Policy Cards Jumble

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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Oberlus
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Re: Policy Cards Jumble

#61 Post by Oberlus »

ThinkSome wrote: Sun May 10, 2020 11:38 pm Make both more expensive and they will not longer be spamalot.
From a recent thread in which you participated:
Oberlus wrote: Sat May 02, 2020 8:01 am Increasing the PP construction cost will not work, since that always hits the same wall: either it is too expensive early game or too cheap late game. You always reach that point when PP output is enough to consider inexpensive what was expensive.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Policy Cards Jumble

#62 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Unless there are some major objections, I'd like to merge the Government branch quite soon. It will add policy slots and policies to put in them, an influence resource (replacing trade) to buy them with, Python API stuff, associated GUI / pedia stuff, a buildings that grants a policy slots, and various minor related (and unrelated) code changes.

https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... -638233066

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labgnome
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Re: Policy Cards Jumble

#63 Post by labgnome »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:06 pm Unless there are some major objections, I'd like to merge the Government branch quite soon. It will add policy slots and policies to put in them, an influence resource (replacing trade) to buy them with, Python API stuff, associated GUI / pedia stuff, a buildings that grants a policy slots, and various minor related (and unrelated) code changes.

https://github.com/freeorion/freeorion/ ... -638233066
Sounds good to me. I'm excited to try it out.
All of my contributions should be considered released under creative commons attribution share-alike license, CC-BY-SA 3.0 for use in, by and with the Free Orion project.

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LienRag
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Policy Suggestions

#64 Post by LienRag »

A few versions ago, the Comsat was introduced to allow planets to engage passing ships in combat.
But not only was it too micromanagy, it also constituted a cheap chaff that made defense overpowered (and micromanagy).
To solve the chaff problem, the hull cost for the Colony Base has been raised, but that doesn't really solve the micromanagement issue.
Could "Engage at will" be a military policy ? It would reduce ship speed by 10 over owned planets (as friendly ships would need to signal themselves in order to avoid being shot at) but all enemy fleet passing by would be engaged by any planet with higher than zero Defense.
I don't know how to do that in FOCS, though;

Also, I'm reading the Drive comic and it uses a quite common but still interesting SF trope, the fact that the Empire homeworld's coordinates are kept secret.
Could there be a similar policy "Homeworld Secrecy" that would reduce the speed of ships going towards the Homeworld by 30 and from the HW by 10 but would make the Homweworld not appear on the Galaxy map until Detection rises 200 ?

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Re: Policy Suggestions

#65 Post by Geoff the Medio »

LienRag wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 1:18 amCould "Engage at will" be a military policy [in which] all enemy fleet passing by would be engaged by any planet with higher than zero Defense.
I don't know how to do that in FOCS, though;
Changing the conditions for initiating combat in a system is not possible in FOCS as it is now. How to implement such a mechanism isn't immediately clear to me.

Such a policy would also be somewhat confusing with fleet aggression settings, unless carefully named.

An alternative might be a planetary focus setting to initiate combat. Possibly mostly the same as Defense focus otherwise.

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Re: Policy Suggestions

#66 Post by LienRag »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 9:13 am
LienRag wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 1:18 amCould "Engage at will" be a military policy [in which] all enemy fleet passing by would be engaged by any planet with higher than zero Defense.
I don't know how to do that in FOCS, though;
Changing the conditions for initiating combat in a system is not possible in FOCS as it is now. How to implement such a mechanism isn't immediately clear to me.
OK, thanks for the info.
Even with a hack like having "phantom" ships with 1 structure and zero damage that would be immediately destroyed after starting the engagement ?
Geoff the Medio wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 9:13 am Such a policy would also be somewhat confusing with fleet aggression settings, unless carefully named.
If the problem is just the name, I think something like "Planet Sky Patrol" would be quite clear (or "Royal Space Force" if someone prefers).

Geoff the Medio wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 9:13 am An alternative might be a planetary focus setting to initiate combat. Possibly mostly the same as Defense focus otherwise.

Wouldn't that be quite micro-managy ?

