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.
ok got tired of reading all those so, sorry if my suggestion has already been brought up.
I would like to be able to go neutral with enemies/allies. I guess it would work kind of like the cease-fire, but I would like missions to not come up from them while neutrality is in effect. So I guess what I'm looking for is a temporary way to ignore each other if both agree, or something like that. Maybe I'll pay you so much to leave me alone for the next hour while I wipe everyone else out, or however you want to implement it.
Also another random thought, how about different AI style for not just how they play on the RTS side but also for how they behave diplomatically. Like you could have warmonger AIs, peaceful AI, Exploiters, traitors, and so on, or however you want to classify them.
Shorter MP game modes with number of different win conditions!!!
This game doesn't need anything else IMHO.
Diplomacy is nice and all but it should come only after fundaments are fixed and in place...
And fundaments are: better MP system and SP campaign of some sort...
[quote who="-=XX=-Nephilim" reply="2" id="2167564"]Shorter MP game modes with number of different win conditions!!! This game doesn't need anything else IMHO. Diplomacy is nice and all but it should come only after fundaments are fixed and in place... And fundaments are: better MP system and SP campaign of some sort... [/quote]
Those aren't necessarilly fundamentals for all people. Not everyone plays MP, and a campaign would be of limited use, I don't even play campaigns for most RTS's I play.
4X games don't need a campaign, and typically don't have one. Personally I think the effort needed to make a campaign would be a waste of time and effort. SOASE has already given me several hundred hours of play. A campaign couldn't do that, and would take longer to build than adding lots more features to the game that could be used over and over again.
Scripted events in the course of regular play might be interesting however. EG discovering ancient alien technology or a phase lane being destroyed or created, perhaps new empires forming from allied unconquered neutral planets, etc.
A couple things I would love to see in a diplomacy release.
1) 'KOS/NON-KOS regions' based on a player defined colony standing:
- Give specific teams or players tiered access to your controlled space. For example: A neutral party may be given access to a certain phase lane or system you control and is not KOS in those areas. More sensitive areas, however, they may not be welcome in. Maybe a military staging area you have set up deeper in your empire. Or planets close to and including your Home planet.
2) Has been mentioned many times, but player missions would be a great addition to the game
Perhaps not diplomacy-related, but I'd like a way to define 'off limits' areas. I tire of ships taking the fastest way possible right through the pirate stronghold, or what have you. Simply by designating an area 'off limits', they'd automatically skirt around it.
Skimmed the thread,
*Count me in for additional planet types. A more interesting environment is a more interesting game. I'll admit that it would be difficult to differentiate new planets gameplay-wise. Perhaps exotic planet types that require 5 or 6 labs to colonize. Or gigantic 'neutral' space stations. But even if they were just graphical differences, the game would be more interesting.
*Trade revamp. The current trade system just doesn't work the way it's supposed to - people virtually never go for trade ships. And the pirates are incompetent at it. I'm not sure it's possible to fix with a reasonable amount of effort, but at least think about it.
*Please, don't make it possible to ally with sheer bribery. That's so lame.
*Neutrals revamp. The current neutrals regulate expansion pretty well in the early game but they are boring. This is a natural for a diplomacy revamp since you could convince a strong neutral to disarm and so on.
*New capships and new capital ship abilities. Mix it up! Let's see some capships with research requirements.
*Espionage! And it shouldn't just be penny ante stuff. If I can get a spy into that research station I want to freeze his miltary research for a few minutes. If I can get a spy onto that planet while there's no battle going on I want to be able to rip the guts out of the defences. Though it shouldn't be spammable. A player with a larger economy defeating a smaller opponent by swarming them with spies would be utterly silly. Perhaps espionage shouldnt be linked to economic power at all.
Hello,
this is what i would like to see in next expansion:
- Improved trade agreement - not only makes trade route longer (normal TA) but also gives half of trade income of another player.
