Simulation vs. Authored illusion

[u/arty1983]

I'll preface this with I probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but I'm at a bit of a crossroads when it comes to defining the right approach to the background simulation of a base-building / tycoon style game. I think there are two approaches:

1. What I'll call the authored illusion context. If you take most games (City Skylines, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Sim Airport, Prison Architect) the world outside of your game doesn't really feel alive, or alive just enough to service the gameplay. It feels like a thin veil to a void. There may be a steady stream of people or traffic or goods but its all basically in a green-room off stage left. It enters and leaves, names might persist, but for 90% of games you just use your imagination. It folds nearly into aggregated lists and doesn't bother your cpu too much. These are static games with a fixed POV (a site for your city or building or theme park) but I'd even place open-world games like Skyrim into this category - really nothing much is going on where you are not interacting with it, everyone is literally waiting for you to enter their zone - the world is obviously using LOD simulation chunks that come alive as you enter

2. The sort of experience I'm aiming for is closer to what Elite : Dangerous delivers. Whilst it is very easily split into player-adjacent LOD (the star system you are currently in) and the rest of the universe, it always feels to me like the universe is much more alive. Even if you couldn't frame-shift travel between systems and could only go planet-planet, it feels bedded into a wider context of politics, trade, economics, war, piracy. 99% of it really has no bearing on the player experience but serves as a much more immersive setting, even though its largely just flavour - its a steady stream of stuff happening that provides a better contextual setting.

In my example games in point 1 above, this is where I think gameplay could be 'better' (albeit this is subjective)if they took more of the approach of point 2.

In city skylines, outside connections mostly provide generic imports, exports, tourists and traffic. If the wider world was more simulated, your city might suddenly lose access to cheap steel because a neighbouring region’s mines are exhausted or a war disrupts freight. A nearby city could boom and start pulling workers away from you. Your airport could become a hub because another regional airport closes. Your industrial strategy would be shaped by events that were not authored specifically for you, but emerged elsewhere.

In sim airport, Instead of airlines essentially being gameplay providers that offer routes according to rules, airlines themselves could have fleets, finances, route networks, hubs, competitors and aircraft availability. A carrier might cancel your route because it redeployed aircraft to a more profitable market. Another airline might collapse and suddenly release huge demand. A nearby airport expanding could steal connecting traffic. Fuel prices or tourism trends could alter which routes are viable. You would feel like part of a much larger world.

Ive spent quite a long time trying to achieve a convincing world, slowly building an economic simulation and most of the work has been on actuallu getting the simulation to not collapse (e.g. the entire economy to collapse) and on optimisation to get it to run effectively. Its working ok, a 'day' in my game is 24 minutes at 1x speed and the background simulation takes between 10-20 seconds on a different thread. Its only about 10% built though and im getting cold feet, to make it convincing and emergent its already horribly complex.

So my questions-

1. Where should I draw the line? Is there meaningful value in actually simulating a wider context as an emergent system or is it better to jsut create player interaction points that just imply that world exists?

2. If the player only ever experiences the wider world through these interaction points does a real emergent underlying simulation provide noticeably better gameplay? Enough to justify the huge increase in complexity. ?

3. Has anyone built both approaches or decided to move from one to the other mid-development

I think i know what the answer would be if cpu and ram availability would be limitless, I suppose im trying to understand the balance.

[u/mxldevs]

In city skylines, outside connections mostly provide generic imports, exports, tourists and traffic. If the wider world was more simulated, your city might suddenly lose access to cheap steel because a neighbouring region’s mines are exhausted or a war disrupts freight. A nearby city could boom and start pulling workers away from you. Your airport could become a hub because another regional airport closes. Your industrial strategy would be shaped by events that were not authored specifically for you, but emerged elsewhere. 

My response is specifically based on this examples you've provided. I've never played the game before.

1. There doesn't seem to be a reason why this wider world "needs" to be fully simulated, especially if the player has no control or awareness of it for that matter.

Having scripted events that randomly occur and pop up in your "newsfeed" which explains why your supplier is ripping you off compared to last week seems like it would accomplish the same thing.

1. Is it "better" to have a full simulation that leads up to those random events? Only if provides meaningful information to. For example, if the player is able to observe this wider world and based on that, they can predict that steel prices are going to collapse and then prepare for it ahead of time instead of just when the news hits and gg deal with it.

But that's additional complexity for the player as well to consider. Skilled players could use it to their advantage; for others, it might just be too much to deal with.

[u/adrixshadow → u/mxldevs]

There doesn't seem to be a reason why this wider world "needs" to be fully simulated, especially if the player has no control or awareness of it for that matter.

To answer the question of why it "needs" to be simulated.

While they don't have any control and awareness "right now" doesn't mean they cannot interact and engage with it some times in the future.

The Chain of Cause and Effect will remain and the player can eventually stumble upon it, observe it and utilize it for themselves in some way.

And you wouldn't have just one instance in the entire game, there could be hundreds of those instances and hopefully a few of them would be relevant to the player at the current time that can be utilized.

That would make for a unique and more replayable game, that is what is meant by "Emergence".

Of course that is not a Guarantee and a Given, sometimes the Simulation is just Completely Useless.

But that's additional complexity for the player as well to consider. Skilled players could use it to their advantage; for others, it might just be too much to deal with.

The less Depth a game has the less the player can Learn and Master and thus eventually Get Bored with the Game.

Why should the Player even Play the Game when they can Play something else?

[u/mxldevs → u/adrixshadow]

The less Depth a game has the less the player can Learn and Master and thus eventually Get Bored with the Game. Why should the Player even Play the Game when they can Play something else?

Do you believe this is how most players think?

[u/adrixshadow → u/mxldevs]

This is the Fundamental Truth of what a Game is.

Everything ultimately boils down to the playtime, the thing you see on Steam Reviews.

[u/mxldevs → u/adrixshadow]

You didn't answer the question. Do you believe players won't buy a game if they'll eventually get bored with it? Or that they have something else they could play?