We have some pretty specific things in mind for a micro-expansion that adds more diplomatic features to Sins of a Solar Empire.
But before we talk about them, we'd like to hear - specifically - what you'd imagine seeing in a $10 diplomacy oriented expansion for Sins.
Evolution of government types throughout game ala GalCiv2 -- i.e.dictatorship, democracy, federation, etc. and different bonuses/negatives attributed with each of those government types.
I also like the political party aspect of GalCiv2 with a voting in your govt.'s senate AND the ability to join a United Planets and vote on game-changing issues. One game changing issue could be the creation of a universal trade station that benefits all players -- think Babylon 5. More visible game changing stuff that you really SEE and FEEL the effects.
Religion types -- monotheism, polytheism, etc. (see above).
Creating/destroying phase lines -- more embago type tech.
The ability to hire or assign agents, mercenaries, bounty hunters, saboteurs/terrorists, assasins, etc.
Leaders -- and I'm not talking flagships or cap ships. UNIQUE LEADERS with their own UNIQUE VESSELS. Your emperor with his own throneship or grand admiral with his fleet command vessel. Give us characters to care about. To paraphrase Stalin: "To kill one person is a tragedy, but to kill a million, it's a statistic." Give us that one person, we can't help but keep alive. PS I'm a screenwriter, so if you need help in this area, don't be bashful haha.
When your culture overtakes another planet, that planet's population begins a process of converting to your side, rather than disappearing.
Troopships -- you can invade rather than seige if you so choose.
Advanced trade -- I feel the two trade resource mechanic feels too simple. I like how EvE online approaches this. Different types of minerals that yield different results. You can still place them all in one MINIRAL category. Same thing with crystal -- what are the different types of crystal we want to hunt down?
Advanced colonization -- moons! gas planets! terraforming/stellar conversion!
Ancient artificats that are more visible -- dyson spheres! ringworlds! monoliths!
Eventually, I'd love to see a game that's more of an RPG/4x/RTS in space. Creating a character ala Mass Effect or Star Control that travels the galaxy and eventually builds up an empire/fleet. That's probably a different game than SOASE altogether, but perhaps you could even do something like EvE's "walking in stations" for SOASE. Again, it comes back to character, and that's what good RTS/4x games are missing.
Overall, I feel early game is way stronger than late game. If your goal is improve the quality of the 4x play on those larger maps, then really think about how civilizations develop. Do the people evolve genetically -- changing appearances along with technology?
Before adding new things, I'd say fix old things first (seriously, solve the capital ship abilities imbanaces. Many of them NEED MAJOR BUFFS. I made a big suggestion thread and others did similar thing.)
AFTER old things FIXED, these are my wish list for new things. But again I'd prefer old things fixed before I see new things.
Singleplayer.
1.) AIs make alliance based on distance (further the distance better chance to make alliance)
2.) Player should can make request for credit/resoruce or AI should can make request if they are in trouble.
3.) Rehaul how like/dislike meter works.
-> If you blow AI's homeworld you and AI should never make alliance that easy (by solving 1~2 missions)
-> When not in peace treaty, the culture should be counted as 'hostile' to AI.
Multiplayer.
1.) Give us more intelligent feeding option. I am getting tired of mindlessly clicking the buttons when I am in pocket. Give us a automatic feeding option that I can set a certain percentage of my income goes to my ally(allies)
2.) Please fix the position problem. If we are in same team we should be close together.
General.
1.) Give us option to 'bribe' defense forces and neutral worlds. Sometimes too much heavily guarded worlds are problematic and forther unbalance the gameplay. The cost of bribe should be 1/2 of the cost of the defense forces, since giving up capital ship experience is quite significant that there needs some compensations.
2.) For alligance, make culture centers stacked. I want my planets alligance over 60%+ in further worlds if I invest enough.
3.) Give us more varied neutral defense forces. Sound weird all of neutral forces are TEC.... Maybe volcanic world it is Vasari, desert world it is Advent... Ice/Terran world it is TEC.
