Victoria 2

[sbr]

Yeah, I don't see multi-era games working well.  For one thing, no game of that type has done anything to prevent constant blobbification, which makes it impossible to keep the game challenging for long.  How do you periodically shrink the human player empires without making the player feel like he just wasted his time?

All that springs to mind for me is increasing the focus periodically.
i.e. starts with a small region, war between cities and all that then it expands out to a bigger area then a bigger area...
The player technically loses nothing but as he becomes the big fish in his small pond he then graduates to being just another nation in another area (albeit still based on his earlier work)

That actually sounds like a reasonable approach.

[alfred russel]

Yeah, I don't see multi-era games working well.  For one thing, no game of that type has done anything to prevent constant blobbification, which makes it impossible to keep the game challenging for long.  How do you periodically shrink the human player empires without making the player feel like he just wasted his time?

All that springs to mind for me is increasing the focus periodically.
i.e. starts with a small region, war between cities and all that then it expands out to a bigger area then a bigger area...
The player technically loses nothing but as he becomes the big fish in his small pond he then graduates to being just another nation in another area (albeit still based on his earlier work)

Like Spore but not shit.
Anyway, I agree it wouldn't work.

I've said it before, but I think it is a flaw that you can create stable and long term mega empires.

[Josephus]

Yeah, I don't see multi-era games working well.  For one thing, no game of that type has done anything to prevent constant blobbification, which makes it impossible to keep the game challenging for long.  How do you periodically shrink the human player empires without making the player feel like he just wasted his time?

The Paradox answer to that would be Rebels. Rebels and More Freaking Rebels.

[DGuller]

I've said it before, but I think it is a flaw that you can create stable and long term mega empires.

Agreed.  The challenge is, how do you make them crumble in a gameplay-friendly fashion?

[Zanza]

All that springs to mind for me is increasing the focus periodically.
i.e. starts with a small region, war between cities and all that then it expands out to a bigger area then a bigger area...
The player technically loses nothing but as he becomes the big fish in his small pond he then graduates to being just another nation in another area (albeit still based on his earlier work)

Like Spore but not shit.
Anyway, I agree it wouldn't work.

That would work well for a 4X game. You can just find a wormwhole or some revolutionary hyperdrive and all of a sudden your playing field is much bigger. But it does not really work for games based on Earth. That's why so many players attempt world conquests with totally improbable minors.

Now, I can't really imagine a gameplay-friendly way to simulate large empires crumbling. After all, most of them crumbled because the imperialists were tired of whacking rebels and noticed that there were dimishing returns on their empires. Now, creating frustration like that will annoy most players.

[alfred russel]

I've said it before, but I think it is a flaw that you can create stable and long term mega empires.

Agreed.  The challenge is, how do you make them crumble in a gameplay-friendly fashion?

Permanent lowering of stability with noncore provinces, loss of cores in provinces of a different culture (loss would be through events and revolts), perhaps an expansion of the administrative tension concept from CK.

If you make it so France + a large part of the HRE can field an army that is smaller than France alone plus has less money, you could be well on your way. 

[Zanza]

The right answer to this should be to stop blobbification in the first place. Badboy is a concept for that, but it fails. In reality, when a single power tried to become hegemonial, there were coalitions against them. That would require a smart AI though, which is a bit unrealistic.

Another nice thing would be better internal power struggles - not just rebels, but rather whole factions breaking away from your realm at once in civil wars. That should happen a lot if you start to amass too much land. You should have the choice to pick a side so you can fight your own realm for a challenge.

[PDH]

Not really gamey, but real life: have a series of bad rulers, I mean bad.  Civil wars, long term climate changes...somethings that actually has happened.  Hell, the rebels cause people to scream, but really having a mongol-like group sweep the map then ebb back does wonders to reset the game...

[DGuller]

I've said it before, but I think it is a flaw that you can create stable and long term mega empires.

Agreed.  The challenge is, how do you make them crumble in a gameplay-friendly fashion?

Permanent lowering of stability with noncore provinces, loss of cores in provinces of a different culture (loss would be through events and revolts), perhaps an expansion of the administrative tension concept from CK.

If you make it so France + a large part of the HRE can field an army that is smaller than France alone plus has less money, you could be well on your way.

Then you have a problem of having a goal in the game.  What would be the player's goal when playing France, to spend game centuries creating a country that is really good at providing social services to its population?

[sbr]

Not really gamey, but real life: have a series of bad rulers, I mean bad.  Civil wars, long term climate changes...somethings that actually has happened.  Hell, the rebels cause people to scream, but really having a mongol-like group sweep the map then ebb back does wonders to reset the game...

Sound like Crusader Kings.

[alfred russel]

I've said it before, but I think it is a flaw that you can create stable and long term mega empires.

Agreed.  The challenge is, how do you make them crumble in a gameplay-friendly fashion?

Permanent lowering of stability with noncore provinces, loss of cores in provinces of a different culture (loss would be through events and revolts), perhaps an expansion of the administrative tension concept from CK.

If you make it so France + a large part of the HRE can field an army that is smaller than France alone plus has less money, you could be well on your way.

Then you have a problem of having a goal in the game.  What would be the player's goal when playing France, to spend game centuries creating a country that is really good at providing social services to its population?

There are still goals to achieve. You can try to create an empire within Europe (which can still be done, just with a lot of difficulty), you can have religous goals, or you can focus on colonies. Depending on what country you are, diplomacy may be necessary to survive (if you are the Netherlands, France always has a hammer over your head).

If the only goal now is to conquer territory to create a European empire based in Paris that lasts for centuries, that doesn't seem realistic.

[PDH]

Sound like Crusader Kings.

Well, what CK could have been...

[dps]

All that springs to mind for me is increasing the focus periodically.
i.e. starts with a small region, war between cities and all that then it expands out to a bigger area then a bigger area...
The player technically loses nothing but as he becomes the big fish in his small pond he then graduates to being just another nation in another area (albeit still based on his earlier work)

Like Spore but not shit.
Anyway, I agree it wouldn't work.

That would work well for a 4X game. You can just find a wormwhole or some revolutionary hyperdrive and all of a sudden your playing field is much bigger. But it does not really work for games based on Earth. That's why so many players attempt world conquests with totally improbable minors.

Now, I can't really imagine a gameplay-friendly way to simulate large empires crumbling. After all, most of them crumbled because the imperialists were tired of whacking rebels and noticed that there were dimishing returns on their empires. Now, creating frustration like that will annoy most players.

Well, you could go with the approach used in the old AH game History of the World, where the player takes over a new nation in each era of history, but keeps the VPs he earned in the previous eras.  Of course, that works best in a competitive situation, when you're playing against other human players and the point is to win the game, not make a particular country dominant.  It doesn't work so well for SP.

[Josquius]

Switching nations though...just feels wrong to me.
I don't give a crap about VPs but still, every time I start playing EU or something with the intention of switching nation after a century I come over all "Noooo I cant let my poor baby Brandenburg that I've nurtured so well fall into the hands of the ai!"


All that springs to mind for having dynastys crumble to me is CKesque having bad leaders then the player somehow switches into controlling the rebels seeking to restore the order.. Kind of like Zanza's second idea. But again this is a hugely flawed idea and would piss players off massivly. All their work is still being done away with.

The only way I could really see rise and fall of empires being done right is in a completely different kind of game- more a God game than a nation controlling game.
You don't just control England, you control the world and have to guide various nations to do as you will. Sort of The Sims but for nations....
Now that's quite a awesome idea for a game I think though its totally different to what we were on about.

[PDH]

God doesn't play dice.