The omnipresent leader

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Konstantine, Jul 26, 2017.

  1. Konstantine

    Konstantine Grand Admiral

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    Hi all,
    As I get more time with the game I have started to really exploit the fact that leaders can be re-deployed instantly.
    This comes in very handy with ship leaders. Right now, I have T'Pring buffed out very well. Every chance I get, I assign her to command fleets in battle, meaning that she can be on one end of the galaxy on one turn and clear on the other side the next. This means she participates in even more battles and gets "leveled up" even faster.
    Now it seems to me that this is a bit gamey, perhaps there should be a turn cost for deployment similar to MoO2
    Perhaps the turn to deployment can even be tied into current drive technology. This would make a lot more sense.
    Right now it is difficult to accept that my ships need many turns to reach a system but my leaders arrive instantly.
    Anyone else see room for improvement here?
     
  2. MizzouRah

    MizzouRah Cadet

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    I like the idea of turns required to redeploy. My guess is you can also do this for planetary leaders.
     
  3. Konstantine

    Konstantine Grand Admiral

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    Yes MizzouRah, you can do it for planetary leaders as well but the dynamics make it less of an exploit. My ship leader can be present in almost every single battle, the only exception being when two or more battles occur on one turn. The ship leader then gains levels very fast and becomes decisive.
    Colony leaders can move just as quickly but it is less of an exploit due to their nature, they provide benefits felt in the long term versus ship leaders. As a result, I don't shuffle them much. T'pring on the other hand must have the most frequent flier bonus points in the galaxy
     
  4. Edward the Hun

    Edward the Hun Moderator Lieutenant

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    If remember, several games with assignable leaders have leaders take several turns to get to their destination depending on distance from the HW, others used a re-assaign cool-down.
     
  5. Adam Solo

    Adam Solo Developer Administrator Grand Admiral

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    Finally someone noticed this :) Of course, by that I mean was actually bothered by it as we knew this wouldn't probably hold up for long. I'm surprised it did last this long.

    The ability to switch leaders immediately is gamey but kind of handy, so we didn't include a re-assign cooldown right away to see how people reacted to it. Of course, it can lead to undesirable side effects, especially on the ship leaders' case, where you'll want to make sure to fight all battles with the same leaders, which doesn't hold up at all.

    MoO2 had a hard 5 turn re-assign cooldown for the leaders re-assignments, except when the ship or colony was on the homeworld (where the officer's pool was), and the leaders happened to be there, where in that case assigning the leader was immediate, and that was it. Of course, we could complicate this and tie in the cooldown ETA to the available drive tech, but that only brings you so far, because one leader could be on the other side of the galaxy, and so to be completelly realistic you'd need to account for all the turns it would take for the leader to go from ship A to ship B, which is perhaps too much to ask.

    So, perhaps we should find some middle ground here. The simplest solution would probably be to have a hard cooldown, of 5 turns for example, if the colony or ship are not on the homeworld system. In a slightly more complex solution we could tie in the drive tech, but the reference point would always be the homeworld. So, re-assigning a leader from ship A to ship B would take as many turns as the distance between the homeworld and ship B, which also only takes you so far. The more complex solution would need to take into account a path from the origin to the destination and account for the drive tech and possibly also obstacles on the way (e.g. Nebula slowdown, etc), or calculate the faster route possible. I don't think we want or need to go that way.

    I have a feeling that a compromise needs to be done here so that switching leaders does not feel too gamey but also not too complex.
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2017
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  6. MizzouRah

    MizzouRah Cadet

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    I was also thinking some sort of trait penalty for reassigning as well.. unless they had a trait that would negate any penalties. Maybe even a trait that gave them a bonus for moving around for those leaders who like a new challenge. :)
     
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  7. Adam Solo

    Adam Solo Developer Administrator Grand Admiral

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    I don't know if you've read Ender's Game, so this will be tagged as a spoiler.

    In Ender's Game sci-fi universe, Earth has found a way to captain its fleets over a great distance through the use of an ansible/instant communication device where the operator/captain of the ship was controlling the theatre of operations remotely while confortably sitting or laying down somewhere else in the Universe.

    It has been a long time, but I think that was how fleets were operated/captained. It could help justify assigning ship leaders instantly. Or, it could be a mid/late tech that would allow the instantaneous switch.

    I don't know if this is a stretch, but I believe we could also pull this off with colony leaders. So, perhaps the colony leader isn't actually in the colony but only their avatar is (like in the film Avatar). So, the leader is there but isn't and could then be re-allocated instantly to another system.

    What do you think of this solution, in case we still want to keep the instantaneous switching? Ok, so perhaps at the beginning we could have a hard 5 turn re-assign cooldown, but after researching the mid/late tech referenced in the spoiler we could reduce the cooldown (to 2 for example to avoid having the leader fight most of the battles). Or, we could just eliminate the cooldown completely and find another way not to have a leader fight too many battles (in fact there's a trait that will be added soon that disincentivizes you from getting the leader into too many consecutive battles...).
     
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  8. Konstantine

    Konstantine Grand Admiral

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    You beat me to it Adam, hard cooldown in the beginning with a tech available to bring down the re-deployment turn cost sounds ideal. Too much of an exploit and micro to retain instant re-deployment throughout the game.
    P.S.
    I read the book ages ago, remember how he split his 40 men into 5 groups of eight versus the traditional 4 groups of ten? Good tactics there.
    Edit
    Specific to the spoiler regarding remote command, In such a case, wouldn't the logical countermeasure be jamming technology? I would however think, that transferring a leader to a ship located in the same system can remain instantaneous
     
    Last edited: Jul 26, 2017
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  9. MizzouRah

    MizzouRah Cadet

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    I like them having to battle.. but maybe I'm used to other 4x games where I lose leaders/heroes in combat.
     
  10. pnye71

    pnye71 Ensign

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    Oh I noticed this from the get go. I support the suggestion of starting with a set number but reducing it as the game drags on. I also like Konstantine's suggestion of instant ship redployment if current ship and new ship are in the same system. (Think this was how MoO2 handled it)
     
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  11. aReclusiveMind

    aReclusiveMind Developer Grand Admiral

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    It is very common across all strategy games I play, both sci-fi and fantasy, for there to be some sort of delay when transferring items or units between fleets/armies.

    I agree that a hero should also be put into "limbo" for a few turns, assigned to neither ship, when transferring between them. The one exception would be if they are both already in the same system as others have already suggested. I also feel this needs to be severe or reinforced by another mechanism to prevent abuse.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe currently if the leader's ship is destroyed they can be instantly re-assigned to a new ship? Since we don't seem to be going the permadeath route for leaders, I'd say there should be a delay added before they appear back in the officer pool for re-assignment in this scenario as well.
     
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  12. Konstantine

    Konstantine Grand Admiral

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    I would qualify this. If the leaders ship is destroyed but another ship in the same combat survives, I would have no problem with the leader instantly taking command of that ship
     
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  13. aReclusiveMind

    aReclusiveMind Developer Grand Admiral

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    Yes, that's true, I agree with that.
     

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