Imperial Galactic Conflict

After Galarchy, the galaxy can never be the same

As for games, as networking becomes more commonplace the next generation of computer games should leverage this high interconnectivity, creating extensible virtual spaces for people to interact and allowing them to determine the parameters of their own games. Creating an environment in which humans can play against each other also sidesteps the problem of creating a AI smart enough to give players a challenge. And with a slick trick of distributing the load across many computers, the complexity of the game can easily scale with the number of users, even to the hundreds of thousands.

Game Overview

For centuries the sole pacifying force in a hostile galaxy, the empire has long understood the necessity of superior military strength. Yet fleets are only as good as the leaders who command them, and one can win the battles but still lose the war. Cunning combatants, superior strategists, and deft diplomats are needed for a successful campaign; an emperor must be all these and more.

The Free Worlds have decreed a period of Galarchy. Numerous military officers vie for the purple and gold, each backed by a conclave of planets confident in their abilities. Imperial contenders must demonstrate their prowess over their opponents: by acquiring territories, defending their own region, and emerging victorious when contested. To rule the spaceways, an emperor must be born and bred on the battlefield.

And only one can sit on the Crystal Throne."

Combat

But the outcome of combat is not decided by War craft alone. There are other important military grades besides War: Information, Transport, and Platform. Information ships wage info-warfare, which ranges from jamming transmissions to outright controlling enemy vessels. Troop transports dock with large craft, bringing the fight to the crew. Platforms can perform much needed repairs on damaged ships, salvaging parts from the remnants of other vessels. Each grade has a unique function, and all are vital to a well run engagement.

Terrain also affects the course of war. On the large scale, galactic objects (like planets, stars, black holes, etc.) exert gravity wells and prevent the faster than light warp drives from functioning. They also physically obstruct movement and reconnaissance. On the smaller scale, the local terrain may introduce unique combat parameters. Ships fighting near a power station in close orbit around a star would take constant heat (= energy) damage during the combat. Fighting inside a nebula or gas giant entail a host of limitations: particle damage proportional to ship speed, reduced datawave, and energy weapons operating at half power.

Even open space presents its own difficulties, namely how to fight effectively in 3D. Ships rarely fight alone, but rather in conjunction with other forces and fleets. Ship formation and fleet coordination become increasingly more vital in large scale conflicts. Protecting that shuttle while it docks might require punching a hole through the enemy lines with one force while establishing a cylindrical protection corridor with another. The formation choice should be tailored to meet the desired objective.

The standard combat tactics become all the more devastating when they utilize these disparities. Picture several destroyers chasing down a fighter contingent around the arc of a small moon, to stumble into an ambush of battleships waiting on the far side. Or info ships cloaking the presence of a critical cargo vessel during a raid. Or a battered carrier using the gravity well of a black hole to slingshot away from the clutches of the enemy into the safety of its own forces. Or a light skirmish force engaging the enemy long enough to be flanked on three sides...

Strategy

Logistics is a major concern in any overall campaign strategy. On the simplest level, it involves directing fleets to where they will be most effective, when they are needed. But ships always need upkeep, and they require repairs after combat. The supply lines between producers and the fleet are crucial to maintaining operational effectiveness. An under-supplied front will be worn away by an equal strength but better stocked foe. Supply lines can be disrupted in many ways, and must be defended at all times.

Intelligence plays as crucial a role as logistics. Knowledge of the enemy is sporadic and unreliable at best, and any opportunity to acquire it should be pursued. Information grade craft should be used wisely and often, both in combat and out. In particular, datawave posts are the primary means of long-range reconnaissance, scanning space for ship movements, intercepting transmissions, and shielding friendly units from similar investigation. The Fortunes of War sometimes provide opportunities to learn more about the enemy, such as locating enemy Tachyon Relays, subverting enemy officers, etc.

