Design Brainstorming : More Country Detail

[Amineri]

Someone posted up a comparison of Long War to the grand-strategy genre on the 2k forums, plus I've recently been playing a fair bit of Victoria 2 (with the Pops of Darkness mod) and Crusader Kings 2 (with the CK2+ mod). As you can see I really do like the genre :smile:

 

So, it got me to thinking that perhaps some additional detail could be added to the countries in order to create more interesting and meaningful decisions about countries. This would add some additional complexity to the strategy game, which may or may not suit a person.

 

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Currently country information is defined in the XGCountry class. This contains the following variables:

 

m_arrBounds : a bounding rectangle that defines the outer bounds of the country. Was modded in Long War to provide more consistent UFO loiter times.

 

m_arrCities : a dynamic array of type int, containing enum references to the cities within the current country

 

m_arrUFORecord : dynamic array of type TUFORecord. Used to record UFOs that have visited a particular country. Logged in XGStrategyAI, and cleared when a satellite is launched over the country. Currently used to determine if an alien Hunt objective has been visited on the country. Used to adjust probabilities for second and subsequent satellite hunters in a country.

 

m_bSatellite : boolean that records whether there is currently a satellite over the country. Set when the satellite is launched, not when it reaches orbit.

 

m_bSecretPact : boolean that records whether a country has left the XCOM project

 

m_iFunding : the current funding level of the country. Is adjusted by SW options and the "all countries contribute" modlet.

 

m_iPanic : countries panic. technically could be any integer value, but in practice is clamped from 0 to 4

 

m_kTCountry : contains primarily static country information

• var int iEnum;
• var string strName;
• var string strNameWithArticle;
• var string strNameWithArticleLower;
• var string strNamePossessive;
• var string strNameAdjective;
• var int iContinent;
• var int iFunding;
• var int iScience;
• var int iEngineering;
• var bool bDeveloped;
• var bool bCouncilMember;

There are 36 countries defined in the ECountry enum. Only 16 of these countries are Funding Council countries. bCouncilMember denotes these 16 countries.

 

iFunding in m_kTCountry stores the maximum funding possible.

 

iScience, iEngineering, and bDeveloped appear to be unused.

 

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Effectively the useful country statistics are:

a) Max Funding

b) Current Funding

c) Current Panic

d) Satellite status

e) In/Out of XCOM

 

This tends to make each country pretty generic, in my opinion.

 

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Here are some additional things I've thought of that could add some detail to each country:

 

0) Panic : Am strongly considering changing panic to scale to a number between 0 and 100. This would provide a lot more flexibility in adjusting panic and the effects of panic.

 

• In Terror Missions, each civilian lost affects panic, making each civilian casualty meaningful. Even a successful Terror Mission that saves all civilians results in significant damage to the city, resulting in a small panic increase. The only way to completely prevent the panic is to shoot down the Terror ship before it lands. A failed terror mission would generate maybe 60 points of panic plus 30 points of panic in other countries on the continent. A successful terror mission would generate 10 points of panic +1 point of panic for each civilian killed (so up to 28 max).
• Landed Abduction missions can cause a small amount of panic if beaten by XCOM forces. The only way to completely prevent the panic is by shooting down the Abductor UFO before it lands. Maybe on the order of 5 points of panic for mission success and 20 points of panic for mission failure, plus 10 points of panic for all other countries on the continent.
• Panic can be adjusted slightly by the country's tech level -- more advanced tech means smaller panic increases (maybe slightly randomized). initially I'm thinking of making tech level provide a chance to prevent each point of panic gain. The chance could scale from 0% to 50% chance to prevent each point of panic, as country tech level progresses from starting to max tech (this is alien tech, not earth tech, so all countries would start at 0 tech).
• Shooting down a UFO results in no panic change (but it does increase goverment opinion)
• Successfully assaulting a shot-down UFO decreases panic in the country. The amount would likely be in the 5 to 20 point range depending upon UFO type and mission (20 points for shooting down/assaulting a battleship on a terror mission ^_^)

 

 

1) Government opinion : This represents the current relations between the country's government and XCOM. This is mostly independent of panic.

 

This additional stat would be particularly appropriate with Enemy Within coming out. Falsely accusing a government of harboring EXALT would drastically reduce the gov't opinion, but wouldn't increase panic. Opinion would primarily affect funding and willingness to provide personnel (scientists, engineers, and soldiers).

