The Future of Supreme Ruler Development / SR Next Generation

[MattTheDamon]

Would like to be able to select a daily bulk buy amount and tell the minister at what levels to keep my reserves for goods at.

[milivoje02]

In the future development of the game, it would be good to have departments such as oil reserves and other raw materials after the conquest of a country to be available to the country that conquered it. at the moment it is possible to break only the money and units of the conquered country. In history very rarely have countries managed to capture money and equipment because usually the opposing country manages to hide them. of course it happens the opposite but less often. Oil, ore, consumer goods, and industrial goods are usually stored in civilian logistics centers, and they are very easy to capture, which has almost always happened throughout history. As well as a slight adjustment of the exploration option. because desires will develop orgies depending on the challenge. let's say in the peace that lasts now (I mean in relation to World War 2) countries have military equipment in their inverters that has been crushed for 40 years, because they have no challenges. During the Second World War, 5 generations of weapons were produced in all generation at the end of the same war, some complicated equipment was older than 5 years.So it would be good if every technological state has the opportunity to develop competitively, and not to have crippled technological groups. Because if there is global peace (then there are no battles like there was a battle for Kursk) Of course, countries will develop less weapons, but if there is tension, which can be set in the game, then they will need to develop more weapons in accordance with the danger.

[MattTheDamon]

A way to setup resupply with planes and trucks. Like I tell a plane to run resupply missions so when its out of supply it goes back auto and returns. It seems you can setup a patrol to one spot but they dont stay at the base long enuf to fully stock cargo. I would like them to follow the group I want to be supplied too. I think if we went the route where you could build armies by tying units together and attack cargo planes or trucks to auto run back to resupply would work good. But being able to do this to individual units would be nice as well.

[SGTscuba]

Land transport command would be good, along with a greater selection of supply units to go with it.

[SGTscuba]

Some way of tying some resource burn to infrastructure.

For example, in the early 1900's, horses and steam locomotives were primary, so maybe have an additional resource demand on agri and coal.

Then, using techs this could be swapped out for trucks and diesel trains that then burn oil.

Eventually, techs should move them onto full electrical demand.

Maybe the techs would make the steps in lets say 25% moves or something.

[MattTheDamon]

A system to setup planes to run missions along borders or different misiions in general like patrol. ROE for units of opportunity. How far does a plane go off its patrol path to engage? Which targets does it engage? Missions based off of airports. Auto send fighters to patrol a certain radius and engage any targets that enter radius. Along with that to setup missions for planes to attack targets that become visible from any range.Meaning I have planes far from enemy lines maybe a base or 2 away and the ai will setup a certain amount to send to the target that are free from other missions. Alot of the air features I am requesting could be ported over to naval as well and even land.Missions based off of bases wether air or land would be good.Maybe there could be a bonus to operating within parent bases simulating command organization of the area and supply from bases. Generals with abilities and traits that can level would be fun as well. Players should not be allowed to do things the ai cant take advantage of at lease that the player can take huge advantages over like stacking 100 units on 1 hex. These systems would greatly help the ai I think. A way to tie planes to certain bases or carriers. They will always prefer and remember that as their main base and will try to get back to it auto. These base settings should be applied to carriers as well.

More options to manage naval forces. Again zone controls not intuitive here. Sometimes I want more dense patrols near my shores without having to deploy 1000 ships cause they randomly go patrol 1000 miles away.

A way to tell the ai how and how fast to advance a frontline. More management in that area. The theater and zone controls are not very intuitive.

Everything I have suggested in this thread would like for the ai to use as much as possible.

This maybe is already in the game I havent tested it but if some of the things I mentioned in my previous posts about the ai making use of strategic bombing and making that a thing have clusters of facilities be affected by the state of those next to it. What I mean is if u have 5 hexes maxed out with mil goods if the center one is bombed make splash damage. Factories so densely populated would make easy targets for bombs. Would discourage setting up supply hotspots and maxing out all hexes and also makes sense since there wouldnt be enuf population around 1 city perhaps to run them all. Also in addition make hexes that are damaged reduce production/supply to the surrounding hexes sim infrastructure dmg.

Ways to build tourism and immigration/resorts things of that nature.

Tie facilities to area population and make unemployement more manageable. Allow creation of cities and ways to attract population to them.

Sabotage on infrastructure could become a thing to create market shortages for some countries along with bombing. Other events could help with market fluctuation like natural disasters, crime/drug lords,more corruption. If your police is low more chances for corruption,theft,sabotage,ect. Factory accidents. Also if your mil training and spending could be tied to mil accidents and breakdowns resulting in loss of units.

Tie population growth and facilities to lumber demand.

If we can create realistic causes for supply and demand would like to see production costs and market cost not be tied to each other. For example if you have massive inflation and your production costs go up by 50% the market price should not follow your production cost. Im not sure how it currently works but this seems the case. Wether I have 0% inflation or 20% inflation I can always make a certain % on consumer / mil goods. I will say I mostly play cw sandbox. There are a few exceptions like food is always higher then the market till waaaaaaay later in the game. Even in my latest start as gautamala which is like an extremely low gdp country food cost me 2x to produce then the market. Why would any country produce and sell food at a 2x loss on the market? I mean at least to the point food has excellent rating at all times to buy.

