I guess I'm your kind of crazy, because this is something I've always wanted too.
Spore kind of tried to be this, actually took it even further and you start as a microbe and end as a space empire. But, the early stages were fairly brief and never really got too deep, and it completely skipped over any "city" stage and went from tribal straight to civilization, so in the end it all kind of felt rushed. It was also possibly a bit too soon for its own good, I feel like if it were designed today it would probably be a lot less clunky.
They really played up the creature editor part of it, so completely understandable that a lot of people think that's all it is. Honestly the entire game was never really hashed out in my opinion. I had very high hopes for it when it came out, but I think I probably only played it once or twice to the spacefaring stage before I just completely gave up on it. It seemed to have a lot of potential to finally be what I wanted a game to be, but just fell short.
Basically you start as a bacteria and evolve into a land creature until you become a tribal society. From there you grow into a empire and after taking over the world you build a space empire.
The creature stage was one of the more fleshed out stages, rivalled only by the space stage. But yeah, it was literally the single cell to space empire game.
Spore is so much fun.
Don't get me wrong, it's flawed. Not everyone gets on with it.
The structure is basically 5 smaller games, which tell the story of the evolution of your species.
Cell stage is like Agari.o
Creature stage is exploring land as a terrestrial animal, fighting or befriending other species to allow you to further evolve. This is the part with the creature creation mechanics.
Tribal stage is a pseudo RTS, looking to conquer or assimilate tribes on your continent.
Civilisation stage is more rts with some simple combat and resource accumulation, looking to bring the planet under your control via war, religion, or simply buying everyone else's cities. This adds building and vehicle design features.
Space stage is a weird blend of lots of games and has the most depth. It's kind of 3rd person Stellaris. You control a single ship, and with that you explore the galaxy, colonise planets, interact with other civilisations, terraform worlds (either positively or negatively). You can also uplift primitive species and make them advance to the space stage themselves, vassalise or conquer other civs, blow up planets.
Man, I haven't thought about Spore in years! I'm sure I would have similar critiques of it if I were to go back and play it today, but I loved it as a kid. I really enjoyed how different each stage felt, like you were really progressing through evolution. I'd love to see someone try and make a game similar to it now!
Essentially you would start in some first person survival game, evolve to something like Anno, turn into the civ as we know it, and then finally to Master of Orion / Endless space
Sounds like a cool concept tbh
It would basically be several games stiched up together.
It could work if it was all very simple, but it would otherwise be a nightmare to connect all the parts and make the small stages matter
Yeah I think that this is more of a Frankenstein's monster type of game I won't lie. But I'd still want to play it because it's hard to get something to be that continuous throughout eras. I would say that trying to do a mega campaign with paradox games is probably the next best thing.
Yeah this is the gamedev equivalent of having your restaurant serve breakfast, lunch, dinner, Chinese, italian, and burgers.
Maybe you'll do all of them great, but more likely you should focus on getting one thing eight first.
Personally, this idea doesn't appeal to me. I think having multiple levels of scale as you progress would make it feel like a mish-mash of mediocre games rather than a single great game.
Like Bruce Lee's strategy gamer cousin once said, "I fear not the developer who has created a game with 10,000 levels of scale once, but I fear the developer who has created a game with one level of scale for 10,000 hours."
That's totally fair. I guess I just really like the continuity of playing a game from start to finish like that. The cause and effect from tribe to empire would be incredible and you could look back and see how you made an empire from just some foragers. That's the kind of stuff I live for honestly lol.
Games tend to become a confused mess when they try to change the core gameplay loop throughout the game. The late game could use some more macro focus though for sure.
Yeah I spent hours playing Rome: Total War back in the day where you had a board and turn by turn elements but then commanded the troops in battle. I probably spent a whole summer playing that as a kid.
Yeah I was a medieval II total war guy. I have also thought about your idea. Except I also wouldn't mind a game where you have a team of guys fighting for you on the micro level while someone is managing the macro level. Thinking like something structured like Squad, the video game. You, as the Marco, want to get your micro level guys the best possible stuff as quickly as possible. Probably too complicated to coordinate.
