From a Colony of Cells to an Organism

~sciocont wrote:

Plenty of creatures use strategy
-falcons
-whales
-sharks
-praying mantis

That's not strategy, it's preprogrammed behaviour plan. If anything goes wrong, the creature is screwed because it can't adapt the plan.

~sciocont wrote:

And you're a human being, meaning you can use strategy whenever you like.

Using strategy is fine, but giving the player tools that help with it and encourage him is not (until your creature has strategical thinking).

I think the colonies should be treated as one organism, in a way just a big cell/organism. Is there really any need to control each one individually once joined?

Also, sorry for the lack of posting, I was forced to endure a 2 night holiday ( ) in a lodging with no wifi. All you could do on the computers at the one place that had any was disney games. Seriously, that was all you could do, even Safari was blocked! Anyway, that's the reason, and I'd better not say the name of the company (is that what you call them?) that owned the location (is that what you call it?), or I'll probably get sued or something.

Anyone get the subtle hints I dropped about my opinion of this holiday?

The Uteen wrote:

I think the colonies should be treated as one organism, in a way just a big cell/organism. Is there really any need to control each one individually once joined?

Quoting For Truth.

Commander Keen wrote:

~sciocont wrote:

Plenty of creatures use strategy
-falcons
-whales
-sharks
-praying mantis

That's not strategy, it's preprogrammed behaviour plan. If anything goes wrong, the creature is screwed because it can't adapt the plan.

~sciocont wrote:

And you're a human being, meaning you can use strategy whenever you like.

Using strategy is fine, but giving the player tools that help with it and encourage him is not (until your creature has strategical thinking).

No, all of those creatires use active strategies. Animals are smarter than the world gives them credit for.

I agree that we should have access to Strategy Mode once there are sufficient numbers of the species, it will help make the early game more fun. It will also help with hive creatures, look at the kind of actions ants and bees take. If that isn't strategic thinking, nothing is.

Thanks, smoth.
Now I think that once you group together a colony of cells, you should have access to the OE, but you should have extremely few features in it. If we use smoth's GD (genetic diversity) points system, you will be able to evolve yourself quite quickly.

It doesn't really have to be full on strategy mode.

For example your species (Still unicellular) could attain a flocking behavior causing all of your species near by to flock together (Could be an attractive enzyme which is excreted out of the membrane, attained from another cell). They move when you move and will attack other cells when you do etc. You are still only in control of one cell. Strength in Numbers allows your species to Thrive. (cwotididthere).

Now when you assimilate enough Gluers and Flockers your species will now begin to bond together entirely rather than just flocking together.

During multicellular you are controlling an entire colony of cells but it is more or less a single organism. Click+Dragging on any cell will move that cell so you could move certain cells in different directions. So it s a sort of pseudo-strategy at this point.

Pezzalis wrote:

It doesn't really have to be full on strategy mode.

For example your species (Still unicellular) could attain a flocking behavior causing all of your species near by to flock together (Could be an attractive enzyme which is excreted out of the membrane, attained from another cell). They move when you move and will attack other cells when you do etc. You are still only in control of one cell. Strength in Numbers allows your species to Thrive. (cwotididthere).

Now when you assimilate enough Gluers and Flockers your species will now begin to bond together entirely rather than just flocking together.

During multicellular you are controlling an entire colony of cells but it is more or less a single organism. Click+Dragging on any cell will move that cell so you could move certain cells in different directions. So it s a sort of pseudo-strategy at this point.

Exactly- not full strat mode, just the most rudimentary form.

~sciocont wrote:

No, all of those creatires use active strategies. Animals are smarter than the world gives them credit for.

Active strategies? Yes, if you mean adapting variables in the plan to different environments, but if anything unexpected happens against the plan, the creature returns to "normal" behaviour. It may still attain it's goals, but it's mere luck, not plan anymore.

Even people do that in stress (with intelligently returning to the interrupted plan though), that's why there are high-level officers, out of all danger, to command lower-level officers in stress.

Quote :

It will also help with hive creatures, look at the kind of actions ants and bees take. If that isn't strategic thinking, nothing is.

Sorry, but ants, bees and similar insects are the worst examples you could give. They are just little robots, preprogrammed by evolution.

Code:

If Free then
  If FoodDetected then
    TakeFood();
  else if FoodPheromoneDetected
    FollowNearAnt();
  end
else
...

(PseudoLua)

Edit:

Quote :

Exactly- not full strat mode, just the most rudimentary form.

Well, the Strategy mode has two basic elements - Strategical camera, giving you overview on the situation and allowing you to do strategic and tactic decisions, and unit control. If it doesn't have one of those, it doesn't allow for strategy to be effectively used, thus being OK to use anytime.

