Fallen Enchantress- Events » Forum Post by DerekPaxton

Quoting Thormodr,

I do hope that there will be slightly more common random events that happen as well as the rare ones though.

Fantastic art as well.

Agree with you and with some in Thoron's post.

Big nasty events: YES!

If some of these events can have some history unfolding like in GalCiv I about "someone found something, you should investigate the matter" and when you do nothing some disaster began, that would be very fine too. (Perhaps related to someone level in Magic or Adventuring: if yur mages are weak in astral magic, they can't foresee this happening i.e.)

If there can also be some random-but-not too, yes: by this, I mean less cataclysmic events but more often and able to be adapted to the situation in the game a little like those mundane events in GalCiv1, changing a little (or not) your inclination towards Good or Evil, or the random events in Europa Universalis, like "Diplomatic insult by ambassador from X: you gain a casus belli for 2 years, relation degrade by 100". Now, you could either take that opportunity to attack or have to spend money to regain good relations if that was your interest.

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None of them make the player's life easier? There should be some that at least have the potential to benefit the player.

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I would like to see "major" random events that are truely "rare." Perhaps a major random event occurs in only 33% to 50% of the games played.

Futhermore, I would like to see these event have some basis in the Lord of elemental. Perhaps the Fire Elemental Lord raises an army to conquer the world or perhaps if you are human all the Empire races join together in an alliance to conquer the Kingdom races or a long sleeping monarch (Level 10) awakens from an enchanted sleep to assume control of his kingdom and wage a war of conquest.

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DerekPaxton

Join Date 03/2003

+309

Quoting Tohron,

reply 21

A comment on random events - while many people enjoy the replayability they add, others can find this extremely frustrating.

Let's say a player had started a game on max difficulty, with the goal of employing careful planning and diplomacy to pull off a minimal-defense expansion gambit in the early game. Through thorough planning and hours of delicate maneuvering, they manage to gain a bunch of cities with rich resources, and are just starting to convert that territory into a military advantage, when suddenly, an eclipse event hits out of the blue and hordes of monsters appear to destroy all their cities with no warning and no possible response, rendering all of the player's effort moot - and worst of all, the defeat would have nothing to do with the player's skill, since there was no way to anticipate such an event.

Perhaps a way to make these events a replayability-enhancing test of skill rather than a f*** you directed at the player would be to give some sort of advance warning - for instance, 50 turns before the event, you get a message saying "Mystics have seen signs in the sky predicting a time when nature will rise against those who seek to tame it.", then, ten turns before the event, a message says "Astrologers have forseen an imminent eclipse of the sun - when this disaster strikes, monsters will swarm into the realms of men and fallen." The importance of this warning is that it gives the player a chance to plan ahead, and makes failure to adapt the results of player misjudgement rather than just bad luck.

This is a fair critisism. The events will need to be balanced so that they are big enough to feel like a big deal but still allowing the player to react. We can do some scaling to balance it out on the more aggressive ones.

But at the end of the day we have to decide how much we embrace the RNG. Some games are pure strategy. There is no blind (all information is available to all players like chess) and your decisions alone dictate victory. There is a reason Starcraft doesn't have random maps and all maps are perfectly balanced. Even though you do have a blind (around the other players actions, the map is usually known to most players even if its under FoW) it is an eSport, it is all about your decisions.

That's great, I'm glad we have games like that. We are not that game.

We throw curve balls. We change the game. The players decisions matter, but they are in response to an unpredictable world. It won't always be fair, you may have to withdraw your invasion force because of a new threat on your borders. Even without these world events an AI player may have found a good magical item on a quest, or unleashed some creature that's currently ravaging the world. One of the early quests gives you the opportunity to summon a dragon, not control a dragon, the dragon will be quite angry when he arrives. But if you happen to trigger the quest closer to your enemies lands than your own you may think about doing it and then running for cover. Or you may just decide that you want to do it by your lands because the thought of an angry dragon storming around on turn 10 amuses you. We aren't aiming for fair.

