Been a long time since I was on these forums but I decided to visit and see what was going on with the project.
On the subject of Happiness and Allegience vs. just Allegience, I think having two distinct meters will give more options and better show the state of affairs on the planet than just one meter. This is because you can be happy while not having a high allegience to your ruler and you can be unhappy wile having a high allegience.
For example:
I am a US citizen. I am not happy with the current economic, political and military situations in our country. That does not mean, however, that I am willing to rebel/revolt against the government, leave and become a citizen of another country or betray my fellow citizens.
Thus, I am not happy, but my allegience is still to my country.
On the other side, an occupying power may treat the citizens of a country well, give them everything they need and make their lives good. The citizens will be happy because they are being treated well, but given the opportunity, they would switch sides in an instant. The only obvious deterrant is an occupying force.
Thus, the people are happy, but would rather be reunited with their own country or have their own country.
Time would obviously effect these meters. The longer a world is unhappy and the more unhappy it gets, the lower the allegience. The longer a world is happy and the happier it gets, the higher the allegience.
Happiness would also effect the economic and industrial output of the planet as well. Unhappy people just don't work as hard and don't go out as much as happy people do.
Happiness can be affected by a number of different things.
I) Situations on the planet
-A) Taxes
-B) Treatment of the people
--1)Slavery/workload
--2)Genocide/Xenocide
--3)Entertainment
-C)Military presence
-D)Recent attacks
--1)Military
--2)Spies
-E)Piracy
-F)Riots
II) Situations on other planets in your empire
-A) Taxes (Their taxes are lower than ours, we're angry)
-B) Treatment of the people
--1)Slavery/workload
--2)Genocide/Xenocide
-C)Military presence (Our neighbor is protected so their are forces nearby to help us)
-D)Recent attacks
--1)Military
---a)Our neighbor was attacked and we could be next
---b)A planet in the empire was attacked because the planet was undefended
---c)An alien race attacked us and you haven't done anything about it
---d)A planet was taken by an enemy
--2)Spies
---a)Our neighbor was attacked and we could be next
---b)An alien race attacked us and you haven't done anything about it
-E)Piracy (Our neighbors have pirates attacking them, it's affecting our trade and we could be next)
-F)Riots (Our neighbors are rioting so our leader must be doing something wrong)
III) Stiuations outside of your empire
-A)War
--1)We're happy because you're attacking a race we hate
--2)We're angry because you're attacking a race we like
-B)Treaties/agreements with other races
--1)We're happy because this treaty ended a terrible war
--2)We're angry because you ended a war with a race we want annihilated
--3)We're happy because this agreement benefits us
---a)Money coming into the empire
---b)New tech that benefits the people
--4)We're angry because this agreement hurts us
---a)Money going out of the empire
---b)Tech traded that could hurt us
-C)Other races actions
--1)They moved a lot of ships close to our planets
--2)Treatment of the people
---a)Slavery/workload
---b)Genocide/Xenocide
These are just some examples to give you an idea. More can be added, some of the above can be taken away if needed.
The reason I have the three main categories is continuing off of Krikkitone's thought:
Krikkitone wrote:Well I think the key idea is the 2 different causes of something happening to affect allegiance
1. We don't like what you did TO US
2. We don't like what you did IN PRINCIPLE
Now there is some overlap, but generally those are seperate categories (if an empire is Xenociding your race then you don't like it in Principle but if you are a Subject of that empire you also don't like the fact that they are doing Xenocide To You)
You have three sitations:
Happening to me
Happening to my friend
Happening to someone else
Each is going to cause a different amount of happiness or anger.
If I win a million dollars, I'm going to be so happy I'll pass out. If my friend wins a million dollars, I'm going to be happy because he/she is my friend and they're going to be happy and maybe I'll get a bit of a benefit. If some stranger wins a million dollars, I'm happy for them, but it really isn't an extremely big deal.
Likewise, if someone attacks me, I'm going to be furious. I'm going to go after them and hunt them down and hurt them. This is all hypothetically speaking of course. If my friend is attacked, I'm still going to be pretty angry but not quite as angry if it was me. I might help the friend hunt them down or support them in some way, but I'm not going to obsess over it. If some stranger gets attacked, I'm going to be angry, I'm going to want justice done, but that's about as far as it goes.
The effects of happiness on a planet would be
1)Reduction in economy which equals less taxes
2)Reduction in production wich equals longer build times
3)Reduction in Allegience meter
I know this is a long post, but bear with me a bit more. And thanks for reading this far.
Allegience would be a bit simpler since most of the complex stuff would be taken care of in happiness.
Affects on Allegience would be:
1)Happiness
2)Race (conquered planets would have less allegience than ones you colonized)
3)Spies
Once happiness reaches a certain point, there would be a chance of riots. These riots would even further reduce the economic and production outputs.
As riots continue and allegience drops there would be an increasing chance of revolt. If a revolt occurs the planet leaves the empire.
Revolts can be stopped a number of ways, some even before they even get started.
1)Military (Armed citizens attempted to take control of the planet but your garrison stopped them)
2)AI Governor (action depends on level of control of the governor)
-a)Fully automatic A (Governor addresses the issues that cause the revolt and convinces the people to stay in the empire. This could include buildings atomatically getting added at the beginning of the queue, other buildings being destroyed, tax levels getting changed, etc. All changes take care of problems and hapiness and allegience will start to increase.)
-b)Fully automatic B (Governor addresses some of the issues that cause the revolt and convinces the people to stay in the empire. This could include buildings atomatically getting added at the beginning of the queue, other buildings being destroyed, tax levels getting changed, etc. Other changes may still be needed like more ships in orbit to defend against alien attack or pirates, government type change, etc.)
-c)Semi-automatic (Governor convinces the people not to revolt and that you will take care of the problem. This would require the player to take care of all changes.)
Note: Fully automatic means the goervnor is set to take care of all or some of the aspects of your planet. Semi-automatic means the governor is off and you micromanage the planet.
3)Citizen (Some random citizen convinces the masses not to revolt. This would create a leader (if those are going ot be in the game) but it stays on that planet unitl allegience has been sufficeintly increased. Player must manually make all changes required.)
I'm sure there are a couple of things I forgot to address, but I think this post is long enough as it is.
Thanks again for reading all of this if you made it this far.