Hello /vst/, 2 years ago I made a post asking this board what an ideal Grand Strategy game would like. Because of my exposure to paradox games, namely Hoi4 and to a lesser extent Victoria 2, I approached the question by proposing a game that combined the merits of both of these two games. I still hold this perspective, and after a recent renewed interest in this subject, I propose a game that could successfully do the following:1: Combine the military aspects of Hoi4 with the economic aspects of Victoria 2.2: "Easy to learn, hard to master'- a low learning curve while still allowing complexity, variety, and difficulty in gameplay.3. An actually functioning ONLINE multiplayer4. "Better incentive player creativity"- As in, make modding easier and add in game customization as well.To expand on these points:1: I'm not proposing that this hypothesized game should simply mash Hoi4 and Victoria 2 together. What I am saying is that this ideal grand strat should be just as engaging militarily as Hoi4 is, while also being as engaging economically as Victoria 2 is. I believe this can be achieved in a way that isn't conflicting.2: Grand strat games tend to have a high barrier to entry for new players, both in terms of learning the game and also affording it (think of the many DLCs one would need to buy to even begin playing one of these games). This can be remedied by automating the gameplay via "bureaucrats" (i.e. characters) and having the player learn by un-automating and automating functions as they please. This might sound stupid, but in practice it would be very effective in getting players to feel comfortable interacting with the game at their own pace without the fear of messing something up and having to restart/wanting to give up.(continued...)
>>18990533. Multiplayer sucks ---> Online multiplayer would be cool ---> Join existing online lobbies or make your own ---> make it simple and make it work.4. (I meant to say "better incentivize* player creativity") The most important aspect of any game for me is the player, without the player the game might as well not exist. Whether that game's playerbase is one person or a million, it does not matter. To me what matters is whether or not a player is interacting with and enjoying the game they are playing. And the best way to accomplish this is not only to maximize what the player can do in the game, but *with* the game. The modding community for Paradox and especially Hoi4 is why these games are still played and enjoyed as much as they are. Say what you will about the stupidity surrounding the TNO community (or the hoi4 modding community at large), but despite their flaws, they are what's keeping Hoi4 alive. This isn't to say that Hoi4 and it's mods are good, as I'm sure many people on this board do not like this game, but it is to say that a huge key to success in designing a game is in how much creative input you afford the player!
>>1899056>>1899053Some clarifications for what I said:>Designing the Perfect Grand Strategy GameI failed to mention this key detail, so I will now, realism. While I want the player to be able to have fun and to explore alternate histories, the way that they explore these should be done through a realistic historical framework. The base game should be realistic in how history moves and in how countries and people act. Mods can of course change this, and so can in game customization to a certain degree. But this is all to say that for me, an ideal grand strategy game must be as realistic as possible without sacrificing what makes it fun to play.>1: Combine the military aspects of Hoi4 with the economic aspects of Victoria 2.I really don't want it to seem as if I am only interested in these two games. Yes, I do draw a lot of heavy inspiration from both of these titles, but my goal here is not to rip these two titles off, instead I want to take what they do well (which is a lot) and expand on it. Also, I wouldn't be making this post on this board if it weren't for the fact that I want to hear your guys' criticism, ideas, and other potential sources of inspiration. Give me other games you like and features you want added.>3. Multiplayer sucksWhat I had meant to write was "3. The state of* multiplayer sucks"
>>1899053In order to help paint a better picture of what I am aiming for, here are some excerpts from the post I made here 2 years ago:I will be using Goi$ as my example of what not to do, as well as what I think should be done when it comes to making an economic system within a grand strategy game.Problems in Hoi4:1) Modifiers: Despite their benefits, Modifiers are both a curse and a blessing for Goi$ as they have several fundamental flaws. For example, by completing a focus in a focus tree you might gain +20% construction speed, however you can obviously tell that this is not how real life economies work. And yes, I know "muh abstraction," but the problem with this argument is that forgets that practically all economic change, growth, etc is determined by these modifiers. A more realistic economic simulator would not employ focuses or decisions that are guaranteed to give you a certain and specific bonus. This means that you should have no clear idea on how well your economic policy will work. Meaning you might get some indication like "this policy may do well" or "this will provide *great* results" or "bad *results"," but never anything as specific as +51% gay owos or +42$ sneed, etc.This isn't to mention the most pressing problem which is that modifiers act as a replacement for any actual sort of dynamic system and realistic rules and mechanics. On one hand, this does allow modders to get away with making some wacky fun crap for the game, like Goebbels now removed path in Kaiserredux which, added 4 research slots, insane bonuses, and op leader traits. However, for a more serious game it can lead to some serious problems. No longer do you have to add a currency system, employment system, taxing and spending system, or anything of that sort, as now you can rely on arbitrary bonuses to create a false sense of progress.
