Testing Government and Influence

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#166 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Mon May 31, 2021 10:04 amGiving Sly the tech from start, like Abaddonni:
Not necessarily from the start.
Or using an effect that unlocks policies? Do we have that already?
Not yet.

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LienRag
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#167 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Mon May 31, 2021 10:04 am
Giving Sly the tech from start, like Abaddonni:

Code: Select all

        EffectsGroup
            scope = Source
            activation = Turn high = 1
            effects = [
                GiveEmpireTech name = "SHP_INTSTEL_LOG" empire = Target.Owner
           ]
Unlocking Confederation from the start (or at least early) is not the same as unlocking Interstellar Logistics...
If we don't have anything to unlock a Policy for a specific species, it would need a specific, not researchable tech that also unlocks Confederation, and it's that specific (otherwise useless) tech that should be given to the Sly (and maybe Laenfa ?).

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#168 Post by Oberlus »

Base influence upkeep per colony currently is 0.4 * (#colonies 0.25*#outposts)^0.5.

Base influence production per focused colony is sqrt(pop).

For a mean planet population of 50 (that's great, assumes more larger than smaller planets, good env., all pop. techs, growth specials), average influence species, no policies that increase or decrease influence upkeep or production, and no outposts, we get:

To control 100 colonies, about 55% of them should be set to influence. To control 300 colonies, all but a couple would need to be set to influence. It would be impossile to have more than 310 colonies. At that point only unfocused industry and research bonuses would allow for empire's progression.


With ENVIRONMENTALISM and all planets being good env., it could get up to 500 colonies (100 would require 44%, 300 76%).
That is, currently, the only policy that really increases maximum viable size of an empire (compared to not having that policy).


Other policies do the opposite, reduce maximum size of empire:
- INDOCTRINATION has -4 influence per colony, that is horrible, makes the policy a gunshot in the foot. Make it 1 or even less.
- Same for CHECKPOINTS with its -2 influence per colony. Crippling.
- Even the -1 influence from LIBERTY is hard to tolerate mid game.
- The -1 influence of CONFEDERATION also makes it subpar compared to CENTRALIZATION late game.

Some policies doesn't help or harm to that purpose:
- DIVINE_AUTHORITY has a bonus of 1 per colony, but also extra influence costs from distante to capital from CENTRALIZATION, so it doesn't allow for greater figures.
- The Translator building gives a 3*#different_species bonus to the colony it is built on. Irrelevant late game when we are talking of total influence upkeeps of thousands of IP.
- Same as PROPAGANDA (that is not intended to be a late game bonus, but is a prerequisite for other policies that are supposed to be).
- BALANCE and DIVERSITY also irrelevant to increase size of empire since it only affects capital IP production.

Using the policies that add IP costs to ships would also reduce maximum size of empire:
- ENGINEERING and TERROR_SUPPRESSION has -0.1 and -0.2 IP per ship. One 50 pop. colony set to influence allows for 35 ships with TERROR_SUPPRESSION , or 70 with ENGINEERING.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#169 Post by wobbly »

There's an argument for checkpoints being unfeasable on big empires (both fluffwise and gameplaywise) which doesn't necessarily mean the current numbers are good. Maybe the same with some other policies. That said you are probably right about negative influence/planet needing to come down.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#170 Post by Oberlus »

I think we need at least one of each of these (if two of each, whichs seems to me probably better, one for mid game and one for late game):
- A way to increase influence production on influence-focused planets.
- A way to reduce influence upkeep per #colonies.

"Ways":
- Researching a tech.
- Adopting a policy.

INDUSTRIALISM is a policy that reduce influence upkeep by adding a flat bonus per colony. I think it can be considered mid game.
I think we need another policy or tech, late game, to reduce influence based on #colonies (I can only think of reducing the multiplier in the equation, that currently is 0.4), or maybe better to put a maximum thresshold on influence upkeep (something like 50% of maximum influence production for a medium size planet with average influence species and no other modifiers, which can be close to 6 currently but should be higher).

I think we have no ways to increase IP output of influence-focused colonies.
Some of the current policies could increase influence production on more planets than just the capital:
LIBERTY could give a +0.2*pop IP bonus.
DIVINE_AUTHORITY could give bigger bonus, to all RegAdm planets (not only capital). PROPAGANDA also should give the bonus to RegAdmin centers set to influence.
INDOCTRINATION could give a bonus of +25%.
DIVERSITY could give influence bonus to all homeworld worlds set to influence.

