About the difficulty curve...

(The following is taken from the PC-Gamer interview.)
So we have a persistant world.
You get missions from the queen, (or whatever).
If you fail the mission, you could get additional help on next mission.
.....

Here is my question/suggestion:
What if the missions got harder the more of them you complete successfully?
Sort of a dynamic difficulty curve.
Would encourage you to see how far up the difficulty scale you could get, before everything gets ridiculous.

That would be fun gameplay IMHO.
Any takers?

 

Yeah, and this could be build into the meta game:

The better you are, the farther away from the empire your colonies will start. The farther away you are, the stranger and more dangerous the land gets. You could even make it so that some things are only discoverable in far away lands, so that in later play throughs you can discover new things. Would add to the long-time motivation. But since it would reward "good" playing it maybe would be counterproductive to the "losing is fun" philosophy... Maybe make it optional?

 

I like that, actually. It's like simulating a long-term campaign, and that is something people wouldn't really expect to find in such a game since it's kind of sandboxy.

And it definitely wouldn't make losing less fun. A similar thing happened with Dwarf Fortress when people managed to venture into hell, and the creators made it so that now a horde of daemons spawns if you do so. If you are playing well, then the game needs more stuff to make you lose.

 

Good idea!
And maybie "the powers that be", would get nervous with your progress, and influence.

But yea, i see your point on that it might not be for everyone.
A different game mode might be the best for this.

 

As long as there's a way for the User/Player to draw a "Safety-line" where they can easily stay in moderate difficulty if things get too hard or too easy. That way you can continue playing without worrying about the game becoming too hard or too easy. It would be something that would count neither as winning nor losing, but will still be fun and productive regardless.

 

I think a "pop-up" that would appear when the player wants to create a new colony ("For your glorious efforts in creating the last settlement, the Queen wishes for you to explore further lands. Will you fulfil that task for the glory of the Empire?" with simple "Yes"/"No" answers) will suffice for that.

 

Then I'll probably hit "no" until I feel like having a challenge, then I'll hit "yes". I can do that, right?

 

If it worked that way, then you would probably have to do well with your last colony to get that question when creating a new one, but I don't see why wouldn't you be able to do that.

 

I have to ask - will there be the equivalent of a permadeath mode? I.e. you can save and quit, but you can't load back to old saves, and when you lose, that's it?
I'd be honestly disappointed if there wasn't.

 

Fair enough. Still, I'm keeping my breath held until we get some official comment on this.
That being said, I'd like to see "Dying is fun" taken to the next level in this game. For example, teching to X level in Tree Y, then losing, could randomly generate resource A for every other game you start in this world. This could give you more power (i.e. being able to mine said resource), or, more interesting, unlock a different tech path you can go into.
Another thing i've tended to dislike in city builders is that you are generally allowed to build everything, and there are quite a few buildings that you HAVE to build, no matter what, and certain amounts of buildings you can't build too much of, no matter what. That puts you in a situation where once you get down to business, you don't have much in the way of "choice". There are typically very few "good" ways of doing things, and playing the game often comes to an extensive trial and error process aimed at finding out what exactly the "perfect mix" is.
While I don't mind games like that, I really don't want CWE to be a "generic something-like with a few non-generic elements". There should be a system that encourages being creative and making mistakes (like the carry over system i mentioned). Another thing that works really well in this direction would be mutually exclusive tech-paths. This also encourages players to keep coming back, again and again, because you can't physically see everything in one go, and also makes the gameplay experience more engaging in that your choice has more weight. It's not a case where you picking X just means that you get Z later as long as you have the resources for it, but puts you in a situation where picking X gives you cheap firepower now, but locks out Z, which gives you bigger guns later. That choice effectively changes your playstyle in a substantial way for the rest of the game (e.g. picking X could force you into zerging armies in the late game, whereas picking Z would force you into an artillery-based playstyle instead).

 

I think a good way to archive that could be like in DF. There it depended quite heavy on the terrain what kind of FOrtress you built (for example what ores you used, if there was magma, what creatures lived there). At least for me, it was. So the cities should at least differ in they main focus: For example research cities near old ruins, farming cities on plains, or mining cities in the mountains.