- Export/import of resources to other players - for example 1metal/sec for 3 credits/sec and two versions of it: limited - will export/import resources for a brief of time but if revoked earlier player who breaks contract must pay penalty to other player, unlimited - no penalty and no time limits.
- Make trade ships from 1 trade port phase jumping together (convoys) it will give more income but will be more vulnerable for enemy's attacks.
- Maybe research treaty - it will accumulate numbers of all labs between players with treaty, an improved version would also make research faster and/or cheaper if players have the same amount of labs (for example 1 player have 2 civ labs and 2nd player have 4 civ labs so both players have faster/cheaper research on tier 2and can research subjects on tier 6)
- Espionage - agents recruited in empire or in underground, they would comlete missions like sabotage, incite revolt, steal credits/resources counter intelligence, hunt for enemy spies, aquire empire/planet/tech info and if the same race steal technology.
- Diplomatic manipulation - for example force another player to attack, make peace or break/make agreement with another player, in exchange (or without) for alliance/agreement/peace or resources/tech/planet
- Ability to exchange planets for other planets or resources, also gifts and demands.
- Ability to sacrifice tax income to boost asteroid extraction rate.
- More culture usefullness.
- If planet is overthrowed by your culture, then planet should join your empire, not go neutral.
- Maybe this is not diplomatic way, but sending invasion forces to planets would be good.
- Make trade ships bigger (only visual), or make new bigger trade ships that would give more income if researched/built.
- Players would be able to communicate with each other only when discovered (not on locked teams).
- When player discover another player, status between them would be neutral, not at war.
- Maybe diffrent government types for each race.
- New paths to victory, not only total military supremacy.
- Ways to take planets not only through bombardment and colonizing.
- Culture should overthrow more quickly planets with less population.
- Stronger pirate forces in late game.
I think that's all, sorry if some suggestions someone wrote earlier.
1.) Revamp the pirates. After the opening part of the game, they are merely a nuisance. Perhaps giving them access to larger fleets (proportional to the bounty they collect). In addition, when the level reaches “severe” they should have access to a limited capital ship similar to a carrier – able to launch strike craft and also some special ability to temporarily disable targets such as the ion bolt. Also, if all bounty has been collected on the target player, the pirates should break off the attack and return to the pirate base, where the booty from the previous raid will be used to increase the size of the pirate fleet for the next round. If there is no bounty offered, the pirates should only go for 1000 credits of damage against a random target.
2.) Random events would help to keep things fresh in longer, multisystem games and could potentially turn the tide of a long war of attrition. These events should not happen too frequently, but often enough that their presence is felt – some would occur much more frequently than others. Such events could include:
a. Solar flare in a star system (decreases shields and also decreases productivity of extractors and completely shuts down structures that propagate culture)
b. Large meteor strike on a planet (similar to a Novalith strike)
c. Random malfunction of ship/starbase/orbital structure which decreases an ability for a short period of time.
d. Random upgrade of a ship/starbase/orbital structure which increases an ability for a short period of time (this could occur because a really motivated individual was assigned to the affected unit)
e. Random fatal malfunction for a ship/starbase/orbital structure which destroys it. The higher value structure, the less likely it is to be selected to be destroyed – but no structure is immune – so the fully upgraded starbase or level 10 cap ship just might have an accident (unlikely, but possible).
f. Disease could strike a planet – this would temporarily decrease population. The severity of the decrease could be random as well, with the possibility of completely wiping out the population. Diseases would be contagious and spread by ships travelling from system to system – including trade ships. This brings up the question of blockade and embargo of other player’s ships if they have an outbreak on one of their planets and would add depth to the economic aspects of the game.
g. Religious movement – this affects the military effectiveness of allied units within a 2 planet radius of the planet where the movement is born. This could go either way - decreasing effectiveness if the movement is pacifistic, increasing if the movement is militant. A pacifist movement would significantly increase cultural spread while a militant movement would decrease cultural spread. The duration of the movement could be variable – 10 minutes to an hour. Razing the planet where the religion is based would effectively end it.