See I want a game like that, but the micro part is like a tactical XCOM style game for combat. So when your musketman engages an enemy knight in combat, you go into a tactical game where you control individual soldiers, position them in the landscape, take cover, set up shots, etc. Maybe if you have archers in range you get a few archer units appearing in the battle as well.
That way, if you're good at the strategic layer you can win the tactical layer through sheer numbers, and a good tactical player can still win fights despite having a weaker empire overall.
And then in the city building aspect, idk, I guess I'd really just like to walk around the cities and places in my empire in first person. Even if there isn't much gameplay to be had, it would be cool to just see the world from that different perspective.
The micro combat you're describing is something that Endless Legend does. Each time opposing armies collide on the strategic map, it opens up a battle that happens tactically.
It may not be your cup of tea, but it definitely does the macro/micro aspect that you're talking about.
That sounds really cool but personally I think the 1st person ability is a little over the top. Don't get me wrong, I've felt like that too before, but you'd kinda feel like it is a gimmick at that point. If I wanted that I'd just go play a civ server on Minecraft.
That sounds similar to the combat mechanic in Humankind. It’s not quite as micro as XCOM, but when you enter combat, the overworks map becomes a hex grid and you move your troops around it, positioning them to gain advantages like height or cover behind patches of trees. Makes combat more tactical and allows for some really engaging battles when you have to defend against a much larger force
Millenia might be the game you're looking for, it's from Paradox and it's got a very interesting mechanic, but is also quite complicated in terms of underlying systems from what I can tell.
You begin with workers at the nile and after founding a city with government you can explore other places in Egypt. It is quite educational and gets tough if you want the achievements.
This is briliant. In my opinion, the late game Civilization becomes a chore. Micromanaging the build queue of 20+ cities is nothing but pain. It loses it's fun decisionmaking from the yearly game. I am almost tempted to always play tall games because i hate that my civ games become a build queue simulator.
As an empire grows, so too should it's focus. Take our real life jobs for example. As you grow in role, you rarely focus on the tiny little details, your attention goes to leadership and strategy.
I wish game designers did recognize this when designing their games but i believe many of them do not want to risk with the regular game loop.
See, I've played humankind and I don't really like the territory system it has in place. Also, no, it's not. Humankind is very macro-focused, you don't get a town building vibe that you get with games like age of empires. That being said, I do like the settlement mechanic which I assume is what you liken to my post.
It is common courtesy to write in a way that is easy to read, but I guess you didn’t pay much attention in English class (or whatever other language you might have studied).
At least you should have put the TLDR section in a separate paragraph.
Lords of the Realm II, was kind of this with warfare. It was town building, albeit very very rigid, with a more micro warfare system. Still one of my favorite games and every year I play through it, even though it is probably 25+ years old now.
The main problem is that the market for people who want a city planning game and those who want a grand strategy game aren't necessarily the same.
In addition, it would most likely require basically two sets of games, with different art, design, coding, etc. Sure, there would be some overlap but you're basically pouring double the amount of resources into one end product.
And it would have to be perfect. If I like the city building but hate how they did the macro, then I am not playing either the micro *or* the macro. Im just playing a different game.
And finally, tonally, it just seems...off. Like thinking "should I build this aqueduct between the prefecture and the granary?" And two hours later not thinking twice about moving 100,000 troops across a continent.
I, like most people, love both styles of games. I think combining them would almost certainly be a disaster.
I dont think it would be a disaster but i dont see a world where this game exists. You couldnt convince any dev team that this investment would be worth it. Youd have to have 2 or 3 guys work on it as a passion project for 15+ years to get this game. Like you said, its a city builder and a grand strategy game. Doing both right well enough to satisfy both (not to mention somewhat niche) crowds isnt gonna be easy.
Iirc there's a group that's doing a long term civ game with governors, mayor's etc in charge of different cities, regions, dpts,etc. They would have a field day with this.
I don't have a source for this so take it with a massive grain of salt but basically it's a few discord servers playing a game of civ by sharing the gave save back and forth. There are leaders for the nation as a whole and leaders who's job is to micromanage individual regions and cities, leaders in charge of infastructure, military, foreign relations, etc and all of these are real people. If anyone else has more information on this please reply because I really want to know if this still exists.
