Very Bad Influence is too bad

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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Re: Very Bad Stability is too bad

#16 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Sat Jul 23, 2022 10:31 am I guess my vote is try them at bad and leave very bad for natives.
+1 (or do a complete redesign)
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Re: Very Bad Stability is too bad

#17 Post by Ophiuchus »

did some more historic digging for fun. so the Radon (designed to inhabitate the empty radiated planets) got an adaptation of existing Replicon fluff
They started as an exact reversal of Cray, I simply reversed the stats and hit 'save as', I'm thinking fluff text around the idea that they may once have been some sort of precursor Exobot, similar to the Happybirthday, but they're smarter.

But ultimately I wanted a straightforward Radiated world species, and we didn't have a playable industry focused robotic race which given the emphasis on production and robotics in the tech tree felt off.
original fluff came from Krikkitone in
Don't Post your races here. Put them in their own Thread.
REPLICONS

Introduction - The Replicons are a race of sentient self replicating robots

Homeworld - Cisarruj is a heavily irradiated planet with a profound mystery about it. The planet is dominated by a wide variety of autonomous self replicating machines.

A reason for leaving the home planet - Population pressure, more resources are needed to support the populations of the Replicon Empire

Physical description - The Replicons look like a 3m tall robotic spider with wings. The wings are actually highly efficient solar panels that fold out to a relatively large area, the 'abdomen' is actually the 'industrial processing center' where replacement parts and new Replicons are forged.

Social Structure - By the time the Orion Empire falls apart, the Replicons are still in a relatively primitive social structure. They do have a planetary government, but that is only because a few feudal lords discovered space travel as a convenient way of attacking people really far away. Their government is effectively feudal, due to some unusual effects that allowed them to reach space flight before achieving the nationstate/industrial revolution stage of development. Because of the wide variety of self-replicating machines on Cisarruj, most needs that are met by industry on other worlds are met by 'agriculture' or 'breeding' by Replicons. They end up without any actual 'Industrial Base' or even much of an understanding of technology other than what verious 'natural' parts and products can be used for. This means that their society is highly illiterate, most people passing on knowledge that their pappies taught them on how to skin a "creature's" titanium coat, just enough so that it could grow it back or how much uranium ore to feed a reprocessing reactor if it was giving bad aluminum. Most things that normal 'developed' societies would expect are only present in the lord's estates, the remainder of society looks like something out of a post-apocalyptic novel.

History - No one really knows. Well there are the recorded histories of who went to war with who when, and this is actually significant when dealing with the formation of the Cisarruj Empire. However, most simply reads like any other world's pre industrial history periods of powers large and small waxing and waning. The Mystery of the Replicons, however is in their prehistory. Did a sentient race assemble them as an experiment maybe, or were they some type of accident (an industrial development project left unsupervised) did their creators simply leave and forget about them, or did their creators meet a worse fate possibly at the hands of those beings they created. Supposedly the Orions would have investigated this, It is vaguely known to other races that the world was interdicted for research reasons, and the Orions supposedly would know how to look for traces of previous life forms consistent with an Irradiated world (or a world that might have been modified to become Irradiated, as that transition has been noted in some planets with weapons sufficient to destroy magnetic fields and blow off atmospheres). If there was any evidence of this, or if the Replicons were the Orions' own experiment (which is possible, Replicon histories only date back to about several hundred years after the Orions became a truly technologically advanced race (from the stories that remain of the Orions). In any case, even if the Orions knew, it is truly a mystery now.

Race Attributes -
Growth Rate .. Maximum balanceable
Artifact HW (bonus to research on HW)

Strong Penalty to Research,
Moderate Penalty to Industry
more Unrest /disorder than usual (because they have a primitive society)
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Oberlus
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Re: Very Bad Influence is too bad

#18 Post by Oberlus »

A self-replicating machines with population pressure forcing them to get new planets seems worth extra population growth (trait, a policy is not special for the species).

I see nothing in the fluff to justify very bad influence.

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Re: Very Bad Stability is too bad

#19 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Sat Jul 23, 2022 3:21 pm I see nothing in the fluff to justify very bad influence.
I thought that came as a balancing thing? Although they seem not to be ready to organize a galactic empire - they are basically medieval kings who stumbled upon spacefaring.

From fluff i would actually expect: good industry, bad stability, likes feudalism, average or good attack troops, bad or average defense, (very) bad research, bad influence (primitive society)

If thought to be like robotic knights good shields would fit.

As your main impression is growth, I think we could try a growth trait else at least they should like population policy.

I would think that the greatest challenge for a replicon empire should be stability (and then influence)
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Re: Very Bad Influence is too bad

#20 Post by Oberlus »

Ophiuchus wrote: Sat Jul 23, 2022 4:34 pm From fluff i would actually expect: good industry, bad stability, likes feudalism, average or good attack troops, bad or average defense, (very) bad research, bad influence (primitive society)

If thought to be like robotic knights good shields would fit.

As your main impression is growth, I think we could try a growth trait else at least they should like population policy.

I would think that the greatest challenge for a replicon empire should be stability (and then influence)
I like all this.

What about this?

Good Industry
Great Population Growth (+50% growth rate)
Good attack troops
Good shields
Bad defense troops
Bad Stability
Bad Influence
Bad Research

Likes (without specials): Industry, Black Markets, Colonization, Feudalism (+PP from in-system unowned same-species), Colonialism (+PP from unowned in nearby systems), Vassalization (+IP from in-system unowned different-species-also-different-from-capital), Population Growth, Metropoles, Industrialism, Interstellar Infrastructure... Oh, this are too many likes, I guess.

