Victory conditions

**alpaca** · May 21, 2009, 02:36 PM

Ok here's an idea I've been breeding for victory conditions. Let me start with this: We all know the AI will never be able to compete against the player and have a possibility of winning - it's only good as an obstacle to prevent the player from winning too fast, or altogether. This is true for all victory conditions, even prestige points with the territory requirements removed (the AI doesn't do a good job of getting them it seems).

My idea is to accept this premise and therefore base the decision of whether or not the player wins the game on his performance - to be measured in prestige points. At the end of the game (there could be different lengths, maybe 30 years, 50 yrs, 100 yrs) the score is compared to a target set which tells you how well you did. The target numbers would depend on the faction you're playing and the difficulty setting - if you score too few points, you'll lose. The achieved scores could afterwards even be posted in the forums and players could compare them, like a highscore system.

To put it another way, the player wouldn't compete against the AI but he'd play as well as he could to meet a target. I think this would allow campaigns to be interesting throughout the whole game and remove the "meh I won anyways, no need to pay attention" problem that the game is very much suffering from in my opinion.

The exact scoring mechanism would have to be properly designed of course, you'd get prestige for technology, buildings, army size, protectorates, diplomacy, missions, etc. - there's a great deal of possibilities.

So what do you think about this?

**boche** · May 21, 2009, 04:17 PM

me personally i dont really play the campaigns to win them, i just play to play xD (mostly just as if i were the nation) , im just interested if this will affect the actual gameplay of the campaign, i dont suppose it does. if it doesnt i will leave it to the community to vote

**alpaca** · May 21, 2009, 04:29 PM

Originally Posted by boche

me personally i dont really play the campaigns to win them, i just play to play xD (mostly just as if i were the nation) , im just interested if this will affect the actual gameplay of the campaign, i dont suppose it does. if it doesnt i will leave it to the community to vote

Well the missions and stuff will of course affect gameplay but you can ignore them if you like. Otherwise balancing of building and technologies will have to take into account the amount of points they provide so you might see some buildings being very expensive (high level churches and stuff come to mind) yet not providing a very large tangible benefit excepting prestige.

**Pattington** · May 21, 2009, 04:41 PM

I agree with boche. I also play to play, and I think whatever you will do the game will still be fun only if you play to play and not play to win. You would need to change AI first to make it fun. Maybe the game should show you final score after finishing campaign so you could compare it with other players? Anyway I personally think its pointless.

**Pattington** · May 21, 2009, 04:46 PM

To make Empire: play to win game, you would ned to change all diplomacy. By that I mean adding something like respect/trust for your country. If you dont help your protectorates respect/trust drops. If you broke aliance - too. If your respect is very low, the all other countries will make a coalition and attack you

that would be something! Also I think there should be much much higher possibility of rebellion in capitols of "fallen empires". It was almost impossible to take russia or austria or france! in those times.

ALSO! the weather should be more important. Why russians were so hard to defeat? Because of winter. I think that players currently doesnt care there is summer/winter and they should.

**boche** · May 21, 2009, 05:02 PM

Originally Posted by alpaca

Well the missions and stuff will of course affect gameplay but you can ignore them if you like. Otherwise balancing of building and technologies will have to take into account the amount of points they provide so you might see some buildings being very expensive (high level churches and stuff come to mind) yet not providing a very large tangible benefit excepting prestige.

hmm i would not like to see expensive buildings with no good output :S i mean ok its dificult, but lots of money = something good out of the investment.
btw i have a mod that passes on protectorates like new spain, louisiana and 13 colonies to their owners directly at the start. will this affect this script??

**alpaca** · May 21, 2009, 07:39 PM

Originally Posted by Pattington

To make Empire: play to win game, you would ned to change all diplomacy. By that I mean adding something like respect/trust for your country. If you dont help your protectorates respect/trust drops. If you broke aliance - too. If your respect is very low, the all other countries will make a coalition and attack you

that would be something! Also I think there should be much much higher possibility of rebellion in capitols of "fallen empires". It was almost impossible to take russia or austria or france! in those times.

ALSO! the weather should be more important. Why russians were so hard to defeat? Because of winter. I think that players currently doesnt care there is summer/winter and they should.

Some good ideas here. Not sure how well that can be implemented but I think you can at least script a significant point reduction when you don't help an ally, or worse, a protectorate.

Originally Posted by boche

hmm i would not like to see expensive buildings with no good output :S i mean ok its dificult, but lots of money = something good out of the investment.
btw i have a mod that passes on protectorates like new spain, louisiana and 13 colonies to their owners directly at the start. will this affect this script??

You get something good. You get prestige. If you don't like that you can build another building

As for the protectorates thing: I'm doing this in TI, currently trying to convince l33tl4m3r that the factions who'll get the protectorates won't be overpowered afterwards.

As for the "play to play" thing: This is a game, not a toy. I play to have an enjoyment but part of the enjoyment is in winning (although in vanilla TW games you hardly have to bother, there's no possibility of losing). And yes, I was thinking about a high-score thing over the net, too. The only problem is verifying your score is proper as anybody can claim they got so-and-so-many points whether it be true or not

**boche** · May 22, 2009, 03:19 AM

well ive never actually started a campaign with an objective of finishing it, but anyway...
and no the countrys that get their protectorates at the beginning do not get overpowered, a spain i had to use as much money as i was winning defending mexico from the pueblo nation,`plus upgrading the economy there...hard work xd

**Pattington** · May 22, 2009, 03:45 AM

what do you think about making weather more important? is that possible?

**alpaca** · May 22, 2009, 04:07 AM

Originally Posted by Pattington

what do you think about making weather more important? is that possible?

Maybe but only by giving traits and stuff to characters who're out during winter.

**Barristan Selmy** · May 22, 2009, 12:27 PM

Originally Posted by alpaca

Maybe but only by giving traits and stuff to characters who're out during winter.

Less movement during Winter and when you are on enemy territory you commence to spend your supplies and begin to starve.( Idea stolen from EB game mechanics

, dont know if its possible right now with ETW and no modding tools)

**alpaca** · May 22, 2009, 05:53 PM

Originally Posted by DeVries

Less movement during Winter and when you are on enemy territory you commence to spend your supplies and begin to starve.( Idea stolen from EB game mechanics

, dont know if its possible right now with ETW and no modding tools)

Yeah a simple version should be pretty quick to do but I'm very lazy about this kind of stuff