Strategic Layer Improvements

[Zyxpsilon]

I certainly realize how huge a project that involves adding more countries is.

 

Yet, aren't we looking to somehow enhance the whole strategic layer (eventually)?

 

Although i'm fairly sure a number of wisely designed workaround solutions can be created to accomodate any given number of extra Nations *without* having to alter such things as the Situation Room setup or anything else.

While the concept can be a bit smaller in scope, the intention remains... supplemental strategy options to deal with a new panic system that requires (true) worldwide awareness.

 

I figure the "only" requirements could be to allocate sub-screens -- one for each continents (or/and more regional groups). we'd zoom into the National packs when necessary. The core nations should still be important enough to maintain their zones of "influence" over nearby countries that simply could enforce various amounts of Panic to their continental pool. The dataset expands to mimic a real World Invasion that spreads multiple missions in a much larger random fashion. This in itself multiplies the events and systematic responses to keep Panic at reasonable levels. The trick here is to balance out the Win-Lose ratio alllllll the way to the actual ending conditions.

 

Example -- for Europe;

 

Russia, France, Germany and UK still are Council Members.

 

Spain, Italy, Greece and Switzerland are within France sphere of influence. For every Squares of (Core country) Panic -- they all can push it further by decimal values if activity is left unchecked (just as the current principles, btw)

 

Belgium, Austria, Netherlands, Denmark (but not Greenland!)... with Germany.

Iceland, Ireland, Scotland... with UK.

Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland... with Russia.

 

Keeping track of the count? That's a whopping 15 -- for Europe alone!! :) Wow. Just imagine the gameplay decisions and more importantly how vastly involving the strategy concerns have become.

 

I'm almost 98% sure, someone out there will eventually pull this kind of concept off.

 

If we can just find the proper way to modify the code for it... i'd be blessed with a really fascinating alternate game.

 

Soooooo - com'on gang, get smart. :)

[Hobbes77]

I certainly realize how huge a project that involves adding more countries is.

 

Yet, aren't we looking to somehow enhance the whole strategic layer (eventually)?

 

Although i'm fairly sure a number of wisely designed workaround solutions can be created to accomodate any given number of extra Nations *without* having to alter such things as the Situation Room setup or anything else.

While the concept can be a bit smaller in scope, the intention remains... supplemental strategy options to deal with a new panic system that requires (true) worldwide awareness.

 

I figure the "only" requirements could be to allocate sub-screens -- one for each continents (or/and more regional groups). we'd zoom into the National packs when necessary. The core nations should still be important enough to maintain their zones of "influence" over nearby countries that simply could enforce various amounts of Panic to their continental pool. The dataset expands to mimic a real World Invasion that spreads multiple missions in a much larger random fashion. This in itself multiplies the events and systematic responses to keep Panic at reasonable levels. The trick here is to balance out the Win-Lose ratio alllllll the way to the actual ending conditions.

 

Example -- for Europe;

 

Russia, France, Germany and UK still are Council Members.

 

Spain, Italy, Greece and Switzerland are within France sphere of influence. For every Squares of (Core country) Panic -- they all can push it further by decimal values if activity is left unchecked (just as the current principles, btw)

 

Belgium, Austria, Netherlands, Denmark (but not Greenland!)... with Germany.

Iceland, Ireland, Scotland... with UK.

Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland... with Russia.

 

Keeping track of the count? That's a whopping 15 -- for Europe alone!! :smile: Wow. Just imagine the gameplay decisions and more importantly how vastly involving the strategy concerns have become.

 

To me this is a prime example of an idea that needs to be carefully considered before being implemented. If a system was designed to potentially double or treble the number of countries to look after, what meaningful decisions it would add and what would it take away from playability?

 

As you mention, you'd have to keep an eye on 15 countries just in Europe, and potentially the decisions would have to be made considering all the 5 continents. It would definitely enlarge the scope of the strategic layer, but wouldn't it just multiply the number of chores a player has to do rather than adding something new?

 

----

 

One thing that I've been wondering about is how the game lacks a proper score and true randomness regarding alien/UFO events in Council nations when compared to the original game. On the OG the aliens would generate most missions regardless of whether XCOM had a base/radar on the continent (with the exception of retaliation missions). It was entirely possible for a base to spend a month without detecting a single UFO and you'd have to use the alien activity graphs to figure out where they were operating and sometimes even send an empty Skyranger to loiter and try to detect UFOs on areas that had no radar coverage.

 

On EU, the way the UFO generation is scripted, you'll only detect flying or landed UFOs in countries with sats, in countries without sats you'll only get Abductions, and Terror/Council missions can happen in both countries with and without sats. This is a simple (and effective) system of generating missions but what if it was tweaked to mimic more of the OG?

