32 Player world update

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Iceman
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Post by Iceman »

What of the 32 Player varient? I am simply aching for this. I usually don't like to follow a set storyline, prefering the 'sandbox' modes. With 32 Players, you could go beyond "United Africa' fighting "united South America', instead creating a situation where South Africa is Fighting Argentina, or perhaps an ASEAN aliance conflicting with India.
Iceman
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32 Player Map

Post by Iceman »

I just did this off the top of my head. All of a sudden I'm really excited about it. It balaces out the real world, without overdoing it... Also I realise that it is prob pushing the limits of the engine too far, so I doubt it would be seen in anything except a user created map.... I guess I have a project.

USA
Califronia (inc Baja California, Oregon, Nevada)
Texas (Inc New Mexico, Sierra Mexico)
Canada
Qubec
Central Amercia and Caribbean
Columbia/Venusualia/Peru/Ecuador/Guanya
Brazil
Argentina/Bolivia/Chille/Uruguay
UK
Germanic - Germany, Holland, Belgium, Austria
France/Italy
Poland/Ukraine
Spain/portugal
Nordic Alliance
South European Common Market (Baltic States, Hungary, Romania, Czech, Slovakia, Greece)
New Russian Union (Inc former sov states)
Israel/Jordan/Lebanon
UAR - Iran/Pakistan/Afganistan
Turkey/Iraq/Syria
Saudi Arabia/Yemen/UAE/Qatar
Libya
United Arab Africa
South Africa (inc Nambibia/Botswana/Zimbabwe/Mozambique/Madagasga)
Sub Saharan Africa (kenya/ethiopia/zaire/nigeria etc)
ASEAN
India
Korea
Japan
China
Australasia (inc Au, NZ, PNG, South Pacific etc.)
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Son of Moose
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Post by Son of Moose »

Iceman:

There ya go mate!!! :D
dust off
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Post by dust off »

Iceman I've been thinking a lot along the same lines as you. Like how would it be best to divide the world into 16 or 32. Sometimes I've thought that you could 'realistically' unite Europe as a counter to a dominant USA and growing China. A renewed Russia could digest many of its neighbours. Some Arab states could conceivably ally in a muslim alliance. But, without saying never, I just don't see a united Africa, South America, or many of the Asian states in the near future.

To be honest, I've been itching to ask BG if they plan on a later 'World as it is' version; but it felt inappropriate before this version is completed. Is that something that you would like to see too?

It will also be interesting to see how the combat plays with larger hexes. There was some mention that BG might opt for larger units in larger maps; but for me ideally we'd be able to assign batalions to divisions whilst retaining the ability to move independent batalions.

Finally, Iceman I did not understand whether you were suggesting a split USA?
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

A larger scale 16 or 32 player world is something we'd still very much like to do but it is looking more and more like a post release thing. Just doing the world map that is required for the campaign is proving to be a very large task and a 32 player map has never been tested yet, though I have a test map for it almost ready. I've also been looking at this issue a little and I'm concerned some of our earlier ideas may not work as well as hoped. We had discussed having regions such as Israel, Taiwan or North Korea as player regions in the 32 player world, but I'm not sure how possible this is going to be on the current map. They are REALLY small areas. We'll probably release a 32 player Europe before we try a world version.

We have also discussed ideas of expanding the player limit, but as dust off suggested, we're just tossing around ideas until this version is done.
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Son of Moose
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Post by Son of Moose »

Chris:
We have also discussed ideas of expanding the player limit
Perhaps (time permitting now .... or even post-release) you can create a couple of "test" maps that are deliberately designed to stretch your powerful game engine (wrt player number and/or size) in order to see exactly what it is capable of doing. :D
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Post by Iceman »

Yes I did suggest splitting up USA, just to curtail its power somewhat, and realistically, if any two states were to split, it would be California and Texas.

