Miner Wars is a space-based simulation shooter that combines a single player story game and an MMO.

The Miner Wars franchise branches into two different products: Miner Wars 2081 (that features single-player and multiplayer) and Miner Wars MMO (its massive multiplayer online version). The first game is due for release in Q1 2012 and it is part of Space Sector’s Sci-Fi/Space Games You Can’t Miss in 2011 list. The MMO Miner Wars is targeted for release sometime later. The beta is scheduled for Q4 2012.

Yesterday Miner Wars’ devs launched a pre-sales campaign for their MMO (almost a full year before the MMO goes beta). They are offering 2 years of subscription after the game comes out for a price of $19.99 USD. They also promised to give “access to the pre-alpha of MMO [that] will be most likely given to our loyal customers earlier, in Q2-Q3/2012“.

Devs’ reasons for launching the pre-orders so soon include:

- To determine peoples’ interest in the MMO compared to single/co-op. We may start focusing on the MMO development sooner, so fans will also receive MMO pre-alpha sooner.
- To support the developers (funds would enable us to hire a larger team, make the game earlier and better).
- To shape how the MMO will look like (not all design details are set in stone) with the help and feedback from our community of gamers.
- To generate more interest from our investors to invest additional money in to the MMO.
- And to let you save some money with the pre-sale discount price!

Single-player/standard multi-player (Miner Wars 2081) is now in pre-alpha stage and available for free download.

You can pre-order Miner Wars MMO at the Miner Wars’ official website store.

About Keen Software House

Keen Software House was founded in 2007 by Marek Rosa, a software industry veteran. The company had their first major hirings in late 2009 for its crowning project Miner Wars.

• Miner Wars™ – Six-axis space shooter featuring entirely destructible environments. The game is playable in a single player campaign, cooperative modes, and includes a further MMO franchise in the works
• VRAGE™ – Developed from the ground up for Miner Wars 2081, this game development engine will one day be offered to indie companies looking for a powerful tool to help them with their projects.

KSH’s headquarters is situated in Prague, Czech Republic.

There is a ton of theory, academic and professional material behind what makes a good UI. In fact, there is an ISO Standard (9241) regarding this very topic. If you wish to read more visit ISO’s website and search for 9241.

As one can see in those links, there is a large amount of sub-standards (work place displays to TV panel displays, etc) for building good UI’s. I’m not going to talk about what is already published because anyone can read that. Instead, I am going to talk about my experiences in building UI’s and some of the points that I find important. All of this is my own opinion and what I have discovered during my times. I hope it proves to be useful!

Since the UI is essentially the way the End User uses the program, I feel a good UI must have several important key concepts done well: Usability, Accessibility and Consistency.

Usability

Usability is how easy it is to use the User Interface to do a task. Can you do your task easily and efficiently? How difficult is it to perform an action? Note: It is easy to confuse Usability with Accessibility.

Before I go into more detail. I want to define two terms:

Average Task: Is a task that a user performs on a regular basis. For example, saving/load files (or games), using common windows (research/planet/ship design/etc)s, and the like.

Complex Task: Is a task that the user doesn’t perform on a regular basis and usually gives/does a bit more than the average task. This type of tasks usually requires more clicking/window movement/etc than an average task. An example consists of the Planet Window and using filters to display a list planets based on parameters. Or, the Statistic Window where overviews of the Empires in the game can be seen through various filters.

I will now go over a few ways to determine how good Usability is in a UI.

One of the easiest ways to gauge difficulty in the usability realm is the number of clicks it takes to do a given task. This idea can be expanded to include moving the mouse on the screen, or clicking through various drop down lists/menus/etc. And finally, it can be further expanded to traveling through multiple windows in order to accomplish a task.

Another way to gauge difficulty is the usage and placement of components. How are the components arranged on the window? What types are used (Lists, Drop Down boxes, Tabs, Scroll Panels, etc) and are they the right ones? Is the screen cluttered? What is your initial reaction (how do your eyes feel?) to opening a window? And so on.

A pitfall of Usability is a lack of Consistency(which I will explain further below).

One other big issue I have with UI’s is the lack of feedback. There can be tasks that can take some time to process. Having absolutely no feedback creates a sense of mystery that the user should never have. At every moment during the User’s time with a UI they should always know what the UI is doing. There are times when it may be impossible to gauge how long a particular task will take but feedback should still be given in some way. Some examples are: use a progress bar that continually moves back and forth, a mouse cursor spinning or some other sense of animation. A User should never be thinking: “Is this locked up?” or “What is this thing doing!?” or “Will it end soon?”. This can be taken a step further and a label can be used to display the current step. This would be great feedback.

Another pitfall of Usability is not ensuring the UI scales with large amounts of data. Yes, the window with a list of 5 items behaves fine. How does it behave with 1,000, 10,000 or even 100,000? Time to check!

One last note is to ensure the UI has proper flexibility. There should be more than one way to do an average task. As a developer, that is a task that is left up to you. Shortcuts are the most common way to implement flexibility.

Some ways to ensure good Usability is to:

• Have good Consistency.
• Ensure the minimum number of possible clicks and mouse movements.
• Choose components that allow for the most logical sense of data arrangement.
• Give proper feedback.
• Ensure flexibility.
• Use tool tips, where appropriate and in a consistent manner.

Accessibility

Accessibility is how easy it is for a user to sit down and learn the User Interface by themselves, without the developer/manual nearby to help them.

If a user can sit down and start to use the program and be productive in a short amount of time with little problems – then the program is accessible.

Another way to describe Accessibility is the “Learning Curve”. What is the learning curve of the program? How much time does the user have to spend before they are able to be productive?

Describing the difficulties and pitfalls in accessibility is hard because there is no silver bullet that will cover every single aspect for every single program.

However, I do have a few tips as a fellow developer. I have noticed over the years, that much of the accessibility problems are due to the omniscient view a developer(s) has of their system. They designed the system and implemented it (not always but for example’s sake). As such, they know the inner workings and how to do every task. Thusly, they usually have very little issues using their own program. Of course they don’t have issues! They built it!

As one can see how this could be a huge pitfall. To overcome this problem what I like to do is to:

1. Implement a UI and then walk away from it for weeks or months. I will then come back and use it. At this point, I have probably forgotten most of how it works. I will use the UI and generate my own feedback. I will make changes based on that.
2. This is similar to 1, but, instead I hand it off to someone else to play with. Maybe it is a member of my team or a tester that is willing to suffer!

In both cases, the omniscient feel can be dulled and almost put to rest. This should give some decent feedback and ensure that the accessibility of the UI can be made better.

Consistency

As mentioned above, Consistency is a very important part for UIs. Consistency goes a long ways and brings structure and order to a UI. It is very easy to have a UI spiral out of control and be absolutely a pain to use (MoO3 and from Adam’s review the original DW).

If a good level of consistency is instituted within the program, it will have a very overall positive impact. Good consistency raises the usability and accessibility.

Let me provide some examples of good consistency:

1. Decide on the precise function(s) that a window will perform. Use proper components to break up function. For example, Tabs work wonders (don’t go overboard like MoO3 though).
2. Decide on how many clicks/mouse moves an average task will take. 1 or 2?
3. Decide on how many clicks/mouse moves a complex task will take. In most cases, it will obviously be more clicks/mouse moves than the average task.
4. Use the same types of components for the same general functions in different windows. For example, always use a List component to list fleets (at star systems, and in the Fleet window). While this seems logical sense, it can be very easy NOT to do this.
5. Use the same conventions for layouts and placements of components.

Consistency is very very important. But it can be implemented badly.

Let’s use MoO3 for example. Even though they used a Tabbing mechanism in the Planet window for consistency, it went completely over board. They simply had too much going on (item 1) and the number of clicks to perform the average task (item 2, editing the build queue), was unacceptable. Most times, the tabs where hidden or put in odd places (item 5). I could probably write (I’m not the only one!!) several articles, one for each window, for MoO3 on how the UI was bad and flawed.

Usability, Accessibility, and Consistency Summary

In all, the developer has to keep in mind that the End User is someone ELSE and envision how they will be using the UI. They need to sit down and think on how the UI can be made clear and concise in ALL of its windows. The End User needs to feel the same in every window in terms of how to use it. It makes no sense whatsoever to institute the idea of using Tabs in all of the windows but having one straggler window using buttons to open up sub windows instead. It will just confuse the user and lower the Usability and Accessibility.

Code Talk

I will now talk about some code tips. This particular section may not apply to all readers, so I shall keep it short.

Functional Decomposition – Functional Decomposition is vitally important for UIs. Functional Decomposition is taking a large system and breaking it down into smaller pieces. The reason why Functional Decomposition is so important is because the windows and parts in a UI’s generally have a lot in common with each other. It does no one any service by having repetitious code in many different locations. This makes the maintainability of the program extremely difficult, and it leads to buggy programs. Bugs lead to money, time wasted and the most important: unhappy customers. Of course, modular code can be reused so the UI can be extended for new function that much faster.

A good way to implement modular code is to have a Utility class/file that provides generation of generic components.

For example, in my SitRep Window, I have a Utility class that allows for the generation of various parts of the SitRep Entries. By doing it this way, I can simply write a new SitRep Class and call these methods to build my SitRep Entry. The benefits are:
I can easily develop new SitRep Entries by simply passing in the information (generally Strings). I don’t have to re-write the code to generate the entries and I ensure the code is not ridden with bugs since I am already using something that is known to work.

Here is a picture of my (Alpha) SitRep screen.

It is easily seen that each entry looks generally the same (+Consistency) and they all function very similar (+Usability, +Accessibility). This is because each SitRep Entry calls the identical underlying Utility methods. Each entry has their own line that can be fully expanded (+Usability) by clicking on the + or the line itself(+Usability). Under each entry very detailed information is provided and gives links to various important windows.

Above, the expanded Entry is about a Fleet arriving at a system. Detailed information is provided, and in this case, 4 planets are present with no owners. Buttons can be used to view the Star System immediately.

Layouts/Scaling – Having some underlying code mechanisms to automatically perform layouts and scaling (the Java Swing layouts for example) of UI Components is beneficial because it removes the fact that people run on different resolutions. You have to make sure your UI will look good on all supported resolutions.

I, personally, prefer using absolute positioning with built in scaling than layouts because I get more control that way. To me, control is power.

