Testing Government and Influence

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Grummel7
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#316 Post by Grummel7 »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 6:47 pm Distance-based influence upkeep permanent (unless certain policies are adopted) but counting also regional admin centers, not only capital. Average extra upkeep per planet could be around 1 IP (adjustable for balance) once RegAds are stablished.
Well, that sounds a little better, though it may still require some overall re-balancing and I am still not convinced it is a good idea.

It should be less than 1 IP. After all, as soon a planet pays more than 1, you can build a RegAd on it. Unless, of course, if some planets are completely disconnected.

What about Sly and Laenfa? They do not have the distance from Capital stability effect, should they be affected by this new upkeep? Fluff suggest they should not, but unlike the stability effect this one is only negative, so you may want to counter it with a fixed upkeep for Sly and Laenfa.

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Re: Excruciating FOCS doubts

#317 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 7:52 am From the last dev call, the plan is to try removing prereqs, though.
I'd appreciate If someone gets time to tell me about anything related to policies that devs treated in that meeting (sorry for not being present).

I was asking because I am working on the policies (mostly government and social values stuff) and was looking for a way to let two different governments (two mutually exlusive policies A and B) have another adopt another policy X that is mutually exclusive with the other governments. But I can do that with exclussions (X mutually exclusive with all other government policies that are not A and B).

But removing policies prerequisites poses another problem for me: I cannot then have policies that require a tech and a policy. Of those I got several in my redesign, unlocked by a tech and requiring a policy (the tech because of fluff and game balance, to delay obtaining that policy; the policy because of fluff and game balance, to allow that policy only when pursuing certain political strategy, such as Egalitarianism vs Authoritarianism). If policy prerequisites are removed, then any of the tech or the (formerly-prereq) policy can unlock and enable the new policy, and it is harder for me to balance the "when" and "how" to make available new policy. Maybe for this I can also make it work with exclusions (just many). But I'd like to ask to put on hold that decision about removing policy prereqs if there is not an importart issue that needs to be addressed via removing the prereqs, at least until I get the time to see if I can make my redesign work without prereqs.

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Re: Excruciating FOCS doubts

#318 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 9:47 am
Geoff the Medio wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 7:52 am From the last dev call, the plan is to try removing prereqs, though.
I'd appreciate If someone gets time to tell me about anything related to policies that devs treated in that meeting (sorry for not being present).
+1 (not sure if i was in that meeting, probably not)
Oberlus wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 9:47 am But removing policies prerequisites poses another problem for me: I cannot then have policies that require a tech and a policy. ... then any of the tech or the (formerly-prereq) policy can unlock and enable the new policy, and it is harder for me to balance the "when" and "how" to make available new policy.
Would it be enough for you to have more complex unlocking conditions? For "when" that should suffice. The discussion about removing prereqs was probably about removing the weird adoption mini-game (this turn i need to adopt this policy, in order to being able to adopt that policy next turn iand remove the first one...). For the "how" (also "when") you could nerf the bonus if e.g. the "prerequisite" policy is not adopted.
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Oberlus
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#319 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 10:41 am Would it be enough for you to have more complex unlocking conditions?
Yes.
Currently we can tell the backend in a content definition (tech, policy, building) what it unlocks and what it requires.

When we have this:

Def A:
- Unlock = [C]
Def B:
- Unlock = [C]

...we get that concent C is unlocked by A or B.

If I want to get an "unlocked by A and B", I can use the prerequisites:

Def C:
- Prerequisites = [A B]


I guess what I'd like to ask is to remove the unlock clauses from the content definitions of A and B and instead use something like this:

Def C:
- UnlockedBy / Prerequisites = <combination of OR and AND conditions, e.g. AND[ A B OR [D F]]>


Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 10:41 am you could nerf the bonus if e.g. the "prerequisite" policy is not adopted.
Right. I guess I could also increase adoption cost?