Long term strategy should capitalize on these concerns. Plan your conquests wisely to prevent overextension; that factory might be easy to take but impossible to hold. Whittling down the enemy's supply lines weakens them over time; this is a good option against a superior foe. Learning the foes' troop movements allows for greater flexibility in your own. For example, if you learn that he is moving his main division to another front, you might attack his now weakened front, or perhaps relocate your ships as well, leaving a "peaceful" vacuum.

Diplomacy

It is always vital to maintain the goodwill of your supporting planets, and to protect them as much as possible. Razing planets, while it might be a sound military decision, is a poor diplomatic one; it is looked upon unfavorably by virtually the entire Imperium. Similarly, destroying civilian ships is frowned upon, even when warranted; plundering civilian sources is likewise looked upon with distaste. But if no one survives to tell the tale...

The Fortunes of War provide numerous opportunities to improve your standing as an imperial contender, or to set back your opponents. The extermination of those pirates raiding that trade route will increase trust in the merchant sector. Swift transport of medical supplies to quell that outbreak gains public favor. Answering a distress call might create a valuable proponent of your cause. Of course, these opportunities draw time and resources away from the military campaign (and might in themselves be ruses by the enemy) but they garner valuable diplomatic influence. This influence is eventually converted to production in the form of periodic campaign funding.

Equally important as your relationship with your producers is your relationship with the other contenders. Alliances and feuds often develop between contenders, and the deft manipulation of these biases might yield military gains more tangible than outright combat. Officer management on your own side is another factor. In the multi-player game yet another dimension is added to this, namely the interactions among players on your side. Coordinating efforts and matching skills creates a formidable campaign force, splitting the combined roles of combatant, strategist, and diplomat into more manageable sizes.

The galaxy is large and only sparsely populated by holdings under imperial influence. Other creatures, not always neutral in the player conflicts, also inhabit known space. These foreign powers range from primitive worlds to super-futuristic societies, from aggressive mercenaries to peaceful poets, from pirates to philanthropists. Furthermore, random galactic occurrences keep things lively, like travelling null spaces (in which warp drives do not work), supernovae, wandering space dragons, etc.

Guidelines

• 3D space combat on multiple fronts, from a bird's eye perspective. For those lacking powerhouse 3D graphics, there should be a fast iconic mode.
• Real Newtonian physics effects in free space. That means gravity, inertial speeds, acceleration effects, etc.
• Heavy emphasis on military tactics and strategy. Try to incorporate rudimentary elements of logistics, intelligence, objectives, formations, chain-of-command, etc.
• Networked multi-player fleet interaction, using a scalable architecture. We want hundreds (not dozens) of people playing in a galaxy simultaneously.
• A highly automated extensible interface paradigm. Simplified production, dynamic fleet organization, command scripting, visual layouts, etc.

• Technology advances. This is not Civilization! Research exists but does not effect gameplay on the time scale of campaigns.
• Production spirals. This is not Warlords! Acquiring planets eventually increases production, but "conquest cascades" should be prevented.
• High maintenance or colonization. This is not Master of Orion 2! The planets players are most interested in are the established territories on the Council of Worlds.
• Morale. This is not Close Combat! Ships are highly computerized, and crews are drawn from elite pools. Officers basically supplant the concept of morale.

Technology

• Warp Drives, which allow faster than light travel (though still finite speed)
• Jump Gates, which allow instantaneous transfer between two gates
• Tachyon Relays, which allow instantaneous communications
• Shields, which allow defenses against a variety of weapons

Think Long Term

To further extend the action the FoW should be slightly biased toward favoring the underdogs / hurting the person in the lead. That guarantees that two equally skilled opponents can battle for prolonged periods, and that only truly gifted generals can prevail against their foes.

Terminology

Crafts

Grade, Class, and Mark

Groups

Officers

Communications

Production

Territorial

New Generic Game Mechanisms

Dynamic Grouping And Designation

Proposed Solution: Allow dynamic allocation any set of items into a player determined and named groups (as well as group deletion, of course). Further allow a hierarchical structure, so that players can issue a single command at exactly the level they want to. If that level currently does not exist, they can dynamically create it.

