Supreme Ruler Ultimate Announcement

[Balthagor]

...You should propose a fully working solution to BG if you want to see it happen.

...but in a new thread please.

The posts above show that some major issues are not being addressed in the Ultimate. Really, some sort of land trading and regional resurrecting should exist...

The omission of land trading is no more a "major issue unaddressed" then is the omission of a political system for individual regions. It's just a feature we don't model. There will always be more features that could get added if there were more development resources.

We have not ruled out regional resurrection, there are in fact lots of design ideas being evaluated for this.

[mattpilot]

yes, it's both!

I actually don't care much for SR1936. Too scripted - So i'm happy you are returning to your 'roots' of having open gameplay 'in the future'. I can only hope you include a button/toggle somewhere that completely disables all events.

But.... the reason i stopped playing is because the game is so cumbersome to play. I have absolutely no idea what's going on or how game mechanics work. I got some pointers from the game, a lot of people on the forum 'claim' to know whats going on, yet oddly... not even that is 'solid' advice. You guys yourself remain silent on the issue and refuse to explain any mechanics in detail. It's extremely difficult to extract any useful information for comparison out of the game ( comparing units, for example). There's so many units in the game that its frustrating to figure out which one is better or more suited for whatever task. etc.. etc.. etc..

For the love of all that is holy in the strategy world .... please explain mechanics and numbers IN GAME. like paradox does it with all their titles. THey know what they are doing and the players love it - they are the strategy kings for a reason. You are not streamlining or making things easier at all by leaving this information out or in the hidden. Everyone i talk to on other forums about SR has the same gripes. Awesome concept - poor execution. :/

But.... seeing how release is in a month, i'm pretty sure this is just the SR1936 engine with a new 'scenario' slapped on - but i understand, you gotta make a buck to stay in business.

[Kristijonas]

The omission of land trading is no more a "major issue unaddressed" then is the omission of a political system for individual regions. It's just a feature we don't model. There will always be more features that could get added if there were more development resources.

Could you tell me if this is intended or is it because of technical difficulties that land trading does not exist after SR2010 ? Too hard to code in the existing structure of the game? Hard to come up with a way to implement it right? (although as someone mentioned it could be a very narrow function, so only players could sell their lands for little moneys or buy -very- little lands of huge piles of moneys)

I guess regional resurrection could be a part of solving this problem.

[Kristijonas]

But.... the reason i stopped playing is because the game is so cumbersome to play. I have absolutely no idea what's going on or how game mechanics work. I got some pointers from the game, a lot of people on the forum 'claim' to know whats going on, yet oddly... not even that is 'solid' advice. You guys yourself remain silent on the issue and refuse to explain any mechanics in detail. It's extremely difficult to extract any useful information for comparison out of the game ( comparing units, for example). There's so many units in the game that its frustrating to figure out which one is better or more suited for whatever task. etc.. etc.. etc..

Actually that's why I like SR series. The game is complex enough for it to be believable as a realistic simulator. There's no way you could really know everything about all those thousands of unit designs or every single mechanic in the economy. JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE. I'm sure many economists and military experts don't know a lot of stuff even in their own sphere of work. It's just the reality of ruling a whole state.
I'm not saying BG shouldn't post what does what and this is just a philosophical point, but I find it that in not knowing many facts (not knowing -exactly- how they work, it is easier not to hate the game. When you know exactly how everything works there is no more point in experimenting, attempting various methods to attain your goals etc. SR is essentially a mathematical game. By knowing everything you could possibly SOLVE it. That would ruin the game's replayability because you would always do the same, best things. The decisions you make in the game have repercussions that make sense and that's enough.

[Zuikaku]

Omitting lande trade is equaly wrong design decision as omitting selective unit trade. New borders and demarcation lines are usually discussed as the part of peace negotiations nad peace treaties. How can we be "Supreme rulers" without that?!

[Balthagor]

...How can we be "Supreme rulers" without that?!

By playing the game with the other features? It would be nice to have, I don't doubt, but I disagree that it's a "must have". I certainly see SUT has a higher priority.

Could you tell me if this is intended...

