Is there too much money in this game?

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: lancer

I'm guessing but I think that Elliot and Eric are taking the line that the last thing they want is the forums filling up with new players complaining that the game is too hard. It tends to frighten away potential customers. The, 'make it easy for them to play' approach is prevalent in many new games these days.

My difficulty with that statement, is that managing your economy is most difficult in the early stages of a game, and the difficulty decreases as the game progresses.

In most games, the reverse is true. Your beginning economy is relatively simple to manage, but as the game progresses, you're confronted with more guns v butter decisions. This method hooks the player onto the game, and reinforces their desire to continue.

That's my 2p anyhow.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: lancer

I'm guessing but I think that Elliot and Eric are taking the line that the last thing they want is the forums filling up with new players complaining that the game is too hard. It tends to frighten away potential customers. The, 'make it easy for them to play' approach is prevalent in many new games these days.

My difficulty with that statement, is that managing your economy is most difficult in the early stages of a game, and the difficulty decreases as the game progresses.

In most games, the reverse is true. Your beginning economy is relatively simple to manage, but as the game progresses, you're confronted with more guns v butter decisions. This method hooks the player onto the game, and reinforces their desire to continue.

That's my 2p anyhow.

Again this is subjective. I actually like DW the way it is economy wise, it is definately new player friendly. What I'd rather see is that the difficulty comes not from forcing players to scrape together their pennies or melt down every tea pot in the capitol to build a ship, but rather a more agressive AI that does get advantages in ship design (IE like a 25% size bonus, etc). I could deal with a more complex economy (after all I am a WiTP:AE JFB), but I have a feeling most players do not want to spend their entire game babysitting the economy...it is tedious, not fun. What is fun is actually going out and putting a smack down on some over-sized insects. [;)]

All that said, putting an economy difficulty slider in might be a better solution...economy ranging from simple to complex.

[Beag]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz
My difficulty with that statement, is that managing your economy is most difficult in the early stages of a game, and the difficulty decreases as the game progresses.

In most games, the reverse is true. Your beginning economy is relatively simple to manage, but as the game progresses, you're confronted with more guns v butter decisions. This method hooks the player onto the game, and reinforces their desire to continue.

Give an example then, because from my experience every single game has a snowball effect eventually.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Beag

Give an example then, because from my experience every single game has a snowball effect eventually.

What exactly do you want an example of?

I never said that any system was perfect. I merely stated that most strategy games have increasing costs associated with growth. If you want the more advanced units, you'll need to invest in more advanced , expensive and time consuming buildings. If you want to develop your most economically productive places, you'll need to invest in greater infrastructure.

Take a look at the Total War series - more advanced (and expensive) units require more advanced (and expensive) buildings to make them - so as a player, you need to invest in those buildings - and you can't just do it in the safely isolated corners of your empire, as damaged units will need locations with those buildings. So unless you want to march your troops from your far flung battles back to those places with those buildings, you'll need to invest in those structures closer to your front - or fight to take those locations from your enemies. And hold them for long enough to replace your losses. Oh, and if it's a city - you'll need to garrison it for a while, as the conquered populace won't hesitate to rebel if you immediately march from the captured city.

But in DW, there is no restriction. You want to build your super advanced ship, armed with the latest array of kill-o-zap guns, you build it anywhere. Even the space port you built back in the days when your empire was using Maxos blasters. That'll do - all you need are freighters to bring in the raw materials. Let's say you've invaded your opponent's colony - you pick up your troops and invade the next world - rinse and repeat till war weariness is a problem. Take his peace - then immediately declare war on him again, and finish the job. No garrisons are required. Nothing to stop you from rolling your opponent up like a carpet.

Does this say that the Total War series is perfect? No - there are exploits and imbalances as in any game. But the difference between DW and TW, is that TW has those mechanisms in place and they work reasonably well. DW does not. TW and other games mitigate the "snowball effect" you refer to. DW does not.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Shark7
I actually like DW the way it is economy wise, it is definately new player friendly. What I'd rather see is that the difficulty comes not from forcing players to scrape together their pennies or melt down every tea pot in the capitol to build a ship...

I think you misunderstood me. My position is not that managing one's economy is too easy at the start. I challenge you to find any instance where I stated that. I did not.

