Scenario #8 - The Wheel
The Wheel is a strange region of space that appears at least partially artificial. Who built it or why is a mystery. What is not a mystery is how difficult it is to travel in the region. Strange energies permeate it while gravitic anomalies can make parts of it unpredictable. While adventurous merchants plied the region many avoided it due to the risks involved. Analysis showed that jump lane construction was impossible. Until now, that is.
This scenario is primarily a rough terrain scenario about making profit in a difficult region of space. While analysis showed that there would be a great deal of money to be made once shipping was safe in the area the snag was that making shipping safe seemed impossible. However multiple companies immediately dog piled the region once construction was possible. While some parts of the area are immediately available and cheap to build in these tend to be filled rather quickly. Any jump lane company that wishes to profit off of the region will need to consider how to branch into more difficult areas quickly.
While initially this scenario was meant to have little competition it turned out to work far better with multiple AI companies getting in the way. The higher level medals are also meant to be quite the challenge to earn.
Will The Wheel break you?
Interestingly balancing this particular scenario ended up being kind of a pain. I probably played through various versions of the scenario at least 300 times before it finally converged into a state I was happy with.
AI Improvements
While the changes are overall minor one thing I noticed is that the AI was too unlikely to make deliveries. This has now been fixed. While the frequency varies by company all of them are now more likely to make deliveries even if the profits are less than stellar.
Currently In the Works
Random map generation.
Scenario #9.
AI improvements.
More achievements.
Scenario #9 Plans
Now that the primarily game loop has been explored it's time for a bit of a twist on the formula. Part of the intent for the next scenario is a fixed profit mechanic where the amount of profit gained for some destinations is flat. The number of lanes used will not affect how much money is gained. Perhaps this is a step toward fixing the snowball issues discussed below. If nothing else it will be an interesting puzzle to think about. The map will also be smaller than The Wheel.
Let's Talk Math and Balance
One problem with this style of game ends up being balance. While I consider Railroad Tycoon 2 one of the best games ever made and do still play it to this day I also can't help but notice it has a bit of a problem in the numbers. In particular the early game can at times be extremely tight financially but once long lines are established profits become far more than one actually needs. Jump Lanes has run into similar balance issues; later on in some scenarios making long deliveries can lead to extreme profits. While this problem can be mitigated somewhat by making cash on hand or total profits goals of a scenario it can pose balance issues.
In particular the biggest balance issue comes from the fact that the early game has the longest effects when it comes to financials. One can snowball off of early game profits massively. However if they are too tight this becomes impossible and one can find themselves struggling to start a snowball at all. This can also be partially mitigated by having expensive things be available for purchase or requiring the saving of cash to build through some nasty terrain. In any case once a large profit snowball is established sometimes the game can turn into a simple waiting game instead of an active endeavor. Part of what I have been working on is ways to mitigate these issues. While nothing is completely solid yet this will affect how future scenarios will be designed. While "make a huge pile of money" scenario goals are fine they can get repetitive. One of the goals is to figure out a balance for a scenario where instead of making massive profits being the goal simple survival is the goal instead.
To that end one of the scenario end conditions that I am looking at is a negative balance condition. Currently scenarios allow you to have negative money and also issue an unlimited number of bonds. While most scenarios limit the number of bonds you are allowed to issue to get higher ratings this is not a game over condition. The requirement to maintain positive cash on hand and possibly a positive profit margin could be an interesting change to the current formula.
The biggest issue however is in generating random maps. This is turning out to be quite the puzzle to unlock given the balance issues. If too much easy profit is available early then the map will unlikely be fun to play on for long. Similarly if there is too little easy profit available early on then getting your snowball rolling will be impossible. While I have some ways in mind to deal with this I'm not quite happy with the current state of it. My experience playing Railroad Tycoon games has been that the earliest parts of a scenario are always about coming up with money. Unsurprisingly money can essentially solve every problem in an economic game if you have enough of it. However there is a band of numbers between which the game is actually fun. Too much profit and it becomes uninteresting. Too little and it becomes frustrating or impossible. How do you clamp the numbers between those? I have ideas. The next step is implementing them.
One of the goals with The Wheel was to create a longer scenario but this led to balance issues. The profit snowball blew up rather quickly once the player became sufficiently established. One of the current goals is to create very long scenarios that are meant to be played beyond 40 rounds. While The Wheel turned out to be good for about 23 it was initially intended to be a much longer scenario.
OK, strange rambling over.