Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

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

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Ophiuchus
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Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#1 Post by Ophiuchus »

hi,

i will put my (few) resources in making peaceful hidden expansion work in 0.5

the style i mean is: you are pushing as fast outward as possible in hope of reaching crucial places first, also being able to coexist in between another players space.
this is mostly about the exploration part of 4X

what helps being allowed in another's space: diplomatics of course; being a hard target (e.g. high stealth, high defense, other costs) for invasion; being an unattractive target (e.g. troublemaker/bad integrational species, low output species without the right policies, ways to poison the well (e.g. fast evac), other ways to keep benefits low); staying out of the way (e.g. colonising only places the other one is not able to use, being non-threatening at least short-term).

i imagine some paths to that aim.
1) Sly (very high pl.stealth, bad supply anyway, good at decentralisation, no high influence hit by capital disconnection);
2) Laenfa (cheap pl.stealth techs, great at exploration, phototrophic, no high influence hit by capital disconnection), those could also try to snatch up natives
3) RP investment in planetary stealth tech and decentralisation, so high RP species - Scylior mostly i guess (high pop, great research, bad supply);
4) a good PP species could do something similar; expansion/exploration mostly using outposts (also for milking RP), but would probably have no way of defending far away planets. So maybe egassem (narrow env, high supply) combined with diplomatics.

ancient ruins are such a bounty, but they are also heavily guarded, so being there fast does not completely pay the bill.

some deficits can be mnullified by going this route: narrow enviromental preferences, bad supply, bad military capability (offense troops, pilots).

for normal species, large/huge good environment planets.

policies which fit: decentralisation, reaping RP by exploration, isolation, growth, policies which use natives without invasion

this of course only works if planetary stealth race is a valid defense tactic at least until mid-game. this could be helped with different kinds of detection.

having ways to locally suppress supply would also be helpful to not give your location away - e.g. bad supply trait on gas giants .

some content which nerfs detection against planetary stealth: it would be also good if there are "meh" stealthy natives to hide hidden colonies. or e.g. bad surprises (e.g. monsters) if one unveils some stealthy planet - so you should be careful of boosting your detection needlessly.

i'd like input from you guys. ideas what such crucial places could be, what policies do fit and what variations of that playstyle could be.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

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Oberlus
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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#2 Post by Oberlus »

In the policy ground, there is the issue of Continuous Scanning, that made easier to reach high detection early game.

Right now it is no sacrifice to get detection 50 by turn 50 (with default PP/RP factors), with Active Radar and the policy.

There are policies that increase planetary stealth:
* No Supply: +15
* Isolation: +5
* Environmentalism: +10

(BTW, those fives are troublesome. Final stealth values are supposed to end in 5, and detection values in 0. When detection is equal to stealth, what is the result? Visibility or not?)

Species with +20 planetary stealth would need to rush to the second planetary stealth tech (many times more expensive than getting Active Radar) to reach stealth 65 and stay undetected. Impossible.
Environmentalism has a huge impact in PPs, and is not an early policy.
Isolation can be adopted early, but it needs more stealth bonus to make a difference: base 5 + trait 20 + first tech 20 + Isolation 5 = 50. Unless detection 50 can't see stealth 50. Anyways, better to bump it to +10.
No supply is the only sure option right now to stay ahead (with effort) in the planetary stealth vs detection race, but only for good+ stockpile species.

Maybe make Isolation +10 and No Supply +20, and give them both a stockpile bonus. Flat unfocused for No Supply, pop-based focused for Isolation?

wobbly
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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#3 Post by wobbly »

I was wondering a little if etty should also be "sneaky" like laenfa or perhaps there should be 2 grades of sneaky. They are described as sneaky in the fluff and have the small planet stealth bonus. Anyway the option to go militant or stealthy or militant/stealthy(cloakers) could be nice for them.

Edit: Fulver are another potential candidate (good fuel, good stockpile). Maybe for them someone needs to double check there likes/dislikes are setup right to make it viable.

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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#4 Post by wobbly »

Ok either I'm misremembering Etty's description, or it was changed. Relevant bits say they are honourable society, protect themselves by mimicing the scent of predators, +20 planetary stealth, likes/dislikes don't oppose or support stealth.

I took a look at Fulver's likes dislikes, the relevant part of the list is:

Likes: Stargate, Stockpile Distribution, colonization, confederation, exploration, stockpile liquidation, resonant moon
Dislikes: Environmentalism

I don't think dislikes Environmentalism is necessarily a big setback, I could see adding Likes: Isolation and No Supply as possibilities.

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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#5 Post by wobbly »

Planet stealth techs add a special (e.g. something likable) - for Etty?

Native/neutral exploiting policies for humans?

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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#6 Post by Ophiuchus »

I am not (yet) sure how stability is related to (unconnected) expansion.

Unconnected planets get that stability hit, but I would guess that the influence cost is prohibiting, so one would have to take confederation anyway.

If the IP cost could be made go away (e.g. by another policy), one could try to solve the stability problems independently. I like the idea that some species like e.g. the cloud specials (e.g. etty, gysache,..) - or the techs could directly give a stability boost to fearful species.

probably i should spawn a thread about disconnected empires which concerns itself with influence cost, stability and imperial stockpile
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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#7 Post by wobbly »

Pethaps the stockpile liquidation policy could also do disconnected influence? It seems a little weak on its own.

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LienRag
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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#8 Post by LienRag »

wobbly wrote: Thu Jul 07, 2022 10:02 am Pethaps the stockpile liquidation policy could also do disconnected influence? It seems a little weak on its own.
Interesting...

Ophiuchus
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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#9 Post by Ophiuchus »

For Sly I found two types of juicy targets: gas giants with kraken nests and systems where there are also natives planets for use with The Hunt, Vassalisation or Native Appropiation

Also systems with multiple gas giants are interesting of course - for gas giant generators or Feudalism.

As those situations are rare (especially multiple gas giants), the main question for usability of the policies is if one has enough free slots / enough places for this to reap benefits.
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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#10 Post by wobbly »

Some thought should probably be put into how policies like vassalization should work for natives with planet defenses. Also Acirema guard ships

Ophiuchus
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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#11 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Sun Jul 10, 2022 7:19 am Some thought should probably be put into how policies like vassalization should work for natives with planet defenses. Also Acirema guard ships
guard ships are already handled by supply.
Vassalisation of defending species deserves its own thread.
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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#12 Post by wobbly »

Idle idea to make Sly expert kraken tamers.

Edit: krakens could have stealth boost on GGs

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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#13 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 6:41 am krakens could have stealth boost on GGs
+1 (not sure how it balances, but id like to try)
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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#14 Post by wobbly »

Ophiuchus wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 8:43 am
wobbly wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 6:41 am krakens could have stealth boost on GGs
+1 (not sure how it balances, but id like to try)
Yeah I'm not sure on balance either but I do have a basic opinion that there should be enough stuff in the universe with some basic stealth (whether monster, special, native) that researching early detection becomes a viable path.

I guess the next question is whether larval krakens should be stealthier than big krakens and what numbers to use.

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Re: Ideas for peaceful hidden expansion?

#15 Post by LienRag »

Right now the balance is tipped towards Detection and against Stealth, so I'm not sure that early Detection needs encouragement...

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