Time for Examples

In this case, I’ll talk about my 4X Game I’m developing. We all know that 4X Games need to display a large amount of information. Screen real estate is low and at a premium. So I have instituted a policy that windows will contain tabs to manage various portions of windows. For example, there is a Fleet Window that has tabs for Deployed Fleets and Fleet Creation. There is a Planet Window that has tabs on the right for Information, Construction and Resources – all the while the planet view is still viewed on the left side. In both cases, the tabs are top tabs. This is a good usage of consistency between windows.

Conclusion

This sums up my thoughts on making User Interfaces. As mentioned before, there is a lot of literature out there so most of this article is my own opinion. I am looking forward to reading what others have done and what parts of a UI they think are important.

In order to generate some good discussion on this topic, I pose the following questions to the readers:

• While designing and implementing your UIs what pitfalls/issues have you ran into and how did you solve them?
• What was the Best and/or Worst UI’s you’ve used, and why?

dayrinni has been a Space Sector contributor since October 2011. This is his first foray into writing articles for any review site. He is an avid gamer in the genres of 4X, Strategy, MMO’s and RPGs. Finally, he has been the implementor of several MUDs and is currently working on a 4X space game that offers large scope and complexity. See all dayrinni’s posts here.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat - Sun Tzu ^[1]

The Tactics and Strategy concepts are largely described in the literature explained by who knows best. Their difference is also described in great length over the Internet. One of the emblematic references for these concepts is Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”, a book that explains you the basics (and the not so basics) of warfare, leadership, tactics and strategy.

This is one of my Sun Tzu’s favorite quotes by the way:

Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory. - Sun Tzu

Which basically tells that the best strategists (the best leaders, rulers) only fight when they’re absolutely sure they’ll win (when they have won before the battle has even began). This seems obvious, the devil is in the details however. It takes a great deal of intelligence, experience and intuition to be a great leader, because you’ll need to possess all of these traits (among others) in order to know when it is and it is not the best time to fight.

So, why am I bringing this up? What do I have to add to this subject?

Not much really.

The objective of this post is not to teach you the difference between Strategy and Tactics, since I would not be the best teacher available, as I have my share of doubts too. This article aims on helping us know more about these concepts and understand their differences a little bit better, since after all they are at the heart of this blog’s theme. Moreover these concepts are not only important in the gaming domain but also very useful to apply in other areas of our lives as well.

You have some references at the bottom of this article in case you want to learn more about this subject.

What is Tactics?

One must change one’s tactics every ten years if one wishes to maintain one’s superiority. - Napoleon Bonaparte

In this article I’ll focus on military tactics, which is how the tactics concept is usually presented in games.

Military tactics is the science and art of organizing a military force ^[3], prepare it, equip it and lead it with the aim of defeating an enemy in battle.

Factors that the tactician should take into account when deciding how to fight are usually: the terrain and the location where the battle is to be fought; possible obstacles found there; the weather conditions; the numbers involved (men, weapons and machines). All this information is extremely important to have in order to determine the best formation to use and to consider if the use of ambushing, flanking or reconnaissance are necessary. But probably the best weapon that the tactician wants to have in its possession is information about the enemy. The more of it he has the better the outcome ought to be.

The Generals, Commanders and Admirals are usually the tacticians, of an army, navy or fleet.

What is Strategy?

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved. - Sun Tzu

Strategy is the art of “careful, skillful thinking and planning in order to achieve victory” ^[4]. I would replace “victory” by “a goal” to make it more broad and general without loss of meaning.

In military terms strategy is distinct from tactics where tactics is concerned with the actual engagement and events of a battle while strategy is concerned with how different engagements (battles) are linked and how that affects the global picture of a campaign or any other endeavor’s progress towards achieving a high-level goal.

How a battle is fought is a matter of tactics. Whether it should be fought at all is a matter of strategy - Wikipedia

If the Admirals, Captains and Generals are the tacticians then the Governors, Rulers and Emperors, are the strategists with the role of managing a city, a nation or a spacefaring civilization.

Strategy Video Games

Now, with respect to strategy games, the subject of this article in particular, things are a little bit different. That’s here where things normally start to get fuzzier (at least to me it had that effect).

In strategy games all strategy elements apply (naturally), however strategy games normally comprise other kinds of disciplines as well, that are not strictly related with strategy. For example strategy games normally present other challenges to the player other than the strategical, like tactical, logistical and economical challenges. That’s why usually (and I tend to agree with this classification ^[2]) strategy games come in different flavors and include tactical games as sub-genres. There are other types of strategy games but I’ll keep the list to what I consider to be the main five for the sake of simplification.

Strategy games’ main sub-genres:

• 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate)
• Real-time strategy (RTS)
• Real-time tactics (RTT)
• Turn-based strategy (TBS)
• Turn-based tactics (TBT)

The description of each of these sub-genres is out of the scope of this essay, but if you’re interested to know a bit more on 4X games for example I invite you to read What are 4X Games: a Definition and links to Games.

Examples of 4X games are the Civilization series, Master of Orion series and the Galactic Civilizations series among many other titles. Examples of RTS games are the Homeworld series, Command & Conquer series or the StarCraft series. Examples of RTT games are Star Hammer Tactics, World in Conflict and Warhammer: Dark Omen. Finally, examples of TBT games are the X-COM series or Jagged Alliance series.

Conclusion

Tactics and Strategy are different concepts and imply different things. While the former deals with the details of engagement such as the best way to undertake a battle (or another type of task at hand) the latter deals with longer-term and higher-level objectives that require a great deal of thinking and planning in order to achieve a goal. In games usually that means achieving victory.

It’s not only a question of scale but also a question of actions involved. While the strategist deals more with thinking ahead, planning and scheming the tactician deals with situation analyses and execution with what is provided to him. Both include decision as a central aspect however. With a bad decision the tactician may lose a battle, with a bad decision the strategist may lose the entire war.

In gaming, strategy video games normally comprise more than strategy elements only. Tactical games are a sub-genre of strategy games. It is natural to be so in my opinion because in many strategy games the intention is not only to allow the player to plan the road to victory but also to allow him to experience the action and the execution of the events that are part of that plan. In war games this is particularly true. The player is invited to not only think which is the best way to achieve victory in the long run but also to experience the hack-and-slash of war.

So, when we are talking about strategy games we are talking about both strategic and tactical games. And in many cases strategy games contain aspects of both concepts in their gameplay.

References

[1]: The Art of War, Sun Tzu, Shambahla Publications, 1988

[2]: Video Games Genres – Wikipedia

[3]: Military Tactics – Wikipedia

[4]: Strategy – Wikipedia

After years of lurking in game-specific sites and forums finding this site has been a huge call-to-arms for me. Here, instead of criticize other works, it is possible to dream, discuss and sometimes even plan the future of 4X Space Strategy Games, a much more positive approach that has moved me, finally, from lurking to posting.

While a sometimes avid 4X gamer my roots are more in SciFi literature and pen and paper role-playing games that I am collecting for a number of years bigger than I care to share. Project management, software and data analysis knowledge come from my more obscure side: my daily job as a Database Administrator.

While I really love 4X games I always felt that something was missing in the experience and here on Space Sector I’m actively searching what was that.

In this first article I will put under the lens the starships combat system, I hope you will enjoy the view.

About starships, combat and conundrums

In 4X turn-based or real-time grand strategy space games conflicts resolution can be done in various systems ranging from the economical to the diplomatic but, more often than not, it will be decided in the cold space with starships that will use every technological advantages they have in store to erase the competition from the skies.

While this can be a quite gloomy view of our future it is also exciting and very appropriate for a game genre that proposes eXtermination as one of his four salient points.

How much importance and depth this system should have in relation to the rest of the game? Well the rule of the thumb says that as eXtermination is just one on four goals of a 4X game and there are other way to accomplish that like the even more bloodier planetary invasion (or bombardment) system or the more civil economic buyout system linked to the diplomatic one then it should not take more than one eight of the time.

Well, that happens rarely. It seems that our players really like the sound of the exploding ships in the void (pun intended) or, at the least, the game designers think so.

It is the very same game designers that, when they will work on space combat, will be confronted with some difficult choices:

The 2D vs. 3D conundrum

The problem here lies in the sad fact that a two dimensional map is barely sufficient for the simulation of nautical engagement and space battle are a completely different beasts. Even most SciFi movies who tried to visualize a modern 3D combat had to revert to something at the most similar to in-atmosphere dogfights than what can really happen in space. At the core of the problem is that nobody really know what can really happen in space because for now we managed to keep this kind of activity here at home.

So let’s let fall any realism problem and let’s define the main characteristics that a space combat should have.

While not realistic it should feel credible: the player is staking the future of his civilization on it and a too cartoonish resolution will not cut it.

It should be comprehensible: even accepting a learning curve the player should not need to have a couple of degrees and a jet fighter patent to understand it.

It should be elastic enough to let strategies and technology developments play a visible part in the outcome.

If it is possible to cram all of this in a 2D environment probably this will be the best choice and has been in most of the previous designs. If it is possible to do that in a 3D one that will be a serious breakthrough in the 4X game scene.

The 1,255 Km/h vs 1,080,000,000 Km/h conundrum

This is also known as the 760 mph vs. 671,000,000 mph conundrum. This is an exaggeration: no combat will ever take place at the full speed of light but even 0.5 c is an enormous and more possible speed, especially for an incoming fleet from the deep space.

The problem here lies with the fact that for our day to day experience the Mach speed is already enormous and, unless you are one of the few people who lose time on 4X games and that at the same time had the luck to flight on the Concorde, practically impossible to really experiment.

Even jet fighter pilots are nowadays depending a lot on their computers. That kind of speed is really over the human reactions capability.

In space speeds are much higher, very much higher.

From Wikipedia: time (1.255 sec.) for a light signal to go from Earth to the Moon showed in correct proportion.

This can be safely ignored when you move, let’s say, from one planet to another in a planetary system: extremely high speed is tempered by enormous distances and well defined game time.

It can be much more a chore in space combat: at that kind of speed the fleets of the opposite factions will have fractions of second when they can exchange punishment one to the other.

As you can see I’m carefully avoiding the pesky problem of the relativistic effects that kicks in at a certain speed point. I’m sure that it would be considered overkill for a game.

It is difficult to extract the needed drama from battles that are resolved in fractions of a second.

What we are usually seeing are sluggish battles between practically immobile behemoths with a spat of, relatively, snoringly slow fighters or other light shipping that zips around them.

