potpourri on a few gameplay aspects

A mix of deep gameplay and rich historical flavor, Aggressors: Ancient Rome lets you relive history as the ruler of one of the mighty civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean. Choose one of twenty available factions and conquer the world.
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skottym
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potpourri on a few gameplay aspects

Post by skottym »

First, I love this game. I have been playing daily for about 30 days. So, here is how I could love the game even more ---

1. Quality of life - there is no filter to see which cities have which structures. What I end up doing is renaming all of my cities, e.g., "Roma - DT" to indicate it has a Defense and a Trading Post.

2. Explain loyalty mechanic better to players. My experience: I have cities that flip and take a large chunk of territory as well as absorbing my surrounding elite units (!!!). This happens early in the game before I have Civil Service (I like to play the Germans...). Result: I just pillage all captured cities and make new cities with my own nomads. Effective but not satisfying. :)

3. Influence right now is a very powerful mechanic that is not deeply integrated into the gameplay in proportion to its power. That is, either I do influence on an opponent city, and opponent can do little in the way of defense about it, or the same on me. The mechanic should be more transparent (what exactly does 'obedience' do?), and the mechanic should be more fully integrated to game given its power. Right now, it feels to the player like a late edition add-on to the game.

4. Here is something that feels like an exploit: offer most AI players just about anything as a "free offer" (e.g., 3 food), and the AI will offer you the kitchen sink in return. At least this has been my experience in about 10 trades in recent game (I just discovered this little advantage --- which I am calling an 'exploit' --- it would be good if in fact this is by design, so I'd feel free to use it with abandon). :)

5. Here is something that I think might be a bug. It seems like "Games of Skills" comes up much more often that the 1 per 5 years as stated in the tooltip. If you don't know, for just 10 gold and 10 food, you can get yourself a free military unit, and often this unit is not one you can make. Great for Germans who need a unit that works on grass and plains!

6. The tech economical city seems not well balanced. It costs a lot and it does just a little. On my city of population level 8, I get back 0.25 coal per turn, compared to a coal mine that produces 4.0 per turn. I'd have to have lots of cities of population 8 to ever get excited about the economical city.

7. Some folks have commented that "food is too easy" as a resource. I agree in 50%. At beginning of game, it is challenging (so I disagree). Try the Germans! It's challenging for small countries without rivers and grasslands. It's challenging for countries without cultivation. In other cases (so I agree), it's no longer challenging. But you can always trade away 3 food to all AI players for gold, coal, stones, .... etc. as a "free offer" :). You can also give excess food as a gift to bring up relations. Both of these last two items seem like exploits. So, I think food needs to be re-thought for mid game or late game. Either remove farms/fields (which I suggest against since I like to build things :) ) or better make tier 2 and tier 3 units eat lots and lots of food. :)

8. I have a suggestion for enhanced replayability. Right now, there is the Rome scenario with a fixed map of resources and there are the completely random maps. Let's have an intermediate point: offer an option in the Rome scenario to randomize a little or a lot the (i) types and (ii) positions of resources on the map. To be clear, the base Rome scenario should continue because there are merits to a fixed map, but also that same scenario could be given increase replayability with the options mentioned of (i) and (ii).

9. For custom maps, allow an option of scaling science costs by square. Right now, all science late in the tree gets discovered "too early" on huge maps because of so many cities and so much science. (Let's be honest: everyone just plays the game to conquer the entire map --- forget about other forms of victory.)