This grouping mechanism will be employed not only in fleet command but also in regions, production, etc. Let's develop the idea by looking at fleets and ships in particular. Here's something like what I'm envisioning:

Example Ship Grouping

Fleet - A set of ships that must always be in physical proximity, i.e. they move in unison on the galaxy and tactical screens, as well as entering and leaving combat together. Fleets are disjoint and mandatory, though of course one expects their composition to change during the course of the game.

Collectively Fleet Groups and Ship Groups are called War Groups.

Notice the symmetry break between Fronts / Divisions and Fleets / Forces. This is because we expect that players will want more exacting control on the tactical and combat windows than on the galaxy window.

Any process of changing group characteristics is called a Group Operation. Typical group operations might include merging, splitting, deletion, joining, transfers, renaming, etc. The last (n) group operations on a mandatory group should be undoable, modulo losses taken to the group.

There should also be a mechanism to search through groups and their associated subgroups according to various criteria. These criteria include: damage, heaviest ships, fastest ships, highest defense, all Strike Forces, ½ Repair Forces, etc. In fact, I would envision that fleets and divisions would be reorganized automatically according to this mechanism, i.e.

1. Strike Force = Heaviest War Grade attackers in fleet, divided by standard weapon type
2. Defense Force = Heaviest War Grade defenders in fleet, divided by standard defense type
3. Main Force = Most of the remaining war grade ships + Task Force
4. Reserve Force = All Remaining War grade ships
5. Intel Force = All Information Grade ships
6. Cargo Force = All Transport Grade ship + Supply Line Force
7. Repair Force = All Platform Grade ships
8. Relief Force = New arrivals + Reinforcements
9. Transfer Force = Ships passing through this fleet / waiting to be transfered
10. Special Force = All remaining ships / player specified

Example Property Grouping

Territory - A set of holdings that must always be in physical proximity, i.e. they are contiguous on the galaxy and tactical screens. Territories are disjoint and mandatory, though of course one expects their composition to change during the course of the game.

Collectively Territory Groups and Holding Groups are called Property Groups.

Global Prioritized Production Queue

Proposed Solution(s): Refine how production orders are issued to decrease player involvement while retaining player control.

• Production Queues

Place a queue at each production point, whose elements are produced in order of entry (say FIFO). This decreases the average visitation time per queue to about 1/E[queue length] of the frequency needed for a "one at a time" production mechanism.
• Prioritized Queues

Have several priority designations for elements in the queue. Higher priority items are produced before lower priority, and within the same priority they are executed according to entry into the queue (say FIFO).
• Global Queues

Have a single queue represent the combined production of all producers (planets, asteroid mines, etc). This approach has numerous benefits, with the only major drawbacks being the loss of fine-grain control over individual producers and the necessary inclusion of location information into the queue. Considering that time is also wasted in ship movements, etc. I don't think most players will miss these abilities. (We could also have one queue per producer that is filled automatically but can be manually overridden.)

Extensible Prioritized Command Queues

Proposed Solution: Associate a LIFO prioritized command queue with each group. Further allow the dynamic creation of new commands from other commands, beginning with a standard set.

The standard set of commands would come in two distinct flavors. The first type are objective commands, like

• Attack, Assault, Destroy (the difference being acceptable casualties)
• Preserve, Guard, Protect (a similar distinction, but on your side!)
• Slow Move, Move, Fast Move
• Evasion, Withdraw, Retreat
• Scout, Patrol, etc.
• Ram, Self-destruct
• Radio Silence, Resume Frequency
• Need a whole host for boarders and information warfare

• Spearhead - try to break through an enemy "line"
• Ship Sphere - Arrange in an equidistant pattern around a given ship. Would be behind a sphere defense
• Ship Plane - Arrange in a planar scoop. Would be behind a plane defense
• Starburst - Vector outward from a point to a certain radius
• Spiral, Corkscrew, Snake, Dosey-do, etc.

