Simulating Citizens

[eleazar]

seveal long posts

It's hard to keep track of all the details, but it seems like the essential difference between your latest posts and your earlier system is that in the latter design, the only thing that determines a species' "allegiance" to an empire is the empire's alignment ratings and the species' priorities and preferences for those ratings. Is that accurate?

That's the most substative difference. But also a lot of details that i was hazy on in that previous post are now understood and (hopefully) decribed more concretely. Perhaps i should have highlighted the difference, but i thought a compare/contrast to a proposal made many weeks ago would just confuse.

...when a planet changes hands two values are compared: The empire-wide target happiness of the species for the old empire (which includes allegiance), and the same values for the new empire.

Tracking, as a player or programmer, which happiness-modifying effects are "empire wide" and which are "local only" seems needlessly complicated.[/quote]There's nothing speficic in the proposal about how happiness information should be presented to the player, so i'm not sure how you can conclude it is too complicated for them.

The description may be awkward, but as for the idea itself, i don't see how it could be made more simple, without slashing function that's been assumed for ages. Some causes effect the happiness of all the members of a species within an empire, while other causes effect the happiness of only the citizens of one planet. Some causes effect the happiness of a species permanently, or at least until the cause is removed, and some causes have an effect on happiness that fades with time. It's not a new idea, i'm just the first one to break it all down.
Local happiness (assuming neutral is 0) is simply the sum of the empire-wide causes of happiness and the local causes, if any.

What would be wrong with: When a planet is captured, the change in current happiness of the planet is determined only by the relative degree of alignment agreement between the planet's species and the two empires involved? Rephrased: current happiness goes up if the species has higher allegiance to a new owner, and goes down if the species has lower allegiance to a new owner.

Target happiness of a planet would always be determined by a combination of allegiance (which is derived from alignment factors and species preferences) and whatever other effects act on the planet. If a planet was captured, this might change the target happiness due to a different set of effects now acting on the planet, just like researching a tech or creating a building could add or remove effects.

I'm not sure what exactly you are suggesting, either:
1) that a different value should be used to calculate the citizen reaction to the change of rulers, or
2) that there should be no citizen reaction to a change of rulers, but instead their happiness gets recalculated for their new situation, or
3) that happiness in general should be calculated differently

Answer to 1) The difference between that, and what i've proposed, is that i'm comparing a difference value than "allegiance"-- one that takes into account a few more important items. Though Krikkitone wants to change the terminology so that the value used take the label of "allegiance", but for now i'll stick to the terminology in my proposal. It seems sensible to take into account all the permanent factors that effect a the happiness of a species as a whole in an empire, so i've keyed it to the empire-wide target happiness modifiers, which includes the rank of a species, i.e. weather is slave, citizen or aristocracy.

Answer to 2) The conquest of a planet seems like the most compelling time for citizen to react. A bump to the local current (not target) happiness, nicely induces temporary rioting if they don't like the change

Answer to 3) Um, you'll have to explain more specifically what you have in mind.

That said, it may be that "passive", if included, would be a particulalry inconvenient racial trait, in which case it would likely be counterbalanced by benefits for that race.

A "bloodthirsty" species is happiest when you are a war with everyone. A "pacifistic" species (passive is a different concept) is happinest when you are at war with no one. I think most viable strategies fall roughly in the middle of those two extremes. It's not expected that a player can maximize the happiness of a species through an entire game.

So, using "meter" to refer to any gameplay-relevant statistic could be confusing for content creators or players (if the latter see the term at all).

I think the only one that is confused that useage is you. If we can't call a scale with a current value and a max/target value, that is in fact identical to things called "meters" except that it isn't attached to an "object", what are we supposed to call them?

[RonaldX]

I've read through the last 5 pages of this thread, and I'm going to try to take a stab at building a rudimentary framework for how this might look to the player, throwing in some numbers as a scaling factor.. I'm going to work off of this diagram because it matches pretty much exactly what I was thinking before I went back and reviewed that far. So without further adue:

Note before starting: I am determining values for allegiance and happiness based on what I'm terming "Factors". These are the actions, buildings, attributes, events, etc. that make up A&H. I am assigning them standard base values for the purpose of the framework, under the assumption that races will, by virtue of their racial properties, react differently to different Factors (More on this later). The values given are weighting for a race who is average in all ethical scales and has no modifiers to Factors. I will try to provide examples as to how special racial attributes could modify response to these factors, provided in italics for clarity.

