You can thank the devs the diplomacy prolly wont be too extensive.
Why you should thank them? Ofcourse if it did you guys would never win me after the
backstabbing fast-talk id release unto your benevolent natures hehe.

Ahah, a diplomat!!

We will see that now wont we.... (again a request for some evil smilies)

Variable game speeds. Nearly every large scale RTS game has done this*. From Imperium Galactica to the Europa Universalis. And Europa Universalis has a hella lot of things to manage and is all very possible to do. It isn't way too much to have in a RTS. Not by a long shot.

Supreme Commander being the exception and I hope to god Sins is nothing like that.

As I said, length of game for multiplayer can easily be decided before the session is begun. Just choose a smaller map.



Tbh, I really know what they are trying to do. I read RT4X. By the very definition they've given this title it has to have some level of complexity assigned to a 4X game but playing in Real Time. I don't understand why this has to be made simple when games of this scope have been done before in real time.

Variable game speeds can really help all this "not enough time to handle all this at once omg". Which I'm not even sure Sins has this. Which again makes me fear this will become as difficult to manage as Supreme Commander, which is really for the hardcore RTS enthusiasts, it seems.

It must give me the option of slowing things down.

A diplomat? hmm oh yes sure i am, up until i release my stealthed missiles on your
flagship visiting our worlds, after all what could you possibly have to worry in
"friendly" territory eh?

Nothing whatsoever. Since your technology will be way behind to do any real damage. Just as you launch your missles my ships will be ready to launch their nuclear warheads. Bye Bye planets.   

And anyways, the only reason I will ever 'visit' enemy worlds is when they have been subjugated under my Imperial influence.

But, why the sudden hostility, the game hasnt event begun yet.

Damn you just had to take the fun out of it eh?

You cant really shoot one if you dont the enemy thats why you shut your emission to
absolute minimum then release stealth missiles that home on the nice lil'
beacons attached to your ships by our covert operatives

We do dig our colonies to moons and asteroids and make them look like barren rocks
we are a small nation but we strike from the shadow swift and hard hehe.

Ehem, not to be a nag, but I dont want to hyjack another thread.

Maybe we should start the TGE or Competly random threats and discussions thread.

As far as slowing down a game. This is a weak solution for a problem. Imperium galactica both I and II were terrible, with the exception of ground combat and planetary guns. Having to slow a game down for the sake of play is absurd, what that is saying, is that the makers wanted to have a semblence of a TBS yet wanted to take advantage of a rising playstyle and didn't take the time to come up with a suitable medium. They went with a very easy and half-assed atempt for a answer to the problem of a 4xRTS. I played IG I and II and even with the game slowed down, as long as you sent 50 fleets against an enemy player they will still lose some stuff since you can't manage everything and the AI was better suited as an intestinal reject.

Smaller maps are also bollocks. You should be able to play on any size of the game tested maps. The only reason for a smaller map is a faster game( ie. 20-35min as apposed to maybe an hour).

For schem....

IN SUMMATIONNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is simple, variable game speed for any reason in a game speeds for anything other then maybe performance problems or something like that = well... we(the developers) have all this crap we put into the game and decided not to test the game enough to make these concepts and ideas work in the the game effectivly, so here is a game with variable game speeds.

Lharrs

I don't think this debate fits into the Sins forum...

It's what Sins might be. We've come to a point where just how 'simple' this game will be for the sake of keeping in Real time. I don't think it has to be simple at all to play in real time, but apparently Lharrs does?

I hope the diplomacy is nearly as involving as GC2, because nearly all good 4X games have one. And this is a 4X game, a RT4X game.


Sidebar: If this game is to be the normal speed of an RTS, then it can never achieve the 4X elements it is boasting. Especially when it wants to call itself the RT4X.
As such, also removing the Supreme Commander example since apparently that too can let you slow the gameplay down. Not mentioned in the reviews but now I can understand why it got 90%. Micromanaging just became that much easier.   