At this we have to add weapons who, to simulate the much bigger targeting difficulty of a 3D environment, have an atrocious low hit rate.

What all of this means is that the combat system is at best a metaphor of a real space combat and as any metaphor all that it say or in this case display, should have a meaning over the directly visual one.

Will it be possible move all this in a more sensible and speed appropriate direction? Possibly but in any case all the choices made to simplify and made it more playable should have solid explainable foundations and reasons.

The Videogame vs. Newton conundrum

We have already told that Einstein relativity is possibly overkill (at the least for the moment) for a starships combat system so what about poor old Newton?

The guy had spent a good portion of his life to fight against differential calculus to the point that we are all using Leibniz notation even if Newton invented it first. The result of that David vs. Goliath struggle is that all the gravitation and movement equations are simple and clear.

And then we have 4X space combat systems who completely ignore it. No gravity, no inertia, no giant planet slingshots, no catastrophic failure to move from harm way. Somehow I think that taking away Newton from space combat is a little like taking away Shakespeare from the theatre story: a lot of the drama is gone.

The usual question is: why? Mind well: a good answer with its roots in playability, storyline and advanced speculative technology is fine but at the same time an answer like “because that is what my development environment let me to do” it is just not cutting it.

The TBS vs. RTS conundrum

The starship combat phase can have a completely different system than the one of the game: turn based games often revert to real time for the tactical military systems. So, what will be the right way to do it?

RTS, and I have to stress that the R for real is quite the misnomer here, have on its side the immediateness feeling, the sport watcher feeling: the stakes are made more real and close. I object the R for real just because it is rarely one to one with real time. I would have called it CTS: continuous time system.

TBS is more for the chess players, the strategy perfectionists. Adrenaline is substitute by dopamine and the pleasure here is to devise and execute the perfect plan. In reality there is always a lot of time to devise a plan, unfortunately the poor baby almost never survive the encounter with the enemy and then there no more time to spare.

Against intuition probably TBS system are in this case more realistic than RTS ones. In space the combat will be a series of manoeuvres to get the best possible passage in the combat envelope with long wait interval between each other and a final, violent and flashing quick moment of real combat.

As usual the choice will fall more on what system is conveying more the point that the designer want to make than realism. Sometimes (let’s say often) spectacularity is more important, its results are more poignant and that is all that count.

The ZFSM vs. DWCM conundrum

OK, I just created a couple of acronym on the flight, so sue me. ZFSM stand for ‘Zoomable From the Star Map’ and DWCM stand for ‘Dedicated Window Combat Map’. Both systems have been used in 4X space games with more or less success.

One of the most visible problems of the ZFSM system is the starships to astronomical objects proportion. Even a tiny planet like Earth is massively bigger than any starship will be put in operation during the game.

The reverse problem is the empty space feeling: in a DWCM often the starship are alone in a depressing dark environment with maybe a planet and a couple of satellite.

The consequence is that ZFSM can be more cartoonish, a little like the giant archer that is defending the Civilization city from a giant war chariot. After a while the metaphor become clear but it will always be worth a joke.

The consequence of a DWCM system is that combat seems to happen in a different place, a parallel universe dedicated to kill and destroy (now that I think about it quite a sad place) and a limited, claustrophobic one to boot.

How to compromise between the two? Is it just a problem to be able to invest a lot of time and money to become able to render an enormous space and number of planetary systems needed in a Grand Strategy game at such zoom level that ships become in scale? Or better and simpler answers are out there?

The ship to ship vs. fleet to fleet conundrum

Can the same system bring justice to engagement of such different order of magnitude? If the system is designed to bring justice to the details of single ship to ship engagements that will be prevalent at the start of the game will it scale correctly to the end-game fleets to fleets levels?

I have serious doubts about that.

What will be the choice the designer will make?

A usual one will see something that will sadly solve the one to one in a non-satisfactory way, will shine in the group vs. group to one big fleet vs. one big fleet and will fall again trying to manage more, possibly putting hard-coded limit to escape crashes.

Another solution can be to have more than one system but the development costs will become probably prohibitive.

Moving the not well managed type to engagements to the automatic resolution (see immediately later for more on this) can also be an expedient but…

When the player fleet is composed by just one colony ship armed with just a multifunction laser communicator and on the other side there is a pirate patchwork courier it is quite a pity to leave the quite important resolution (a new colony established or not?) to a couple of flashes and a result message.

When the player Joint Fleets Task Force will finally arrive in the Bad Guys planetary system for the Final Confrontation will he want to follow the momentous struggle in all his nuances?

The automatic resolution conundrum

While the resolution of the first engagements will be probably something that a player want to see and influence closely after a while it will become boring and time consuming. When the player is at the head of a sprawling interstellar empire it is doubtful that he will have the patience to follow and direct every little engagements that are going on. More probably he will follow the bigger and/or more strategic ones and leave the rest to automatic resolution.

Here comes the real problem: will the presence of the driving hand of the player change the outcome radically?

If the answer is yes then the automation system will be seen as broken and ineffectual, the player will try to follow as many combat as he can and a huge amount of time will be dedicated to this activity.

If the answer is no the interaction capability will be seen as weak and pointless. The space combat system will become just a button to press.

There are already experimented middle of the road choices like to strongly link the combat with the character system. The player will not manage directly the fleets but he will manage the admirals who will command them, their inherent bonuses and their combat philosophy.

Fleet postures are another way to let the player pre-interact with the engagements and also the starship design system can be a way to externally influence the final outcome of a battle.

One problem I did not see solved in any of the 4X games that I know is what happens when an automatic resolved engagement has a much unexpected result. Be it good or bad the player will need to know why and in the real world that, except extreme cases, should not be a problem.

Conclusions

I have introduced here a lot of non-answered questions.

I think that every game will have its solutions but my point was that all these questions are on the table when their designer will start his work and I am positive that a personal, being it original or not, answer is needed for each of them.

My personal preference is always toward realism but at a certain point, perhaps ironically, reality strikes and simplifications are needed to have a playable game that can be developed in this decade.

The race is open to find the most evocative, original ‘simplifications’ and to be part of the evolution of the 4X space gaming field.

bertipa is a frequent poster in the Game Design forum here on Space Sector. This is his first foray in real article writing but he is already looking ahead for a Nobel Prize in literature in few years. He is a voracious reader of Science Fiction and has a vast collection of pen and paper role playing games. Being allergic to ever finish any serious work not linked to databases he is now considering a carrier as biographic blurbs writer. Come to read and comment his posts here.

Since my progression post, I have received two requests for articles: story line’s in 4X games and UI. I have decided to go with the story line for 4X’s request first. I have been thinking and discussing with my testers the story line for my 4X game. Now, we all have preferences, ideas and opinions on what makes a good story so keep that in mind when you read the following. Not all games require a story line.

Stories in Games

A story in a game is an important tool for the developer. It gives the developer the means to create emotion (through events, characters, settings, history, etc), a way to share the lore of their game universe and a way to present a point(ie: moral). Emotion can be used to draw and keep the player engaged with the game. Humans are emotional creatures and by “exploiting” (pun intended) this, the developer can really capture their audience. Interest in the lore will keep player’s involved in game – even when they aren’t playing.

I feel that a well fleshed out game universe and lore really help with the story line. The lore of the game gives the story line a solid back bone. It makes the story more believable: a world exists outside of the story. If the world seems believable to the player, they will be able to become drawn more into the story. And this is good because they keep playing!

Bioware and Blizzard are well known for their ability to make games with good stories. How many times have we hit the internet to try and find more information for that particular game/story line? How much additional background of the world did we try to find? I’ve spent hours pouring over the internet for various games trying, yearning, and looking for more information because I felt the story and universe in a game was so engaging – I couldn’t help myself. Or while reading a good book, it just wasn’t possible to stop until that last page was read?

It isn’t Easy Being Green…

Unfortunately, most game developer’s aren’t world renowned authors. As mentioned in my first post: What makes a good game - Immersion, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes in making a game that is strictly technical work. The challenges of technically designing and implementing a game are great. The challenges of integrating a polished story line complete with well written dialog (which is not trivial to write well), character graphics and animations, maybe some voice overs for those special moments, and…well I hope you get the point. It isn’t easy and it isn’t cheap.

Stories in 4X Games

So I’m not surprised that 4X games usually don’t have the story line the focal point. Examining 4X games in more detail presents another problem. The general nature of 4X games is a complex sandbox (or openness) atmosphere.

Most of the 4X game is built on giving the player freedom to do whatever they want and move in whatever direction they please. This causes major issues with the traditional (RPG: linear, tightly controlled) story telling mechanism because the player just has simply too much freedom. It is harder to design a system that allows a player to do as they please while still keeping the story moving.

The main issue is accurately keeping track of the state of the player. Is what should happen the right thing for the current state the player is in? RPGs use a combination of a leveling system and world access control (can only access certain parts of the world at a certain time). These ensure the player is in the right spot for the story.

But for 4X games, as a developer, how do you truly know what state the player is in? How many star systems do they have? How many ships? What technologies? And so on and so forth. The more complex systems that are present, the more questions that must be answered. Thus, the difficulty increases.

4X games are usually much more complex than RPGs in terms of their systems and as one can imagine, that complicates the matter even further. Yes, a system can be written to determine the state of the player and then act accordingly, but that is certainty no trivial task to complete. In addition, the story itself has to make sense with this scaling system, which also isn’t easy as indicated above. As you can see, I don’t really have the answers but I will try to find them. I’ll let you know how I end up :)

Is Story Essential in 4X Games?

Is a story essential? I would have to say no, as the previous 4X games have generally done quite well with some solid background lore (Master of Orion 2 for example) and some general and basic story lines. On top of that, many of the reasons why some of us play these games is not particularly for the story. However, I feel that the next 4X game that does a very nice job in incorporating a solid story, but keeps the sand box atmosphere, will have a pretty darned successful game on their hands. I know I’ll be playing it.

Yet Another Example…

I’d like to provide another example how I achieved the above, once more, with my MUD: A Tempest Season. The setting was high fantasy and I developed, with my partner, extensive lore, which was available to the players. One of the players was a magic user. He became so involved in the lore and story of the game, he was able to use it to publish essays on magic. I was astounded when I read them as they were so accurate and made sense with the lore. In addition, he was able to solve many staff ran quests that were based on a magical nature. This is a great example of drawing in a player and having them become emotionally attached and engaged in the lore and story of the game.