Definitions:
Allegiance: How loyal a given species is to a given empire, on a scale from 1-100.
Happiness: The level of contentment of the population of a specific planet, on a scale from 1-100. Happiness is a "transitory" property of a planet, it rises and falls gradually as things change locally and galactically. Happiness has a "target value" and a "current value". If an event takes place that modifies "target happiness", then the "current happiness" of the planet will shift 2% towards that value each turn until it gets there. (This also gives players a chance to detect and counteract problems before the full penalty is levied, for example if a race loses it's homeworld, it has a window of time to reclaim it before the race starts sulking.)
Ethics: The behavioral standard for a member of a given race, defined by three scales (War/Peace, Freedom/Security, Expansion/Development) each of which is a scale from 0 to 60. (Technically it should be 57.69, this is an ugly number but I have a reason for it, and if you hate it you can change it later, it's just for the framework.)
Ethical Compatibility: How closely the ethics of one race match those of your empire, this will determine baseline allegiance. It is derived by plotting a 3d-graph with the three axes, War/Peace, Freedom/Security, and Expansion/Development. Each race has a point on the graph where their Ethics are represented, along with the point of your empire's current Ethos. The inverse linear distance between the point of one race and the point of another race is the ethical compatibility of those races. If they are in the exact same place, it will be 100, if they are the furthest possible distance apart, it will be 0.
Diminishing Factors: These factors cause an immediate +/- to allegiance or target happiness due to a specific action taken, but as time passes, the race gradually forgets or adapts to the change. Each turn, the Factor moves 1% towards neutral. (These typically have high initial values due to the fact that their effect on happiness is delayed due to the transitory nature of happiness, so it takes a couple turns for their full effect to be felt, and then it will linger for a while before dissipating.)

***
Factors Affecting Empire Ethos:
- (This one is up for grabs, I'm not really comfortable touching it. Presumably engaging in combat makes you more warlike, while trading or researching a tech makes you more peaceful, colonizing a world makes you more expansionistic, creating a building makes you more developmental.. Balance is extremely important here, especially in the later game when combat will be more frequent to prevent every empire from slipping towards warlike in the late game)

Factors Affecting Allegiance:
- Ethical Compatibility (0-100)
- Domestic Policy (see note 1) (-10 to +25)
- Foreign Policy (see note 2) (-25 to +25)
- Death and Destruction (see note 3) (-50 to 0) (Diminishing)
- Homeworld Destroyed/Lost (-100) (Diminishing)
- Detected Espionnage against Parent Empire (-10) (Diminishing)
- Buildings and Techs (Variable Weight)

Factors Affecting Happiness:
- Allegiance (see note 4) (0-100)
- Buildings and Techs (Variable Weight)
- Defensive Fleets In-System (+5)
- Bombardment or Blockading (see note 5) (-50) (Diminishing)
- Starvation (-25) (Diminishing)
- Sabotage (-25) (Diminishing)
- Propaganda Campaigns (+25) (Diminishing)

Effects of Allegiance:
81-100 (fanatical) - Military units gain large morale bonuses, citizens work harder/pay higher taxes
61-80 (strong) - Military units gain slight morale bonuses, citizens work slightly harder, etc.
41-60 (steady) - No changes
21-40 (wavering) - Military units have slight morale penalties, citizens produce less
0-20 (revolting) - Military and civil units begin to rebel

Effects of Happiness:
81-100 (euphoric) - Increased population growth rates, increased resistance to espionnage
61-80 (happy) - Slightly increased population growth rates, slightly increased resistance to espionnage
41-60 (ennui) - No changes
21-40 (unhappy) - Slightly reduced population growth rates, slightly more susceptible to espionnage
0-20 (despair) - Civilians begin to riot

Notes:
1) Domestic Policy:
Given as an option the player has to promote the interests of one race over another, or to give all races equality. Setting a race as your "favored race" would increase it's allegiance to the empire by 25, while lowering the allegiance of all other races in the empire by 10. Having equality between races would cause no shift in either direction to any race. (a xenophobic race would have a modifier to this factor, or a peaceful race might get a bonus from being in an equality system)
2) Foreign Policy:
If you are AT WAR with an empire containing members of a race also present in your empire, then members of that race will suffer a 25% reduction in loyalty, if you are allied, they will gain a 25% increase in loyalty. (This could be filled with a gradient depending on the different diplomatic stances, should definately be modified based on %population of that race in the other empire, and lastly modified by racial attributes. Warmongering races may get a 5% bonus for each empire you are AT WAR with, while pacifist races gain 5% for each empire you are ALLIES with, etc.)
3) Death and Destruction:
If your empire has bombarded/genocided another race, you will suffer a 1% penalty for every billion you have killed, to a maximum of -50%. (certain races might be tolerant to this)
4) Allegiance:
The allegiance of a race to your empire is the baseline happiness of a planet populated by that race within your empire.
5) Bombardment or Blockading:
These tactics cause a big hit in target happiness, but because happiness is transitory, the full effect is only felt if the enemy continues to blockade or bombard for a prolonged period of time. If a player is able to muster a defense force and clear the attackers from the system within a couple turns, the people will quickly forget their brief troubles. Similar logic can be applied to Starvation, Sabotage, or Propaganda.