You would also know that the battles took place when the 'main' part was paused. Since progression of time is going to be slower in the grand scheme of things when taking into account one fleet battle. Really, try EU. That has all battles in real time. The map is the entire planet, with over hundreds of regions. It's like Civ in real time and they are well capable of doing it. One of the key elements that makes it easier? You can slow things down. I don't see how that is a lazy thing at all. It's a great tool to get a lot of things done in a short space of time. It's no different than pausing gameplay to give out orders. Something usually done in Baldur's Gate 2 which is hardly has managing as Sins is going to be.

At the moment, the only 'grand' real time game to compare is Supreme Commander. Even that lets you slow things down to micromanage, which you really have to do. Unless you want Sins to be the 'who can click the fastest the most in 1 minute'. Now take into account that Sins is going to be strong in 4X elements, not just added on to a RTS set up. The idea of standard RT speed is ridiculous with all the 4X going on is crazy, unless the 4X elements aren't fulfilling at all which begs the wonder if this 'RT4S' is really a defining new genre. Frogboy feels it is, so I am hopeful it is. Even though there has been little information so far...We'll have to wait for the beta.

Well to be honest id be happy with a more simplistic (the average RTS) virsion of diplo. As long as i can give/sell/lease ships to other players im happy.
What would also be good is if the AI (both enemy and your own) is good enough to act differentley according to what type of agreement is made, for instance with an NAP your ships may not rush to help your partner, whereas with an alliance they would (if this is needed depends on serveral factors of cource).

oh and i hope you can establish trade rouits between empires, would add something for other alliances to have to take out (hit and run tactics).
That said i would like options to trade things like techs to my allies, and the use of a percentage of my mines would be nice (or whatever we will end up using to create resources).

At the very least I'm hoping has a diplomacy model similar to GC2's. Variation of treates, money, key trade goods(if they exist), technology, planets and ships.

hidden, I think we may have a misunderstanding here, I am not for making anything simple, I was just pointing out that and RTS vs a TBS is very simplistic by comparison. The way I have been interperting your part of the discussion, is that you can have a game just as complex as a TBS, you used GC2 as an example(at least for the diplo side of things) and that all you really needed to do was slow down the game. I most likely have misinterperted your point.

The way and RTS must be made( with very little room for change, unless the game is not an RTS) is this, simple. The entire point of an RTS is to play in one sitting, no more then that. It may be played in more then one sitting, but it isnt designed to.

I grasp the fact that SoaSE is not an RTS in the traditional sense, but an RT4x or whatever they claim it is. The fact remains that it is played in Real-Time, with management of an entire empire at your finger tips( it is SupComm a dozen times over, or at least it could be), this means that you *must* be able to manage planetary develpoment/economics(this includes the orbital factor as well since the majority of info I have gathered points to a Homeworldesk style of play), Fleet Creation/maintinance(sp), Diplomacy, reasearch, reasource management( this includes production/defense and usage), and a few other things that I haven't been able to recall at this point in time. All of that must be done in this game and do to its nature, in Real-Time.

What my whole point has been, has been simply that if a development team is to be able to integrate all of the neccassary content, then it will either have to be very shallow in depth or done in sush a manner that the player will not be overwhelmed. While putting in a game speed button to either reduce or increase the speed of which time elapses in a game, that should not be seen a vaiable and correct device for making the load on a player lighter. What I mean by that is a player should not have to reduce the game speed simply to play the game.

That is why in my other reply's, I gave viable options such as couriers ships and multi-stage diplomatic levels. They not only offer semi-realistic solution to an important question, how do you have a relatively indepth diplomatic structure( or any other structure for that matter) while still keeping it simple and not overwhelming? Time from the earth to mars on any good day, takes several minutes due to travel time( not sure on any specifics). Given that, having instantaneous communication isn't realistic at all, however this is a game. The solution is simple. For game purposes, have a multi-layed diplomacy setting that is somewhat indepth but nothing to commplicated. This is to be done with courier ships for designated structure built ingame( or somethign similar). In addition, have public/private chat channel availible amongst the players so that rivalries and hte like may be fostered and unofficiall treatise proposed. Note only official treatise have any direct bearing on the gameplay.