For starters.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#171 Post by Oberlus »

Taking into account current policy exclusions and prerequisites, the following two sets of policies could be typical choices (if enough policy slots are available):

Freedom policies:
- DIVERSITY (→ NATIVE APPROPRIATION, but it’s underpowered right now)
- LIBERTY
- ARTISANS WHORKSHOP (if having enough artistic species)
- CONFEDERATION (if going distributed)
- ISOLATION (if going very sparse, not with BOOTSTRAPPING or EXPLORATION)
- AUGMENTATION (if going for hostile planets)

Oppression policies
- CENTRALIZATION → DIVINE AUTHORITY
- CONFORMANCE → INDOCTRINATION (with PROPAGANDA)
Plus at least one of
- CHECK POINTS → RACIAL PURITY
- MARTIAL LAW
- TERROR SUPPRESSION

Each of this would probably go with ENVIRONMENTALISM and/or INDUSTRIALISM, plus some other.

Each set of policies should be balanced (specially influence and stability) so that they are possible mid-to-late game and no combination is over or underpowered.

Lots of work to do.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#172 Post by wobbly »

I had a random idea that you could have a policy similar to broadcast markets/artisan markets for "telepaths set to influence" off of psionics. Haven't come up with a good name yet. I'd also like to see indoctrination/conformance/liberty moved earlier (translingistics?) for more early stability options. Marine Recruitment could just as easily be off Planetary Fortifications Network.

Edit: or maybe better, Marine Recruitment off Defensive Milita and Checkpoints off planetary Fortifications.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#173 Post by Oberlus »

All good ideas, wobbly. I agree with them all.
Feel free to make PRs!

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#174 Post by wobbly »

I'll think of a name and put one in. I could maybe put a pull request in, but last time I used git I stuffed it up. Also, native appropriation could move to xenoarchaeology to keep the policies spread a bit?

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#175 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Fri May 28, 2021 1:53 pmINDOCTRINATION: [...] That it halves the opinion effects of policies (because it has CONFORMANCE as a prerequisite) is irrelevant or helpful.
Note that a prerequisite policy is required to adopt something, but need not be kept adopted after the follow-up policy has been adopted.
Geoff the Medio wrote: Mon May 31, 2021 10:32 am
Or using an effect that unlocks policies? Do we have that already?
Not yet.
Now yes: https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... b64a812abb

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#176 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Sat Jun 05, 2021 9:58 pm
Geoff the Medio wrote: Mon May 31, 2021 10:32 am
Or using an effect that unlocks policies? Do we have that already?
Not yet.
Now yes: https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... b64a812abb
That's great.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#177 Post by Oberlus »

Planetary/System/Interstellar Infrastructure are must-haves.

They are
1. main source of economic slots (I haven't tried adopting one then de-adopting it and see if the extra economic slot is lost),
2. important source of infrastructure (and it has become a good resource source),
3. the only way to have regional administration centers without Centralization.

Dunno what to do with 1 apart from making them all give a single extra slot.
For 2 it should suffice to balance infrastructure-based resource sources, and maybe give some infratructure bonus to other techs/policies.
I'm not sure 3 is actually a problem.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#178 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:08 pmI haven't tried adopting one then de-adopting it and see if the extra economic slot is lost
With the policy de-adopted, slots that it grants are lost. Remaining policies should be re-arranged if necessary to fit in the remaining slots, but if there aren't enough, the right-most slot's policy should be lost first.
Oberlus wrote: Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:08 pmDunno what to do with 1 apart from making them all give a single extra slot.
The idea was that the different policy slots types should have somewhat different ways for the player to get more. So far, Economic is primarily by spending IP to adopt policies that grant as much or more than they take up, with the starter palace building and a midgame tech also giving one. Social is a mix of buildings and techs. Military is a mix of buildings, techs, and a ship hull. Needs some tweaking, still, though.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#179 Post by Oberlus »

The main problem I see for playability right now is the lack of ways to increase your IP production or reduce your IP upkeep. Anyone else thinks the same or has ideas on that?
Stability is better now, although I'm working in some balance on it (too).

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#180 Post by wobbly »

Did some testing of Confederation with both Independent Happiness Species (Sly and Laenfa) and Normal Happiness Species (Everything else). Current Implementation is buggy.

Disconnected Sly/ No Confederation
No penalty to stability for disconnected from Capital
-1 influence disconnected from Capital

Disconnected Sly/ Confederation
No penalty to stability for disconnected from Capital
+10 to stability (to cancel out the penalty it doesn't actually get)
-1 Stability (confederation)
+2 Stability (likes confederation)
-1 influence disconnected from Capital
+1 influence (confederation (to cancel above penalty))

Connected Sly/Confederation
No penalty or bonus for Capital distance
No bonus for confederation (e.g. its 10 less then a disconnected planet)
-1 Stability (confederation)
+2 Stability (likes confederation)

Non-Sly/Confederation
Not going through the whole details, but a weak supply connection is worse then none for stability.

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