 

For instance, what if Abductions could happen in countries with sats (which already has a mod for it) and Flying/Landed UFOs could also be generated in countries without sats? This would make the game more unpredictable (and harder) since you couldn't take for granted that you'd see UFOs during the first months. The UFOs would still generate panic, which would be the only indication for the player that something had happened and the way to respond would be to ignore it or try to rush the sat coverage.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Hobbes77

[Amineri]

 

For instance, what if Abductions could happen in countries with sats (which already has a mod for it) and Flying/Landed UFOs could also be generated in countries without sats? This would make the game more unpredictable (and harder) since you couldn't take for granted that you'd see UFOs during the first months. The UFOs would still generate panic, which would be the only indication for the player that something had happened and the way to respond would be to ignore it or try to rush the sat coverage.

Johnnylump has already written some code that does this (and it does cause some feedback to us ...)

 

He's added resource-gathing missions, which are landed UFO missions. If the mission is successful, the aliens gain resources. Resources determines what types of missions they can undertake in a month. Repairing damaged UFOs and replacing destroyed UFOs costs resources, as does building an alien base in an country lost to XCOM. The amount of resources gathered depends on the size of the UFO, so the AI picks the resource gathering UFO size based on its resource needs.

 

Anyhow, the country for these missions is chosen randomly (although not in alien-occupied countries, since the aliens get resources from them automatically each month, kind of like XCOM and satellites). This means that occasionally a player will get a large landed UFO in the first month, which is extremely difficult (some would say impossible) to beat.

 

Also, he's set up the strategy AI to be able to proactively launch Hunt missions in countries that may or may not have a satellite at the time of Strategy AI monthly planning --- because the player might launch one there. In Long War we added a new type of UFO Mission called an "Air Raid" that functions somewhat like a terror mission, but has not tactical mission associated with it. Basically the UFO just flies around shooting up stuff on the ground. If it completes the mission, then panic in the target country goes up. These missions also can happen in countries without satellites.

 

JL has created an adjacency map for the countries, and in general the AI attempts to spread out to adjacent countries from their starting country (which is chosen at random). So many of the things that you are describing are possible.

 

One thing that I want to add is that many of the things that we've added to the strategic layer in Long War wouldn't be possible without changing the panic scale over to a 0-100 scale.

[wghost81]

For instance, what if Abductions could happen in countries with sats (which already has a mod for it) and Flying/Landed UFOs could also be generated in countries without sats? This would make the game more unpredictable (and harder) since you couldn't take for granted that you'd see UFOs during the first months. The UFOs would still generate panic, which would be the only indication for the player that something had happened and the way to respond would be to ignore it or try to rush the sat coverage.

Wouldn't it just force player to use satellite rush strategy all the time?

 

Personally, I view satellites as an equivalent of "radar bases", everyone used to build around the world in OG. The main problem of the first month was to detect some UFOs, as more missions equal to more money in all aspects (loot and funding). So it was vital to actively search for contact and to build radars and additional bases.

 

Simultaneous abductions are direct equivalent of "something happened out of my sight and panic raised". If you don't have satellites over some country, aliens are free to abduct people. And if you do — you can see/down their scouts and prevent those abductions from happening.

[Hobbes77]

 

 

For instance, what if Abductions could happen in countries with sats (which already has a mod for it) and Flying/Landed UFOs could also be generated in countries without sats? This would make the game more unpredictable (and harder) since you couldn't take for granted that you'd see UFOs during the first months. The UFOs would still generate panic, which would be the only indication for the player that something had happened and the way to respond would be to ignore it or try to rush the sat coverage.

Johnnylump has already written some code that does this (and it does cause some feedback to us ...)

 

He's added resource-gathing missions, which are landed UFO missions. If the mission is successful, the aliens gain resources. Resources determines what types of missions they can undertake in a month. Repairing damaged UFOs and replacing destroyed UFOs costs resources, as does building an alien base in an country lost to XCOM. The amount of resources gathered depends on the size of the UFO, so the AI picks the resource gathering UFO size based on its resource needs.

 

Anyhow, the country for these missions is chosen randomly (although not in alien-occupied countries, since the aliens get resources from them automatically each month, kind of like XCOM and satellites). This means that occasionally a player will get a large landed UFO in the first month, which is extremely difficult (some would say impossible) to beat.

 

Also, he's set up the strategy AI to be able to proactively launch Hunt missions in countries that may or may not have a satellite at the time of Strategy AI monthly planning --- because the player might launch one there. In Long War we added a new type of UFO Mission called an "Air Raid" that functions somewhat like a terror mission, but has not tactical mission associated with it. Basically the UFO just flies around shooting up stuff on the ground. If it completes the mission, then panic in the target country goes up. These missions also can happen in countries without satellites.