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#320 Post by Ophiuchus »

For unlocking of technologies we not only have the content unlock descriptions but also GiveEmpireTech effect, implementing an GiveEmpirePolicy would be trivial (maybe we already have it). Of course the downside here is no automatic documentation.
Oberlus wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 4:38 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 10:41 am you could nerf the bonus if e.g. the "prerequisite" policy is not adopted.
Right. I guess I could also increase adoption cost?
Probably Yes, but then we are back at the adopt/deadopt mini-game.
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wobbly
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#321 Post by wobbly »

One possibility is to replace pre-reqs with discounts.

eg. Instead of artisans workshop requiring diversity you make the IP cost = to artisans + diversity and discount the cost of diversity if adopted. Or discount 1/2 the cost. Similar idea to how research costs work for planet/ship shealth techs. Similar idea to how industrialism discounts certain tech research. Creates a logical path without actually forcing you down it.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#322 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 7:58 pm One possibility is to replace pre-reqs with discounts.

eg. Instead of artisans workshop requiring diversity you make the IP cost = to artisans + diversity and discount the cost of diversity if adopted. Or discount 1/2 the cost. Similar idea to how research costs work for planet/ship shealth techs. Similar idea to how industrialism discounts certain tech research. Creates a logical path without actually forcing you down it.
In case the discount is equal or less than the cost of the prerequisite might work in some cases.. So you do not adopt a policy just for the sake of the discount.
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Oberlus
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#323 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 8:45 pm
wobbly wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 7:58 pm One possibility is to replace pre-reqs with discounts.

eg. Instead of artisans workshop requiring diversity you make the IP cost = to artisans + diversity and discount the cost of diversity if adopted. Or discount 1/2 the cost. Similar idea to how research costs work for planet/ship shealth techs. Similar idea to how industrialism discounts certain tech research. Creates a logical path without actually forcing you down it.
In case the discount is equal or less than the cost of the prerequisite might work in some cases.. So you do not adopt a policy just for the sake of the discount.
With this, with policies whose cost grows with empire size (planets or population), adopting a prereq. policy when it is cheap and keeping it until you get the later policy enables you to save a bigger chunk of IP. That would be far from a minigame or micromanagement. I think I like it.

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LienRag
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#324 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 11:36 pm With this, with policies whose cost grows with empire size (planets or population), adopting a prereq. policy when it is cheap and keeping it until you get the later policy enables you to save a bigger chunk of IP. That would be far from a minigame or micromanagement. I think I like it.
Nicely spotted indeed. That would certainly make the game much more strategic.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#325 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 11:36 pm
Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 8:45 pm
wobbly wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 7:58 pm One possibility is to replace pre-reqs with discounts.

eg. Instead of artisans workshop requiring diversity you make the IP cost = to artisans + diversity and discount the cost of diversity if adopted. Or discount 1/2 the cost. Similar idea to how research costs work for planet/ship shealth techs. Similar idea to how industrialism discounts certain tech research. Creates a logical path without actually forcing you down it.
In case the discount is equal or less than the cost of the prerequisite might work in some cases.. So you do not adopt a policy just for the sake of the discount.
With this, with policies whose cost grows with empire size (planets or population), adopting a prereq. policy when it is cheap and keeping it until you get the later policy enables you to save a bigger chunk of IP. That would be far from a minigame or micromanagement. I think I like it.
This will probably only work in the beginning, when you work towards the second policy giving you the higher benefits. Maybe you keep the prerequisite a while until afterwards as well.

Two issues with this in the later game (i.e. you are already able to take benefit directly from the second policy):
* if you want only the second policy later on, you directly apply that. that is not really an issue, you just cant use it to encourage an empire to adopt two policies at the same time in the later game
* if you want actually both policies at the same time: if the discount is computed via standard effects we again have this; apply policy A, then you have to turn in order that the adoption cost is discounted. We could probably expand the check for since when a policy is applied to say "next turn" if it is scheduled for being applied and use that in the buildcost. if we keep total discount lower than prerequisite cost we also shouldnt run into impossible adoption states where you dont have enough IP to pay for the newly adopted policies
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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Excruciating FOCS doubts

#326 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Dec 07, 2021 9:47 amremoving policies prerequisites poses another problem for me
The motivation was this thread, with the general feeling that there are a lot of policies and it's rather hard to keep track of how they are all related and interdependent, particularly with prerequisites and unlocks and exclusions affecting the policy interactions. I think it's confusing to have policies both unlocking other policies and prerequisite dependencies between policies. Prerequisites also leads to issues that were discussed about how it's awkward / annoying that one can adopt a policy that has a prereq and then unadopt the prereq and keep the later policy but not easily in some cases due to limited slots, and the UI needs to be modified to make that swapping a single action, or there needs to be some automatic un-adopting of later policies if the prereqs are unadopted.

