Minor race advancement

Supremacy; support/discussion/questions

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Malioc
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Re: Minor race advancement

Post by Malioc »

Aside the WDP maybe the reputation also could need a bit restructuration. In my games I usually succeeded in reaching top trust/reputation with other factions over time. I only needed peace, pacts and mostly one diplomat. I didn't even need another one, because afterwards relations stayed perfect.

Maybe that could change, too: With time perfect relations cooling off, so you can't be best friend with everyone at once.

Also it may be helpful to have reputation (or trust) drop with expansion.
I look at it from the angle of Klingon and Romulans, in terms of their long clinch with the Federation.
We Trekkies tend to see most things through Fed eyes. However as a Klingon or Romulan one must consider the unnaturally quick expansion of the Federation.

The Federations trick was to democratly assimilate other minor races into the "Human Sapiens Club". Thanks to that they expanded much quicker than Klingons and Romulans ever did.

This surely added a lost tension and mistrust. Similar to the alpha quadrants fear of the huge Dominion, which led to the humiliating assault of Tal'Shiar and Obsidian Commando on the "founder home world" (good example for counter-Intelligence and attack on perceived weak target).

I wouldn't necessarily make this WDP relevant. Bit it would be nice, if following expansion would cause negative relation effects:

- Conquering a minor (mostly for Fed, not for C/K)
- Conquering anothers faction planet (mostly for F)
- Membership with a minor (mostly for K, not for F)
- Alliance with a close minor or rivaling faction (not for F)
- any colony the faction has more than I do (for everyone, because this fear is universal)
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Malioc
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Re: Minor race advancement

Post by Malioc »

As I dove into counter-intelligence a bit... maybe it would be nice to have a general "hide" function for ships.

At the moment it is (at least with OB) not hard to spy on the factions current fleet strength. Just explore a bit next to their home world.

I'd like that to be a bit less easy. That would increase use of Intelligence and open the chance to counter-spy and give false info. What could be really entertaining. ;-)

The idea would be: Ships can be "hidden" while they are in systems (or other stellar phenomena). There (in addition of having the ship class not shown) an incorrect number of ships would be displayed, except when heavy scan tech is used (multiple or very modern scouts).

This idea could even used in the other direction: of ships (warp signatures) being faked to appear stronger than you are.
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Re: Supremacy new release

Post by Iceman »

erazortt wrote: Mon May 25, 2020 6:50 am
Malioc wrote: Mon May 25, 2020 5:37 am A Minor colony sometimes with 1 or 2 classes below empire standard has charme. Vulcan and Bynar staying below the empires tech level however feels weird.
Let me answer to this separatly. So what you are actually suggesting is that there is an interplay of the research, so that the minors research is being boosted when it joins an empire. That does sound nice!
I guess this could also be done as an extension to what I already suggest with the separate research points account of the minor. Namely one could say that the minros resarch is increased by the empires research to a degree which depends on its own TC (or: on total amount of RPs reached until the current round). Or the minor research could be depenent not on the current research of the empire but on the total research points reached. Simulating that a lower tech culture would learn from the a higher tech culture also if the higher tech culture does not research further, which is probably the most realistic approach.

Let me give an example how this could be realized.
variant a: RP/round of the minor depends on the RP/round of the empire scaled with the minors TC
variant b: RP/round of the minor depends on the RP/round of the empire scaled with the total RP reached by the empire
variant c: RP/round of the minor depends on the total RP reached by the empire scaled by the factor from b and dived by some number, lets say 100

Situation before the minor race joins the empire:
Empire (TC6): 50000 RPs in total, 500 RPs per round
Minor (TC4): 10000 RPs in total, 100 RPs per round

After joining:
Empire: 500 RP/round own research + 100 RP/round minor research = 600 RP/round
Minor variant a: TC4/TC6=0.67. Thus 100 RP/round own research + 500*0.67 RP/round empire research = 435 RP/round
Minor variant b: 10000/50000=0.2. Thus 100 RP/round own research + 500*0.2 RP/round empire research = 200 RP/round
Minor variant c: 50000-10000=40000. Thus 100 RP/round own research + 40000*0.2/100 research diffusion from empire = 180 RP/round

After subjugation and using icemans 0.5 factor on both, own and empire research:
Empire: 500 RP/round own research + 100*0.5 RP/round minor research = 550 RP/round
Minor variant a: TC4/TC6=0.67. Thus 100*0.5 RP/round own research + 500*0.67*0.5 RP/round empire research = 217 RP/round
Minor variant b: 10000/50000=0.2. Thus 100*0.5 RP/round own research + 500*0.2*0.5 RP/round empire research = 100 RP/round
Minor variant c: 50000-10000=40000. Thus 100*0.5 RP/round own research + 40000*0.2*0.5/100 research diffusion from empire = 90 RP/round