It's not true at all that animals cannot adapt tactics- many animals have the capacity to learn rather advanced things, and pack animals can use many different strategies to hunt down their food.

For pseudo-strategy mode, I was thinking having "unit suggestion" where you can suggest actions to other cells (like chemical communication) but not directly control them.

~sciocont wrote:

It's not true at all that animals cannot adapt tactics- many animals have the capacity to learn rather advanced things, and pack animals can use many different strategies to hunt down their food.

That's still either a set of variables in the plan that was remembered because it's successful, or it doesn't have any connection with the plan. Many different plans chosed by situations are possible, but that doesn't need any strategy. The only creature on Earth capable of true strategy is human, able to create, shape and destroy plans on the fly.

~sciocont wrote:

For pseudo-strategy mode, I was thinking having "unit suggestion" where you can suggest actions to other cells (like chemical communication) but not directly control them.

Sounds great, I'm all for including it.

Commander Keen wrote:

Sorry, but ants, bees and similar insects are the worst examples you could give. They are just little robots, preprogrammed by evolution.

Evolution does not program anything, animals actively adapt their behavior by learning from previous generations and each other.

Commander Keen wrote:

That's still either a set of variables in the plan that was remembered because it's successful, or it doesn't have any connection with the plan. Many different plans chosed by situations are possible, but that doesn't need any strategy. The only creature on Earth capable of true strategy is human, able to create, shape and destroy plans on the fly.

If life was truly as robotic as you seem to think it is, it would have died out a long time ago.

Smothmoth wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

Sorry, but ants, bees and similar insects are the worst examples you could give. They are just little robots, preprogrammed by evolution.

Evolution does not program anything, animals actively adapt their behavior by learning from previous generations and each other.

Commander Keen wrote:

That's still either a set of variables in the plan that was remembered because it's successful, or it doesn't have any connection with the plan. Many different plans chosed by situations are possible, but that doesn't need any strategy. The only creature on Earth capable of true strategy is human, able to create, shape and destroy plans on the fly.

If life was truly as robotic as you seem to think it is, it would have died out a long time ago.

Thank you. animals can not only strategize, they can make tools and solve complex problems.
"The surprising thing about our crow is that, faced with a new problem, she worked out a new solution by herself,"

It seems our definitions of the word strategy are different. In my definition, a crow making tools is not strategy, not even the lower-level tactics.

Commander Keen wrote:

It seems our definitions of the word strategy are different. In my definition, a crow making tools is not strategy, not even the lower-level tactics.

I think that was an example of a crow not being a 'robot', preprogrammed by nature. But I agree, that isn't strategy, well, not co-operating strategy, anyway, as you'd get in strategy mode, which is the type of strategy we are talking about, so..

The Uteen wrote:

Commander Keen wrote:

It seems our definitions of the word strategy are different. In my definition, a crow making tools is not strategy, not even the lower-level tactics.

I think that was an example of a crow not being a 'robot', preprogrammed by nature. But I agree, that isn't strategy, well, not co-operating strategy, anyway, as you'd get in strategy mode, which is the type of strategy we are talking about, so..

It's an example of an animal solving a complex problem, something it needed to improvise to do. This is an example, as Uteen said, of how animals are not automations.
Example
Now I know you're going to say that this proves your point that they use a preprogrammed strategy, but it does not- read the end paragraph- it shows how another group of wolves invented a separate strategy after observing the tendencies of deer.

Example
Certain prides of Lions have developed strategies to hunt elephants.

There's an overwhelming tide of evidence washing away at the beach of human superiority.

Well, in a definition, humans are robots too, just insanely complex. Every animal on Earth can be created as a robot, not by current technology, but it can.

I know many animals can improvise, but that's not strategy.

The links you used just show how variables can be changed. Or, to stop using coding terms (excuse a Lua coder), those animals remember their positions, movement, prey and other things, but the plan itself is not changing.


Edit: Just now I noticed how badly we have spammed this topic. Let's continue in a new one.

I have absolutely no stake in the current arguement, but I will make the following notes:

For gameplay purposes, Keen is correct. I have been thinking about suggesting a little mechanic that would allow different plans for your units to follow, giving you basic control of the situation but freeing up micromanagement so you can, say, go into Org Mode during a big epic battle.

Ex.: Before a battle, you notice your enemy army has strong flanks but a week center. You pause, take a squad of heavy cavalry, and tell them to charge through the middle, then run back once the line has been broken and scattered. You tell your infantry to march steadily forward after this, and your cavalry to mop up afterwards.

With the current system, chronology fails to enter into the equation. I know I use pretty arbitrary terms there, but feh. The player will think of something.

The point here is, you could unlock strat mode like that, but you'd only be able to give general info like that, not micromanage the troops. In addition, the behaivior would become a default that your species would follow from then on, regardless of the situation.

