Idea Info Name: The War for Infinity Index: Primary Category: Online Submitted: 9/30/2003 9:46:56 PM Written By: mandrill

The Premise:
 Humanity left Earth millennia ago in the spirit of exploration and discovery. The innocence of those days has gone, to be replaced by greed and fear.  Far from the infinite resources and space promised in the early days, space has offered only hardship and trials. Every rock is disputed, every dust cloud fought over and every planet conquered and re-conquered.
 Players of the game are leaders, emperors and politicians they dictate the path their factions of humanity take through the universe. Will they be ruthless conquerors, sly diplomats or the great leaders who can reunite humanity?

The Game:
 
 The Universe:
 The game universe would comprise of battlegrounds generated randomly using parameters set up by preceding play. For example If a player wanted to conquer another players planetary system The battleground will be just that with moons, planets and other features relevant to a solar system. Battlegrounds may even be set on a planets surface. The major features of the battleground would be preset with only the details being randomised. These battle grounds would only be generated when battles occur and so there would not be the need for an expensive to maintain permanent graphical representation of the game universe. Between battles players can engage in diplomacy, trade and espionage with and/or against other players factions. The facility for doing this would be not unlike a chat client although it would obviously have a customised interface for presenting information about your factions strengths and abilities. It would also allow you to control various options regarding diplomacy, resource management and espionage. Choices made here have strategic effect on fleet and surface battles. A spy may inform the player of forces massing in a certain system or diplomacy may remove the need for a battle altogether. Politics,  trade and diplomacy will be major tools of the player and if used with skill can sway battles for and against them. Even if a player does succeed in uniting the innumerable factions of humanity,  keeping them united will be a job in itself. Rebellion and betrayal by ones allies are always a possibilty. Properly executed the game would present an analogy of how different countries in the real world interact with each other.

 Grow Your Own Philosophy:
 There should be no restrictions on the politics of the players. Every conceivable political system should be available. A players politics should be reflected in those of his or her faction. If a player doesn't like the politics of another player they are in a position to do something about it. This should include the ability to commit atrocities in the name of your cause, any player doing so will hopefully find it harder to make friends and the diplomacy they use will rely on fear until something is done to put these players in their place. The formation of alliances of those with similar politics will arise from this philosophical freedom. You want to build a Fourth Reich in space? You can, but be assured that you will have to fight for your right to do so (hopefully very hard indeed.) Terrorism should also be an available political tool as should religious crusades and xenophobic regimes. The game should provide a breeding ground for new philosophies and an education (a bad word in gaming I know, sorry) in how politics works as well as military strategy and tactics.

 Arms and Legs Race:
 With most strategy games part of the gameplay is devoted to researching technologies and making discoveries. This is another aspect of the game in which freedom should be given to the players but this time within limits. If players are thinking strategically they will know that great discoveries only come after many small steps. Giant leaps forward in science and technology are rare and often happen by accident. This is where there should be some outside influence on the progress of the game. Ancient artefacts, exotic materials and scientific breakthroughs should all play a part in driving the game forward. After all, the times of greatest social, philosophical and theoretical discovery are times of peace. The technological application of a great deal of scientific discoveries has been during times of war. Scientific and more esoteric discoveries should happen on their own but it should be the players who decide how these discoveries are applied. They want to design a weapon that destroys planets? Let them, but make something that powerful very costly to attain. Two players reach the point where they discover a certain type of exotic matter, one chooses to use it as a power source and the other as a weapon. The use of this "superweapon" will drive others to find a way to protect against it, whereas the use of the power source may open up new avenues of research. Research should also be an area where espionage plays a major role. The people with the tech will be trying to protect it from theft whilst those who want it will be trying to steal it. The more powerful a faction is the more resources they can devote to research. Therefore the best way for a less powerful faction to attain new technology is to steal it and reverse engineer it, this too will add another dimension to the politics of the game universe.

 The View from the Abyss:
 Of course the political, economic, scientific and espionage aspects of the game are important, giving depth and form to the game universe, but the main event will be the battles. No matter how peaceful and prosperous the universe may seem from afar there should always be conflict, borders to be protected, rebellions to be suppressed and of course the smaller factions trying to claw their way up the greasy pole of power. As was mentioned before these conflicts take place on battlegrounds, which are generated as they are needed. As was also mentioned strategic considerations such as resources, fleet management, espionage and diplomacy will also affect individual battles. If you are attacked at a weak point in your defences it may take you some time for you to muster forces from other areas to join the fray. You may be able to call on the aid of your allies. These things however are beside the point. The majesty of pitched space battles has been depicted before with games like Homeworld and others and these games should act as a yardstick from which to measure such things. Giant battleships pummelling each other whilst fighters swarm between them. "Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion…" sums it up quite nicely. Obviously the micro-management which Homeworld does with such ease will not be necessary for our purposes. The forces available will be decided beforehand and any commander worth their salt will know the tactical necessity of reserves. These battles will be more or less straight firefights with the victor decided by what the player wants to achieve. It may be a daring raid to capture a particular ship or rescue a captured spy, or it may be a feint, drawing forces away from the place where they really want to attack.  Planetary landings will obviously be handled slightly differently although both space and earthbound battles should be rendered in 3D and should be nice to look at.

The Technicalities:

 Not being a technically minded person I don't really have an understanding of the technical issues involved. With this in mind please excuse any silly mistakes or things I might have missed.

 The Universe:
 In order for there to be near infinite space for players to expand their factions into the universe should be a cube with a million units per vertex. A system, region or star will be represented by I cubic unit of space within the universe. This gives the universe a size of  1x1018 regions. This should be more than enough space for people to fight over. These regions will not exist on the server until they are discovered and will be generated randomly upon discovery. There should be various types of regions ranging from star systems to various astronomical entities such as nebulae, black holes, pulsars and the like, each with an effect on the habitability and resource value of the region. The fact that these regions do not need to be stored in any form until they are discovered will allow the game infrastructure (servers etc.) to start off relatively small and grow as the game develops.

 Resources:
 There will  only be three quantitative resources; Economy, Science and Society. The economy resource is a reflection of your economy and manufacturing power. The higher it is the stronger your economy. Obviously I'm not an economist but it may be and idea to consult a few just so we get this bit right. The science resource is an analogue of your research abilities. The higher it is the faster you can implement practical applications of theories you discover and the greater your chances of making major breakthroughs. The science resource also gives a rough idea of the average IQ of your population. This has an effect on the politics you use to govern them. The society resource is a measure of various societal factors including population, citizen contentment, patriotism and yes, economy and IQ. This resource is the most likely to fluctuate and also has the most effect on the other two. There will be various qualitative resources available, having access to specific resources will allow you to build specific things. Much like luxuries in Civilisation 3.
 
 The Interface:
 This is the part where the most thought is required. As the players will have to deal with many different forms of information it should be presented in such a way as to make it easy to intuitively grasp the state of your empire. The fact that there will be two separate interfaces for the political and military aspects of the game also needs to be considered. One suggestion is to use AI avatars to present various nuggets of info to the player, this should be coupled with a view of the regions under your control and your standing with other players. Of course with such a large volume of information available not all of it will be relevant to what the player is currently engaged in. Above all the interface should be pleasant to look at and intuitive to use. The interface is usually what makes or breaks a game.