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Post by rob06waves2018 on Dec 15, 2018 17:52:15 GMT -6
The algorithms for geopolitics would be complex, but there are existing models. Even RISK has AI versus AI conflicts. As systems become more complex, Chaos Theory suggests they become more random. This is a difficulty because human behavior is enormously complex but never truly random. Prior to WWII, nations fought over access to markets. After WWII, nations fought over access to resources. Currently, access to information and technology is a point of conflict. But at any given time all points of conflict are active to some degree. Think what would have happened if the French sold repeating rifles to Native Americans in the 1870s. Muddies the political waters, what? Create a big table of possible points of conflict. (Hundreds) Let players create a few ( 1%, maybe 2%) Have weighted probabilities to apply them to various nations. Italy's government is distracted by a woman's sufferage movement Japan suffers economic hardship after alcohol is outlawed A UFO hoax plagues Russia The possibilities. Great. And the developers have time to "create a big table of possible points" when? I would gently suggest also that UFOs, women's suffrage and prohibition is somewhat outside the scope of the game.
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saden
New Member
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Post by saden on Dec 15, 2018 20:13:57 GMT -6
That's a little much. It's always been maintained that we aren't playing a nation, but as the naval minister for one. While some stuff could be fleshed out, the scope should be focused on naval design and battle, not the intricacies of the state. Remember, half the time we don't even know the reason wars are started besides an abstracted multicoloured bar.
I'll always gun for AIvAI wars, but eh, seems that'll never happen.
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Post by corsair on Dec 16, 2018 1:28:58 GMT -6
I just hope that Canada will not be treated as a continuous colony of Great Britain throughout RTW2, seeing as the Statute of Westminster enacted in 1931 gave the country the ability to make its own decisions.
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Post by hardlec on Dec 16, 2018 7:46:08 GMT -6
Not only should wars happen between AI states, there should be civil events that impact AI states. The unexplained phenomenon in Russia that flattened a forest caused distraction in the early Soviet state. A big table of events costs an evening and a bottle of booze with some friends. Booze is optional. Requesting ideas from fans could work, too. Budget cuts are caused by many unforseen things, the results are less money, less training, fewer ships, slower research. So hem lines can cause a butterfly effect. It also adds flavor. Adding a few subroutines is all it should take, as the code for the program is already modular.
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Post by hardlec on Dec 16, 2018 7:55:56 GMT -6
I just hope that Canada will not be treated as a continuous colony of Great Britain throughout RTW2, seeing as the Statute of Westminster enacted in 1931 gave the country the ability to make its own decisions. Poland also gained independence. This cost Russia/USSR a warm water port. Canada remains friendly with UK. Poland was never very friendly with the USSR. Players designing nations should be made less arcane.
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Post by britishball on Dec 16, 2018 8:29:27 GMT -6
However it would be abstracted and handled AI vs AI wars seems like such an important feature, especially when we are considering 50 years of history, and it adds an extra layer of strategy, you could raise extra funds by completing foreign orders for ships after a major battle, you could strike a larger nation just after they've got out of a major war. Along the lines of what generalvikus suggests an upwards trend of +1 tension per year or two years against all nations with different ideology, it would be a simple way of ensuring a WW2 sized war in almost every campaign, although there would also have to be an implementation of ideology flip upon victory or something to prevent comedically recurring wars every decade. So along the lines of 1900 all nations are democracies, 1920's Russia flips to Communism and ticks up tension every few years against democracies (a war will begin around early to mid 30's unless democracies make an effort to reduce tensions which would be decided by a dice roll, some nations like Britain would be weighted 4:2 to try and prevent escalation and Germany might be weighted 2:4 so more likely to escalate) then in the 30's Italy flips to Fascism and ticks with the same idea, although Communism relative to Fascism or visa versa would be weighted 1:5, so really unlikely to reduce tension with eachother. This makes a world war almost certain to begin from 1935-1940. If Germany quickly stomps France and Britain it sets up the Reichskommissariat of Britain (or something) which flips them Fascist and makes them an ally, if an early 30's war breaks out between USSR and Germany or Japan and GB/USA/FR don't get involved you get the Democratic