Axioms Of Dominion: A Civlization Building Game

[axiomsofdominion]

This is my current game dev project. Its more of an empire building game than a 4x or grand strategy game. Combat exists but is far less central than any game I've managed to get my hands on:
https://www.reddit.com/r/4Xgaming/comments/3fya8v/changing_expansion_gameplay_over_time_in_fantasy/

This is a reddit post I finally got around to making today about the early phase of the game. It includes links to permanent phase gameplay discussion as well.

Note that although I have no videos or screenshots in this post I do have a lot of work done. Currently I am redoing the code to allow for the tribal KoDP style gameplay. Also I'm having trouble syncing my audio, which was an issue with my last project. It had videos but no sound. It was a modification of the Glest Advanced Engine, an open source RTS engine, to support city builder gameplay and some other stuff. I dropped it because of this project, as I feel a turn based game is more suited to the kinds of games I want to play.

Why am I posting here? Well I knew about Explorminate from the r/4xgaming subreddit and I have been unable to find a community devoted explicitly to 4x, or similar genre, games. I post on a few sites under other names but they all discuss 4x stuff mainly as a side thing in some low traffic subforum. Reddit actually failed me. As noted below r/truegaming doesn't like game design stuff, r/gamedesign has little focus on 4x, and any strategy gaming subreddits have almost no activity. Actually even r/truegaming has 5 day old posts in the New tab.

Here is a link to the first post I ever made, on my blog I don't post on anymore since reddit is better:
http://axiomsofdominion.blogspot.com/2015/03/snowballing-map-painting-blobbing.html

Here is the money post, I mean literally, not figuratively, its about my payment model which both in this thread and on QT3 got called ridiculous and naive and liable to land me in the streets and the gutters:
https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/3el89q/indie_strategy_game_payment_methods/

Anyways I am pretty committed to trying to do some sort of donate if you spend time on the game payment system, but I am scared I won't make any money that way. Most people seemed to agree on that.

Here are some other posts on less central but still important aspects of gameplay:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedesign/comments/30khb2/technology_in_4xtbs_strategy_games_more_wide_more/
https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/39o9mu/4x_games_with_political_setbacks/
https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedesign/comments/30mq1f/gods_and_magic_in_political_simulation_games/
https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/2ye1ef/primarily_politicaldiplomatic_4x_game_style/

I was unable to find any posts I made about trade/economics, politics, and diplomacy in the cooperative sense. Unless it was in one of the above posts and I missed it.

Basically you can establish individual trade policies for nations, set up university and library exchanges, and all sorts of crap like that. Someday I'll write a detailed post about that.

Note that r/truegaming posts must be appropriately general or they will be deleted as offtopic, hence why r/4xgaming and r/gamedesign posts are far more my game centric. Sadly the readership in those subs is dismal compared to r/truegaming. And as far as I can tell there is no strategy gaming sub with more members than r/4gaming including r/realtimestrategy and r/tbs and r/strategygames.

I am considering writing up some other posts, assuming my walls of text don't KO any potential readers, as I can't seem to find a post I remember writing about diplomacy stuff.

Post topics I may do in the future:
Sentient forests trying to cover the world, demon invasions, etc, sorta like Stellaris is doing, really kinda sucked the wind out of my sails to see them announce this feature even if mine is actually more in depth than theirs.

Tons of diplomatic options for treaties. The treaty system encompasses all diplomacy basically, and is not limited to war. Can do things like trade tech or cash or provinces for provinces.

A more indepth explanation of the race/immortal creation system for the tribal phase of the game, sorta like dominions but with a lot more customization options.

Magic, magitech, technology stuff.

Long term vs short term tradeoffs and how innovators become the new conservatives in technology, economic policy, etc. and what this means for technology in the game.

How the game is going to be able to manage the rise and fall of dominant states without resorting to scripted disasters and silly and arbitrary restrictions on stuff, like the famous overextension in Paradox games.

[Tragic]

hmmm added to the "keep an eye on" list.

[Nasarog]

Welcome aboard. I tried to click on your reddit links, and none of them worked for me. You might need to fix something.

[BobbyBullets]

Yeah, none of the links work for some reason. Hard to tell what your project is about without them ;)

[w@ke_]

Thanks for posting, and welcome to the community! Looking forward to having a look at the links once they're fixed. It's always great to see creators who are willing to take things in a different direction than the established norm.

Originally posted by axiomsofdominion:

A more indepth explanation of the race/immortal creation system for the tribal phase of the game, sorta like dominions but with a lot more customization options.

It's like you wrote this sentence just for me! =)

[axiomsofdominion]

Apparently the reddit links got truncated somehow. That is rather irritating. Its resolved now.

[Nasarog]

Hmm, so your pricing model is interesting. We have a developer working on a game called Galaxia: Remember Tomorrow. Similar concept for an early itteration of his game as he learned to design and code along the way. Once he felt he ready, he networked and found a publisher as he prepares for a market release.

That might work for you, but it can't be your only source of income. But that's just my opinion.

[axiomsofdominion]

Originally posted by Nasarog:

Hmm, so your pricing model is interesting. We have a developer working on a game called Galaxia: Remember Tomorrow. Similar concept for an early itteration of his game as he learned to design and code along the way. Once he felt he ready, he networked and found a publisher as he prepares for a market release.

