Testing Government and Influence

Describe your experience with the latest version of FreeOrion to help us improve it.

Moderator: Oberlus

Forum rules
Always mention the exact version of FreeOrion you are testing.

When reporting an issue regarding the AI, if possible provide the relevant AI log file and a save game file that demonstrates the issue.
Message
Author
User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#136 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 11:28 am...stick to the preferred focus or never reach colonization threshold...
Having to choose between exploiting and expanding doesn't seem necessarily bad...

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5715
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#137 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 11:52 am
Oberlus wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 11:28 am...stick to the preferred focus or never reach colonization threshold...
Having to choose between exploiting and expanding doesn't seem necessarily bad...
Right, but in practice it means "do always the same: first get another colony of that species up, then you can manage foci of some of this species' colonies".
Edit: with the suggested change, some great-supply species could have another choice: do both things at once.

wobbly
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 1880
Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2013 6:48 pm

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#138 Post by wobbly »

Quick comment on the new maintenance ships design. With the old ones you used to able to get a colony ship through if you were blocked. With 2 arc disruptors you can't even guarantee a large colony ship's safe passage until you reach zortium (or robot hull).

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5715
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#139 Post by Oberlus »

On the rebel troops under influence debt system.

Shouldn't the apparition of rebel troops slow down or remove influence stockpile sinking into red numbers? If a player notices it too late or when a change (de/adopting a policy in a bad choice, losing certain planet or supply, etc.) has created a big influence deficit per turn, getting back to positive influence stockpile might be slow and many planets will rebel.

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#140 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 6:25 pmShouldn't the apparition of rebel troops slow down or remove influence stockpile sinking into red numbers?
Doesn't make sense to me...

Rebel troop generation is a local effect on each planet, dependent on its stability level.

Influence stockpile changes are a global empire calculation based on the net consumption and generation of influence across the empire.

That there is one or two planets with rebel troops doesn't seem like a reason to add a large influence output for the empire in order to cancel out its influence defecit from all consumption. It would mean that if you kept a planet at just low enough stability to have a small rebel troop presence, you'd be able to avoid going into influence debt regardless of what else is happening in the empire, without need for planets to be set to influence focus or to set other policies or otherwise generate influence.

That said, I would find it interesting to have a policy (or species trait?) that generates a large one-time influence bonus when a planet loses a planet to rebels. "Patriot Zeal" or "Devotion to Unity" or similar.

Also, losing a planet to rebels should in general already somewhat reduce an empire's influence defecit, as having fewer controlled planets reduces the colonial upkeep costs per planet.

That said, I'm not sure about the system as is where having an influence debt increases rebel troop generation. I originally wanted to avoid having any direct / fixed penalities to empires from having an influence debt, and instead rely on policies losing their beneficial effects if the empire has too low influence. The rebel troop generation is not as bad, to me, as the suggestions for reducing meter output in case of influence debt, but it's also still a directly related effect. Whether it's necessary to "motivate" players to avoid an influence debt is open for debate...

wobbly
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 1880
Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2013 6:48 pm

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#141 Post by wobbly »

Oberlus wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 11:28 am +5 stability for the preferred focus and -5 for the disliked ones seems excesive. For newly acquired species that forces you to stick to the preferred focus or never reach colonization threshold (e.g. Kobuntura, good influence, stick to stability 0 with influence focus, or to stability 2 if connected to capital). Maybe -2 for disliked foci.
I'm going to agree with this for a different reason. It's cutting down on interesting choices if you always leave a race on its preferred settings. There's enough incentive to do that already.

wobbly
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 1880
Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2013 6:48 pm

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#142 Post by wobbly »

A couple of small suggestions.

