The problem of warfare and technology in 4x games

[tjhkkr]

In many ways, warfare would change only by weaponry employed and mode/speed of transit. You would never ever have a wide front like you had in WWII where men kept a front line [There might be monitor stations with longrange sensors and a group of reaction ships]. Battles would revolve around points of interest, and in the vastness of space, you could always bypass or try to outrun a string of patrol ships... It would be a different beast from anything we understand on the earth at the present time. So you would see tactics change by weapons and mode/speed of transport... not so much in the grand way it changed from Barbarians to Romans to 1800 to WWI to WW2 to hypothetical WWIII...

[Ilita]

To sum up, war hasn't change much from ancient times fronm politician's point of view. Especially when you count nuclear or gas weapon as a tool of politics. You just spend your mony and preay your generals are trustworthy and scientists are smart.

[OJsDad]

Great discussion.

1. I agree with Ashbery. The game engine in DW doesn't allow for tactics. First, you would need formations, which DW doesn't have. Then, you would need ships designed to fill a role within that formation. Fighting in DW is more of a free for all. I'm not sure that there is a fix for this in the current engine.

2. One thing that I've always thought would be neat, and is kind of reinforced in the Honor Harrington series, which I just started to read this year, is that not all technology is the same. While both sides may have level 1 shields, they do not always have the same abilities. One way to perhaps to model this in DW would be to randomize technology costs and effects of technology so that in a given game, the cost of researching a technology will cost different for each race, but effect that the technology gives will be random from race to race in each game. So a level 1 shield that has a base 100 stregth may be 105 stregth for race A, and 98 for race B.

[MadMcAl]

There are multiple possibilities to bring more strategy and/or tactic into a 4X-game.

1. Mode of FTL-Travel.
I never was a fan of a single way for faster than light. Imagine different modes of FTL, that are not race-specific like in SotS but can be independently researched. There you have the 2 different Warp-drives, the Hyper-drive, the Jump-drive, the Jump-points and Jump Gates.
Jump-points, natural occurring jump gates connecting 2 points with each other are for all instances simply there, without any need for research. But they have some distinct disadvantages. For one, the different jump points in a single system can be really far away from each other (several AU at the rule). Before you go through one for the first time you simply have no way to predict where you come out.
It may be in the radioactive heart of a recent supernova (instantly incinerating the probing ship) or near enough to a black hole that the ship is doomed, or it can come out directly besides a new garden eden.
This mode of FTL provides with logical frontiers. The jump points will be maximally fortified (at least the points to the outside of the own empire) and a mobile fleet will be placed in a conveniently placed position to form a fast response unit.
Wars will be assaulting jump points trying to break through. As soon as the break through is there the assailant can run rampant a long way until he runs into the next fortification. Very static, with high casualties on the attacker side.
And the first one who develops an jump-point independent FTL earns an huge advantage.
If now every FTL has similar pros and contras, and different development stages for every one of the 5 artificial FTLs that will be a huge dynamic in the later stages of the game.
If a hyper block prevents hyper drives from working, but a warp drive will work fine, but a warp disrupter will make the use of a warp drive a lethal gamble... well let play your fantay.

2. STL-drives
Yep, the good old slower than light...
Different ways of normal space drives bring similar exiting variants into the play. First, everybody will have the good old reaction drives as anybody else. Not very effective, but hey, its a start.
But later different ways of reaction-less drives with different pros and contras (for example the previously mentioned Honor Harrington Universe, where EVERYBODY uses the same method of reaction-less drive with the distinct disadvantage that it is visible on scanners from the other side of the system, and when somebody uses old style reaction thrusters she is able to so totally surprise the enemy that the whole battle is over in 20 seconds with a total annihilation of one force without firing a single shot, or when one empire develops a new, way slower but practically invisible reaction-less drive it can break through the absolutely strongest fleet in the galaxy unseen and destroy the whole orbital infrastructure with impunity) then what drive you build into your ships will make a strong difference. And of course what drive-types you are able to spend research money to.

3. Weapons vs. Armor and Shields-
Actually a surprisingly simple concept. Reactive Armor is designed specifically to counter the shaped charge effect of HEAT-rounds (High-Explosive-Anti-Tank) that where the normal tank weaponry in the seventies is virtually useless against KE-rounds.
Similar, how effective a normal LASER is (in relation to its power) depends mostly on its wavelength and the material it is supposed to destroy. For wavelength x (lets say a red laser) material y (a ceramic armor) is normal, 90% of the laser-energy is actually used to damage the armor, while material z (a different ceramic armor) is for this laser for all purposes a mirror, and only 2% of the energy are actually damaging the armor. The rest is reflected. For wavelength a (a blue laser) on the other hand the situation is nearly completely opposite. What armor and what laser should you use?
That will be much more complicated if you use electromagnetic shields. These are defined in their efficiency by the frequency (1/wavelength - I know, it is a bit more complicated, but with EM-shields and laser this is mostly irrelevant). So shields with frequency x are most efficient against lasers with wavelength 1/x, but nearly completely useless against lasers with the wavelenght 1/y. To make it worse, your own lasers have to pass through your own shields with as much energy left as possible.
By simply choosing the armor, the shield-frequency and the laser-frequency you have a staggering amount of tactic.
Now if you develop the shield and laser tech with variable frequencies you have a borg-like battle where every side tries to match the laser-frequency optimal to the enemy shield-frequency while setting the own shield to defend optimal. The side with the better (AKA faster) sensors, computers and frequency-control-circuits will win.
And all that will be much more interesting with weapon- and shield-technology that leaves the good old EM waves.
Phasers, Disruptors, coherent gravity and so on.
Again Shield technology x is virtually useless against weapon technology y, while practically impenetrable against weapon tech z.
And if different shield technologies are incompatible with each other (so you can't pack two different shield-techs on the same body) you have again a very interesting strategic chaos.
How you design your ships, and the mix of the different ship-types will be much much more important. So you will have missile destroyers, phaser-destroyers, disrupter-destroyers, grav-lance-destroyers, torpedo-destroyers and so on, and how you mix your fleets against what enemy will decide about victory or defeat.

And all that should be actually relatively easy to program an AI for, as the rules are well defined.
1. The AI decides its own preference of research.
2. The AI reacts to the observation of potential enemies by investing research to its specific weapon- and defense-mix.
3. The AI tries to hold its own mix secret. So spies will become much much more important.