Page 1 of 2

Influence and Species

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 1:31 am
by labgnome
With influence on the horizon, we need to have influence traits for the species of Free Orion. As such I would like to start the discussion on which species should have what influence traits. The following are my own suggestions.

Playable Species
  • Abaddoni: great influence, from Mother
  • Chato: bad influence, other species are repulsed by them
  • Cray: good influence, happy and enthusiastic
  • Eaxaw: good influence, harem politics
  • Egassem: bad influence, individual fiefdoms and to offset being good conquerors
  • Gysache: bad influence, cowardly and to offset being good at research and industry
  • Laenfa: bad influence, secretive and to further differentiate from Sly
  • Scylior: good influence, from Scylior Mind
  • Sly: good influence, friendly
  • Trith: bad influence, concentration disrupted by the existence of other species
Artificial Species
  • Exobot: very bad influence, limited autonomy
Native Species
  • Acirema: good influence, ultimate power good at everything else
  • Beige Goo: no influence, only replication
  • Derthean: great influence, priesthood
  • Fifty-Seven: no influence, see outside universe as abstraction
  • Furthest: bad influence, fearful
  • Happybirthday: bad influence, collective depression
  • Hidden Gardener: great influence, from "gardening" and allows them back in the game
  • Kobuntura: good influence, Dark Enclave
  • Mu Ursh: good influence, prefer soft-power
  • Raaagh: no influence, constant fighting
  • Setinon: great influence, in perpetration for them being slated for being playable and "influence conquest"
  • Ugmors: good influence, to differentiate them from Egassem
  • Volp-Uglush: good influence, bureaucracy
Extinct Species
  • Kilandow: very bad influence, neglects society
  • Misiorla: bad influence, individualism and the other foci are bad

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:18 am
by Oberlus
Where's average influence?

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 10:17 am
by labgnome
Oberlus wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:18 am Where's average influence?
All species not mentioned can be presumed to have average influence.

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Wed Jul 29, 2020 10:26 am
by Oberlus
labgnome wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 10:17 am
Oberlus wrote: Wed Jul 29, 2020 6:18 am Where's average influence?
All species not mentioned can be presumed to have average influence.
Doh! :oops: :lol:

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:31 pm
by LienRag
Seems mostly reasonable to me.

But why Good Influence for the Mu Urshes ?
They're one of the best species for the Very Good Pilot trait and not much hindering them...

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:52 pm
by Oberlus
George, being formed by a single consciuosness, should have good or great influence (and drop something else for balance, industry).

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Thu Jul 30, 2020 10:01 pm
by labgnome
LienRag wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:31 pm Seems mostly reasonable to me.

But why Good Influence for the Mu Urshes ?
They're one of the best species for the Very Good Pilot trait and not much hindering them...
I wanted something to go with the flavor of them preferring non-violence.
Oberlus wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:52 pm George, being formed by a single consciuosness, should have good or great influence (and drop something else for balance, industry).
Sounds reasonable to me.

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 2:12 am
by Krikkitone
Actually George should probably have terrible influence, he understands nothing of influencing other minds. (maintaining control over George should have some sort of discount if there is a George capital )

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 7:09 am
by Oberlus
Krikkitone wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 2:12 am Actually George should probably have terrible influence, he understands nothing of influencing other minds. (maintaining control over George should have some sort of discount if there is a George capital )
So good for monospecies, bad for multispecies.
Makes sense.

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:09 am
by Vezzra
Krikkitone wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 2:12 am Actually George should probably have terrible influence, he understands nothing of influencing other minds. (maintaining control over George should have some sort of discount if there is a George capital )
That would be a valid argument if Influence primarily was about excerting influence on other empires, which it is not. Influence is about as much, if not even more, about excerting influence in/administrating your own empire. And from that POV is makes a lot of sense to give hive-mind/collective or single consciousness/telepathic species good/very good Influence, or Influence boosts.

Aside from that, being a single consciousness species in itself doesn't tell anything about how good they are at influencing others. But unless we want to introduce different resource types and game mechanics for dealing with internal and external influence, we need to somehow roll that into one. My take on this would be to just give hive-minds and telepathic species good influence.

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:13 am
by Vezzra
Oberlus wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 7:09 amSo good for monospecies, bad for multispecies.
The question would be, how to achieve this? My first idea would be to make the influence boni George provides and/or the IP costs of their colonies dependent on the species of the capital. If George control the capital - good Influence, normal IP costs of colonies with their species; if not - bad Influence, high IP costs for colonies with their species.

Something along those lines maybe?

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 2:59 pm
by Oberlus
Vezzra wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:13 am
Oberlus wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 7:09 amSo good for monospecies, bad for multispecies.
The question would be, how to achieve this? My first idea would be to make the influence boni George provides and/or the IP costs of their colonies dependent on the species of the capital. If George control the capital - good Influence, normal IP costs of colonies with their species; if not - bad Influence, high IP costs for colonies with their species.

Something along those lines maybe?
I see several alternative traits/ethics here:

A: Species that likes to govern (be at the capital) and that makes things harder when not governing. This would be what you suggest, I think, that increases influence costs of the colonies with this species if non-governing, and decreases if governing. Maybe indirectly affecting influence production/consumption via stability (happiness).
B: Species that does not like to share an empire with other species, e.g. by become harder to maintain (more influence cost on their colonies) the more species are in the empire, or the less share of the total population they are. It's similar to A but does not take into account ther governing-species and takes into account the shares of species/population. Both A and B traits/ethics could coexist in the same species.
C: Species that has high influence on the same species and low influence on different species. This one I don't see how to implement it without converting it into A via the governing-species thingy.

I guess B is Xenophobic, but current Xenophobic trait works differently, by proximity to other species. However, it's been always a source of balance problems (at least the xenophobic&self-sustaining combo), and it makes sense to rework it to operate over influence or stability rather than directly affecting production.


I agree that hive-mind species and the like doesn't necessarily imply bad influence on other species. There is nothing that makes "individuals" species better than hive-mind species to understand other species. Some hive-mind species could be just charming and incredibly emotionally-intelligent, etc. why not?

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 5:25 pm
by LienRag
labgnome wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 10:01 pm
LienRag wrote: Thu Jul 30, 2020 5:31 pm But why Good Influence for the Mu Urshes ?
They're one of the best species for the Very Good Pilot trait and not much hindering them...
I wanted something to go with the flavor of them preferring non-violence.
I approve going with the flavor of the specie but Mu Urshes have some quite peculiar version of the non-violence they prefer...

Maybe if there's internal and external Influence as Vezzra proposed they can have good internal and bad external ?

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 10:41 pm
by labgnome
LienRag wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 5:25 pm I approve going with the flavor of the specie but Mu Urshes have some quite peculiar version of the non-violence they prefer...

Maybe if there's internal and external Influence as Vezzra proposed they can have good internal and bad external ?
I'm not aware of any proposals for different internal and external influence. I am personally against the idea, as I think it would be confusing and overly complicated.

I am not really familiar with the background for the Mu Ursh, so maybe they should just have average influence.

Re: Influence and Species

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:29 pm
by labgnome
Vezzra wrote: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:09 amMy take on this would be to just give hive-minds and telepathic species good influence.
I don't think that telepathic species should automatically get good influence. I especially don't think that non hive-mind telepathic species would be any better at holding an empire together than any other species. Perhaps gestalt species could just not suffer rebellions on their own planets so long as they controlled the capitol.