***

Hopefully that made some sense.. The idea was to amalgamate the concepts into a simple framework that is relatively easy to draw up. More factors can be added or removed, weightings changed, and certainly races can be made as complex as necessary in terms of their reactivity to different factors in order to make them distinct and interesting.

One thing that I dislike is having an empire-specific Ethos that evolves based on your decisions. Call me old-fashioned, but I would prefer that the Empire's Ethos is simply the Ethos of the race you pick at game start, and all racial compatibility is calculated compared to your initial race. Otherwise you could run into a kind of situation where "The Trith Empire" actually ends up annihilating all the Trith inside it because the strategic situation forced the player into a strategy the race didn't like, so he ended up having to kill them all off and resettle with a different race.

-Ty.

[eleazar]

A couple quick points:

Krikkitone:
OK, you've convinced me, The distinction i was making earlier between "Allegiance" and "Empire-wide causes of happiness" isn't useful. The "Allegiance" lable should cover all reasons a species (as a whole) has to like or dislike a particular empire. "Happiness" should be purely local, except that it is modified by allegiance.


RonaldX:
It's fine, and in this case useful to bring out specific numbers and percentages to help explain how your idea works. But at this point in the process, don't expect a lot of discussion on the numbers themselves, though that hopefully is not too far down the road. The general functioning is still not nailed down.

I do have to compliment you on a very clear presentation of ideas. Half the work is making ourselves understood to each other, but that's not an issue with your last post.

One thing that I dislike is having an empire-specific Ethos that evolves based on your decisions. Call me old-fashioned, but I would prefer that the Empire's Ethos is simply the Ethos of the race you pick at game start, and all racial compatibility is calculated compared to your initial race. Otherwise you could run into a kind of situation where "The Trith Empire" actually ends up annihilating all the Trith inside it because the strategic situation forced the player into a strategy the race didn't like, so he ended up having to kill them all off and resettle with a different race.

I'm not sure if you've missunderstood the idea of Ethos, or are simply using the termnology differently. Properly speaking an empire has no Ethos. Empires may make ethically significant actions, which are judged by the varoius species on weather the actions conform or not to the species' ethos. An empire is not assumed to have any ethics of it's own, it's goal is simply to win, but winning will often require respecting (to some degree) the ethoi of the empire's member species.

You'll notice we don't refer to empires by a species name, i.e. the Psylon Empire. In discussion we use color, i.e. the Red or Green Empire, but the game lets you name your empire whatever you want. This reflects a design that differs from MoO2: the member species are distinct from the empire. There are no "Trith Empires", except in the sense that some empires may have a Trith majority for all or part of the game. And though your example of exterminating all the Trith is a little improbable, it is indeed possible to start a game with a species, and win even though the species is extinct. I consider that a feature not a bug, though in practice, i expect it to be quite uncommon.

FO is also intended to support a scenario mode, where the player can take a side in a pre-designed scenario with empires already established, as you might see a WWII scenario in Civ. In these a player might start playing with multiple planets and species.

But anyway, i don't think you've cleared your head from MoO2 assumptions yet on this topic. You proposed that it should be an option for an empire to have equality between the species. If so, what sense does it make for the inital species' ethos to be the only one that matters?

[Bigjoe5]

A couple quick points:

Krikkitone:
OK, you've convinced me, The distinction i was making earlier between "Allegiance" and "Empire-wide causes of happiness" isn't useful. The "Allegiance" lable should cover all reasons a species (as a whole) has to like or dislike a particular empire. "Happiness" should be purely local, except that it is modified by allegiance.

That's kind of ironic; I just came to exactly the opposite conclusion. Rather, I feel that the distinction you made between "Local causes of happiness" and "Empire-wide causes of happiness" isn't useful. I would suggest that when a planet changes hands, target happiness is simply recalculated for the new situation, and current happiness is modified proportionately to the change in target happiness, with no distinction between "empire-wide" and "local" happiness effects, since this is essentially just a difference in the scope of a given happiness-altering effect.

If allegiance is always calculated solely with alignment vs. ethos, it makes it very simple for the player, since he can always see exactly what his alignment is, and it's easy to predict how a given action will affect alignment.