Again, I love this game. Above is my list of "how to make the game even one that I love more." :)
pavelk
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Re: potpourri on a few gameplay aspects

Post by pavelk »

Hi skottym,
welcome to Aggressors forum!
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pmFirst, I love this game. I have been playing daily for about 30 days.
This is what I call a perfect beginning of a first post:)
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pmQuality of life - there is no filter to see which cities have which structures. What I end up doing is renaming all of my cities, e.g., "Roma - DT" to indicate it has a Defense and a Trading Post.
There is a very easy way to see this information - Strategic overview window. You can open it either from State window or by pressing F4 (if you have already selected a unit, that particular unit type is open straight away). In there you can "filter" all the map items per improvements (e.g. show all cities with "trading" improvement, show all cities without "trading" improvement, etc).
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pmExplain loyalty mechanic better to players. My experience: I have cities that flip and take a large chunk of territory as well as absorbing my surrounding elite units (!!!). This happens early in the game before I have Civil Service (I like to play the Germans...). Result: I just pillage all captured cities and make new cities with my own nomads. Effective but not satisfying. :)
I think you are talking about general morale not loyalty. Loyalty has not much to do with revolts. It is the general morale and local happiness what is causing problems. You can read more about it in Aggressors library or when you click on the loyalty or general morale indicators in the unit menu.
I think it might be worth to read this thread.
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pmInfluence right now is a very powerful mechanic that is not deeply integrated into the gameplay in proportion to its power. That is, either I do influence on an opponent city, and opponent can do little in the way of defense about it, or the same on me. The mechanic should be more transparent (what exactly does 'obedience' do?), and the mechanic should be more fully integrated to game given its power. Right now, it feels to the player like a late edition add-on to the game.
It seems like you have too much influence:) I would bet that you are playing on one of the lower difficulties because in higher difficulties you can use influence very rarely (due to lack of this resource). Regarding the Obedience improvement - did you read the description in Aggressors' library?
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pmHere is something that feels like an exploit: offer most AI players just about anything as a "free offer" (e.g., 3 food), and the AI will offer you the kitchen sink in return. At least this has been my experience in about 10 trades in recent game (I just discovered this little advantage --- which I am calling an 'exploit' --- it would be good if in fact this is by design, so I'd feel free to use it with abandon). :)
Firstly I would like to ask you what version do you have? Is it 1.0.6? If you have lower version, please update the game, because there was an issue in trading calculation. If you have version 1.0.6. I would appreciate if you send me a end-turn save file right before AI "answers" to your free trade offer (email is info@kubat-software.com). I would investigate it. Also screenshots might be helpful.
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pmHere is something that I think might be a bug. It seems like "Games of Skills" comes up much more often that the 1 per 5 years as stated in the tooltip. If you don't know, for just 10 gold and 10 food, you can get yourself a free military unit, and often this unit is not one you can make. Great for Germans who need a unit that works on grass and plains!
We will investigate it, thank you for reporting it.
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pmThe tech economical city seems not well balanced. It costs a lot and it does just a little. On my city of population level 8, I get back 0.25 coal per turn, compared to a coal mine that produces 4.0 per turn. I'd have to have lots of cities of population 8 to ever get excited about the economical city.
Well it is not really just about coal. It reduces usage of coal, stones and iron. I attach an example of city size 8. Basically if you consider all stones, iron and coal to be equally important to you, you need to invest stones, and the same amount of resources will be spared in 12 turns (which seems to be pretty good deal from the longer perspective)?
Cconomic city improvement
Cconomic city improvement
EconomicalCity.png (442.72 KiB) Viewed 2309 times
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pmSome folks have commented that "food is too easy" as a resource. I agree in 50%. At beginning of game, it is challenging (so I disagree). Try the Germans! It's challenging for small countries without rivers and grasslands. It's challenging for countries without cultivation. In other cases (so I agree), it's no longer challenging. But you can always trade away 3 food to all AI players for gold, coal, stones, .... etc. as a "free offer" :). You can also give excess food as a gift to bring up relations. Both of these last two items seem like exploits. So, I think food needs to be re-thought for mid game or late game. Either remove farms/fields (which I suggest against since I like to build things :) ) or better make tier 2 and tier 3 units eat lots and lots of food. :)
It is not a bad idea actually. Btw. most of the food is eaten by people in cities. We plan to address this issue a bit differently - corruption in bigger empires which will "steal" production of all the resources. However, I have added your idea to our tracking system. Thank you!
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pmI have a suggestion for enhanced replayability. Right now, there is the Rome scenario with a fixed map of resources and there are the completely random maps. Let's have an intermediate point: offer an option in the Rome scenario to randomize a little or a lot the (i) types and (ii) positions of resources on the map. To be clear, the base Rome scenario should continue because there are merits to a fixed map, but also that same scenario could be given increase replayability with the options mentioned of (i) and (ii).
Can you elaborate this a bit? What exactly would you randomize?
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pmFor custom maps, allow an option of scaling science costs by square. Right now, all science late in the tree gets discovered "too early" on huge maps because of so many cities and so much science. (Let's be honest: everyone just plays the game to conquer the entire map --- forget about other forms of victory.)
Try higher difficulty;) Resource production depends on the difficulty level you choose. I am sure you will have a bit different opinion once you play on heroic;)
dejvid2
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Re: potpourri on a few gameplay aspects