Furthermore, to display the dependencies, it was suggested to have a tree view, like the tech tree, but this doesn't really work for policies as there isn't a deep tree, but would rather end up being an awkward long list of no-dependency policies with a few lines having 3 or 4 policies or a small tree in isolation. I suppose this is still an issue with unlocks, though.

So, the question arose about whether policy prerequisite dependencies are really necessary. Most of the "progress" aspect can be implemented via unlocks, and removing the prereqs would simply the dependency relationships quite a bit.

I'm not sure about discounts either, as they do similarly add complexity to the policy dependencies, but at least they're a bit more distinct conceptually from unlocking, so not so easily confused.

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#327 Post by Oberlus »

I'm assuming policy prerequisites are removed (so once unlocked a policy, it can be adopted as long as it is not mutually-exclusive with any of the already adopted ones) and unlocks work as now.

While working on the policies, If I really think I need to unlock a policy when more than one tech/policy is researched/adopted, can policies be unlocked within FOCS effects, the same that techs can be given to empires?

And another thing: should policies not be unlocked by other policies?
I think "adopt policy A that is prerequisite of policy B, turn, adopt policy B and de-adopt policy A" is the same as "adopt policy A to unlock policy B, turn, adopt policy B and de-adopt policy A", so it makes sense.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#328 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 5:21 pmWhile working on the policies, If I really think I need to unlock a policy when more than one tech/policy is researched/adopted, can policies be unlocked within FOCS effects, the same that techs can be given to empires?
There should be effects like UnlockBuildingType, UnlockShipPart, UnlockShipHull, and UnlockPolicy, that work like GiveEmpireTech. Trith and Sly species have effects that unlock policies, for example.

Using these won't auto-populate the "unlocked by " and "unlocks" lines in the pedia, though, so are not preferred to the unlock direct scripting.
And another thing: should policies not be unlocked by other policies?
When it makes sense, policies can unlock polices. Doing this, particularly also as prerequisites, was intended to model a series of societal changes that depend on previous similar changes, and to make the policies a bit of a progression that are somewhat self-contained, rather than always depending on other content being acquired, like techs or buildings or species or specials.
I think "adopt policy A that is prerequisite of policy B, turn, adopt policy B and de-adopt policy A" is the same as "adopt policy A to unlock policy B, turn, adopt policy B and de-adopt policy A", so it makes sense.
The difference is that a prereq needs to be adopted when a later policy is to be adopted, vs. an unlock that can have been adopted at any time prior. The prereqs mechanism is a bit nicer for modelling the progression aspect, but perhaps that's not worth the extra complexity / confusion it brings...

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LienRag
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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#329 Post by LienRag »

Minor pet peeve : can someone implement the ctrl+I shortcut to open (and close) the Influence panel (from my experience this shortcut is not used for anything as of now) ?

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Re: Testing Government and Influence

#330 Post by LienRag »

Ophiuchus wrote: Sat Nov 06, 2021 7:11 pm I think that artisan workshops' flat +4 focus bonus is a probably overpowered source of influence and worse, it is restricted to artistic species - so if you dont start with one/have a single-species empire you might miss out big time. Human, Cray, Egassem, Scylior are the starting species which are artistic. It is gated by a low +1 stability.
It also has a nice +0.5 flat un-focus bonus (gated at stability 10) and the stability bonus for other in-system artists.
I can't find the code for it ? It's not in the policy's FOCS file and I couldn't find it in the policies macro file either nor in the happiness macro file.

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