• Launching a satellite over a country would increase the government opinion, but not directly reduce panic.
• Also am considering adding an 'interceptor patrol' mission that can be launched over countries without satellite coverage to detect certain UFO missions.
• Shooting down UFOs would increase government opinion, while assaulting UFOs would reduce panic.
• Granting a FC Request for alien artifacts would increase government opinion, while not fulfilling a request would decrease opinion.
• Launching a satellite or transferring an interceptor would increase opinion, while not doing so would decrease opinion.

 

2) Tech level : This would represent each country's independent efforts to reverse engineer the alien technology. There's no reason why XCOM would be the only humans capable of this. It's just that XCOM represents the accumulation of the best minds, so XCOM works a bit faster. The quickest way to boost a country's tech level would be by providing recovered artifacts to the country, a la Funding Council Requests, although this could slow down XCOM research efforts if overdone.

• A country's tech level would gradually increase over time to represent the country slowly gathering artifacts and conducting research
• Fulfilling an FC Request for artifacts would provide a boost to the country's tech level
• Accepting scientists or engineers from a country would slow the growth of the country's tech level
• Higher tech level is required in order to request more 'advanced' artifacts
• Higher tech level reduces the panic increase from various missions, as the goverment forces are better able to contain the aliens

 

3) "Top tier" scientists and engineers available : This represents the personnel that XCOM wants. Each country would have a given number of scientists and engineers available, determined at the beginning of the game. Of course each country has a large number of "second stringers", but they can't all fit in a small secret base :wink:

 

• A country may offer up a top tier scientist or engineer in exchange for alien artifacts
• Losing the scientist or engineer slightly slows the country's tech level rate over the long term, but provides a short term tech level boost
• Having a satellite active over a country provides 'consulting access' to the large numbers of scientists in the country, providing an effective boost to XCOM scientists as long as the satellite is operational. This also provides a boost to the country's tech level increase rate. Losing the satellite causes the effective number of XCOM scientists to drop. Workshops still provide an effective boost to XCOM engineers through the automation technology.
• Low government opinion reduces the likelihood of the country offering scientists or engineers
• If a country is 'taken over' by aliens, access to those scientists/engineers is lost until the country is re-taken

 

4) Satellite rework : Following Bertillson's idea, satellites would no longer activate / deactivate funding. Instead, funding would primarily be determined by the gov't opinion and panic stats. The primary benefit of satellites would be detection of UFOs, with opinion and panic improvements happening as a secondary effect. Launching a satellite would still provide a number of significant benefits:

 

• Provides detection of UFOs, allowing Terror/Abduction mission UFOs to be shot down.
• Increase gov't opinion, which increases funding as a secondary effect
• Gives fixed one-time increase of scientists, which is lost if the satellite is shot down (and is regained again if a new satellite is launched)
• Increase country's tech level gain rate, as the country can share in XCOM's research findings

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I'm open to additional ideas, but want to try and only add detail that creates more interesting decisions (as opposed to simply adding more detail for its own sake). In particular my own criteria for adding a country stat : (a) must be able to be meaningfully influenced by the player (b) must have an impact on gameplay and the decisions that the player makes.

 

Alongside this, I'm thinking of some reworking of the alien missions to make them more goal-oriented. I haven't fully thought through these mission changes, though, so haven't posted anything yet (although there are some hints of it above).

Edited October 23, 2013 by Amineri

[Bertilsson]

I would definitively like any mod that expands on the strategy side of the game.

 

Maybe it would not be necessary to implement all the detail levels of the suggested parameters, but if possible, more is better :smile:

 

Perhaps the number of available scientists could be directly linked to the number of satellites available?

Instead of granting a monthly supply of scientists they would provide a small one-time number of scientists (somewhere in the neighborhood of 3) and the player would lose the same number of scientists when the satellite is lost.

On rare occasions a permanent/independent scientist could be gained as mission reward, which would truly be a valuable reward in that case.

 

This would give the player an incentive to expand the satellite network without monetary gain (preferably there would be no direct connection at all between satellites and money, instead money would be a factor of panic/and or government approval). Research could be further increased by building laboratories.

The player would have to chose between prioritizing research and expansion at the expense of not affording workshops, equipment and interceptors to defend the constantly expanding satellites network.

 

If possible to also tie into all the other variables you were considering, the rule more is better would definitively still apply.

Edited October 23, 2013 by Bertilsson

[theoldone22]

I'd like if the 20 disabled countries could be enabled. You would not be able to portect everyone and need to chose who to cover and who you can let go.

