That title probably means something really deep, but I’m just not getting it. Maybe I should talk to my title writing guy and see if he can’t dumb down a bit for me so I can understand it. Maybe we should have gone with something like "If we give more options to allow more customization, do we lose fun in the process?". Though that’s just not as catchy…

We’re here today to discuss a fun one today chaps. The Stardock guys, Wardell in this case, have posted a design question online for us to mull over and I think it’s a pretty good one. It talks about a few different things I hold dear in my armchair designer heart. 1) Simplicity 2) When and how do we create complex systems that are still fun and not tedious and 3) Just how damn awesome is Elemental going to be?

Before we go any further, here’s the options presented to us:

 

Camp #1: “Sophisticated”

1. Everything in Elemental is a resource. Food, metal, swords, armor, horses, you  name it. 

2. Resources can be processed into other resources.  Iron Ore into a Sword.

3. Part of the fun of the game would be running a proper empire (or letting AI governors take care of it). 

Example:

A mine is built on an iron resource. The mine produces 10 units of iron ore per turn. That iron ore is then directed to go to the city of Torgeto where a blacksmith is able to produce 5 swords per turn. The unused iron ore is stored in a warehouse that can store up to 100 units of iron ore.

Those swords can be directed to be shipped to various other places (with sliders or other UI  means to determine what ratio goes where). 

In some of those places, the swords are issued to soldiers. In other places, the swords are sent to an alchemist workshop who, taking potions that have been shippped in from Wellford which in turn had taken Aeoronic crystal mined in another town to turn into those potions.  The resulting magical swords are then shipped out to various places with the player (or governor) able to control the ratio in which they are shipped.

Caravans appear on the map to show the items being shipped. If those caravans are attacked, the items are lost.

Camp #1 Map example here.

Camp #2: “Simple and Fun”

1. There are only natural resources (food, iron, crystal, horses, etc.).

2. When a natural resource is controlled, the player assigns that resource to a specific town.

3. Only that town can make use of it. Towns that don’t have a resource assigned it cannot build units that require those resources.

Example:

Unlike camp 1, there are no ratio sliders to mess with. A resource is assigned to a particular town. That makes certain towns more strategic than others and a lot less micro management.  On the other hand, it means that there will be many towns that can only build weaker units.   Players can research technologies that increase the base (weaker) unit that cities can build over time but some cities will simply be more important than others.

Caravans would still flow from the natural resource to the target town and if those caravans are attacked, the enemy player gains a bonus and the victim player would get a penalty to their production until the next caravan arrives.

Camp #2 Map example here.

I’ll call it for Camp #3 and we can all go home. Man, that sure was easy… Wait a second, there is no camp #3? Well shit, lets make it up then. Or in other words, here’s my proposal instead of the two given options.

Camp #3 "Keep it mostly simple stupid."

Ok, there are some things we don’t know before we go into this that could drastically change the shape of this feature. We don’t know what else you can do in a given turn (so we don’t know how much player time we should be worried about), we don’t how easy caravans are to interrrupt nor if the are a firm feature, and last but not least, we don’t know anything about the politics of the map (meaning, will we have to deal with things like some resources not being directly connected and so on).

Those things aside (and the twenty other things we don’t know), we do know that we have resources. Those simple resources are used to create other resources in the game that can themselves be simplish (regular sword) or complex (+2 magical sword when we combine multiple resources). We know that the simple resources are found in specific locations and that we have to at least construct a building or object to mine them. Ok, ground work somewhat established.

Now, option one and two both have their advantages. Personally, as a lover of complexity and min maxing I’d probably pull most for Camp #1. That allows me as the player the most choices and interesting scenarios. The example that was offered is with just one or two kind of simple materials. What if they full system allowed for all kinds of fancy shmancy options to create super soldiers, or maybe Pegasuses riding soldiers with magical wands. The possibilities seem limitless. Camp #2 on the other hand, is MUCH simplier. I’m still allowed to create nifty magical things, but it basically becomes if I discover it, I assign it and that’s it. 

So back to Camp #3. I see this as an inbetween option. It allows to have some complexity, but also allows to not have to spend so much time getting everything working together as in Camp #1:

Camp #3: “KIMSS” (Keep It Mostly Simple Stupid)

1. Everything in Elemental is a resource. Food, metal, swords, armor, horses, you  name it. 

2. Resources can be processed into other resources.  Iron Ore into a Sword.

3. Part of the fun of the game would be to be able to have a ‘direct hand’ in creating the items whilst not having to micromanage your empire quite so much.. 

Example:

A mine is built on an ore resource. That mine produces X units of ore per turn. That ore is now made available to all cities within a certain radius. Any city within that radius can either a) use that ore automatically (when you build swordsmen, you now have an option to build regular swordsmen or new and improved Iron Swordsmen) b) Or they can specifically say in the city options, "Share resources with nearby towns" or something to that affect. If that option is turned on, a new radius is created that can use that ore.

So now the next city can further push that ore on or use it self. If a city selects to push that ore on, expanding the available resources further across your empire, they can also use it. If they do use it, then less ore is available on the next turn for other cities in the given radius of that city.

The bigger the city, the bigger the resource radius would be. So if a small city is near a ore mine and it shares resources which includes a bit city in it’s radius, that big city is now pushing ore to everyone in it’s influence.

With this theory, cities would be still be strategically important, but they wouldn’t be the end all be all either.

The map could show Ore overlays, along with other resource overlay, like a big, brightly colored Venn diagram. Of course, you’d want an option to show/hide the resource overlays and show specific resource overlays at a time.

There a couple of potential problems with that idea in that I don’t know much about Elemental and have no idea if a radius would even work. Maybe instead of a radius, the affected area is the country. Or something along those lines.

The main idea is to have resources be either easily shared both among your cities (and potentially with your allies or traded with your neighbors) without doing like civilization does in that once you have a resource, your entire empire has it. Also, this removes the need to say transport ore to this specific city. Instead we just turn on an option, share this resource. And we still have strategically important cities, and now actual locals (the north is the ore mining local and the south is where we get magical slug essence, etc).

Plus, personally, I don’t like idea of caravans being out willy nilly. I’ve never liked that idea in any game. Unless I can upgrade them and put guards on them, it doesn’t make any logical sense. As a developing nation, I’m not going to send around my valuable resources on unguarded routes. To boot, it’s not fun gameplay wise. *shrugs* That last bit is just personal preference really.

The whole idea behind Camp #3 is allow for strategically important cities, without their being only one strategically important city. And the use of resources to be shared through your nation, with the circle of influence around a city being determined based on it’s size (and maybe trade ability/power?). I’d love to know more about Elemental to really see what idea would fit here.

What Would Matt Do: Were it up to me, I’d be right there in the thick of the Elemental design offering up opinions and learning a mess about game design. Since that’s not likely to happen, I’ll stick to Armchair Design and hope that at the very least Camp #2 is selected, though I do think it’s too simple in it’s approach. I think that Camp #1 will just be too complex for most people, no matter how awesome I think it might be. And the best, something along the lines of Camp #3 is selected, where resources still have to be strategically used, but they aren’t quite so tedious to do so.