Now, back on topic.
Who was it that suggested you be able to control induvidual cells in a strat-mode style? I want their head. That just takes micromanaging to a whole new level. Like QWOP, only 40 times worse.

I suggest that this is the point where sensory overlays start to seriously come into play. However, until sensors at least as complex as a pin-hole eye appear, we will need to find a way to depict the blindness of the creatures without making the player break their own skulls from the shear frustration of following dark blob #1 only to be eaten by dark blob #2 who was sitting a foot to the right.

Also, OP, you kinda messed summit up. Eye-Patches only tell whether light is present or not, Eye-Cups allow directional sensing.

Tenebrarum wrote:

Also, OP, you kinda messed summit up. Eye-Patches only tell whether light is present or not, Eye-Cups allow directional sensing.

The organelle eyespot should give a meter on the GUI showing how intense light is there, and a group of eyespot-intense cells in an early multi-cellular should give a more clear depiction (More accurate....?)

Then perhaps from these areas Eye-Cups can form. (perhaps giving a direction to a light intense area...)

Trying to swing this thread back on topic...

What do people think of the Early-Multicellular stage concept? Is there anything that needs to be seriously altered?

And how are we going to do a smooth 2D-3D transition?

Don't kill me Rex...
I'm just trying out different types of Strat. mode incorporation so players will have the ability to use strategy more often.

Tenebrarum wrote:

I have been thinking about suggesting a little mechanic that would allow different plans for your units to follow, giving you basic control of the situation but freeing up micromanagement so you can, say, go into Org Mode during a big epic battle.

Ex.: Before a battle, you notice your enemy army has strong flanks but a week center. You pause, take a squad of heavy cavalry, and tell them to charge through the middle, then run back once the line has been broken and scattered. You tell your infantry to march steadily forward after this, and your cavalry to mop up afterwards.

With the current system, chronology fails to enter into the equation. I know I use pretty arbitrary terms there, but feh. The player will think of something.

Very interesting idea, but certainly not fitting this thread. Porting into Official Military topic.

In this post, early multi-cellular is when your cell first becomes a colony, and gameplay is still cell-like, late multi-cellular is the 'normal multi-cellular', where you cannot see the individual cells, and you get parts, not organelles.

[quote="Pezzalis"]

Tenebrarum wrote:

And how are we going to do a smooth 2D-3D transition?

I could see how it could work smoother, but...

Well, up & down the screen in cell stage is the up and down buttons on the keyboard, right?

But with organisms (aquatic and flying), the up and down buttons are forward and back, and scrolling is up and down.

Now, this control flip from up and down buttons to scroll will cause a distinct line between cellular and late multicellular, so unless you scroll to walk/swim/fly forward in LMC or scroll to go up and down in cell, then we cannot make the gameplay flow smoothly.


Personally, I think 3D cell stage would be a very interesting change from normal cell games. And, this would make the controls fixed, no 'up & down -> scroll' issues. The line of sight would be limited, but I could see that as being a unique visual style for cell rather than a disadvantage, if you know what I mean... The visuals of the game could be completely different in cell, especially in 3D, with spiney shapes and murky vision. A fear factor in cell stage is something that hasn't really been done before, and I'm not sure why not. Bacteria, the size of you, floating all around you in 3 dimensions, very dark visuals. That could be kind of creepy if done right.

EDIT: Hey, just read you guys have agreed that cell will be 3D, with sensory overlays! No control transition! Interesting look on unicellular gameplay for a simulation! Good news! Happy new year!

So the Cell Stage will be in 3D?

Good Belgium, what have I missed?

Anyhow I think it'll be interesting and bring something new to the table. I think we can all agree it'll be more realistic--think about it. In real life cells doesn't just go in two dimensions. Or have eyes. Or mate by dancing.

So my vote goes to approval of the descision.

Noitulove wrote:

So the Cell Stage will be in 3D?

Good Belgium, what have I missed?

Anyhow I think it'll be interesting and bring something new to the table. I think we can all agree it'll be more realistic--think about it. In real life cells doesn't just go in two dimensions. Or have eyes. Or mate by dancing.

So my vote goes to approval of the descision.

I'm saying in cell stage that the models sould be 3d, but you should have a fixed camera point.

~sciocont wrote:

Noitulove wrote:

So the Cell Stage will be in 3D?

Good Belgium, what have I missed?

Anyhow I think it'll be interesting and bring something new to the table. I think we can all agree it'll be more realistic--think about it. In real life cells doesn't just go in two dimensions. Or have eyes. Or mate by dancing.

So my vote goes to approval of the descision.

I'm saying in cell stage that the models sould be 3d, but you should have a fixed camera point.

I thought that was always the plan.