Ridinghood - You will be able to esbalish routes, although to what degree I am not sure, but there won't be any special minerals and the like other then the standard stuff used by the diffeerent factions.

To Recap, I don't believe that an RTS *has* to be simple for it to be a high quality product( less indepth then a TBS, absolutely, but not simple), it just has must be done in such a way that to play the game you are forced to adjust the games speed to compensate for the amount of volume. Mabye in a single player game if you want to as a matter of personnal preference, but in a multiplayer match, it is just out of the question. For one person to slow the entire gaem down to keep up hindering all the other players is not something that should even be a possability, let alone if all the players need to. So, it is not ok for a group of devs to put in a game-speed adjuster thinking that now everything will be ok as hiddenranbir thinks is acceptible( again, I may have misunderstood your point), because its not. The only way I would think a game-speed adjuster is ok, is if the game can be played on its default setting with no problems and the player(mind, someone who understands the game) is keeping up fine. That is ok, put a time-modifier and let them fiddle, but by no meanes is a time-modfier a solution for to much information at one time.

Hiddenranbir - IG2 - The multiplayer battles I fought were in Real-Time and when I would come out of one, there would at time be fleets of ships attacking systems that had nothign near them before, so they stayed real time.

Lharrs

I Tried to break up the stuff in points not continuous paragraphs.

Diplomacy is cool and fascinating, but so much more fascinating if diplomacy is done at the barrel of TEC Gauss Cannon.

I won't lie I will back-stab many allies in my quest for galactic domination.

*yawn*
too lazy to do this...

Aww Schem, I made the second to last paragraph for you.

Indeed Spliter, Back-stabbing is apart of life, that is why it is so much fun when some one backstabbs you and then you ripe them a new arse hole I have had a few games where my ally betrays me, and I spend the rest of my game life cahsing them to the nether and back until they die. Then I still win the game lol

I think we may have but there is one point I disagree on.



But when we're having a real time game as deeply involving as a 4X, then there should be possibilities in multiplayer to allow games of short or long sessions. This isn't an RTS afterall, it's RT4S.   

Corret Hidden, this isnt an RTS I though I did say that, I am just saying that changing the game speed is an unacceptible way to give a shorter or longer game.

Shorter Games - Production and Research times reduced for faster offline->online status, in some cases, faster ship speeds, small maps could help as you said before. For me thse really aren't my first choice, but they could help. The gamespeed itself would not change, just certain key elements.

Longer games - the same could apply, just in reverse. Lareger maps maybe. additional random elements

Longer games, more action. - more deceptive then anything, most key elements increased in time needed for completion, but ship speeds and the like are the same, ship build times too.

I trust that whatever you did was genius, and I'll leave it at that.

heh, thanks.

I didn't mean the game speeds in that way. It was proposed to help slow the game down and manage all that needs to be managed(given the nature of this game) while still having game progression.

But I also don't want the focus of short multiplayer sessions to somehow influence having a short singleplayer game. That's all.

No Probs mate, I can understand your point, but dont you think that the game should be made playable without having to slow it down at all? The number one reason I stopped play Imerpium Galactica II was the fact that it took me 45min to look at my 40* planets and make sure I had them the way I wanted them. Now partly, I chalk some of that up to bad AI, and partly to me being a nit picker about my stuff, but still even 15min to check all planets and the like are insane.

I guess my point is this, I plan to be a Game Designer and put out my on series of Sword and Sorcery type games, but most of all Space Empire building games. I have thought about this over my life (22 yrs old here) and I know that if I was to be the one creating this game, I could not in good allow this game to go out knowing that there may be too much to do given the current game speed. THe game speed given by the devs is the speed they feel the game should be played on, and if the game can't be played effectively on that level, then the devs have not done their job pure and simple.

Anywho, sorry to get all texty, I see your point like I said, I guess it is one of those things that I as a very picky gamer(and once I finish my school for My Game Developmen major) and very picky Game Maker would want ot be polished out. I am one of those guys that the little things to get him.

How about we wait for the Beta before we pass judgment on it. And I am sure the developers will listen to people's concerns when they release the Beta.