Messages

[have]

There’s also a new storyteller called Chill Callie Classic. She runs the same algorithm as her more uptight sister Cassandra, but at a more relaxed pace. Hopefully Callie will satisfy players who don’t want the intensity of Cassandra but don’t want to go all the way down to Phoebe.

Why does a storyteller have to be this monolithic entity?

With a data-driven storyteller, the player could adjust the dials for the different "character traits" individually, creating those "in-between" storytellers that players have been asking for... and which Chill Callie Classic is.

Every trait would be scaled from min to max, assigning how closely the storyteller matches invaders to your military strength, how large the random variation from your weapon technology is, and so on.

I'm definitely doing the unicorn thing; it'll be the first $5 in-app purchase.

That's a relief.
Hate it when devs nervously skirt the Big Bad DLC issue when they are planning it anyway. *nods*

Well, file it under "inspiration".

250k (canadian or no) can buy you a lot of shiny. =)

[serious]

How about...

If the player "loses", the game goes on serious fast forward.

People zip around, maybe fight, animals may move in, buildings decay... then the game slows down and the player gets control of whoever is living there. If anyone.
If not, the game keeps fast-forwarding until the storyteller brings new people in.

It's a little like the ending of Fallout 1+2. You see what happened afterwards.

A direct and unlimited transition of control between attacker and defender is dumb. That would be like mind control in X-Com. Drop the alien's weapon and walk it into the line of fire. Free shooting practice! =)

About the squirrel-scenario;

Any scenario with squirrels gets my vote.

You could also actually have it available from the get-go, but only on higher difficulty settings/AI/whatnot...

This isn't a feature that makes the game harder or easier.

It changes the focus from being a game about your colonists to being a game about the colony.

[work]

So how would it work?

What conditions must be met for the player to be allowed to switch sides?

• A certain disparity of military power?
  
  
• Every colonist dead?
  That would preclude you (as your new happy family of raiders) capturing any of the former inhabitants as prisoners.
  
  
• No condition at all.
  You can switch anytime you please.
  
  
• Entire colony deserted.
  Respawn new colonists after the colony has "fallen into disepair" with animals living in it.

Interesting twist.

It's not a matter of winning or losing a game.

It's the tale of... a colony.

[any]

Though it would require a lot more work, I don't see why you could not make "away missions" that dealt with that sort of thing. let's say an event tells you that raiders ahve set up a forward camp nearby, or perhaps even a neutral colony.
By going to an assigned spot on the outskirts of your own map you could choose to leave the map temporarily to go to another map where you can engage in an attack for various objectives

That's a good start but it could be even simpler.
Raiders arrive with a ship / shuttle.
If you can capture the shuttle, they have to surrender their weapons and leave or be stuck on this bloody rock, too. They wouldn't want that...

That would at least add any reason to leave the safety of your fortress.

A workshop for making different kinds of food? Why not just call it a kitchen?

When cooking alien life forms / plant life it might be more of a chemists laboratory - with the chemist having rare fits of mad giggling.

[spectacularly]

A defensive war can not be won.

You can delay the inevitable but if you're under siege and stay that way, you eventually lose.

The great chinese wall failed. The Marginot line failed. The defense of Masada failed.
Not necessarily because they didn't work as designed. The Marginot line was never broken... it just wasn't attacked as designed.
Mind you, they all failed spectacularly so if that's the goal of the game, it may be the right thing to do. =)


So there are 30 raiders attacking.
What if they fall back when they are wounded? Heal up and try again? Every casualty you suffer will be far more noticeable. And eventually you lose.

If you want to win this "war", you have to take the offensive. Even if it sounds wrong...

Harrass the raiders. Flank them. Snipe their officers. Cut them off from their ship and supplies. Flood their cover by blowing up a dam. Destroy their ability to wage war.

Right now, with no FOW and everything being a straight shoot-out, there is very little in the way of tactics that you can do against a superior force.
In the current state of the game, sitting in your fortress is the right tactic. Sorry.
That's the thing that needs to change.

Even if there is no tri-state FOW, what about stealth/camouflage? Suppression, morale, routing?

Mine the enemy's rear with IED, suppress them from your fixed defense, flank and rout them, keep on the pressure so they won't stop running for 3 solar systems.

But it won't just happen for free. That requires the game mechanics for doing some of this interesting military stuff. =)
Right now the game is a glorified Tower Defense. There is no advantage to be gained by taking the offensive.

[a]

It dates all the way back to Populous 1. =P

Since base 36 (or 26, whatever) strings produce huge integers quickly, you may have to cap the seed number eventually... but it doesn't really matter because it's a number anyway.
("Mudball2" already breaks the 32 bit barrier)

And if you let players enter the seed, make it an alphanumeric seed, not just a number.

Letters+numbers are just a base 36 number that can easily be converted to decimal for internal use.

And if players want to exchange seeds (or only talk about them) then "Mud" is far more catchy than 17608.

You could play in a world created by your dog! (or it's name anyway)

It's a pretty similar feature to some other "large scale" games where you prioritise "things in that area".

The Populous Magnet/Totem comes to mind.
You don't tell your followers what to do... only go there and do their thing.

An easier solution (from a micromanaging point of view) would be turning the mouse pointer into a scaly hand and allowing to *slap* a colonist that wants to interrupt an important job.

Okay, so it doesn't allow to differentiate between similar "important jobs"...