FreeOrion

1. Each sub-empire has a separate production of each resource that isn't instantly transmissible (3 food, minerals, industry)
2. Each sub-empire has a separate consumption of each resource that isn't instantly transmissible (3 food, minerals, industry)

3. Only one sub-empire has a separate stockpile of each resource that stockpiles and isnt' instantly transmissible (2 food and minerals)


Each sub-empire produced by a blockade already needs 6 additional numbers (4 if all you look at is surplus or deficit of food and minerals... industry still needs a production+consumption)... what's 2 more?

we could remove blockades altogether... everything is instantly transmissible except for entire Starships and Buildings.
or we can say that blockaded sub empires go into "economic stasis" no production or consumption.

but otherwise, sub-empires will produce an array of numbers, it WILL require UI mechanisms just to deal with that. regardless of how stockpiles are handled

Good point, I forgot about that, the UI is going to have to summarize somewhere the state on the 'far' side of a blockade, Else not only will the User have to check every turn supply ~= demand, but also have to do so on every planet every turn(or minimally just the planets that are highest risk of 'starving') [at worst having to sum by hand all the resources being produced, and consumed to make sure your not wasting too much/turn.].



Going into stasis might be a little too strong, consider blockading the stockpile planet. . . all other planets go into stasis. . . weather it's intended or not, that would be game over.

Another option could be when an empire becomes split, the side without the stockpile becomes a temporary AI character. A minor race with one Major driving goal to re-unite itself with it's 'parent' government. The temporary minor race would have everything minor races always have, including a stockpile, but crucially the moment communication is re-opened they would 'surrender' to the parent empire, and the same rules for combining two empires would be used as always.

To reduce the impact the new minor race would be very adverse to trading technology.

I don't particularly LIKE the idea of loosing control of a portion of your empire due to a blockade(in fact i don't like it at all). . . but it is a semi valid solution to prevent the user from having to temporally concern themselves with ~6 extra numbers.


Best wishes to all,

Robbie Price.

That's a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease.

Anyway I have a new idea to throw out: As you empire grows you can build regional capitals. Probably the higher you get on the economic tech tree the more you are permitted to build. Maybe a total maxim of 6 or a large galaxy less on a small one.

Regional capitals all have stockpiles, and possibly some other bonuses (improves efficiency of nearby planets maybe)

This dose mean that you will have to worry about multiple stockpiles, but this way its a much more manageable number, nothing silly like 5 per blockaded system. And you introduce a new strategic decision, building your stockpiles in appropriate locations to prevent blockades cutting too many systems off, one on each side of a choke point. If you make the bonuses reasonable you also have to decide weather you use regional capitals to protect against blockades or boost your most populated areas.

When a blockade splits two capitals, assume each capital has an even share of resources with no bias in favour of the homeworld.

Goodmorning all
two quick questions.


Which cure was this, the new one i suggested? I tend to agree, but it does 'solve' the problem. I'll be it in an ugly way.


Secondly


Where are you getting 5 per blockaded system from

I think the most anybody is suggesting is one stockpile / sub-empire. That one stockpile is build from planet by planet 'stocklets' only because that is easier to code, the user only knows and cares (and can only see) each sub-empires stockpile, never more.


In this new solution each stockpile would have an equal share of the resources? so if one side of the blockade has two stockpiles and the other 1 stockpile the side with two has twice the starting stockpile? or is it divided 'evenly' when necessary regardless of number of stockpiles? What of the planet which is itself being blockaded? In the sub-empire mode of Bigjoe5 and myself that single blockaded planet is a sub-empire (of one star-system) and subsequently has 'some' resources to draw from until relief forces arrive. How does your new system handle the loan planet?(especially food).


Best wishes all

Robbie Price.

Temporary AI empires that try to rejoin was the "cure". For why its horrible, it basically means that if you want to wait in a well defended system for reinforcements, tough. As soon as the system and your defensive fleet is blockaded the AI takes over, its first priority is to rejoin the main empire, so it launches an attack even if its a bit smarter with its ships, players shouldn't loose control of their fleets as a downside to sitting tight rather than attacking a blockade.

I assume the AI gets the ships because if the AI doesn't get control of the ships what exactly can it do?



Well you have a system with 5 colonies, someone blockades the system so that's 5 "sub-empires" of one planet each, every sub-empire has its stockpile so 5 stockpiles in one system. In my system none of those 5 planets will be connected to the capital or a regional capital so none get a stockpile


I already said it did

The side with 2 stockpiles will get 2/3 of the pre-blockade stockpile and the other side will get the remaining 1/3. It won't get twice the starting stockpile for obvious reasons

Same as under the system with the homeworld as the only stockpile I guess. I think that means it can use what it produces but it cant store anything.

