Forums → Games → Uniform Game Rules => Easier Learning

Hi,

I think that it is a pity that game authors often forget that the player does not have time or will to memorize many tens of pieces of information.

Research in Warcraft-like games is one of many examples; one has to remember that: "invent better armor" at level 1,2,3 has cost 200, 250, 400 and effect +10,+20, +35%; "invent better swords" has... ... etc. etc.".

I think that game authors should try to decrease such memorization. This can be helped by regular and "uniform" rules.

Secondly, almost all games have only a limited level of each research. I think it is a pity, because too often the best strategy is to invent everything and then attack. If there were infinite levels, the players would have thrilling dilemmas.

I think both of these issues have a solution - I will illustrate it on examples:

Research in Warcraft-like games

Memorizing the information above could easily be replaced by an uniform system:

"Research better melee weapons" - each level adds 50% (additively) and costs twice as much as the previous one (250, 500, 1000, 2000...)

Research better arrows, better armor, faster horses - the cost for respective level would always be the same. Even if we replace the "50%" benefit by other value for each research (+30% arrows, +20% speed...), it is still easy to remember.

The levels may have names (Steel armor; Mithril armor...), but these names will have no game effect, they just add flavor. The important thing is level.

Civ Buildings

Civilization and its clones require memorizing of many city improvements and their parameters. The numberic values are often different in each new version or clone: Library (cost 80, upkeep 2, adds +50% science), University (cost 160, upkeep 5, adds further +75% science); Laboratory(...) etc.

I would prefer if the rules were more uniform. Again: Levels of each building can have a name (Marketplace, Bank, Stock exchange), which serves only for flavor.

For example, all research-boosting buildings could be called "Science centers". Level n science center could cost 50*2^n (symbol ^ means " power ", 2^3=8, so the sequence is 50, 100,200,400,800... or we can round it to 50,100,200,500,1000,2000...), add 50% to research (multiplicatively) and have upkeep 2*n.

So there would be a market center, research center, happiness center etc. Everything would be easy to remember. Would the game lose its flavor and become grey? I don't know, but I think not.

And after doing this, the author of such "Civ clone with uniform buildings" might decide to do the same also with Granary ("Growth enhancing center" ), City Walls and similar buildings; the players would now have a dilemma how many levels of City walls to build in each city (Colonization allows up to three levels).

There would be no upper limit for any of these buildings, but each level would be considerably less profitable than the previous one, so high levels of science/market centers would pay off only in very large cities; high levels of City walls only in threatened and important cities etc.. But there would be no treshold, so players who have secured their borders would have a dilemma (as I discussed at C-evo forum) how much to industrialize before launching a massive attack. Now there is no dilemma (in C-evo and probably many Civ versions and clones), because it is often obviously best to build all buildings in all large cities. I think here's a room for improvement.

Research in Civ-like games

Maybe some people love to learn the new tech tree in every new version (or clone) of Civilization. Yes, it has some appeal. So I won't say that games with uniform rules are inevitably better; I'll just say that I prefer them and that IMHO they have a lower risk of discouraging potential players by their complexity.

I believe that uniform rules are good for players (and game authors) who want games providing fun by challenge (as opposed to fun by novelty and fun by historical accurrancy).

A uniform technology tree might look like this (this is just a first draft, not a perfect design):

• Sociology technology: level n decreases corruption by factor 2^(n/6) - that's 17% decrease at every level, or halving per each six levels - and unlocks (allows building of) level n happiness center. (Prerequisite: level n-1 of military tech.)
• Economic technology: level n increases tax&luxuries output in each city by factor 2^(n/6) - that's 15% increase at every level, or doubling per each six levels - and allows level n market center. (Prerequisite: level n-1 of sociology tech.)
• Science technology: level n increases research output by factor 2^(n/6) and it also allows a level n science center. (Prerequisite: level n-1 of economy tech.)
• Metallurgy technology: level n increases industrial production by factor 2^(n/6) and allows level n industrial center. (Prerequisite: level n-1 of science tech.) Civ II has no pre-industrial manufactures, the first industrial center is factory (relatively late in the game) - it gives only +50%, but is costly to build and maintain. If we want to preserve all this, the simplest way IMHO is to disallow industrial centers with levels <3; the lowest level is 3.
• Transport technology: allows building naval units - and later aircrafts and spaceships. (Prerequisite: level n-1 of metallurgy tech.)
• Military technology: allows building land units. (Prerequisite: level n-1 of transport tech.)

As for prerequisites, there are many options: Each technology can depend on one level n-1 technology as described, or on two level n/2 technologies etc. etc. The author must decide how much freedom the tech "tree" should offer - or in other words: how much ahead the player should be allowed to get in one branch compared with another.

Exchange of technologies could work just like now.

And again, each level of every technology would have a name (completely irrelevant for game mechanisms), for example levels of metallurgic technology would be called Bronze working, Iron working, Steel, Composites 1, Composites 2, Composites 3... Similarly, names of respective levels of Transport technology (I try to match Civ II where possible) could be Map Making, Seafaring, Navigation, Railroad, Flight, Advanced flight, Space Flight, Transstellar colonization 1, Transstellar colonization 2...

It is important that there will be no upper bound to tech level. There would be no difference between normal and future technologies; the technological progress would simply go on uniformly. This would preserve dilemmas, I think the game would be more thrilling than Civ II clones where future tech gives only little benefit compared with normal tech. (Even in c-evo.org, where the future techs do give an in-game benefit. Btw, it's been many years since I last played FreeCiv, so I don't know the latest version. Maybe I will try it again...)