[Amineri]

I'd like if the 20 disabled countries could be enabled. You would not be able to portect everyone and need to chose who to cover and who you can let go.

 

I'd thought about this but this would require some significant new art assets, as currently there are only actionscript shape files for the 16 FC countries. Also the Situation Room UI would have to be reworked to allow for more than 16 countries. Finally, the geoscape would need to updated to display the additional countries.

 

It's a lot of work, and a lot of it in areas that are quite troublesome to mod.

 

It might be more feasible to swap some countries for other countries. Just as a thought, perhaps instead of 16 countries spread over 5 continents (leaving NA, SA and Africa with fewr countries), one continent could be narratively destroyed leaving 4 continents each with 4 countries? Not sure if it would really be an improvement, but would be more achievable.

[Amineri]

I would definitively like any mod that expands on the strategy side of the game.

 

Maybe it would not be necessary to implement all the detail levels of the suggested parameters, but if possible, more is better :smile:

 

Perhaps the number of available scientists could be directly linked to the number of satellites available?

Instead of granting a monthly supply of scientists they would provide a small one-time number of scientists (somewhere in the neighborhood of 3) and the player would lose the same number of scientists when the satellite is lost.

On rare occasions a permanent/independent scientist could be gained as mission reward, which would truly be a valuable reward in that case.

 

This would give the player an incentive to expand the satellite network without monetary gain (preferably there would be no direct connection at all between satellites and money, instead money would be a factor of panic/and or government approval). Research could be further increased by building laboratories.

The player would have to chose between prioritizing research and expansion at the expense of not affording workshops, equipment and interceptors to defend the constantly expanding satellites network.

 

If possible to also tie into all the other variables you were considering, the rule more is better would definitively still apply.

 

I like the way you are thinking :smile:

 

I've updated the original post clarifying some points, particularly the panic changes and what role satellites might serve.

 

Here's a summary of how scientists (or more generically, research) might be obtained:

1) Each satellite provides a certain number of scientists when the satellite is launched, as it provides access to the scientists in that country. This quantity can vary for each country. These scientists are lost if the satellite is shot down.

2) Countries can provide scientists as a reward for FC Requests (as now). The number of scientists each country can provide in this manner is capped (with a separate cap for each country).

3) Laboraties would still provide the same multiplicative effect as currently

4) As a further option, interrogations could be made into repeatable projects that provide a small research point boost to the current project. Interrogations would require autopsies, as in Long War.

 

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Here's how engineers might be obtained:

1) Countries can provide engineers as rewards for FC Requests, following the same rules as for scientists.

2) Workshops would provide automation, which would provide the same +5 engineer bonus as currently.

3) Am open to any further suggestions for engineers. One thing I'm unsure of is what happens to a current project if the number of engineers drops below the required number (like if a workshop is destroyed). If this is bug free, then satellites could provide engineers in the same manner as scientists.

 

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Reward soldiers could be given as FC Request rewards, with the chance that a country has a soldier (and the rank of the soldier) depending on the country's tech level.

[dubiousintent]

In general I'm impressed with all of your suggestions. They will make a definite change to the strategy game.

 

The specific area I would like to suggest tweaking is 'government opinion' and it's relationship to panic. You said it is mostly independent of panic, which is fine in general, but I think panic's effect on funding should be to increase it rather than decrease funding. After all, what happens in most crisis? They throw money at it. (Personnel are more of a long term response. Perhaps enable the hiring of scientists and engineers?)

 

Of course this increased panic should be driving more of the 'government opinion' effect upon funding. Not so much that the government will be happy, but that they will be feeling pressure from their populace But XCOM failing to intercept flights over the country should decrease govt opinion, and failed missions should have a lessor but still negative effect. Success is what they are 'funding for, and as such should not boost opinion. Having a broad range for the opinion will allow for various break points to alter funding.

 

Just some thoughts off the cuff as it were.

 

-Dubious-

Edited October 24, 2013 by dubiousintent

[Amineri]

In general I'm impressed with all of your suggestions. They will make a definite change to the strategy game.

 

The specific area I would like to suggest tweaking is 'government opinion' and it's relationship to panic. You said it is mostly independent of panic, which is fine in general, but I think panic's effect on funding should be to increase it rather than decrease funding. After all, what happens in most crisis? They throw money at it. (Personnel are more of a long term response. Perhaps enable the hiring of scientists and engineers?)