4.) It is time now, give us a campaign creater/editor. *hint hint
At last, borded words like these are THE MOST IMPORTANT, not others. And obiously borded AND italic is even MORE the MOST important. AND obviously, borded, italic AND underlined is...... understand?
Now some of not so Diplomacy stuffs.
1.) More types of the planets? Like ones in Deadly Sin?
2.) Un, more new units?
OK, this is enough for now.
Some animosities between the three factions as an option would be great. I like to role play a bit and think its ridiculous for a Vasari faction to offer a favorable deal to a TEC faction just as well as a fellow Vasari.
Combined effort treaties that would boost the productions of factories/contructors with a significant decline of income for both empires but think that would be hard to balance.
The second option actually makes me think about faction specific treaties such as Advent factions can offer to strengthen their Unity abilities only with another Advent faction. Examples would be longer "Lingering Presence" or use your Progenitor to transfer the souls of one of your lost Radiance to their recently built Radiance battleship.
No idea for Vasari or TEC specific treaties.
I want the ability to give missions to AI players in the same format they dole them out to humans. Also, demands; I should be able to demand a lesser empire cough up a wad of crystal like the AI players so often do to me. I'd also like the ability to give the same kinds of missions and requests to other human players.
Perhaps this could be tied into the existing diplomacy framework, some kind of conditional request/demand/proposal thing. Example: I might demand that Frogboy send me 3000 crystal within a time limit, with a condition that if he does not we break our peace treaty and go to war. Or I might ask for a trade agreement, and he might counter by asking me to destroy 20 of another player's frigates - and once that condition is filled, the treaty comes into effect.
Extremely specific missions would be cool. For example, "Please sneak x number of ship/s into a system and take out their (specific) factory/temple/etc."
This would make the game feel more real. Like you're apart of the inner workings and backroom handshakes of an empire.
Also, give us STEALTH ships!
Although this suggestion isn't specifically about diplomacy, I feel it fits in this micro-expansion more than any other.
New planet types! Wouldn't have to be too varied and I'm sure you could get lots of help from SIN Plus by Uzi. Finding different planets and phenomena (ie Celestial Bodies Mod with black holes and quasars) makes each random map feel like you are really "exploring" an unknown segment of space. I know I got a whole lot more excited when I ran into the cool worlds from SINS Plus than when I run into your run of the mill desert planet.
Just a suggestion, but I'm sure you guys have your bases covered!
Specifically:
Spies! I want to see some ability to place spies either on planets or fleets, with the ability to conduct some sabotage.
Also, I would like to see those planets that revolt due to culture to have a chance of joining the dominant culture's faction.
Generally: I would just like to be able to interact with the AI at a higher level. As some of the others pointed out, being able to assign my own missions to the AI would be a must for me. Also, being able to trade planets and perhaps grant temporary passage to fleets would be cool.
I want to be able to take over a planet without cauterizing its inhabitants first.
Diplomacy? Hm. Going to throw out some mostly non-interdependent ideas.
1- Display showing public treaty/war status between factions.
2- The ability to negotiate treaties with other 'stuff'. Like offering some amount of resources as an inducement to accepting a trade treaty, or offering an alliance in exchange for a declaration of war or a treaty cancellation against somebody else. Or demanding control of a particular planet in exchange for peace. One-time and periodic bribes and tributes also come to mind.
3- Possibly, the option to share non-logistics research between same-faction sides.
4- For a vaguely-neutral stance, the ability to designate a DMZ of one or more mutually bordering gravity wells (trade ships permitted) might be good. This should not be enforced by the game, but violation would raise tensions and might provide a casus belli. A related function would be the ability to designate a system for safe passage, which would *not* translate into safe passage in any other system.
5- The ability to 'claim' systems adjacent to one's own (not having any force, merely an indication that "we see this as our sphere of influence, and any entrance might raise tensions") might be interesting.
