Post by: bvanevery on April 21, 2018, 06:26:14 PM
I'm in the middle of a massive "Realism" mod of the tech tree. I haven't added any techs, but I've completely reshuffled the relationships between them, trying to make categories and abilities have relevance to each other. I don't think I've had to really shoehorn anything, although the changes have been difficult to contemplate and have taken a lot of iterations. I haven't changed the "minimalist" aesthetic of transcending, yet, but I wonder if I should. I mean come on, shouldn't you know how to manipulate a Singularity if you're going to become an energy being?
Post by: ChocolateTeapot on April 22, 2018, 12:05:08 PM
Some interesting thoughts on Civilization V’s realism can be found in this article, https://killscreen.com/articles/civilization-coming-classrooms-thats-bad-idea/ (https://killscreen.com/articles/civilization-coming-classrooms-thats-bad-idea/) and its comments on that game’s tech tree might be somewhat relevant. Basically, from a realism standpoint, the tech tree is too constant a view of progress, insufficiently messy and doesn’t consider scientific “dead ends”.
Having “dead ends” probably isn’t much fun, but having a bunch of techs that aren’t required for Transcendence reduces the overtly teleological aspects of it. It’s the ending given most narrative space, but Alpha Centauri is about other things as well.
I’m also not sure that the “basic Transcendence package” actually involves becoming an energy being. For a quick description, I’d say it’s more like the transhuman fantasy of uploading yourself into
Post by: bvanevery on April 22, 2018, 03:32:42 PM
energybeings |
CivilizationEDU is trying to keep students from falling asleep in history classes. The values of entertainment vs. accuracy vs. scope are always going to be compromised in some way. Would you really have spent a grade school curriculum on the alchemical origins of chemistry? Nope. Can a history game tell everything about history, including the entire history of chemistry? Nope. I do agree that the "Western progress narrative" is a problem, but the complaints the article author is making, don't actually offer a solution.
Personally I think the answer would be to write a game about a much more limited period of history, say, the Great Pyramid building period of Egypt. With less scope, there could be more accuracy, especially compared to a grade school syllabus. We actually had a TA do something like this is in my 8th grade US History class, which was otherwise a dead bore. He had us play 2 games: a very simplified version of Diplomacy between 7 countries, and a role playing simulation of being stuck with a company store (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_store) to purchase one's food and booze (XXX). He gave the "enforcer goon" job to a couple of kids who actually bullied me in real life! As this is most of what I remember about the otherwise very dull class, I guess it's worth something.
Now the problem is, for such EDU games to exist, some game has to make money as pure entertainment, to survive long enough to be noticed by educators. Civ has done this, nothing else has. So you gets what you gets in a difficult market.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 22, 2018, 03:41:21 PM
-Exactly right about focus as an aid to educational elements...
Post by: bvanevery on April 22, 2018, 04:36:28 PM
Slitherine Studios managed to turn their wargaming expertise into a TV show, "Deadliest Warrior". I wonder if TV documentaries are a worthwhile market or not, "educational" but not compromising entertainment production values. I think the History Channel may have done some game spinoffs over the years, but I can't remember the titles or whether they were any good.
Due to larger market sizes, there's always the potential for "that was then, this is now" to inform one's thinking on such matters. But it's definitely an area where one would want to do the due diligence. "Build it and they will come" is probably a recipe for disaster, given the history.
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 22, 2018, 04:41:55 PM
Post by: bvanevery on April 22, 2018, 04:59:17 PM
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 22, 2018, 05:56:12 PM
Post by: bvanevery on April 22, 2018, 06:05:31 PM
Post by: Buster's Uncle on April 22, 2018, 06:11:47 PM
Post by: ChocolateTeapot on April 22, 2018, 06:14:34 PM
(I really only linked to that article because I felt its comments about the tech tree might be worthwhile for thoughts about modding realism. There are bound to be articles online that make the point better and without that baggage of addressing CivEdu, but I’m unaware of them. I should probably have looked, though the discussion here based on that is interesting.)
Energy being is certainly a fair assessment based on the population icon. I personally don’t interpret them that way, as to me it looks more like someone standing against a very bright light than something they are emitting themselves, and in the standard game they come with Secrets of Alpha Centauri, which does not otherwise like a tech for energy beings.