My position is that it becomes easier as the game progresses. That, in my mind, is bad for the game. Challenge should increase as you progress through a game, not decrease.

[MartialDoctor]

I agree with Kayoz on a lot of his points.

And the game does become easier as time progresses.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: Shark7
I actually like DW the way it is economy wise, it is definately new player friendly. What I'd rather see is that the difficulty comes not from forcing players to scrape together their pennies or melt down every tea pot in the capitol to build a ship...

I think you misunderstood me. My position is not that managing one's economy is too easy at the start. I challenge you to find any instance where I stated that. I did not.

My position is that it becomes easier as the game progresses. That, in my mind, is bad for the game. Challenge should increase as you progress through a game, not decrease.

I did not misunderstand you. That wasn't even what I was talking about. What is subjective is the perceived level of difficulty...to you, DW may be insanely easy. To a more casual player it may be just right. [;)]

Let me see if I can make it more clear...I like the economy in DW as it is because at no point does it make managing the economy a tedious, time consuming and overly complex task that can end the game if mistakes are made. That makes it very friendly to novice, casual and new players. Games that skew the economy too far in the direction of making the game more difficult (IE making up for AI short-comings by crippling the players resources) annoy me...those games are also very unfriendly to your basic casual or new player. Remember the majority of players will never frequent these forums and will be your more casual type...they want something fun, not frustrating.

My argument is find another way to make the game more challenging without making the economy aspect the main focus of game difficulty. IE a player should never be in a position that they can't win because the economy mechanic crippled him.

If Elliot does want to increase the economy challenge, it should be done as a slider so that players can choose the right difficulty for them.

[jpwrunyan]

First of all, I am posting from the tiny tiny screen of my crappy iphone 3G so articulation is secondary to expostulation. You peeps are lucky when I employ punctuation! Thank me. I'll wait.

Ok. Youre welcome.

The first time I played dw with all the default settings I won. Easy difficulty exists for that purpose. The point I and others are making is essentially ALL the difficulty settings are too easy. For a challenge you have to handicap yourself and not "exploit" game features that were obviously put there for you to use. The existence of an option is evidence that it was meant to be used and is all a clear indication of how the devs intended the game to be played.

That said, I sympathize with those saying they prefer not to use certain tools provided by the game to make it more challenging. I do that too. Albeit reluctantly. But this as well as modding should not be conflated with a solution to the underlaying problem which is one of default game challenge.

Tl;dr I beat MOO2 impossible without creative OR repulsive. Which in the end is the only true measure of a man.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Shark7
Let me see if I can make it more clear...I like the economy in DW as it is because at no point does it make managing the economy a tedious, time consuming and overly complex task that can end the game if mistakes are made.

I agree with you - DW is different from many games in that the economy is largely abstracted. You can't control your economy, but you can give it nudges. For example, you don't have tedious micro-management like shuffling population around every turn (Armada 2526). Nor do you have to worry about which order of buildings to construct (MOO2, etc). All you can do is explore to find resources (esp luxury) and build mining stations - and the rest is out of your hands. This is good, and I quite like it - kind of like how POTUS can't MAKE the economy improve, but he CAN nudge things along with tax changes, trade treaties - and of course stomping on countries that have resources his country wants (a la Iraq).

But I disagree that to address the economic problem(s) requires tedious, time consuming and overly complex mechanisms. A bit of imagination and innovation can have this happen without the player having to constantly baby-sit his economy. Look at the corruption mechanism. It seems to be intended such that the more spread out your empire, the less efficient it becomes - but it doesn't have that effect - or more accurately, so little that it is inconsequential. If it scaled to the relative prosperity of your empire (richer = more corruption) as well as distance,then it might be improved.

How Elliot can address it is only limited by his imagination and his coding ability. Resorting to the mechanisms of other games may not work - but that is by no means any indication that it cannot be done.

ORIGINAL: Shark7
My argument is find another way to make the game more challenging without making the economy aspect the main focus of game difficulty. IE a player should never be in a position that they can't win because the economy mechanic crippled him.

I never suggested that Elliot should adopt the tedious mechanisms you refer to. I brought them up as an example of other game developer's conscious decision to tie economic output and infrastructure costs - bigger, more advanced you are, the more expensive expansion becomes. Beag didn't seem to understand that these mechanisms exist in other games, but are absent/ineffective in DW.