6- Regarding casus belli, perhaps there should be a loyalty hit for declaring war against a same-faction (TEC vs TEC, say) without one, especially if there are remaining other-faction rivals.
7- Secret treaties might be interesting, but should not be implemented before an espionage system that gives some possibility of identifying them. There's a lot that can be done with espionage but I don't know if that has any chance of being included in the next expansion.
8- Rules tweak: it might be interesting if trading resources requires actual ships to carry the material (and be vulnerable to destruction). Heh. But choosing from where to where may be tricky in a game with universal treasuries (unlike, say, _Anacreon_, where all treasuries are strictly planetary.). Capital-to-capital, nearest-to-nearest, or ?
9- Rules tweak: it might also be interesting to have a notion of having agreed to establish official diplomatic channels, and until they do so restricting communication to times when they both have ships in the same gravity well (or one has a ship in the same well as the other's planet). Heh.
Hi!
Thanks for asking. I have some qute regular requests:
- make diplomatic relations only possible after we meet each other.
- I'd like to give missions to other players.
- Partially completed missions give partial avards. Divide the bonus: 1/3 is avarded upon completition, and 2/3 is reserved for partial completition. Like: I have to destroy 6 ships of one player. Mission time runs out with only 3 destroyed. I don't get 33% bonus for completition, but I completed the mission 50% and get 50% of the 66% of the avard, that is 33% of the avard.
- I'd like to have an option to make other players change their relations. Like: I pay the Hand of Illus xxx credits to go to war with Slave Kar Majistra. He should give me its own "price".
- if I can have diplomatic relations to one empire, I can also spy on it. I'd like to have a new set of techs under Defense section, that deals with info gethering, like: * Establish spy network --> Enhanced spying --> Sabotage. * \->CounterEspionageCenter --> Total controlAll those techs would give me buildings and "payable" missions to get some info on other empire, from basic info (what planets, how many ships, how much income, to temporary planet and fleet vision, research levels, and some ability to disrupt the empire with various sabotage missions.
Out of diplomacy expansion:
- please give me the possibility to just queue research without paying for it. Only take resources when the research of the queued item starts. If there's not enough resources, give me a warning, and keep waiting for the proper amount.
BR, Iztok
I had some ideas a while back for some simple upgrades to the current system for AI missions and diplomacy.
First and most simple; being able to accept or decline missions.
Accepting a mission would raise both the happiness gained and lost for completing or failing the mission. This would also be the only way to gain whatever resource reward might be on the table for it.
Declining a mission would result in an instant loss of happiness, but much less than simply letting the mission expire.
Leaving the mission as it is and accomplishing it in that state only gains you happiness for that empire.
I also had a new addition to how the AI interacts with you; fear. Fear would be a measure of how erratic the AI behaves in its dealings with you in peacetime and how much of a threat it considers you when at war. For instance, at 100% happiness and 100% fear, the AI would behave very randomly, sometimes sending small task forces into your systems to check up on you, other times avoiding your ships altogether. Missions might range from extremely simple to nearly impossible. In contrast to an AI with 0% fear, they'd get along just fine with you, offering you consistently moderately challenging missions and trying their best to work as a team.
Making AI players fearful of you is simple. The more things you kill and the bigger your empire and fleet, the more wary of you they become. The more you complete missions and attack their enemies, the less they fear you. Alliances would also factor into this; the more alliances you have, the more fearful they are. The inverse of that is also true, as you might expect.
More use of cultural influence. In the current gameplaye culture is a good option to stabilze your empires borders, but how about taking over a independet colony by culture?
And if it is possible some kind of cultural victory like in civ. BTW i am not quite shure but is it possible to spread your culture from one system to another?? I think not, maybe this will also be a good addition as a new research.