That might work for you, but it can't be your only source of income. But that's just my opinion.

Are you thinking most people just won't bother to pay even if they play the game a lot? Psychological research has shown that morals do tend to break down without any sort of enforcement mechanism but that was general populace research without much specific bearing on gaming. I am sort of curious to see whether hardcore 4x players would follow the same pattern for a product that, theoretically anyways, they would derive a lot of enjoyment from. Not sure if that curiosity outweighs my desire for a reasonable amount of compensation though.

[Nasarog]

Originally posted by axiomsofdominion:

Originally posted by Nasarog:

Hmm, so your pricing model is interesting. We have a developer working on a game called Galaxia: Remember Tomorrow. Similar concept for an early itteration of his game as he learned to design and code along the way. Once he felt he ready, he networked and found a publisher as he prepares for a market release.

That might work for you, but it can't be your only source of income. But that's just my opinion.

Are you thinking most people just won't bother to pay even if they play the game a lot? Psychological research has shown that morals do tend to break down without any sort of enforcement mechanism but that was general populace research without much specific bearing on gaming. I am sort of curious to see whether hardcore 4x players would follow the same pattern for a product that, theoretically anyways, they would derive a lot of enjoyment from. Not sure if that curiosity outweighs my desire for a reasonable amount of compensation though.

I can't speak for others, but if I get something like this for free, I look for ways to compensate the developer in some way.

I think it really depends on the state of the game. The dev I was talking about goes by the steam handle of ufnv. Talk to him, and see what he says, because his game has been out and for free in a late alpha state for years.

[axiomsofdominion]

Originally posted by Nasarog:

Originally posted by axiomsofdominion:

Are you thinking most people just won't bother to pay even if they play the game a lot? Psychological research has shown that morals do tend to break down without any sort of enforcement mechanism but that was general populace research without much specific bearing on gaming. I am sort of curious to see whether hardcore 4x players would follow the same pattern for a product that, theoretically anyways, they would derive a lot of enjoyment from. Not sure if that curiosity outweighs my desire for a reasonable amount of compensation though.

I can't speak for others, but if I get something like this for free, I look for ways to compensate the developer in some way.

I think it really depends on the state of the game. The dev I was talking about goes by the steam handle of ufnv. Talk to him, and see what he says, because his game has been out and for free in a late alpha state for years.

Anecdata is overrated, but I did read the article by the Proun guy. Most of the science of consumer studies suggests that my model is probably a failure. Basically having to make a new account, give out personal info, etc are all huge hurdles to purchase. And given the marketing power I have, none, only people already into 4x will hear of the game anyways, so the benefit to letting people try it for free is minimal.

I checked this stuff out last night, talking to a friend of mine in social and consumer sciences. He told me that although he agrees that intuitively such a consumer friendly model seems like a good strategy for new developers, its actually a total backfiring horror. Most of the research is in stuff like music or novels rather than games but it still applies. Actually, he told me it was worse for games because for other media you can release a short story or free single or movie trailer and that will allow people to have an accurate idea of your work, but in games you have to release actual stuff from the game you are trying to sell since even top studios have wildly varying quality. Which means demos basically, but the research on demos says they aren't very useful. They lack the moral appeal of paying based on how much you played the game, a demo for a 4x game is often more complex than a whole game in another genre so people can be satisfied with just a demo, etc.

He told me to just sell on Steam for 20$ based on the info I provided him on the game. Steam has its own internal pricing strategy as well, but he said the result would probably be 20$ based on looking at similar games. Although providing an alternate place to buy it for Steam haters would probably be good, too.

[Troy]

There's always gog.com too.

[axiomsofdominion]

Originally posted by Troy_Costisick:

There's always gog.com too.

True but GoG takes a cut pretty similar to Steam with far less going for it. Its userbase is comparatively tiny, its market reach is low. It is DRM free though.

[Aleksei.Volchok]

All the reddit links are dead. Is this a bad sign?

[BobbyBullets]

Originally posted by ilitarist:

All the reddit links are dead. Is this a bad sign?

He just left our group, too. Again.

[RayFowler]

As much as I like to blue-sky endlessly about game design and strategy, as a programmer I know that at the end of the day you have to show your work or stfu.

Like axioms, I have opinions about how things should be done, and I like the sometimes rough and tumble of internet discussions where you are occasionally called an idiot by someone who may or may not know more than you about the topic at hand. It makes you critically examine your opinion when you otherwise might not.

[Ail]

While this topic failed to spark any interest in the game, it had some interesting thoughts about distribution.

Here's what I would try if I was a dev like that:

I would first finish the game and then make a kickstarter to release it. The kickstarter-goal would be what I think my work on it is worth.

If the goal is fulfilled the game would be released for no further pay.

I would make youtube-videos about me playing it in order to show it off and get people interested.

An example of a similar release has been Kung-Fury.

I think it's a very fair pricing-model: Instead of trying to sell one "unit" of something that is a whole to each individual and thus trying to make the most profit, why not just sell the whole thing to everyone for what it's actually worth?