 

JL has created an adjacency map for the countries, and in general the AI attempts to spread out to adjacent countries from their starting country (which is chosen at random). So many of the things that you are describing are possible.

 

One thing that I want to add is that many of the things that we've added to the strategic layer in Long War wouldn't be possible without changing the panic scale over to a 0-100 scale.

 

 

I'd definitely want to try Long War because of all this but right now I not really up to the changes made into the tactical layer. Too many changes at the same time to be able to properly test it but I guess I will need to get the time to try it out :smile:

 

 

For instance, what if Abductions could happen in countries with sats (which already has a mod for it) and Flying/Landed UFOs could also be generated in countries without sats? This would make the game more unpredictable (and harder) since you couldn't take for granted that you'd see UFOs during the first months. The UFOs would still generate panic, which would be the only indication for the player that something had happened and the way to respond would be to ignore it or try to rush the sat coverage.

Wouldn't it just force player to use satellite rush strategy all the time?

 

Personally, I view satellites as an equivalent of "radar bases", everyone used to build around the world in OG. The main problem of the first month was to detect some UFOs, as more missions equal to more money in all aspects (loot and funding). So it was vital to actively search for contact and to build radars and additional bases.

 

Simultaneous abductions are direct equivalent of "something happened out of my sight and panic raised". If you don't have satellites over some country, aliens are free to abduct people. And if you do — you can see/down their scouts and prevent those abductions from happening.

 

 

Concerning the rush satellite question, to me the answer is yes if the panic system isn't changed. But the condition of losing 8 countries causing a game loss is removed and replaced instead by your score on the monthly score (as described on a previous post), then its impact would be minimized. You'd still need to expand the satellite network to detect UFOs and be able to recover salvage from capturing them but delays wouldn't be so decisive.

 

Regarding the simultaneous abductions are an equivalent (choose one and let the others die) but not being able to detect UFOs on Harvest or Scout missions would be even a more ominous threat. The only way to deal with those would be to expand the sat network but that would also mean having to decide between which countries to cover now and which ones to risk being lost.

Edited May 14, 2014 by Hobbes77

[Zyxpsilon]

 

JL has created an adjacency map for the countries, and in general the AI attempts to spread out to adjacent countries from their starting country (which is chosen at random). So many of the things that you are describing are possible. ---

 

 

!! ;)

 

Which isn't that far from my suggested system (above) of many more countries to somehow deal with, agree?

 

Once the Panic model has been re-designed to allow various conditions caused by a wider scope of Continental scales, the events would give a much larger sense to the Alien Invasion tactics.

It has consequences - granted. And yet, i don't really see why not. The very first concern is --indeed-- micro-managing. This type of concept is simply of the Give & Take essence. You get more activity and you take strategic steps to address such issues.

 

Again, Gameplay Balance is certainly the holy grail of great gaming design. More countries means an alternate balance along with some form of tricky results. But... as i recommend Zones of Influence by core Nation members - the new balance is tilted in favor of complexity instead of K'I'S'S principles.

 

Call me biased -- I play on PC. The potential is (then) extremely vast. While console(s) codes are kept somehow limited - by design.

 

As (PC) modders, we surely can see how much freedom is available. Necessary? Your guess is as good as mine.

 

A very limited Council of 16 Nations feels *simply* unrealistic to me. Thus, why it makes sense to add some more through basic logic and additional gaming reasons.

 

Again -- it's the ruleset design that needs to be refined. Easy or Hard... decisions must be taken (or not!). :)

[wghost81]

Concerning the rush satellite question, to me the answer is yes if the panic system isn't changed. But the condition of losing 8 countries causing a game loss is removed and replaced instead by your score on the monthly score (as described on a previous post), then its impact would be minimized. You'd still need to expand the satellite network to detect UFOs and be able to recover salvage from capturing them but delays wouldn't be so decisive.

Delays will be even more decisive, because XCOM funding will depend on the score, the score — on the performance, performance — on the number of UFOs you can detect and number of UFOs — on number of satellites in the sky. So satellite rush strategy will be superior to any other strategy, as by building and launching satellites you will snowball to more resources and quick victory. Unless, you'll make satellite network expansion more painful and punishing, like in LW. Edited May 15, 2014 by wghost81

[Krazyguy75]

Just add weather. Disrupts satellite vision in areas, and they only get seen when they land.

 

Add a new class of alien ships, which require you to make intel sweeps to find once they land.

 

Add items to help you with intel sweeps.

 

Done. Split priorities.