Also more diplomatic interaction between empires would be a good thing.
thx for asking.... so nice to actually ASK ur custumers what they want!!!
ok.... all those previous demands are great....
but what I really want is to get more pirate factions.... Some Neutrals pirate (at first) can be used as ''loyal''(as long as you pay them with a % of your income) henchies. you know... like a private millice.
and of course(it as been said b4) more Planet types.... u guys should try a game with Sin+ .... or 7DS.... or Celestial bodies(deaply love that one).... oh did i mention a Scenario Editor?
oh... and thx for giving us such a great game
Minor races/factions -- other than generic "rogue" -- ala GalCiv 2.
Timeline: an ever-changing chronology of events. For example, let's say you (race A) attack race B. What if there was an icon you can click bringing up a list of events sorted by the game's internal clock, showing the time/place you attacked?
*Year (minutes played)/day (seconds played) -- Battle of Arcturus -- Blah Empire invades Meh Federation -- 1 billion (lives lost).
Galaxy-wide EVENTS: plague, revolts, extradimensional invasion, etc.
I want that too!!! with scriptable events!
There isn't much I can add that hasn't already been listed.
But one thing I would like to see is the ability to coordinate allied fleets better. In singleplayer the most you can do is say "defend here" or "attack here" and watch them act two weeks later. It would be cool if we could do more advanced things. Things such as gathering allies in one place then jumping en mass to a single target. Instead of everything at once allies could send smaller single fleets of ships. The number it commits to the fight depends on its relations with you.
Stuff like that. Remember to keep plugging away at the AI all is good. Keep up the good work!
I did a lot of posts on diplomacy, so I'll just sum up a few things.
1) reasons of what races like or dislike each other. could be different religions, political or moral views, border disputes ("that planet should be ours!"), racial likes/ dislikes and more. obviously these then need to be followed up with appriate systems like governments, beliefs, etc., but I think those fit quite well into a diplomacy pack.
2) give reasons of why even permanent good relations are worth pursuing other than holding them off for a later attack. I imagine non-miliary victories. if you have those, you can play the game very different and only have enough military to effectively defend, while you build towards other goals. military is then a secondary function, whereas now it is the primary one. 4X games regularly do this and also RoN had it. also, maybe go the civ IV way and make long wars more expensive. I found the war weariness an annoying but very good feature, because it made you think when you can wage a war, for how long and when it might be time to end it. maybe factions that are not at war with everyone get a bonus to resources, allegiance, happiness or whatever. that would give you natural incentive to seek good relations with at least some parties.
3) more flexiblity in trading systems. leejaywu had some very good points in that respect. allow us to trade ships for resources, planets for treaties, an alliance for a declaration of war. I always found it most satisfying to bribe an AI in civ 4 to attack a dangerous enemy that might be too tough for me alone to take on. or to be able to get a peace with a weaker party, because it agreed to make concessions. cities, technologies, money, whatever.
4) more transparent 3rd party relations. I think the current system was intended, but in most 4X games you knew which factions were allied or at war with which others or even how much they liked/ disliked one another. so, for me a major part of the strategy layer was to look at those relations and anticipate wars, before they arise. that is definately something which is a bit too much for sins, but you could have different stages of relations. like green lines connection to factions pictures symbolise good relations whereas red lines indicate bad ones. something like that to see at glance how they stand, if they are at war. and maybe give an audio cue if relations change dramatically or reach an important state. like "the relations between A and B are now at a critical level. experts predict a high possibility for war" or "factions C and D are enjoying excellent relationships. analyists expect an alliance declaration in the coming weeks".
5) united planets: not a big issue, but could be interesting to have something like that.