The problem is that this doesn't allow a bloodthirsty species to get mad at you for slaughtering their planets. There are two solutions to this:

1, which has been the implicitly accepted solution recently, is to simply have such actions modify happiness directly, so that you still can't do anything useful with planets of that species. This seems kind of counter-productive, since the desired outcome of this system is that species can dislike empires that do bad things to them, and then bad consequences ensue. This solution skips straight to the consequences, without any allegiance-lowering effects in between, in this case, which makes it more difficult to understand for the player, since the player only expects riots and rebellions to happen on either

-planets containing species with low allegiance towards him, or
-planets on which something special is happening, such as invasion, bombardment, starvation, etc.

A planet containing a species with high allegiance even though you bombarded many of its worlds (thus decreasing its happiness to the point of rioting) fits into neither of these categories, and the player won't see a reason for paying attention to it as intuitively as if it did.

2: Have two sets of imperial alignments. One set measures ethical compatibility, i.e. bloodthirsty vs. pacifistic, elitist vs. egalitarian, etc. The other tracks what the empire has done to specific species. So if the empire has gained a high Bloodthirstiness by destroying Eaxaw worlds, that will also correspond to a very low Eaxaw alignment rating, meaning that the Eaxaw will still dislike you for destroying their worlds, just not as much as a pacifistic race would, since they respect you for destroying stuff.

Thus, the best of both worlds is available: the user-friendliness and comprehensibility of alignment is combined with the ability for specific species to react predictably to actions taken against them specifically. In addition, only one value for allegiance is needed, current, with no growth rate, since it is calculated directly from alignment.

[RonaldX]

But anyway, i don't think you've cleared your head from MoO2 assumptions yet on this topic. You proposed that it should be an option for an empire to have equality between the species. If so, what sense does it make for the inital species' ethos to be the only one that matters?

There are some inconsistancies within what I wrote there, because I began drafting the idea in my head under some incorrect assumptions (a more MoO2-like system), then decided to learn from past mistakes and do some more extensive reviewing before posting anything. Unfortunately, some of my old assumptions were maintained and missed as I revised and edited the concept, so I accept that criticism. Suffice to say that I do largely understand what you're proposing and the post was an attempt to fashion a system into which these concepts come to life. It was not intended that the system be fully functional, balanced, or complete, but simply a framework which can be extended or altered.

Edit: The option for an empire to promote one species above another makes more sense in the system you are proposing, where you start with one race, but they may eventually fall by the wayside and don't necessarily stay your "primary race".. The option here gives you the opportunity to boost the allegiance of a given race temporarily or permanantly at the cost of making the rest less loyal.

Properly speaking an empire has no Ethos. Empires may make ethically significant actions, which are judged by the varoius species on whether the actions conform or not to the species' ethos. An empire is not assumed to have any ethics of it's own, it's goal is simply to win, but winning will often require respecting (to some degree) the ethoi of the empire's member species.

An empire's actions are constantly defining and redefining it's ethical standpoint. If I enter a great number of combats and declare war on everyone around me, then my citizens will view me as warmongering. If I decide to expand and colonize every world I find, my citizens view me as expansionist.. Their allegiance to me is determined by the difference between the ethical standpoint my actions define, and the pre-defined ethical standpoint their race prefers.

I defined an empire as having it's own Ethos (which can fluctuate and change based on actions) because it is useful as a tool for comparison to the races. In this case, Ethos goes from some obscure concept of what a race likes, to a defined racial behaviour. Your empire's actions will define it's Ethical standpoint, and when graphed, is extremely easy to compare and assign values to.

Again, though, it's just a concept, and I thought it a clever implementation, nothing more.

-Ty.

[Bigjoe5]

I defined an empire as having it's own Ethos (which can fluctuate and change based on actions) because it is useful as a tool for comparison to the races. In this case, Ethos goes from some obscure concept of what a race likes, to a defined racial behaviour. Your empire's actions will define it's Ethical standpoint, and when graphed, is extremely easy to compare and assign values to.

What you're describing, an empire's ratings that determine what ethical qualities it has (bloodthirsty, elitist, expansionist) are what we've been referring to as imperial "Alignments". Ethos, the way we have been using the term, refers specifically to the unchanging ethical beliefs of a species, i.e. how the species' allegiance towards a particular empire changes based on that empire's actions/alignment.

[Geoff the Medio]

The distinction i was making earlier between "Allegiance" and "Empire-wide causes of happiness" isn't useful. The "Allegiance" lable should cover all reasons a species (as a whole) has to like or dislike a particular empire. "Happiness" should be purely local, except that it is modified by allegiance.

