Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

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Krikkitone
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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#91 Post by Krikkitone »

Sloth wrote:Ok, i think i have a concept of combining Happiness with a stockpileable producing Influence ressource:

- The player can start a project (like a building) on the planet he wants to make happier.
- This project will sit in the Influence queue and will convert up to 20 Influence Points into Happiness each turn (less when underfunded).
- The project has no duration (it will be there until removed), the limit is one per planet.
- Better projects like this will become available with techs.

So i don't have any objections to implementing this version of Influence.
Definitely disagree with that. (planetary targeting) Instead...
Influence spent on "Happiness project" it should be empire wide. ie (cost=A*(X+number of planets)... gives +H happiness to all planets)

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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#92 Post by Sloth »

Krikkitone wrote: Influence spent on "Happiness project" it should be empire wide. ie (cost=A*(X+number of planets)... gives +H happiness to all planets)
Yes, that sounds better. This will hurt big empires much more than small ones. I agree.
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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#93 Post by Vezzra »

Bigjoe5 wrote:I think there's more or less a consensus that there should be at least one stockpileable resource. Eleazar wants/wanted it to be production, IIRC, but I (and I think Geoff as well) would prefer it to be influence, since it's not distribution-limited.
I don't know... the concepts covered by influence don't naturally imply a stockpileable resource. To me it would seem rather counter-intuitive to make influence stockpileable, and to do so just for the sake of having a stockpileable resource feels arbitrary.

Generally the idea if a non-distribution-limited but stockpileable resource sounds a bit strange I think. Why would we want something like that?

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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#94 Post by Bigjoe5 »

Vezzra wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:I think there's more or less a consensus that there should be at least one stockpileable resource. Eleazar wants/wanted it to be production, IIRC, but I (and I think Geoff as well) would prefer it to be influence, since it's not distribution-limited.
I don't know... the concepts covered by influence don't naturally imply a stockpileable resource. To me it would seem rather counter-intuitive to make influence stockpileable, and to do so just for the sake of having a stockpileable resource feels arbitrary.
Ever hear of "owing someone a favour"? :)
Vezzra wrote:Generally the idea if a non-distribution-limited but stockpileable resource sounds a bit strange I think. Why would we want something like that?
Discussed in this thread.
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eleazar
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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#95 Post by eleazar »

Sloth wrote:
Bigjoe5 wrote:I think there's more or less a consensus that there should be at least one stockpileable resource. Eleazar wants/wanted it to be production, IIRC, but I (and I think Geoff as well) would prefer it to be influence, since it's not distribution-limited.
Question 2: Should Influence be the ressource currently called Trade? (as discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2129)

If it is the general form of Trade/Money i also think it should be stockpileable.
I think Influence is a more interesting resource than Trade. As far as i'm concerned Trade may be added to the game later -- if at some future time there is a clear and concrete need for it. It may be useful as a medium of exchange between empires, or a way to pay maintenance costs. Or not.

I think it is premature to try to combine the concepts of influence and trade together.

The common sense arguments on weather Influence should be stockpiled or not are about equally strong. It is an abstract conglomerate thing. Whichever way works best for the game is the way to go.


I don't think planet specific + happiness projects are a good idea-- too much implicit micro.

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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#96 Post by Bigjoe5 »

eleazar wrote:I don't think planet specific + happiness projects are a good idea-- too much implicit micro.
I agree (though that's really a content issue).
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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#97 Post by Nycidian »

I see a problem with what I have read so far and that is that currently the proposed system doesn't account for the fact that while a population being unhappy can lead to less productivity, if properly harnessed its possible to focus anger and discontent towards an outside party and actually get more productivity (production, growth, research, etc...).


What if Unhappiness didn't have a single state but had a non aggression state and an aggression state.
The following assumes Allegiance and Happiness are a -1 to +1 scale adjust numbers appropriately. For example if the metrics are a scale from 0 to 100 simply subtract 50 and divide by 50 before other operations (a 25 would become -.5, a 51 would be .02, etc...)