6) minor races: think they could also add to it. I'm kinda sad that you can't get those colonised neutrals in standard maps and have to via the map editor to get them. but yeah, someone you can conquer, but who would also be useful as a lackey or minor ally. you might even feed them resources and use them to attack a player that you do not want to be at war with yourself. you know, like an advanced mercenary.
guess that is all. I mean from what little I heard, the pack goes in my direction and I'm looking forward to it. I can just say, look at what proper 4X games have done and modify it to suit the real time context and it should great fun. obviously a full government system like in civ IV or the trade relations, espionage and united planets of gc II would be too much for sins with all the colonising, research and fighting going on in real time. but a bit dumbed down it could work.
ps: it's a good thing you asked, so we know there is still some time for us to discuss features. and we all know how customer feedback helps make products better. hope to get more info on what exactly you are going to do, even though the actual work is at an early stage. just to know what to expect. I don't even ask about a date, it's done when it's done and rushing is rarely any good.
Other rewards besides just resources might be nice. If I'm feeling generous to a smaller ally and he pulls off a tough mission for me, I might be willing to give him control of a planet that I'm just using as a trade-port cow on the fringe. Or maybe my buddy has a much better economy, so I'll give him a planet on my border so he can pack it full of defenses (as I mentioned in another thread, even at 250 trade rate, that's not a whole lot since it gets taxed).
Let me give them SHIPS!!!
Granted, whatever they take can't exceed their supply cap, and they might have to be same-faction, but if I have the resources and production set up to make twenty cruisers in a hurry to defend his planet, why can't I just give him those cruisers once they're made?
Ships and planets would be a much less used reward. Possibly make a credit transfer tax (100 per ship, 500 per cap, 2000 per planet) to prevent abuse. But still, team games could get much more interesting. One player could focus on dropping resources into capitals while the other cranks out frigates and cruisers and they just exchange owners.
I second the cultural influence victories. I think it's crap that my culture causes a rebellion that attacks me as well. Possibly, when a planet starts getting toward "rebelling", some computer-controlled loyalist patrol craft come out at first (hostile according to that empire's treaty status, but not under direct control and certainly no threat to a fleet) followed by rebel craft that actually are friendly to the cultures of the dominant empire and its allies. After some time, neutral territories should petition to join the empire with the culture dominance. This might lead to a neat strategy where you could seed an unoccupied star system by colonizing one planet, setting up a broadcast center, and letting your culture spread.
Also, PEACEFUL COLONIZATIONS! I shouldn't have to go smash the militia of each planet and then colonize by force. Militias shouldn't rush to kill me either. If I enter the star system with just a diplomatic envoy, then independent planets may or may not (at random or determined by some controllable factor) wish to join my empire for a price or special condition. I could buy them with a resource cost, or maybe they just don't want to be colonized at all and I need to bring out the guns. Maybe an independent planet, as a balancer, doesn't want to join the huge empire, so it offers to stand with a smaller one. Militias of planets acquired peacefully could stay on to act as patrol craft (and work with your fleet if it comes to defend the planet) or even join your fleet full-time, supply cap permitting. Make it an option of militia ships, if the engine allows. Make the militia controllable but not count against your cap as long as you're in that militia's grav-well. If you're willing to provide supply for them and accept the hit on your cap (and possibly a small credit hit to outfit them with all the enhancements you've researched for your fleet), then they'll fully integrate into your fleet and become part of your regular forces. Terran and desert planets would become much more valuble, as they could net you heavy cruisers very early on if you peacefully colonize instead of steamroll through. Also, possibly make the "militia conversion" something you have to reasearch as part of your fleet tree. Basically, you're reasearching a training program that helps integrate militias into regular forces. There could be other uses for the fleet tree with this as an option, though I definitely think that the "cap-ship experience" upgrades should fall under the fleet tree and not the civilian tree.
The benefits to peaceful colonization is that peaceful colonizations should come with free structures and planet upgrades. If I peacefully get a planet that already has a trade port, I should keep it. Or maybe, as terms of joining my empire, the planet eats the cost of building a trade port for me. Or four. I'm just tossing out ideas to make peaceful colonizations worthwhile. A peaceful colonization should start out with at least the population upgrade that makes the tax-rate even, if not in the green.