People's Republic of Japan or whatever. If a democracy beats a democracy there is a dice roll to see if it pushes them hard Communist or Fascist, though (roughly half the time?) they won't change ideology at all. Of course this system is flawed, it ignores the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, but seeing as minor nations don't exist in RTW2's metrics that doesn't really matter, crucially it still leaves the player without omnipotent agency given to you in lesser simulations like HOI4 where you can instantly flip Britain to Fascist and get all the benefits, you could handle player loss of major wars by essentially giving an event where the player decides if the game ends, example text: "The British Government has surrendered to the Nazi Reich, in recognition of your skill and bravery the Hitler asks _player-name_ to join the Oberkommando der Marine, how do you respond?" "Seig Heil! (or something suitable that won't get RTW2 banned in Germany) continue as Adm of the Fleet for the new nation Reichskommissariat of Britain." "Never! GOD SAVE THE KING! (executed, game ends.)" I'd be interested to hear thoughts on this, from Veteran members that I always see making excellent suggestions like bcoopactual and aeson as well as actual development members garrisonchisholm. Is it possible? Is it much really hard compared to how it sounds? How would you tweak it? Any other feedback is welcome. Tristan
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Dec 16, 2018 8:56:41 GMT -6
For my part I am limited in what I can say, but some of these ideas do match what is being discussed in development. If (big big if) AI vs AI becomes a thing, due to the vast scope of the other matters Fredrik is working on I think you can count upon it being as uncomplicated as possible. Getting carriers to operate as carriers is still job 1.
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Post by britishball on Dec 16, 2018 9:23:32 GMT -6
For my part I am limited in what I can say, but some of these ideas do match what is being discussed in development. If (big big if) AI vs AI becomes a thing, due to the vast scope of the other matters Fredrik is working on I think you can count upon it being as uncomplicated as possible. Getting carriers to operate as carriers is still job 1. Appreciate that, I fully understand, thanks for the response!
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Post by bcoopactual on Dec 16, 2018 9:58:11 GMT -6
Well, I may not be the best to add to this topic since I'm pretty stoked if all I get is RTW1 with WW2 technology added to it. That being said, anything that makes the game more of a grand strategy title is probably a good thing. I only say probably because I'm not 100% sure I want the German AI beating up on the French AI's fleet in a war that I'm not involved in because frankly I am probably going to want to do that myself later on in the game. Since we know that allied ships (and I think bases) are going to be added to actual battle scenarios I wouldn't mind an abstract system or an event bundle that, say for a period of ten years or so, takes a random couple of nations and moves them into the player's orbit and takes a few other nations and moves them to oppose the player. Modified by player decisions and aggressiveness in events choices. That way we are more likely to see allies on both sides of a player vs. AI war. And then after that war or the end of the ten year period, the game shifts AI inclinations again randomly so maybe now a former ally is now a competitor and possibly a former enemy becomes friendly and even allied in the next war. People who think that doesn't go far enough for what they want to see certainly aren't wrong. Just keep in mind that this is the credit screen from RTW1 for those who haven't seen it. I know that several of the forum members were added and are assisting as playtesters but that still strikes me a small group of individuals by any standard for a team putting together a computer game of this complexity. So whatever doesn't get added, that doesn't mean it wasn't a good idea, it might just be that the tyrannies of budgets and man hours had the final say. At least for the initial release. The final build of RTW1 has quite a few features in it that weren't part of the initial release.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 16, 2018 11:02:54 GMT -6
This game is an IGOUGO type game depicting virtual history. In this type of history, the path of real history can be followed but the decisions made are "the paths not taken". With the hardware, software, cost and time limitations, the game can only follow so many paths. It is hard enough to accurately depict land and carrier aviation, let alone every subtle nuance of behavior of nations. Another limitation is that you are facing a computer program, not a human with human emotional decision-making. I have been playing computer games since the TRS-80, 40 years ago, and this has been the consistent problem for all programmers and game developers. Even the military has a similar problem, as many pilots I have know have said, flight simulators are nice and do a good job of teaching, but there is nothing better than actual combat.... if you survive it.