h. Some sort of swarming threat that springs up and wreaks havoc – think along the lines of an outbreak of the Flood from Halo, or a group of Fred Saberhagen’s Berserkers activating and deciding to wipe out all local life. The swarm then proceeds to destroy everything in the gravity well and then will spread to other planets. Limit the spread to a 2 planet radius of the focus. All the resources from the affected systems would go towards making more of the swarm (capping out at a large number of units per gravity well). Once all the systems fill up, the more time passes, the more likely it is that another swarms will appear in nearby planets - which will motivate eradication rather than writing off a handful of planets if this occurs way behind the front lines.
3.) Make it so human players can give missions to other players. Also, give an out to decline a mission without as large of a penalty.
4.) Add embassies and consulates (embassies can only be built in the home system of another player; consulates can be built in any system). The embassy/consulate structure would be required to conduct trade in another player’s system. In addition, there would be an added bonus for espionage activities (see below). The downside is that this will also slightly increase the counter-espionage activity of the other player, and also gives a slight culture bonus to the other player as well. Embassies will have bigger effects than consulates. The host player could expel the ambassador/consul which would decrease all these effects or completely destroy the embassy (act of war) or consulate (not quite war, but significantly close to it) and completely remove all effects.
5.) Espionage could add a great deal of strategic depth. It isn’t too hard to picture an espionage technology tree with simple operations (one time obtaining limited planet information or limited fleet information) at low levels of research escalating up to mid-level operations (planet/fleet vision for a limited time, steal credits/resources, sabotage unit/structure to malfunction) and then high level (sabotage unit/structure to destroy itself, insurgency, assassination of military leader [decreases logistical level of targeted player], bio-weapon [releases a disease], steal a capital ship). There would also be technologies to increase the effectiveness of counter-espionage measures - I guess you could call one “Improved interrogation techniques” if you wanted something slightly Orwellian for the TEC, one “Mind Stripping” for the Advent and “Xenophobic intimidation” for the Vasari. The way I envision espionage/counterespionage is that you set up what sort of operation you want to run – low risk/ low gain to medium risk/medium gain to high risk/high gain; lower risk operations would have a higher chance of success and would be over very quickly – 30 seconds. Medium risk has a middling chance of success, but takes much longer – 5 minutes. High risk operations have a low chance of success and take an extremely long time – 30 minutes. Odd of success would be affected by the technologies you have and by the counter-espionage ability/technologies of your opponent. If successful, you get the goal, if not successful, the outcome of the failure could be that your spy is not detected, your spy is killed, or your spy is “flipped” by the other player (significantly improving their counterespionage score – but you do not know it). Keep the interface simple by having just the level of risk you want to take – at the end of the waiting period, the success/failure roll is made and then a random previously researched espionage capability of the appropriate “risk” level is selected and the effect applied. The best part is that several of these outcomes mimic the random events I listed above, so you can never be sure if the malfunction was from sabotage or because of bad luck.
the ability to bribe pirates to launch an attack against a specific enemy, even for them to coordinate with an ongoing attack
the ability to be able to trade techs, ships, planets, with other races
I few things that could add to game:
-Spies (see an opponents progress on tech tree, steal resources, gain permanent sight to ships/buildings/planets, see total resources/ship slot usage, etc.)
-Fix non-locked games vs. the AI so they don't all team against you if you don't ally with someone.
-New planet types, as many have already said
-Beef up pirates past early game; they can't handle the upgraded Entrenchment defences at all.
-Ability to create missions/place bounty on a specific target; IE 5000 credits if someone destroys X media hubs owned by player Y.
-Minor races/more interesting neutrals.
My 5 requests:
1 Multiple Pirate factions. is it truly realistic that every criminal in the game has allied itself with every other one? Even mutiny on lone pirate ships would make sense. And if you attack their base, they add a vendetta against you, making them attack you at random.