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." That is true here too, but that first enemy is the world.

The world events are very rare. I checked Eclipse in last night and it currently has a 0.16%* chance (about a 50% chance in 300 turns) of occurring each turn after the player has 50 population (all world events wait until the player is settled before triggering). The required population will probably go up, and the % chance will probably go down.

* Modders may note that now triggerchance is out of 10,000 so you can make random events that are much rarer than in the old system where the minimum was 1%.

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Nice work.

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AlLanMandragoran

Join Date 09/2010

+63

Cool, Mikey likes it.

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Heavenfall

Join Date 07/2008

+441

Quoting Derek Paxton,

reply 29

* Modders may note that now triggerchance is out of 10,000 so you can make random events that are much rarer than in the old system where the minimum was 1%.

The high chance of events occurring in E:wom made it very hard, if not impossible, to add more.

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Quoting Derek Paxton,

reply 29

Quoting Tohron, reply 21A comment on random events - while many people enjoy the replayability they add, others can find this extremely frustrating.

Let's say a player had started a game on max difficulty, with the goal of employing careful planning and diplomacy to pull off a minimal-defense expansion gambit in the early game. Through thorough planning and hours of delicate maneuvering, they manage to gain a bunch of cities with rich resources, and are just starting to convert that territory into a military advantage, when suddenly, an eclipse event hits out of the blue and hordes of monsters appear to destroy all their cities with no warning and no possible response, rendering all of the player's effort moot - and worst of all, the defeat would have nothing to do with the player's skill, since there was no way to anticipate such an event.

Perhaps a way to make these events a replayability-enhancing test of skill rather than a f*** you directed at the player would be to give some sort of advance warning - for instance, 50 turns before the event, you get a message saying "Mystics have seen signs in the sky predicting a time when nature will rise against those who seek to tame it.", then, ten turns before the event, a message says "Astrologers have forseen an imminent eclipse of the sun - when this disaster strikes, monsters will swarm into the realms of men and fallen." The importance of this warning is that it gives the player a chance to plan ahead, and makes failure to adapt the results of player misjudgement rather than just bad luck.

This is a fair critisism. The events will need to be balanced so that they are big enough to feel like a big deal but still allowing the player to react. We can do some scaling to balance it out on the more aggressive ones.

But at the end of the day we have to decide how much we embrace the RNG. Some games are pure strategy. There is no blind (all information is available to all players like chess) and your decisions alone dictate victory. There is a reason Starcraft doesn't have random maps and all maps are perfectly balanced. Even though you do have a blind (around the other players actions, the map is usually known to most players even if its under FoW) it is an eSport, it is all about your decisions.

That's great, I'm glad we have games like that. We are not that game.

We throw curve balls. We change the game. The players decisions matter, but they are in response to an unpredictable world. It won't always be fair, you may have to withdraw your invasion force because of a new threat on your borders. Even without these world events an AI player may have found a good magical item on a quest, or unleashed some creature that's currently ravaging the world. One of the early quests gives you the opportunity to summon a dragon, not control a dragon, the dragon will be quite angry when he arrives. But if you happen to trigger the quest closer to your enemies lands than your own you may think about doing it and then running for cover. Or you may just decide that you want to do it by your lands because the thought of an angry dragon storming around on turn 10 amuses you. We aren't aiming for fair.

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." That is true here too, but that first enemy is the world.

The world events are very rare. I checked Eclipse in last night and it currently has a 0.16%* chance (about a 50% chance in 300 turns) of occurring each turn after the player has 50 population (all world events wait until the player is settled before triggering). The required population will probably go up, and the % chance will probably go down.

* Modders may note that now triggerchance is out of 10,000 so you can make random events that are much rarer than in the old system where the minimum was 1%.

I am pleased with this response. Very pleased.

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DsRaider

Join Date 11/2008

+70

Im guessing from Derek's comment on the 10 turn dragon rampage that events can now have durations?

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Hopefully they can, but Derek was talking about a dragon on turn 10, not a 10 turn dragon.

