Having to choose between exploiting and expanding doesn't seem necessarily bad...
Testing Government and Influence
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- Geoff the Medio
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Re: Testing Government and Influence
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".Geoff the Medio wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 11:52 amHaving to choose between exploiting and expanding doesn't seem necessarily bad...
Edit: with the suggested change, some great-supply species could have another choice: do both things at once.
Re: Testing Government and Influence
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).
Re: Testing Government and Influence
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.
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.
- Geoff the Medio
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Re: Testing Government and Influence
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...
Re: Testing Government and Influence
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.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.
Re: Testing Government and Influence
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)
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.
Re: Testing Government and Influence
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.
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Re: Testing Government and Influence
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. (?)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 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?
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- Geoff the Medio
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Re: Testing Government and Influence
yes
If nothing else works, you can deadopt all policies to (almost fully) erase your influence debt.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.
yesRebels are generated based on debt, not on deficit, right?
Re: Testing Government and Influence
I believe Ophiuchus means that rebels appearing on a planet should lower the Influence deficit of this planet.Geoff the Medio wrote: ↑Wed May 05, 2021 8:14 pmDoesn't make sense to me...
Rebel troop generation is a local effect on each planet, dependent on its stability level.
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.
Very good idea(s) !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.
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...
I entirely approve your train of thoughts.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 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).
Re: Testing Government and Influence
What ?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.
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.
Re: Testing Government and Influence
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...
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.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.
@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"
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Re: Testing Government and Influence
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.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"
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.
Re: Testing Government and Influence
Maybe it's time for you to start actually looking at your sitrepsOberlus 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.
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?