After subjugation using my 0.5 for empire and 1 factor for own research):
Empire: 500 RP/round own research + 100*0.5 RP/round minor research = 550 RP/round
Minor variant a: TC4/TC6=0.67. Thus 100 RP/round own research + 500*0.67*0.5 RP/round empire research = 267 RP/round
Minor variant b: 10000/50000=0.2. Thus 100 RP/round own research + 500*0.2*0.5 RP/round empire research = 150 RP/round
Minor variant c: 50000-10000=40000. Thus 100 RP/round own research + 40000*0.2*0.5/100 research diffusion from empire = 140 RP/round

Of all these I think I prefer variant b.
What's currently implemented is the minor gets its own RPs multiplied by (empire's current Computers TL - minor's current Computers TL + 1).
So, a variant d :wink: But only because it was the easiest/fastest implementation! We can change that at any time.
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Re: Minor race advancement

Post by Iceman »

.
We should probably revisit this topic now?



Malioc wrote: Tue May 26, 2020 3:28 am
Iceman wrote: Mon May 25, 2020 4:01 pm You mean other than
- if you wipe them and recolonize, you lose their special building, and all the pop and infrastructure, and have to start over
- if you subjugate them, you lose their special building, and have to deal with the morale problem
- to have them join, you need to spend a bunch of dole
?

At least in theory.
I think, this already works. Except for the dominant strategy "membership", which is overpowered. I totally see, that gaining/keeping members should be more challenging.

Should we also throw credits in the mix (besides intel and research)?
I mean, to tilt this a bit towards subjugated colonies (make member colonies less dominant), should we decrease tax credits gained by the empire in member colonies (to 50% or so), and keep them (at 100%) in subjugated colonies?



erazortt wrote: ↑Tue May 26, 2020 6:21 am
So when subjugating you lose the special buildings? Was this also like that in botf? Crap, I wasn't aware of that! Isn't this then too harsh to also decrease the RPs for the empire to half? Perhaps 0.75 would be better in this case.
Wasn't this way in original BotF, but I like it.
As for decreased research... Personally I would not reduce their RP in addition to the reduction because of low morale.

That's a good point about morale. Should the subjugation reduction be removed?


Right now, this is what you get from non-native colonies:

Intelligence
- member colonies contribute with 100% their intel output (modified by TechCurve) to the empire
- subjugated colonies contribute with 50% their intel output (modified by TechCurve) to the empire

Research
- member colonies contribute with 100% their research output (modified by TechCurve) to the empire and to the native civ
- subjugated colonies contribute with 50% their research output (modified by TechCurve) to the empire and with 100% to the native civ
- the research outputs above for the native civ are then multiplied by the difference in Computers tech levels between the empire and the native civ, if it is higher than 1 -- this should probably be changed

Credits
- member colonies contribute with 100% their credits output to the empire
- subjugated colonies contribute with 100% their credits output to the empire
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Re: Supremacy new release

Post by Iceman »

Malioc wrote: Sat May 23, 2020 11:04 am Furthermore I like, that keeping Minors becomes more challenging. But the challenge should be entertaining somehow. When I have to spend additional credits it additional rather MM.
It would be different when Minor loyalty depend on morale or certain challenges (like building warships for "Warlikes", focus on research for "Scientists", focus on Intel (sneaky), trade routes(mercantile)). The latter would force the player to use Minor colonies in a certain way, kinda making them worth less.
Also, free Isolists could deny building ships (no shipyard buildable). Naturalists could be limited to few building.

At some point it may be "better" to conquer and enslave a Minor, forcing them to your style and balancing low morale with terror buildings, than to member them and having them be happy under their own rules.
I really like having member Isolationist minors not be able to build a shipyard, and other similar restrictions; and having no such restritions if they're subjugated. Induces more balance between the 2 options, and makes minors even more unique.
What would be the best way to implement this though?
Not allow building the shipyard (in the given example), or having a morale penalty to the system each turn? The former is probably more user-friendly, though it also requires explaining to the player why he can't build a shipyard there - I can already see the bug reports coming :wink: AND it is easier for the AI, as it doesn't require teaching it how to handle the morale penalty (it was a pain to get it to understand negative bonuses of Buildings, and it is not perfect).

Similar restrictions to Peaceful and Pacifist minors can also be enforced.

Ideas/suggestions?
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