Post by dejvid2 »

skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pm First, I love this game. I have been playing daily for about 30 days. So, here is how I could love the game even more ---

1. Quality of life - there is no filter to see which cities have which structures. What I end up doing is renaming all of my cities, e.g., "Roma - DT" to indicate it has a Defense and a Trading Post.
I too like to get involved in developing my cities and wish there were more options for seeing the state of one's cities. It would be nice if when you click on a city a lager window was displayed with more info rather than the standard tiny window in the bottom right corner (without the need to hit f7).
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pm
2. Explain loyalty mechanic better to players. My experience: I have cities that flip and take a large chunk of territory as well as absorbing my surrounding elite units (!!!). This happens early in the game before I have Civil Service (I like to play the Germans...). Result: I just pillage all captured cities and make new cities with my own nomads. Effective but not satisfying. :)
I like the way you have to bring a wave of conquest to a halt an assimilate your new conquests. I never pillage captured cities - you may well be right that it is effective but it would not be satisfying.
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pm
5. Here is something that I think might be a bug. It seems like "Games of Skills" comes up much more often that the 1 per 5 years as stated in the tooltip. If you don't know, for just 10 gold and 10 food, you can get yourself a free military unit, and often this unit is not one you can make. Great for Germans who need a unit that works on grass and plains!
I did not know that - I have avoided trying that as it is unclear how much it is going to cost. Now I know I will most certainly try it.
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pm 8. I have a suggestion for enhanced replayability. Right now, there is the Rome scenario with a fixed map of resources and there are the completely random maps. Let's have an intermediate point: offer an option in the Rome scenario to randomize a little or a lot the (i) types and (ii) positions of resources on the map. To be clear, the base Rome scenario should continue because there are merits to a fixed map, but also that same scenario could be given increase replayability with the options mentioned of (i) and (ii).
There are quite a few scenarios available on steam including the excellent small but polished Roman invasion of Britain.
I have also done a couple of Peloponnese scenarios which you can download from here:
kart-hadasht.co.uk/game/aggressors/
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pm 9. For custom maps, allow an option of scaling science costs by square. Right now, all science late in the tree gets discovered "too early" on huge maps because of so many cities and so much science. (Let's be honest: everyone just plays the game to conquer the entire map --- forget about other forms of victory.)

Again, I love this game. Above is my list of "how to make the game even one that I love more." :)
Second that about how excellent the game is.
Last edited by dejvid2 on Tue Nov 13, 2018 11:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
pavelk
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Re: potpourri on a few gameplay aspects

Post by pavelk »

dejvid2 wrote: Mon Nov 12, 2018 5:38 pm I too like to get involved in developing my cities and wish there were more options for seeing the state of one's cities. It would be nice if when you click on a city a lager window was displayed with more info rather than the standard tiny window in the bottom right corner (without the need to hit f7).
How often do you actually need to know more details about a city than you see in the unit menu? We don't really see any reasons to introduce something like "city view" because it would show almost the same as unit menu. The only additional information about the city (once you hit F7) are historical details, which are not important enough to have it displayed by default.
dejvid2 wrote: Mon Nov 12, 2018 5:38 pmI like the way you have to bring a wave of conquest to a halt an assimilate your new conquests. I never pillage captured cities - you may well be right that it is effective but it would not be satisfying.
When we play the game we never pillage cities, because it is the population what is usually the most important resource (at least in the early and early-mid game). You need to keep a garisson units in newly conquered cities for a while when local happiness is low but it will eventually increase to normal. You don't have to worry about loyalty. Loyalty just means that you cannot recruit new units there till it is back to normal values.

