Scalability, the best way to give everyone what they want.

[Sabuti]

I've read quite a bit about the different level of detail people want and about balancing the game between accesiblity to new and more casual gamers vs stratagy enthusiasts. I think the best way this issuse can be addressed is with game scalability in the set up options. Of the more made available adds to the time and resource investment in the game, but can also add additional and customizable levels of dificulty which increases replay value.
For example take the number of turns. As I understand this is going to be 2 per year. I have seen quite a few saying they would prefer 4. It would be nice if you could set this on an option so you could choose say 1, 2, 4, 6 or 12 turns per year, with all 4 seasons in the last 3. The number of turns per year should then affect production rates. A unit that would take 1 turn on two turns per year would take 6 on 12 turns per year, and you could build 2 a turn on 1 turn per year. This might also be useful if you could change the number of turns per year mid-game. So if you were just working on building up your armies and infastructure you could ste it to 1 turn per year and churn stuff out until you were ready to move your armies out.
Antohter area could be supply line detail, army retaining method, etc.

[pevergreen]

Too Much else has to be changed for this to be flawless.

[Sabuti]

It could be something implimented in a future TW. Even adding a time unti slector to the bottom of the campaign map.

What's some things that would need to be changed?

[pevergreen]

Character Ageing, tech events, movement, seasons, building/recruiting etc

[Sabuti]

When the last number in the year changes the character ages. I think they said that tech events is resarch based now not triggered events. I addressed building. Movement could be an issue, a change in time unit setting might have to be done at the beginning of a turn to adress that. Are you talking about how the game will behave when played or issues of coding such flexibility?

[pevergreen]

Both really. The increase in playtesting required to get it working would probably not be worth it.

[Sabuti]

I disagree. Lets use the customaizable turns per year to simplify the discussion. The set before the campaign starts, unchangable version. The added flexiblity of that would please a lot of players. The hard core types could have more turns per year and newer player that might find even a default of 2 truns per year slow might like the option to speed things up. This one feature would add to the value of the game exponentially across the board and be well worth the paly testing.

[Mailman653]

Character Ageing, tech events, movement, seasons, building/recruiting etc

Mods usually can make these changes

[Martok]

I disagree. Lets use the customaizable turns per year to simplify the discussion. The set before the campaign starts, unchangable version. The added flexiblity of that would please a lot of players. The hard core types could have more turns per year and newer player that might find even a default of 2 truns per year slow might like the option to speed things up. This one feature would add to the value of the game exponentially across the board and be well worth the paly testing.

While I agree that scalability would include the benefits you've outlined, I believe pev is correct in that it still wouldn't be worth the extra resources necessary to implement such a feature. No offense, but I think you're greatly underestimating just how much more time & effort it would require to adequately playtest it.

Would I like to see scalability? Absolutely. However, I don't think it would be practical to add it.

[Sabuti]

I think you're overestimating the time. What detail can you offer to support that it wouldn't be worth it to do. The code for the turns would just have to be copied and have the key values afffecting turns per year, build times, aging etc changed. The major part would be aditional artwork for the seasons. What issuses do you think would effect a different time scale. Checking for something like a turn hang-up bug could be done on a computer that would click out the all the turns on the differnt time settings a suuficient number of times to check for such a bug. Statictically 100 would do for each. What possible issues could arise? I 've played a number of games where you select the number of turns per campaign.

[pevergreen]

This might also be useful if you could change the number of turns per year mid-game. So if you were just working on building up your armies and infastructure you could ste it to 1 turn per year and churn stuff out until you were ready to move your armies out.

I was referring to that, but even a changable time at the start of the campaign would multiply the amount of testing needed far beyond it. As I see it, I would rather have one time scale, but a flawless game, rather than the other way around.

[Intrepid Sidekick]

Pev has hit the nail on the head.
Being able to play every faction, and every game type, with multiple timescales for turns would actualy require every one of those timescales, for every playable faction, being tested thoroughly.
The increased time to test would be exponential.

Also game balance for each timescale would require a lot of work to ensure a consistent, and thus enjoyable, experience.

[Martok]

Appreciate the reply, IS. That was pretty much my thoughts as well.