Non Aggression Happiness
The effects of unhappiness would be similar to what has been posted in this thread during a non aggression state except for where Aggression Happiness applies.

Aggression Happiness
Aggression Happiness would be triggered by two different triggers.

1. On a planetary level by being attacked/invaded.
2. On an empire level by formal war declaration.

If the species allegiance to their own empire is positive then happiness would be modified as follows:
When accounting for Happiness first take the absolute value of the original happiness.
Then take any effects and multiply them by 1+(0.1*Own_Allegiance)+(0.1*(Threatening_Allegiance*-1))

If the species allegiance to their own empire is negative then happiness would be modified as follows:
When accounting for Happiness first take the absolute value of the original happiness, multiply this by -1.
Then take any effects and multiply them by 1+(0.1*(Own_Allegiance*-1))+(0.1*Threatening_Allegiance)

What the above does is when at war or attacked if the planet has positive allegiance to your empire whether you have strong negative or positive happiness it is channeled into productivity. However if the planet has negative allegiance then the planet becomes either more discontent(unhappy) or complacent(happy) and productivity is lessened. The planets allegiance to the opposing empire has an inverse effect.


This would allow a player to strategically declare war to harness unhappiness if those planets species had a high positive allegiance to his empire and a negative allegiance to his enemies but it would also magnify any unhappiness on those planets that had a negative allegiance.

It also takes care of the problem of a unhappy planet with high allegiance giving in easy to an attacker that they hate. with the above instead of being easier to conquer they would be harder because they would focus there hate towards the party they already dislike.

Also if the planet was taken over and you attempted to retake the planet it would be easier for you since you have a high allegiance while they have a negative allegiance, regardless of any happiness changes due to the previous exchange.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________

In addition I would make it so rebellion required negative allegiance and negative happiness (using the -1 to 1 scale, so if 0 to 100 then sub 50), As while an unhappy and disloyal population might rebel it seems very unlikely that an unhappy but loyal population will rebel. Prolonged non aggression unhappiness should reduce loyalty(species allegiance to its ruling empire), conversely prolonged non aggression happiness should increase allegiance.

This would mean that a planet with barely positive allegiance and great unhappiness would not be able to rebel but given some time that species allegiance would reduce eventually allowing a chance for that planet to rebel. Unless of course the player did something to counteract either the unhappiness of that planet or to increase the species allegiance.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Non Aggression Happiness would always be the base happiness being manipulated, so even though unhappiness could benefit you during war with high allegiance, after some time that high unhappiness would erode the high allegiance, eventually turning it into a negative multiplier.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Examples

The following Assumes the original scales are 0 to 100.

(L)oyalty = planets allegiance to its own empire
(A)ntiloyalty = planets allegiance to the empire that they are either at war with or is attacking them.
(H)appiness
(EH) - effective happiness = Happiness after aggression calculations
(M)ultiplier = The productivity multiplier to happiness effects after aggression calculations. Currently the multiplier will range from 0.9 to 1.2. If the 0.1 in the calculations is changed to 1.0, it would range from 0 to 3


Given: L=75; A=20; H=30
Then: EH = 70; M = 1.11

Given: L=75; A=50; H=30
Then: EH = 70; M = 1.05

Given: L=75; A=60; H=70
Then: EH = 70; M = 1.03


Given: L=10; A=70; H=60
Then: EH = 40; M = 1.12 (Note: positive multiplier is not beneficial as it should be multiplying negative effective happiness effects with a low loyalty)

Given: L=10; A=90; H=40
Then: EH = 40; M = 1.16

Given: L=40; A=25; H=40
Then: EH = 40; M = 0.97




Edit: Changed calculations to fix an unexpected problem.

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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#98 Post by Ragwortshire »

Some thoughts:

Since we will have two different meters measuring similar concepts, I think we ought to have a very clear idea of what each one represents in mind when designing the system. Ideally, imo, the concepts should be as dissimilar as possible while still capturing the game mechanics we want to implement.