That's kind of ironic; I just came to exactly the opposite conclusion. Rather, I feel that the distinction you made between "Local causes of happiness" and "Empire-wide causes of happiness" isn't useful.

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

The difference is whether "allegiance" is determined from just species "ethos" and its degree of agreement with empire reputation ("alignment"), or whether "allegiance" should also include other factors such as the empire killing lots of a particular race's population.

Using just "alignment" factors to determine "allegiance" is what I was suggesting be considered in my previous post. About this, Bigjoe make a good point:

...this doesn't allow a bloodthirsty species to get mad at you for slaughtering their planets.

He then suggests, adding additional scales of imperial alignment: one for each species in the game to rank empires by the amount of good or bad stuff they've done for or to the species during the game. This would let a species get annoyed at an empire that does bad stuff to that species.

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.

...

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.

[RonaldX]

I understand the difference between Empire Alignment and Species Ethos, but I see this as a complication because now you're struggling to compare apples to oranges (while the apples are also being affected by grapes, cherries, and marshmellows). If your actions are tied to ethics, and species react to actions based on their hardwired ethics, then why bother with the concept of alignment at all? Simplify it down to Empire Ethics, and it makes for a simple comparison and a natural cause-and-effect system. If "Empire Alignment" is essentially the same thing as "Empire Ethics", then discard the semantics and call an apple an apple.

I'm not attempting to come off as critical.. I understand that the "Alignment" of an empire is variable, while the "Ethos" of a species is unchanging, and so you want to separate them as two distinct entities, but it is logical and easier to understand if you call it all the same thing.

Your empire has an Ethos with the exact same qualifications/quantifications of any race in the game, except the Ethos of an empire is variable; dependant on your actions. The Ethos of your empire can be directly compared to the Ethos of a species to determine how much the like they actions you are taking.

As far as two meters for Allegiance, it's unnecessary if Allegiance is defined as an overall scale, with it's baseline set by ethical compatibility, modified by events or policies.

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.

This sounds like it's getting overcomplicated and nitpicky. It could be relatively easily implemented as a modifier to allegiance like, "Race X gets a bonus to allegiance for every 1 billion of Race Y that you vaporize," but this has the negative connotation that it is by design better for certain races to be selected as opponents than others. While not as in-depth, the level of pacifism or bloodthirst of a race could produce similar modifiers without the added complexity level of inter-race compatibility.

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.

The target happiness is simply recalculated based on the planet's new situation, and the current happiness gradually shifts towards it. If you bomb a planet into oblivion, the survivors are going to be cheesed off that their buildings are destroyed and their people killed, so you inherit a planet with miserable happiness levels. Over time, these will shift toward whatever target values the planet would have under your empire, as it integrates (or re-integrates) itself into your society. As long as "allegiance" is a factor in how happiness is calculated (which I presume it is), then this question is already answered.

-Ty.

[Krikkitone]

Your empire has an Ethos with the exact same qualifications/quantifications of any race in the game, except the Ethos of an empire is variable; dependant on your actions. The Ethos of your empire can be directly compared to the Ethos of a species to determine how much the like the actions you are taking.

-Ty.

Good point,

OK here's what I am thinking... I'm going to start with how the computer would store them, and then how they would be displayed and used

There are 3 values that are kept track of, they carry over from one turn to another and grow and fall over time based on player actions (ie each turn all actions and 'continuous states' change are added, and a certain % of the values is removed)
They effectively are meters with a current and target value..although those don't need to be stored seperately, but they can if that is easier for the programmers

1. Each empire.... "Ethos value" (1 for war/peace, 1 for freedom/security... etc.) [current 'war' value affected by declaring war and doing damage...'target war value' affected by ongoing treaties, 'mobilization economies' etc.]

2. Each species..."Empire relations" influenced by 'damage'/favors the empire has done to you [current 'relations' value affected by killing our people/planets..target value based on enslaving our people]

3. Each world...:Local conditions" influenced by damage/good thing that have happened to that world [current value based on damage done here..target value based on 'paradise world' building nearby]

These values are used in the following way
#1 Empire Ethos values... displayed as 'empire Ethos values'.. actions that affect them are displayed as doing so

#2 Species-Empire Allegiance Value, are displayed, actions that affect "Empire relations" values are displayed as affecting "Allegiance" [since that is the important value they affect]
the value of Allegiance are calculated each turn by
Allegiance=Current "Empire Relations"-Current Distance between Important Ethos values of species and that of empire

#3 Happiness values of worlds are displayed, actions that affect "local conditions" are displayed as affecting Happiness [since that is the important value they affect]
Happiness=Current "Local conditions"+Current"Empire Relations" of local species to owning empire-Current Distance between Important ethos values of local species and that of owning empire


This avoids the problems of one "Current" value affecting another "Target" value, so that target values don't 'drift' themselves.