2 A sense of urgency or random events. A star going nova, perhapse, or a new AI player appearing at random, even The Death Star appearing out of nowhere and blowing up a planet. In addition, give the backround info a purpose: F.e. if a map is game is not won by a certain time, the advent unity fails, or a coup de tat in TEC, or the Vasari's unknown doom. These wouldn't immediatly end the game, but would introduce a near-invincable juggernaut that would require more resources than that of one empire to ammend or fight.
3 The ability to destroy a planet. Perhaps a fleet of a certain size can fire all weapons at once at a planet to annihalate it, or add a special, super-expensive unit to do so. Similarly, a "burning earth" option should be available to add to your enemies' fear or demoralise them.
4 Juggernaut/dreadnaught type ships. You know, Super ships almost as large as a planet with enough weapons to destroy a small fleet ALONE. Costing around 500 fleet poiints so you can only have a few.
5 Corporate downsizing for your fleets. If you maxed out your Fleet Logistics tree, you should be able to reduce the fleet upkeep by selling your ships. Or perhapse the tech in that tree can be toggled, like a "level of war/peace". You research it, then you can turn it on and off depending on how much of a fleet you want and/or have.
Luxury Resources
Each planet type (Terran, Desert, Ice, Volanic, or other) would be capable of producing one or more semi-unique resources. For example, perhaps the Terran planets could produce Ivory or Silk or some other good that would be worth trading to other worlds that don't have it.
The whole planetary trade thing could be greatly expanded and each planet could be randomly assigned (from a set of criteria) a chief export and chief import. In the example above, the Terran planet might export lots of silk, and the people that live on this planet might really covet something like diamonds, which are plentiful on desert worlds. When a player creates a trade hub or star-base with trade capabilities, that planet should begin exporting its Luxury Resources to other planets.
Pricing for these Luxury Resources would work as follows:
-- Low Demand: Only 50% of the price is paid by planets that do need or want this good
-- Normal price: Planets with no restrictions will pay normal prices, or 100% for the Luxury Resources
-- High Demand: Planets that are extremely interested in a specific Luxury resource will pay 200% the normal price when a trade vessel brings this resource to the trade station.
As another example, lets say Aquatic Planets are added to the game. The primary export of the Aquatic Planet is Purified Water. Desert planets might consider Purified Water to be a High Demand resource, and whenever a trade ship from the Aquatic world docks at a Desert world, they receive 200% of the normal price of their goods. However, if the trade ship with Purified Water cargo were to dock at another Aquatic world, the demand would be very low so the ship would only make 50% profit.
This would tie into Diplomacy, because it would encourage the various factions to open trade routes with other factions who might have a specific Luxury Resource that they want.
i just hope that the devs will look at a bunch of other threads and not just this one, i havent read every single post, but there are some good ideas about buffing the novalith, new ships, and general improvements elsewhere
just wanted to say that im sure its already happening, but still
I would really like to see a differenciation in pirates. Right now we have pirates that act like a savage horde of bounty hunters, which is okay mind you and serves the gameplay. However I would like to see more frequent attacks by smaller groups of pirates targeting trade and refinery ships. Maybe even raiding undefended refinerys and trade ports, but rather then destroying them stealing money.
With this researches for escorts that spawn along with trade ships could be fun. Also I would like to be able to determine the path the tradeships take to either maximize income or to avoid them flying through hostile territory. (I had them flying through a pirate base more then once.)
Another thing that would benefit the diplomatic importance of trade would be increasing the income when compared to tax, as alliances are encouraged and the use of certain weapons could for example cause neutral races to declare a trade embargo.
