Influence upkeep policies suggestion

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Oberlus
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Influence upkeep policies suggestion

#1 Post by Oberlus »

ECONOMIC FLUFF

"A bit of everything, or just not sure how to organize an interstellar economy" (No policy, starting mode)
- Influence Upkeep per colony is A + B*N^E + C*JumpsToCapital
- Colonies have a mild influence penalty when supply-disconnected from the capital.

A is a constant number for all colonies (probably 1).
B is the factor for number-based upkeep, probably 0.5 at start and could be reduced with certain effects (from techs, policies and/or buildings).
E should be most probably 0.5, because 1 makes influence grow too fast and forces us to have many effects to reduce B in order to make it balanced for different galaxy sizes, and other fractional factor would be too weird.
C is the factor for jump-based upkeep, probably 0.2 or 0.4. If the capital is in the center of a circle with evenly distributed planets around it in all directions, the growth is similar to N^0.5. If the capital is in a ring or an arm of a spiral galaxy the growth is rather faster than N^0.5. So in many situations it will grow faster than number-based, and thus it makes sense to give it a smaller factor. Once the upkeep grows too much, new policies could allow to have more than one planet to act as centers by building certain restricted buildings (we'll have to figure out how to not make it a spam building while keeping it balanced in cost).

Centralization (economic policy)
Economic activity of the empire is focused in and around the capital of the empire, including logistics, processing industries and services. Colonies are mostly used as sources of resources, so mostly extractive industries.
- Influence upkeep per colony is A + C*JumpsToCapital (so number of colonies no longer matters).
- Colonies have strong supply penalty (they depend on the logistics from the capital, they have starports but depend on the ships of the empire -> the capital). If supply-disconnected from capital, they also get a stability penalty (people depend strongly on the supplies from the capital).
- Capital has strong bonuses to supply (epic starports, all trade routes rooted here), production (resources of the colonies are invested here), research (universities and most labs, as well as any great mind discovered in the colonies, are here) and influence bonuses (all the bureocracy and decision-making is done here).

With this policy, one should prefer to play tall and compact until mid game, when another policy, upgrade of this one, allows construction of administration centers to enlarge the reach of empire.
This policy could be a prerequisite for some sort of series of buildings that allow a single planet (or very small subset of planets) to grow a lot, soaking the PPs that wide empire would be investing on new colonies, and getting comparable benefits in terms of output gain.

Catalaxy (economic policy)
Economy of the empire, including both decision-making and production, is evenly distributed among all its planets.
- Influence upkeep per colony is A + B*N^E (so no distance-based upkeep).
- Colonies have a bonus to stability (all planets have their needs covered equally) and a mild influence penalty when supply-disconnected from the capital (they still depend on the economy of the empire).

Autarky (economic policy)
Economy of all planets in the empire is mostly based on self-sufficiency.
- Influence Upkeep per colony is A + B*N^E.
- Colonies have a strong supply penalty (no interest on in, resources are diverted to own use), and get bonuses to planetary defense/shields/troops regeneration and stockpile extraction. There are no penalties when supply-disconnected or blackaded (they do not depend on the economy of the empire).

This could replace policy No Supply, if the malus to supply is big enough.

All these three economic policies are mutually exclusive.


GOVERNMENT FLUFF

Empire/Dictatorship/Central Government (No policy, starting mode)
Government is done from the capital, and the species in there has a higher status.
- Non-capital species get a malus to stability.

Confederation (social policy)
Colonies self-govern themselves, all planets have same privileges and debts towards the empire, and must follow the same laws, that are decided in a democratic way (so, often, it is the tirany of the majority).
- Colonies get a bonus to defensive troops.
- No malus to non-capital species.

Anarchy (social policy)
There is no consolidated government, people organize themselves in different ways, following certain common rules and basic laws.
- All planets get a malus to stability, and a bonus to influence production (unfocused) and planetary stealth.
- No malus to non-capital species.

Anarchy and Confederation are mutually exclusive, but could be combined with any of the above economic policies (some combinations make more sense than others).
Confederation and Anarchy might be better with an exclussion with Centralization.


