PBM Empire
From Illvilja
Technology That Further Development is Waiting For
Well, isn't it lovely with projects which more or less hibernate (dies?) while they wait for some future, silver bullet, technology.
PBM Empire apparently is no exception, as I ran my head straight into the brick wall known as the limitations of XSLT 1.0, at least for creating layout logic for SVG graphics. Essentially, what I need is some ability to carry out pipe-lining in the XSLT processing of the XML file defining the game world so I can use a sequence of simple XSLT transformations that turns the world XML file into the end user's SVG image of the game board. So, as I in reality just gave up using plain XSLT 1.0 for the task (as it does not permit pipelines like these) I'm waiting for Firefox 3.0, as that one will support some nifty extensions to XSLT 1.0 which permit said pipelining.
And once that browser hits the streets I'm one step closer to completing PBM Empire! Hooray! Actually, that has already happened!! Now we only need me to have some time to understand how to carry out (or simulate) pipelined processing of XML documents. Or I just skip relying only on XSLT and go for the evil way of running Javascript code upon loading the SVG graphics, code that arrange stuff and carry out actual geometric and layout calculations to neatify the PBM Empire graphics.
Introduction
Play By Mail Empire, or PBM Empire for short, is an attempt to create a turnbased so called 4X game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate that is) in a setting quite similar to games like the classical Empire, Civilization, Xconq etc.
Turnbased in this context means that the game is suitable to be played as a play by mail (or by web etc) game, where all players (in a potentially large number) simultaniously receive their individual turn report describing the situation for their empire/country/faction/whatever and then they submit orders on how they decide to act. Once all orders are in (or a deadline has been reached), an update is run and a new set of reports are available for the players.
The game is supposed to be rather complex once it has matured including quite a few game mechanics, rules and features, but before getting there, it will start out with a very small set of rules in use. The mechanics and rules in use will be so few that the game initially hardly even will be a 4X game. To make it possible to make a game like this turnbased, certain new game mechanics has to be developed, tested and tuned and it comes naturally that those mechanics are introduced as early as possible into the game. There are also a number of unique features for the game which in some aspects makes it quite original from most other 4X games (Empire, Civilization and Xconq included), and at least a few of those will be included from start, just for fun.
Also worth noting, the game will at start be moderated by... hand Program code for assisting the moderation task will be written on the fly, some piece there, some piece here and eventually, the game will (hopefully) be fully computerized. In the beginning, though, no such code is available and thats another reason for the game to have very few features in the beginning.
Winning and Losing
Victory Conditions
Victory is easily defined. Be the last one to be on the board. If, in one turn, all remaining players are elimated and noone is left to receive a new report, then those players who were still in the game that last round share the victory.
Loss Conditions
It can be worth pointing out how you do lose: if someone destroys your headquarter unit, you lose. You will also lose if you take far too long time to achieve results (which means you better go eliminate some other player from the game). The latter reflects that your upper command (who sent you out on the battlefield) has lost confidence in you and decided that your campaign was a waste and that you will not achieve anything. The first 15 turns, upper command has confidence in you and your position as a commander won't be questioned, but after that there is a 10% chance per turn that you will lose straight off due to upper level command losing their patience. If one of your units manages to destroy an enemy headquarter unit, you will as a bonus get 5 additional turns of confidence from your upper command.
A Lost Army
An army whose commander no longer is in play, that is, belonging to a player who has been eliminated from the game (due to a destroyed HQ unit or due to a upper level command decision) is a lost army. It is still on the battlefield and does still fight!! It is, however, not receiving any new orders so it remains at it's current positions, repeating it's previous orders which means that even if you have been eliminated from play, your unit's might still participate in battle and even kill enemy units.
A lost army suffers from it's lack of command, causing disorganization and attrition. Not only is this reflected by the fact that there is no player giving new orders to the lost army's units from turn to turn, there is also a 25% chance per turn for each unit that the unit in question will be removed from play, reflecting that the unit either is transported away from the battlefield as decided from upper level command, or (more likely) simply ceases to exist due to it's internal operations having a fatal breakdown.
A lost army never receives any reinforcements, any pending reinforcements which have not yet arrived to the army are cancelled at the point in time the army were lost. A lost army never benefit from having a presence at a control point. However, a lost army's presence at a control point will prevent other players from controlling that control point and receiving glory points.
If an HQ unit is destroyed by a unit belonging to a lost army, the lost army will not receive any reward for it, as neither reinforcements nor additional turns of upper level confidence are relevant for a lost army.
Features Available at Start
Reinforcements
By taking exclusive control over certain control points you receive a few glory points, 1 per turn and control point. If you eliminate an enemy commander, that is, if it is your unit that destroys an enemy HQ unit you get 20 glory points. Those glory points, when you have enough, will automatically be traded for reinforcement units which will appear at the location of your HQ unit.
As this is not Burger King, you won't have it your way, instead, the units you receive will be in the following order: first you receive 1 helicopter unit (costing 5 glory points), then 3 infantry units (each cost 3 glory points) followed by 1 armor unit (costing 6 glory points), then the cycle is repeated again.
Also, you recieve a maximum of one unit per turn so if you have a lot of glory points, the reinforcements get's queued and is recieved in future turns. If you lose the game, any outstanding glory points are discarded and any queued reinforcements are cancelled as your remaining army becomes a lost army.
