All my craziest ideas? Really?

[Redcap]

The introductionary statement to Brainstorming says write down all my craziest ideas... Really? Okay...

No it is just about a few technologies I have thought about.

Mega telescope. Allows you to see the planets and ships of nearby stars without having any ships in the area. Could be a planetary build and could be attacked in space combat by opponents.

Starlane mines, or solar system mines. Does damage to enemy ships that go through starlanes or attack your planet.

(Maybe this goes against the KISS concept but "all my craziest ideas" and all )
What about having to research a language translator before being able to communicate with other species, and maybe having some kind of advancement level to your translators that give you diplomatic bonuses. For example, translator level one: you can make out the message of another race but don't read into any small aspects of speech like tone or sarcasm. Translator level 5: You could understand alien poetry and converse in prose if you wanted to.

Like I said just throwing out some odd thoughts here and there.

[Geoff the Medio]

Mega telescope. Allows you to see the planets and ships of nearby stars without having any ships in the area. Could be a planetary build and could be attacked in space combat by opponents.

There is an "Observatory" building that improves the detection of nearby planets. How visibility on the galaxy map works hasn't really been discussed yet, however.

[Redcap]

How visibility on the galaxy map works hasn't really been discussed yet, however.

Really? That is surprising. I would imagine a simple fog of war - esque style would be the most fun. Namely if you go to a star system you know what kinds of planets it has but as soon as you leave you don't know if someone else is colonizing or terraforming or what have you. Unless you have an observatory.

[Krikkitone]

(Maybe this goes against the KISS concept but "all my craziest ideas" and all )
What about having to research a language translator before being able to communicate with other species, and maybe having some kind of advancement level to your translators that give you diplomatic bonuses. For example, translator level one: you can make out the message of another race but don't read into any small aspects of speech like tone or sarcasm. Translator level 5: You could understand alien poetry and converse in prose if you wanted to.

Like I said just throwing out some odd thoughts here and there.

Actually a good idea, although for KISS it would probably be more of some simple metric (understanding level of this species/empire) that increased your diplomacy in some way.
(so Translator -> +5 to "diplomatic capacity levels" for a species)

[Redcap]

Actually a good idea

You sound surprised

although for KISS it would probably be more of some simple metric (understanding level of this species/empire) that increased your diplomacy in some way.
(so Translator -> +5 to "diplomatic capacity levels" for a species)

I 100% agree with this.

Here is another question though. Diplomacy bonuses only seem to work with computers. Example I have a +15 diplomacy modifier with a computer I could probablly trade some technology. But if I am playing against a human and have a diplomacy modifier of +150 they will still do what they want as far as trading or what not. I know the whole diplomacy thing hasn't been worked out yet, but what if we put somekind of negative concequence for going against what the diplomacy meter says.

For example. Everyone starts at lets say diplomacy = 0, meaning they can do what ever they want. If I give you technology; however, my diplomacy increases by 1 towards you. That is still not high enough to effect your choices so you can still do what ever you want. Again and again I give you technology and again and again you accept (it is important to note you don't have to accept as you don't have to willfully be in high diplomacy with me)and eventually I get (without loss of gernerallity lets say) +5 diplomacy towards you. Now if I ask for a peace treaty you can still say no( you can always say no) but there will be somekind of intrinsic penalty; such as random events tend to be more negetive. The higher the diplomacy and the more you fight against it the steeper the penalties. This way diplomacy is strategic and human players have insentive to be nice to those who are nice to them. Also races with diplomacy modifiers as part of their race characteristics actually mean something in a human vs. human match.

I think this would be simple enough to model, and would add to game content and depth. You could put bellecose players into interesting positions as they have to deal with slow growth rates and plauges and space monster attacks all because they played opposite of the cards dealt by diplomacy.

Also, some races may have a bigger range of flexibility within diplomacy. Interesting where this might go, or not go

Here is an example of how it may look

Untitled.jpg (177.92 KiB) Viewed 1440 times

[M4lV]

you should be able to decide if a gift gets you +1 diplomatic bonus. Not all technological or other gifts are of equal worth so a rather uninteresting tech gift should just possibly mean no significant increase in diplomatic relationship hence penalties should not follow.