The End

Thanks for reading my article. I look forward to reading the comments and seeing what thoughts you all have on story lines. For my next article, I am planning to talk about the UI and this will be a more technical pieces than my previous ones.

dayrinni has been a Space Sector contributor since October 2011. This is his first foray into writing articles for any review site. He is an avid gamer in the genres of 4X, Strategy, MMO’s and RPGs. Finally, he has been the implementor of several MUDs and is currently working on a 4X space game that offers large scope and complexity. See all dayrinni’s posts here.

Progression exists in many different forms so I will talk about it generally. It is important because the players can see the reward for their time spent in the game. It can keep people engaged in the game and longevity in games is always a good thing to have.

Progression

Progression is having goals and how the player achieves them. What is their purpose(s) in the game? How do they fulfill their purpose(s)? By having good progression, it keeps players involved in the game. People, especially gamers, like to strive towards something. They like to set themselves a goal in a game and then achieve it. Put simply, this can be seen as the “carrot on the end of the stick”.

4X games for example offer several different forms of progression (more on this below): empire expansion, ship design, and technology/research to name a few. To me, one of the greatest joys in playing a space 4X is watching my empire spread out amongst the stars. I love building massive fleets and “incorporating” lesser civilizations into my own. MMORPGs generally have a lot of progression: gear based, skills, encounter based and so on.

As mentioned above, most gamers like to improve themselves and do better. They want to gain that next level, or that next technology for their ships. They strive to achieve these goals. It creates an environment that makes the player’s time well spent and encourages them to play longer. The excitement level and desire of getting something keeps them interested.

Progression rewards the players. That is why the typical experience and leveling system in MMORPGs hasn’t gone away (TOR is reported to have a very strong and lengthy leveling experience). It is very easy to understand and gives great results. “Hey I gained a level and got some new abilities!”. You now have something you didn’t before. In 4X games, technology is a great example of this. Researching a new plasma cannon that can be placed on your ships: the excitement level grows with each click that increases the number of plasma cannons. Imagine the damage it will deal to your enemies!  Or acquiring shields for the first time and knowing (hoping) that the enemy would not be able to deal with them.

Even though the developer may place progression in a game, it does not discount the fact that players make their own progression (sometimes unknowingly). In a 4X game, there could be an instance where a particular planet is “ultra-rich” in ore and it would be vital for the player to acquire that. Perhaps this planet is controlled by an enemy empire with a strong defensive presence. This situation can set off an entire chain of small goals leading up to the eventual attack on the planet. The player just created a small progression system.

Next, I would like to provide a humorous real life example. In MoO1/2, I always played as the Psilons. I enjoyed having a large tech edge (plasma cannons, anyone?). I always got very displeased with the Darloks stealing my technology. So, I made it my mission to show them what eXterminate really means in 4X.

Other forms such as victory conditions and achievements helps too. The boundaries are really endless and each game can have their own progression and be unique. That is the beauty of games. I want to throw out one warning: do not make the progression overly difficult or time consuming. A fine balance must be done to ensure that the players do not feel the time spent is not worth what is earned (or will be).

Example

As with the previous article, I want to give an example of how I achieved progression. I will again use the MUD for my example (I’ll use my own 4X game when it gets farther along). During character creation, a player could choose one of two skill paths to travel down. Each path had 10 skills. They then could select 7 of the 10 skills and these would be gained in 5 level increments. This was a good system because it allowed the player to set their own goals with gaining skills at certain levels. Then they wanted to use them and so the player had to work to attain them. This created a small progression system that encouraged people to play more.

This finishes up my second article about the two aspects I feel are that important to me: Immersion and Progression. I hope you enjoyed reading it and thinking about games and their development in slightly different ways. As with the post on Immersion, I would like to hear your thoughts and comments (I’ll try to reply faster this time). Finally, if anyone has a request for a future topic on an article, let me know and I’ll consider it.

dayrinni has been a Space Sector contributor since October 2011. This is his first foray into writing articles for any review site. He is an avid gamer in the genres of 4X, Strategy, MMO’s and RPGs. Finally, he has been the implementor of several MUDs and is currently working on a 4X space game that offers large scope and complexity. See all dayrinni’s posts here.

I’m a long time gamer like the rest of you. I like many types of games: RPGs, FPS, strategy and 4X. I also like to make games (I have a small game company). My desire to make games and bring people together started when I was in high school. It was then that I created some paper and pencil games with my best friend. Also, I had some message board games. As I started college, I started to program games. I programmed a few MUDs (text-based RPGs), a 2D graphical game and I am now working on my secret 4X game.

One thing I can say is that making a game is not easy and is really a labor of love. It is not something that a programmer can wave their hands at and suddenly, the game appears. It really is a classic case of “easier said than done.”. Software development is a very intensive and lengthy process.

Regardless of the type, there are a few key points that make a good game. Two of them are immersion and progression. I would like to talk about them in my first few posts.  There are other aspects of good games, but I want to touch on these two points first.

Immersion

Immersion is essentially making the player believe they are where (or what) the game says they are. In RPGs, it is what makes the player feel as if they are their character (a powerful mage for example). That they are really saving the world or slaying the dragon. In FPS’s, it is that the in-game character holding the gun is really the player. In 4X games, the player is really the Supreme Ruler of their Empire (or whatever role the story line says they should be).

Immersion suspends reality and time for the player. It is how the person loses track of the time they play. They are so engrossed in the game that they don’t even know what time it is. It is the moments where when you finally look at the clock and 5 (or more) hours have gone by. Immersion is something that game developers want to achieve because it draws people in and keeps them captivated.

It can be difficult to create immersion because as developers, we are swamped with non-immersive activities. You have to attend that meeting at 2 PM. You have to come up with a mathematical model to simulate trade across an empire. You have to program that GUI Window for the Diplomacy screen. You have to modify this, or that. You have a code review. These tasks don’t really deal with anything about the soul of the game. These non-soul aspects make it hard to concentrate on the soul and what really will go into the game.

Even for writers on a project distractions come easy. There are still deadlines, discussions and a manner of other issues to deal with. There is a never ending stream of tasks and hurdles to jump over. Reviewing and editing work is an intensive process. Change is hard and difficult. Writing 50 pages and then having to re-writing it is no easy task. Generally, time is at a luxury and oftentimes, impossible to get more of.

All of these factors contribute to the challenges of making a game immersive (and a game in general!!).

As a personal example, when I wrote my networking code for my 2D game, I spent weeks on it. I got so deep into the code, which became so abstract, that I sort of lost where I was in my own project. I had to take a break after wards and get my bearings.

With all of the above aside, let’s ask a simple question: How do you achieve immersion? I cannot say for sure. I don’t think any one really can give a precise and concrete answer. But like everyone else, I have some ideas and thoughts on how to create it. I will use examples from the Master of Orion series.

How to achieve immersion

The first point is, the setting and story has to be believable. Things have to make sense. Not so much as 100% logical sense, but it has to all fit in with everything else. Random or out of place things will kill the immersion. The pieces of the game must fit together to provide a finished puzzle that equals the vision of the game. The lore and setting in MoO universe fit well together. It was coherent and easy to determine what and why things happened. The guardian ship concept was a great tie in as well. The guardian ship bridged the gap from the history to the game. This concrete connection made the game seem more believable.

The second point is, the UI has to have a theme that fits into the game and be easy to use. Imagine playing a CIV game with an outer space themed UI. The artistic side of the UI has to be correct. Then, the functionality within must be easy and simple to use. If a user gets burdened down by trying to use the UI then immersion will be not be achieved. A classic case is the MoO3 UI. It was very cumbersome and difficult to use. It is hard to get involved in a game when it is difficult to use.

In addition, the presentation of the contents in the UI need to be in the theme. The contents can use elements from the setting and story.  If getting a report on battle losses is presented, some flavor text could be used to make it more believable. If it was a disastrous loss for the player, that can be indicated in a way that makes sense too. In other words, the player shouldn’t think that they are looking at a spreadsheet, they should think they are looking a real battle loss report. These small aspects can tie the UI into the setting of story of the game. Sounds can be useful in achieving this. The research discovery screen is a good example of having good presentation. A scientist from your empire with a graphical display of what was successfully researched is present in the screen.

A third point is, streamlined game play. If things are annoying to the player for the wrong reasons (time sinks, etc), then that will kill immersion. If a player has to grind out 10 grueling levels before they reach a point where they feel useful, then that really isn’t streamlined game play. If  playing the game is just plain difficult to do in a gameplay aspect (not UI related), then it will be hard to achieve immersion. Sometimes, a UI can hide non-streamlined game (or even streamlined game play), but it should not be relied on to do so.

There are three points that could assist in creating immersion. The game and display should not detract from the player’s ability to believe they are in the game. Often times it is hard to do because software development and game design is very challenging. It is easy to get caught up with the technical aspects. Stop and think every so often. Watch the grass grow and look at what was done. Were they the right choices?

Example

Finally, I want to give an example of how I achieved some of these in my MUD (text-based RPG), A Tempest Season. Usually in MUDs, combat automatically happens and gives a very generic description. This isn’t really immersive. You are sitting there watching the text go by. Instead, I created a system that had different attacks (slash, jab, thrust, etc). With each attack I had long descriptions that explained in detail what the attack did. The system was very nicely done and received a lot of complements on it. Even though the player had to type commands, they still fit as if they were actually in the battle due to the choice they had and the descriptions received from combat.

Well, I hope that you have enjoyed my first post. My second post, on Progression, will be coming up soon. I know that we have different opinions on what makes a good game. With that said, I’d like to hear what makes a good game for you. Feel free to reply to this post with your thoughts.

dayrinni has been a Space Sector contributor since October 2011. This is his first foray into writing articles for any review site. He is an avid gamer in the genres of 4X, Strategy, MMO’s and RPGs. Finally, he has been the implementor of several MUDs and is currently working on a 4X space game that offers large scope and complexity. See all dayrinni’s posts here.

Today I discovered an exciting new project that promises to take board strategy gaming to the next generation. The project is named OggBoard.

OggBoard intends to combine augmented reality technology with board gaming and the interactivity of computer and console gaming with the objective to create a “kind of” holographic board gaming experience.

The Project

Sam and Brook (the project team) aim to attack the problem in two fronts.