OTHER ECONOMIC STUFF (related to influence upkeep or government)

No Surface Activity (economic or social policy)
Mandatory subterranean habitation and industry, leaving no easily visible artificial structures in surface.
- Planetary stealth and defense bonuses.
- Population -2*HabitableSize.
- Supply -1 (no visible starports or orbital structures).

Smuggling (economic or social policy)
- Stockpile bonus.



This is work in progress but feel free to butt in.

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Re: Influence upkeep policies suggestion

#2 Post by Ophiuchus »

On first reading: Looks good to me (certainly good enough to try).


Supply bonus for empire capital could be based on number of colonies (although flat value is more KISS).

Because you mentioned no-supply policy. As we do not have hidden starlanes we probably (temporarily) need a no-supply focus or rather a building for keeping hidden colonies hidden from sight.
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Re: Influence upkeep policies suggestion

#3 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:34 pm Supply bonus for empire capital could be based on number of colonies (although flat value is more KISS).
Interesting. I'll think on that and see if I can come up with some reasonable equation.
Ophiuchus wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 12:34 pm Because you mentioned no-supply policy. As we do not have hidden starlanes we probably (temporarily) need a no-supply focus or rather a building for keeping hidden colonies hidden from sight.
No supply focus is quite detrimental because if you must do "nothing" (no industry, no research, no influence) in your colonies for them to stay hidden, then you better concede already.
Buildings force the player to build the same building on all his planets, except for the infrequent cases where an empire only tries to keep hidden very specific planets.

I thought of it more as a policy, just not the uggly No Supply policy, but something more meaningful and interesting. As pointed out in the OP, I came up with No Surface Activity and Autarky policies to keep supply under 0 even for tiny worlds until mid-game supply techs are researched, so it should be easy for an empire to keep no supply in all or most of its planets for as long as needed.

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Re: Influence upkeep policies suggestion

#4 Post by Oberlus »

An upgrade for Centralization policy:

Small-World Economy
The evolution of Centralization Economy into a more complex system, polycentric, with worlds that function as hubs of logistics, production and decision-making. Substitutes (makes obsolete) Centralization policy.
- Allows the construction of one Administration Center (or similar name) for every X planets in the empire (i.e., to build the Nth center the empire needs to own N*X planets). Note: maybe total population or colonies instead of planets.
- Influence upkeep per colony is A + C*JumpsToCapitalOrAdminCenter.
- Colonies have strong supply penalty. If supply-disconnected from capital or admin. center, they also get a stability penalty (people depend strongly on the supplies from the empire).
- Capital and Admin. Centers have strong bonuses to supply (epic starports, all trade routes rooted here), production (resources of the colonies are invested here), research (universities and most labs, as well as any great mind discovered in the colonies, are here) and influence bonuses (all the bureocracy and decision-making is done here). Probably smaller for Admin. Centers.

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Geoff the Medio
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Re: Influence upkeep policies suggestion

#5 Post by Geoff the Medio »

"Small-World Economy" as described sounds like a midpoint between Confederation (mostly autonomous planets) and Centralization (whole empire dependent on but supporting the capital).

Needs a better name, though... perhaps "Regionalization" or "Regionalism"?

I suggest enforcing the capital and admin centre dependence by adding bonuses to stability when a planet's focus and species matches its regional capital or the empire capital (for Regionalism or Centralization respectively).

There also needs to be a minimum distance in jumps between regional admin buildings.

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Re: Influence upkeep policies suggestion

#6 Post by Oberlus »

Geoff the Medio wrote: Tue Feb 09, 2021 9:58 am "Small-World Economy" as described sounds like a midpoint between Confederation (mostly autonomous planets) and Centralization (whole empire dependent on but supporting the capital).

Needs a better name, though... perhaps "Regionalization" or "Regionalism"?
Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_economy
Centralization policy would represent a Centralized Economy. Small-Word/Regionalism policy would be Decentralized Economy. Catalaxy policy would be Distributed Economy.
Regionalism would be the natural evolution of Centralization when the empire reaches its maximum influence-sustainable size, if the empire doesn't want to switch to totally distributed economy (for example because it prefers to keep the other policies that require Centralization/Regionalism). Building an admin center at the edge of the owned space reduces the influence upkeep of all planets closer to it than to other centers, imediately lowering influence bill and allowing to switch some planets to production, as well as allowing new planets near the new center to be colonized with low influence upkeep.

