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Events

Posted: Nov 27 2006
by Lightbringer
I have seen mention of population and nature events scattered here and there in these threads. I thought a discussion of them in more detail might be fun. I guess the first order of business is to ask the Goats if they will have a place in 2020?

Mind you, I'm not saying they are needed, but they always added a little spice and realism in games I've played before.

Events based on high and low approval ratings? (lol a railroad worker's strike messing up Feltan's strategic redeployment was what got me thinking on this track...)

Natural disasters? Lord knows I've had a fleet or two that would have bankrupted me to have sunk in a Hurricane.

If this has been discussed but I overlooked the thread, please redirect me. And if the Goats have nixed the idea I can turn my imagination back towards something more fruitful.

Re: Events

Posted: Nov 27 2006
by ainsworth74
Lightbringer wrote:I've had a fleet or two that would have bankrupted me to have sunk in a Hurricane.
Jeez, imagine the headlines:

Is our Navy in Safe hands? Thousands dead after huge Hurracain is missed on weather radar!!

I can see it now...

Also I think R/L people might get a tad anouyed if this just happened.

Posted: Nov 27 2006
by BigStone
Hav to agree with Ainsworth... those natural events could be quite devastating to the gameplay.

Though events where the player has some control over it would be nice

Think about something like conquer a nukeplant ... and you don't have the nuke-technology.Then there must be a change that thing goes boom....

etc

Posted: Nov 27 2006
by Il Duce
...I'm thinking of the major typhoon that almost wasted the US fleet in Tokyo Bay during the surrender of Japan. A 'divine irony' that must have really shaken the faith of the Japanse people. These things do happen. Also of course the 100-year storm in the English channel during the Invasion of Normandy [that ate a Mulberry]. Dunno if I want them to happen to me, but then, sometimes they work in your favor, too.

Posted: Nov 28 2006
by Feltan
Random events really add flavor to a game. They make it fun, less predictable and enhance replay. Also, and importantly, if done correctly -- they allow the modding community to really assist in making the game more dynamic.

Categories could include:
- political (scandal, riots, deaths/assasinations, etc)
- economic (strikes, recession/depression, stock surge, etc)
- military (recruiting gains/losses, aircraft maintenance failure grounding, supply problems, etc)
- diplomatic (gain or loss of reputation, inadvertant insults, other events changing relations, etc)
- weather (hurricanes, blizzards, tornadoes, heat wave, drought, etc)
- natural disasters (flood, earthquake, volcano, nuke accident, etc)
- miscellaneous (tech breakthrough, social/society events, etc)

Events need a probablity of occurance and an affect of existing game functions/features.

This could be some low hanging fruit that could really propel the game to new heights.

Regards,
Feltan

Posted: Nov 28 2006
by dust off
Feltan, you described my thoughts on this.

I'd see political, diplomatic, economic as priorities. I also see the way Galactic Civ II implemented it as a pointer to good gaming. Each event gave the leader/player a choice of reaction. The reaction had an effect on the general moral leaning and also had variours costs and bonuses or choices between different losses.

I really think SR would benefit from something like this to give it a more life-like feel. Implementation would need finely balancing and I suspect there would be those who thought that there were too many and too few events.

There are also some 'events' already in the game that we don't get to comment on in a diplmatic way. Wars, weapons development etc.

Problem with this thread is that 'events' are not in the new features list.

Posted: Nov 28 2006
by Feltan
dust off wrote: Problem with this thread is that 'events' are not in the new features list.
Not to worry, this is an easy late addition. All the Goats really have to do is define the API, and then events can be added by the boatload by anyone intested in developing them.

API is Application Programming Interface -- basically, the format of how an event needs to be written. Events would be part of a cron job (chronological) that gets calculated daily. For instance, there is a 0.00015 chance of a huricane hitting a given geographic area on any given day between Nov and March between the tropic of cancer and capricorn. All you really need to know is how to code that so the SR engine can read and calculate on a daily basis.

Regards,
Feltan

Posted: Nov 28 2006
by Khorne
This just in we have recived report that...HOLY **** ITS RAINING DAEMON GOATS!!!!!!!!!RUN OH DEAR GOD RUN!!!!!

Posted: Nov 28 2006
by red
Events should be borne from how the player is acting and have meaningful effects on the player's actions. Events are otherwise just a cheap and annoying way to make a game look complete. In the games I've played which had events, it was mostly the "stare at the blinking lights" variety. Here I think Paradox games, though GalCiv didn't make much of an impression on me: pick a choice in an event popped almost at random, then work around it in the next second...

I don't see events being meaningful to the game in the abscence of a complete system which is very tightly tied to the fundamentals of the game and stands to both cause and be affected by events--in other words, something far beyond an API for modders. Even then, I would put it far below AI in priorities.

More than anything else, what creates ambiance in games is for me the presence of many AIs which appear to have their own agendas in the abscence of the human and understanding of other players' actions. Civilization IV did this very nicely, and had no events. I gather this is very difficult, but it does a great deal more for the game than events.

Posted: Nov 28 2006
by Feltan
Shall we take a vote on who the party pooper is? :lol:

Regards,
Feltan

Posted: Nov 28 2006
by Il Duce
...I think red's getting at the idea that any events should basically be a wry and subtle comment on the finesse of the player: that is, if you attack the game with blunt force, you run into a wall. On the other hand, if you take advantage of subtle opportunities in a thoughtful way, you get rewarded. Although reality doesn't always work that way, aren't we playing these things to escape reality?

This would be a nice feature, but I also agree that it doesn't make up for a lack of similar finesse on the part of AI players.

Posted: Nov 29 2006
by red
I had a labored reply and everything, but you know what, I would bet that there is simply no thought about adding an events system with their schedule and this issue is already decided without us. :wink:

Posted: Nov 29 2006
by Lightbringer
...well I did invite them to nip this in the bud, but I imagine they don't mind taking our temperature on the subject. :roll:

I lean towards the side of reactive events over purely random or statistical happenings. I don't feel they would be a necessary addition to 2020, but they might be a nice twist in 2030. :wink:

Posted: Nov 29 2006
by dust off
Even then, I would put it far below AI in priorities
As much as I'd like to see events added at some point, I'd have to agree that the precious coding time would likely be better spent on the Ai and other priorities. Also agree player and AI actions would be the best trigger for events, and that they should have meaningful consequences. All of which would likely mean significant coding time. Let's not forget 2020 is shooting for 2007.

Posted: Nov 29 2006
by nghtmre15
dust off wrote:I'd have to agree that the precious coding time would likely be better spent on the Ai and other priorities.