With this in mind, I think "Happiness" ought to represent purely the physical (and maybe social) well-being of the population of a planet - and not things like political discontent. (The name might need to change to reflect this, but that's hardly a priority.) Approval, on the other hand, should measure the opinion of a species towards an empire. Therefore:

- Bombarding a planet would reduce both Happiness (because of the physical damage inflicted) and Approval towards the bombarding empire (the population will react).
- Declaring war on an empire containing/dominated by a species would reduce Approval, but not Happiness (no actual physical damage - yet!).
- Poor planet quality would reduce Happiness, but not Approval. Note that the population would have a poor opinion of whoever sent them to that planet - but imo this is best handled by an interaction between Happiness and Approval, rather than a direct effect.
- Approval should have no effect on Happiness; no matter how much you like/dislike someone, it won't have an effect on the physical condition of the planet.

There are two main advantages to basing a system like this on well-defined underlying concepts. The most obvious is that immersion is improved by being able to tell the player precisely what a given meter represents. Less obvious but still important is the improved clarity when designing the system itself - if we agree on what concepts should underlie the mechanics, it's much more likely that we'll agree on the mechanics themselves.

Happiness:

Continuing in this vein: Civilisation-type games are often set in times when living conditions were relatively very poor. But if a species is advanced enough to travel interstellar distances, it's probably advanced enough to keep living conditions high on a good planet under normal circumstances. Therefore: In-game, happiness on a Good planet should be high by default and not require direct management. This means that happiness mechanics will be there primarily to penalise players who take certain actions, such as: Colonising Poor Planets, allowing planets to be Bombarded.

Since Happiness is fairly high by default, we don't really need to reward the player for doing it well. Consequences of low happiness could include:

- Reduced population growth, or even population decline at very low levels.
- A malus to Approval, with the magnitude based on the level of happiness and the planet's population. In a large empire, there are more planets which might become unhappy and thus more opportunities for things to go wrong. Thus, a large empire has less lee-way in terms of happiness, which at least partially satisfies the desired beat-the-leader effect.
- At very low levels, a reduction in Research.
- Production probably shouldn't be affected, or if it is it should be the last thing to go - this allows "slave-driving" of unhappy populations.

Approval:

If keeping Happiness high does not present a genuine challenge, then clearly it should be difficult to keep Approval high under common circumstances. Now, since we want some sort of beat-the-leader mechanic to act against large empires, the most obvious common circumstance to pick is being a large empire. It should be difficult to keep Approval high in a large empire.

Approval is supposed to be a real challenge in a large empire, but less so in a small one. This suggests mechanics like the following:
- Default Approval values depend on the species' representation in your Empire. So if 50% of your population is of a certain species, they will have a high default approval rating; if 1%, a relatively low rating.
- Every unhappy planet gives a malus to approval.
- Atrocities (such as bombarding a planet with the given population) also reduce approval.
The effect of these mechanics in a small empire would be: Each species has a good representation, and there are few planets of each species to become unhappy, so Approval ratings remain high.
In a large multi-species empire, each species is effectively a minority, so approval ratings will be low.
In a large single-species empire, the starting Approval will be high, but even a small proportion of planets being unhappy will reduce that Approval to low levels.
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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#99 Post by wheals »

Interesting ideas...

I think your idea about happiness is interesting. Geoff (I believe) mentioned earlier in the thread that making happiness an only-bad thing would be annoying, but if happiness stays significantly above thresholds where bad things happen most of time, that might not be so bad.

You also got rid of the feedback loop between happiness and allegiance/approval, which had been bothering me.

How would your allegiance and happiness interact to form revolutions? One one hand, you could say that it would be based purely on happiness, and the planet would go to the empire that had the highest allegiance for that species. That might be strange if the empire with the best one was the one it was rebelling from. One the other hand, if it were based on only allegiance, it might seem counterintuitive that perfectly happy planets can rebel, although, IMO, that would seem like the best way to make allegiance really matter. (On the gripping hand, maybe I should let you answer the questions I ask you :P )
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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#100 Post by Nycidian »

wheals wrote:Interesting ideas...

