Influence Conquest concerns

from Stardock Forums
Okay guys, here's the deal:

Today we finished up on the preliminary cultural influence system.

There's going to be about two dozen new technologies associated with this along with several new improvements/achievements/wonders involved.

You can win the game (I did tonight though I cheated to speed things along) through cultural conquest if you focus on this and keep the AI from squashing you militarily (going the influence route requires that you keep everyone reaosnably happy with trade and the new technologies increase your trade abilities too).

Anyway, here's my concern:
Towards the end of the game, the Arceans wided up and declared war on me which is what they were supposed to do from an AI point of view when they recognized they had to either take out my trade stations or lose.

But I had so much influence that even when they conquered a star system I would quickly get it back due to cultural domination.

Here are ways I propose to alleviate this some:

a) Units in orbit affect a star system's likelyhood to defect by an even greater amount. My problem with this route is that it undoes much of the work here - the military conquering strategy becomes the path of least resistance again. We want to see units in orbit make some difference but not be able to prevent a star system from turning if it's in the middle of someone else's area.

b) Have a honeymoon time. That is, you conquer the star system and the people are too intimidated to do anything for awhile with the honeymoon effect decreasing some each turn. During that time you will need to consolidate your hold on the star system (build propaganda ministries , embassies, cultural missions, and trade stations in the sector.

But I am wondering if there are other ways. Mind you, we want these other ways to be STRAIGHT FORWARD. Remember, someone (me) has to code the AI sothat the AI does whatever we decide the human can do. We've come a long way having the AI play by the same rules you do I don't want to give that up this late in the game.

So any suggestions?
515 views 23 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
1). How about a social improvement that makes the likelyhood of resistance groups to develop more quickly that you build before you are conquered. Tie that with the honeymoon period and you get some variability in how long it takes to get a switch back to the other side.

2). How about another social improvement that you build after you conquer a star that increases the speed by which the inhabitants are assimilated into your culture, allowing you to reduce the chances of a revolt.

These could be tied to like achievements that work race wide, or wonders that work galaxy wide.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
I think the honeymoon period makes sense as it would take awhile for the cultural influence to re-assert itself on a new population especially one that has just fought to take over the planet.
SoundPackager - Customize the Windows sound scheme
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
Thinking about this. How about the equivalent of the planet morale as foreign influence. When a planet is captured the foreign influence gets set to 0 and each turn the influence builds by a certain amount until at 100% you take over the planet. The influence increase can then be adjusted based on ships in orbit, social projects etc
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Something I've thought about would be the ability to steer resources towards/away from specific star systems--one way to think about it would be a bunch of sliders like the Military/Social/Research sliders, edge your resources towards the systems that need help (new colonies) or you're worried about (new conquests) but at the cost of less resources going towards other systems. Not real specific, but it could be a nice tool in general.

This goes in the wrong direction, but you get word of a freedom fighter on an ex-planet and dedicate funds toward him. You could have a list of funded freedom fighters on a domestic tab. Then on the other side, you could get word of the same movement and direct funds to deflect it. Okay, that one's a little silly.

-Robert
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
could martial law and/or secret police forces not be used as checks and balances?
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
And what about Big Brother? The evil mastermind who lives inside me wonders about technologies to control the people's will...could this also decrease the possibility of revolt?

Naturally, this type of leadership would have to use tools like Steevo mentioned...secret police and such goodies.
Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top
How about spy/freighters that offload supplies and help to the resistance? Or some sort of orbital insertion of resources to beef up the resistance on the planet might be interesting.
Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top
Two ways to stop a system from revolting.

1) Execute anybody that disagrees with your way of thinking.

2) Expell the dissenters to loyal systems where they can be assumulated.

I like JavaScout's idea.
Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top
Perhaps adding a suppression period to a planet recently captured? This stops a planet rebelling or being culturally conquered. In return all military production and research is impossible (stops the instant pay for transport and continue conquest). This lasts for X years until the population has been 'assimulated'.
During this period the conqueror can build social improvements and attack surrounding enemy cultural improvements. Any foreign cultural/economic buildings on the planet are also destroyed. There should also be a chance of any social improvements also being destroyed.

Paul.
Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top
If you expell dissenters to loyal systems there should be a morale penalty.

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top
yea and deportation should turn you more evil and reduce influence as a consequence ;)
Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top
I understand Frogboy's comment about wanting to make it possible for a system to turn due to influence no matter how many fleets there are around the system. However I think historical prcedents can put this idea into some context, and also help solve the problem he poses in the post.

What seems to happen historically is that it becomes too much trouble to hold onto the country (i.e. system) in such cases. It is always possible, given a sufficient number of troops, to bring a rebellious population under control militarily, but the COST can eventually outweigh the benefits, particularly given the fact that rebellious countries aren't producing much value for the empire (e.g. stop paying taxes). So it should be possible to hold onto the system militarily, but you might want to weigh the cost - withdrawal might be the better option, especially if the military is needed elsewhere. Also, maintaining a large garrison should only be a temporary measure while your own influence-producing infrastructure is built on the planet - an additional cost of holding the planet, and perhaps diverting resources from other uses.

IMHO I would feel more comfortable with a game system that bled a warmonger to death financially rather than one that artifically limited them. It seems also to fit with history more.

I've written more fully on my ideas here in the other Influence thread (my pet fear for the game given the dubious way CIVIII implemented culture).

Looking like a great game though.

John


Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top
I must emphatically echo John's comment about how CIV III implemented their culture feature. I think they did a very poor job of it. I hope SD can avoid that mistake.
Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top
At the risk of being politically incorrect, while I really like Civ 3, it's culture implementation was not ideal. No, culture in GalCiv is not even remotely similar.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Each Star System will have a ->CalcInfluenceResistance(); method.

