This would be equally true with military decisions though as well. Economy is really the baseline denominator for a lot of decisions. A weak economy restricts both diplomatic and military options. For example, if your economy is weak you might not have enough goods to bribe the local goblins to prevent their attacks OR raise a strong enough military to deter them. If your economy is strong then BOTH military and diplomatic options are now open. It’s possible that your economy will have just enough extra to bribe the goblins but not enough for a few extra spearmen, but that’s probably going to be a pretty narrow range of of economic strength.
So it’s not even really a question of ‘do you do follow the economic path’ because it order to create options on the diplomatic and military paths you will need economic capability. There’s no way around it, you have to possess economic strength to pursue particular options. Really, diplomacy, military and economy aren’t separate paths but represent a matrix of possible options based on your baseline capabilities in each area and how they interact with each other. You really can’t pursue one option in exclusion since it’s choices made that open up other options in other fields later.
Beyond the obvious economic relation of military and diplomatic choices, they also play off of each other. Certain diplomatic options would only be possible in positions of military strength, and conversely military options are going to be informed by the diplomatic position you have. You might be forced to take a particular military/diplomatic option based on decisions you made in the other ‘sphere’. So the bottom line is that I think that unless there’s a very artificial set of restrictions in place (like building a large army automatically makes everyone dislike you so you can’t pursue diplomacy, regardless of you actual behavior) all of these decision areas actually bleed into each other a lot. I know that muddies the water rather than clears it, but I strongly think that it’s an not an issue to oversimplify.
As an aside, I DO think this discussion does have plenty of relevance for even the single player game. If the only viable single player strategy was to cut everything BUT military down to the bone and build as many soldiers as possible to beat the Titans then I’d say that was poor game balancing. I don’t think that will happen, but it’s the same sort of balancing some theoretical PVP mode would need.
Also to clarify, the ‘copy another player’s city and raid it’ mechanic IS in the game, per the stretch goals. The direct PVP is still question, though I agree that it’s likely to happen, someday.
Which is why i also said “, that is not saying they would have to be unison however.” And spoke of how we only used “trading/diplomacy” because that was how the discussion had been framed.
However with economy as it’s own development, there are some interesting prospects to be had, like a merchant’s guild, traders and even a global trading network (npc’s/virtual factions for singleplayer, other players for multiplayer.)
I know that PvC will be in the game, i may have written it wrong, but my intended meaning was that it would not be the only multiplayer mode. Not at release, and not post-release.
im starting to think that people are going to deep with all this o-o" not that advanced of a game, since this is starting to look more like a sid mayers game, or anno2070 exept with out the things that make those games fun. lets go back to what we wan’t. we want to game to be fair for everyone no mather what they do, simple reality diplomacy could be done even if you have a huge army. but the invasion part only works if you have one. religion could be there even if you are diplomatic or have a hughe army, just that it will cost you money to build giant churches to abit harder to have abig army with out any´money. my point is like in every game out there. the person who finds the balance will win the game. thats fair, this is not preschool kindergarden. everyone is not a winner! a weiner maybe but thats beside the point o-o
Yes, I believe we are going way to deep, not only for what Stonehearth has currently been outlined to be as a game, but also given we have never played it.
Put simply in the real world, Religion, Diplomacy, Military and Trade are not separate, they are all interlinked. The only issue should be the amount of time and resources you plan to spend on one at anyone time, meaning you are well versed in a particular one as opposed to the other 3. Or you could manage your resources into all 4 meaning slower but steady progress: eventually you should really be able to become well versed in all four so long as the resources are there. Of course this isn’t forgetting resources that need to be placed into domestic matters such as city management and feeding your people. Each should be able to dip in slightly with another (Military; big army, Religion; Warrior monks/Zealots Trade; smaller army made of elite units and mercenaries, Diplomacy; Alliances, Average army building, but can rely on allied support) and affect how other factions/cities see you, and have their own drawbacks. I.E having a large army may seem like your on top of everyone, but larger armies need food, and even more food when moving further away from home, limiting your logistical/resource capacity. So your neighbour may have a smaller army, but he is so far away that your city and what resources it has cannot fund such an endeavour. So now you must continue building up your city, regulating its people. During this time you could be hit by increased monster attacks, goblin raids pick up, resources are getting tied up trying to build better trade connections, weather impacts on harvest, demands from friends to help them. All sorts of things can happen, by which time you have decided building armies does not fit your situation so you stick it all into diplomacy.
I also hate the word ‘balance’ because when it comes to video games, that word means something very different from what it says in the dictionary.
This sounds like an over-simplification - perhaps I’m just reading your post too narrowly, so I’ll extrapolate on my thoughts. Within a given “tech tree” there is a lot of lateral movement. Ideally, you want a tech tree that is broad enough that within a given category you can pursue paths at either end of the ideological spectrum. There should be game mechanics that allow you to pursue an isolationist trade policy as well as making you a global marketeer. The player should make a conscious choice that he is pursuing a specific policy.
I brought up the game Alpha Centauri in another thread b/c it very cleanly separated the policies from the effects of those policies, much more so than other civ or civ-style games. When you talk about things being very inter-linked, I envision it where different policies from different branches of the tech trees both influence the same category of effect. For example, here’s a link to a google image search showing the different policies and how they can effect the same category. Sometimes your policies cancel each other out in one category but allow for a minor boost in another.
But as we’ve said at several points in this thread, most of what we think in terms of social policies and such tend to be geared towards kingdom or civilization management. Historically, video games focusing on a simcity style of city management have a far narrower scope for how city politics works.
That would be making things too complicated for this sort of game. Since it has so many other aspects going into tech trees and other ideas such as specific policies in how to run your city etc isn’t really what Stonehearth is aiming for. I suppose the only area where Stonehearth will even get close to that is by you as a player choosing what to build and why and that building/settlers particular impacts on your city and its story.
I think there is an overlying principal the team is following that addresses the concerns of the OP and several others here. Tom has stated several times in live-streams that they do not want to have a game that requires you to play a certain way. There will be no optimal builds, OP classes, etc. Case in point is magic. It has been stated that magic will be rare and dangerous. There will be risks to using it. This to me would imply that you could chose to play without it, avoiding those risks and be just as successful. This core concept will carry over into all the choices you need to make in the game. They want people to be able to succeed using many different play styles. I’m not sure if there will be a religious class in the game. I don’t remember it mentioned in any of the live-streams.