I think your idea about happiness is interesting. Geoff (I believe) mentioned earlier in the thread that making happiness an only-bad thing would be annoying, but if happiness stays significantly above thresholds where bad things happen most of time, that might not be so bad.

You also got rid of the feedback loop between happiness and allegiance/approval, which had been bothering me.

How would your allegiance and happiness interact to form revolutions? One one hand, you could say that it would be based purely on happiness, and the planet would go to the empire that had the highest allegiance for that species. That might be strange if the empire with the best one was the one it was rebelling from. One the other hand, if it were based on only allegiance, it might seem counterintuitive that perfectly happy planets can rebel, although, IMO, that would seem like the best way to make allegiance really matter. (On the gripping hand, maybe I should let you answer the questions I ask you :P )
Not entirely sure who you are addressing but if it's me...

Revolutions would only be able to happen if the planet had less than 50 allegiance to its own empire, no matter how unhappy it was( however unhappiness would drag down allegiance). If a planet rebelled and had no allegiance that was above 50 then it would form its own empire.

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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#101 Post by Ragwortshire »

wheals wrote:How would your allegiance and happiness interact to form revolutions? One one hand, you could say that it would be based purely on happiness, and the planet would go to the empire that had the highest allegiance for that species. That might be strange if the empire with the best one was the one it was rebelling from. One the other hand, if it were based on only allegiance, it might seem counterintuitive that perfectly happy planets can rebel, although, IMO, that would seem like the best way to make allegiance really matter.
I would base rebellion mostly on Approval - in particular, a planet should never rebel against a popular ruler, regardless of their material conditions. (That's kind of the definition of popular.) The mechanic would work something like:

- Approval directly affects troop regeneration. Below a certain Approval threshold, troops no longer regenerate at all (the Empire's popularity is so low that recruitment is impossible).
- We could use the Rebels meter, but in a different way than how it currently works. The Rebels meter rises whenever Approval is below a threshold; the further below, the faster it rises!
- The rate of increase also depends on the population. Low Happiness results in more Rebels (recruitment is easier among people who see little hope for the future).
- The Rebels meter does not directly impact the Troops mete, but...
- If the Rebels meter rises above the Troops meter, the planet rebels and declares independence.

The Player should be able to intervene at various parts in this process.

- Firstly he can make a species happy so that Approval has no reason to fall in the first place.
- If that fails, there should be some methods (like Propaganda) which can prop up the Approval rating, for a cost.
- If Approval is so low that troop regeneration ceases, then troops can be brought in from other planets. If troop ships are too micromanagy, then perhaps a new Focus would do the trick? (You put the Focus on a loyal planet and it automatically exports troops to other planets.)
- Of course there's a limit to how many troops you can support anyway, and the Rebels meter will just keep rising. So finally you would have an option to try to "Purge" the rebels - probably with the side effects of more Unhappiness and more Disapproval. And you'll have to do it again, sooner or later. This could involve things like Espionage and Governments, when they are added.

EDIT: Of course, the growth of Rebels shouldn't be the only consequence of low Approval. Other possibilities include species-wide Strikes, whereby Production and Research from all planets of that species are nullified. You could also have a Martial Law option which prevents/cancels the strikes, at the cost of even more Unhappiness and/or Disapproval. In general I like the idea of having lots of possible consequences for negative Approval, each of which occurs with relatively low probability. It makes the outcome less predictable and imo improves the narrative potential.
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Praetor Don
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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#102 Post by Praetor Don »

Concentration Camps
- Happiness/Loyalty

Nobody likes those.
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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#103 Post by Krikkitone »