Movement
Movement is implemented in the game at this stage. Infantry units crawl over the battlefield, armor units go twice as fast and the helicopter units actually get somewhere in a turn. Unit movement is implemented by letting a unit during a turn cover a number of contigious hexes on the board. The faster the unit, the more hexes can it cover during a turn. Obviously, the hexes covered by the unit this turn must be connected with the hexes covered by it last turn.
Combat
Don't worry, there is combat. Unit who partially overlap will try to attack each other. The game will randomly pick a unit (who have not attacked yet this turn) and then let that unit randomly pick one of it's potential targets, if any, and the attack in carried out. If the target is destroyed it is removed from game immediately without any chance to carry out an attack if it has not yet done so this turn. This process is repeated until there are no (surviving) units left who have not yet attacked.
Terrain
There is terrain, but it is just either water or non-water. All the different types of terrain on land is nothing but eye-candy. Also worth noting is that hexes can contain both water and land, the catch is that for land units, two hexes are not counted as contigous (from a movement perspective) if the hexes are fully separated by water. Quite obvious, when you think about it. Helicopter units however can fly freely on any terrain.
Topology
Topology... topology? Yes, one of the "outstanding" features ("insane" is actually more accurate) is the fact that the battlefield is not just a plain flat hex board, it is a hex board which has been wrapped over an octahedron (think 8-sided die and you get what I mean). A picky observer might object that this is not truly a hex board, given the fact that the corners of said octahedron wont be hexes, instead they will be 4-sided surfaces with 4 hexes as neighbors (maybe we even should call them... squares).
Missing Features I Envision to Include
Hidden Movement
Yes. It is true. There is no hidden movement. You can see everything the enemy do and they can see all you do. Actually, there is no need for an individual report to each player, as all players will have the same view of the game. Of course, in the future, hidden movement, including stealth, scouting, surveillance and reconessaince will be part of the game. This includes having an unknown world to explore.
Production
To heck with glory points and reinforcements. A true empire game contains production. Yes, the vision is to include the ability to leverage the resources found in the land, to develop an infrastructure and economy for production of whatever you need. Production requires that the game get's both commodities (wares) defined, things that can bo moved around between producers and consumers. Also, we need to define things like buildings or sector designations, the things we build in the hexes to act as producers and consumers of goods. Such designations can be harbors, enlistment centers, mines, smelting works etc.
Transportation Units and Occupant Units
The ability to let certain units occupy other units is necessary, including the option of the containing unit to be mobile, making it a transport and the occupying units being passengers.
Background Transportation
Stuff should be moved around a bit automatically, like in settlers series of computer games.
Science and Research
Of course the game will contain technology levels, research and advances. However, those might be randomized from game to game...
Elaborate Movement Mechanics
A unit can be routed (forced to retreat) by another unit. Also, trying to move through an (unknown) barrier which is impossible to pass should result in a diverted move. Etc.
More Elaborate Combat Mechanics
Some aspects of combat is overlooked as the system works now. For instance, some attackers will prioritize certain targets, also, some attackers do have different effect on various targets etc.
Ranged Attacks
There are no ranged attacks, but we all know that we need them.
Combat Experience
Units surviving combat becomes better at it! This was a nice feature of Xconq (in the incarnation found at Chalmers in good old 1988) which made it worth trying to ensure that experienced units survived to fight for another day and I will include it in PBM Empire, rest assured about that!
Nukes and Radiactive Fallout
I'm inspired by the good old Empire game (especially what it looked like when I first ran into it) and of course, nukes will be part of it! Also, I'm inclined to bring the game a bit further... I intend to balance things so nukes aren't just a tool for short term destruction, the atomic winter and fallout resulting can be as "intresting" to cope with. Yes, when the game reaches nukes, it is not supposed to be over, it has only entered the ghastly phase of trying to survive the radioactive pollution spreading around.
Extreme Terrain and Topology
The game can and will be played in 3 dimensions. Submarines can hide deep down in the ocean. Aircraft, satelites and spacecraft will ascend up in the skies. For the unholy, we have a special offer to let you take a trip deep down underground, through the tunnels that will let you reach the inside of the planet, where demons and the like live...
Needless to say, we can build complex worlds with real 3-dimensional water and air bodies, which can be traversed.
Diplomacy
There are no formal diplomacy in the game today, all your units hate the units belonging to other players and there is nothing you can do about it. Even if you have an informal alliance with another player, your better make sure that your forces and his stay separated, otherwise they go for each other's throat.
The vision is to let the game define diplomats and/or embassys, entities which can carry out diplomatic negotiations (as per the players' orders, of course) resulting in war, peace, alliances etc.
Traders and Exchanges
An empire game do need a market, and in a turn based game, you need to have independent citizens who can carry out trade without your supervision. Enter the traders and exchanges. These are entities which carry out trade with other countries, all according to your instructions. The result might be that your ally get the supplies they need, or that you manage to buy that cruiser you long for...
Nitty gritty things I care for
Ok. I'm a dork. I have a few nitty gritty things I really, really want to see in the game.
- the commando units from the Chalmers version of Xconq. Stealth units that sneaked around on enemy grounds, could be transported by air, sub etc. Loved them, got to have them in PBM Empire as well.
--IllvilJa
