37
votes
Are there ways to limit players other than a conventional currency system or a resource system?
Two resources many novice game designers tend to overlook are time and attention. The player can not do everything at once and can not be everywhere at once. So they need to prioritize which problems ...
- 122k
34
votes
Accepted
AI for auction bids in the Monopoly game
To determine an auction bid, you need the AI to be able to estimate the value it expects to be able to earn from that property.
First then, we need an estimate for how many rounds the game is likely ...
- 136k
27
votes
Accepted
1v1 bartering brain game – see any problems?
Note to readers: just because this answer sorts to the top at the moment does not mean it's the best. This is still a young question, so check out the other answers and vote on them too, or consider ...
- 136k
24
votes
Accepted
Are there ways to limit players other than a conventional currency system or a resource system?
No
You can not limit a player other than through resources. This is due to the fact that in game design, everything that is limiting to a player is a resource.
The cards on your hand in poker
The ...
- 1,506
17
votes
AI for auction bids in the Monopoly game
DMGregory gave you a lot of ideas on how to value property. However, your starting point should back up a bit:
Design your game engine from the ground up to permit running all-AI games that simply ...
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16
votes
1v1 bartering brain game – see any problems?
I can see an exploit for a 1v1 game (i.e. outside of a tournament). As soon as one player is in the lead, their optimal strategy is to completely refuse to make a deal after that. Both players get the ...
- 7,549
11
votes
Are there ways to limit players other than a conventional currency system or a resource system?
My goals are:
To force the player to think about their decisions
To allow for experimentation easily and without sacrificing previous progress
To allow for multiple ways of solving problems presented ...
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10
votes
If an AI is sure it is going to lose, what can it do to make the game fun for the player?
One thing you could do is give the AI an "all or nothing" response to losing. If he thinks he's going to lose, he could do something crazy like, spend all his money on the lottery. Gather ...
- 510
10
votes
Accepted
Are there well known algorithms for efficient map knowledge?
Influence maps are data structures that model various relationships with respect to their locations, and typically assume that the impact of these relationships spread outward across space and/or time....
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9
votes
Accepted
Distributing damage across units in an army
I'd base the system on three basic principles:
each unit type has different HP values that affects its mortality rate.
all damage done is lethal (otherwise, just multiply by a scaling factor)
each ...
- 9,039
9
votes
1v1 bartering brain game – see any problems?
Neat idea for a game; it's something you can play with a friend while you're waiting in a queue at Disneyland, without needing any equipment or having to remember much game state.
The main problem I ...
- 273
6
votes
Are there ways to limit players other than a conventional currency system or a resource system?
Is there a better way to let limits, choice and progression go hand in hand?
As always in game development there is rarely a better choice, but there are often different choices with different trade ...
- 309
6
votes
If an AI is sure it is going to lose, what can it do to make the game fun for the player?
A potential problem with the endgame scenarios is that you change the already established win conditions in a way that could feel unfair to the player if they have a "certain" victory ...
- 272
5
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If an AI is sure it is going to lose, what can it do to make the game fun for the player?
Use random events which are not actually that random.
When the player is losing the game, throw them a bone by giving them a "random" event which lets them catch up.
When there is nothing ...
- 122k
4
votes
Accepted
How to avoid a boring late game in strategy games while still keeping victories satisfying?
Make an additional win state that would end the game after it's rather obvious who the winner is.
It might be best to make the victory condition optional in the game menu before starting the game.
E....
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4
votes
Best strategy when player left the online multiplayer game
Intentionally and unintentionally leaving should be treated the same, as it's impossible to be sure which scenario happened in every case (e.g. a user plugging out their network cable versus the ...
- 475
4
votes
Best strategy when player left the online multiplayer game
It's just a matter of time until the players notice that they can avoid the rage-quit penalty by killing their web browser through the task manager. So you shouldn't try to differentiate between these ...
- 122k
4
votes
What are the advantages and disadvantages of different grids in a turn-based strategy-game?
There are very few regular polygons, which can get stacked next to each other seamlessly. These are triangles, squares and hexagons (your question mentions using pentagons or octagons, neither of ...
- 15k
4
votes
Performance issues with high-resolution maps in 2D strategy games
You can do something similar to what Google Maps does (at least visually):
Have different quality versions of your map. When zoomed out, your entire map loads on low quality (let's say ...
- 4,785
3
votes
AI for auction bids in the Monopoly game
Something else to consider is that there are situations where a property is much more valuable to a particular player than other players. (e.g. it completes their set). A system would likely involve ...
- 71
3
votes
What are the advantages and disadvantages of different grids in a turn-based strategy-game?
Square grids and pentagon grids offer a way to repeat the same shape in the same pattern in both x and y.
You can make a grid of triangles, but some triangle will point 'up' while its immediate ...
- 16.4k
3
votes
1v1 bartering brain game – see any problems?
I think in practice this game will end in a stale mate 100% of the time, as there is no incentive to buy for more than 0$ or sell for less than 99$.
One change I would make would be to make the game ...
- 131
2
votes
2d starship combat, hit chances based on bearing and speed (vector)?
You simply need a parametrical equation.
A good way to get how different the 2 ship's angle is is to use dot product on the ship's direction vector and the normalised version of the vector pointing ...
- 15k
2
votes
Board like strategy map
I was working on a very similar (but more complicated) project. The basic idea is to create a colormap and a 2D sprite and perform a per-province palette-swap in the sprite's fragment shader based on ...
- 454
2
votes
If an AI is sure it is going to lose, what can it do to make the game fun for the player?
One option is to implement a scorched earth policy. Burn towns, farmlands, manufacturing facilities, resource fields and so forth. Prevent the player from receiving even the smallest gains wherever ...
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2
votes
AI for auction bids in the Monopoly game
It's a very rough approximation of an AI, but this video on the Nintendo Entertainment System version of Monopoly might shed some insight. Especially if you can read assembly: https://www.youtube.com/...
- 21
2
votes
Accepted
2d map of the world resolution (resolution problem and its effect on image quality when zooming.)
The approach I would recommend is, instead of having one big sprite, we slice it and make a grid of smaller sprites.
I don't know exactly how you structured the scene, but the generic steps to follow ...
- 156
1
vote
How can I encouraging variety and diversification in food production?
Yes, humans like to have variety in their food, and your concern on a game design point of view is valid. A few short ideas about it; some other very clever folks here will probably chip in and give ...
- 16.4k
1
vote
If an AI is sure it is going to lose, what can it do to make the game fun for the player?
You could make the AI simply decide to resign when it knows it's going to lose. That way the human player gets to skip the dull endgame and move on to the next challenge.
That's something a human ...
- 7,549
1
vote
How to make an application architecture a global strategy game?
There are many ways to get to this, and you might need several iterations over the architecture before getting it right. Because of this, this answer will be quite broad.
You could consider your game ...
- 16.4k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible