OK, a big long reply to various points on the last 3 pages.
Geoff the Medio wrote:To clarify, I think you're both proposing that there be three tracked numbers:
1) species-empire "allegiance"
2) planetary local target happiness
3) planetary local current happiness
Well, depending on what factors we include in "allegiance", it may need separate target and current values. Some proposed factors make more sense if they fade.
Geoff the Medio wrote:I also note that alignment ratings on "how empire treats species X" would also let species consider their opinions of other species when determining their opinion of empires. Most species would be indifferent or mildly opposed to bad things being done to most other species, but particularly friendly or hateful species could have "ethos" that strongly likes or dislikes empires for doing good or bad things to specific other species.
That seems a little too involved to me. I think it's enough to worry about what species think of empires, and how that reflects on your empire. Especially since this is something that neither you nor I see as being used for most species, IMHO this can be dropped in favor of more generally useful features.
Also since empires are the active entities in FO, species never actually do anything to other species, all you would have is static species prejudices. Since it's intended that players can make their own species, and ideally import species other players have made, giving each species an innate hate/likeing for other specific species, wouldn't tend to balance well.
Krikkitone wrote:Geoff the Medio wrote: Presumably it shouldn't take many turns for a planet that loved its old rulers but completely disagrees with the actions of its current rulers to become unhappy with the new rulers and begin rebelling.
It should be Instant... (when you take over a world, once you push out the official military, the 'rebel military' should continue)
I agree that the desired effect is an immediate bump or depression to the current happiness unless the planet likes both empires equally.
I would implement it by comparing the species allegiances to the two empires. The adjustment to happiness would be proportionate to the difference in allegiances. This is a one-time reaction to the planet changing hands, which would tend to make that turn (as you would intuitively expect) the time most likely to see dancing in the streets or riots.
Bigjoe5 wrote:A species' ethical preferences will be either extreme (the more bloodthirsty the better, or the more pacifistic the better) or neutral (it doesn't matter how bloodthirsty or pacifistic you are). Species won't have a preference for a "Bloodthirstiness of 60" for example, where anything more or less than that is sub-optimal.
Agreed.
Bigjoe5 wrote:A single value for alignment which is only modified by events seems adequate, and in the case of certain alignments, such as bloodthirstiness vs. pacifism, the value would gradually and steadily move towards pacifistic if no warlike action is taken.
Good idea. I was wondering how we would do alignment scales where one end was pretty much represented by an absence of certain kinds of actions.
Bigjoe5 wrote:Geoff the Medio wrote:Another issue is how to modify current happiness when planets change hands, which Bigjoe5 is suggesting to determine by the difference in target happiness, whereas I suggested to use the difference in "allegiance" to the original and new empires. This decision probably isn't very important, though, and would probably have to be re-evaluated after trying one in-game anyway.
In the rare case in which a species has higher allegiance to Blue empire, but higher happiness in Green empire, due to Green's techs and buildings, it wouldn't make much sense for happiness on planet X to go down when Green captures it from Blue (although one could argue that this should be the natural consequence of a planet being captured by an empire to whom it has lower allegiance, even if happiness will rise eventually).
I would argue that this rare case example shouldn't happen. To keep things as understandable as possible there shouldn't be tech and buildings or other factors that modify happiness on an empire-wide scale. There should just be 2 categories:
1) Allegiance: This is collective. the sum of all the reasons a species
as a whole has to like or dislike an empire.
2) Happiness: This is local. With the sole exception of "allegiance" is should be made up of only local (not empire or species wide) factors.
Otherwise we are back to having a three-layered system (like some of my earlier proposals) with a empire-wide happiness layer between allegiance and local happiness. But it's not needed, any really necessary collective attitude modification can be put into allegiance.
Geoff wrote:However I don't think we should rule out races being "mildy bloodthirsty" or "extremely bloodthirsty", rather than just all-or-nothing "bloodthirsty", without some consideration. Various storytelling reasons could motivate the need for having degrees of adherence to or importance of ethical or moral beliefs, and it could probably be useful for balancing the races as well.
I don't see a point in nailing this down yet, any conceivable system could work either way. My original goal for the ethos/alignment system was to give each species a unique personality. I'd like to see each species with a unique ethos. So if we have only a few alignment scales (for instance 3), i'd consider extreme/mild ethos distinctions more useful than if we had around 6 or 7 scales.
RonaldX wrote:Krikkitone wrote:Detailed example
The only significant difference proposed sets things up slightly differently in terms of what "target" and "current" values are defined as. In your system, a "target" value is the sum of any permanant effects, while "current" values are temporary effects which modify the target.
In the other system, a "target value" is the sum of all effects, while "current values" are just "where we are right at this moment", and the current value always shifts closer to the target each turn.
I suspect i am the least savvy of anyone here in the formulas/math department. But i've been envisioning things differently than either of those two, like this for what it's worth.
* The target value is the sum of any permanent effects.
* The current value tends toward the target each turn.
* Any temporary effects directly modify the current value.
Thus temporary effects cause immediate spikes in happiness which fade off. The player takes note of them when they occur , but he knows the effect will diminish from there. He doesn't have to worry about how many turns later the temporary effect will peak, since the effect is at it's greatest at the beginning.