Goodmorning all,



Ah, but there in lies the thing, yes you will have essentially 5 sub-empires do to this blockade of a 5 planet system. But not one of those stockpiles is going to matter, you'll either lift the blockade before stocks run out, or you'll run out, if you run out then your in *almost* the same situation you would have been in if you didn't have the option of having a stockpile. But with the stockpile you've got a buffer before you start to suffer *sorry for the rhyme*, which is a good third of the reason for having a stockpile in the first place! :- ) eh.

worst case scenario, you end up looking at all five planets every 2 - 3 turns, without a stockpile you have to either give up on them or look at them every turn. Personally once every three turns is preferable to every turn. in terms of amount of micromanagement.


not quite, you said both 'Capitals' would have equal resources. which is what lead to the confusion. In truth, if one of the 'Capitals'/ sides, has two stockpiles it will have twice the resources of the other side.



Quite true, but you seamed to have understood the question regardless of the typing error.



This puts you back into checking every turn that supply meets demand, and/or wasting resources for no particular reason. Alternatively, you can have a local stockpile which is mostly irrelevant it terms of how much attention you spend on it, but which prevents you from forcibly loosing resources on account of having them evaporate at the end of each turn inexplicably.

Warm regards

Robbie.

This is what it means:

Our stockpile system is meant to be simple. The player shouldn't have to do more than glance at his stockpile every couple of turns, if that. If suddenly having 2, 3, or even 10 stockpiles makes it monotonous, then we have to many numbers in our stockpile that need to be monitored too closely. But we don't. The stockpile is very simple and requires very little attention. Clicking on a planet in each sub-empire (which you should be doing anyway if you're any kind of organized player and want to get your empire back together) and checking a few numbers is hardly what I would call excessive micromanagement. Especially if there are little arrows to show whether it went up or down and by how much, so the player doesn't even have to remember any numbers from last turn.

Going to every single blockaded planet every single turn to make sure nobody is starving is what I would call excessive micromanagement.

Sorry. Perhaps I misinterpreted when you said "Hiding information about a complicated system doesn't make it simple, it makes it like MOO3." I thought you meant the problem was before the multiple stockpiles became an issue because that's when most information is being hidden and that's what he was talking about in the part you quoted before saying that.

Or, in our system, you could just say that blockades are only system wide (1 sub-empire/system) because freighters can slip from planet to planet in the same system more easily than otherwise. To keep it simple.

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Does anyone else want to add anything to this discussion? It more or less seems that the dominant model in this thread is the one with multiple stockpiles in the case of a blockade.

r.e. Tortanick's idea: It doesn't really solve the problem of micromanaging planets who get blockaded without a stockpile, just reduces the problem in the case of an empire splitting blockade.


Also, I don't think what a blockade actually does has been strictly defined yet. I would support having a greater amount of resources blocked with a greater number of enemy ships in the system, but if Geoff has definitively vetoed that idea (but why?), then that's that.

_________________
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

Goodmorning all;


I also put my non vote, since this isn't a democracy, on partial blockades, in some form, strictly binary blockades just don't seam fun to me.

I would explain my reasonings, and a simple model, if asked, but i shall refrain until the status is confirmed non-vito'd to save time..

best wishes all

Robbie.

Well I'd put my non vote into binary blockades

reasoning
partial blockades mean...
? a fraction of what is normally goes through gets through gets through?
?a specific amount gets through?
what happens to the rest, can I increase how much gets through by adjusting things in the blockaded region
can I cut off the blocakded region to avoid losses to my stockpile on this side? (since only 50% is getting through anyways)

Binary blockades are Much simpler. I'd make it possibly require more than one ship (so the 'flex' is in whether or not you are blockaded rather than how much)

At the very least I'd say put partial blockades off until later; version 0.7+

But binary blockades lead to things like a single frigate being the difference between a fleet that can blockade a planet and a fleet that can't, which further leads to things like players micromanaging to make sure that they always have the right number of ships there, assuming he knows exactly how many ships he'll need, in which case we'll also need a blockading ability value for each ship and a blockadability value for each planet and we'll have to make what these values are based on very clear to the player to be unlike MoO3 and it also complicates the UI. If the player doesn't know exactly how many ships it takes, then it causes even more micromanagement to find out the exact number of ships you need to blockade and also leaves the blockaded player guessing about exactly what he needs to do to end the blockade.

That's not simple at all.

On the other hand, partial blockades means no micromanagement. There is almost always some kind of incentive to get enemy ships out of your system. Blockades will only change slightly with stealth technology, so neither player will be wondering why the blockade suddenly stopped working when the blockaded player researches a new stealth tech. If the player wants to know exactly how many resources are being stopped, we can tell them, and calculate it easily with (blockaders ability to stop resources-blockadees ability to sneak resources through). Obviously if the value for the latter is greater than the former, all resources get through, and if the former is greater and the difference is greater that the total number of resources, all get through. If total blockades are fairly difficult, then more ships is (almost) always better for attacker=(almost) no micro.