Ragwortshire wrote:
wheals wrote:How would your allegiance and happiness interact to form revolutions? One one hand, you could say that it would be based purely on happiness, and the planet would go to the empire that had the highest allegiance for that species. That might be strange if the empire with the best one was the one it was rebelling from. One the other hand, if it were based on only allegiance, it might seem counterintuitive that perfectly happy planets can rebel, although, IMO, that would seem like the best way to make allegiance really matter.
I would base rebellion mostly on Approval - in particular, a planet should never rebel against a popular ruler, regardless of their material conditions. (That's kind of the definition of popular.) The mechanic would work something like:

- Approval directly affects troop regeneration. Below a certain Approval threshold, troops no longer regenerate at all (the Empire's popularity is so low that recruitment is impossible).
- We could use the Rebels meter, but in a different way than how it currently works. The Rebels meter rises whenever Approval is below a threshold; the further below, the faster it rises!
- The rate of increase also depends on the population. Low Happiness results in more Rebels (recruitment is easier among people who see little hope for the future).
- The Rebels meter does not directly impact the Troops mete, but...
- If the Rebels meter rises above the Troops meter, the planet rebels and declares independence.

The Player should be able to intervene at various parts in this process.

- Firstly he can make a species happy so that Approval has no reason to fall in the first place.
- If that fails, there should be some methods (like Propaganda) which can prop up the Approval rating, for a cost.
- If Approval is so low that troop regeneration ceases, then troops can be brought in from other planets. If troop ships are too micromanagy, then perhaps a new Focus would do the trick? (You put the Focus on a loyal planet and it automatically exports troops to other planets.)
- Of course there's a limit to how many troops you can support anyway, and the Rebels meter will just keep rising. So finally you would have an option to try to "Purge" the rebels - probably with the side effects of more Unhappiness and more Disapproval. And you'll have to do it again, sooner or later. This could involve things like Espionage and Governments, when they are added.

EDIT: Of course, the growth of Rebels shouldn't be the only consequence of low Approval. Other possibilities include species-wide Strikes, whereby Production and Research from all planets of that species are nullified. You could also have a Martial Law option which prevents/cancels the strikes, at the cost of even more Unhappiness and/or Disapproval. In general I like the idea of having lots of possible consequences for negative Approval, each of which occurs with relatively low probability. It makes the outcome less predictable and imo improves the narrative potential.

I like that model

Troop Growth= Other Factors * (Approval-50) [minimum of 0]
Rebel Growth= Other Factors*(50-Approval)*(110-Happiness) [minimum of 0 for both terms]


One issue would be temporary effects to the meters (Bombardment/Atrocities) v. target effects (Poor Worlds colonized, % of population)

It would be key for Target effects to truly be targets.

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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#104 Post by eleazar »

Nycidian wrote:I see a problem with what I have read so far and that is that currently the proposed system doesn't account for the fact that while a population being unhappy can lead to less productivity, if properly harnessed its possible to focus anger and discontent towards an outside party and actually get more productivity (production, growth, research, etc...).
That FO doesn't fully model reality is not a "problem", it is both inevitable, (reality is complicated!) and our choice. We're making not attempting to make a galaxy simulation, but a game which has understandable rules and game-states which can be clearly communicated via the GUI.

To promote an idea you need to explain how the change fits with the game design philosophy, and enriches gameplay.
Pointing out that we aren't (or don't plan to) model a particular bit of reality is not compelling.

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Re: Happiness, Influence, & Allegiance

#105 Post by yandonman »

Just some more ideas
  • "Risa" - Happiness focus - systems within 1-3 starlane jumps (supply connected) get a positive bonus to happiness. Possibly a focus unlock after a planet is a Gaia.
  • Your citizens vote on things psuedo-randomly - if you do them, you make the ones that voted for the proposition happier. The ones that voted against it would be less happy. The breakdown would probably be by species. For example:
    "The Human and Gysache citizens (232 pop) want to you to destroy the Hyperspace Dam within 10 turns. Your Exobot citizens (92 pop) wants you to keep it. The remainder of your citizens (129 pop) are ambivalent. By satisfying a population's request, that demographic will receive a +1 Happiness bonus for 25 turns. Not satisfying a population's request will result in a -1 Happiness malus"
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