A Command Example

Suddenly an attack comes the front, call them EF1. We issue the whole fleet (WF) the command
 

WF	<1> Assault EF1, Engage

What happens? SF1 moves forward to intercept the oncoming attack, but all other groups stay in position, since they have higher priority conflicting orders. The battle is about even between SF1 and EF1 until the whole fleet comes into range. Now the forward SF2 attacks, since it can execute both the commands <2> Guard TF and <1> Assault EF1 simultaneously. EF1 is pinned between the two forces and is slowly destroyed.

Whenever an objective is achieved the command is removed from the queue. Thus, after EF1's destruction, <1> Assault EF1 disappears, and SF1 automatically resumes its position behind the CS, because <1> Preserve TF is still in effect. A reissue of the command is unnecessary.

Now two different squadrons flank the CS and attack, call them EF2 and EF3. We then issue the commands
 

WF	<1> Assault EF2, Engage
SF1	<2> Assault EF3, Engage

We didn't issue the last command to all the ships because then both strike forces would attack EF3, the most recent equivalent priority conflicting order taking precedence. In this case SF1 will help fight against EF2 after dispatching EF3.

We might have also issued
 

WF	<2> Assault EF2, Engage
SF1	<2> Assault EF3, Engage

which would have a similar effect. The main difference would be if EF2 and EF3 drifted near each other, SF1 would divide its firepower among them, since it has equal priority commands. In the former case it would focus its efforts on EF3, ignoring EF2, since the attack order has higher precedence. There will be a strict hierarchy among commands, when ambiguities like this can exist.

Note that commands can be countermanded by a) the issuing officer or b) any commanding officer.

Scripting

All commands should be able to be countermanded, i.e. revoked midway during execution and consequently the group returns to its previous state. For the basic set of commands this should be quite easy to implement, but the scripting mechanism will have to be carefully constructed to allow a) the interruption of the script and b) the reverse countermanding of individual commands in the script (which might be scripts themselves).

The command scripts should also be able to take a variable number of inputs, which would depend on the script itself. For example, a script might say to move someplace, hold position for a length of time, and then engage an enemy group. This would need three sequential inputs: the nav destination, the hold time, and the target group. These should be entered when the script command is given. Note that a "prettification feature" would be to have customizable prompts for each input within the script, as well as custom messages relayed the notification log.

>> Examples of useful scripts. Reformation, movement, and attack.

Triggers and Conditionals

While I think this would add a fantastic dimension to the game, it might be too involved to code on this first pass, to say nothing of complicating gameplay. The germ of the trigger idea is retained, but in the form of communication triggers (discussed below).

Galarchy Specific Ideas

Officers and Rank

Officers can gain rank in four ways:

• Instruction. In the multi-player game this means training exercises. In the single player game, it also includes finishing The Imperial Academy battleset. Training maneuvers are most often used to raise R0 Ensigns to R1 2^nd Lieutenants, though it benefits all ranks. Only badges can be given for instruction.
• Time In Service. This is a gain in rank due to sheer game time played, modified by fleet size under a officers command. The time becomes factorially long between ranks, and is the slowest way to advance. Only simple citations can be given for time in service.
• Meritorious Service. This comes from the not only the successful execution of command missions but also actions above and beyond the call of duty in the Fortunes of War. Citations and medals are often granted for meritorious service. This is also the best way to gain experience.
• Imperial Succession. If the contender on your side becomes the Emperor, your personal commanding officer gains a medal as well as experience. At low ranks this is always sufficient to raise a rank, but at higher ranks multiple galaxies might need to be conquered.

Rank Chart

Officers in Gameplay

Officers staffing ships have several effects on gameplay. First and foremost, all War grade vessels have a desired rank, depending on their level of power. Any officer can run a ship, including the lowest rank "default Ensign" assumed present. Yet the vessel will perform better the higher the rank is above the ship rank, and worse the lower it is. Thus, while the player can build any ship at any time, it is only profitable when there are competent officers to staff it. Thus, officers should be assigned by order of contention to the most powerful ships in the fleet; there will be an automatic way of doing this. The ships staffed by the LO is called the flagship.