Btw. pillaging cities was a pretty normal practice in ancient world.
dejvid2
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Re: potpourri on a few gameplay aspects

Post by dejvid2 »

pavelk wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:15 am
dejvid2 wrote: Mon Nov 12, 2018 5:38 pm I too like to get involved in developing my cities and wish there were more options for seeing the state of one's cities. It would be nice if when you click on a city a lager window was displayed with more info rather than the standard tiny window in the bottom right corner (without the need to hit f7).
How often do you actually need to know more details about a city than you see in the unit menu? We don't really see any reasons to introduce something like "city view" because it would show almost the same as unit menu. The only additional information about the city (once you hit F7) are historical details, which are not important enough to have it displayed by default.
Always. The unit menu shows the current improvements as icons but if you have more than a few you need to scroll down. It shows only a single unit that it is possible to build not the the full list. It only gives the integer value for the population not the full value (ie 1 instead of 1.9).
But yes, the info you get from f7 isn't adequate.
There's a nice option to add to the unit menu a button that allows you to cycle thru all your cities which would be very useful if more info was available.

I don't understand why the designers have such a reluctance towards making larger info windows available to players.
pavelk wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:15 am
dejvid2 wrote: Mon Nov 12, 2018 5:38 pmI like the way you have to bring a wave of conquest to a halt an assimilate your new conquests. I never pillage captured cities - you may well be right that it is effective but it would not be satisfying.
When we play the game we never pillage cities, because it is the population what is usually the most important resource (at least in the early and early-mid game). You need to keep a garisson units in newly conquered cities for a while when local happiness is low but it will eventually increase to normal. You don't have to worry about loyalty. Loyalty just means that you cannot recruit new units there till it is back to normal values.

Btw. pillaging cities was a pretty normal practice in ancient world.
Pillaging should definitely be part of the game as it certainly occurred historically. The option to do so allows the player the satisfaction of taking the moral high ground.
dejvid2
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Re: potpourri on a few gameplay aspects

Post by dejvid2 »

pavelk wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 7:06 pm
skottym wrote: Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:56 pmSome folks have commented that "food is too easy" as a resource. I agree in 50%. At beginning of game, it is challenging (so I disagree). Try the Germans! It's challenging for small countries without rivers and grasslands. It's challenging for countries without cultivation. In other cases (so I agree), it's no longer challenging. But you can always trade away 3 food to all AI players for gold, coal, stones, .... etc. as a "free offer" :). You can also give excess food as a gift to bring up relations. Both of these last two items seem like exploits. So, I think food needs to be re-thought for mid game or late game. Either remove farms/fields (which I suggest against since I like to build things :) ) or better make tier 2 and tier 3 units eat lots and lots of food. :)
It is not a bad idea actually. Btw. most of the food is eaten by people in cities. We plan to address this issue a bit differently - corruption in bigger empires which will "steal" production of all the resources. However, I have added your idea to our tracking system. Thank you!
If you are going to bring in corruption then I definitely think you need to follow Civilization in making democracy zero corruption. One of the features of democracy could be higher food consumption.
Another food sink would be to make units with medics consume food (herbs) every time they heal.
pavelk
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Re: potpourri on a few gameplay aspects

