TL;DR - EaW is not a stable game, and we're already pushing the limits of it remaining functional in these areas with what we have. This stuff would/would have pushed it over the edge, and ultimately the gain is better from dedicating those resources to other areas.
2.) In large progressive GCs (notably Art of War), the only minor faction is the Imperial Warlords. I've noticed there is a large "space" (no pun intended) where the Duskhan League planets normally reside. Even if a few current planets needed to be removed, the addition of another minor faction would definitely add variability to this particular GC. Ideally, the Hapans would also be added, but their area of space is completely overtaken with other planets.
The selection freeze bug (and resource demands of large conquests) has always limited what we're able to do with large GCs; adding extra factions, even with a few planets, accelerates the bug much faster than even a far larger number of planets would, considering that it's an entirely new entity and those worlds controlled by it will likely be conquered several times over. With more factions, especially more active factions, the freeze would hit as early as week 30. By limiting those factions, we've gotten even the largest GCs into the 300-500 week range before people have reported problems. Trading the game being playable for the lack of stuff like the Duskhan League in those larger GCs is certainly a worthwhile tradeoff in our minds. This was also done before we created the defreezer utility, meaning absolutely NOTHING could be done to remedy the problem except changing how the GCs were designed. Even after the Defreezer, even if it were perfect, it's far from ideal to have a situation where you're at best knowingly forcing the player into a gamebreaking bug once every hour or two and making them run an outside utility.
3.) This one ties in the above suggestion. As far as minor factions go, especially in Art of War/Essence of War: They always die extremely quickly. In EoW, the Hapans and Warlords are utterly destroyed before they have a chance to breathe. In AoW, the Warlords are always destroyed within weeks despite have more planets than they do in EoW. While it is fantastic that minor factions exist in the first place, it is rather depressing to watch them get wiped out so early every time. I have even tried to "protect them" from other major factions to allow for some degree of expansion, but alas, they die every time. Is there any possibility of adding to their beginning fleets/planets to allow them to become an actual threat? The fact that they are "minor" should not mean that they are essentially nonexistent. They should remain somewhat of a threat for the entire GC, and only technically be wiped out if one of more factions focus the majority of their efforts on removing them. As it is now, most major powers can easily defeat any minor power, often with a flick of their wand.
Several things here:
1. Many factions, especially in Art of War, have a tactical AI, but not a galactic AI. This means they keep what they start with, and they don't move it (ala the Pirates in the base game) and also don't replenish it.
2. The freeze. Again, the more active threats on the map at any time, the faster that counter ticks up. If you expand the current 3 active factions up to everything (NR, EotH, PA, IR, three Warlods, Duskhan League, and Hapans) and tried to make it so they lasted the whole game, you;d succeed because "whole game" would be around the 25 week mark when the game ceased to function.
3. There's nothing we can really do to make factions survive that long, and doing so is undesireable. Again, freeze bug but also just the realities of war. If you have four major galactic powers and a few minor ones, unless you just put unreasonable stacks of ships on the minor ones (allowing them to immediately turn the tables and make
them the major powers), something has to give unless they larger powers are just absolutely directionless in their conquests. We have no intention of trying to present it as though the Hapans or Yevetha were on the same level as the other four powers. You can see this in other games as well. Total War is a prime example. Smaller city-states can provide a challenge in the beginning of the game, but as it goes on territory accumulates in the larger factions and smaller states survive through alliances, defensive pacts, and vassalage; none of which exist in EaW.
If we made them active and the AI were intelligent, smaller factions could survive by building up their own small forces, defending, and occaisionally making opportunistic strikes on poorly defended worlds. However, that's not how the EaW AI works. It immediately just turns into a shitfest where once they build up a fleet which could defend their territory, they'll just send it out to attack. IF they succeed at first, the faction they aggressed on, if it's larger, will probably just turn around ad smack them down.
1.) Hear me out on this one. As has been lightly brought up before, the Yuuzhan Vong attacks occurred right after Era 5. The group of us had an idea that I do not believe was mentioned prior to this post. At the beginning of any particular GC, there are many planets that appear as blue and cannot be seen by the player in any way (excluding the name). This feature can be utilized to incorporate the YV attacks. Hypothetically, at the beginning of any progressive GC (Art of War/Essence of War), all planets would appear as they do now, plus an extra "ring" of planets on the outskirts of the galaxy. They would remain inaccessible to the four or so existing factions until the end of Era 5. Once Pellaeon is killed, the previously unavailable planets would reveal themselves (that is, the ones nearest the player, abiding by typical distance rules for viewing planets), and each would hold a vast army of YV that, up to this point, had been dormant. Now, they would begin rampaging through the known galaxy just like they did in canon. In addition, to "win the GC," a player would have had to destroy all YV forces, which prompts a sort of alliance among the remaining factions against the YV, also as in canon. To imitate terraforming, it would be possible to eliminate the ground on planets captured by the Vong (which wouldn't be disliked by many players, because... ground). It must be in the files somewhere, as the Death Star in the base game was capable of the same thing. While this would require a lot of work, I strongly believe the addition of a galaxy-wide invasion in the middle of war adds a ton of return-ability and excitement to the game. Of course not everybody likes or appreciates the story of the Vong, so the entire thing could be an option in the Advanced menu. The possibilities are endless when it comes to things like this.
The Vong have been discussed multiple times within the team over the last decade, including in ways somewhat similar to what you have suggested.
First though, just a quick note:
which prompts a sort of alliance among the remaining factions against the YV, also as in canon.
Of course not everybody likes or appreciates the story of the Vong, so the entire thing could be an option in the Advanced menu.
Absolutely impossible in EaW.
Ultimately, the ruling on Vong in ICW has been that they're outside the scope of what it's reasonable to do within the mod, and distracts from being able to work on what the mod is actually about. First off, doing their ground forces would be next to impossible for us. Even assuming you could make Vong units function in Vong-esque ways in EaW, I'm the only active person able to rig for EaW on the team. While bipeds are difficult at the best of times, animations for units would have to be done in a very old version of 3DS Max. This version is pretty buggy on newer OSes. Even just rigging a stationary ship, without having to set up animations, is pretty tricky considering the viewports always freeze and I end up working blind.
You're talking about the addition of an entire faction into a mod that's already 9 years old where we're trying to wind down and polish what's there; in EaW terms, fleshing them out would be at least 25 more units between ground and space. While we're trying to redo multiple EotH ships and other older assets, add several PA ships, and work on Ascendancy. All this to add something which is currently outside the timeline of the mod entirely which would be in tiny sections of the mod. There's also a hard limit on factions in EaW, which we're very close to hitting, in a mod that's already closing in on 6 gigs. The resources we have to dedicate to ICW are far better put towards cleaning up what's there, and fleshing out what already exists. If we ever do the Vong, much like the Ssi-Ruuvi, Ascendancy is a much better venue; they can be fleshed out much better with how Sins can function with new mechanics and we don't have to worry about ground.
Topic: Various Ideas/Suggestions. (Read 2910 times)