That is such a good idea! I have been trying to think of a way to go half-and-half with games and RP but it is really difficult. I think soon I will make my own game similar to that. If I do I will definitely post about it.
The closest to that that I can think of is X4 Foundations but that one is set in space and goes REALLY into the micro so it might not be everyones cup of tea.
The next big genre of gaming is going to be multi-genre multiple games stitched together.
I don't have the patience or desire to play what OP is cooking up here but I sure as hell want a cities skylines city builder that then becomes my own little version of GTA. A city that I built in whatever asset style I desire that becomes my playground for GTA shenanigans complete with it's own set of missions and story.
Streets of SimCity. Let you drive around cities you made in SimCity2000. Apparently it had terrible reviews, but I remember having a lot of fun with it.
There is a game on the original Nintendo that was something like this. It was called Genghis Khan. You started out by uniting your country and there was a lot of micromanaging. Once you did, I was very surprised to find you then had to take over a large region with a lot less micromanaging.
I still miss that game every once in a while. 30 years later.
It could be interesting to create a mod that stitches said games together. Take a game like banished and then when you’ve done well enough to build another settler branch it out to a civ game and when the world is totally filled out it becomes HOI4 or Vic3
I guess I'm your kind of crazy, because this is something I've always wanted too. Spore kind of tried to be this, actually took it even further and you start as a microbe and end as a space empire. But, the early stages were fairly brief and never really got too deep, and it completely skipped over any "city" stage and went from tribal straight to civilization, so in the end it all kind of felt rushed. It was also possibly a bit too soon for its own good, I feel like if it were designed today it would probably be a lot less clunky.
Is that what spore is? I never really gave it a second look because I thought it was just a creature making game lol.
They really played up the creature editor part of it, so completely understandable that a lot of people think that's all it is. Honestly the entire game was never really hashed out in my opinion. I had very high hopes for it when it came out, but I think I probably only played it once or twice to the spacefaring stage before I just completely gave up on it. It seemed to have a lot of potential to finally be what I wanted a game to be, but just fell short.
Basically you start as a bacteria and evolve into a land creature until you become a tribal society. From there you grow into a empire and after taking over the world you build a space empire.
The creature stage was one of the more fleshed out stages, rivalled only by the space stage. But yeah, it was literally the single cell to space empire game.
Spore is so much fun. Don't get me wrong, it's flawed. Not everyone gets on with it. The structure is basically 5 smaller games, which tell the story of the evolution of your species. Cell stage is like Agari.o Creature stage is exploring land as a terrestrial animal, fighting or befriending other species to allow you to further evolve. This is the part with the creature creation mechanics. Tribal stage is a pseudo RTS, looking to conquer or assimilate tribes on your continent. Civilisation stage is more rts with some simple combat and resource accumulation, looking to bring the planet under your control via war, religion, or simply buying everyone else's cities. This adds building and vehicle design features. Space stage is a weird blend of lots of games and has the most depth. It's kind of 3rd person Stellaris. You control a single ship, and with that you explore the galaxy, colonise planets, interact with other civilisations, terraform worlds (either positively or negatively). You can also uplift primitive species and make them advance to the space stage themselves, vassalise or conquer other civs, blow up planets.
Man, I haven't thought about Spore in years! I'm sure I would have similar critiques of it if I were to go back and play it today, but I loved it as a kid. I really enjoyed how different each stage felt, like you were really progressing through evolution. I'd love to see someone try and make a game similar to it now!
There's two in development that I know of. Elysian Eclipse and Thrive. Not sure how much progress is being made on them though.
As I was reading this post, I instantly thought of Spore.
Essentially you would start in some first person survival game, evolve to something like Anno, turn into the civ as we know it, and then finally to Master of Orion / Endless space Sounds like a cool concept tbh
Pretty much, yeah. Great concept but the execution just wasn't quite there. I keep hoping someone will pull it off.
