Total agreement. One of the things I always hope for in a 4X game is the ability to "settle tactically." I'll take the risk of over-expanding early in order to hinder my opponents' expansion. Choke points should exist in a map's design, and smart players should try to exploit them.

... yet he gave land units the "magic" ability to "transform" themselves into their naval transports the moment they touch the ocean (civ5)????

With all due respect, but some consistency speakes a huge lot about professionalism, doesn't it?

I agree fully with the idea, though. It's just that sometimes ideas can get hit hard depending on who the messenger is.

Really glad Jon is a SD employee.  Makes FE all the more exciting.

Couldn't agree more.

I hope Stardock have taken/will take Jon's advice about city specialisation:

"Let’s say you’re playing a 4X game and want to specialize a city for the production of money. If this can be done equally well in any city then there’s really no special considerations to make – after all, if every city is just as viable you might as well just flip some coins to decide. Which, for the record, isn’t terribly interesting or fun."

So city specialisation should be limited and not just take place as a generic level-up function.  Maybe according to the resources contained within the city walls?

Without boundaries you don't have anything concrete. Smart thought, good to keep in mind when creating anything, be it games, music or pictures.

True, although that was a decision based on the fact that no AI of a grand strategy game has been able to handle boats well. Wasn't that why it was dropped from elemental as well? In regards to the AI in Civ5 it didn't do much good though...

He misses the mark. It isn't restrictions that matter at all.

As Neo says in the second Matrix movie "The problem is Choice". It is meaningful choices that matter and make the game better. To make the choice meaningful, the act of choosing must place restrictions upon the player.

This is why Shooters on rails or any type of "railroading" has a negative connotation in gaming. Restricting a player is a bad thing except when it provides the opportunity to make a meaningful choice.

Your being a little critical, as in economics it's scarcity or limits that create choices. Unless you limit a player they will never have to make choices. If you could choose to have everything you would. You are right in pointing out that the one of the main reason limits are so important is that they create meaningful choices. 

The changes to bosts in Civ were simply to reduce micro and help the AI. It didn't effect limits at all, and thus overall was a good decision in my opinion.

What he's talking about, and I agree (Even though it demonstrates my weaknesses as a designer) is that choices need to matter. Don't have lots of choices of ambiguous meaning, have fewer choices that have very obvious meaning.

To this day, the formula in Galactic Civilizations II for determining approval rating on a planet is an incredibly complicated formula because there are so many things that come into play.  It's a bad design.

In Elemental: War of Magic, we tried to have too many things have meaning and you end up with bland.

In Fallen Enchantress, by contrast, it's fewer choices but they are distinct and meaningful.

I'm glad to hear you say that, Frogboy. This thread - both what you just wrote and what Rishkith wrote in #8 - is why I got super-bored by GalCiv2 after about 3 playthroughs. All of my choices felt either meaningless or unfathomable.

The really great strategy games concentrate on giving choices that are

•  Are fully understandable
•  Are really meaningful
•  Have no "correct" answer, only tradeoffs. But the tradeoffs have to include getting something *cool or valuable* at the cost of some other cool or valuable thing. (The worst strategy games I ever played, and I am thinking of two in particular, had an array of stupidly-bland choices in their tech tree.

Choices that have a dramatic effect gameplay make a game really interesting. In a TOEE RPG Modd you could 1) foil a plot to sabotage the construction of a castle and trigger the appearance of a castle on the main map, 2)  sabotage the castle's construction and gain a favorable introduction to the big bad or 3) take no action the watch this RPG world develop in a semi-random fashion without your character gaining any benefit from these developments. Each result had a dramatic; but different, effect on the game.

Likewise; on another modd, there were several ways to fulfill a quest to retrieve the egg of a giant eagle - each one had its consequences. First 1) slay the druid guarding the path to the eagles nest (this made the druids your enemy) - most players choose this method initially and suffered the consequences. Method 2) was to put the druid to sleep and steal the egg while he was sleeping. They key was stealing the egg before the druid woke up.  Sending a single fast moving lightly armored character up the narrow path to retreive the egg was the solution; however, it took several reboots/replays before most players discovered this. Method 3) was to have a character move silently past the druid in the shadow of night (yep - you could sneak past the druid guard at night - but not during the day). Last but least, you wanted to time your foray up the path to arrive at the nest when the mother eagle was not there (or was sleeping) - else risk attack by the giant Eagle.

Similarly, in a TOEE Keep to the Borderlands Modd you had a quest to quietly acquire 100 swords - and there were several ways to to this. 1) Steal them, 2) Purchase them from the smithy in the Keep and raise the suspicions of the local lord that would trigger consquences for the baron that hired you, or 3) venture far and wide to purchase 100 swords in different settelements. Each solution had dramatically different consequences.

Last but least there was the time based Keep Mod, once you discovered that the keep was to be attacked; IF GOOD you had x amount of days to reach the keep and warn them. Arrive late and you would find the keep in ruins and its defenders slain. Arrive early and your assistance may ensure the victory of its defenders.

Some things it's ok to be complicated like that.  Design rules are never absolutes.

Oh?

Sincerely
~ Kongdej