When you first invade a star system, a bonus 500 to the base resistance variable is added with the amount that drops per turn being based on the difference between your influence and that of the opponent who is dominating the sector.

Additionally, star ships in orbit of the star system add to this resistance by the amount equal to their attack + defense.

The way the numbers currently work out is as follows:

Star system: Rigel
Your sector influence: 104
Drengin sector influence: 204

Any time the differnce is greater than 50, there is a chance that the star system will rebel.

So what it will do is this:

ulInfluenceSaveRoll = rand()% (DrenginInfluence - YourInfluence);

ulInfluenceSaveRoll += StarSystemResistance;

WHERE:
StarSystem Resistance = Base_Resistance(based partially on morale) + Planetary_Improvement_Bonuses + RecentlyInvadedBonus + StarShipsInOrbit_Bonus;

if ulInfluenceSaveRoll < 50 then star system rebels.


NET RESULT:
If you pack enough battle shipos in orbit, you can keep any star system from rebelling but it would be very very expensive to do so (Avatar: 30 attack/20 defense = 50 points added per Avatar in orbit).

Bear in mind, with star bases and other things, the civilizations can end up with scenarios where they have 500 or even 800 influence in a sector. So you could end up where the Drengin have 800 influence to your 100 influence. You'd have to build a LOT of influence resisting improvements (propaganda beaureu for instance) and have a BUNCH of Avatars (like 6 Avatars in orbit just to keep this star system, very expensive with each Avatar costing up to 20 maint per turn).

Reply #15 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad I think you need to switch DrenginInfluence and Your Influence

as it stands the more influence I have the smaller the save roll.

If
Your sector influence: 204
Drengin sector influence: 104
rand ()% is 50%
StarSystemResistance = 50

ulInfluenceSaveRoll = (50% (104 - 204)) + 50 = 0;
Which is less than 50
:(

If it is reversed
ulInfluenceSaveRoll = (50% (204 - 104)) + 50 = 100;
Which is more than 50.

I hope the minimum StarSystemResistance is at least 50 with resonable morale and no ships otherwise with equal influence the planet will automatically defect

Your sector influence: 104
Drengin sector influence: 104
rand ()% is 50%
StarSystemResistance = 49

ulInfluenceSaveRoll = (50% (104 - 104)) + 49 = 49;
Which is less then 50

Other than that as long as the RecentlyInvadedBonus is large enough to give you time to park some ships or make improvements this seems reasonable.
What the influences and resistances are on a planet will need to be displayed somewhere.

Hope this helps.


Reply #16 from Stardock Forums Top
Brad,
I think you need to add a factor due to government type. Certain government types should be much harder to rebel against and certain goverment types should be less appealing to join.

Paul.
Reply #17 from Stardock Forums Top
I agree with Paul. I think rebellious systems/countries want to be free primarily, and once they rebel they align with new empires that let them hold onto their hard won freedon. In that case, the more decentralised government types should be more attractive to join, while the imperial ones less so.

Similarly, as Paul says, tighter, imperial governments should be able to hold onto systems against influence more easily - the price those governments pay is already build into the game system, i.e. relative economic inefficiency. Also, although the looser governments are more attractive to join and therefore have a bulkward against higher influence totalitarian regimes, they have to work harder at keeping their member systems happy as per the game system.

John
Reply #18 from Stardock Forums Top
Why is there so many anti warmonger posts.
Americans are warmongers and this is one of the things that make the US the strongest nation on Earth.

Being evil was one of the coolest ways to win a OS/2 game.

Societies through history have been able to hold hostile populations.

For example the British, French, Spanish government stole North America from the Native population.

Why because there technology was better.

The British won the French/English war expelled the French from Nova Scotia and took over what was to become Canada. Canada today is still part of the British Commonwealth.

The victors do not alway loose.

Reply #19 from Stardock Forums Top
'The victors do not alway loose.'

No, they don't, but except is some of the more extreme examples (the colonization of the Americas, for one), they had to pay for their victories.

The US, in particular, to borrow your example, can do so because it's economy doesn't follow the normal economic rules for various reasons. With the imbalance between America's exports and imports, the dollar should be nearly worthless.
Reply #20 from Stardock Forums Top
Technician,

Perhaps you have not noticed the trend these days. Warmongers are no longer popular (regardless of how popular one particular one seems to be lately). War was considered something to avoid like the plague in the 1930s. Same for the period just before WW I. The Korean war was somewhat unpopular, and the Viet Nam war was down right wrong. The trend is to fighting wars only when absolutely necessary, and then you have to be very careful that your constituancy doesn't jump all over you. It may be the only way of getting rid if a sadistic powerful unbalanced egomaniac dictator but with everyone else we settle our differences via other methods.
Reply #21 from Stardock Forums Top
I would prefer if the game were less war, and more diplomacy and such anyhow, using brinkmanship and other tactics. Of course when push comes to shove and you have to, war is always viable in a way to enforce your demands or satiate your needs.

I don't like unexplained wars, I prefer nice grudges or strategic ones in my games :)
Reply #22 from Stardock Forums Top

If you want to win all your games just by trading or delevoping technology fine.

Wining by being down right evil should be allowed as well. If is offends just do not play evil.

As far as influence it should be a indication of your status in the Universe.

If you have more planets, better technology, and the population is greater than with all the Alien races it really should not matter if you are Evil or Good.
Reply #23 from Stardock Forums Top
The OS/2 version certainly allowed evil victories, not just by conquest, but also by technological victory. There was an evil technology that, once you researched it, you won the game. I have seen that tech in this version, and have won a game researching it many builds ago, but the evil/good code is not yet available to us yet. Some of the pieces for evil victory other than conquest are there already, so I have to conclude that the other pieces are in the works and will show up before release date.