I complement the team and its patience for listening to our suggestions but remind everyone of these limitations.
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Post by britishball on Dec 16, 2018 11:24:37 GMT -6
This game is an IGOUGO type game depicting virtual history. In this type of history, the path of real history can be followed but the decisions made are "the paths not taken". With the hardware, software, cost and time limitations, the game can only follow so many paths. It is hard enough to accurately depict land and carrier aviation, let alone every subtle nuance of behavior of nations. Another limitation is that you are facing a computer program, not a human with human emotional decision-making. I have been playing computer games since the TRS-80, 40 years ago, and this has been the consistent problem for all programmers and game developers. Even the military has a similar problem, as many pilots I have know have said, flight simulators are nice and do a good job of teaching, but there is nothing better than actual combat.... if you survive it. I complement the team and its patience for listening to our suggestions but remind everyone of these limitations. Isn't IGOUGO more commonly just called "turn based" or am I missing something there? Either way I understand your point however I'm not asking for "every subtle nuance of behavior of nations" or AI with "human emotional decision-making" simply a system whereby AI nations aren't entirely dormant unless acted on by the player. I suppose the biggest challenge would be creating some rudimentary AI for AI vs AI war, though I'm not sure how different it would have to be from the current AI in place. Again not being a developer I don't know these things, it might be the exact same, it might have to be rebuilt from the ground up, it's probably somewhere inbetween.
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Post by corsair on Dec 16, 2018 11:44:33 GMT -6
However it would be abstracted and handled AI vs AI wars seems like such an important feature, especially when we are considering 50 years of history, and it adds an extra layer of strategy, you could raise extra funds by completing foreign orders for ships after a major battle, you could strike a larger nation just after they've got out of a major war. The first thing that comes to my mind regarding that is the Battle of the Atlantic, around which so much submarine and ASW warfare revolved. In the absence of one ally aiding another while not being at war with a third country, or both allies at war together against that third nation, it seems to me many of the aspects of the real-world convoy battles would be lost.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Dec 16, 2018 18:44:22 GMT -6
This game is an IGOUGO type game depicting virtual history. In this type of history, the path of real history can be followed but the decisions made are "the paths not taken". With the hardware, software, cost and time limitations, the game can only follow so many paths. It is hard enough to accurately depict land and carrier aviation, let alone every subtle nuance of behavior of nations. Another limitation is that you are facing a computer program, not a human with human emotional decision-making. I have been playing computer games since the TRS-80, 40 years ago, and this has been the consistent problem for all programmers and game developers. Even the military has a similar problem, as many pilots I have known have said, flight simulators are nice and do a good job of teaching, but there is nothing better than actual combat.... if you survive it. I complement the team and its patience for listening to our suggestions but remind everyone of these limitations. Isn't IGOUGO more commonly just called "turn based" or am I missing something there? Either way I understand your point however I'm not asking for "every subtle nuance of behavior of nations" or AI with "human emotional decision-making" simply a system whereby AI nations aren't entirely dormant unless acted on by the player. I suppose the biggest challenge would be creating some rudimentary AI for AI vs AI war, though I'm not sure how different it would have to be from the current AI in place. Again not being a developer I don't know these things, it might be the exact same, it might have to be rebuilt from the ground up, it's probably somewhere inbetween. IGOUGO games are turned based games but generally are in two categories: simultaneous or sequential. This classification of games can also be timed turns and time compression based. The subcategories go on and on. Generally, this game is a turned based IGOUGO game.