>>18990612) Construction: Construction refers to the creation of various buildings, which in Goi$ are limited to civilian and military factories, dockyards, railways, "infrastructure," as well as some other stuff that doesn't matter as they doesn't pertain to economics. Point is, the game is missing a lot of important building, like mines, farms, or other forms of RGOs (resource gathering operations), which other games like Victoria 2 do have. Even the buildings that are in Hoi4 kind of suck, as civilian factories produce "consumer goods," which don't have any use in the game, and are avoided like the plague. After all in hoi4 civilian factories are used to build other things, so spending those civilian factories on consumer goods (which don't actually do anything) is clearly a stupid idea. This incentives a game in which every single one of the player's economic actions are always intended for the purpose of turning the country into a war machine. And like I said, this makes sense for the game, but it doesn't make for a good economic simulator.There is also a glaring issue here that all of you should be able to notice, that being, that it makes no sense for civilian factories to be producing other factories. Instead, every single building should be built by workers, hired either by capitalists or the state. This can help simulate employment, wages, profits, and so much more, creating a more dynamic and interesting aspect for the player to deal with.This is but a single suggestion for a potential economics simulation, as there is far more that can be done and improved upon. And not just with Hoi4 as a reference for what we should and shouldn't do, as you will see in my next reply....
>>18990633) Trade: This is the final category that I will cover for tonight, and has to do with both Victoria 2 and Hearts of Iron 4. In both of these games, countries have the ability to trade and sell their goods within a large open world market. There are two problems with this feature that I am going to discuss, and also explain on how they can be fixed and improved upon.The first of these problems has to do with time; Specifically, it has to do with the fact that it should take far longer for goods and products to be shipped to your country. Currently, whenever you buy something, the goods you bought will automatically be at your disposal, and this is unrealistic as shipping goods can take a while. Now this may seem insignificant, but is has large ramifications, as improving the system to become more realistic incentives more careful trade and less micromanaging. This system incentives more careful trade as players don't want to find themselves spending all the money and time for X, only to then realize they should have ordered Y, instead. This also plays into why micromanaging might be disincentivized for some players, as they might now realize the benefits of a market economy, and will allow their country to grow more organically, giving a more realistic experience. Of course, this last part is not for all players, as the option to leave things to the market is available to those who want to play that way.
>>1899069(THIS IS KIND OF WHAT VICTORIA 3 IS DOING ALREADY)Now onto the second problem, which has to deal with the fact that there even is a world market in the first place. If we want to have a more realistic game, you shouldn't be able to, as the UK for example, trade with some random country in the middle of Africa just right off the bat. Instead, as the UK, you should have to make trade deals with said countries in order to actually begin trading, as those countries may not want to engage or interact with you unless you diplomatically approach them. Plus, those countries may have high tariffs or restrictions placed against your goods, meaning that you have to negotiate a deal to lower them. This isn't even to mention the fact that the dominant trade policy for much of the 19th and early 20th century was mercantilist (at least for the developed world that is), meaning that most countries would not want to maintain trade deficits or free trade. In other words, world market should be replaced with local or trade deal-based markets.
>>1899053if you want realistic economy you gotta have realistic leadership too. And that means appointing appointers that don't always do exactly what you want to do. And in a game, doing actions with one intent but getting a different outcome is frustrating. Thus every gamedev knows that, and understands why, it's a bad idea.>>1899071This is also bad, having to micromanage bullshit before you get to the actual action you want to do is also frustrating, see also QWOP.
People who play grand strategies don't like multiplayer outside of Stellaris
Nice blog, keep it on reddit
AI Poojeet thread
>>1899056>make it simple and make it work.Bold phrase when the rest of your posts are "make it more complicated because i am an autist who doesnt know why games are abstracted and not like IRL". Complex game systems need complex multiplayer solutions, with so many moving parts there's a lot of things that can go wrong. So most devs simplify, to make it both easier to understand for human players, and easier for client-server relationships to not desync. But desyncs still happen, even with simple, unrealistic systems. So there's gonna be even more of them in your idea for a game.Please stop throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, if you want a perfect game you will have to be the one to make it. You got a vision, you got the means, so go ahead and do it.