Because Allegiance and Happiness would not have any value of their own, their "Target" and "Current" values would be the Target and Current values of their constituent parts.

However, Allegiance and Happiness would be the only things that have any effect on the game so they are the only thing that would need to be displayed to the player (breakdown displays Could skip the 'intermediate step' and do straight to the affecting actions)

Because Allegiance and Happiness are recalculated each turn, there is no need for anything "special" when a planet changes hands.
The effect of Allegiance on Happiness changes instantaneously (because it is a different owning empire)
Some "Local target" values may change slowly (we can't visit disney planet any more). But those "local target" changes can be slowly applied (ie they affect target and not current values), just like they would to worlds still inside that empire if the "paradise world" was sold to another empire.


Happiness would affect Rebels and possibly Spy resistance
Allegiance would affect Behavior of military units, the way a world reacted to a foreign power (based on allegiance to the foreign power..Militia units might help resist invaders if they had a low Allegiance to the Invaders)

[Geoff the Medio]

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.

This sounds like it's getting overcomplicated and nitpicky. It could be relatively easily implemented as a modifier to allegiance like, "Race X gets a bonus to allegiance for every 1 billion of Race Y that you vaporize," but this has the negative connotation that it is by design better for certain races to be selected as opponents than others. While not as in-depth, the level of pacifism or bloodthirst of a race could produce similar modifiers without the added complexity level of inter-race compatibility.

Perhaps it would be "nitpicky" to have one race's allegiance to an empire depend on the actions of that empire towards another race. But, if each empire's actions towards each race are tracked and rated like any other "alignment" scale (eg. values like pacifism, expansionism, environmentalism, etc.) then this inter-species sympathy or hatred can be added to species-empire relations essentially for free. It doesn't necessarily need to be used, but could be made easily modifiable with content files.

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.

The target happiness is simply recalculated based on the planet's new situation, and the current happiness gradually shifts towards it.

Those points aren't in dispute...

If you bomb a planet into oblivion, the survivors are going to be cheesed off that their buildings are destroyed and their people killed, so you inherit a planet with miserable happiness levels. Over time, these will shift toward whatever target values the planet would have under your empire, as it integrates (or re-integrates) itself into your society. As long as "allegiance" is a factor in how happiness is calculated (which I presume it is), then this question is already answered.

The idea was that there should be some boost or penalty to current happiness immediately after a planet changes hands, if the population prefers either the original or new owners. 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.

[Krikkitone]

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)

That would be the advantage of making "Happiness" a calculation based on Other values, rather than one that carried over from one turn to another.

[RonaldX]

These values are used in the following way
#1 Empire Ethos values... displayed as 'empire Ethos values'.. actions that affect them are displayed as doing so

#2 Species-Empire Allegiance Value, are displayed, actions that affect "Empire relations" values are displayed as affecting "Allegiance" [since that is the important value they affect]
the value of Allegiance are calculated each turn by
Allegiance=Current "Empire Relations"-Current Distance between Important Ethos values of species and that of empire

#3 Happiness values of worlds are displayed, actions that affect "local conditions" are displayed as affecting Happiness [since that is the important value they affect]
Happiness=Current "Local conditions"+Current"Empire Relations" of local species to owning empire-Current Distance between Important ethos values of local species and that of owning empire

In essence,
1) Empire Ethics is an actual meter attached to your empire which is defined by your actions. Warlike behavior makes it shift towards warlike, expansionist behavior makes it shift towards expansionist, etc.

2) Allegiance (of one race to the empire) is a calculated value based on the difference between an Empire's Ethics, and the hardwired Ethics of each race within that empire, modified by current Allegiance-Effecting events, dilopmatic actions, buildings, tech, etc. (For example mass murders of a race, destruction of a homeworld, etc.) Each race within the empire has it's own individual Allegiance rating (ie. Some races may like you more than others)

3) Happiness (of a single planet within the empire) is a calculated value based on the Allegiance of the race which populates the world to the empire that owns the world, modified by local events, buildings, tech, etc. (For example blockades, sabotage, propaganda campaigns, etc.) Each world has it's own happiness rating.

Logical and easy to follow. I have zero objection to this.

Because Allegiance and Happiness are recalculated each turn, there is no need for anything "special" when a planet changes hands.
The effect of Allegiance on Happiness changes instantaneously (because it is a different owning empire)
Some "Local target" values may change slowly (we can't visit disney planet any more). But those "local target" changes can be slowly applied (ie they affect target and not current values), just like they would to worlds still inside that empire if the "paradise world" was sold to another empire.