In one hand they propose to take the project from concept stage to manufacture and distribution, which includes developing the board structure itself.

On the other hand they also intend to develop a turn-based strategy game designed specifically for the OggBoard to be used as the best possible proof of concept. They state that probably the game will be fantasy in nature – close enough- let’s hope it’s sci-fi in the end :)

Other kinds of possible games for OggBoard would include turn-based strategy games such as D&D, battle chess, tower-based strategy games or interactive learning games for children and students.

Important Features

Light and durable gaming board. Sam and Brook state that the board “will be made of durable, light weight material and designed to fold into a flat, compact shape when not in use or for transport anywhere you go. Imagine a folding chessboard except a little bigger and much sturdier. All of this will be possible for $30“.

Multi-player but also single-player experience. Rather than being an experience to share only among friends Sam and Brook state that “although the OggBoard will be best utilized between friends and family, this game [the TBS proof of concept game]  will also support single player gaming. This includes not only playing against the ‘computer’ but we will also try to make sure multiplayer is supported so that you can play friends with OggBoards all over the world.“.

Funding

OggBoard applied for crowed-funding. The project will only be funded if at least $45,000 are pledged by Saturday Oct 8, 9:00pm EDT. I just made a pledge myself!

This type of funding is called a “pledge” so if you decide to fund the project, and the project reaches its target funds, the amount you pledged will be charged. If in the other hand the project does not reach its funding goal, your card is not charged. This is further explained in kickstarters web page faq.

Read all about OggBoard (very interesting read!) at OggBoard’s kickstarters webpage. Help spread the word!

Final Thoughts

Well, from what I could tell, the difference with OggBoard gaming,  is that you physically move around tiles like chess pieces. So, you interact physically with the game (not just press buttons).

There are already so many games where you just play on screen, with OggBoard you can play against another person like you would a board game except with the interactivity and graphics of a computer game.

In that sense OggBoard is just different, a new approach to gaming providing a new kind of experience. And that is always a good thing isn’t it :)

These are the ones that push the characters to their limits, that change the course of their respective story arcs in unforgettable ways, or that simply wow us with some really, really cool effects and action shots. Here are five of the very best battles the show has ever featured…

The First Battle

Some fans feel that the show was still finding its feet at this early stage, but the first battle from season one episode one blew us all away, nevertheless. Intended mainly as a setup to the series and as a way to show off the capabilities of the Galactica, the first battle did not disappoint.

Primarily a pure action extravaganza, the highlight of this sequence comes when the Galactica displaces itself in space in order to dodge a barrage of missiles. This was unlike anything else being shown on television at the time and remains a fan favorite moment in the series.

New Caprica, 3:3

New Caprica broke new ground for the series and set the stakes higher than ever before in terms of the quality and production value of the action. Many would argue that this is where the show’s action direction really took off and crystallized many of its top quirks, not least being the handheld, documentary style camera.

When BGS began doing this, it was almost unheard of in space opera action, but it proved to lend the action more life and spontaneity than the old hull-mounted-cameras everyone had been using since Episode IV. Cylons attacking in-formation, on and off-world action, the explosive clashes in New Caprica rival the most epic moments of the great Battleship Potemkin.

Starbuck vs. Apollo

Okay, this one is hand to hand, but the show really surprised viewers by showing that they could thrill us just as easily with punches and kicks as they could with explosions and starships, and that you don’t always need million dollar effects to create a stellar action sequence. While brief (the fight is really over in two hits), the fight packs more emotional explosive power than most space battles.

Daybreak

Adama orders an attack on a colony right by a black hole. Enough said. The tension and drama of Daybreak, the series finale, make up for any of the weaker episodes fans might have felt disappointed by earlier in the series, the action really peaks, and all in all, this is just a darn good send off for one of the greatest sci-fi series of all time.

The Resurrection Ship Battle

This one is generally regarded as the all time great Battlestar Galactica space battle sequence. For pushing the characters to their dramatic limits, for changing the face of the series, for sheer, pulse pounding action, for the sharp effects work, this one has it all. The two part Resurrection Ship arc is why we watch BGS in the first place. Scratch that, it’s why we watch space opera at all.

The epic battle kicks off with the Colonial forces ready to do battle with the Cylons and baiting them into a trap. From here, Galactica and the Pegasus both attack the Cylon Resurrection Ship, and the rest is Battlestar Galactica history.

But what really pushes this battle over the line from “merely epic” to “something special” is Apollo’s arc as he takes the Blackbird out and collides with a Cylon, soon discovering a pinhole in his suit that compromises his life. The tension of this sequence alone is as pulse pounding as the battle itself.

The re-imagined original series is off the air now, however one cool new game out right now is actually a BGS themed real-time strategy game. This means that not only can you get all the fun of Starcraft within the trappings of Battlestar Galactica, you can also arrange the “What if?” battles that you came up with in your head while watching the series.

The online game is competitive, so don’t expect anyone to take it easy on you just because you’re new. See if you can top your favorite battle on this list. Get a glimpse of BSG Online by reading the SpaceSector first impressions article: Battlestar Galactica Online: Hands On First Impressions

Matthew Kiddman is  a long time gaming and sci-fi enthusiast who takes every chance he can get to write about the gaming industry and in particular space games like Battlestar Galactica Online. Look for him in the online Galactica game.

The last poll dictated 67 votes favoring TBS games, 19 votes for RTS where only 11 don’t prefer one style to the other.

The tendency on the market these days however seems to favor the real-time mechanic, if you consider Sins of a Solar Empire, Distant Worlds, Sword of the Stars (the space battles) and Armada 2526 (the space battles), these are some of the latest titles to come out.

So this means that the Real-Time mechanic is the way to go, or judging from the poll will be the Turn-Based mechanic instead? Let’s take a closer look at these types of gameplay and see what comes up.

Turn-Based Strategy

In turn-based strategy you go at your own rhythm, you have more time to think your strategy. Nothing can be left out until you finally press the end turn button and watch the opponents turn unfold. Most of the excitement comes not from the actual player turn but from the return outcome of the actions performed. This type of gameplay is for the hard-thinkers, people that like to take their time and like to control and be perfectionist.

Examples of pure TBS games are the Master of Orion series, Space Empires series and the Galactic Civilizations series. All the three series absolute classics.

Real-Time Strategy

Real-time strategy is a very different kind of mechanic. In here the player wants (hopes) to be on top of the situation at all times. This is of course .. impossible and so the player experiences strong feelings of anguish, nervousness and also frequent adrenaline rushes. After all at any time a fleet of Korzog Battle Cruisers may come out of hyperspace from nowhere and crush your undefended colony (if only I had the time to think this more carefully… haaahhh …)

RTS is for the adrenaline junkies and for people that favor action and instant pleasure and don’t have the patience  to micro-manage too much.

Examples of pure RTS games are the Homeworld series, Imperium Galactica Series and the Sins of a Solar Empire series.

Then there are games that combine both TBS and RTS

Then there is Armada 2526 and Sword of the Stars. Both of these latest titles combine both mechanics in their games. Both offer a turn-based core mechanic for their star map, economy, research etc but they offer real-time space battles.

So what is the future?

It’s too soon to speak for Armada 2526 but Sword of the Stars has been a success judging from the community, the expansion packs and the fact that there is already a sequel under development.

So the hybrid RTS / TBS formula seems to be a winner. You make your TBS players happy with the turn-based mechanic for the star map. When in battles you make your RTS players happy with the real-time mechanic.

I particularly favor this approach. What about you, what is your favorite gameplay mechanic and why ?

Some may say that the key is in the complexity, others will defend that simpler is better others may even argue that realism is in important factor. So what is the right balance? What makes a good 4x space game economic model? And ultimately is that such a big deal?

Let’s look into some classic examples to try to find some answers to these questions.

Master of Orion I: local planetary management; simple processes

MOO presents production as a function of population and factories present in the planet. You allocate production using 5 sliders that represent the 5 areas where the player can invest: – Ships, Defense, Industry, Ecology and Technology. This allocation is done locally, i.e. on a planetary basis. It cannot get simpler than that. In addition to this, and for flexibility, the player may allocate up to 10% of the general wide net production to the empire reserves to spend on a particular planet to increase its production temporarily or to invest on global empire security.

Planet size determines the amount of population it may hold, and more population means more production. The Planet’s mineral quality has also a dramatic effect on production in terms of bonuses. The categories vary from: Ultra-poor, Poor, Normal, Rich and Ultra-Rich. And since everything in MOO is about production, planet quality is one, if not the most critical factor for success. Own the richer and bigger planets and you will be the ultimate power of the galaxy and the source of envy of your neighbors.

In MOO there is no tax concept and money can only be made by scrapping ships and bases or by diverting some production to empire reserves as explained above. Players pay maintenance for ships, spies, security and missile bases. This payment is not made from empire reserves but discounted directly from planetary production.

Master of Orion II: specialized economy; adds food and taxes

In MOO2, production is also a direct function of population but now it’s not generated uniformly and not spread into several investment categories: Ships, Defense, Industry, Ecology and Technology as in its predecessor MOO. In MOO2 the player can specialize into three main fields of labor: – food production, industry output and research on a planetary basis. For every million colonists there is one work unit and the player may distribute them among these three economy fields.

The food production introduces new a level of complexity in MOO2 economics since now the player has to worry that people don’t starve to death. The industry output is used to build any type of structure being it defense, ships or buildings; research directly contributes to the amount of production diverted to technology.

The main difference from MOO is the inclusion of a colony management system which allows the construction of buildings that affect production through bonus. As an example, the “Rob Miners Plant” building increases the base production of the planet by 10 and the production output of each population unit to +2. The planets quality remains a critical factor in MOO2.

In MOO2 there is a somewhat advanced tax concept. All citizens pay taxes (a fixed amount). Additionally the player can set an industry tax (0% to 50%) that halves industry output in favor of cash. Money can be used to accelerate production of buildings or ships and to hire leaders, a new concept in MOO2 – which are specialists that add further bonuses.

Players pay maintenance for ships, freighters (food trade), spies, tribute and leaders. This payment is discounted directly from empire treasury.

Galactic Civilizations II: global empire management with planetary focus; money has a new meaning

The Galactic Civilizations II approach is much different from MOO and MOO2. In the previous titles the economy is founded on top of population (more on MOO) and population and economic buildings (in MOO2). Money exists but is not an essential factor for MOO and MOO2 on building and researching things and is used for more indirect purposes like build-rush and maintenance. In other words, even without money the planets always produce as long as they have population and factories built on them. Industrial output has therefore nothing to do with the player’s economic income.