Tech tree sharing / trading would be a nice thing. Also I would really love to see hybrid ships as the result from having interracial alliances.
another thing came to my mind: I'd like to see the stats section expanded. you know, currently we have information of our rank in fleet, colonisation, economy, etc. but these are fairly imprecise numbers and there are a few things I'd like changed:
1) indexing: right now, being 1st means fairly little. in fleet size it could mean you have 10 pts in fleet supply more than the second or it could mean you have double the fleet size. sure, in some cases you know when you are dominant, but still, the lack of absolute scale and its restriction to purely relative numbers makes the whole thing less useful than it could be.
2) see ranking of players: if I am 1st, who is second or what rank does player 2 occupy? anything to give us an idea of how other players are faring in the game.
3) possibly more different stats. for example, research could be split into civilian and military, credits and resources into trade and refinery income respectively and we could get some info on starbases.
now, there are of course several ways to do this, but it's not really my point. do it just like that, make the extra info available via research themes, tie it into spying if such an element is to come. the point is that this is information I'd like to have and that the existing system is pretty limited. at least for me, a good deal of 4x playing is also looking at stats to evaluate where I am doing well compared to other empires and where I suck. civ IV military, population and output/ gold ratings are a good examples, I regularly check them during the game. ( btw civ IV had a nice way with this, it gave your values in absolute terms, the value of the best competitor and the value of the worst competior. you did not know, though could often infer, who was the most dangerous players and how well you are doing compared to the best in the game. so, instead of 1st in military, go best 790, you 800, worst 150)
While not specifically related to the content of the diplomacy pack, I think once the next expansion comes out there needs to be a way to manage expansions similar to the current way to manage mods. You should be able to open one game and from there select which expansion(s) you want active. Without something like this, I don't see how you can have both Entrenchment and Diplomacy content enabled without making Entrenchment a requirement for the second pack.
Things I liked from previous posts:
Dislike from previous posts:
I like the flow and feel of the game as it is now and I don't want it to get overly bogged down or complicated from it's current form with TOO MUCH diplomatic options.
Also, I didn't like the idea of removing fleet capacity. It adds a nice negative feedback loop that helps curb a player from getting too quick of a fleet size advantage.
My 2 cents on Previous Ideas:
Planet Gain Through Culture: I find it rather annoying that culture is only useful on enemy planets. I agree with previous posters that you should be able to colonize planets simply through using your culture spread on neutral planets. I think an easy way to implement this would be to work the opposite of how it works planet loss works on enemy planets. In other words, allegiance to your empire would continually increase on neutral planets. When the allegiance reaches it's maximum, the planet becomes colonized under your control.
Espionage Ships: I don't want to really add any "agent" type units. While they can be fun, they can really easily upset the balance of things, and I like how the game has done everything fairly well just using ships. I think it would be cool to add a stealth ship that can only be detected by a scout ship (after researching an upgrade to it). The stealth ship would be comparatively equivalent to a scout in combat, and would have to "decloak" to attack. BUT, it would have special abilities it could use while cloaked.
Example, maybe a TEC stealth ship would have some kind of resource steal ability similar to embargo but on a smaller level, or maybe it could cut a planet out a trade route as if it didn't have any trade ports (but the port still produces money).
Likewise, advent could "possess" one hangar strike craft for a duration or shut off a culture center.
Vas could reverse phase jump inhibitors to affect the owner or increase cooldown of defensive structures.
To help keep them from being overpowerd, and to make turrets even more strategic, turrets could be upgraded with a "sonar pulse" type ability. It would last for approximately 5 seconds, but have a cooldown of 8 or 10. When fired, the sonar would shade the gravity well, giving an imprecise location of the stealth ship (ie a large ellipse approxmating the location of the stealth ship). Firing multiple sonars (ie from different turrets) would allow overlapped shading to give a more precise estimation of the ship's location.
Diplomatic Ships: Researchable after culture centers, the diplomatic ship would be similar to a colony ship in speed, armored/shielded like a support cruiser, but be completely without weapons. The diplomatic ship would act as a mobile culture center (making culture wars much more strategic than "park my cap at the chokepoint to prevent his culture from affecting me).