Not all uncolonized planets should stand alone! (there should be some non-expansionist enclaves sometimes) Not all uncolonized planets should be empty barrens! Honestly, why are there militias around empty planets? Make some of these places surrounded by non-aligned trade ports and refineries. Not every planet outside of an empire is population 1. Maybe make a few planets that you'd BENEFIT by letting them stay uncolonized. As in, they could provide you much higher resources or a few unique ships every few minutes.
The ability to trade the artifacts! If I've got a bunch of research done and all the research I've left is enhancement but not mission-critical, why can't I trade it with an ally who might have the jump drive relic? Just make us pick a planet to locate the relic, and maybe make us defend that ship if it's going on a long trip (but make it controllable! Let me pick its route!).
Less of a diplomacy thing, but a possible idea...let me designate no travel gravity wells for civilian ships. I so tire of my trade ships flying thru enemy territory just because it's the route. Either this, or make the civilian ships smart enough to avoid enemy territory and only pick routes thru known neutral or good grav wells (if they know an enemy starbase is there, don't let them go there!).
Please overhaul piracy in a big way! Just as I should be able to give specific objectives to a faction (as in Go to this planet an destroy all their weapons labs), I should be able to give the same to pirates. They shouldn't just launch one massive fleet at a time and go smash a planet to bits or die trying (sadly, Pirates can be more of a threat than the early AI, because an outnumbered AI wouldn't stand and fight). The fleets need to be smaller and faster (tradeoff for not having shields, maybe?) and focused more on stealing your resources or maybe an artifact on that planet. They should zip in, latch on to a trade port, and divert all that planet's income away from you. And if they really hate you, they'll do this to three or four planets at once.
Pirates should be more on a for-hire basis. Like negotiating with other nations, they will create raids at your behest for the right incentive. Of course, once your empire reaches a certain size compared to the number of independent planets left or compared to the remaining empires, pirates will either make their bill much higher or even flat-out refuse to deal with you, as they realize you'll shut them down once you're the only remaining power in the system. Pirate raids acting on your commission should not be considered hostile to your empire. Maybe not so much to your allies.
Pirates should launch small raids on unoccupied worlds! Another reason a planet might join your empire...if you agree to protect them from an impending pirate raid (of course, this pirate raid has a specific objective in mind that you must prevent, such as not letting x number of trade ships be destroyed or something similar and acheivable). And planets that get raided continuously and you fail to offer timely protection will rebel (if a neutral territory takes a culture structure, neutral culture starts spreading, possibly spawning a rebel enclave in your empire) or offer to join another empire that can protect them better.
Must pirates always be located one phase jump from a star in random maps? Hell, in most maps? They don't go between systems, so can we move them away?
edit:
Also forgot: second the needing to meet before diplomatic ties can be established. You should get a diplomatic ship that has to visit an empire to establish relations. Upon first contact, you CAN attack an enemy ship, but your ships shouldn't attack by default. Attacking a diplomatic ship is pretty much a universal declaration of war.
I think the jointly-owned planets might be a neat idea. Currently, the closest you get is your starbase in an allied system. But it would be awesome to have a "diplomatic seat" planet. This planet divides its resource income evenly between its owners, and each empire with a stake in it gets four logistical and defense slots to start and eight total, allowing you to exceed planetary caps of single ownership planets. Since building and defense of a joint-ownership planet requires everyone pitch in, buildings in joint sectors have unique functions to make them more valuble diplomatically: the owning empire can dedicate production to another empire. Toss two trade ports down and set them to give income to your buddy who's low on credits. Or maybe install a frigate factory that will let you build ships but it adds on to his fleet cap. Different-faction allies issues will have to be worked on, but it's a consideration. Maybe for this one, since you're allies, your factories get the schematics and can produce that faction's ships for them? Jointly owned labs don't give you access to each other's research (or maybe it does, at least the common stuff like wormhole and system jumps), but it does give you lab space, so labs on joint-worlds count for the lab count on both sides (even different faction allies), meaning 2 allies only need 5 labs a piece.