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Quoting Derek Paxton,

reply 29

This is a fair critisism. The events will need to be balanced so that they are big enough to feel like a big deal but still allowing the player to react. We can do some scaling to balance it out on the more aggressive ones.

But at the end of the day we have to decide how much we embrace the RNG. Some games are pure strategy. There is no blind (all information is available to all players like chess) and your decisions alone dictate victory. There is a reason Starcraft doesn't have random maps and all maps are perfectly balanced. Even though you do have a blind (around the other players actions, the map is usually known to most players even if its under FoW) it is an eSport, it is all about your decisions.

That's great, I'm glad we have games like that. We are not that game.

We throw curve balls. We change the game. The players decisions matter, but they are in response to an unpredictable world. It won't always be fair, you may have to withdraw your invasion force because of a new threat on your borders. Even without these world events an AI player may have found a good magical item on a quest, or unleashed some creature that's currently ravaging the world. One of the early quests gives you the opportunity to summon a dragon, not control a dragon, the dragon will be quite angry when he arrives. But if you happen to trigger the quest closer to your enemies lands than your own you may think about doing it and then running for cover. Or you may just decide that you want to do it by your lands because the thought of an angry dragon storming around on turn 10 amuses you. We aren't aiming for fair.

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy." That is true here too, but that first enemy is the world.

The world events are very rare. I checked Eclipse in last night and it currently has a 0.16%* chance (about a 50% chance in 300 turns) of occurring each turn after the player has 50 population (all world events wait until the player is settled before triggering). The required population will probably go up, and the % chance will probably go down.

To me a TBS throws problems at you and you have to adjust your strategy and maintain flexibility to compensate. All the examples you state make me very pleased, so pleased I've decided to spare the life of the prostitute I kidnapped last night.

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Options...options are good. Just add a checkbox to the game options and allow random events to be turned off (I know, I know, it not that easy for the person writing the code). Those that like them can have them, those that don't can get rid of them. And for those of us that are really warped, add a scaling factor so we can increase their frequency.

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go random event..!.. i really dont like playing purely predictable maths games..

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Random events = random game. Do we need random and unbalanced game?

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YES, we do. It's first an foremost a singleplayer game, and then fair isn't fun. Why? Because we, the human, never plays fair. Lost an important battle? Reload. Someone sneaked around you and grabbed you undefended capital? Reload.

If you want to play hardcore mode with no reloading then a checkbox for random events is a good idea. Or leave it on, figuring you'll be able to beat whatever the game can throw at you. That's what makes it fun.

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Can you guys add a fart sound and gas animation to the check box for no random events? I always loved when Mortal Kombat called my opponent a pussy for spamming kick moves.

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Quoting Nikitosina,

reply 39

Random events = random game. Do we need random and unbalanced game?

You're mixing things up (on purpose?).

A random event can both aid you and hurt you depending on where it strikes. Some events will probably hurt everybody.

But that's besides the point.

Yes, we need a game with random events. It's what keeps you alert and adds that extra lvl of excitement. You have to plan for the unplannable

Unbalanced? When people see that they tend to think that one faction is severely underpowered compared to the others (which I really doubt will be the case).

If with "unbalanced" you mean: "Everything won't be calculatable with random events" then you're right. Fallen Enchantress will be unbalanced.

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I personally think it would be fun if gold and metal mines dried up periodically and other mines were discovered as random events.

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Quoting Tohron,

reply 21

A comment on random events - while many people enjoy the replayability they add, others can find this extremely frustrating.

Let's say a player had started a game on max difficulty, with the goal of employing careful planning and diplomacy to pull off a minimal-defense expansion gambit in the early game. Through thorough planning and hours of delicate maneuvering, they manage to gain a bunch of cities with rich resources, and are just starting to convert that territory into a military advantage, when suddenly, an eclipse event hits out of the blue and hordes of monsters appear to destroy all their cities with no warning and no possible response, rendering all of the player's effort moot - and worst of all, the defeat would have nothing to do with the player's skill, since there was no way to anticipate such an event.