On the other hand GalCiv2 adds another level of complexity by requiring that production is paid with money. Production is still dependent on economic structures present in the planet (like factories) but this production is only potential production. To actually build and research stuff the player must allocate money from the global empire budget. Population does not contribute directly to production but indirectly through taxes. More population means more taxes a stronger economy and therefore more money can be spent on actual production.

As said above the player allocates money from the empire budget. It can do so into three areas using sliders that GalCiv2 calls: Social, Military and Research (you can see this in the picture below). By allocating money to the first (Social) the player diverts production to build all sorts of non-military buildings like factories, laboratories, space port, wonders etc. By focusing on the second area (Military) the player allocates production for building spaceships, the third (Research) allocates production to generate research points to investigate new technologies. Actual production is managed on an empire scale so if the player wants to build more social structures in the empire it puts more emphasis on the Social slider.

The pros and cons of this economic decision are clear. To alleviate the burden of planetary micromanagement, GalCiv2 developers decided to manage production on an empire scale in direct contrast with MOO and MOO2 where production was managed on a planetary basis. On the reverse side of the coin this caused some problems to gamers that liked to micromanage their planets. In one of the GalCiv2 expansions (Dark Avatar if I recall correctly) they blend the concept by introducing the “planet production focus” concept. In addition to the global empire sliders the players can now focus production on a planetary scale. As an example a player may decide to focus on Research on a global empire scale but decide to focus production on a particular planet for building spaceships and another planet to build social structures. This decision seemed to work because it brought a certain balance to the issue of planet management VS global empire management; at least I was happy with what they did.

The player can set taxes but only at an empire scale. More taxes means more money in the short term however the player must pay close attention so that the planets Morale does not get down from a certain level which in the long run will halve income. Money is used for everything: for production, to pay maintenance, tributes and to hurry buildings.

Sword of the Stars: return to local planetary management;

I don’t have so much in depth experience with SOTS as I do with the former titles since I’m not playing it for so much time yet (see what I meant with the “not noticing how economy works” so fast when I introduced this post?) so please correct me if you find any inaccuracies.

Having said this, SOTS presents a similar economy model as the original Master of Orion at least in what concerns local planetary management, the production scheme, the use of sliders to allocate production and the lack of colony city-building.

Production, like in MOO, is a function of both population and “infrastructure”: the SOTS designation for industrial output (or factories). Income comes in direct function of population, what is inferred to be due to taxation. There is no food concept in SOTS, as there was none also on MOO. The planetary budget (production) can be allocated to Trade, Terraforming, Infrastructure and Ship construction. Notice the resemblance with the MOO model where the player diverted production to Ecology (Terraforming), Industry (Infrastructure) and Ships (Ship construction). The Trade slider is new though since SOTS presents a clear separation between money (income) and production as MOO2 and GalCiv2 do.

Money is used to pay maintenance but primarily to spend on Research and cannot be used to hurry production in direct contrast with MOO2 and GalCiv2. In addition to this, SOTS does not offer a refined taxation concept, the player cannot set taxes.

Conclusions

After having dissecting these four classics economic models let’s see in what they agree on and where they go apart. After that let’s try to answer some questions here.  First the summary:

MOO:

• Production as a function of population, factories and planet quality
• Production is managed on a planetary basis
• No planetary city-building offered (no economic structures)
• Research is made by allocating global production
• Cannot set taxes
• Money is made by diverting production to empire reserves or by scrapping structures
• Money is used for empire security or to increase production in a planet with penalty
• Maintenance paid directly from planetary production

MOO2:

• Production is a function of population, economic structures (which includes factories), race traits and planet quality
• Production is managed on a planetary basis
• Offers planetary city-building features
• Research is made by allocating population to science (similar to MOO)
• Can set taxes at an empire scale (halves construction in favor of cash)
• Money is made from taxes, by constructing “trade goods” or by scrapping structures and can be used to hurry-buildings
• Money is used to accelerate buildings and ships construction and to hire leaders
• Maintenance is paid directly from empire treasury

GalCiv2:

• Production is a function of economic structures, planetary bonuses (planet quality), trait bonuses and funds allocation
• Production is managed on a global empire basis (with local planetary focus)
• Has planetary city-building
• Research is made using economic structures (labs) and by allocating funds
• Can set taxes at an empire scale (affects morale)
• Money is made primarily from taxes (from population) and trade
• Money is used to create production (buildings, ships and research)
• Maintenance is paid directly from empire treasury

SOTS:

• Production is a function of population and the level of infrastructure
• Production is managed on a planetary basis
• No planetary city-building (no economic structures)
• Research is made solely by allocating funds
• Cannot set taxes (fixed amount)
• Money is made from taxes and trade
• Money is used essentially for research
• Maintenance is paid directly from empire treasury

In conclusion there is one thing where all these games seem to agree on that is the notion that production shall outcome in one way or another from the amount of population present in the planet (the workforce) and the infrastructure level, being it the amount of factories or other economic structures. Only GalCiv2 deviates a bit from this concept. No matter the amount of population you have in a planet the only thing that matters in GalCiv2 is the amount of factories and the amount of money pumped from the empire budget to make them work. This does not seem to be very realistic at first because normally one may think that the more population you have the more production the planet should output. But in another hand one may think that it is not the amount of population or workforce that is important but the amount of infrastructure automation the planet has achieved. One has not to forget though that if you have no people to pay taxes you will not survive in the long run anyway, so the amount of population is kept as a crucial factor for success in GalCiv2 economy model.

Another interesting aspect where the four games this time don’t agree on has to do with research. In MOO and MOO2 research is just another area where the player can allocate production on and in this case it does not have anything to do with money. On the other hand, GalCiv2 and SOTS finance research directly with money. For these last two cases it does not matter that you have lots of labs and lots of population, if you don’t have money to finance research you will not be able to investigate new technologies, which in my opinion is realistic and makes perfect sense.

Than there are a series of other indirect factors in more or less amount depending on the game that affect the game economy. Usually they come in the form of positive or negative bonuses like race traits, empire bonuses, planetary quality, economic structures, morale, etc. These factors contribute in my opinion to the complexity of the economy model but not necessarily to the overall game enjoyment. MOO2 and GalCiv2 provide city-building features that allow players to build all sorts of economic, social or military structures on it. On the other hand MOO and SOTS do not offer this possibility which may frustrate the player avid for planetary micromanagement however it may fancy the players that like to focus more on other areas like spaceship design, research, and battles or like to manage from the “big chair” rather than focus too much attention to planet details.

As final conclusion of this little essay I say that the core of space game economics is normally common ground. The differences are on the details and where the game tends to focus more. Some players like the complexity others enjoy higher abstraction. So for me there is no ideal space game economy model but just one that works and that is ultimately fun to play. But if I would need to pick one I would choose GalCiv2′s model since it is the one that provides the right amount of balance: the player manages production in a global scale but can make small adjustments on a planetary basis.

From a single player to a massively multiplayer online experience

I’m an hardcore fan of PC strategy single player games, as I grew up with them (you can check the about page of my blog to see games I’ve been playing for 20 years now). My experience using multiplayer features in this games is very limited, and my online multiplayer experience nonexistent to a few months ago. Seeing my sister, also an old school strategy gamer herself, playing World of Warcraft (a.k.a. WoW) for about 4 years straight now (and the single only game she plays these days) made me think twice about the online massively multiplayer phenomenon and so I decided to give online games a try at my own risk. I recommend you to read the article World of Warcrack and the future of MMOGs to get the feeling of how addicting WoW is and how this is impacting the gaming society in a way that will only be fully understood in some years from now.

So some months ago a friend of mine, knowing my interest in strategy games, recommended me to try out Travian: an ancient world strategy web-based MMO game. I enjoyed playing Travian immediately. First of all it is free, very simple to play (you only need an Internet connection and a web-browser) and surprisingly enough to me the game was very addicting. I did not knew by then (and frankly I’m still figuring it out now) from where was this addicting factor coming from, since the game is pretty basic. Is it the simple gameplay experience itself? Is it the social aspect of the game? Or is it both? At my own pace I started to play Travian regularly. Naturally after having a positive experience with Travian I could not stop to ask myself if there could be also some MMO space strategy games, and possibly even 4x out there. The answer is yes and a lot of them. Many are already available, many others are in the making.

Web-based space strategy MMO Boom

So if in the recent past 4x space strategy games favored so much the single player experience (as it seems to be its main characteristic)  is it feasible to think that this genre can be successful in the MMO world? And a more important question: can the new space strategy paradigm be MMO? After making a quick search I found OGame, one of the most influential space strategy web-based MMO games out there. I played OGame for a while, and I still play occasionally. It is a satisfactory enough game. You can read my review of OGame in SpaceSector.com: Ogame Review, Tips and Strategy Guide. But there are many others. And the most difficult part these days is to figure out which ones are really worth it to give it a try. You can get a comprehensive list of space MMO games at Galaxy News.

As you glimpse Galaxy News list of space MMO games you can’t help to be surprised, not to say ultimately shocked, to see how many of these games are already available, or under development. They account 145 space MMO games in their database. Some of them show great potential. I tried so far: Astro Empires (which I already made a review), Cosmic Supremacy (a very complex and promising game), Dark Orbit, Ferion and Pirate Galaxy just to name a few.

What’s your MMO experience?

I decided to write this post to share with you my experiences playing space and non-space MMO games, since the process of discovering this new type of games to the amazement of how simple but how addicting these games can be. It would be very interesting to get feedback from you guys, the space (and also the non-space) gaming community. Do you play MMO games? If so which ones do you currently play (or played), and which of these do you recommend to other gamers and why? Ultimately it would be very interesting to discuss here your opinion on if MMO games could be the new paradigm for 4x space strategy.

When reaching a planet, what its normally presented? A planet, with some characteristics presented not very well detailed. Normally colonization is made instantly and all that can be done is to start building facilities. I think more could be done to give the planets more protagonism and enhance the exploration excitement. Let us re-think the concept.

What if, when arriving a planet, we don´t know anything about it except the atmosphere characteristics and maybe some geological aspects? It would be interesting to discover the planets in the same way as we for instance discover the galaxy. The following approach could be adopted to extract the maximum experience from the planet eXploration phase.