Artifacts found on joint-worlds are shared by both empires. Should no artifact be located there, an empire may bring an artifact to a joint world and share it with his allies.
The only world that cannot be joint-ownership is your capital planet. That should stay unique to you.
Declaring war causes chaos at joint worlds. An idea is to make another timer after the "declare war" timer. For 5 minutes after the "declare war" timer ends, any fleet can go and contest the location. Possibly sending in a colonizer to take the planet or seige machines to bomb off the new enemy empire could lead to fleets contesting these planets hotly, especially if an artifact had been located there. Imagine three or four fleets all vying for one planet? If no fleets show in the 5 minute window, then the planet will join the empire with the cuture advantage. If no culture advantage exists, the planet goes independent. If you have a planet with more than two owners, then the empires declaring war on the alliance will be automatically ejected from the ownership at the end of the five minutes (unless of course that empire wants to fight for it).
All just ideas. Amazing what I think of at this time of day.
2nd edit (yeah, I have ideas tonight!):
Pirates could perform more black market functions. They don't go around discovering artifacts or researching science stuff, but if they raid a planet with that artifact or a lab with a research topic, it should go up on the black market. Say...10% discount and no research time needed for the first paying empire that doesn't already have the tech. Artifacts are massively expensive (and price adjusted according to how big your empire is and how much the pirates fear you. If you own over half the system, they'll gouge you for 50K or more credits if they sell at all. But they're willing to sell to the guy with a six-planet cluster for 30K credits)...
Speaking of which, mayhaps I could sell research to allied factions if it's a similar research branch? I could set the price (probably 10% more expensive by default) and get compensated for my time and resources spent researching while he defends me. He pays more for risking less and taking less time, I get money for taking a risk and time.
A few ideas which I think could really improve the fun of the game.
1: Xenophobia. I seem to be the only one who keeps asking for this, but I think it would be really nice if it was harder for Advent or TEC to ally with Vasari because they just don't like them, same for all factions. I don't like the fact that TEC will side with Vasari no problem, I’d like to see it less common. To be clear, I think this would be best as a toggle option.
2: Donations. I would like to see just general donations improving relations. If I throw metal at them and they have tons of metal though they wouldn't care less but if they are low on crystal and I just donate some to them as good will I'd like to see a small difference in Allegiance. Perhaps the Diplomacy screen could show wants/needs of AIs. To stretch this further it would be nice if I had a very good relationship with an AI and I am choked for a resource and that AI has plenty that he proactively decided to share.
3: Fluid relationships. I'd like to see relationships between AIs be a bit more variable and not mission based. If I continually assault 1 AI's planets I'd like to see his friendliness go to pot but maybe he would offer a cease fire in a roll over and submit kind of way to take the heat off him. If I am hurting an AI, then I'd like to see that AIs enemies suddenly see me in a different light. Similarly if I am feeding 1 AI then his enemies would start to hate me. Lastly you need to get rid of the fact that at the moment if you don't get on top of AI missions within the first hour then you get all AIs allied against you. To be frank the current system is the worst part of the game which is why despite trying often I can only enjoy the game with locked teams.
If missions have to stay, I would implement a system more like I have mentioned but missions would involve an AI saying "The Allegiance of Hasselhoff is really hurting us, we would appreciate some help". Then there would be a window of about 20-30 minutes where any action against Allegiance of Hasselhoff improves relations.
4: Cosmetics, perhaps more commander Avatars, but more desirable would be a mock Video link with the opposition leader when they communicate.
5: Potentially the most fun would be random events. You know that the majority of your players are single player gamers. Adding a toggle option for random events in the game would add more narrative and variety to the game and as it can be toggled off you don't have to put up with the whine on forums about balance.
6: Espionage could be a lot of fun and also help with the fact that scouts just become a micro manage only nightmare later in the game.