In other words, make an accept button where the player itself can influence/allow the effect to a certain pre-given degree/interval (make an extra field for that). For example an intriguing, secretive race could take all gifts but never feels the need of giving it back or seeing it as "nice-ness". A warlike race could just see a gift a (necessary) tribute to their bigger strength and see those who make gifts as weak even decreasing relationships.

Diplomacy is a difficult field. It should always take into account all races' different customs and specifics/specific reactions of their population. It's highly dynamic or at least I envision it as such.

[Redcap]

You see this in the world around us, but nations who act contrary to these laws of diplomacy and war seem to always get it in the end. Why else are treaties so strictly adhered too?

Some races may have more lee way one way or another, but I think generally we should say it is moral to be nice to those who are nice to you and reward players for playing that role. Besides with a system like this you could always not accept the gift and hence not give diplomacy modifiers to others. A different spin could be you could place bounties on races you hate or even give diplomacy points to others for attacking an enemy for you. I like your ideas but I think instead of making a race immune to following diplomacy, just make some have more lee way or gain diplomacy slower or faster.

[Geoff the Medio]

You might want to read through the diplomacy preliminary thread and comment, taking into account what's been discussed.

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2040

[Tortanick]

I'm pretty sure we all ready decided that we won't have diplomacy modifiers, the AI will try to simulate a player in its behaviour and say yes if its a good deal, not because you have +10 friendly.

However the civilians of an empire have opinions of other empires, if they really hate you they may get moral penalties until you declare war.

[Redcap]

Yeah, just read some of the other thread. It is simplier that way. I just smile at the idea of being able to "curse" jerks with bad luck I will willfully submit to the pre-determined position concerning diplomacy and go back to suggesting technological ideas and what not.

Micro-Robots that turn Astroids into Space Ships!!!! Just kiding

Serious note; however, if much hasn't been discussed concerning map exploration( how much of the map you can see at one time) I am putting in another plug for a fog of war mechanic. I think it would be neat to search a star, see it is useless and never go back just to be surprised that an enemy used it for a rally point for all its ships before it attacked. Thus making scouts usefull as what their name implies.

[M4lV]

I'd make that fog of war invisible though and its "strength"/effect dependant on observatory buildings and near-by ships equipped with good scanners, i.e. the scan strength in that system.

[Redcap]

Agreed.

[eleazar]

• It's been suggested that you need to learn a species language before you can communicate at all.

• I doubt there will be much opposition to some sort of "fog of war", it's just something we haven't addressed and defined yet.

[marhawkman]

• It's been suggested that you need to learn a species language before you can communicate at all.

• I doubt there will be much opposition to some sort of "fog of war", it's just something we haven't addressed and defined yet.

Hehe.... Anybody here familiar with how Star Trek: Birth of the Federation did this?

Essentially, each sector has a scan value. This is a composite of your sensor coverage of the area. Ships, planets, and space stations are all taken into account here. A value of >1 means you can see uncloaked ships in the sector. The game had two cloak levels, but I don't remember the detection threshholds for them. I also don't remember how it decided whether you could see the planets.

But, the scan value could go as low as -100 or so. That didn't happen often, but you had no hope of seeing anything there. It'd take a lot for you to be able to detect what was in that sector. Something like 2 planetary arrays I think. Needless to say if you have a major fleet, they can see anything close by. Why? Each ship has a scan level, and it adds them all up to determine if you can see things.

The negative numbers would come from certain stellar objects. Black holes would give that sector a -64 and each surrounding sector a -32, this would stack with other - boosts. It you only had one ship you might not see anything even directly on top of it.

Anyways, my point is that the detection system was very well thought out and worked quite nicely.

[M4lV]

Yes, I can only agree with that. With the FreeOrion map however it's a bit more difficult since there are no real 2d sectors like in good old botf.