labgnome wrote: ↑Thu Apr 25, 2019 5:05 pmI am thinking that espionage will at least in the beginning be handled through influence projects.
I don't know if we have influence projects (the mechanics) implemented, but I know policy cards are, and you can
try it.
But I personally don't care about "beginning" or "later", I wish to have the design pad all at once, so that everything can be considered in the new tech tree for balance. So my idea is to sketch every possible influence effect and decide for them how they
should be implemented (not how can they be implemented for now).
I would say that governments and policies should probably be fleshed out before diplomacy.
Yeah, we definitively has to think about Government too. The snap I linked above has also some advances towards government, it has government seat IIRC. And there is more, I'm sure Ophiuchus and Geoff have work done. There are
threads on the subject. We shall check them first, and talk about that in them or create a new one.
A couple have been suggested as policies instead of influence projects. I've also suggested that mass destruction require buildings. I might have a few more that I will suggest tying to buildings. And some I will suggest being tied to policies.
Yes, this sort of things, fully detailed for each effect: if it will be a project, a policy or a focus, if it will require a building, influence upkeep, and the full description of the effect, but not with numbers, we can't do that yet.
I guess we can make here all the discussion regarding influence.
Policy cards (what I mean when I say "policies") are meant for mutually exclusive effects, usually with a bonus and a malus, and can require buildings or influence upkeeps. Different kind of policy cards require different government slots, and there will be more options than available slots of each type (obviously). They are very versatile regarding balance, do not imply any kind of micromanagement (unless we fail in the design to allow for some benefit from periodic switching of policy cards), and are very good to diversify strategies and bring fun to the game thanks to giving you mutually exclusive choices.
Influence projects, similar to construction or research projects, will have a queue and require influence investment to complete, with a minimum number of turns. Two types, those that apply its effect once the project is completed (name?, like buildings and ships), and those that have an effect that repeats every turn (continuous, like the stockpiling project). Influence projects will be good for non-exclusive effects, probably without any malus, and maybe they can allow for opposing effects (e.g. your enemy starts a mass-destruction project in your colony, you start there a counter-espionage project and the IPs you invest there counters the ones invested by your enemy, by increasing its cost or depleting its progress, things like that).
Planetary focus could be good for effects with range (centred in the planet with the focus) or that give some local boost (e.g. bonus to defence against espionage, terror and/or propaganda, if this makes sense).
Influence points will be produced by planets (and buildings; in the prototype, when I tried it a few months ago, the only source was a capital building that produced 1 per turn), not sure if population should or should not be considered, depends on if that can be controlled to not cause exponential growth. And will be consumed by policies, projects and the upkeep of planets and ships. Young colonies and those that have sustained damage will consume more influence than what they produce, and well developed colonies will have surplus. The more colonies and species, the higher the upkeeps will be, so that as the empire grows the available IPs decreases. Unlocking techs, applying policies and waiting for your younger colonies to develop will be the ways to improve your influence production and keep expanding or building more ships, and if we also consider population for influence production, setting planets to influence focus. But on the long run the available IPs per developed colony shall keep decreasing asymptotically with the number of colonies (or the population). No formulas decided for this yet, AFAIK.
Oh, and government and diplomatics will also affect influence production or consumption (diplomatic projects, governments with bonus or malus to influence...), and also the species, and the relations among them and with the government within the empire. Yes, a lot to think about, and each piece must fit well in the puzzle.