Land trading dropped out of the engine because of massive changes in the core engine from SR2010 to SR2020 which meant every feature needed some serious rebuilding. Before rebuilding each feature, we evaluated if it's impact on gameplay and the quality of the feature justified the time involved in rebuilding the feature. The decision was not to devote the time to the land trading feature. This decision was affected by the fact that the interface for land trading was quite cumbersome and the AI couldn't ever use it. To really tackle this we're talking about two features - A system for players to be able to mark/trade land and an set of AI code capable of intelligently marking/trading land. Each of those represents a large amount of development resources.

[Zuikaku]

By playing the game with the other features? It would be nice to have, I don't doubt, but I disagree that it's a "must have". I certainly see SUT has a higher priority.

Lack of SUT seriously impacts gameplay as proven over and over again on separate thread.

This higher SUT priority means something will be worked on it or it just means higher place on "wishlist" but too low to ever be implemented??

I still think dropping land trade after 2010 was tragically wrong decision. I'd rather have weather being dropped out...

[mikeownage]

By playing the game with the other features? It would be nice to have, I don't doubt, but I disagree that it's a "must have". I certainly see SUT has a higher priority.

Lack of SUT seriously impacts gameplay as proven over and over again on separate thread.

This higher SUT priority means something will be worked on it or it just means higher place on "wishlist" but too low to ever be implemented??

I still think dropping land trade after 2010 was tragically wrong decision. I'd rather have weather being dropped out...

I agree i dislike weather as the performance cost for it isn't worth it. I would rather have land trade.

give us basic land trade between players and if you want at a later time code the AI to use it as well.

[Kristijonas]

Thank you for your answer Balthagor, I can definitely understand it being a hard to develop feature. However I still hope there's a possibility of some kind of a 'quick fix', for example, the ability to release regions as free countries (or maybe even trading territory as based on region (as in Victoria II) if that'd be easier to develop. A lack of territorial transactions is not a game breaker to me, but it is certainly a noticeable disadvantage.

I agree with the others on weather. While the notion to add some more life to the world is appreciated, I think the weather system is really not adding any interest to the game. I would have preffered a decision-based event system. For example if a country has low law enforcement and military ratings, there could be events that would rob certain hex'es of resources/approval or whatnot. Of course I understand it sounds far fetched as science fiction for things like this to become true for SR series.

I forgot to ask: Will things change for the loyalty system in SR:Ultimate ? Will it be possible to win the loyalty of conquered lands? Will there be multiple loyalties?

Thank you for your patience with my questions Balthagor.

[Balthagor]

There won't be multiple loyalties. The loyalty system is unlikely to change much. How loyalty affects other elements will get reviewed.

[Zuikaku]

How loyalty affects other elements will get reviewed.

Please, do that! There shoul'd be much greater impact of loyalty. Any chance for internal policies? Like freedom of the press, forbidding imigration or emigration, religious freedom etc.

[Kristijonas]

How loyalty affects other elements will get reviewed.

Please, do that! There shoul'd be much greater impact of loyalty. Any chance for internal policies? Like freedom of the press, forbidding imigration or emigration, religious freedom etc.

Please don't stop, this really arouses me. But let me try and guess the answer: No, no chance.

[georgios]

I can only hope you include a button/toggle somewhere that completely disables all events..

go to the proper file and delete the script evets.

[georgios]

You guys yourself remain silent on the issue and refuse to explain any mechanics in detail. It's extremely difficult to extract any useful information for comparison out of the game ( comparing units, for example). There's so many units in the game that its frustrating to figure out which one is better or more suited for whatever task.

I agree with the lack of mechanic details, but unit comparison is not locked. The unit file is readable ande there is a sreadsheed with good details. The problem is in the economy model.

For the love of all that is holy in the strategy world .... please explain mechanics and numbers IN GAME.. THey know what they are doing and the players love it - they are the strategy kings for a reason. You are not streamlining or making things easier at all by leaving this information out or in the hidden. Everyone i talk to on other forums about SR has the same gripes. :/ - but i understand, you gotta make a buck to stay in business.

Perhaps they fear the leakage of their art of simulating things. If mechanics are explained, many would create a similar or even better game. These simulation games don't have high quality graphics that need expensive equipment to be programmed. A hobby programmer, can easily understand the code and create his own game using a common game engine.

[georgios]

I guess regional resurrection could be a part of solving this problem.

What is regional resurrection?