Pirates for our navies to hunt and to terrorize our shipping lanes.

A way to control which planes run supply and which planes run transport.

[GIJoe597]

In the next SR title, please do not allow "supply creep" to capture territory when at war. In my many 1000's of hours of gameplay this is the one thing which will consistently anger me. Example; during war, when you capture a distant objective then start creating a corridor to establish a logistics train. It is most annoying when a third party, affiliated with you or not, "captures" territory around you without even having troops in the area. In many cases, when it is a third party that happens to be at war with the same enemy, it traps you in a pocket. You either have to try getting a Land Transit and Supply treaty or in many cases, you are forced to declare war on the third party just to move out of a pocket created by not a single unit.


Supply as a feature is great. Supply "capturing" territory is terrible in my opinion.

[MattTheDamon]

One thing really bugs me is how units get stuck because of low supply. Be there for months or years. There should be a minimum for fuel supply like 0.5 or 1 % if you own the territory.

[Balthagor]

...There should be a minimum for fuel supply like 0.5 or 1 % if you own the territory.

I disagree with this, there should be places that literally cannot reach any resupply of gas or bullets.

I do, however, agree that we should do more to teach the AI to avoid getting trapped in these areas. Potentially, trapped units like this could eventually surrender.

[MattTheDamon]

I dont mind if the ai does better the end result will be similar. IMO it would be rare for anyone to just drive until they ran out of fuel and then sit there for months. They would get fuel from the locals or they wouldnt go there in the first place.That why i said fuel cause they couldnt get ammo from locals but fuel they can. At any rate in my last game russia had taken all of europe and would have taken china as well but they had 100s if not 1000+ units stuck for like what seemed years. I had vision treaty with them and would check back every so often and see the same thing. Russia made it to africa with same problem.

[Balthagor]

Another suggestion thread was posted here; viewtopic.php?f=70&p=199885#p199885

Hey everyone, figured I'd post this since I have over 5,000 hours in Supreme Ruler, and over the course of those 5000 hours I have really narrowed down what I like most about this series, and what I would like to see going forward. First off, I have spent about 4000 hours on Supreme Ruler Ultimate, and 1000 on the rest of the series combined. Of this 4000, over half has been since the addition of the map editor. Were it not for the map editor, I would have stopped playing this game years ago. The map editor allows me to easily create my own custom scenarios and effectively turns Supreme Ruler into a geopolitical sandbox game. Any future Supreme Ruler game needs a map editor and modding suite, preferably with a more streamlined interface. An easy way to create and test events in real time would be nice, because I personally find that to be the most frustrating part of modding. Anyway, on to new feature recommendations!

1. The ability to change your national flag in game. This is such a huge immersion breaker for me. If the AI can change its flags in game through events, why can't I? I think that the interface for this would be relatively simple as well, if you want to change your nation's flag, just click on the flag itself, and then scroll through all the flags in the flagbits files in the graphics folders. You could either set it up like it functions in the modding tools, where you scroll through one flag at a time, or you could set up a whole menu that has all the flags on it. That way, you could add flags as you play by editing the flagbits files to put in custom flags. Why is this so immersion breaking for me? Well, I'll give you an example. If I am playing as a monarchy in 2020 and I liberate China, they are now a monarchy with a communist flag. That doesn't make any sense. I should be able to load in as China after liberating them so that I can change their flag to something more appropriate.

2. Being able to create colonies out of battle zones. We can release independent nations from battle zones, we should be able to release colonies from battle zones as well.

3. The ability to create custom colonial nations in game. If I am playing as Japan for example, and I want to resurrect Manchukuo as a colony in northeastern China, I should be able to create a custom colonial nation, choose a flag and a name, a capital city, and assign battle zones to it, regardless of loyalty. To be clear, I'm not saying that the loyalty should change when I assign a battlezone to a particular colonial nation, it should remain the same, the colonial nation just takes ownership over that battlezone. Another example of this would be if I wanted to recreate French Indochina or French West Africa.

4. A custom unit creator. Many other grand strategy games have this feature, Superpower 2, Hearts of Iron 4, etc. I think Supreme Ruler would really benefit from this. It could be structured around researching certain modules and then using an in game editor to select pieces (for example, for a tank you could have a gun, turret, chassis, and engine) to put together to create a custom unit with its own unique characteristics. You could do this by either creating a certain number of generic modeling pieces, like X number of generic looking tank turrets, battleship turrets, rocket engines, missile warheads, superstructures, airplane fuselages, jet engines, ship hulls, etc. OR slicing up the existing models you have in game into these various component parts. Alternatively, you could just allow the player to select from any of the already existing models in the game to use for their custom unit.

5. More government types. Absolute Monarchy, Constitutional Monarchy, Theocratic Monarchy, Theocratic Republic, Federal Republic, Unitary Republic, Direct Democracy, Confederation, Totalitarian Dictatorship, Authoritarian Dictatorship, Elective Monarchy, One Party State...I could go on and on but you get the point, more government types, and more direct control over government policy, would be cool.