How Elliot goes about implementing his own mechanisms to achieve this end, however, is in his hands. I'm sure he can think of something. And if not, he can post a request on the forums and tap into the community for inspiration.

ORIGINAL: Shark7
If Elliot does want to increase the economy challenge, it should be done as a slider so that players can choose the right difficulty for them.

Yes, a slider would be nice. Difficult to implement so it actually works. But it would be nice.

But first you need a mechanism (or more likely, a combination of multiple mechanisms) for the slider to control. Nerfing resources in the galaxy seems to me to be a an overly simplistic solution and I doubt it's the panacea.

Once again - how Elliot addresses it is irrelevant. That he does is relevant.

[Beag]

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: Beag

Give an example then, because from my experience every single game has a snowball effect eventually.

What exactly do you want an example of?

I never said that any system was perfect. I merely stated that most strategy games have increasing costs associated with growth. If you want the more advanced units, you'll need to invest in more advanced , expensive and time consuming buildings. If you want to develop your most economically productive places, you'll need to invest in greater infrastructure.

Does this say that the Total War series is perfect? No - there are exploits and imbalances as in any game. But the difference between DW and TW, is that TW has those mechanisms in place and they work reasonably well. DW does not. TW and other games mitigate the "snowball effect" you refer to. DW does not.

You´re kidding right? You are talking about the Rome: Total War where you could build 10 pretorians each turn after you conquered whole Italy? Or the Empire Total war where you could build 10 grenadiers every turn after facing dozens of stupid wars that happened just because you bordered an AI? THAT Total War? Either you didn´t play those games or you´re trolling. Obviously mods improved both games a lot, and Napoleon is much better, but the fact is that in standard Total War games having half the map = game won. Stop saying that the difficulty was symetrical during the whole game because it wasn´t. Also funny that you say the developer should adress it yet doesn´t say HOW. If it´s that easy, then how come you don´t have any solid ideas to improve it? Guess it´s not that easy huh? You remind me of that people that say that something should be done to create jobs in the US, or to solve the Euro crisis, yet can´t add any solution. Whining is easy, anyone can do it.

As for beating MOO 2 with harder races/traits, the name says its all: harder. NOT impossible. Eventually it reached the same point as well with absurds amounts of cash and nowhere to spend it. Only difference is that with psilons/klackons people usually reached that point much earlier than with, say, sakkras or silicoids. Same here in DW, playing Zenox with technocracy is ridiculously easier than playing a despotism with an insectoid race.

So the point isn´t making the difficulty symetrical since that is impossible, but making the game more difficult until the point that the player is unstopabble, because that point WILL be reached. Does DW accomplish that? Almost. What the AI needs is better intelligence use and possibly a bias against player-controlled civilization (and that means unfortunatedly that it might need some help/cheats). Other than that, perhaps removing gamey options like trading galactic maps for cash or making reputation and size of the empire more meaningful.

[Cauldyth]

ORIGINAL: Beag
What the AI needs is better intelligence use and possibly a bias against player-controlled civilization (and that means unfortunatedly that it might need some help/cheats).

If by bias against player-controlled civilizations you mean bonuses, then fine. But if you mean having the AI treat the player differently than the other AIs diplomatically, then I have to say I really hate when games do that. Maybe DW already does that behind the scenes, but it doesn't give the impression of doing that, which is the important part. When games like Civ increase the difficulty by having the AIs just constantly declare war on the human player, that's a game killer for me. Drives me up the wall.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Beag
You are talking about the Rome: Total War where...

Rome was their worst game of the series, followed closely by Empire.

But you seem to have missed the explicit reference to TW as having mechanisms such that as you get bigger, so do your expenses. You missed the point that it's the expansion control mechanism which is important, not its implementation. Whether or not it works perfectly is irrelevant - it's that they saw the necessity of trying to implement a mechanism and DW doesn't (or rather, it's sole mechanism, corruption, has a negligible effect) - is the point.

ORIGINAL: Beag
Stop saying that the difficulty was symetrical during the whole game because it wasn´t.