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Post by aeson on Dec 16, 2018 20:00:52 GMT -6
britishball, I personally don't particularly want the game set up to force specific wars to occur, and as losing a war by governmental collapse neither automatically ends the game nor prevents the player from resigning I don't see any particular benefit to introducing an event which specifically results from losing wars against Fascist states which demands that the player choose between, in effect, resigning the game or continuing to play. IGOUGO games are turned based games but generally are in two categories: simultaneous or sequential. IGOUGO specifically refers to the sequential turn-based format; the simultaneous turn-based format is WEGO.
As to whether or not Rule the Waves is IGOUGO, I'd say that it isn't; combat turns (rounds) are simultaneous, and strategic turns may as well be simultaneous even if the game technically resolves each player's moves sequentially.
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Post by generalvikus on Dec 16, 2018 21:28:44 GMT -6
I'm glad to see the large amount of responses to this thread both from those who support these ideas and from those who are more or less indifferent - they ought to be discussed either way. Having said that, I'd like to clarify my personal position at this point. First of all, a reminder of the collation of my own and others' ideas which I presented earlier:
- I'm not suggesting that any of these items should be a higher priority than highly polished combat mechanics.
- I'm not suggesting that the game should in any way be railroaded in its tension mechanics and the outbreak of wars.
- I'm not suggesting that any of the more complex solutions about which I have speculated need to be implemented before the game can be considered complete.
All I'm suggesting is that at least some of the least complex solution which have been proposed would be worth adding to the game, either before or after release. My reasons are as follows:
1. I assume, perhaps incorrectly, (though I have not been corrected so far,) that the most simple solutions that have been proposed would not involve a large amount of work to implement relative to the brain power and man-hours required to implement the very complex mechanics that are currently already implemented or being implemented.
2. The major attraction for this game is not the improvement of the mechanics which pertain to the first game's time period, but the implementation of new mechanics which pertain to the new time period of 1925 - 1950. Since the game does already include a political / diplomatic element, I believe that without emphasising this element any more than was already the case in the first game, new mechanics should be implemented to make the new time period feel distinct in the political / diplomatic arena. I therefore believe that a mechanic to modify tensions depending on ideology differences is the most important suggestion as well as being, I presume, one of the easiest to implement. The events which drive the 'diplomacy' element of the first game are tailor - made for the world of the early 1900s, and offer a very good abstraction of the diplomacy of that period; it's all about colonies, prestige, and imperial rivalry, and it pits every nation against every other nation. This system is not appropriate, however, for the period of 1925 - 1950/74, which ought to be defined by grand ideological confrontations in peace and war. If all we had was the current system of tensions, alliances and wars, I would feel that the game had not captured the essence of the new time period which is its major selling point as successfully as the original game captured the essence of its time period.
3. AI vs AI wars are of secondary importance, but do not necessarily need to be of greater complexity, as I hope I have at least somewhat successfully laid out above. I believe that the implementation of even the most rudimentary system will be beneficial, because it would be much more than flavour. Of course, it will as others have pointed out make the game feel more 'real' and 'alive'; it will increase player immersion. However, perhaps more importantly, it will also add new dimensions of strategy for the player to consider. If I am playing as Britain in 1904, I may decide to sign a treaty with France not because I need the help of the French navy, but because I do not want to see the France defeated by Germany. If I am playing as the USA in 1917, I may decide to enter the ongoing world war not because I am directly threatened by one side or the other, but because I will be directly threatened if one side should overthrow the balance of power. If I am playing as Italy in 1940 or Japan in 1941, I may decide to go to war with the western alliance not because I am strong enough to beat them by myself, but because their war with Germany creates a window of opportunity.
Some further new thoughts / clarifications of old ones:
Nations should 'flip' ideology either by random events, or by total defeat in war as in the first game. Thus, every game ought to turn out differently. Of course, an optional 'historical' mode could not hurt, but it is not necessary.
It should be entirely possible for a player to avoid war with a nation of a different ideology, if he is willing to make the necessary sacrifices to budget, prestige, etc. in the events that pop up. It should even be possible for a player to go to war with a nation of the same ideology, if he so chooses. All that needs to be modified is the likelihood that an event which has the possibility to raise or lower the tension with a given nation will occur.
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