Rise of Nations and SWGB2

[CorranSec]

1) GB2's tech tree/level combination will make a lot more sense and be a lot more balanced than that. Also, it won't encourage rushes in the way that WC3's does.

 

2) Everything else simply cannot be there. Borders are gone? Well, what's a nation without a border?

 

3) I said it.

 

4) la la laaa.....

 

5/6) ^^

 

7) I like realism. You like to build the Imperial Palace when all you are is an Imperial outpost.

 

Vostok:

Well, you're basically forcing people to build military units. What if they don't have the resources to get 20 units, but have the resources to simply do the upgrade? What if they just like to sit in their base and research? What if the mission is an economy-based one?

You're basically forcing army-building on people, and nobody will appreciate that. I much prefer the tech level/tech tree combo. Sure, the whole "outpost, station, installation" naming convention is fine, but the idea isn't.

[Crazy_dog no.3]

1) As I've said before, but I'll say it again, this time in a different format: This could enable like the Empire to build TIE Defenders while their infantry is still in "trooper recruit" or whatever GB 2 has.

 

2) OK. Here's what it's more like: AoM. It has cities/settlements while not having borders.

 

3) Whatever

 

4) -

 

5/6) -

 

7) I don't care! If they could do it in 1 place they can do it again! Besides, it could be building a palace for a local governor or something.

I'm offended CorranSec. U...u...u keep bash-shing me. Whaaaa!

[Sithmaster_821]

1. You can already do that

 

2. Yeah, but cities in RoN are a bunch different than settlements in AoM. With cities, the buildings are pre-built and if you have more "influence" you get more buildings. I like placing my buildings thank you very much.

 

3-6. You guys dont have to include these

 

7. I never liked Wonders in the Age series. I think that they should be scen box only

 

Just one comment on RoN. Most of the "grand, new things" that they have are realism oriented. Most games have those kind of things in like the development stage, but they usually get the axe when the devs do extensive playtesting. Most of them are found to be pointless (AoM used to have a thing were you couldn't farm on infertile ground), annoying (day-night cycling), unbalanced (the old longbowman in AoK had treb range), or confusing (Norse units used to turn into heros after gaining x amount of favor). The presense of these things in RoN makes me wonder how much playtesting they really did. And if they are balancing these things with extensive playtesting, how playtesting are they doing to the actual game? You know the stuff that counts. I already can tell the overpowered civ (the Russians) and a lot of the game's realism aspects (borders, attrition, de-emphisis on military, ect.) make for anti-clamatic, long, defensive and boring games.

 

On a lighter note, I think that the whole tech levels that are less important thing is a good idea, as well as that multiple sources of credits thing. You could mine gas, spice, or even nova for credits

[lukeiamyourdad]

1-We just have to find a way to stop people from getting like crazy Dog said, Tie Defenders early on before they can research to get troopers instead of troper recruits...

 

2-Keep the trading city idea and forget about this.

 

3,4,5-Who cares that much...

 

6-Nothing more to say

 

7-We should keep the holocron thing to compensate.

[Sithmaster_821]

1. And I was saying that you could do that in the current game

[Admiral Vostok]

1. Yeah, as Sith said you can do this in GB1, so I don't see it as a problem. Corran, you're right about by "needing military units idea", so what about if we just make it you have to have a certain population? So economy-focussed people just need to have heaps of workers, as they would anyway.

 

2. I think you should need to build your own buildings, but trading cities could exist as separate entities. You could even have researching related to trading cities like "Propaganda - Trading cities pay your traders 10% more".

 

3,4,5. Mesa called Jar Jar Binks.

 

6. Unique resources work better as a nova substitute as we've discussed.

 

7. Get rid of Wonders. It isn't relevant to Star Wars.

[Crazy_dog no.3]

1) No, no, no!

CorranSec- What do u mean by tech tree bieng more balanced? Tech trees will inevetibly lead to a scenario where like in Civ2, again for an example, a player has tanks before his/her/it's people learn how to read and build walls.

 

2) Yes, u build ur own buildings in bases!!!!!!!

It will also give the player a better chance of survival in-game if he/she/it have more than 1 base.

I like large-scale games. I was disappointed (but only slightly) by GB's scale.

 

3/4)-

 

5) I was looking back at ur posts, CorranSec, and I noticed u said nova should be replaced by credits.

Well, credits is money.

Oooh, wait, I got a brilliant idea!!! I am undergoing I financial crisis and need to buy X Files seasons 5-9, the X Files movie, Terminator and Saving private Ryan on DVD. How about I go in my back garden and start mining for dollars!!!!

 

6) An example that is more "realistic":

Kessel Spice

+25 credits ( see sections about the Wealth resource in RoN)

Units get +2 LOS and higher accuracy (because Spice is brain-stimulating or something)

 

7) Then how will the Otoh Gunga High Tower, Imperial Palace, Naboo Palace, Jabba's Palace and the Senate Hall gonna make it into the game?