Can you READ ENGLISH? I never wrote that. Stop inspecting your colon, and READ THE POST.

ORIGINAL: Beag
Also funny that you say the developer should adress it yet doesn´t say HOW.

You're easily amused, then.

It's Elliot's game, it's his vision, it's up to him to sort out how to address imbalances. If he wants ideas, he'll ask. To tell him what or how he should do things is arrogant and presumptuous. But you probably never thought of that, did you?

ORIGINAL: Beag
If it´s that easy, then how come you don´t have any solid ideas to improve it?

You really can't read, can you? Link to the message where I said it was easy. Go on.

ORIGINAL: Beag
Whining is easy, anyone can do it.

So is reading, but clearly it's beyond your mental abilities.

ORIGINAL: Beag
So the point isn´t making the difficulty symetrical since that is impossible

Where do you get your ideas from? I certainly never proposed that. Do you hear voices in your head? Since I never wrote that nor implied that, your voices are the most likely source I can think of.

I proposed quite the opposite - that it should get HARDER as you progress through the game, not easier. But as I noted, reading comprehension doesn't seem to be your strong suit.

ORIGINAL: Beag
... but making the game more difficult until the point that the player is unstopabble, because that point WILL be reached.

Yes, that's called "you've won the game. Congratulations." - that's why almost every game has victory conditions. You meet them, you've won. With DW, as you progress closer to that point, the game - or rather the economic aspect of it - becomes easier, not harder - seems the standard position in this thread.

ORIGINAL: Beag
What the AI needs is better intelligence use and possibly a bias against player-controlled civilization (and that means unfortunatedly that it might need some help/cheats).

The title of this thread is "Is there too much money in this game?" - not "does the AI suck", or "is trading tech/maps/etc an exploit?". Those are outside the scope of this thread and should be addressed elsewhere. But perhaps as you didn't understand what I explicitly wrote in my posts, and you probably missed the whole point of this thread.

I suggest you stop and READ posts before commenting on them. Read what's written, not what you want to see.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Beag

ORIGINAL: Kayoz

ORIGINAL: Beag

Give an example then, because from my experience every single game has a snowball effect eventually.

What exactly do you want an example of?

I never said that any system was perfect. I merely stated that most strategy games have increasing costs associated with growth. If you want the more advanced units, you'll need to invest in more advanced , expensive and time consuming buildings. If you want to develop your most economically productive places, you'll need to invest in greater infrastructure.

Does this say that the Total War series is perfect? No - there are exploits and imbalances as in any game. But the difference between DW and TW, is that TW has those mechanisms in place and they work reasonably well. DW does not. TW and other games mitigate the "snowball effect" you refer to. DW does not.

You´re kidding right? You are talking about the Rome: Total War where you could build 10 pretorians each turn after you conquered whole Italy? Or the Empire Total war where you could build 10 grenadiers every turn after facing dozens of stupid wars that happened just because you bordered an AI? THAT Total War? Either you didn´t play those games or you´re trolling. Obviously mods improved both games a lot, and Napoleon is much better, but the fact is that in standard Total War games having half the map = game won. Stop saying that the difficulty was symetrical during the whole game because it wasn´t. Also funny that you say the developer should adress it yet doesn´t say HOW. If it´s that easy, then how come you don´t have any solid ideas to improve it? Guess it´s not that easy huh? You remind me of that people that say that something should be done to create jobs in the US, or to solve the Euro crisis, yet can´t add any solution. Whining is easy, anyone can do it.

As for beating MOO 2 with harder races/traits, the name says its all: harder. NOT impossible. Eventually it reached the same point as well with absurds amounts of cash and nowhere to spend it. Only difference is that with psilons/klackons people usually reached that point much earlier than with, say, sakkras or silicoids. Same here in DW, playing Zenox with technocracy is ridiculously easier than playing a despotism with an insectoid race.

So the point isn´t making the difficulty symetrical since that is impossible, but making the game more difficult until the point that the player is unstopabble, because that point WILL be reached. Does DW accomplish that? Almost. What the AI needs is better intelligence use and possibly a bias against player-controlled civilization (and that means unfortunatedly that it might need some help/cheats). Other than that, perhaps removing gamey options like trading galactic maps for cash or making reputation and size of the empire more meaningful.

