Policy Cards Jumble

[Oberlus]

The idea is the phrase "necessity is the mother of invention". Living in unstable societies makes people uncomfortable but spurs creative thinking and innovation. Gameplay wise, it gives a way to get some research with a lower-stability strategy, rather than only rewarding empires who maintain high stabilitly levels.

I totally get the idea, and like the concept for the policy. A lot.
But how it develops in gameplay is weird. Intuitively, it doesn't feel like it is necessity what triggers the boost, but mistreating, annoying certain species, making them mad at you. Scientists working harder during war times or scarcity makes more sense, and that is not low stability but being under attack or having lack of influence (that's another way to implement the mechanic, but I like more the one concerning warships). Low stability is supposed to imply bad health (attacked, ill, hungry) or angryness against the government. When you are winning the game, with the biggest army, plenty of IP in the stockpile and rising, and then you build GGGs, Industrial Centers and Scanning Facilities in your Cray systems just to annoy them down to stability 1... It doesn't feel like necessity.

[wobbly]

Whatever the intention or rationalle behind it, the in-game feeling is of cheese. How can I cheese this for the biggest most broken bonus. Its basically a bit too gamey for my liking, at least in its present form.

To a lesser extent a lot of the policy bonuses feel this way too. Like its a cheese race to stack the biggest bonuses. Ok its a 4x and you are always trying to stack bonuses, but at least for the early game, policy bonuses are out of proportion with everything else.

[wobbly]

I'd like to see conformance/liberty RP bonus halved. Conformance is effectively -4 RP/planet as it clashes with liberty. Liberty knocks algorithmic research out of its spot. +1 RP/planet is better balanced for the start, for the later game letting it do its like/dislike thing seems fine. Currently everyone takes liberty and noone takes conformance.

[Oberlus]

Idea for new military policy (RFC)

Tactical Retreat:
- Incompatible with Charge.
- +3 (x6) shields to all ships.
- In a combat where your ships are overpowered (it needs to be "overpowered", not "outnumbered"), if all your ships have more speed than any enemy, combat will have only 3 bouts <-- Is this scriptable?

[wobbly]

Idea for new military policy (RFC)

Tactical Retreat:
- Incompatible with Charge.
- +3 (x6) shields to all ships.
- In a combat where your ships are overpowered (it needs to be "overpowered", not "outnumbered"), if all your ships have more speed than any enemy, combat will have only 3 bouts <-- Is this scriptable?

tangentially this makes me think there should be a policy for guerilla warfare, perhaps stealth based. No idea on mechanics as yet.

[Oberlus]

there should be a policy for guerilla warfare, perhaps stealth based. No idea on mechanics as yet.

Silent Running policy, Klingon style:
- For ships with Passive or Defensive Hide stance: -20 speed (or -20% speed) and +20 stealth.
- Ships that start a combat undetected get +25% damage per shot for guns.

[Ophiuchus]

Idea for new military policy (RFC)

Tactical Retreat:
- Incompatible with Charge.
- +3 (x6) shields to all ships.

+3 shields, nullifies arc disruptors if that one does not get a strong upgrade.
and i guess makes shield parts less important? (or maybe more important?)

- In a combat where your ships are overpowered (it needs to be "overpowered", not "outnumbered"), if all your ships have more speed than any enemy, combat will have only 3 bouts <-- Is this scriptable?

possible (but veeeery ugly) to implement via targeting - basically every weapon would need to check whether it should target enemy ships in bout four based on the enemys policies and fleet speeds etc. also probably side issues (info leaks) with checking speed of invisible ships or so.

games-wise this idea interacts non-trivial with targeting patterns (mostly close-range weapons). Halves the damage dealt by close-range weapons. For hidden ships with close-range weapons - this reduces the incoming damage to zero. For non-hidden ships with close-range weapons this reduces incoming damage by a fourth.

[Ophiuchus]

Silent Running policy, Klingon style:
- For ships with Passive or Defensive Hide stance: -20 speed (or -20% speed) and +20 stealth.
- Ships that start a combat undetected get +25% damage per shot for guns.

not sure i understand the second part - +25% damage unless ship was detected by at least one enemy at the beginning of turn?

this again has the standard information leak problem of stealth+detection: what if there is a hidden enemy ship detecting the military ship? as soon as you do not get the +25% bonus you know there is a hidden detector

[Oberlus]

+3 shields, nullifies arc disruptors if that one does not get a strong upgrade.
and i guess makes shield parts less important? (or maybe more important?)