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Re: Policy Suggestions

#67 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Fri Nov 13, 2020 1:43 am
Geoff the Medio wrote: Tue Nov 10, 2020 9:13 am An alternative might be a planetary focus setting to initiate combat. Possibly mostly the same as Defense focus otherwise.
Wouldn't that be quite micro-managy ?
No micromanagement there. No more than setting other planetary focus. You would set to defense one planet on each entrance to your space that doesn't have defending fleet, which in most galaxy shapes will be two or three spots, an won't change position very often.
IMO using planetary defense focus is the best choice. It's an old suggestion (at the end of that post).

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LienRag
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Re: Policy Suggestions

#68 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Fri Nov 13, 2020 9:23 am No micromanagement there. No more than setting other planetary focus. You would set to defense one planet on each entrance to your space that doesn't have defending fleet, which in most galaxy shapes will be two or three spots, an won't change position very often.
IMO using planetary defense focus is the best choice. It's an old suggestion (at the end of that post).

Definitely more than a Policy though...
My idea was for all planets to engage enemy ships when this Policy is on, but you may be right that having specific planets do that (by putting them in Defense focus) could be interesting too.
The micro-management would appear when a player spots a ship somewhere behind his lines, and would have to set a bunch of planets to this focus and then remove it afterwards.

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Re: Policy Cards Jumble

#69 Post by Oberlus »

That's not micromanagement.

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Re: Policy Suggestions

#70 Post by Vezzra »

LienRag wrote: Sun Nov 15, 2020 5:17 amThe micro-management would appear when a player spots a ship somewhere behind his lines, and would have to set a bunch of planets to this focus and then remove it afterwards.
To deal with a lone ship that would be a massive overkill, so it would have to be at least a fleet powerful enough to actually threaten your colonies.

And in that case it's not really any more micromanagement than all the work you have to do to deal with the intruder using your fleets - you have to redirect enough fleets to intercept and defeat the intruder, and then move them back to the front lines. Having to maybe set some colonies to defence focus temporarily would be just part of the effort to fend off the threat...

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Re: Policy Cards Jumble

#71 Post by Oberlus »

A table with all (or at least most) the policies I came considered while working in the themed tech tree before influence branch was merged.
Some could be good to add to master already:

POLICY BONUSES PENALTIES
Planetary Ecology +1*HS pop Good/Adeq None
Autoterraform Slow autoterraforming, 1 hop (2 with tech refinement) PP?
Harsh Environment Implants +1*HS pop Adeq/Poor, +2*HS pop Host None
Food Synthesis +1*HS pop -0.1*pop industry
Megacities +2*HS pop Good, +1*HS pop Adeq -X stability
Orbital cities +1*HS pop None
Arcology +3*HS pop Good if construction > X -X influence?
Physical Enhancement +0.1*pop PP None
Ecological Industry +0.1*pop PP when focus is not set to Industry None
Asteroid Mining +3 PP if owned belt in system None
Self-adapting Work Droids +2 PP (+5 with tech refinement) None
Free Implants Program +0.1*pop PP or RP -X stability
Industrial Synthesis +0.1*pop PP None
Gas Giant Harvesting +5 PP when owned GG in system None
Outpost Mining +0.2*pop PP per owned outpost in system. None
Neural Enhancement +0.1*pop RP None
Evolution Pools +2 RP None
Networking Brain Implant +0.1*pop RP unfocused None
Central Data Processing +0.05*pop*colony RP at capital, unfocused Colonies can’t set Research Focus
Matter teleporters +0.04*pop stockpile None
Predictive Stockpiling +0.01*pop stockpile None
Supply Droid Network +1 supply (+2 with tech refinement) None
Solar Sails System +2 supply in Blu/Whi systems, +1 in Yel/Ora/Red None
Asteroid Starports +3 supply in asteroid belts None
Imperial Starports +1 supply None
Star Pilot Program +1 skill level to non-ultimate pilots None
Cutting Edge Militarism Enables using last tech refinement of weapons None

Edit: HS is HabitableSize.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Policy Cards Jumble

#72 Post by Geoff the Medio »

What is "HS"?

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Re: Policy Cards Jumble

#73 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Sat Feb 06, 2021 6:22 pm What is "HS"?
HabitableSize.