 

I thought about that but well... almost every City builder games do that. Heck even civilization is like that. Got Cows and open plains around? Better fast tech to animal husbandry. Marble instead? Grab construction asap. Surrounded by barbarian camps? Get out an army NAO. Early competition with a nearby civilisation? Rush mathematics, because war is inevitable, and you're gonna have to break their cities sooner rather later to win it. However, as the game grinds on, you ultimately end up grabbing all the tech paths.
Ultimately, while your starting position changes how you approach the early game, it doesn't change your overall long-term game plan. At the end of the day, the game is still designed in such a way that you ultimately end up getting everything, and the late game plays out in more or less the same way. The unique personalities of dwarves allowed DF to deviate from that somewhat, but not break out of the city builder mould altogether.
Techs that are explicitly mutually exclusive and have a meaningful impact on how you approach a key aspect of the game - e.g. giving up one kind of cannon fodder for a fragile but powerful artillery - is not just a "change of main focus". It completely changes how you approach one key aspect of the game, in this case, combat. This choice is also meaningful because it causes a spill-over effect on every other aspect of your city planning. Presumably, if you're going down the cannon fodder path, that means that, going into the late game, you need to start building your city such that it is able to mass produce citizens to throw into the meat grinder. On the other hand, if you are stuck with building expensive, but powerful artillery units for defense, you are probably going to prefer a tightly packed city built behind artificial and natural choke points.
What I want to emphasize here is that. in my system, picking X early commits you to that path for the rest of the game, not just a part of it. You can't transition out of X, into Z later on should X become less effective, because picking X outright blocks out the Z option. Civilization tried to achieve an effect like this with its Civics system, with some, but ultimately a limited amount of success owing to the civics trees giving "tweaks" that advantaged such and such playstyles, rather than locking you down one tech path or the other.
That being said, if there are answers to be had on how to achieve X result, no offence, but I don't think bringing up DF adds much to the discussion in terms of "new ideas". DF is already one of the cited inspirations for CWE, so if there's anything in there that Gaslamp conceptually likes, then you can be sure its already in the game, give or take a few adjustments.

 

I'd prefer to be able to choose between the "X locks out Z" and the "You get both X and Z in the end" when I decide to start a new game, kinda like how Permadeath can be turned on or off before you create your character in DoD. The Former that you suggested will provide interesting, limiting gameplay and the latter will cater more toward those who are used to games like Civ, Sim City and DF. Having a choice is the best of both worlds.

 

I think the "worse" thing that you can get in that regard is Anno. The population can only be happy if you do the "right" thing which is pretty much set in stone. Citizens have specific needs, and there is only one way to fulfill them, do anything else and you'll fail horribly in a non fun way.

I think citizens should have very broad needs and you can satisfy them in different ways. DF is good in that regard. Dwarves need to sleep, eat and drink. The quality of their bed, the noise, the size of the room they sleep in etc. for instance will affect their "thoughts" in a good or bad way, but for all I know you can run your fortress with all your dwarves sleeping in dorms. They won't be as happy and it can lead to problems after a while, but it don't just block your progression.
In Anno if you never produce a certain kind of good, you won't advance to the next tier of your progression, and that's basically blocking you from doing things in a different way.

The optimal thing would be if you're able to counter some of the needs with different means with varying degrees of Ethics, like imagine your settlement is under attack and people are dying, that would give lots of bad "thoughts" to your citizens. Now you could fix it by giving more booze to your citizens so that they can drown their sorrow in alcoholic beverages, or you could just turn on the propaganda machines to fill their minds with lies about the current situation. Or you could be the good guy and actually try to improve the situation.
The booze would undermine the citizens' productivity at work, while the propaganda would make poets angry, either of which would lead to different kind of problems down the line, or unexpected opportunities (Thriving booze industry ! Poets leaving the settlement at long last !)

I think the best gameplay, and that's true for any type of games, is when you have a problem to solve, and there are several different ways to deal with it, and it would lead to several different outcomes.

 

You could introduce a system of academic squabbles.
Some fields of research have very strong opinions on what works and what theories about the world is correct.
This would have the effect of slowing down research in fields that are contrary to what you already have established.
Making it hard to have both, but not impossible.

 

I think that´s a good idea.

Maybe certain high techs need you to be on good terms with a specific genius on that field. But those geniuses hate each other. So you have to choose which genius you start to befriend and which not.

 

I can get behind this, i suppose, but it does make for a balancing tight-rope. If X delays Y too much, then they might as well be mutually exclusive. If X doesn't delay Y by much, then it doesn't really achieve the desired effect. Overall, having the option to simply turn mutual exclusivity on and off would be the simplest way to have the cake AND eat it.

 

I've found in DF dorms are actually the most effective way to handle housing (Make your chairs out of gold and silver and it'll make them plenty happy ) But like, you could also build a village of surface huts or giant palatial appartments.

Soooo basically, yeah, linear progression is bad, especially if you're trying to be sandboxy.

(If we're going to make it victorian it's probably more deciding between like, giant elaborate towery aparments, palatial mansions, or stuffing everyone in a rookery and hoping you can replace them faster than disease kills them, or tent cities at your various work sites because it's faster )