Scout Range based planet exploration

The basic idea is to established a scouting team in the planet surface before the colonization process can begin, by defining its members and equipment. They start in a specific point or points of the planet. This team should have a radius of action for each member which should increase in real time or turn based accordingly. The speed of the scout radius increases depending on the experience of the scouting team.
To help the player, a graphical status of the exploration shall be displayed also as a radius range for each explorer. It could be set a maximum of two or three scouts, to become manageable. The range shall be sensible to geographic characteristics increasing or decreasing according to the explorer characteristics. During the exploration, the current status of the resources found should be displayed to the player.

The following kinds of events would be included during the planet exploration:

• Possibility of finding some new material, technology, special artifact or knowledge
• Accidents during exploration, like injuries or deaths (in the limit the entire exploration team could be doomed during the quest).
• Encounters with other species and start diplomacy in the terrain (special species for mining, intelligent species for research or others).
• Meet other exploration species. This is where you have to show your diplomacy skills to avoid conflict.
• Spot of suitable places to start the colonization process (not all breathable planets would be suitable)

The exploration of the planet would take several turns to allow colonization and possibly continue throughout the entire game experience unlocking new places suitable for extra colonies, allow to extract more resources (due to new mining places found), etc.

I know that this may seem a little bit complex and may become a slow experience to some players that normally want more action and constant battles, but i think there are plenty of gamers who think that realism in the exploration phase by itself is already a exciting way to take pleasure when gaming.

Let me know you opinion about this.

In the gaming world “4X” stands for: “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit and eXterminate”. The ‘4X’ concept is well covered in the wikipedia here. Essentially the games that are catalogued as ‘4X’ must, at least, possess the following characteristics (or provide the following phases):

1. “eXplore”: means is the early phase of the game where the players scout across a map to reveal the surrounding territories.
2. “eXpand”: stands for the phase where the player already knows the surrounding territory enough and is ready to start claiming that new territory by creating settlements, outposts or simply by increasing its influence over that territory like for example by increasing its population, by increasing trade range or map reach.
3. “eXploit”: In this phase the player is ready to start gathering resources from the areas under his control. The idea is to be as quick and efficient as possible to control these resources since they normally are limited and as more you have less your enemies will have left.
4. “eXterminate”: When the territory is almost but claimed and the available resources controlled, the only way to expand is … to get more terrain and more resources and normally this means the need to make war with an opponent in order to subdue him (by turning it into a protectorate or vassal) or to destroy him completely.

Sounds familiar?

Other fundamental characteristics of a ‘4X’ game

The player usually plays the role of a Ruler of some sort normally with absolute power, like a King, Emperor or a Bureaucrat. This ruler stands by a race, country, species, civilization or some nation and his objective is to grow and develop it. The society normally has a humble beginning and part of the excitement of ‘4X’ games is to be able to transform this humble beginning in an ultimate power, where the level of knowledge, technology and expansion becomes so great that the player finally achieves victory.

Victory may come through many ways: By complete annihilation of all opponents; by diplomatic achievement via peaceful agreements with all opponents (through alliances with all other players subdued to a single alliance); by some degree of domination (like 2/3 of a galaxy, map, and planet, whatever the scope, is conquered). Other means to victory may include special achievements like “building the spaceship” in Civilization, or to unlock ultimate technologies (in Galactic Civilizations II) or being elected supreme leader by the majority of the other players due to a very powerful influence.

Research and technology are key concepts in 4X games. Deeply intertwined with the player’s hope to succeed is its unavoidable need to evolve, and normally this means the need to acquire more knowledge and more technology. By allocating resources to research the player can unlock new technologies which will translate in more comfort for its citizens, more resource management efficiency, more speed, more shields, more weapons, units, etc.

Diplomacy is another key aspect of ‘4X’ games. By the time the player is well advanced in its ‘eXpansion’ it will unavoidably bump into a neighbor and after a while into some more neighbors. The ability to make diplomacy with adjacent factions may determine the player’s race future. By “playing the cards right” the player may gain access to more resources by peaceful means which normally is much less expensive. Diplomatic relations like non-aggression pacts, trade, economic or research pacts can normally be established to achieve this. Alternatively the player may decide it’s more profitable to forge alliances with other players and go to war with others to exploit and exterminate them in order to secure their resources and their territory.

Combat is also an important aspect of ‘4X’ games for where it is in combat that normally all is decided. The ability for the player to win battles may decide wars and the survival of the society all together. To be able to wage well in war the player must do well in many areas. Must have a strong economy to support its units, must keep up in technologies not to become obsolete and it needs not only to be an effective attacker but it also needs to be able to defend its settlements well from other aggressive players. Battles can be decided automatically (like in Galactic Civilizations) or be highly tactical that require more strategic decision from the player (like in Master of Orion that puts the player in full command of all units).

What is ’4X’ and what’s not

Although almost ‘4X’ games are of the space strategy kind (like Master of Orion, Space Empires, Imperium Galactica, Galactic Civilizations, and so many others), there are other non-space strategy games that, debatably, are considered ‘4X’. Some of these games are Sid Meier’s Civilization series – undeniably ‘4X’, the Colonization series, Age of Empires, Starcraft, Command & Conquer or the TotalWar Series (among others). These last four are examples of games that are debatably ‘4X’. Some players think they should be considered ‘4X’ because they provide the 4 stages, others tend to criticize that they miss other key aspects (like the ones I introduced before) which leads them to “weak” ‘4X’ or definitely ‘non-4X’. You will find in many places some of these games catalogued as ’4X’ and in another places as non-’4X’.  You will ultimately need to judge for yourself where to draw the line (now you know why I said previously that it could get confusing :) )

‘4X’ Games Lists

You can find good lists of ‘4X’ games in moby games here and in a freeorion forum thread here.

One thing seems undeniable for ‘4X’; being them real time or turn based in terms of gameplay, ‘4X’ games are all of the strategy type. And above all else almost all of them are space strategy games.

Spaceships are expensive

If we think realistically spaceships are an enormous expense of resources, in terms of manpower: scientists, engineers; time and materials. When produced, spaceships are also a huge expense during its lifetime: fuel, staff, energy, coordination and constant maintenance and retrofit.

If we take the Earth case study, after 50 years since the space age has begun on Earth the world has seen only a small bunch of different spacecrafts with little or no significant evolution in terms of life support, propulsion systems, range or … reliability, not to mention warfare need which is nil. For god sake in 50 years of space monitoring we have not yet made contact with a single bacteria in another planet inside our solar system, not to mention outside! The bottom line is that the space traveling business is a slow, cumbersome, incident fill, hugely expensive and very thoughtful enterprise.

The number of Spaceships matter

Being playing space strategy games for more than 15 years now (see Space Strategy Games: What’s next? Article ) I’ve constantly got the same boring feeling after some time playing a game. Constructing, maintaining and retrofitting spaceships becomes so ridiculous easy and cheap that the game simply looses its interest. So Alien race “X” happens to have 24 fleets of 40 medium size war ships each in a specific sector in space. Ohh and watch out!, they have another 24 equally sized fleets in another sector, and another…  I don’t think this is realistic at all, nor fun.

If you take as reference the top Sci Fi novels: StarWars, StarTrek and BattleStar Galactica, just to name the few most representative, you have to ask yourself how many space ships you usually see in the biggest of the fleets. 4 ships? 10? Maybe 30 big vessels and around 50 to 60 smaller units tops in the more striking epic battles, already taking both sides into account.

In space strategy games usually after you research warp drive, “space ships tech 1” or some other easy to come by technology you’re set to construct large colony ships, transports and even fighters and bombers. Not just you can build one, you’re invited to build tens of them fast since usually these ships are not considered expensive. As soon as you know you’re not only building larger ships but you are also building hosts of them. Now after building so much ships the only thing you can think of (since nothing more exciting to do is offered) is which alien civilization will you try on your new 200 corvettes with your new Plasma Cannon IX generation rifle. For me this does not feel realistic nor satisfying enough. More is needed.

Spaceship Epic Battles, StarWars, StarTrek, BattleStar Galactica: Some numbers

I think it’s no accident that the big sci-fi films always portray a reduced number of ships in their battles, exploration missions or transport convoys. A few facts and numbers on this:

In the Star Trek Universe

In StarTrek we never see more than a handful of starships in combat – maybe half a dozen Cruisers class vessels and a couple Galaxy class vessels tops. In the Voyager series you never see more than a couple of alien ships, but ok that’s primarily due to the series plot, since Voyager is the typical scout explorer that gets lost in space.

For some hard numbers, the Galaxy Class space ship (the biggest of the Star Trek Human universe if I’m not mistaken) has allegedly a crew complement of roughly 1,014 people! Among officers, enlisted crew and civilians. Imagine the amount of resources that big snake takes to build and maintain, not to mention the years and years of research needed to put it all together in the first place. Imagine the day where the first prototype was assembled in Space Dock. That would be a day to remember.

StarWars Starships

In StarWars the maximum number of ships you can count is probably on “Return of the Jedi” final sequence where maybe a couple dozen Star Destroyers (including a single Super Star Destroyer Mothership) storms the not so many Rebel Alliance starship perpetrators. The Rebel Alliance counts maybe a dozen corvette

class ships and probably around half a dozen Heavy Cruisers. Even the number of fighters is not so great. Maybe 5 to 6 rebel squadrons of 4 to 6 fighters each and some equal number of Galactic Empire fighters.  In another one of the biggest epic starwars battles: the attack on the Death Star in the “New Hope”, you only count 3 squadrons of rebel fighters if I recall correctly: The Gold squadron with a handful of slow, but

punchy, Y-Wings (a total of 6 maybe), a Red squadron of a good handful of X-Wings (3-6 units), and another squadron of X-Wings (3-6 units) that I cannot recall right now. Approximately 18 fighter class vessels attacked the Death Star … ok plus the help of the Millenium Falcon, what a ship, what a personality, both ship and its captain.

Take the Victory I Class Star Destroyer for example in the Wookieepedia. For god sake, around 5.200 crew members of different specialties not to count with around 2000 troops. And what to say about the dimensions of this huge beast. Imagine the technology, the contracts needed to pull that off altogether. It would have taken the Sith Emperor a good decade or two just to come up with the plans for that not to talk about the amount of effort to put these boys into production.