In addition, it would have an ability ("diplomatic relations" possible name) where the ship would shuttle a diplomat to the surface of an enemy planet. The ability would not cost antimatter, but the ship becomes completely immobile and must suffer a 2 or 3 second period activation/deactivation period while it waits for the shuttle to go to and from the planet. While the ability is activated, the planet's allegiance loss/gain due to culture is multiplied by a ratio of 10 or whatever balances nicely. Also based on balancing, the effect could stack (or not if it's too OP).
To help with balancing, maybe you could only build as many diplomatic ships as you have culture centers (or maybe a fraction thereof, whatever balances better). Also, since it has no weapons, it would not take up fleet supply.
I personnaly find the way you research to expand your fleet annoying, I think that it should be changed so that when you build a ship, you would take the crew from the populations of planets. Other than the benefits of credits, the population really serves no point, and it would make sense, since as you gain more planets, your fleet will be able to grow as well. Although, balancing the populations and the amount of population the ship would need would probably be a tremendous job, I think that it could be an awesome feature to this game.
I agree, you just don't get more supply and crew compliments just from research, you usually get your crew and personnel from your population, either by mandatory conscription or enlistment, but the thing is, all of the planets population would need to rework, well they rework anyways, I mean a terran planet can only support 200-400 people only, a asteroid can only support 20? Surely, home planets should have a population (we are talking about the future) of 3 million - 10 billion at least.
yes but those 3-10 billion are mostly concerned with keeping that planning running & functioning-the population you are shown represents the government officials & such that are "in your pocket", helping to collect taxes from the people.
I have posted quite a few suggestions for a pirates overhaul which I believe fit in the 'Diplomacy' theme:
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/351529
About the diplomacy with gaming factions, though, I haven't said anything.
I will tell my ideas even if they have already been said, you should want to gauge the popularity of the ideas:
One capital per star system. It could be researchable, and not as effective as the 'Empire Capital'.
Change culture/allegiance mechanics. Culture should have consequences according to the relationship with the empire associated. I should be able to notice not only how much of my culture, but all other cultures in each of my planets as well. 'Corruption' counts as a culture too, and benefits mercenaries / pirates (see linked post above).
Stances against each other empire. I should be able to set my stance as 'At war', 'Armistice' or 'Peace Treaty'.
If player A has a strong culture, it will influence player B's neighbouring planets. If they go to war, the amount of player A's culture in player B's planets will degrade ship production and credits/metal/crystal generation. An armistice would reduce the penalty by 50%. Peace can give an economic bonus depending on the amount of time the peace has been kept and the standing of each race towards the other.
Neutral planets would all be considered 'minor factions'. Minor factions can be either race, or independent 'rogues', runaway from the main races, in which case the ships in the gravity well are mixed between races. Their stance against ships inside their gravity well would also be varied. They could be friendly (peace), neutral (armistice) or aggressive (at war).
Planet domination would be possible by culture. Having a large majority (say 80%) of the planet's culture (be it an opponent empire or neutral faction) and trade and military alliances (more on those later), you may offer something in return for their vassalage. It would work by oferring something in the Diplomacy screen. You will be bribing the planet governor when you ask him to switch to your empire though, so expect a sharp drop in diplomatic relations to the offended party, as well as a probable attempt of military re-occupation.
In the case of a cultural takeover, the offended party has a time frame where it can break any agreements without penalties, and declare war with very little change to its 'Warmonger' trait.
The Diplomacy Screen
One should be able to engage diplomacy with other empires/pirates, and do one of the following:
The culture from dead or surrendered empires and factions should keep going even after they are dead, and getting rid of it would take time. If a vassal culture drops below a certain level, the knowledge of their machinery is lost and they can be no longer operated i.e. frigate factories , tactical defenses, ships etc. stop working.
Each empire would have several traits which would build up over time, as the game progresses.