[Sithmaster_821]

1. And your point is...?

 

2. I like the multiple bases thing, but the way they do it in RoN is just horrible.

 

7. In the scen box

[Crazy_dog no.3]

1) Players can easily focus just on one Tech Line and get Hvy Assualt Mechs before they reach Tech lvl 2 (as this is a tech tree, pay no attention to the Tech lvl 2 bit, I just had difficulty thinking of a better word)

 

2) How? It's simple: U build ur first base, then put down another command center or whatever GB2 has, and u get the ability to build in another area.

 

7) What about in normal games?!

[Admiral Vostok]

a player has tanks before his/her/it's people learn how to read and build walls.

This problem doesn't apply to SWGB. We aren't building up our civilisation from a primitive age, what we're doing is building a small base and developing it into a major staging ground. So everyone starts being able to read and knowing how to build walls. You're not "learning to build walls" you're making the foundations for a base and once it is deemed important enough you are allowed to consider building walls to defend it.

This is why a tech-tree approach would be good. Your civ already knows how to wage war, when they research they aren't learning anything new. They are merely upgrading their facilities to better support a larger and more varied army.

So if you deem Mechs to be more valuable than Troopers, you might not bother outfitting your base to support elite troops. You'd much rather expand the capacities of your garages.

[Crazy_dog no.3]

No. I used this as an example.

 

 

 

Anyway, the Rebels advanced technologically , as did the Empire, through research , and I would like SWGB2 (or another Star wars RTS, maybe not GB2, but I'm only saying this for CorranSec's sake) to show that.

It would be unbalanced to solve this problem by each player selecting what stage they're at.

[CorranSec]

1. As Vostok said, your people already know how to read and write. However, it makes plenty of sense that if a player wants to focus on building mechanized attack units, he doesn't have to spend any more a moment of time on his troopers or fighters.

The whole point of a tech tree is advancement through research. However, the point is that you don't have to do trooper research to build better mechs. Trooper research lets you build better troopers. The trees don't have to meet.

2. Trading towns and naught else. The 'settlements' of AoM have inherent problems (I don't want to go into it here), and the 'cities' of RoN are just too far-out for GB2.

3, 4. Wesa makin you a general!

5. You dig in your garden for roots. You sell the roots at your local Roots 'R Us. Then, you have enough credits (monetary units) to buy your X-Files DVD. Well, okay, you might need a helluva lot of roots... but perhaps they're special roots.

6. There is no way that every single person in your military forces is going to get drugged up on glit, especially before going into battle. For one they're not glit-biters to begin with, for two it takes time to process the drug, for three you wouldn't have enough, for four the effect doesn't last for very long, and for five there are side effects.

7. They won't be on normal games. I'm sorry, Crazy_dog... there there, don't cry... you can see them in the scenario editor. And in the campaigns.

[Admiral Vostok]

1. I think the word "research" isn't the best word for it in Star Wars, because what's its actually doing is upgrading your equipment, rather than figuring out how to do it. Throughout the entire Star Wars saga, the technology doesn't change. It is merely used in different ways to upgrade military equipment. All the things they needed to make an X-Wing existed back when they made N-1s.

 

But as we have no better word, we must use "research". Just don't think of it literally, we don't have scholars going off to develop shields, we already know how to build them but we are just getting access to them.

 

2. Agree with CorranSec.

 

3,4. General! Oi...

 

5. That's right. You go and dig up roots or for a more relevant example green crystals. You can't go into a shop and say "give me five crystals worth of chewing gum" but you can go to a place that will give you credits for your crystals, then you can go to the shop and say "give me five credits worth of chewing gum". Because Gameplay>Realism you won't actually have to take your green crystals to the exchange place, but instead it's like they automatically get sent away and you instantly get your credits in exchange. So basically you mine crystals and get credits.

 

6. I'd rather incorporate unique resources into "credit-getting resources", as I've said.

 

7. The fact of the matter is, in a battle you aren't going to say "What I really need is to build Otoh Gunga High Tower." You are building armies, not entire civilisations. This is where the basis for SWGB and the basis for AoK is different, and it seems many get confused.

[Sithmaster_821]

1. Crazy, please explain how people can get that advanced if we are using tech levels (just de-emphisized)

 

2. There aren't many inherent problems to "settlements". I think they the basic idea is good, and should be incorporated in one way or another into the game.

 

5-7. Agree with Vostok/Corran

[Crazy_dog no.3]

1) Yes they do know how to read and write, but at the beggining of Civ2 they don't.

Anyway enough of that.

 

2) Trading town and bases.

 

3/4) -

 

5/6) I still support special resources

 

7) Bah!

[CorranSec]

1. Now is time for Jedi to eat.

2. Settlements discourage turtling- in fact, they make it impossible.. Settlements designate sites for forward bases, retreat bases, and so on. Settlements give any player with the ability to build town centers a huge advantage (just colonize all the settlements, and your opponent can't build men)! Settlements mean you have to expand. And so on....

Don't get me wrong, they're okay in certain ways. But I think we're better off without them.

3/4. Food, yes, good food, come.