Post by pavelk »

dejvid2 wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 11:35 amThe unit menu shows the current improvements as icons but if you have more than a few you need to scroll down.
Yes that is true but how often do you need to see all the improvements? Why do you need to know that? Btw. if you are looking for cities which do not have something built yet, F4 - strategic overview window is way better way to find it out.
dejvid2 wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 11:35 amIt shows only a single unit that it is possible to build not the the full list.
Just hover over the "specialization" panel, it will list all in tooltip.
dejvid2 wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 11:35 amIt only gives the integer value for the population not the full value (ie 1 instead of 1.9).
Hmm, if this is what you see then it is a bug. It should definitely display 1.9 (I am talking about the size in the lower right corner of unit menu).
skottym
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Re: potpourri on a few gameplay aspects

Post by skottym »

1. After Pavel helped me understand the loyalty mechanic (thank you!), I stopped pillaging cities. I put the military unit in there and morale settles down. I also build the civic improvement when I have the tech. Since doing these things, I have not had the rebellion problems. I still *do* pillage some cities (huge yields for that!), but the cities that I pillage are based on other strategic reasons, e.g., I want to space out the cities a bit more than the original cities in the conquered lands.

2a. I have somewhat evolved my idea about food. I mentioned in early game that it is a fairly scarce resource (still true). I also mentioned that in mid-game it transitions to a fairly abundant resource; I am changing my mind on that, for two reasons. One, if you get hit by the plague, you can suddenly be in some food trouble if you have existing trade agreements that have food in them (i.e., outbound). Two, I do find that I am close to food balance in mid-game because I trade food for resources or I gift food for relationship. Three, yes, if you spend gold, you can spam food everywhere, but after Pavel's suggestion, I play now only on HEROIC level, and I need all my gold for units and unit upgrades; I don't find myself with such an abundance of gold and settlers (which also cost gold) that I have nothing to do but spam farms; I must use my resources more thoughtfully. Food is probably still a little too easy, but it's certainly not way too easy, and I kind of like it, because I need the extra food for trade as a key aspect of winning on HEROIC. Maybe just make higher level units eat a bit more food.

2b. I also mentioned that influence was too easy, and Pavel said to try HEROIC. He is right. Influence is nicely balanced at that level. I use it some for low population cities that would require a lot of logistics (i.e., game turns) to get to, for example. For instance, I just saved 3 turns in Macedonia by getting a population level 1 city that was through some heavy forest. That time saver was very nice for continuing my military advance.

3. Pavel asked what I meant about replayability related to mine locations as an option. I wrote: "I have a suggestion for enhanced replayability. Right now, there is the Rome scenario with a fixed map of resources and there are the completely random maps. Let's have an intermediate point: offer an option in the Rome scenario to randomize a little or a lot the (i) types and (ii) positions of resources on the map. To be clear, the base Rome scenario should continue because there are merits to a fixed map, but also that same scenario could be given increase replayability with the options mentioned of (i) and (ii)." More specifically, according to Pavel's invitation to comment, here is what I could see in the algorithm:

3a. "Position option setting in scenario maker: 0, 1, 2". Value of 0, no changes. Value of 1, move all stone, coal, gold, and iron with 1/9 probability by up to 1 square, subject to the constraint that the suggested location must stay within original borders. Value of 2 changes the range of up to 2 squares with a probability then of 1/25.

3b. "Type option setting of 0, 1, or 2." Value of 0, no changes. Value of 1, each country starts out right now with a list of mines, e.g., {stone, coal, stone, gold, iron, coal, ...}. Suppose a country has a list length of N of these resources. For a value of 1, this list is simply offset by a random number from 1 to N. In this case, total resources are conserved for a given country but their positions are scrambled on the map for a given country. For a value of 2, a player can choose to have the type randomly scrambled, meaning that their could be less stone and more gold, for example, for a country; this option obviously entails the possibility of a bad spawn, but the player chose the option and thus can suffer the outcome. :)

4. Another nice for setup could relate to late-game science scaling. The cost of science could increase by (1 + x N) where N is the number of turns played and x is a factor set by the player. Even on HEROIC and realistic, I feel that I can move through the tech tree too fast, especially on HUGE custom maps.
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