 

Of course this increased panic should be driving more of the 'government opinion' effect upon funding. Not so much that the government will be happy, but that they will be feeling pressure from their populace But XCOM failing to intercept flights over the country should decrease govt opinion, and failed missions should have a lessor but still negative effect. Success is what they are 'funding for, and as such should not boost opinion. Having a broad range for the opinion will allow for various break points to alter funding.

 

Just some thoughts off the cuff as it were.

 

-Dubious-

 

Thanks for the ideas :)

 

From a narrative perspective, increasing panic could go a couple of different ways. The increased panic could induce the goverment to increase funding to XCOM (after all, the general public doesn't know about XCOM). However, the increased panic could lead to widespread looting or people staying home (hiding) and not working. So funding due to panic could increase, decrease, or stay roughly the same. Hard to tell. Plus funding isn't just money -- it's really about the goods and services that the money buys. If productivity drops effectively XCOM would be getting less.

 

From a gameplay perspective, making panic increase funding would create a 'moral hazard', inducing the player to let the aliens increase panic in order to increase funding. Plus despite all appearance I really am going to try and simplify the systems down before implementation, both in order to make them easier to understand as well as to hopefully make the code fit :p

 

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Regarding the government opinion ... I guess I'm thinking of it not just as to whether they "like" XCOM, but as to whether they think it is going to be effective.

 

Realistically I'd expect each country's government to have a faction which would advocate defending themselves, reverse engineering the alien tech on their own, and who would rather spend the funds/resources on their own efforts instead of giving them to XCOM. The more effective XCOM is the weaker this faction would be, while the less effective XCOM is, the more clout it would gain.

 

I'd expect their argument to be along the lines of "If XCOM isn't going to protect us, why are we funding them? Those resources should go to our own scientists and military!"

 

My thinking here is to provide a separate stat controlling country funding. Currently in vanilla funding is either 0% or 100%, based on satellite. There are also the two SW options that affect funding, either decreasing it with time or scaling it with panic.

 

In Long War (as of 2.11) the only change is to make the funding be X% or 100% based on satellite coverage, where X depends on difficulty.

 

In my opinion vanilla dumps too many benefits into having satellite coverage, so I want to split out some of those benefits.

 

Panic is already a critical stat that ultimately determines whether you win or lose the game, so I want to avoid creating "tipping points". If panic controls funding then the game can easily tip toward being too easy (all countries with low panic) or too hard (all countries with high panic).

 

So.... my idea of creating a new stat to control funding. Maybe the label government opinion isn't a good one. Maybe it would be simpler just to have different actions directly affect each countries funding?

[Bertilsson]

Maybe it would be simple enough to label it government support level instead of opinion to avoid misunderstandings?

Direct impact on funding would have the benefit of not needing any GUI adaptions and I personally think it would be intuitive enough.

[Krazyguy75]

I'd prefer (from a pure gameplay standpoint, ignoring coding difficulties) a compound system. Your failures would cost funding and increase panic, but if you kept supplying the governments' council requests, that'd increase their impression. This could lead to people getting 5 panic and max gov't opinion intentionally, but I think it'd be worth it.

 

Overall, reputation should be weighted higher than panic (bad rep and 5 panic is still bad for funding, but neutral rep w. 5 panic increases funding; likewise good rep but 1 panic is increased funding still).

 

Also, if it weren't for coding restraints, I'd make it so if you ignore a place X times, it'll be an extra target of every abduction until the panic decreases.

[Amineri]

I'd prefer (from a pure gameplay standpoint, ignoring coding difficulties) a compound system. Your failures would cost funding and increase panic, but if you kept supplying the governments' council requests, that'd increase their impression. This could lead to people getting 5 panic and max gov't opinion intentionally, but I think it'd be worth it.

 

Overall, reputation should be weighted higher than panic (bad rep and 5 panic is still bad for funding, but neutral rep w. 5 panic increases funding; likewise good rep but 1 panic is increased funding still).

Also, if it weren't for coding restraints, I'd make it so if you ignore a place X times, it'll be an extra target of every abduction until the panic decreases.

 

The game actually keeps a record of every UFO, stored both in XGContinent and XGCountry, using the function XGStrategyAI.LogUFORecord. The function is called every time a UFO either (a) succeeds at its mission (b) crashes, or © is assaulted. Currently this list isn't hardly used for anything, but I'm thinking of tweaking the alien strategy AI a bit, and this data source will be really helpful in making the AI more reactive.

 

As to the Country funding/panic, I've been thinking more on that and am going to expound on that more in a follow-on post.