Furthermore, when the computer is controlling a combat each vessel fights at the level of its staff officer. In a flat out, no frills engagement between two equal forces, the side with the highest rank should win. (Of course, it is something of an open question how to make an AI sophisticated enough to do this; at this first pass I may just incorporate a bonus structure of some sort.)

Officers are susceptible to many things. They can be killed in battle, assassinated, kidnapped, captured, tortured, bribed, etc. They may also become inactive, periodically requesting vacation time, petitioning for leaves due to family emergencies, and occasionally retiring. Inactive officers form the Officer Reserve; those on duty are called the Active Service. Combined the Officer Reserve and the Active Service are called the Officer Pool.

The size of both the Officer Reserve and Active Service is limited by a subordinate constraint. Each leading officer can have no more than the sum of his scale in ranks beneath him at any one time (refer to this chart ). For example, a R5 Captain could lead at most (2) Cdrs, (4) LtCs, (8) SLts, and (16) FLts, in addition to an infinite number of Ensigns. The same number constraint applies to officers on inactive duty.

The imperial contender is a special character. The total Officer Pool is limited by his rank, and the rate of their "creation" is affected by his experience. This means that the quickest way to increase the Officer Pool is to consistently send the contender into combat. This carries the high risk of compromising the contender, but also the potential gain of more officers, and thus better ship performance in the fleet. (Note that the contender will always make it to a rescue skiff, even if his ship is unexpectedly destroyed. But if that skiff is fired upon...)

Several other game mechanisms are keyed to rank, such as available FoW scenarios, production, commands, etc. Each of these effects is described in the sections following. In particular, note the campaign backing linked to the IC under production.

Command Missions

A commanding officer may also be appointed to a war group to help him complete his objectives. An appointed CO must be superior to every officer within that group (not just their leader). An unappointed CO is free to commandeer the resources in the command of the superior CO which gave them their CM, though they can only issue orders to officers subordinate to them. The IC is consider a detached CO whose command is the entire side. Appointments are distinctly different from assignments. When assigned to a fleet an officer simply runs a vessel, and are otherwise useable at the discretion of their CO.

In network play, CMs will most often be given to other human players, with computer run officers forming the "leaf nodes". (Can the subordinate refuse? Perhaps we should have Change Mission requests...) I expect that Admirals to Captains will form the CO chain of command, with lesser ranks being auxiliary. Note that the successful completion of command objectives is the only way citations can be granted by superior officers to their subordinates.

Mission Reports

Reports fall into generic categories, which are described in terminology. They also have several characteristics of note. First, they can be classified to a certain rank, or unclassified. Classification is also used as a priority ordering for alerts. Second, reports can have attachments other than messages, such as films, etc. Mission Briefs typically have an attached film. Third, they can empower authorizations, which enable COs to issue specific types of orders. The two most important authorizations are appointments (enabling them to issue commands to a war group) and production limits (which give them a portion of the global production).

This latter deserves more explanation. Each CO can be given control of a portion of the total production by their CO (from the issuing officers portion). Thus, COs can individually manage their own fleets. This production limit is always stated as a percentage of total production, and can fluctuate depending on high-level reallocations. If a CO does not have any production, they cannot authorize production to a subordinate. These unauthorized officers must then issue production requests to have anything produced.

Several reports are automatically generated by the computer and sent to the appropriate people. For example, along with every final report of a CM, the computer appends a citation recommendation, based on the performance in completing mission objectives. Approval of these recommendations is the only way that citations can be granted. Similarly, the Fortunes of War offer opportunities to create new command missions, and these special missions allows the granting of medals.

Note that all communications contain location and tactical information, like point-of-origin, point-of-destination, etc. This means that an enemy who gets their hands on a report might have a significant strategic advantage, especially if it is from a covert operation... It also means that public transmissions are traceable. Be wary of taunting the enemy, unless he already knows where you are!

Priority and Triggers