If humans are meant to be the balanced/flexible race they should like both research and industry. (Edit: Never mind, I noticed the +10 on industrialization)

Give a bonus to stability for homeworld supply. (the growth focus)
Last edited by wobbly on Thu May 06, 2021 6:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ophiuchus
Programmer
Posts: 3433
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:01 am
Location: Wall IV

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#143 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 5:06 pm Quick comment on the new maintenance ships design. With the old ones you used to able to get a colony ship through if you were blocked. With 2 arc disruptors you can't even guarantee a large colony ship's safe passage until you reach zortium (or robot hull).
I think I was confused. It should be a single arc disruptor i guess - I originally intended the damage level of a mass driver. With a normal arc disruptor it does 2 (total 24) base damage times 3 (total 12) shots. Increasing the number of shots is for making it harder to take out the maintenance ship with fighters only (which can bypass its shields).

Sending a medium hull colonizer with an escort ship should suffice. Else we could nerf it further e.g. doing 1 (total 20) base damage times 5 (total 20) shots. A fully base armoured colony ship is guaranteed to pass without being destroyed.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Look, ma... four combat bouts!

Ophiuchus
Programmer
Posts: 3433
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:01 am
Location: Wall IV

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#144 Post by Ophiuchus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 8:14 pm Also, losing a planet to rebels should in general already somewhat reduce an empire's influence defecit, as having fewer controlled planets reduces the colonial upkeep costs per planet.
Not sure on terms here. Deficit means you are spending more than you have income (so influence upkeep higher than influence production). Debt means you have negative influence stockpile. (?)

Not sure on all the ways to add stability, but its easy to have all your empire's planets rebel before you get out of your debt.

Rebels are generated based on debt, not on deficit, right?
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Look, ma... four combat bouts!

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#145 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Ophiuchus wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 1:37 pm Deficit means you are spending more than you have income (so influence upkeep higher than influence production). Debt means you have negative influence stockpile. (?)
yes
Not sure on all the ways to add stability, but its easy to have all your empire's planets rebel before you get out of your debt.
If nothing else works, you can deadopt all policies to (almost fully) erase your influence debt.
Rebels are generated based on debt, not on deficit, right?
yes

User avatar
LienRag
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 2148
Joined: Fri May 17, 2019 5:03 pm

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#146 Post by LienRag »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 8:14 pm
Oberlus wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 6:25 pmShouldn't the apparition of rebel troops slow down or remove influence stockpile sinking into red numbers?
Doesn't make sense to me...

Rebel troop generation is a local effect on each planet, dependent on its stability level.
I believe Ophiuchus means that rebels appearing on a planet should lower the Influence deficit of this planet.

That way the situation that arise now - where many planets rebel one after the other because of Influence deficit without much ways for the player to correct this course - could be less frustrating.

Geoff the Medio wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 8:14 pm That said, I would find it interesting to have a policy (or species trait?) that generates a large one-time influence bonus when a planet loses a planet to rebels. "Patriot Zeal" or "Devotion to Unity" or similar.
Very good idea(s) !

Needs to be unexploitable though : gaining repeated influence boni by micromanaging lowering stability of a planet up to the point of rebellion and then reconquering it immediately is certainly not a thing we should encourage.

Is it possible with the codebase that we have to make it a once-by-planet event ?
That way a player putting himself in a corner would have a way out of it, but would need to be very careful to not put himself again in the same corner...

Geoff the Medio wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 8:14 pm That said, I'm not sure about the system as is where having an influence debt increases rebel troop generation. I originally wanted to avoid having any direct / fixed penalities to empires from having an influence debt, and instead rely on policies losing their beneficial effects if the empire has too low influence. The rebel troop generation is not as bad, to me, as the suggestions for reducing meter output in case of influence debt, but it's also still a directly related effect. Whether it's necessary to "motivate" players to avoid an influence debt is open for debate...
I entirely approve your train of thoughts.

I believe that we should really make possible a no-influence strategy, but it's quite hard to make it balanced and not overwhelmingly more powerful than coping with all the (very costly) Influence production and limitations.