Although the traits are local i.e. each empire sees the other by its own light, your actions against/toward one empire may influence how the others see you.
Friendly / Arrogant - Dpends on whwther the player sends gifts/makes demands, trades at a loss, bargains hard or makes outrageous proposals to other empires / pirates
Trustworthy/Backstabber - Do you keep your word? Are armistices respected? When some ally asks for your help, do you help him? Do you backstab allies and invade their planets? Do you deal with pirates? Do you secretly asks for someone to attack your ally? Backstabbing allies should have the greatest impact against trust. Negotiations with any empire/faction shoud be secret, but espionage should uncover the 'dirty secrets' of what you may have done.
Peaceful/Warmonger - Do you prefer to colonize other planets by culture or by force? Empires which declare war always rise their Warmonger trait.
Dominator/Eradicator - Do you call witch hunts to eradicate dissents from your planets? Doy you siege bombard enemy planets until the enemies are all but exterminated to then colonize (Eradicator)? Or do you prefer to se occupation forces to take over the planets without wiping out enemy population, thus culture and initial income (Dominator)?
Vasari tend to be Warmongers and Dominators, while Advent gravitate towards peaceful (well not quite) and Eradicators. TEC would be more Peaceful / Dominators. When the game begins, the AI would be internally set to have a variable tendency to do actions towards one or another, or sit in between, but the perception of the empire would depend on the actions which would happen during the game history.
Military, cultural and economic strength all would weight in when attempting any kind of trade. Prematurely breaking agreements would give a negative bonus.
Instead of sieging a planet, one should be able to send occupation forces to the planet surface. This could be a siege ship ability which consumes the ship. Depending on the planet strength - number of upgrades - more siege ships are needed to occupy it. Some of the population would die (50% maybe) , but it would not be as bad as completely wiping out the planet. Planetary orbital structures would be retained and switch sides to the dominating player. On the defending side, friendly siege ships can send troopers to the surface to restore the resistance against the invaders.
Espionage missions could be performed. Scouts have a researchable tech where it can be 'transformed' (disguised) as a scout from another faction. It can then go in a gravity well from another faction. If the scout uses any tech except the 'plant spy' it will be detected and acted upon accordingly. This action consumes the scout. Scouts will also have the 'detect spy' ability, which they can cast on other scouts, planets, structures or ships. Detected spies will be killed, and may or may not confess who they work for. If they tell which empire they are from, relations will deteriorate.
Several spies can be stacked on the same place to increase effect.
Spies will have different actions accoring to where they are:
Spies on the planet can:
Initiate propaganda on behalf of your empire, improving your culture there.
Make terrorist acts, killing part of the population. Can 'always work' and kill the spy, or have a chance of failu in exchange of having the spy survive. The latter may fail and kill the spy.
Divert economic resources to your empire. Will 'improve' corruption in target planet.
Sabotage planetary improvements. Same as terrorist acts.
Attempt to kill the governor, temporarily stopping production/income. Always has a chance of failure.
Although this one is not Diplomacy related, fleet should have a 'space-wave resonation' tech, which would increase the fleet's velocity and turning speed. Fleets really needs to have a speed boost to be more useful.
Maybe more fleet-specific improvements could be in place too, race dependent. Advent would have 'shield resonation', which would have a small percentage of the damage to be distributed to other ship's shields, thus improving any individual ship's survivability. TEC would have improved repair speed, while vasari would have reduced weapon cooldown.
And more techs! I like big tech trees. The diplomacy stance alone would be enough to warrant a few techs. The above Fleet enhancements too. I wouldn't mind having 10 tech levels or more, even if it means getting the ultimate techs less often. One hardly even researches any level 8 tech in a small map anyway. Higher level techs should be for bigger maps, and long tech trees give that sense of grandiosity .