Perhaps a way to make these events a replayability-enhancing test of skill rather than a f*** you directed at the player would be to give some sort of advance warning - for instance, 50 turns before the event, you get a message saying "Mystics have seen signs in the sky predicting a time when nature will rise against those who seek to tame it.", then, ten turns before the event, a message says "Astrologers have forseen an imminent eclipse of the sun - when this disaster strikes, monsters will swarm into the realms of men and fallen." The importance of this warning is that it gives the player a chance to plan ahead, and makes failure to adapt the results of player misjudgement rather than just bad luck.

I don't want advance warning, I want to be surprised. I am one who likes random events and likes the challange of adapitng to them. This is more exciting than if I was given a warning 50 turns a head of time (BORING.)

I suggest having an option that either disables random events for those who don't want them and/or a option to select how many turns of warning you want (or even a range of turns like from 10 to 20 turns etc.) I personally will always play with Random Events with no warning but that is how I like it.

Oh and I would like this for multi-player games as well.

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Quoting Nikitosina,

reply 39

Random events = random game. Do we need random and unbalanced game?

HELL YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Games are more fun if they have more Randomness to them.

Oh and JWDR1 I like the slider idea. I would have the slider maked out for many big Random event....I'm a glutton for punishment

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Quoting Nikitosina,

reply 39

Random events = random game. Do we need random and unbalanced game?

What are you talking about? Clearly you must have a lack of experience with random events and need to play Sword of the Stars with randoms set to 200%. The balance of the game is better that way than without randoms.

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Quoting Gwenio1,

reply 46

Quoting Nikitosina,
reply 39
Random events = random game. Do we need random and unbalanced game?

What are you talking about? Clearly you must have a lack of experience with random events and need to play Sword of the Stars with randoms set to 200%. The balance of the game is better that way than without randoms.

As much as I love SotS, I really hate the way certain random events are implemented, especially the Von Neumann. I wouldn't say the balance of the game is better, the notorious "sadorandomizer" of SotS does anything but balance the game. The humans may get stuck because some node lines don't form, you may be stuck in a corner of the galaxy with no inhabitable planets, you might get asteroids and von neumanns showing up with no warning against undefended planets in the very early game... not to mention the grand menaces. 200% is just asking for a game that's less you against other players but more you against the game. Not to mention the extra level of micromanagement it adds. Don't want raiders attacking your trade fleets? Have to make sure they're all escorted, even if they're 10 million sectors away from any hostile threat. Don't want your worlds destroyed? Make sure you guard every single place with enough firepower to take care of asteroids and von neumanns. Don't want to face even badder von neumanns? Well then you'll have to personally fight every single VN at every single planet to make sure that you only destroy the disks. Most of the randoms in SotS don't add to the enjoyment, they just get in the way of the real gameplay.

The randomness of certain events always makes certain mods unplayable without setting the random events to 0%. Try playing a slow-paced ACM game where you actually don't get dreads in 50 turns... if a system killer shows up, game over. Sometimes I want to have a slow-paced, epic game where it takes 400 turns to get anti matter and every tech choice is really, really important. I'd like to have one with random events, but you can't disable certain ones so it's all or nothing.

Can 200% random be fun? Sure, if you're looking for a crazy unique game. Some of my fondest memories are of games where my team thought we had the game won when all hell started breaking loose with an ai rebellion, a system killer and a puppet master (we did eventually win, but it was long and bloody). Sometimes I don't want crazy, I want to be able to sit down and play against the other players rather than the game.