5/6. Well, there's still resources unique to each map type. But your RoNish 'special resources' are ridiculous in realism terms and killers for gameplay.

7. Tish posh (or is it posh tish? Crazy British expletives...)!

[Crazy_dog no.3]

1) ?????

2) I didn't quite understand

3/4)-

5/6) Yes realism-wise some of them are kind of wierd, but how gameplay-wise?

7) I want to build entire civilisations!

[CorranSec]

1. Here, have some stew. Yoda stew...

2/3/4. Mhmm, mmhm, mhmm.

5/6. Gameplay-wise? They just don't make any sense at all. They don't improve the gameplay, they confuse people, and they make me think of all kinds of ways that peacocks could add to pop. Hmmm... the peacocks morph into soldiers?

7. Play Civilisation, or Master of Orion, or... RoN? But anyway, the fact is that an Imperial battle commander building up a base on a foreign world isn't going to start building the Palace or the Senate Chambers.

[Sithmaster_821]

2. Au contraire, mon ami. It doesn't discourage turtling. Our resident turtler (simwiz) has many a time walled half the map, which both secured his pop and denied me from any. Then he just sat behind his walls twidling his thumbs until late game (the essence of turtling). It just encourages expansive-ness and makes it slightly harder to turtle (come on, tell me you haven't been annoyed by some noob who holes up in his ring of walls and forts and turrets, and doesn't build a single unit. It's clear he's worse, but he's just prolonging the game. That kind of turtling is on par with roaching.

 

6. They just make the game that much more confusing and complicated, not to mention annoying and heavily relient on luck. AoM took out stone because there was no point to having a resourse that was so situation specific. You always had either too little or too much.

[CorranSec]

2. Mais non, mon digne adversaire. A typical turtler can just sit in his walled base and not move an inch outside his corner, while building houses to increase his pop. In AoM, simwiz must expand outside the corner and take settlements.

It also means that you cannot regulate the pop limit. In GB, you can just set the pop limit, from 25 to 250 (I think those are the numbers). In AoM, it's basically a choice of map size. You can't pick how many settlements there are on the map, the number of houses you can build, or anything like that. At least, I can't.

I've been annoyed by turtling/roaching n00bs, but sometimes you do just want to sit in your base and build up your forces. In AoM, you have to expand.

 

6. Tout à fait correct, maître de Sith.

[Admiral Vostok]

2. There is nothing wrong with turtling at all. Why make it harder to do? SWGB1 at the moment doesn't discourage any types of tactics, and that's why it's my favourite game.

 

6. They are a nice idea but I don't think they're implemented in RoN as well as they could have been and they really don't fit into Star Wars much.

 

7. If you want to play an entire civ's development over the millions of years in the Star Wars Universe, SWGB2 is not for you. It's not a civ-building game, it's an army-building game. So if you want control of a civ from their infancy, it will have to be something else than Star Wars. The fact is, as I said before, technology remains the same throughout the saga. There is no development of civs. It just doesn't work in the context of Star Wars, like so many other suggestions made on these forums.

[lukeiamyourdad]

2-Je n'ai pas encore joué à AoM alors je ne peux rien dire dans ce cas...

 

6-On pourrait utiliser le credit à la place de Nova. Il sera peut-être plus profitable du côté du réalisme.

 

7-Mais allez jouer à un autre jeu qu'un RTS!

 

traduction from french to english for anyone who doesn't understand...

 

2-I still haven't played AoM so I won't say anything...

 

6-We could use credits instead of Nova. It could be good it terms of realism.

 

7-Go play anothergame then an RTS.

[Sithmaster_821]

2. Certain strats (roaching, uber-rushing, over-booming, passive turtling, one unit armies, etc.) deserve to be discriminated against becuase they are unfair/annoying. Remember those are all broad strat ideas. Specific strats are usually detailed, have a build order, and usually a preferable civ. It's easy to tell the difference becuase strats themselves are usually acronyms (FLUSH, CRUSH, FH, GRUSH, ect.) or have a certain unit/civ in the name (Loki Hersir Rush, Set Tower Drop, Ra Fast Herioc, Thor's All Dwarf Build, ect.). There are endless amounts of those, most of which are abstract or theoretical.

[CorranSec]

Don't you just love French?

For those who can't understand it: Tough luck. I'm sorry, that may have sounded harsh..... well, if you don't like it, go jump off something high.

Now that WAS harsh.

 

Luke's dad, Vostok: Je conviens complètement. Particulièrement au sujet des singes.

 

Sith:

I understand what you're saying, but some people prefer to sit in their base and build their strengths rather than being force to expand every couple of units they build. It just makes sense. You shouldn't force people to expand, and you shouldn't give people such an obvious chance to block off their enemy's pop.

[Admiral Vostok]

Corran: Pas le début avec ces singes encore!

 

I suppose I turtle a bit when I play, but I do not passive-turtle. The fact is that at the moment in SWGB you're going to need to expand to get new resources or else there is no way you can win. So turtling has it's disadvantages already, much like any other strat, so why impose more disadvantages on it? It is definitely not a strat you can not beat.