That's pretty much it. In all these games you always reach some point where you have more money than you can use. Its from the lack off effective money sinks. The problem is balancing it so that there is a money sink that doesn't completely sink the players empire. There should never come a point where you can't expand due to the money sinks.

There is a better way to do this I think...by using racial/universal events.

Example: An extrememly virulent plague has broken out on one of your planets. Your advisor infoms you that the only choice to combat the plague is to sink every spare credit into research of the virus. For a period of X game time, income could be reduced to zero...or even have cash on hand reduced by X% at the time of the event.

The main thing is that it is a short term sink that is storyline based...the AI would be immune to these events, thus increasing the players difficulty without it being a constant strain on the economy. You could even give the player some choice in the matter, with a pop-up box with options (and their consequenses). for example in the above situation you are given these options:

Spend the money (reduces money, increase happiness when cure is found)
Do nothing (costs nothing, population will decline, chance of revolt high)
Bombard the planet (solves the immediate problem, leads to empire wide unhappiness, loss of reputation, possible empire wide revolts)

Another example would be a natural disaster story event that requires you to allocate X% of cash on hand to rescue/rebuild as one of the choices.

Another story event: We are concerned with the considerable number of poor among the populace. Perhaps we could implement a social safety net to assist the poorest of our society at a cost of X credits per year?

Etc, etc.

[Litjan]

I still don´t understand why so many people have a problem with winning the game? If you make so much money that you can buy whatever you want, you have won. Why add "mysterious" events that take your money away?

It´s like saying: Once you have more colonies than the second up your colonies will start disappearing into random wormholes. This is to not give you an unfair advantage. Avoid that by not colonizing too much. Oh, and don´t make too much money, because that will cause "sudden corruption" to make the game more challenging. And once your navy is stronger than your enemies, 25% of the ships will self destruct. This is all to make the game more challenging. Duh.

The AI needs to learn to keep up or even excel to make the game harder. Adding gamey mechanisms to hobble the human player is just gamey.


Jan

[Beag]

Great way to make anyone take you seriosuly kayoz. Like to see how you like to call people´s names yet you don´t give a single intelligent idea for the game. Maybe because you can´t. "Game should become harder later blah blah". Give ideas then. It´s obvious that if the player accumulates huge ammounts of money it´s because the AI it´s easy and the player doesn´t have to spend all the time. You don´t see a competitive game of Starcraft where people have 20k minerals in stock.

I for one won´t answer your posts anymore. And consider yourself reported. I don´t hear voices, but you certainly need some anger management. Or anti-depressants. Or sex.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Beag
...like to call people´s names

My retort to your comments were not argumentum ad hominem. The foundation of my comments is this: you do not comprehend, or are incapable of comprehending, what is written.

ORIGINAL: Beag
You don´t see a competitive game of Starcraft where people have 20k minerals in stock.

Starcraft is a tactical game, not a strategy game. You might as well compare DW to Mortal Combat, for all the relevance it would have.

Though my labeling of Starcraft as tactical is probably a categorization that some will disagree with - my point - for the benefit of your reading difficulties is this: Starcraft takes place on a single battlefield. Starcraft has no mechanism attaching maintenance costs to units created (a la zerg-rush). The economy of Starcraft is "collect more resources, build more units" - there is no "guns v butter" or indeed "guns v butter v research" balance to consider in Starcraft. Starcraft is not a relevant comparison to DW.

[Beag]

ORIGINAL: Philo

Usually 4x games revolve around balancing your expansion with money. But this game, the flow of money is almost infinite. And colonizing planets doesn't hurt your economy at all. My biggest gripe with the game at the moment.
Your thoughts?

That was the OP to this thread. The title of the thread is: Is there too much money in this game?

Did you read it? Because so far none of your posts was about those themes. All you did so far was insult other people and use a ridiculous holier-than-thou attitude, even putting the dictionary description of intent as if we were all retarded 5 year olds.

It´s no wonder why this forum is so quiet - considering one of the most active members is an obnoxious troll, it´s really difficult to have the desire to visit here. Isn´t there moderators in these forums? And it´s a forum about a game - what was the intent of the developer really doesn´t matter, we are discussing OUR opinion. We paid for the game, if we are unsatisfied with an aspect of it, such as the OP posted, we bring sugestions and discuss the game. That´s what normal people do in forums. Aparently you aren´t very normal.

