The thing is that this "slavery" mechanic doesn't mesh with the rest of the game. If "pop of the tile goes down by one when you conquer it" is the rule, then why do pop 2 cities have no effect? There's no coherent design philosophy there, it wasn't meant to imply slavery, that's just how the game "works." In every other aspect of the game but this one, the only population you get is the population you earn through conversion of Food. It all points to the idea that if the design were made consistent, you would only be able to get pop through that, and shouldn't be able to take it from other players. After all, as NQT said, you can't raze your own villages. If you can't enslave your people and force them to move elsewhere, why can you make slaves out of the subjects you gain when you conquer a city? It does not make sense from a game design POV.
Because of design limitations?
Design limitations nothing. It's as simple as adding another button. "Design limitations" is not an excuse for bad design.
Because it means that taking a pop 2 city isn't purely there to deny it to the enemy, but can actually help you in more significant ways by having a city?
You can still take the city in my version too; you bring it down to pop 0, you claim it (bringing it back to pop 1), and then you rebuild it. You have the
option of razing it, it's not compulsory.
Because pop 1 cities don't exist?
Because a pop 1 city is a village, I'm well aware. That's a totally meaningless excuse, because they could very easily be
added to the game. They would function exactly the same as villages (that is to say, you wouldn't get any of the benefits of having a city there until you brought them back up to pop 2), and you wouldn't be able to remove pop to bring them down to 1, it would be a state that exists purely for the purposes of conquering cities and it would maintain the consistency of design in the game.
You point out 'flaws' in Vanigo's game based on your opinion, and some of us disagree. But you want to do it anyway, and that's fine, but it's rude to basically say 'he did it wrong', which is what it seems like you're doing when you put it in the way you do; "if the design were made consistent" and "There's no coherent design philosopy here". There's things I've wanted to add to the game too, typically concerning units and buffs(for example garrison or militia units, or walls functioning differently), but the game works fine as it is. There's really no need to make changes like that.
With all due respect, I am not talking out of my ass here. I am a programmer. I design games. I've done it, I'm trained in it, it's what I do. When I talk about consistent design philosophy, I'm talking in terms that I apply to the games I create as well as the games I play and criticize. I am looking at the game from the perspective of how I would design it, how I would balance it, etc. This is the way that people in my field approach this. And I mean it when I say that something
can be done because I know how it's done and I know the limitations. If Vanigo released the source code, I would do it. I'm not saying he's a bad game designer, far from it -- he made a very solid and enjoyable game, and I admire his work. If I didn't like what he'd done I wouldn't be considering changing it. However, in my opinion it has flaws and I am not beholden to ignore them out of respect. And no one would force you to play the game with the modifications that I make.
Also, as for razing your own villages, and enslaving your own people; I believe the assumption is made that you are not in fact a tyrannical despot. Additionally, you can in fact do just that in exactly the same way you can the enemy(moving pop among cities, that is), unless you mean to Villages, in which case you can't do that to the enemy either. Just because the idea of slavery isn't fully detailed and implemented in all applicable ways doesn't mean it's not been done. Hell, you implemented Blood Mines and Slave Market, and I think those are pretty clever. Doesn't mean you need to edit the source code. And while he hasn't explicitly stated it, he has said things in response to questions about possible changes like 'that would require access to the source code' and later added external image support for the source code, so he obviously both still has it and is unwilling to share it. He doesn't want it released.
I will add that conquering is, really, quite the opposite of destroying a population, in terms of what was done in reality. Sure, sometimes you put everyone to the sword, but more often they surrendered once you killed the defenders. The rabblerousers might need to be put down and some might have fled in the meantime(which is why most people drain their cities of pop if it looks like they're about to be taken), but it's often about, you know, one king replacing another. For many, they won't care all that much. If you force 'em out of the city, or steal the gold and goods in it to supply your own populace so it can grow, that's it's own thing. As well, I personally don't like the idea of city conquests taking even longer than they already do; just look at The Dark Ages. Well Defended cities need a veritable Siege, over many turns, in order to get to even get a chance.
Actually, lemon10 added the Blood Mines; I added the Slave Market both because of the precedence he set and because I felt that there should be a labor counterpart to the iron source he created.
Any assumptions to make are totally meaningless, as are any comparisons to real life. This is a game, games have design and balance and I think that they can be tweaked to make a better, fairer, and more consistent experience. And FYI, I have looked at The Dark Age; I looked at when I sent my troops into your territory while you were occupied with taking my northern cities and captured your undefended Metropolis before you could even react. Right now sieges in VEG are all about where your troops are, and, if they're out of position, whether or not you can move them into place before the enemy arrives. Beyond that, it all comes down to whether they come knocking with more than you're capable of defeating. In fact, I sort of dislike how fights in VEG are done to the utter annihilation of either side (if you want to appeal to realism, that's not particularly realistic either, but I dislike it from a gameplay standpoint). It's somewhat alleviated by the fact that you have to split your army up to handle threats and eventualities from all around, but I think that if your armies retreated from fights they were losing it would encourage people to go at each other more because there wouldn't be so much on the line, you wouldn't be losing your whole army.
Of course, that's rubbing up against some real design limitations and getting into Hearts of Iron territory that is somewhat inappropriate for a light strategy game like this, but it doesn't hurt to think about it. For that matter, none of this hurts to think about, especially since if Vanigo doesn't want his game modified then nothing will come of it.
Look for answers, not problems, is what I say, in this case.
One change I would like, though, is for improvements to get razed on conquering a tile. Makes it more dangerous to allow your stuff to get razed, fits in better with the slash and burn idea of it. Makes not just taking but holding valuable tiles more important.
I didn't look for problems, I just found them because they stick out. They're problematic. Now I'm looking for answers to those problems.
I think that holding valuable tiles is sufficiently important now, there just isn't much back-and-forth over them because it's more about attacking cities and destroying armies than undermining your opponents' resources (most of the time, anyway, maybe not as much in an asymmetric war like the one right now between the Golden Horde and you, or the Danes and Ireland).
None of this is relevant to the game that we're playing right now, none of these changes have any chance of affecting Fertile Lands even if I could act upon them. I'm just floating ideas, getting people's thoughts on this stuff.
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Topic: Fertile Lands - A Vanigo Empire Game - Turn 54 - 2 Players Needed (Read 36309 times)