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Quoting jackswift85,

reply 47

As much as I love SotS, I really hate the way certain random events are implemented, especially the Von Neumann. I wouldn't say the balance of the game is better, the notorious "sadorandomizer" of SotS does anything but balance the game. The humans may get stuck because some node lines don't form, you may be stuck in a corner of the galaxy with no inhabitable planets, you might get asteroids and von neumanns showing up with no warning against undefended planets in the very early game... not to mention the grand menaces. 200% is just asking for a game that's less you against other players but more you against the game. Not to mention the extra level of micromanagement it adds. Don't want raiders attacking your trade fleets? Have to make sure they're all escorted, even if they're 10 million sectors away from any hostile threat. Don't want your worlds destroyed? Make sure you guard every single place with enough firepower to take care of asteroids and von neumanns. Don't want to face even badder von neumanns? Well then you'll have to personally fight every single VN at every single planet to make sure that you only destroy the disks. Most of the randoms in SotS don't add to the enjoyment, they just get in the way of the real gameplay.

The randomness of certain events always makes certain mods unplayable without setting the random events to 0%. Try playing a slow-paced ACM game where you actually don't get dreads in 50 turns... if a system killer shows up, game over. Sometimes I want to have a slow-paced, epic game where it takes 400 turns to get anti matter and every tech choice is really, really important. I'd like to have one with random events, but you can't disable certain ones so it's all or nothing.

Can 200% random be fun? Sure, if you're looking for a crazy unique game. Some of my fondest memories are of games where my team thought we had the game won when all hell started breaking loose with an ai rebellion, a system killer and a puppet master (we did eventually win, but it was long and bloody). Sometimes I don't want crazy, I want to be able to sit down and play against the other players rather than the game.

You are over looking the fact that we are talking about random therefore it logically balances things statistically and not consistently. And it does balance it OVERALL as the game was balanced with the assumsion of randomness (though the point at which it is balanced is more like 100% than 200%, that is just to make how they impact the game more pronounced).

And you bother to guard trade ship? Raiders are simply not common enough even at 200% to justify the expense.

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As far as the apocalypse showing up before you've researched your first technology, Praxton mentioned that the .18% or whatever chance would only be triggered after you met certain prerequisites like population being at a certain level. Honestly, having catastrophic events that are somewhat rare that only occur in the late game but change the board completely would be great I think, make the mind numbingly boring late late game kind of interesting. But, I can see value in being able to turn it off. I however, am loving this idea.

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1) I think random events are great, but I also like events that are tied to the game world. Since the 'random events' mentioned here have set triggers to not fire before a certain population level, are there other triggers that can be set as well?

For example, can you set an unrest trigger? So if a city has more Rebels than Non-Rebels, there is X% chance of a stack or rebel units spawning nearby? Or if you have over 1000 gilder saved up, you get x% chance of someone trying to rob the treasury?

As much fun as true random events can be, I much prefer events like these that are tied to the state of the gameworld. Events like that recognize player choice and thus are far more interesting, to me.

2) Are events all 'something happens' or are some of them 'something happens, now decide between several options?' I hope that we have both. To further play off the above example, if the Rebel event fires, can we get a list of options, such a:

A ) Ignore the rebels (stack spawns)

B ) Bribe Rebels (lose X gilder, rebel citizens convert to happy for X turns)

C ) Arrest the leaders (weaker stack spawns, half of rebel citizens convert to happy for X turns)

D ) Implement reforms to meet demands (-X% taxes for 100 turns)

E ) Slaughter the families of the rebel fighters (no stack spawns, but +X citizens become rebels for 50 turns)

3) Are events 'player only?' By this I mean that they only happen to the human player or on a global level? If that is the case, they sure as heck better be really fair and balanced, or the player will feel rather picked on. I would rather have events that can impact AI Empires. In Paradox games, AI empires still had events, and you were even notified on their choices. I think this was great, and would be great in Elemental, especially if we have fun options to respond, and if the AI could be set to prefer certain responses. So an 'evil' AI would select 'evil' responses to events. Hearing stories of my evil neighbor taking the 'evil' choices with events would help set the tone and give more personality to the AI.

4) You said that 'they don't make the players life easier' implying that all events are bad. I think this is a mistake. We should have a variety of events, as this will make things more interesting, varied, and ultimately fun - especially if the events are tied to the gameplay, as I have mentioned above. I would rather see the event system as fun, fair, and enjoyable than always something to dread.

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