Good night kid.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: Beag
Did you read it? Because so far none of your posts was about those themes.

Once again, with feeling this time - READ BEFORE YOU COMMENT. Clearly you haven't read - or failed to comprehend - my posts.

ORIGINAL: Beag
...even putting the dictionary description of intent as if we were all retarded 5 year olds.

There are entire books written on intent and it's interpretation. Take a trip down to the university library, and ask the librarian for books on "intent". Stating that something "was intended" is dangerous and easily challenged - and that claim shouldn't be made without supporting evidence - interviews, blog, posts or such. As Elliot has no blog, few non-technical forum posts, and precious few interviews, his intent is unclear.

Also, I challenged Shark7 on his use of "as intended" as opposed to "as designed". Intent we can't guess at. Design, we can.

ORIGINAL: Beag
It´s no wonder why this forum is so quiet - considering one of the most active members is an obnoxious troll

Take it up with Data. I can't speak for him.

ORIGINAL: Beag
Isn´t there moderators in these forums?

Plural. "Aren't". Once again, you demonstrate your command of the written word.

Yes, the forums are moderated. Moderators don't step in unless things get out of hand. People use colourful language - but so long as the discussion is on topic and the material isn't offensive, religious or political - they generally don't intervene. Admittedly I probably should be more polite - but whether or not I'm required to, is a different matter. Big words, I know - so you should consult a dictionary before replying.

I don't think I'd want a nanny watching the forums; censoring comments or banning users because the moderator doesn't like what's written. But apparently you do. I suggest you seek out those sorts of forums.

ORIGINAL: Beag
Aparently you aren´t very normal.

If you are what passes for "normal", then I thank my lucky stars for that.

[jpwrunyan]

In the above inferno I think I detected some debate about whether the money issues in the game should be addressed with new mechanics. If so, let me strongly assert that this is not necessary. Increases to maintenance cost and corruption coupled with decreases un resource percentages and mining rates would go a long way to eliminating mid-game excesses.

An example of what type of decision I want to see in the game: normally I would never build a mining station on a word with 1% resource but I really must have polymer now so I build a base there. My econ goes into the red. I watch anxiously for my colony ship to finish as my constructor ship idles, there being no spare cash for new mining stations unless I scrap another. I could scrap some ships but I need that fleet to deter pirates and gizureans who have a 15 ship fleet already on my border. I could raise my taxes but then I risk a rebellion which will require more troops than my threadbare military has and that will further drive expenses into the red.

The above situation NEVER arrises mid game. For one thing because maintenance costs are never that high and resources never that scarce. Note that sometimes resources arent available but that is a different problem. When they are available they are plentiful. I think some changes to the game parameters are all that is needed. No changes to the game mechanics.

[Kayoz]

ORIGINAL: jpwrunyan
Increases to maintenance cost and corruption coupled with decreases un resource percentages and mining rates would go a long way to eliminating mid-game excesses.

Would this be an interpretation of your suggestion?

1. corruption reduces tax 2. corruption reduces mining efficiency 3. corruption reduces growth rates and/or happiness 4. corruption is based on: [ul] a) distance from capital or closest regional capital b) relative prosperity (compared to galaxy average (excluding Guardians)) c) relative resource stockpiles

5. corruption is calculated at fixed time periods, for each star system. That is, building a regional capital facility will not have an immediate effect. Reduces CPU load and encourages player to plan ahead.
6. Computer controlled factions would suffer from reduced calculated corruption rates.[/ul]

So, you can mitigate corruption effects by focusing on resources closer to your capital (or regional capitals). Also, having a large, spread out but thinly populated empire will have much higher corruption rates than a smaller, more densely populated one.

I'm not sure that I agree with increasing maintenance costs across the board. Perhaps having maintenance costs relative to the ship's distance from a controlled port would work better. Send your fleet across the galaxy, and expect to pay through the nose to maintain it - compared to the maintenance costs when it's in a system with a space port (that you control - or perhaps of an ally). A further maintenance increase for being in enemy (at war) territory might work. But this might be too CPU intensive...