I've put together a small system to allow those characters with which you are engaged in romantic relationships to act a little more spontaneously to liven your turns a little more. It was kind of boring to have them just waiting for you to do everything after all.
The first thing I've done with this system is allowing them to find out your other lovers and react accordingly. Some characters might fend their rivals, others might dump you on the spot, and others won't care at all.
Everything is in place to allow them to perform other nicer actions as well, but I'm still considering my options on that matter. Whatever I do, and so to keep romances optional, nothing will have any real bearing inside the rest of the game.
The unit events on the other hand are coming along nicely. I like how influenced units naturally gravitate towards the indirect approach of swaying (or more often, outright destroying) stalwart population to achieve their goals, while stalwarts will usually try to achieve strategic advantage to better achieve their military objectives.
It is also fun to track the offending enemy units and try to reach an agreement, eliminate them or put them in jail to stop them from killing your population, thwarting your plans or taking your hard earned money.
There was an odd disconnect with having a different partner in each territory, but I explained this to myself as being a result of the whole memory-loss theme.
ReplyDeleteKinda difficult for multiple partners to be jealous of each other when only one (a renascent at your home base) is capable of meeting any of the others or remembering them after the fact.
(here's where you get to clear up some misconceptions about the setting.)
Memories are not as much lost as they are altered or omitted by the ongoing anamnesis.
DeleteI welcome the chance to clear things up, as it will help me flesh out some of the blurrier parts of the setting's metaphysics. I'll try to put together a more detailed explanation during the following days, because right now all I have are lots of scattered notes.
The inhabitants are not strictly bound to their original locations and do not necessarily forget every event. They were just kind of static because I didn't get to that part, but since I started to move units around I decided to allow partners to do the same.
Re: Keeping relationships purely optional.
ReplyDeleteSo thinking about this, many successful games force the player into relationships. Fire Emblem and Final Fantasy for example.
Fire Emblem is more interesting because the characters gain stat advantages when paired up and the pairings often turn out to be unavoidably romantic in nature. While a player could use a guide to ensure all pairings are platonic, it's a non-trivial endeavour.
But it does demonstrate a solution if you want to add benefits without forcing romance: allow the player to set the tone of the relationship, either platonic (using the "Hang around with" options) or romantic ("Woo") and then provide the same reward/benefit regardless of their choice.
While this eliminates an interesting dynamic that you discussed earlier; that players would spend time on relationships despite the lack of material benefit, it also adds a different dynamic where choosing romances instead of friendships can strip you of gameplay bonuses later on due to jealousy.
I also note that there are already small benefits to the "hang around with" options.
There are some strictly platonic characters in the game actually. Allowing the player to chose platonic relationships would be conflictive with those characters' behaviours.
DeleteKeeping romances with 0 benefits is interesting by itself but it is also there for the sake of players that would rather opt out of the whole romance system by choosing "interested in none". Giving benefits for romances would push them into choosing interests and powergamers would chose "interested in both" to gain more advantages. Which might also make them feel uncomfortable.
"The first thing I've done with this system is allowing them to find out your other lovers and react accordingly. Some characters might fend their rivals, others might dump you on the spot, and others won't care at all."
ReplyDeleteReminds me a little of this article: http://nightmaremode.net/2012/12/you-know-whats-gross-we-play-nice-guys-in-so-many-games-23896/
I like it!
As someone that usually chooses "Interested in None", I could say much about my many issues with romances in mainstream media, but I believe that my time is better spent working on the game.
DeleteI'm glad to know I'm on the right track though.