I agree that Temporal Mechanics at least seems rather much for a “simple” upload. I think Matter Transmission should remain necessary though, given that its “disassemble someone perfectly” might be required for a perfect upload. Though Matter Edition might be enough for that particular aspect. But that's going in the other direction than what you are interested in.
Post by: bvanevery on April 22, 2018, 11:05:02 PM
- the REAL money's in a game that adolescents of ALL ages will like that you can sell to their soccer moms,
I'll probably leave that to the unfortunates like Notch, who stumble into it without even trying. What a miserable SOB he's turned out to be, last I read.
That said, I do think about the 13 year old neighbor kid's input to the problem, as well as what it would mean to ship a "family / teen friendly" game. He's far more into FPS and I doubt that he's picked up SMAC again after my 1st attempt getting him to play it. I would probably have to supervise, which probably means getting a LAN party working. We ran out of time last time.
and in the standard game they come with Secrets of Alpha Centauri, which does not otherwise like a tech for energy beings.
I don't actually believe its location in the tech tree decides the matter. In general I think the SMAC authors did a bad job of repositing various abilities in techs they are actually relevant to. I think those decisions were probably made for game balancing purposes, despite whatever "original intents" they may have had to put an ability here or there. Also there surely comes a point in development where they just don't want to playtest and bughunt new arrangements of stuff. I'm facing that very problem right now, after my huge tech tree reshuffle... I have to actually play this thing! Enough times to determine whether my changes are doing something or nothing. That could easily take me a month if I let it. I will at least start with "many days", then I may just have to package it up and put it out in front of other people for testing. And then, I may not even get any takers.
Post by: Vidsek on April 26, 2018, 12:20:12 PM
Post by: bvanevery on April 26, 2018, 07:36:53 PM
Post by: gwillybj on April 29, 2018, 07:49:35 AM
http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=8413.msg47190#msg47190 (http://alphacentauri2.info/index.php?topic=8413.msg47190#msg47190)
Please keep in mind that this was all for my own benefit:
- to take the Progenitors completely out of the game,
- to link all of the technologies so every one is required to Transcend,
- and to make each game last longer.
Post by: bvanevery on May 01, 2018, 07:11:48 PM
I guess the degree of change is relative. The changes I've made for my mod are vast, although I've only reshuffled all the abilities. Like yourself, I've required every tech to transcend. I doubt that will actually make the game take any longer, in my case. I still believe that 1/2 of the tech tree is superfluous gewgaws. Lots of stuff, yeah you can build them, but you won't get any value out of them before the game ends.
The most dramatic change I've made, is I've re-weighted all the AI hints to reflect what the granted abilities actually do for the player. A Recycling Tank is not a kind of discovery for instance, it's a kind of Build improvement. There are large numbers of Conquer techs because that's what the game actually has in it. This is my biggest playtesting concern, whether the AI will do something reasonable with the new weights I've given it.
Post by: gwillybj on May 12, 2018, 11:36:07 PM
In order to make the game last longer:
- 180x360 random maps (lightly edited to remove stupid stuff)
- Tech Stagnation turned On
- In alphax.txt, under #RULES, the technology discovery rate is 50
Post by: bvanevery on May 13, 2018, 03:37:06 PM
Post by: gwillybj on May 17, 2018, 12:15:52 AM
To answer your question: It isn't unusual for a game to take three or four weeks ;eek , playing eight or more hours a day :relief: , depending on my obligations here at home. I have a lot of time, being unemployed due to my combined disabilities.
My approach to the game is obviously vastly different from yours; I hope that's okay. I thoroughly enjoy these games. I never get bored. I do a bit of record-keeping on the side, influenced by my years of pencil-and-paper RPGs – always keeping my mind busy somewhere; I might even be online, reading the many top-quality posts here at AC2 ;b; ! If this were a print newspaper, it would easily win awards :1st: .
Post by: bvanevery on May 17, 2018, 03:18:20 PM
To me the biggest difficulty of serializing a game, is what's going to make the player pick up the game again, after they've saved and gone to bed? Especially if 2..3 days go by until they start playing again. It's tough to keep someone's attention unless there's something absolutely gripping about the game, and SMAC in that regard is not gripping.