I could see there being a bonus/malus if the population REALLY likes the new empire, or REALLY hates it.. But it would be fairly easy to implement that as well.. When a world changes hands, the new calculation of the planet's "target" happiness is done right away, and you could say that if the target happiness is more than X different from where the current happiness is, it immediately jumps half that distance, and then continues shifting as normal.. I'm not sure I described that properly so I'll give a simple example:

Trith has a high Allegiance to Empire 1, and a low Allegiance to Empire 2.
Empire 2 has been enslaving the population of a Trith planet for a long time, it's current and target happiness levels are 15.
Empire 1 comes and captures the planet. Under the new empire, who treat the Trith much better, the target happiness would be 75.
Because the gap is so huge, the people are overjoyed, and the current happiness of the planet immediately jumps halfway, to 45, and then continues it's gradual shift from there. If it was a smaller gap (less than say, 40), then nothing special would happen.

There are a number of ways to implement a bonus if one is desired, this is a fairly simplistic one.

-Ty.

[Bigjoe5]

I understand the difference between Empire Alignment and Species Ethos, but I see this as a complication because now you're struggling to compare apples to oranges (while the apples are also being affected by grapes, cherries, and marshmellows). If your actions are tied to ethics, and species react to actions based on their hardwired ethics, then why bother with the concept of alignment at all? Simplify it down to Empire Ethics, and it makes for a simple comparison and a natural cause-and-effect system. If "Empire Alignment" is essentially the same thing as "Empire Ethics", then discard the semantics and call an apple an apple.

I'm not attempting to come off as critical.. I understand that the "Alignment" of an empire is variable, while the "Ethos" of a species is unchanging, and so you want to separate them as two distinct entities, but it is logical and easier to understand if you call it all the same thing.

Just because you could perhaps somewhat more accurately describe alignment as "Empire Ethics" is no reason to discard a term that we've been using for this concept for the entirety of its existence, in the middle of a design discussion strongly related to that very concept. A racial attribute, predetermined by race picks and unchanging from the start of the game is functionally and conceptually very different from a set of numbers tracking imperial action and their relationship to ethical qualities of the empire. As such, it's reasonable that they be given different names.

In addition, the empire itself has no ethics - it's only goal is to win the game. As such, it can't be said to have its own ethos, but rather can be said to "align" itself with specific ethical qualities. Thus, alignment is a very reasonable term for the concept we're discussing. In addition, if there is a set of alignments for species as well as ethical attributes, this makes even more sense, since the empire is "aligning" itself with that race, separately from its ethical alignment.

Your empire has an Ethos with the exact same qualifications/quantifications of any race in the game, except the Ethos of an empire is variable; dependant on your actions. The Ethos of your empire can be directly compared to the Ethos of a species to determine how much the like they actions you are taking.

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. In this sense, ethos cannot be quantified in the same granular sense that alignment can. Furthermore, there will (presumably) only be a few pre-determined ethoi available to choose from, each with its own name and distinctive preferences, which further separates the concepts of ethos and alignment.

1. Each empire.... "Ethos value" (1 for war/peace, 1 for freedom/security... etc.) [current 'war' value affected by declaring war and doing damage...'target war value' affected by ongoing treaties, 'mobilization economies' etc.]

I don't feel that there's any need for a changeable target value for alignment, or changeable alignment growth. 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.

2. Each species..."Empire relations" influenced by 'damage'/favors the empire has done to you [current 'relations' value affected by killing our people/planets..target value based on enslaving our people]

If you're talking about empire-species alignment, I can see the need for a target value based on "status" or something similar in this case. If you're talking about allegiance, I don't think there's any need for a target value at all, just a single value.

These values are used in the following way
#1 Empire Ethos values... displayed as 'empire Ethos values'.. actions that affect them are displayed as doing so

#2 Species-Empire Allegiance Value, are displayed, actions that affect "Empire relations" values are displayed as affecting "Allegiance" [since that is the important value they affect]
the value of Allegiance are calculated each turn by
Allegiance=Current "Empire Relations"-Current Distance between Important Ethos values of species and that of empire

This seems fine.

#3 Happiness values of worlds are displayed, actions that affect "local conditions" are displayed as affecting Happiness [since that is the important value they affect]
Happiness=Current "Local conditions"+Current"Empire Relations" of local species to owning empire-Current Distance between Important ethos values of local species and that of owning empire

Essentially, happiness is set to allegiance to the owning empire by default, and can be modified by techs and buildings. That seems fine. However, I would say that this should be target happiness, and current happiness can be affected by other events and natural growth, since this is what we've essentially already agreed upon.