I agree we are more likely to see a blizzard in helll then to see some of the African states or the South American's merge. Asia is more likely, what with talk of ASEAN becoming a common market that is alike the EU.

Some 'mergers' could be explained by conquests, others alliances. Once the majority of northern south america was the one country, it is unlikely that we will see this again, but is not beyond the realm of possibilities. Africa has too many crazy despots for any sort of alliance there.

I thought about Europe merged as one, which would be a gigantic powerhouse, espicially with a split USA. I seperated it to balance it out somewhat.

Perhaps a somewhat more realistic version (albiet far less balanced) would be this.
USA
Canada
Mexico + Central American Countries
Cuba + Caribean
Columbia/Venusualia/Peru/Ecuador/Guanya
Brazil
Argentina/Bolivia/Chille/Uruguay
UK
EU
Nordic Alliance
Turkey
New Russian Union (Inc former sov states incl Ukraine)
Israel/Jordan/Lebanon
UAR - Iran/Pakistan/Afganistan
Iraq/Syria
Saudi Arabia/Yemen/UAE/Qatar
Libya
Egypt
Nigeria/Niger
Algeria/Morroco/Mali/Mauritania/Senegal (once was known as French West Africa)
Zaire/Angola/Tanzania/Congo
Chad/Sudan
Ethiopia/Eritrea/Djiobuti
Kenya/Somalia
South Africa (inc Nambibia/Botswana/Zimbabwe/Mozambique/Madagasga)
ASEAN
India (inc Bangladesh and Burma)
North Korea
South Korea
Japan (inc Taiwan)
China (inc Mongolia)
Australasia (inc Au, NZ, PNG, South Pacific etc.)

Africa would be easy pickings for anyone prepared to take it, but it is more realistic
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Post by dust off »

Yes I did suggest splitting up USA, just to curtail its power somewhat...
My thoughts at present on this is that in single player, AI alliances; a China, Russia, and EU with growth potential that would not sit idle to repeated USA conquest could make things tricky. Also, 'events', such as rebel uprisings, local conflicts etc that disrupted USA interests could keep USA busy, while also providing economic, diplomatic, and domestic and military approval problems especially if sustaining lots of casulties.

Or players would have more of a challenge playing the other countries.

As for multi-player, last man standing type play, the USA could be have its unique real politic problems because it would be the obious player to ally against (maybe covertly :wink: )and not tolerate much further expansion from.
Africa would be easy pickings for anyone prepared to take it, but it is more realistic
It might provide the backdrop for proxy wars and interventions that could escalate, similar to pre WW1 and/or Cold War. Africa would become strategically important initially and a difficult challenge for an Africa player could be to try and unite parts of Africa without selling out to much to the Big players.

Like the list of countries; but I'd probaly try and get an independent Pakistan in too.
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Son of Moose
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Post by Son of Moose »

Dust off:
Africa would become strategically important initially and a difficult challenge for an Africa player could be to try and unite parts of Africa without selling out to much to the Big players.
Yes .... as a possible way of making any of the African factions (eg. Southern Africa) a more attractive proposition in SP-mode, the player should be able to receive more preferable diplomatic offers while the other ai "bigger players" are busy auto-destructing. In this way, it should be possible for the player to create a fairly united Africa (through diplomacy or limited military activity) before the ai finally realises that this new emerging power could actually be a threat. :D

In this way, the playing fields would be more level and Africa might actually be the last man standing. :wink:
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Post by dust off »

What of the 32 Player varient?
Balthagor
We have also discussed ideas of expanding the player limit, but as dust off suggested, we're just tossing around ideas until this version is done
I think the ambiguity of language has caught me out here.
I was not really thinking along the lines of 32 human players. Rather, 16 human player or less playing the major countries with the others being AI, the more the better.

How feasible is 32 human palyers to play regularly over a long game, without people dropping out when, amongst other reasons, things dont go their way. I'm starting to get some MP experience with HoI2 and human problems have surfaced.