Battlestar Galactica Toys

In BattleStar Galactica (the remake series, I don’t quite remember how it was in the original) in the Humans faction you see a convoy of a dozen corvette class vessels and … Galactica, a single Heavy Cruiser class vessel. Ok, the situation in Galactica is special since the Human fleet is just a collection of refugees that escaped an extinction event perpetrated by the Cylon Empire, however if you take the Cylon fleets for example you never see more than 3 to 4 Baseships in a single battle, and these are the biggest ships you can see in their arsenal (let me know if I’m wrong, I didn’t saw yet the final episodes).

The Battlestar Galactica Starship is the star of the series. It is said in the BattleStar Galactic wiki that eight other Battlestar class vessels were produced specifically: (Acropolis, Atlantia, Columbia, Pacifica, Pegasus, Rycon, Solaria, and Triton). Not 100!

Less Spaceships with more personality is more fun

In the future I think space strategy games should pay more attention to their spaceships design concept to take into account that players will enjoy more the games if they can experience the excitement of researching and planning their spaceships more carefully in order that building the first prototypes can be a much more rewarding experience. Spaceships need to have more personality, need to be much harder to create and maintain and should be thinked more carefully because due to amount of resources used in these construction campaigns the decisions made will affect the entire gameplay experience from that point forward.

As you can imagine when I talk about the need for a much slower and harder process to create the starships I do not mean just doubling or tripling the amount of “turns” required to create them, I mean a much more creative process in the making. Everything in the spaceship creation process should be much rich featured, for example:

• The amount of specialists required, or need to recruit elsewhere (engineers, scientists)
• The amount of raw-materials required
• The special materials (that could be rare to assemble or find)
• Key technologies that must be unlocked or bought (life support, engines, hull integrity, weapons, energy)
• Contracts that need to be established with specialized alien sub-contractors
• Approval from the Senate for a new construct project (basically approval from the people)
• The needed infrastructure (space dock, lab, technical expertise)

Another aspect of the spaceships making process is the choice of the right crew. The right crews with the right skills are not to be found easily. The spaceship crews also deserve special attention, examples of this are the recruitment of legendary leaders and experts in certain fields like pilots, navigators, engineers. Take the good example of Star Trek for instance, what makes the series great and engaging is the bond that the viewers establish with the crew and with the spaceship itself, I think something of this should be found in the next generation of space strategy games somehow, but the crew aspect of spaceships could be a subject for another time, now we need more fun creating our fleets.

In the past many games tried many variants of “tech trees”, as they are vulgarly called. A tech tree is a collection of technologies that can be researched and all the possible investigation paths that lead to the next discoveries and so forth. You can see this in space strategy games as you can see this also in many other types of strategy games (like Civilization IV for example).

Predictability and lack of Re-playability

Some games offer simpler and smaller technology trees, others present more complex and diverse research paths. As this is satisfying in the beginning unfortunately soon enough the games start to lose their re-playability since the possible technologies to research are already known from the start and the technology investigation looses its interest. Normally all races have at their disposal the same tech tree to research for and players tend to beeline (focus) on specific technologies that they already know the path to reach for which turns the games very predictable and ultimately boring to replay.

In the recent past GalCiv2 tried to give its technology trees a little more salt and pepper by providing specialized tech trees for each race which means that every race supposedly has its own tech tree with special and unique technologies. As very interesting that this may sound at first soon enough it looses its full potential since in most cases the “specialized” just means a different tech tree shuffle, re-ordering, subset or superset. This is a good start but not in my opinion what we are ultimately looking for technology research.

Dynamic and Specialized Research: an Innovative and Realistic approach

It is fine that tech trees can be customized for specific races however I think we did not hit the mark yet. To increase the re-playability and realistic factors a better idea would be to have complete or at least some degree of uncertainty regarding what technologies could be researched next. Think about it, there are areas to research as always but the exact technologies are still not available to choose from in the beginning. Instead of researching, for example, the “Universal Translator” the player would be researching in the field of “Communications” and a possible breakthrough could be the “Universal Translator” but could also be “Subspace communications” or “Xeno Diplomacy Relations”. All of these possibilities could be available to unlock in a particular game but not available in the next. The exact technologies to be unlocked would depend on certain factors. In spite Sword of the Stars has already did some work in this area I think much still needs to be addressed.

An example:

A certain Race “R” is very creative by nature but their members lack personality or charisma. This would make them prone to discover some kinds of technologies in favor of others. When researching in the field of “Diplomacy” Race “R” would be more keen to discover high technological gadgets to increase diplomacy (like the “Universal Translator” for example) but would be less keen on making breakthroughs on social aspects of the “Diplomacy” technology and so it would be more difficult to breakthrough “Alliances” (or Advanced Intergalactic Governments) or “Trade” (or Advanced Trade). The innovation behind this is that it would not be impossible for the race to discover “Advanced Trade”, it would just mean that would be less likely to happen. Certain perks, bonuses, events or player decisions throughout the game would influence the ability to make breakthroughs more in one area than another.

An example list of “factors” that could contribute to a certain player prowess to certain technologies would be:

• An ancestor ruin is discovered
• Special artifacts were found on planets
• Unexpected contact with alien races that shares knowledge (with the “correct” approach/answer)
• Luck
• Race characteristics
• Decisions made on certain actions like colonizing, government decisions
• Previous breakthroughs
• Planet events
• Special people (specialists) born in the planets

Conclusion on Dynamic and Specialized Research

The uncertainty factor in research is very realistic and the possibility for a player to specialize in a specific technological field due to in-game events and decisions is also very attractive. These aspects of technology research would most definitely increase game re-playability and not only that it would give the player more sense of being in command of its empire with its own gameplay style. Some players would be more prone to research in the field of “Diplomacy” others more specialized in the field of “Weapons” others in the field of “Spaceship hulls”, others still were a bit luckier and discovered a very difficult or unreachable by normal means technology. This would be very interesting since then alliances would have a new meaning. Each race could be specialized in certain types of technologies, the kind that the player is interested or destined by fate to have.

So what we cannot live in real life we experience in the virtual one. Movies and games have been offering this possibility. Computer games in specific have been putting people in command of space faring civilizations that explore new worlds, meet new races, establish new societies and gain the ultimate knowledge of the Universe.

Like so many of you I’m a space lover in general and a computer game space strategy lover in particular. I’ve been playing computer games, and specially space strategy computer games, for a long time now. I assembled a chronological classification of what I consider to be the space strategy game landmarks, games which I’ve been playing intensely over the years. The question is what’s next and where should we go from here.

The Beginning [1993]: Master of Orion ^[1]

This game is consensually considered the father of space strategy computer gaming. You could for the first time experience what would be like to be in control of a space faring race with most of its core elements like trade, technology evolution, space ships construction and more importantly its customization, colonization of planets, creation of armadas, diplomacy and ultimately war. The game is turn-based which means that you play “your turn” and then wait for all other computer players to finish playing “their turn” and so on. The game offered single player only possibility, i.e. no human-human multi-player offered yet. Two sequels were made for this game: “Master of Orion II: Battle at Antares” and “Master of Orion III”. Both offered human-human multi-player possibility.

The Branch to Real Time Strategy [1997]: Imperium Galactica ^[2]

This game takes on the Master of Orion legacy and makes a leap to a new level. The most important innovation of this game resides on its gameplay style. It abandoned the “turn based” concept to become the first real-time space based strategy game of its kind. The most notable features also include improved graphics and detailed planet management. This game did not offer multi-player possibility though. One sequel was made: “Imperium Galactica II” which offered multi-player experience.

The Adaptation to a Franchise [1998]: Star Wars: Rebellion ^[3]

Lucasarts took the space strategy concept genre and adapted it to the StarWars franchise Universe. For the fans this was seen as the perfect marriage of StarWars lore and most loved space strategy gaming, the concept had it all to succeed. The game offered the possibility to play as the two sides of StarWars: – the Rebel Alliance or the Galactic Empire in single-player or multiplayer mode. The gameplay is a mix of real-time and turn-based elements.

The Evolution of a Franchise [1998]: Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri ^[4]

Sid Meier, one of the most successful individuals of the gaming industry, literally took his Civilization franchise to the stars. Alpha Centauri is basically civilization in another planet with all its alien aspects. The story is simple but sound. The technology tree, units, buildings and diplomacy are creative and very polished. Although not on a true “Master of Orion” genre, since Alpha Centauri action is all played in a single star system: Alpha Centauri, the game is definitely 4x “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate” only at a different scope.

The Remake with a Twist [2003-2007]: Galactic Civilizations ^[5]

Stardocks’s Galactic Civilization is neither a branch nor an adaptation of the original Master of Orion series but rather its remake. It is basically Master of Orion but in the present (in this case we are in 2003). It delivers better graphics, more polished mechanics that have been perfected over the years on-top of turn-based gameplay single player only mode. Its major innovation was not on the logic or the product itself but on the business concept. It is distributed with no copy prevention that allowed extensive modding by the community. It was also based on the principle of delivering constant updates to customers that featured among patches for bugs also improvements on what the community would want to see in the game. Several sequels and expansion packs were developed which include Galactic “Civilizations II: Dread Lords”.

The Next Generation [2010]: ___________________?

Since the early 90’s space based strategy gaming has been evolving at the rhythm and pace of available technology, creativity and also adapting to the trends of the modern society. In spite the concepts still being basically the same the delivery of these concepts is radically changing nowadays, or at least broadening.

The question is where we should go from now to keep the concept appealing at the same time expanding its coverage. The network society demands ubiquitous products which can be accessed quickly, easily and anywhere with no requirements for special tools or products. Current technology already offers this reality with the Internet and the global range of telecommunication services and products.

So the question we now face is: Which of the following features would we like to see explored in future ubiquitous space gaming experience or which elements do we favor more and in which order? Or basically what do we want to see next?

• Human-Computer VS Human-Human experience
• Thin Client Browser based approach vs Normal Client based
• Free content with paid extensions VS Paid to use
• Reward system importance
• Eye candy factor importance
• In-game movies?
• Technology tree depth
• Spaceship customization depth
• Races number and customization level
• Story depth
• Universe depth
• Overall customization
• Others …

^{[1] Master of Orion:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Orion}

^{[2] Imperium Galactica: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperium_Galactica}

^{[3] StarWars Rebellion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Rebellion}

^{[4] Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier%27s_Alpha_Centauri}

^{[5] Galactic Civilizations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_Civilizations}