Dislikes (without specials): Research, Confederation (which is required for Vassalization), Necessity (this can be a boost or too much to handle with disliked research), Design Simplicity (!), Technocracy, Automated Research, No Growth, Moderation, Environmentalism, Centralization.

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Re: Very Bad Stability is too bad

#21 Post by Ophiuchus »

Think the dislikes are mostly fine.

Traits are probably overpowered this way. Growth + industry + effective invasion.

Maybe make it hard to get stability by having very restricted likes?
How about Protection Focus, Colonization, Feudalism (+PP from in-system unowned same-species), Colonialism (+PP from unowned in nearby systems), and Vassalization.

And maybe add dislike to Population Growth policy, so the double boost comes at a great cost? Else low population.
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Re: Very Bad Influence is too bad

#22 Post by Oberlus »

Low population fits the fluff, because they fight too much (post-apocaliptic stuff in the fluff).

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Re: Very Bad Stability is too bad

#23 Post by wobbly »

Oberlus wrote: Sat Jul 23, 2022 9:17 pm Low population fits the fluff, because they fight too much (post-apocaliptic stuff in the fluff).
Doesn't fit the fluff of them being overcrowded

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Re: Very Bad Stability is too bad

#24 Post by Ophiuchus »

wobbly wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 5:56 am
Oberlus wrote: Sat Jul 23, 2022 9:17 pm Low population fits the fluff, because they fight too much (post-apocaliptic stuff in the fluff).
Doesn't fit the fluff of them being overcrowded
true, low pop does not sound overcrowded.
cant find any reference to overcrowding in the fluff; the replication (and spamming) part is covered by growth bonus (and liking colonisation).

technically high pop is not related to overcrowding (because population is very abstract; some measure of productivity, growth curve) - the closest to overcrowded we have is fast growth and colonies at maximum population.

Instead of low pop we could keep normal (or make it good) pop and nerf the other traits further. But low pop has the thematical benefit that they are not able to apply tech well etc (pop-based bonus).

we could make their growth trait boost late growth and call it "Unbounded growth" or add something to the fluff along the line "while Replicons are constantly replicating they never reached high numbers as they are constantly recycling each other"
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Re: Very Bad Stability is too bad

#25 Post by wobbly »

Ophiuchus wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 9:20 am cant find any reference to overcrowding in the fluff; the replication (and spamming) part is covered by growth bonus (and liking colonisation).
A reason for leaving the home planet - Population pressure, more resources are needed to support the populations of the Replicon Empire
Ophiuchus wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 9:20 am But low pop has the thematical benefit that they are not able to apply tech well etc (pop-based bonus).
Reverse way is to keep stability below the point needed to trigger the tech bonus and make up with base high pop + good industry.

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Re: Very Bad Stability is too bad

#26 Post by wobbly »

wobbly wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 9:28 am Reverse way is to keep stability below the point needed to trigger the tech bonus and make up with base high pop + good industry.
There is the option of giving them average influence and very bad stability. Make their thing being about high pop. and having trouble reaching any tech boosters.

Idea Edit:

Get rid of good industry (they are low tech) and make "good industry" based on having good population.

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Re: Very Bad Stability is too bad

#27 Post by wobbly »

wobbly wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 9:33 am
wobbly wrote: Sun Jul 24, 2022 9:28 am Reverse way is to keep stability below the point needed to trigger the tech bonus and make up with base high pop + good industry.
There is the option of giving them average influence and very bad stability. Make their thing being about high pop. and having trouble reaching any tech boosters.

Idea Edit:

Get rid of good industry (they are low tech) and make "good industry" based on having good population.
Apologises for triple post:

Alternative design around Medieval + Explosive Population

Great Population: +50 % (Does not yet exist)
Average pop growth : Extra pop growth handled by pop bonus above
Very Bad Stability: Low tech bonus
Average Industry: Industry handled by pop
Very Bad Research/Bad Research: Medieval
Average Influence
Good Policies: Feudalism, Divine Authority (medieval), Conformance (medieval), Colonialism, Population, Colonization, Exploriation, etc. (base on medieval)
Bad Policies: No Growth, No Supply, Liberty, etc. (base on medieval)

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Re: Very Bad Stability is too bad

#28 Post by Grummel7 »

wobbly wrote: Sat Jul 16, 2022 7:41 am
Oberlus wrote: Fri Jul 15, 2022 2:13 pm Very bad influence is really bad for Replicon...
wobbly: please edit the subject of the initial post, this thread discusses Very Bad Influence, not Very Bad Stability

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Re: Very Bad Influence is too bad

#29 Post by Oberlus »

Grummel7 wrote: Mon Jul 25, 2022 9:36 am wobbly: please edit the subject of the initial post, this thread discusses Very Bad Influence, not Very Bad Stability
It was my fault. I split the thread and wrote the wrong tittle. Now fixed.

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Re: Very Bad Stability is too bad

#30 Post by wobbly »

Fleshing out the idea of Medieval Knights + Pop Spamming

Great Population: +50%
Adaptive: 1/2 research costs for growth techs
Average Industry (but great pop)
Very Bad Research (again great pop)
Average Defense Troops (again great pop)
Very Bad Stability (for the low tech bonuses)
Average Influence
Likes: Industry, Influence, Colonization, Colonialism, Design Simplicity, Divine Authority, Exploration, Feudalism, Population, Marine Recruitment, Native Appropriation, Vassalization
Dislikes: Research, Energy Compressor, Algorithmic Research, Enviromentalism, Industrialism, Liberty, No Growth, No Supply, Technocracy

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