Human player problems, with long games
Playing in a reguler one night a week group of 8, now down to 6.

example 1) Some had to drop out because of connection problems. Another joined to sub one of the missing players. This player made swinging alliance changes and then disconected without saying anything only to be seen in the lobby joining another game. The game should be fine now we have a core of regulars who commit once per week to play.

example 2) I tried a couple of on the spot games through paradox hosting service. Good-God, people were coming and going, mostly going when they suffered any significant setback. Also after two imature arguments I gave up on adhoc games for joining a regular group.

So my question to SoM, Iceman, and others how feasible do you think a long game is with 16, let alone 32 human players? And what startegy game MP experiences others can share to shed light onto this?
Last edited by dust off on Mar 02 2005, edited 2 times in total.
Iceman
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Post by Iceman »

Whilst a 32 player plus strategy game experience would be tremendous, it is something of a pipe dream. It is more attainable over a LAN, however I have little experience with LAN games(CIV 3 Only) . I do not think it is realistic for 16+ players playing multiplayer, due to the time investment required, after all this isn't battlefield 1942...

I was mainly thinking single player, allthough I may not have stated that suscintly.
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Post by Son of Moose »

Dust Off:

I must admit that I too am a fan of the SP variant. :D

From the perspective of an SP game, I would love to see as many ai players as possible. If 32 is possible, might it be possible to "tweak" the game engine to permit 64 players? :o Then one would be able to obtain a far more representative World Map where the human player could slowly but surely manage to become the true Supreme Ruler of the World. :wink:

From the perspective of an MP game, you have certainly highlighted many of the inherent (human) problems involved. Personality differences and other life-related committments become more of a problem when there are more players involved. (I would imagine that the relationship is possibly best described by a fairly steep exponential curve .... with the number of players being represented by the x-axis). :o

Maybe some form of massive MP game (where a pool of players can substitute for others) might possibly work. However, the RoE would have to be VERY CLEARLY stipulated at the onset of such a project. Otherwise there would be absolute chaos .... :o

But I think that virtually anything is possible with this game .... although some of it might only be able to be implemented post release (possibly with the expansion pack). Although George states that this game cannot possibly be "everything to everyone" :D (I certainly understand the rationale behind this arguement), I think that BG should try their level hardest to try to implement as wide a range of features in SR2010 as is humanly possible. :wink:

Just imagine the type of press that these options would elicit .... :o
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A couple of additional comments

Post by Son of Moose »

I have always desired the advent of a true Massive Singleplayer Offline RTS game (MSORTS as opposed to MMORTS). :wink: Up until now, this has seemingly been a distant and unattainable dream. However, SR2010 with its 32 player-enabled game engine (and, as stated above, maybe 64 or even 128 player might be feasible with some audacious "tweaking") has made this possible.

What I would like to know is:

Would it be possible to design SR2010 as both an MSORTS and an MMORTS game without having to create two separate games?

I fully realise that it would obviously be highly problematic to have to virtually duplicate everything for these two (hopefully related) variants. :(
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Balthagor
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Post by Balthagor »

When I mentioned expanding the player limit I was thinking of the AI player limit not the human player limit.

BTW, we tested a 31 player Europe last night and all went fine. I keep saying 32 player but that is actually my mistake. The WM always uses up one slot so 31 is the true maximum. Only the first 16 players can be played by humans. This map works well for this idea since there are only slightly more than 31 countries in Europe. To make it fit I had to combine Lithuania with Latvia, BeNeLux and Romania with Moldova. If we where looking at a world version I still believe we would "pick out" the 31 player regions and all other areas, places like the Carribbean and much of Africa, would be part of one big world market. If ever the engine was expanded to support 63 player regions + WM then we could "pick out" more regions.
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Post by Son of Moose »

Chris:
If ever the engine was expanded to support 63 player regions
Well .... at least it is a possibility. :D And imho WHAT a possibility. :o
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