Something else came to my mind this morning when thinking about science and the doom clock proposal I made in the dev diaries. There was a mention of political border and influence centered around colonies. We do not yet know if the system is going to revolve around culture points similar to the recent Civilization games, but if it does, it might be a good idea to have culture, science, production and morale tied in some sort of equation that needs to be balanced. Too much culture, people becomes more lazy and intellectually rigid, less production and science. Too much morale points generated, people becomes lazy and stupid, less science and production. To much production, people becomes unhappy and starts looking elsewhere to fill the void in their life, less morale and culture. You get the idea... The doom clock feature could then be used in the different areas to "generate problems". Here's a few examples of possible problems centered around the game concepts: Morale Revolts Permanent cultural penalty Production Industrial accidents Strikes Culture Permanent science penalty Permanent diplomatic penalty Science EXPLOSIONS! Permanent penalty based on research, for examples Genetic for human, leaves permanent scars (less happiness, less physical ability, etc...) Terraforming experiment permanently leaves planet scarred with biological plague, ecological blight, etc... Here is a few idea about the doom clock feature itself Visibility of the doom clock Depending on gaming choices (like tick boxes at the start menu), there could be No clock at all Present, but not visible to the player. Information becomes available with certain type of condition It could become visible when certain type of technology or racial traits are present Omniscience (like the Elerians) Social technologies would allow measurments of certain doomclock such as Psycho-History, Xeno-Sociology, etc... Certain special leaders Mechanics of the doom clock The clock could have a relative and an absolute ticker The relative ticker would provide a permanent percentage of "doom" at each turn Every turn or every catastrophe probability check would be based on that ticker Lucky races would have their ticker closer to zero, while other would be around 2 to 5 percent Permanent penalty derived from unbalanced policies would make the ticker go forward. Discoveries, leaders, artefacts, diplomacy and spying could influence this ticker The absolute ticker usually goes forward and whenever it reaches 12 oclock, bad things happen A variety of events would make this ticker go forward or backwards Whenever it reaches 12 oclock, something happens, preferably based on whatever has been causing the majority of the ticks If the player has been pushing his production for the last 12 turns at planet XYZ, providing 1 tick by turn, some industrial accident happens when the clock strikes midnight. Not everytime bad things happen Sometime, whenever the clock strikes something good could happen instead. Lucky races, would always have the good outcome Outcome would depends on racial disposition or policies There could be different clocks for different parts of the game That is the part that I am not sure about, because there are still a lot about the game that is not announced yet, but here are some suggestions A universe doomclock Apply to all of the gaming universe Generates Space Monsters, Space flux and other Galaxy wide event Omniscient races would be able to have foresight of those events Empire wide doomclock Colony doomclock Doomclock could be triggered on purpose Vivisector 9999 suggested this and it might be fun If your colony is about to or likely to be overrun, a player could purposely make the colony clock go forward in order to emulate scorched earth policy. Please let me know if you guys think that this would be an interesting concept to implement in the future and if so, what other ideas do you have. I don't think this could go out in the initial release, but it could probably be implemented as a DLC.
My initial reaction reading this was rather negative and this actually bothered me. It is obvious that there is an abundance of creative and innovative ideas here so I was puzzled, it seems that emotionally I was thinking no while intellectually I was thinking yes. So I did what I usually do in such situations, I read it 5-6 times and spent the better part of the night thinking about it, this is what I came up with. The ideas presented can certainly add a level of immersion seldom found in games but in my opinion this might benefit from being softened somewhat. Another benefit can also be gained by how this is implemented. In light of that I would like to suggest some minor adjustments. Increase the amount of good outcomes so that it does not get frustrating, you do not need to do a 50/50 split, I think a ratio of one good event for every two bad could suffice. Remove the permanence of the events, this is critical. The focus of this concept hurts the player repeatedly as it can diminish and eliminate the work a player has done in building up a planet, colony or empire. Many games do this and I can tolerate it once maybe twice in a session, however if it happens more than three times I view it as frustrating for me and lazy on the respective developers part. If you were to allow a mechanic for being able to reverse a bad outcome then I would be very interested. Another suggestion I would offer is to limit how many times you strike the player direct. This means don’t wreck my work too much but by all means throw challenges at me. Two quick examples My planet goes into revolt, I like that as I have to fight to regain it, if I do so I have not lost anything permanently though the effort in retaking what used to be my own planet may mean that I was not able to pursue a different course at the time. (this I consider challenging) My planet suffers an accident and permanently becomes un-inhabitable, If this were to happen after I expended great effort in building said planet up I would be pissed. If this were to happen repeatedly in a session I would cease playing the game. (this I consider wrecking my work) One could argue that if I took care of my decisions then the results would not be as un-predictable but in my opinion that would defeat the very purpose of the “doom clock”, no, if you are to include something like this make it almost un-avoidable. I also would urge great thought in how this will be implemented and what additional efforts the player will be required to expend in managing his/her empire. For this mechanic to truly be effective I think it must be relative on a planet by planet basis. In light of this it can’t become a distraction to the player where he/she must carefully check the status of each world every turn. A solution that keeps this mechanic easy to keep track of would be a benefit, it should be as un-intrusive as possible. Anyway, I am not certain that I have expressed myself adequately on this but am available should clarifications be required. My own opinion then is that as it stands right now I would decline. If however, certain minor adjustments were to take place than I can see myself supporting this concept without reservation.
I agree with the points you are making and doom clock might not be the best name since it sounds negative. Events does not need to be permanent either, action could be taken to counter the effect, such as pushing science to develop a cure for a star going nova. The basic idea behind this mechanic is to provide a framework for the random event that can be used by certain racial abilities or technologies. The great people generation system in Civ 5 is an example of a "good" doomclock event. Basically having foresight of a seemingly random event could provide a strategic advantage (ie elerians omniscience) like knowing when a star is going nova, when space monster are going to go on rampage or when space flux are going to happen. In order to have "foresight" of a revolt or some other bad social event, other races could develop the psycho-history discipline (like in the Foundation Novel) and gain access to population mood and know in advance how policy XYZ or tax raise is going to end up being a disaster.
The name may indeed be an issue, no harm in considering something better and more appealing. Basically, and correct me if I am wrong, I see an attempt to introduce more consequences for a player action by what you propose. Let's face it, in most games the consequences are obvious and direct. Put industrial effort into building a battleship and the result is you get a battleship. In most cases the only other consequence of note may be that you can't build anything else. With your proposal I could see worker strikes as a possible consequence, graft, corruption or on the plus side a better trained workforce perhaps giving a slight boost to production. This would certainly add a level of realism that is seldom found in games and address many real life aspects that do not exist in most games today. Also, once you mentioned Foundation and Psycho-history I got a clearer understanding of where this could go and my interest increased. I'm no expert but I see strong potential in this concept, you have a solid framework already so now it may be beneficial to start refining it. Count me in.