Pirates are a whole other story, I could do a whole new post about them, the important thing is making them more like pirates but also keeping them fun which a lot of people miss the mark on.
a) An option to change the message your broadcastcenters casting into space to change the bonuses.
f.e. change the message to :
broadcast fear: enemy people will leave the planets in your culture faster, and enemy fleets get some disses like lower aiming.
broadcast peace: enemy people will join your empire instead of leaving the planet. You will get lower taxes there, but u dont have to buildup the planet.
broadcast rage: u will get rebels on gravitywells in your culture. Your fleet will have more damageoutput.
b)as already said: overview which player has treaties with other players. Its hard if u send an ai to a planet do defend and than u see that they shake hands while one player kills your colony.
c)if a ai is nearly dead. why they dont accept ceasefire? I would do even if i had 0% relations. Maybe a new option to become a puppet from someone else. F.e. If one AI/Plaer is nerly dead he can give command of the fleet/planets to someone else. If he become a puppet with another player who is an ally from my enemy, i get an ally from my enemy too.
d) If iam in an Ally with someone, and he has war with someone else, i have to go to war, or have to cancle my allaince with my partner. This would stop some problems in point a) too
e)i would like to see more demand options:give me planet, money, ... orgive shipvision to ...declare war on...make peace with .. or ...cancel ...treaty with ...your max used fleetsupply is 100 or we declare war.get my puppet and we protect you...dont colonize this planet...your are not allowed to build ... (carriers f.e.)merchantoptions:i give you (tech,planet,money) for ... (Techs only if u are the same race)declare war on ... for ...dont build .. for x minutesand all other demandoptions...
Not sure if this is possible, but could it be done that there was a 'dynamic space' option where phase lanes could change (open and close) mid game? That would make static games more interesting.
On the diplomacy side, the missions system need a 'chainsaw overhaul' IMO. None of the AIs get any missions, you can't set any, it just doesn't work evenly at all, and you can lose alliances from missions that aren't feasable given the position you are in. I assume that this is already being worked on.
I would like to see civilian ships play more of a role. At the moment they are effectively robots that do nothing much. Perhaps trade ports could build large armed freighters that cost a reasonable amount but trade more profitably and aren't simply cannon fodder (ie armed and armoured, like mini cap ships perhaps). Same for refineries.
I would certainly like an option to give or loan ships to an ally or ask for some from them. Also perhaps loans of resources or credits that get paid back over time.
Above all, it needs a balanced diplomatic playing field - you get the options the AIs get, and vice versa
Personally, I am not a fan of diplomacy beyond it's strategic uses of keeping that guy from attacking you while you kill that guy over there. I tend to just lock teams anymore and ignore that whole aspect of the game as it is now. Personally, to get me to buy this expansion, it would have to totally revamp diplomacy to be interesting and useful, or else add other new aspects beyond that such as incorporating Uzii's Sins Plus mod. The added variety of planets in that now mostly abandoned mod made the game more diverse, and made some planets more tactically and strategically valuable
my big 3:
1) improve the single player AI, its still lagging too far behind. this topic could get a whole thread of its own. i won't go into much detail here. my biggest issue with it at the moment is that it doesn't seem to know how to use the more powerful abilities of the game and is terrible at picking and managing its capital ships.
2) new planet types and revisions to existing planet types. it really sucks to get a 2 rock Ice World near you but your opponent got a 4 rock ice world near him. unfair and random. lets get some balance on this please. more planet "specials" like Massive Pure Glaciers or other goodies like that.
3) make the pirates worth using. i turn them off in every game i play at this point. they're just a nuissance that slows the game down without adding any fun factor. they also are a big turn off to new players who don't know how to manage them effectively and will get smashed by pirates a bit too easily in the beginning of the game. they're just plain boring to experienced players who aren't even slightly threatened by pirates.
I made this post a long long time ago, but it still holds up pretty well so here's my espionage suggestion:
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