be a dumb move on the player's part.  I still think it's a great idea corey375, but I think we can do without.

Tim_the_Sureyor, I like the idea on the "stronghold".  It'd be like a second challenge to the game, surviving.  What you can do, Overlord, is maybe set up some challenges that us players, including you if you wanted to, to complete when the game has ended, such as World Dominator, Longest Surviver, Most Kills, stuff like that.  Just as a perk they could start out with a little more land than everybody else or something.  Great thought though.

I was just thinking what if some one deffeats everyone.

I'll think about that one.


There will be plenty of people who want to "Rule the World" while some will try to hold onto their little piece of the world.

Are you just talking about a general strategy, or are you saying that there should be some more ideal way to implement that ability in the game?  I think the current base income plus extra for land would support taking that route, but maybe there's something I'm overlooking.


One other thought.  Might want to have troops have a continual cost of maintenance.  This would be a "tax" for the HUGE countries that want to build massive armies to blitz borders.

I like this idea a lot, too.  If would prevent countries from having units running haphazardly all over the map and force people to expand intelligently.  Perhaps even an attack cost, so you could "station" troops cheaply, but expansion would require resources.  Just thinking out loud at this point, but I'm going to roll that idea around.

At some point, even if it's down to a dozen or so massive players, I think it may be impossible for new players to jump in and have any realistic chance of fighting back.

I'm not sure what I'll do at that point.  Perhaps the game would have to end, where the map would be locked and put in a "gallery" or sorts.  We can then start fresh again.

Either way, I suppose it's not something I need to worry about just yet!

yeah i was worrying about that

This is a great idea.  Each unit should require a certain amount of upkeep, which could then be increased based on its distance from an actual base or city (I'm too new to the game to know if we can start new cities, so my apologies in advance for being a nub). 

I would suggest that if you haven't already done it, you sit down and read Sun Tzu's Art of War, and perhaps use some of the tenets of his doctrine within the game.  I am absolutely loving it so far though.  I have a basic outline of a similar game at about 30% completion right now, set in a medieval time period. 

I don't know how much time you have to invest in the development of the game (I'm sure this is probably a hobby for now), but I would also include mountain ranges and other terrain such as rivers.  For good examples, you could create random Civ 3 maps and base yours off of those.

I'm really excited to get to play this game during development.  Its even more encouraging that you actually ask the players what they like, hope for and expect.  With that attitude toward feedback, you may end up with a real winner here.  I've invite all my gaming friends to play, and I'm anxious to see what you can accomplish.

Thanks for all the support and positive feedback!!