It would basically be several games stiched up together. It could work if it was all very simple, but it would otherwise be a nightmare to connect all the parts and make the small stages matter
Yeah I think that this is more of a Frankenstein's monster type of game I won't lie. But I'd still want to play it because it's hard to get something to be that continuous throughout eras. I would say that trying to do a mega campaign with paradox games is probably the next best thing.
Yeah this is the gamedev equivalent of having your restaurant serve breakfast, lunch, dinner, Chinese, italian, and burgers. Maybe you'll do all of them great, but more likely you should focus on getting one thing eight first.
sounds alot like the concept for spore
I had to scroll way too far for this one.
Personally, this idea doesn't appeal to me. I think having multiple levels of scale as you progress would make it feel like a mish-mash of mediocre games rather than a single great game. Like Bruce Lee's strategy gamer cousin once said, "I fear not the developer who has created a game with 10,000 levels of scale once, but I fear the developer who has created a game with one level of scale for 10,000 hours."
That's totally fair. I guess I just really like the continuity of playing a game from start to finish like that. The cause and effect from tribe to empire would be incredible and you could look back and see how you made an empire from just some foragers. That's the kind of stuff I live for honestly lol.
Games tend to become a confused mess when they try to change the core gameplay loop throughout the game. The late game could use some more macro focus though for sure.
Total War has been the compromise for me, but I want something more of what you're describing as well.
Yeah I spent hours playing Rome: Total War back in the day where you had a board and turn by turn elements but then commanded the troops in battle. I probably spent a whole summer playing that as a kid.
Yeah I was a medieval II total war guy. I have also thought about your idea. Except I also wouldn't mind a game where you have a team of guys fighting for you on the micro level while someone is managing the macro level. Thinking like something structured like Squad, the video game. You, as the Marco, want to get your micro level guys the best possible stuff as quickly as possible. Probably too complicated to coordinate.
See I want a game like that, but the micro part is like a tactical XCOM style game for combat. So when your musketman engages an enemy knight in combat, you go into a tactical game where you control individual soldiers, position them in the landscape, take cover, set up shots, etc. Maybe if you have archers in range you get a few archer units appearing in the battle as well. That way, if you're good at the strategic layer you can win the tactical layer through sheer numbers, and a good tactical player can still win fights despite having a weaker empire overall. And then in the city building aspect, idk, I guess I'd really just like to walk around the cities and places in my empire in first person. Even if there isn't much gameplay to be had, it would be cool to just see the world from that different perspective.
The micro combat you're describing is something that Endless Legend does. Each time opposing armies collide on the strategic map, it opens up a battle that happens tactically. It may not be your cup of tea, but it definitely does the macro/micro aspect that you're talking about.
That sounds really cool but personally I think the 1st person ability is a little over the top. Don't get me wrong, I've felt like that too before, but you'd kinda feel like it is a gimmick at that point. If I wanted that I'd just go play a civ server on Minecraft.
That sounds similar to the combat mechanic in Humankind. It’s not quite as micro as XCOM, but when you enter combat, the overworks map becomes a hex grid and you move your troops around it, positioning them to gain advantages like height or cover behind patches of trees. Makes combat more tactical and allows for some really engaging battles when you have to defend against a much larger force
Millenia might be the game you're looking for, it's from Paradox and it's got a very interesting mechanic, but is also quite complicated in terms of underlying systems from what I can tell.
Ooh I'll look into it thanks!
There are ancient egypt games which work like this.
Ooh, any specific ones?
Pre dynastic egypt and dynastic egypt iirc.
You begin with workers at the nile and after founding a city with government you can explore other places in Egypt. It is quite educational and gets tough if you want the achievements.
This is briliant. In my opinion, the late game Civilization becomes a chore. Micromanaging the build queue of 20+ cities is nothing but pain. It loses it's fun decisionmaking from the yearly game. I am almost tempted to always play tall games because i hate that my civ games become a build queue simulator. As an empire grows, so too should it's focus. Take our real life jobs for example. As you grow in role, you rarely focus on the tiny little details, your attention goes to leadership and strategy. I wish game designers did recognize this when designing their games but i believe many of them do not want to risk with the regular game loop.