Unlocking Units by New Technology

Just to prevent a misunderstanding: I intend to publish my idea of SimpleCiv at this forum, it's a minimalistic Civ-like game with simple, uniform rules. SimpleCiv will deviate from Civilization system even more than the tech&unit system presented here. This section about unit system is unrelated to SimpleCiv. Actually, the whole article serves only as a demonstration of what I mean by "uniform rules"; game system of SimpleCiv will be explained elsewhere.

In Civ-like games, new technologies allow building more powerful units. How will the above-described tech system unlock units?

Every unit class (for example warship, fast ground attacker etc.) would also have levels:

• Either ad-hoc (irregular) as in current Civ games: fast attacker will be horsemen->chariot->knights->dragoons->cavalry->tank... And the author will define parameters of each of them individually, without any regularity.
• Or uniform - see bellow.

But whether the unit definition will or won't be uniform, I their presequities can (and IMHO should) be uniform:

As there are more unit classes than technologies, I would suggest that unlocking a level n unit depends on *two* technologies. For example Artillery depends at military and metallurgic technology, fast attackers/infantry at military and sociology/economic tech. Transport ships at transport and economic, warships at transport and metallurgic tech. Etc. As you see, the techs that have no other benefit serve more often as a prerequisite for a unit.

What does it mean "depend"? There are many possible rules, for example that sum of these techs must be at least 5*n (or 3*n), that means, that if I have discovered metallurgy at level 4, I would need military tech at level at least 6 (respectively 2) to build level 2 artillery. In Civ II I get a new unit type once every ca. three advances, so I try to set this formula to yield a similar result.

Another way to unlock units uniformly would be to say that level n unit requires level n of both prerequisite techs.

Uniform Unit Table

I sincerely do not know how far it is wise to go with uniformity when making a Civ clone (whether unit table should be uniform), but I'll try to show that it is feasible:

Btw. how many times stronger should modern units be in comparison with the ancient once? In Civ II and FreeCiv, modern units are about 10 times stronger than ancient militia, but they also have "firepower" and "hitpoints", which actually (loosely speaking) multiply the attack/defense value and which the player has to roughly remember for all units. I believe that it would be far more reasonable to leave out firepower and HP and give them stronger attack/defense values (to achieve the desired difference between each next generation of units). The author of C-evo had the same idea; in this game modern units have ca. 50 times higher values (not 10 times as in Civ II).

So - it is very important how quickly the strength grows with level - whether it is proportional to 10^(n/2) or 10^(n/12) . But I will choose it a bit arbitrarily (without much thinking), because this article only wants to illustrate advantages of uniform rules.

So, how to make unit table uniform? Let's say that level n infantry would have attack and defense (for example) 10*10^( n / 6), that's something like: 10, 15, 20, 30, 50, 70,100,150,200,300,500,700,1000,1500 etc. (see detailed analysis). And mobility ( 1 + n/4 ) while it costs 10*10^(n/12);

To spare the player of much memorizing, we will define all units as "infantry + a few modifications". For example, a level n fast attacker (knights/tank) will be a level n infantry with double the movement and half defense value. Artillery will have triple the attack and third the defense (and maybe double the cost and half the movement...) etc.

I think this could even work for sea and air units; this would preserve their relative strength and relative speed (cruiser versus tank versus fighter). Their relative parameters would be the same in 0 AD, 2000 AD or 4000 AD.

If we want to boost the relative battleship : infantry strength (faithful to historical fact that modern land units survive naval bombardment with far more difficulty than in ancient times), then we can either make an exception (see bellow), or we can say that Frigate is a level 2 destroyer, but Ironclad is a level (ca.) 3 cruiser and battleship is a level 4 battleship. From this moment on we have three (or two) classes of warships (battleship, destroyer and perhaps a cruiser) that differ significantly in their speed, strength and submarine-detection; each of this classes can be replaced with a higher level as the technology progresses.

Exceptions

If an author sticks to principle "make rules uniform where possible", then he or she is at perfect liberty to choose the amount of exceptions. For example:

• Ships bellow level 3 have no navigation capacity (to sail safely in the deep ocean)
• Bombers bellow level 6 and figthters bellow level 5 cannot be built (there were no aircrafts in middle ages)
• Unit MP's do not increase with unit level (WW I Riflemen are not faster than ancient archers), but there is a sudden leap at level 6 (mechanized infantry known from Civ II).
• Artillery ignores city Walls from level 6 on.
• On level 0, only infantry can be built. (Level 0 units are available from the first turn.)

My point is: even if these exceptions are plentiful, still the regularity (uniformity) relieves very much memorizing. I would appreciate that when I learn a new game.

Reflame

PS: My posts so far:
Games should have unlimited difficulty and well-designed background story; serves can have attractive "Try also this" section.
Useful mechanisms: teaming units for easier micromanagement.
Suggestion for new games: Warcraft-KingdomRush hybrid, MMOG based on beauty assessed by other players.
And last but not least:Are there any 2player strategy (4X) browser games? If not, why?

These ideas aim for game creators, but I got no answer to any post at ArmorGames forum. If you can give me a tip where (in what forum or company) these ideas would be welcome, please write to me: pjel()centrum.cz . Thanks :-)