@ brazilian_joe:
some quite nice ideas, I like your thoughts on culture, how it impedes border planets. also the idea of mutual peace giving both sides an economic advantage is very important in a diplo themed expansion. there has to be some reason for you not to be at war all the time. it's what i liked about civ IV. you had to plan your wars carefully, when to strike, how long to fight, when to pull out. otherwise war weariness could seriously hurt you. also your lone of neutral planets and so sounds good. ditto diplo screen, though most of that had already been mentioned.
I am not so sure though what you meant by those 'stances'. should it be a reminder for the player of what factions did? it sounds very categorical, like you take a few attributes and tick 'very much so' or 'not at all'. sure enough, ais have to consider what you or other factions did to them, but I'd maybe go at it from a different direction. I'd just define a couple of actions that are good and some that are bad. every time one of those is fulfilled points are given. like 'broke agreement - -10% favour'. 'repeatedly broke agreement -30%' 'has been a good trading partner +5% favour'. I think of civ iv again here, i think they solved it pretty nicely. you went into diplo screen, relations and you instantly saw why each faction did or did not like another based on what happened. and really, a lot of different stuff went into these stats, so, yeah, a nice example.
other than that, nice post.
another idea that swarmed through my head the other day: demilitarized zones. like that, with a ceasefire or sth two factions agree on one or more grav wells that are strikly no go areas for all military ships (including colonisers and starbases). dunno, if it really had much gameplay effect, but it might sometimes be interesting to create a buffer zone, like in neutral uncolonised or even uncolonisable system. to make sure both sides get advance warning if the try something stupid. or to say 'ok, I won't try to get that planet, but you won't get it either. the world is in too strategic position, so neither force will be allowed to take it.'
@Shadowhal:
By Stances I mean the general attitude of your empire's government against each of the other empires and factions. It's a user-settable option. If player A sets its empire's stance (you can call it relationship) against player B as 'neutral' or 'peace', ships will not engage in combat on mere sight of player B ships. Additionally, the 'peace' stance tells the AI that it's OK to route trade ships through player B's planet nodes. With a trade alliance (implies 'peace' stance), trade ships will also go to player B's trade space stations.
I haven't finished my suggestion actually. I was going to describe what spies can do when placed on ships and structures:
Spies on planet also give insight on the amount of income the planet generates, and its upgrades.
Spies on structures:
Spies on ships:
Targets will have increasing difficulty. It is easier to try to sabotage a LRM frigate than to sabotage a capital ship.
Spies can be stacked to reduce difficulty of tasks.
Other things which could be created are empire-wide unique planetary structures, which would yield unique bonuses.
They would not cost tactical or military slots, but have variable requirements, most of the time a fully upgraded planet.
hm ok,
I wouldn't actually go for planet restrictions, often the type of benefits can suggest the type of planet it should be located on.
take the stock exchange: it increases local trade port effectiveness. hence, it makes most sense at a planet that supports many logistics, like a terrant or desert.
the metal forge would make most senese on a volcanic, as these tend to have most metal
I'd alternatively suggest the academny let's you produce caps at higher than base levels. though how useful that is in late game ...
but the base idea of factional or galactice wonders is a good one. though I'm rather sceptical we'll see it.
We need an ability to trade with the neutrals. Such as you come upon a neutral planet who gives you an offer, you gift them a certain amount of metal and cyrstal they will open trade relations with you. With that they give you the option to trade techniology. Such like thisA TEC scout comes across Neutral Miner Base A537, to open negotiations they must gift 1000 credits and 500 of both metal and crystal. Which the TEC gladly does. Now with trade opened your trade route grows with this planet and also they give you the option to buy their ships and technology. This mining base for 1250 creits and 100 crystal will sell you a new type of mining facility what improves their armour and/or mining effiancy an X amount. Also they give you the option to sell you the cargo carrier. A jurry rigged version of the cruiser carrier with heavy armour and even less speed.
Just a thought that might help improve stradagy when dealing with neutrals (take the planet or take their technology?) and add a little diplomatic spice to the game.
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