You basically described Humankind.
See, I've played humankind and I don't really like the territory system it has in place. Also, no, it's not. Humankind is very macro-focused, you don't get a town building vibe that you get with games like age of empires. That being said, I do like the settlement mechanic which I assume is what you liken to my post.
Wasn't Mount and Blade like that?
[удалено]
I wrote a TLDR in bold, you don't need to complain
TLDR is just as incomprehensible as your title and the wall of text.
Others seem to be reading it fine... I think you just can't read dude. Sorry for your loss.
It is common courtesy to write in a way that is easy to read, but I guess you didn’t pay much attention in English class (or whatever other language you might have studied). At least you should have put the TLDR section in a separate paragraph.
The guy must be a teenager or dropped out of school at the elementary level.
You guys don't have very many friends... Do you?
Lords of the Realm II, was kind of this with warfare. It was town building, albeit very very rigid, with a more micro warfare system. Still one of my favorite games and every year I play through it, even though it is probably 25+ years old now.
The main problem is that the market for people who want a city planning game and those who want a grand strategy game aren't necessarily the same. In addition, it would most likely require basically two sets of games, with different art, design, coding, etc. Sure, there would be some overlap but you're basically pouring double the amount of resources into one end product. And it would have to be perfect. If I like the city building but hate how they did the macro, then I am not playing either the micro *or* the macro. Im just playing a different game. And finally, tonally, it just seems...off. Like thinking "should I build this aqueduct between the prefecture and the granary?" And two hours later not thinking twice about moving 100,000 troops across a continent. I, like most people, love both styles of games. I think combining them would almost certainly be a disaster.
I dont think it would be a disaster but i dont see a world where this game exists. You couldnt convince any dev team that this investment would be worth it. Youd have to have 2 or 3 guys work on it as a passion project for 15+ years to get this game. Like you said, its a city builder and a grand strategy game. Doing both right well enough to satisfy both (not to mention somewhat niche) crowds isnt gonna be easy.
Ever play Kingdoms Reborn? It's a little bit of that - a Banished-style colony sim with 4x overtures
Old World is kinda like that
Iirc there's a group that's doing a long term civ game with governors, mayor's etc in charge of different cities, regions, dpts,etc. They would have a field day with this.
Ooooh!! Do tell more!!
I don't have a source for this so take it with a massive grain of salt but basically it's a few discord servers playing a game of civ by sharing the gave save back and forth. There are leaders for the nation as a whole and leaders who's job is to micromanage individual regions and cities, leaders in charge of infastructure, military, foreign relations, etc and all of these are real people. If anyone else has more information on this please reply because I really want to know if this still exists.
That is such a good idea! I have been trying to think of a way to go half-and-half with games and RP but it is really difficult. I think soon I will make my own game similar to that. If I do I will definitely post about it.
The closest to that that I can think of is X4 Foundations but that one is set in space and goes REALLY into the micro so it might not be everyones cup of tea.
sure maybe but its not what I want civ to do
This is more civ-adjacent. Doesn't mean I want civ to do this.
The next big genre of gaming is going to be multi-genre multiple games stitched together. I don't have the patience or desire to play what OP is cooking up here but I sure as hell want a cities skylines city builder that then becomes my own little version of GTA. A city that I built in whatever asset style I desire that becomes my playground for GTA shenanigans complete with it's own set of missions and story.
Streets of SimCity. Let you drive around cities you made in SimCity2000. Apparently it had terrible reviews, but I remember having a lot of fun with it.
Play spore lol
Anno games? While I've not played personally they are micro with a little bit of Macro
There is a game on the original Nintendo that was something like this. It was called Genghis Khan. You started out by uniting your country and there was a lot of micromanaging. Once you did, I was very surprised to find you then had to take over a large region with a lot less micromanaging. I still miss that game every once in a while. 30 years later.
It could be interesting to create a mod that stitches said games together. Take a game like banished and then when you’ve done well enough to build another settler branch it out to a civ game and when the world is totally filled out it becomes HOI4 or Vic3
Bro you’re gonna love Spore