Re: Prestige and Fruit (was Re: [glob2-devel] Gameplay guidelines)

[Andrew Sayers]

<snip>
> >The benefit of this system is that combinations of foods actually
> >interact with each other in useful ways, so it's not just about who
> >captures the most types of food - collaborating teams can actually
> >out-match other teams if they have the right combination of foods.
> >
> >That works the other way round as well.  If your team has a salmon
> >breeding near its town and mine has an orange grove nearby, you might
> >choose to just conquer my town and keep both resources for yourself.
> >
> What are the gameplay benefits of that system? It seems it would 
> promote resource micromanagement. For instance, you'd often want *not* 
> to have your globs eat salt. So every time you found a salt deposit, 
> you'd have to manually put forbidden area on it (unless the inns would 
> have lots of little checkboxes for what foods are allowed there... 
> which is also a nuisance.) My way, you only have to forbid areas if 
> getting a certain kind of food is wasteful or puts your globs in 
> danger, like you already do.

The gameplay benefits are that it encourages players to interact in more
complex and political ways.  The aim of the game becomes not just
beating everyone else for the fun of it, but conquering/befriending
other teams in the way that is most beneficial to your personal
strategy and available resources.

I love your idea of replacing wheat with general food-type resources.
Even if we make no other changes, I think we should make the fruits
expand, grow, and be used where wheat is now, and get rid of wheat.

If food replaces wheat, it becomes a central part of the game, which
means it's appropriate to make it more complex.  For example, orange
trees could be made to shrink and expand like wheat does now, whereas
worm holes are eternal and unexpandable like fruit currently is.  This
would mean that the orange-fed team has a choice of growing his orange
farm until he has a huge army, or using up all his resources and going
for an early attack; while the worm team has a cap on the number of
globs he can manage, but can maintain his town indefinitely.  Of course,
this adds complexity and makes AI harder to write, and it's a good or
bad idea no matter what model of food we use.

You're right though that giving resources weaknesses leaves a problem of
them.  Personally, I think this could be a fun part of the game if done
right.  Hmm...

I think sliders would be a pretty good solution.  Where all the sliders
are equal, globs will prefer the closest resource.  Moving a slider one
to the right makes it consider that resource type one square closer than
it actually is, one to the left makes it one square further away.
New inns default to the value of the nearest previously created inn.
Players that don't want to bother with sliders can just build inns near
to resources, while those that do want to play can do.

        - Andrew