I wanted to differentiate between Government (Social) and Economy, to allow for more varied strategies by combining different economic and social (government) policies. However, it's weird to mix centralized economy with distributed government, although it might make sense distributed economy and centralized government... Maybe I should focus on having two (ideally more, but IDK) mutually exclusive branches of social and economic policies, but then it would be nice to have different complementary policies on each branch to allow for different centralized (distributed) strategies.
Geoff the Medio wrote: Tue Feb 09, 2021 9:58 am I suggest enforcing the capital and admin centre dependence by adding bonuses to stability when a planet's focus and species matches its regional capital or the empire capital (for Regionalism or Centralization respectively).

There also needs to be a minimum distance in jumps between regional admin buildings.
Agree to both.

Having bonuses dependent on whether the species (and focus! great idea) of a colony matches or not its regional center is great for interesting decision-making on what and where to colonize or upgrade to admin center, and it plays really well with the ideas for species' values and population/species management (slavery without concentration camps, social rights, colonialism/federalism, vassal/free states...).

Minimum jumps to capital or other admin centers should be mandatory to help inexperienced players not shooting in their food.
Also, how to price building and admin center is an open question: we want it to be a great investment but not too expensive to ensure it's competitive with Catallaxy/Confederation.

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Re: Influence upkeep policies suggestion

#7 Post by Ophiuchus »

Both suggestions for local no-supply were mostly for having strategic stealthy bases.
Slowly build your stargate there. Refuel your fleet. Have your fleet unexpectedly supported by planetary forces.
Unexpected shipyard output (in your own supply network but from an unknown planet)

The focus could also increase stealth. Else a building makes more sense.

I am ok with trying your policies first
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Re: Influence upkeep policies suggestion

#8 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Tue Feb 09, 2021 2:09 pm Both suggestions for local no-supply were mostly for having strategic stealthy bases.
Slowly build your stargate there. Refuel your fleet. Have your fleet unexpectedly supported by planetary forces.
Unexpected shipyard output (in your own supply network but from an unknown planet)

The focus could also increase stealth. Else a building makes more sense.
If you first need to colonize the planet and then set focus to stealth or build the bulding, foes would see when it suddenly dissapears (reverts to unwoned world) and get wary. So I don't see it as a very useful strategy. But yes, no objection against a planetary focus that increases planetary stealth (and maybe stealth of ships that didn't move on previous turn).
But I'm against a building that increase planetary stealth, would be another candidate for spam. If we do something better with infrastructure and buildings, or make them consume influence each turn, then it would be great.

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Re: Influence upkeep policies suggestion

#9 Post by Oberlus »

Rethinking

Centralization (compatible with Empire government, incompatible with Confederation) coud have two possible evolutions:
-> switch to Regionalism (not so centralized), compatible with both Empire and Confederation governments.
-> add other complementary policies, oppresion-themed, to allow further growth by decreasing influence cost in other ways, each with other varied effects, to allow differen flavours to the imperial government. Right now I'm thinking of Divine Authority (more influence everywhere but less research), Conformance (currently has nothing to do with influence, not sure it should), Indoctrination (currenty this one lowers influence to gain stability, could be reworked somehow to increase influence of colonies the longer they are under indoctrination), Martial Law (currently this lowers research and supply to gain troops, could also up influence but I'm not sure that's necessary or interesting), Terror Supression (currently only increases stability from armed ships in orbit, could also up influence) and Racial Purity (this could reduce influence cost of capital-species colonies).

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Re: Influence upkeep policies suggestion

#10 Post by Oberlus »

Rethinking the Catalaxy "branch"

From Distributed Economy (economic policy, renaming the above "Catalaxy" policy) could have two evolutions:
- switch to Catalaxy (later game economic policy): similar effects with lower influence upkeep (lower factor B).
- add complementary policies: Liberty/Freedom of Thought (let's make it increase influence instead of decrease it), Individualism/Meritocracy (social policy, increases production and influence, decreases stability), Egalitarianism (increases stability and influence, reduces production).
Both are compatible (Catalaxy with the complementary policies).

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