Because Allegiance and Happiness are recalculated each turn, there is no need for anything "special" when a planet changes hands.
The effect of Allegiance on Happiness changes instantaneously (because it is a different owning empire)
Some "Local target" values may change slowly (we can't visit disney planet any more). But those "local target" changes can be slowly applied (ie they affect target and not current values), just like they would to worlds still inside that empire if the "paradise world" was sold to another empire.

Nobody's saying that there's a dire need to alter current happiness when a planet changes hands, just that it's a sensible situation in which something like that could happen, and it's probably better if it does. A planet which was rioting and rebelling under their former rulers shouldn't still riot and rebel for a few turns after it's captured by a benevolent overlord and now has a target happiness of 100. On the other hand, if change in target happiness is high enough, perhaps natural happiness growth would also be high enough to avoid an unreasonable amount of unrest in that situation (it's still natural for there to be a little bit of residual unrest), if growth is proportional to the difference between current and target.

It should be Instant... (when you take over a world, once you push out the official military, the 'rebel military' should continue)

That would be the advantage of making "Happiness" a calculation based on Other values, rather than one that carried over from one turn to another.

Target happiness will always be a value calculated from other values, but if there is to be any kind of natural growth to current happiness, it will have to be a value which is calculated based on last turn's current happiness value. At any rate, that's not an advantage that can't be acquired just by modifying current happiness when a planet is captured.

I could see there being a bonus/malus if the population REALLY likes the new empire, or REALLY hates it.. But it would be fairly easy to implement that as well.. When a world changes hands, the new calculation of the planet's "target" happiness is done right away, and you could say that if the target happiness is more than X different from where the current happiness is, it immediately jumps half that distance, and then continues shifting as normal.. I'm not sure I described that properly so I'll give a simple example:

It's probably best to avoid having arbitrary thresholds for these sorts of things. Just making the change in current happiness proportional to the change in target happiness should be sufficient.

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).

[RonaldX]

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. In this sense, ethos cannot be quantified in the same granular sense that alignment can. Furthermore, there will (presumably) only be a few pre-determined ethoi available to choose from, each with its own name and distinctive preferences, which further separates the concepts of ethos and alignment.

I understand this now.. Racial preferences are essentially:
a) Bloodthirsty, Pacifistic, or Neutral
b) Expansionist, Developmental, or Neutral
etc.

With no (or limited, defined stages of) varying strength of feeling. A race won't be "Mildly bloodthirsty", but the actions of your empire might be. The further down the scale your actions take you, the more a bloodthirsty race will like you, while a pacifistic race will like you less. Neutral races won't care.

It makes the calculation and comparison a little more in-depth, but as long as the components of alignment correspond to the racial preferences, it's just a little more math and not really any more complicated. I have no problem with this. If there are only 3 components to ethos with 3 options each, that still leaves 27 different possibilities for racial preferences, without even considering the other racial modifiers for population growth, combat proficiency, research bonuses, etc. There is plenty of room for distinct and interesting races and racial combinations within an empire.

It's probably best to avoid having arbitrary thresholds for these sorts of things. Just making the change in current happiness proportional to the change in target happiness should be sufficient.

No problems with this, mine was just a simple example to describe the concept. Proportional changes are more logical anyways.

I am quite happy with the way this system has developed, no objections to the way you've described things.

-Ty.

[Krikkitone]

Target happiness will always be a value calculated from other values, but if there is to be any kind of natural growth to current happiness, it will have to be a value which is calculated based on last turn's current happiness value.

No it doesn't...
In my system, "current" Happiness doesn't really exist.. Neither does "Target" happiness

Imagine the resource production mechanic... there is no "target"/"Current" mineral production

Mineral Production on a given turn= Population that turn * Mineral Productivity Meter value that turn/10

Population and Mineral Productivity have "current" and "target" values, but Mineral Production does not, it is a composite value

(you can calculate a "target" value for Mineral productivity... planet max population*max mineral resource meter.. but it is not a true 'target value)

I am suggesting that Happiness be a Composite value like mineral production
=Allegiance of species to owning empire (which changes instantly when a planet changes hands) + 'Local status'


'Local status' would be a 'tracked value', ie its current value depends on its value last turn
'Allegiance' would be a composite value based of two other 'tracked' values..
Empire "alignment" (if the change in current alignment depends on what last turn's alignment is, then it Effectively has a target value)
Empire-Species 'alignment'/damage/status, etc. (which should be 'tracked' as well, damage comes and fades)