Maybe +2 (x6), if the policy is too easy to get (makes sense to unlock it at same time than Charge, which is relatively soon). Quite uninteresting against anything else than Arcs, unless coupled with cheap shields (get totals of +5 and +7).

(About the 1 less bout)
games-wise this idea interacts non-trivial with targeting patterns (mostly close-range weapons). Halves the damage dealt by close-range weapons. For hidden ships with close-range weapons - this reduces the incoming damage to zero. For non-hidden ships with close-range weapons this reduces incoming damage by a fourth.

Hidden ships with close range would also do only half the damage. But half the damage inflicted + no damage received sounds too good.
However, for now, IIRC, hidden ships get detected from bout 2 no matter what they do, am I right?
Stealth could be reworked to make possible to get to close range without being detected only when the advantage in stealth is big (like >20). Something like applying -10 stealth at the end of each bout.

[wobbly]

this again has the standard information leak problem of stealth+detection: what if there is a hidden enemy ship detecting the military ship? as soon as you do not get the +25% bonus you know there is a hidden detector

Don't you know anyway, assuming combat has occurred? The combat logs tell you if you are detected. I guess a leak will occur a policy shows up in damage display outside combat.

[Oberlus]

this again has the standard information leak problem of stealth+detection: what if there is a hidden enemy ship detecting the military ship? as soon as you do not get the +25% bonus you know there is a hidden detector

Don't you know anyway, assuming combat has occurred? The combat logs tell you if you are detected. I guess a leak will occur a policy shows up in damage display outside combat.

If I get the damage bonus I am also not detected and won't be targetted during bout one. If I am detected, my ships get attacked from bout one and the pressence of a hidden detector is revealed anyway regardless of the policy.

[Ophiuchus]

this again has the standard information leak problem of stealth+detection: what if there is a hidden enemy ship detecting the military ship? as soon as you do not get the +25% bonus you know there is a hidden detector

Don't you know anyway, assuming combat has occurred?

No. Both with and without combat, e.g. a OTHER hidden scout (or without combat a OTHER hidden strike fleet creeping silently up) would remove the ME +25% bonus, so ME would know there is something. The main problem is that it leaks also if no combat occurs.

The information leak could be fixed if the ME bonus is applied as long as ME do not detect an enemy...
but that sounds quite contraintuitive - as long as I close my eyes I am better at combat?

p.s:
Note this would work in a sensible way if we had e.g. a special round of effect evaluation directly at start of combat. Damage preview might be off or more complicated - in this case the right value to show would be based on my knowledge of what my enemy can detect (and that might be wrong, but i will find only out in combat).

[LienRag]

We have "Allied Repair" Policy, but it probably would be good to have something like "Integrated Economy" policies, where the player would provide to allies its strategic resources.
There could be a balance check of strategic resources provided (just the number of each that the other Empire doesn't have) and a penalty (Influence ? Stability ?) for the Empire that provides more than it gets. Or a Stability penalty and Influence bonus ?
Only Empires who adopt this Policy will export these Resources, so if other Empires don't reciprocate, he will always have that penalty.

Another one could be "Integrated Administration" where Empires benefit from the proximity bonus of allied IRAs (minus one, maybe ?).

[o01eg]

We have "Allied Repair" Policy, but it probably would be good to have something like "Integrated Economy" policies, where the player would provide to allies its strategic resources.
There could be a balance check of strategic resources provided (just the number of each that the other Empire doesn't have) and a penalty (Influence ? Stability ?) for the Empire that provides more than it gets. Or a Stability penalty and Influence bonus ?
Only Empires who adopt this Policy will export these Resources, so if other Empires don't reciprocate, he will always have that penalty.

Another one could be "Integrated Administration" where Empires benefit from the proximity bonus of allied IRAs (minus one, maybe ?).

I suppose maybe have that policies like viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11821

[LienRag]

I suppose maybe have that policies like viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11821

Indeed. I didn't remember this thread...