I haven't included the names of the techs that unlock the policies, which help to explain them in some cases (e.g. Matter Synthesis for Food/Industrial Synthesis, that would something for the Energy theme).

Some are directly based on the techs we already have, like Planetary Ecology, Asteroid Mining (Microgravity Industry), GG Harvesting (GGG), Orbital Cities (Orbital Hab.) or Self-adapting Work Droids (Adaptive and Sentient Automation). I am not sold at all on wheter these conform enough translation of tech-unlocked to policy-unlocked effects.

Some are based on new ideas that are not fleshed out.

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Re: Policy Cards Jumble

#74 Post by Oberlus »

I'm playing Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri to get ideas. And reminded me some stuff from civ series.


Democracy (maybe, not sure about the name):
- Bonus: extra stability and research.
- Malus: warships outside own/allied supply or in systems with enemy colonies pay (more) influence.
Liked by non-aggressive species (pacifists, traders, egalitarians...).
Disliked by warlike or secretive species.


Dominion (idem, this would be roughly the opposite of Democracy, and particularly good for xenophobic):
- Bonus: warships cost less (-20%?), warships in systems with enemy colonies produce influence.
- Malus: research, influence and stability malus to owned non-capital/non-admin.center species.
- Liked by warlike species.
- Disliked by pacifists.

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Re: Policy Cards Jumble

#75 Post by LienRag »

Proposed new Economic Policy : Swords to Plowshares (bonus to research and secondarily to production and stability in exchange to dropping defenses in Research-focused planets).

Code: Select all

Policy
    name = "PLC_PLOWSHARES"
    description = "PLC_PLOWSHARES_DESC"
    short_description = "PLC_PLOWSHARES_SHORT_DESC"
    category = "ECONOMIC_CATEGORY"
    adoptioncost = 1.0 * floor(5 + 0.25 * Statistic Sum value = LocalCandidate.Population
                                          condition = And [ Planet OwnedBy empire = Source.Owner ])
    
    effectsgroups = [
        [[SPECIES_LIKES_OR_DISLIKES_POLICY_STABILITY_EFFECTS]]

        EffectsGroup
            scope = And [
                Planet
                OwnedBy empire = Source.Owner
                Focus type = "FOCUS_RESEARCH"
                Population low = 0.001
                Happiness low = 10
            ]
            priority = [[TARGET_2ND_SCALING_PRIORITY]]
            effects =
                SetTargetIndustry value = Value + 1

        EffectsGroup
            scope = And [
                Planet
                OwnedBy empire = Source.Owner
                Focus type = "FOCUS_RESEARCH"
                Population low = 0.001
                Happiness low = 10
                            ]
            effects = SetTargetResearch value = Value
                    * (NamedReal name = "PLC_PLOWSHARES_TARGET_RESEARCH_SCALING" value = 1.15) + 3


        EffectsGroup
            scope = And [
                Planet
                OwnedBy empire = Source.Owner
                Focus type = "FOCUS_RESEARCH"
                Population low = 0.001
            ]
            effects =
                SetTargetHappiness value = Value
                    + (NamedReal name = "PLC_PLOWSHARES_TARGET_HAPPINESS_FLAT" value = 2)

        EffectsGroup
            scope = And [
                Planet
                OwnedBy empire = Source.Owner
                Focus type = "FOCUS_RESEARCH"
                Population low = 0.001
            ]
            effects =
                SetMaxDefense value = 1

        EffectsGroup
            scope = And [
                Planet
                OwnedBy empire = Source.Owner
                Focus type = "FOCUS_RESEARCH"
                Population low = 0.001
            ]
            effects =
                SetTargetStealth value = Value - 20
                    



    ]


    graphic = "icons/policies/PLOWSHARES.png"

#include "/scripting/common/priorities.macros"
#include "/scripting/policies/policies.macros"
And Stringtables :

Code: Select all

PLC_PLOWSHARES
Swords to Plowshares


PLC_PLOWSHARES_DESC
All resources usually allocated to Defense are diverted to culture and research
I've made it decrease Stealth also as otherwise it would have been a total no-brainer for Sly and Laenfa early game.
I could have made it produce 0,5 Influence per undefended planet too but since I don't know if it would have been balanced I decided to wait for actual testing before taking a decision on that topic.

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