>>1899088>And in a game, doing actions with one intent but getting a different outcome is frustrating. Thus every gamedev knows that, and understands why, it's a bad idea.Its not a bad idea if you can execute it well. Unless you think games aren't supposed to be challenging, bad or self acting appointees can be utilized as an internal challenge that the player can face. Difficult =/= not fun. Think of the American Civil War, Chinese Imperial Court/war lords, Corporate interest groups, etc. Internal challenges already exist in grand strategy games, so I think your criticism is unfounded.>This is also bad, having to micromanage bullshit before you get to the actual action you want to do is also frustrating, see also QWOP.Thats a good point, I shouldn't have added that, it was copy and pasted from an older post I had made 2 years ago. But in context of what I've been saying its not a bad idea because I propose the player use advisors/bureaucrats to automate the task for them. This allows the player to conduct trade deals on their own or through the ai.
>>1899094exactly, so it shouldn't be a problem if its a feature. Those that want to play in multiplayer will, and those that don't want to simply won't
>>1899129>Bold phrase when the rest of your posts are "make it more complicated because i am an autist who doesnt know why games are abstracted and not like IRL".Look I know this is a lot to read but one of the first things I state is how complexity can be resolved through automation of gameplay via "bureaucrats." Automation is not a replacement for gameplay but a way for the player to learn the game as they play it without getting overwhelmed. "Bureaucrats" can do actions for the player but the game allows the player to intervene and do those same actions as well.>Please stop throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, if you want a perfect game you will have to be the one to make it. You got a vision, you got the means, so go ahead and do it.Throwing shit at the wall is part of the game design process. I need and want to know how full of shit I am so I can avoid unnecessary mistakes when I actually go out and make this game. I will be making enough mistakes as is.Also you bring up a valid point with the issues of desyncing, multiplayer is a far fetched idea but I would love to see it work.
In those two years you could have actually worked on a game.
>>1899354Yes but to be fair I was 17 two tears ago. Senior year of high school followed up by military training for 11 months meant I had little time for my projects. I'm 19 now and because I am in the reserves I finally have some free time.
>>1899365years* fuck I cannot spell
victoria 2 was the perfect game, just fix the bugs, make pops and their political alignment more realistic and make politics better (not like vic 3 does it, but their laws are better)add more flavor content and swap to the new engine for the map (and fix the thousands of mistakes in geography and borders that game still has)hoi4 overcomplicates warfare too much, that doesnt work for a game that has content beyond warfare
>>1899129I think the trade part from his post is kinda already doable
>>1899375I think you're spot on about vic2 being great and hoi4's warfare being overcomplicated, but I still feel that Vic2 can learn a lot from Hoi4. Vic2 would be greatly improved if it had Hoi4's unit designer and army frontline toolbox thing.
My competition is millions of people that are all smarter than me I am literally never going to get a job.
Interesting thread. May I chip in? Might be a bit off topic, I wouldn't want to hijack it though.I think most important part of strategy games are agents. Something akin to this perhaps, https://web.archive.org/web/20201108093636/https://sote.miraheze.org/wiki/Agents.I really looked up to this project. Although my fears came true. Where I think they failed is that instead of focusing on important stuff, they started whole world from scratch. They literally started with world generation. Tectonics, climate, bedrock and all this fluff. See for yourself. It sounds good, and it is good. But it is not important. Not then, not now, at least yet. https://web.archive.org/web/20201109023512/https://sote.miraheze.org/wiki/ClimateComplex game doesn't necessarily have depth. Instead I'd rather focus on emerging complexity from relatively simple and straightforward behaviour. You could have bunch of coloured boxes in a square town and it still could be fun and complex strategy game if these boxes could 'think' for themselves and would try to attain their goals, perhaps even cooperate with each other or even player.I've tried to wrap my head around this and how to implement it for several times, still nothing. Maybe you or anyone in this thread can chip in too? What do you think about it?>The most important aspect of any game for me is the player, without the player the game might as well not exist.You and me might view this differently. I am more for simulation kind of stuff. Where there is practically no difference between AI agent or player agent, or shouldn't be. Then the world is practically a sandbox. And it might exist, even without a player. Because who is player, than just another unfortunate entity in a cruel world you invented?This could be the breakthrough you are looking for.
>>1899452This is a really good comment, I'm going to have to think about and read into this a little more.