I repeat myself once again though, the way that would be the most interesting strategically to achieve that objective is making it counterable, not self-defeating (so if the other players do not counter it or counter it badly, this no-influence strategy could be the best choice).

User avatar
LienRag
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 2148
Joined: Fri May 17, 2019 5:03 pm

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#147 Post by LienRag »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 3:01 pm If nothing else works, you can deadopt all policies to (almost fully) erase your influence debt.
What ?
I'm not in debt in my game now so I can't test what happens when in debt, but AFAIK deadopting a policy doesn't have any positive effect on influence (except for policies like Engineering Corp that have a continuous Influence cost of course, but the way the game is now they're nearly impossible to use anyway)¹.

It could be interesting to gain one-time Influence bonus by deadopting a Policy though (as long as this bonus is inferior to the Policy adoption cost), in order to provide a way to get out of debt without losing everything².



¹ And to be clear, I tested deadopting all my Policies while not in debt, and gained no Influence through this action.

² Note that would change the balance by making switching Policies much cheaper.

User avatar
drkosy
Space Dragon
Posts: 367
Joined: Sat Jul 11, 2020 9:41 am

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#148 Post by drkosy »

Could add a low-cost or free to adopt policy that gives a small boost to capital influence, but not much else. Would be useful for early game influence but fall off by the midgame. Similar policies for research, industry, or stockpiling might also work...
Imperial Palace should give one social slot per default.
Species trait for policy slots could be like this:
- Bad: -1 slot.
- Good: +1 slot.
- Great: +2 slots.
No Ultimate level for this trait.
That could work quite well together. To have an low-cost policy to boost stability in a social slot could be great at start and could be replaced by diversity later on.
@Oberlus: Do I get it right: Average is 1 social-slot for Imperial Palace, bad means none, good 2 and great 3 social slots? I think 3 slots right from the start is a lot. Maybe it should more be like the "can forish on more worlds" and give +1 social slot (could be "very social community"
Want some fresh experience? Try Kosymod

User avatar
Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5715
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#149 Post by Oberlus »

drkosy wrote: Fri May 07, 2021 6:03 am @Oberlus: Do I get it right: Average is 1 social-slot for Imperial Palace, bad means none, good 2 and great 3 social slots? I think 3 slots right from the start is a lot. Maybe it should more be like the "can forish on more worlds" and give +1 social slot (could be "very social community"
Yes. Actually, I didn't thought of the implications of the trait: since the policy slots is a empire-wide meter, you need to link it to some unique something, and that should be the imperial palace. It would have more or less social slots depending on the trait of the species in that planet.
Maybe make it:
- Bad: -1 (so the first social slot you unlock serves you nothing)
- Average: 0 (as currently, you need to research some techs to get the first social slot).
- Good: +1 (start game with one social slot).
- Great: +2.
- Ultimate: +3.

That way Great is a rather good so should be compensated with bad traits (as always).

However, I find the lack of a social slot in early game quite annoying. And the lack of enough social slots in general also a bad thing.

wobbly
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 1880
Joined: Thu Oct 10, 2013 6:48 pm

Re: Testing Government and Influence

#150 Post by wobbly »

Oberlus wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 6:25 pm On the rebel troops under influence debt system.

Shouldn't the apparition of rebel troops slow down or remove influence stockpile sinking into red numbers? If a player notices it too late or when a change (de/adopting a policy in a bad choice, losing certain planet or supply, etc.) has created a big influence deficit per turn, getting back to positive influence stockpile might be slow and many planets will rebel.
Maybe it's time for you to start actually looking at your sitreps :)

Anyway, there's a bunch of ground battle sitreps the moment you go in to negative influence. I still haven't playtested a lot but so far the best way I've found to keep a buffer is the troop techs.

Edit: Random idea - maybe martial law should be adoptable at 0 or negative IP? Perhaps some other draconian policies in emergencies?

Post Reply