6. Population control. Dear god are all these games Malthusian, the wealthier your country gets, the more your population grows! I need the ability to halt, or at least slow down, these forces. Give me the ability to ban or limit immigration either altogether or from specific countries. Give me the ability to drive down the birth rate by raising the cost of living, or in extreme cases, give me the ability to enact a one child policy. A population pyramid feature would be cool as well, perhaps that could effect your country's GDP?

7. The ability to build cities. I should be able to build new cities that gradually attract more population from surrounding hexes (and to a lesser extent faraway hexes too, as well as immigrants). Perhaps this could be dependent on nearby economic factors? (like if I've built any local industry for people to work in)

8. The ability to build colossal structures. Tourist attractions are already in the game, Trump Tower is already in the game, I wanna be able to rebuild the Tower of Babel! I want to be able to rebuild the 7 Wonders of the Ancient World! Make them super expensive to build too. It would give the player something fun to do besides go to war.

Anyway, I realize this is a lot, and I don't expect you guys to implement everything on this list, but hopefully I gave you all some ideas to toss around. Supreme Ruler is easily my favorite grand strategy game series of all time, so I am excited to see what you do with the next entry in the series!

[Balthagor]

...They would get fuel from the locals...

Most of those hexes have zero population, there are no locals. Maybe that will be one of the tricks, get the AI to avoid areas of zero population. Although sometimes that's how they can effectively flak a defending force.

[MattTheDamon]

I would agree with you. If we are going for realism then imo it more unrealistic for a tank or apc commander to drive off across a desert or woods with no roads and no population and no plan for fuel until they run out then pitch a tent and start living there for the rest of their life. There is really no objective for them to go there or be there irl as well. The ai is severely crippled by this as I mentioned in my game russia probably has 1000+ units stuck with no supply and will probably stay that way forever. So I actually like your suggestion because there is no reason to send tanks, apc or troops to areas with 0 population, roads, or infrastructure. There is sometimes where you want to cut across where there is no roads or supply. Thats why I suggested what I did. Unless they build a robust mission generator for supply planes and trucks which is what I prefer. Building a supply mision gen would not be the entire fix of the prob because you would need to have air superiority for supply planes so they dont suicide. Ai would need to determine the level of air superiority it has over an area plus if the enemy has air defense threats and would need missions for those tasks as well(excorts, patrols, air recon). Also when a unit is out of fuel supply units should escort not just run to the hex where it is stuck and stop. As soon as the stuck unit moves a few hexes it is stuck again and the truck or plane is hovering a few hexes away. They need to come and resupply and go back for more supplies. Seems like the ai would need to know the units mo and its pathing to determine how long it will be in 0% supply zones and assign supply units accordingly. Now I would much more prefer this system but it seems really complex so if its not possible I suggested the small supply only in owned territory. If there are no locals you could say those commanders set up a small supply chain from the military for that units specific mission into remote area.

[Rosalis]

There is no point in going to those far away cities, unless there is a massive invasion force, only then they should go there. Often there is actually nothing to fight there, 1 unit get send to defend, but the problem is it doesnt reach its destination. First step, someone taking territory, recon, when identified kill threat. If thats not possible maybe then its usefull to take further steps which gonna include proper supplying units like said and a landforce. Use your air force first, use your patrol planes, properly use supply units, with the last one you fixed 90% of the problem, since they wont go there in the first place if its already properly defended.

I can just kill all population in cities and they leave me alone. I am pretty sure there is already something in place like that. So then cities and facilities also need to be destroyed with zero population. Buidling should also be excluded in those hexes, which needs a popup message saying you need population to build.
I have a bad taste by the word tho, zero population hexes also suggest no one lives there, so realisticly i doubt this is a really good solution, transfering population is also something you might want to consider in the future seeing the suggestions. So for example a hex cant have more then 1 infantry unit order below 100 population, and 4 may be stationed as max, something like that. This will reflect some workforce available i guess to do tasks, work in facility or transfer supply to units.. Maybe it can increase over time, when more workforce is brought in or something. I guess the question then becomes more whats the minimal ammount of population in a hex at a certain time. So more focus will change towards that, i think it will be pretty hard to get realistic, but we got it now, so i guess it can be expanded more easily then create something from scratch.

With population transfer you also create a whole new game mechanic for gamers, you need to spread the facilities if you want to defend a large area. So the suggestion isnt that bad, but you need to do it properly from the first step. Only then you can enjoy the profits. Not leave huge issues like these without a proper fix. That cost sales. LIke when all else failed the solution i guess should be draw an invisible path the ai cant cross. But oh well i kinda fixed that problem by improving infrastructure on the map. To really improve the ai, you need to become the ai. Whats the most suggested thing to new players? Turn off AI.. thats not good.

[Rosalis]

To add to this after thinking about it some more, i think its kinda stupid, you can build unlimited ammount of B2, flatten Damascus and AI have zero interest. Rly i tried to help, but i think you guys lost it. We seen the same with casus belli in the past where history doesnt mather anymore. Question is why isnt this a problem in SR2020.