That's very simple.

_________________
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

The "simple" binary blockade system allows (any armed) ship is sufficient to blockade a system that's undefended by friendly ships. Conversely, one (any armed) friendly ship is enough to prevent any fleet from blockading a system. More ships on either side make no difference.

This works well with the idea that plantes are tough to invade - tougher than destroying or driving away a weak ship that could have prevented a blockade by a larger enemy force that's still not large enough to easily take the planet outright.

Goodmorning all,

I support the binary system in so far as it is kept extremely simple.

Granted having a tiny super fast scout armed with a single laser cannon under that system is enough to 'blockaded' and planet that doesn't have some form of ready-deployable navy . . . . but the only acceptable next level is considerably more complex. . .

I would PREFER a more complex system;

Blockading fleet is rated in the number of resources they can destroy,and capture, / turn (assuming no opposing stealth tech).
Blockading empire sees how the above number, and beside it the number they succeeded to destroy/capture last turn.
Blockade running empires see an approximation of the above number(based on knowledge of fleet), and exact values for how many resources made in though last week, and how many where captured + destroyed [but not told how many of each]. When clicking on a blockade blockaded empire sees a quick diagram showing how much of each resource is on, and being produced on, each side; the blockade-ee may chose an importance rating for running the blockade for any given resource, in any direction between 0 and 3. ( 0 = leave blockaded, 1 = use surplus production to get into system any remaining extra tries to pass thought completely, 2 = use stockpile on this side to cover production / food need, for blockaded planets, 3 = hold nothing back run as much as you can/need/have.)
The system would always show the planet with the (known/suspected) weakest blockade as being the blockade run point.

The latter system is more complex, but to me would be more fun, being able to capture resources being sent across adds more depth / value to setting up and holding a long term blockade.

the only significant problem with this system is that for long(multiple systems) blockades there is no easy distinction between neighboring systems, without beckoning micromanagment . . .

I'm working on that. . .

but for me, any system between the two, risks being too clumsy, at least in my eyes.

Best wishes all.

Robbie Price

I would much rather NOT have a single scout ship with one laser cannon be able to blockade may planets.... That caused major annoyance on occasion in MoO2, especially near the beginning of the game when fleets aren't really big enough to protect all planets against that kind of thing.

I'm not really sure what the descriptions for those number settings mean....though I do agree that having some kind of setting for attempting to run a blockade is necessary if there are stockpiles for each blockaded area. I don't feel that one setting to adjust per resource per blockaded area is too much, considering that the player should definitely be paying more attention to any blockaded area.

The different setting should apply to movement between the blockaded system/area and the next closest blockaded area to the main area (defined by size or capital or whatever). So as an example:

If an empire is cut into three parts and both blockaded sub empires would normally be in direct contact with the main empire (i.e. neither would have to send resources through the other to get to the fragment with the capital), then partial blockade calculations involve

How much sub-empire A is sending back to the main empire
How much sub-empire B is sending back to the main empire

And afterwards,

How much the main empire is getting through to sub-empire A
How much the main empire is getting through to sub-empire B

So the main empire can use whatever resources it got from A and give to B and vice versa, if necessary. In that way, A and B are able to indirectly share needed resources.

In the case where a piece (A) is cut off of an empire and a smaller piece or even a single system (B) is blockaded within that sub-empire, the following is calculated in this order:

How many resources B is getting to A
How many resources A is getting to the main empire
How many resources the main empire is getting to A
How many resources A is getting to B

So the player can clearly understand where his resources are coming from and going and getting destroyed.

As for the blockadee's options, I think we could use about 4, possibly per resource, possibly per direction (to/from main empire).

1. Blockaded system/sub-empire attempts to be totally self sufficient from the main empire and/or vice versa. No resources are sent. Extra is stockpiled.

2. Blockaded system/sub-empire uses what it can, then sends out whatever the main empire needs and/or vice versa. Extra is stockpiled.

3. Blockaded system/sub empire uses what it can, then sends the rest out in the hopes that enough will get through to meet the needs of the main empire. Nothing is stockpiled and this setting is not applicable going from the main empire to the blockaded sub-empire.

4. Blockaded system/sub empire sends out everything it has as if there was no blockade in the hopes that enough will get through to supply the main empire with what it needs. Nothing is stockpiled and this setting is not applicable to the main empire.

That's just a rough outline of what might happen. Certain options might need tweaking/removing. What do you think?

_________________
Warning: Antarans in dimensional portal are closer than they appear.

actually the whole point of stockpiles for each area would be that you DON'T need to run blockades

I'd say no 'blockade running' but

1. being blockaded would have NO penalty other than being disconnected
2. there would be a threshold for a blockade to be possible (one laser scout isn't enough... probably... you need sufficient numbers of ships to patrol the whole 'warp point'... countered by the blockaded empires speed+stealth techs..inessence auto blockade running that nullifies the blockade)