Species Opinion & Stability/Happiness mechanics

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labgnome
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Re: Species Opinion & Stability/Happiness mechanics

#16 Post by labgnome »

The Silent One wrote: Thu Aug 01, 2019 7:42 am1] Multi-species empires should be harder to maintain, represented by an influence upkeep. Integrating new species comes with a temporary high influence cost, and a constant lower influence upkeep cost. There should be policies that help a multi-species-empire play-style, and others that help single-species empire styles.
I like the simplicity of the influence-cost upkeep and also already proposed equality vs. supremacy policy groups which cover those strategies.
Low happiness will lead to production stop on the planet, reduced resource output, and rebellion. Rebellion will reduce troops, complete loss of troops leads to colony independence.
I have already proposed some mechanics for this in another topic.
There should be policies that promote a violent or peaceful play style.
I have already proposed offensive vs. defensive military policy groups.
3] To peacefully take over worlds, some sort of unit(s) should be required.
This is the point I am the most curious about and have the most concerns about. Could you please elaborate on this part of your idea? Like how would such units be produced? Mechanically, how would they solve the problem of multiple empires trying to peacefully take over the same planet? How would they interact with other units? Just how do you see this working in general?

I will say that I am still in favor of introducing an opinion system and species values into the game at some point, but I like a lot of your ideas. My hope is that we can synchronize and work out some kind of mutually favorable compromise.
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Re: Species Opinion & Stability/Happiness mechanics

#17 Post by The Silent One »

labgnome wrote: Thu Aug 01, 2019 2:13 pm
3] To peacefully take over worlds, some sort of unit(s) should be required.
This is the point I am the most curious about and have the most concerns about. Could you please elaborate on this part of your idea? Like how would such units be produced? Mechanically, how would they solve the problem of multiple empires trying to peacefully take over the same planet? How would they interact with other units? Just how do you see this working in general?
I'm thinking along the lines of Civ's religious units. They (usually or always, to be decided) do not interact with regular units, but can fight religious/influence units of other empires even when at peace (which may lead to disagreement with the other empire, though). They may be build like other influence projects, and may require a specific building as prerequisite. Whoever has one or more influence units in a system (there can only be influence units of one empire) can perform influence actions / projects there.
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labgnome
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Re: Species Opinion & Stability/Happiness mechanics

#18 Post by labgnome »

The Silent One wrote: Thu Aug 01, 2019 3:26 pmI'm thinking along the lines of Civ's religious units. They (usually or always, to be decided) do not interact with regular units, but can fight religious/influence units of other empires even when at peace (which may lead to disagreement with the other empire, though).
Would that mean they are immune from regular combat? Could they form mixed fleets with other ships?

I will say that I never really liked "theological combat" as an idea, as it made the religious units too much like just different-flavored military units for my liking. I would say In my opinion that diplomatic ships should not engage in "diplomatic combat" with one-another. Peaceful expansion should be peaceful.
They may be build like other influence projects, and may require a specific building as prerequisite.
So them having their own production queue solves the issue of spending production on influence, but it also means that now there are two ship production queues to keep track of. This begs the question: should influence units should have influence upkeep, like basically an ongoing influence project?

As far a prerequisite buildings go, I'd say that most should be a able to be built at the capitol, with maybe specialized buildings to be able to build them elsewhere. Do you think the buildings should be influence projects too?
Whoever has one or more influence units in a system (there can only be influence units of one empire) can perform influence actions / projects there.
This sounds a bit contradictory to me. Do you mean that you can have competing empire's influence fleets in a system and the biggest/strongest fleet wins out and gets to do the project? Or do you mean that only one empire's fleet can be in a system at a time and the influence fleets will block other influence fleets?
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Re: Species Opinion & Stability/Happiness mechanics

#19 Post by The Silent One »

At this point I don't think it makes much sense to go into that much detail just yet. Consider 3] optional, to be considered and worked out in more detail later. For now, I think the other points are more significant.
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labgnome
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Re: Species Opinion & Stability/Happiness mechanics

#20 Post by labgnome »

The Silent One wrote: Thu Aug 01, 2019 5:49 pm At this point I don't think it makes much sense to go into that much detail just yet. Consider 3] optional, to be considered and worked out in more detail later. For now, I think the other points are more significant.
I mean it's a fairly significant proposal. I'd suggest starting a topic on it to get it fleshed-out. Even if you don't have the idea completely worked-out you can get valuable feedback for it. After all, that kind of collaboration is exactly what this forum is for. Color me intrigued, even if not sold on the concept.

As far as your other points go, I can definitely see them being implimented into the game, but I don't see them excluding species-empire relations down the road.
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Re: Species Opinion & Stability/Happiness mechanics

#21 Post by LienRag »

I don't know if that's the right topic to post this, but I've just read this article and I think it makes interesting points.
One commentary mentions Master Of Orion 2, by the way.

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