What is the purpose of AI cities?

antibodee · March 31, 2015, 03:45:11 AM

When you check your map, it shows you where the cities of all the enemies are and of allies. It seems like the entire thing is gearing up to the point where we will be able to attack other cities. Clearly, all the mechanics aren't there for it yet, but if that isn't the case, why even bother listing locations of other cities on the world?

Is this something we can be expecting in the future? Clearly it would suck for multiplayer, but to be able to raid and loot enemy colonies, or even show up for friendly visits to friendly colonies would be neat. Just a thought.

God I love this game.

lusername · March 31, 2015, 04:20:23 AM

I've wondered that myself. I assume that at some point there's supposed to be some kind of meta-game involving the world map, seeing as they put a lot of effort into not allowing me to colonize a spot on the map that I had previously colonized, indeed permanently marking its location as taken, even though there is no means of interacting with that spot. Maybe we'll get to eventually trade with our own colonies? Attack enemy encampments? Interact with the world map in some way? Who knows?

skullywag · March 31, 2015, 04:22:16 AM

Its just for flavour/rp/story purposes for now, I remember Tynan said he wanted the raiders/friendlies to have a presence in the world. Tynan may expand on it who knows

SSS · March 31, 2015, 08:53:51 AM

If we ever get to the point where having a second faction on the map is possible, we might be able to land in these locations. It wouldn't make much sense for us to be able to land at this alleged headquarters only to discover that no one is there, would it?

Also, the storyteller tends to give you more interactions with factions you're closer to iirc. I'm pretty sure I picked a spot almost on top of a mechanoid hive in my latest game (which are similar to faction bases, but invisible).

dragonid1423 · April 01, 2015, 12:09:55 AM

Hopefully at some point we'll be able to raid them and take their things. And maybe pinpoint the Mechanoid hives and attempt to take them out to stop the Mech raids.

Tynan · April 01, 2015, 01:35:03 AM

I just put them in because the code wanted me to.

The player faction needs a position (so the game knows what sort of map to generate for the colony to be made in). Which means that this faction has a position. It made sense to just give all the other factions randomly-generated positions as well.

Of course it's a bit of a 'false signal' to players that their position is significant, when in truth it isn't and isn't planned to become so any time soon. So that could be a failing of it.

There's always the chance that this may deepen some day, but I wouldn't 'expect' it.

falcongrey · April 02, 2015, 04:52:20 PM

Quote from: Tynan on April 01, 2015, 01:35:03 AM
I just put them in because the code wanted me to.

The player faction needs a position (so the game knows what sort of map to generate for the colony to be made in). Which means that this faction has a position. It made sense to just give all the other factions randomly-generated positions as well.

Of course it's a bit of a 'false signal' to players that their position is significant, when in truth it isn't and isn't planned to become so any time soon. So that could be a failing of it.

There's always the chance that this may deepen some day, but I wouldn't 'expect' it.

It would be interesting if you made it so the closer you are to one of these 'placed' factions the more you encounter it along with the reverse, the further away the less you encounter it.

1010101010 · April 02, 2015, 09:25:07 PM

Real time crop growth

Cortina · April 03, 2015, 01:08:04 PM

Quote from: Tynan on April 01, 2015, 01:35:03 AM
There's always the chance that this may deepen some day, but I wouldn't 'expect' it.

Tynan, potentially the distance from your base to other bases can affect travel times for raids, trading with friendlies? Perhaps a certain research option would detect incoming events sooner.

antibodee · April 03, 2015, 01:17:25 PM

I disagree with that. If something comes from the map, I would prefer it be much more elaborate than that. Doing something like that would just deter future elaborations on the world map.

I do agree we need a lot more research. Two hours into every game, my researchers who don't have any other skills end up getting their organs harvested.

Kegereneku · April 03, 2015, 04:55:04 PM

Gotta love the very human choice this Deep characterization game made us do...

"Listen Mr.Scientist, we are all very satisfied by all the research you did for our comfort and eventually leave the planet... but you see you have outlived your usefulness, we are merely pawn to a good looking colony, we don't really matter, so since your profitability is getting quite low so we've decided that it was better to 'cut the loss' if you see what I mean..."