PR-0927 PR-0927

[Suggestion] Civil Wars

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[Suggestion] Civil Wars

from Sins Forums

Now I know this is probably easier said than done, and might not be possible at all. But, if there was a way to allow for low-alliegiance planets in one's empire to bail said empire and join together in their own, the dynamics of the game would be changed, amazingly.

I think it'd be pretty awesome. Perhaps only one "civil war" per empire could be allowed, or perhaps make it so there could be a segmentation of the empire into three (you, and two splintered factions) at most, as more would be messy.

Imagine allying with a rebellious element in another's empire to help undermine their standing in the system. Perhaps early allegiance ties could be initiated with rebellious elements of other empires before they actually left and created their own rival faction, so you could give aid by military or economic means.

Admittedly, this idea came to me while reading about the diplomatic history in Europe since the Concert of Europe times to the present day, for a college class. Lots of nations supporting revolutions in neighboring nations. Civil wars breaking out here and there.

I think this idea has massive potential for this game, and would make is many, many times more entertaining and challenging.

Now I'm gonna' find out that this was already a squashed/debated idea, or that it is already being included.

Anyways, back to reading for me...

- PR-0927

81,783 views 31 replies
Reply #26 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Darvin3, reply 25

He posted so the idea could be fleshed out.  that's kind of why we post, rather than simply e-mailing the devs.


My point was that he didn't specify details, so it's silly to accuse me of having misconceptions.  Anyone who looks at this idea is going to interpret it uniquely, and it's silly to fault people for that.

I felt I made fair presumptions given the ambiguity of the suggestion.

 He didn't specify details because he meant it to be a cooperative effort.  if he were to put numbers in, it adds the power of suggestion to bias the replies people give.  either for his numbers, if the person uses tends toward courtesy online, or against, if they don't.


make it a random event, triggerable by extremely low culture.  it'd make the advent's culture an actual weapon.


There are no other random events in Sins currently.  Frankly I think added them would be a major departure from the current way the game is built.  Random works well in Civilization, where virtually everything has an element of chance to begin with, not so much in Sins where if you had all the facts you could theoretically make 100% accurate predictions due to its strong determinism.

As per the Manual:

The pirates will deploy after a random amount of time once the timer has ended, to the nearest planet of the player with the highest bounty at the time.

and

The Dunov's Targeting Uplink ability improves the accuracy of nearby ships.  This increases the damage-on-target, on average.
 



the way you described it made it appear to be a shoddily integrated event.  if it was properly integrated, it could work well.


Where are you getting this "shoddily implemented" from?  When did I imply that at all? 

My core presumption was that a civil war means you lose control of the affected planets, and a hostile enemy faction spawns on them.  The rest of my post was simply analysis based on that simple presumption.  How is that "shoddy implementation"?  It seems to be the very definition of a civil war. 

Yes, it is not your definition of civil war.  it is how you assume it would be implemented.

 


The "logical fallacy" you stated above makes little to no sense - technically it is fair by logic to have everyone harmed in the same way, to the same extent.


My entire point is that just because everyone is harmed to the exact same extent doesn't mean it's balanced at all.  Balance is a lot more than just fairness between factions.  It's about expanding the tactical options within the game.

Having a single very powerful option, even if it may be shared between all factions, is not balanced because it wipes out so many other options.
This is something I do agree with, at least in concept.  You don't want the game to become a battle between ships of a single class.  otherwise, there's no skill involved.  But if you were to have it be a neutral, non-player controlled event,  then it wouldn't be that game-breaking. 


The difficulty worth considering here is this: we agree that the costs of a civil war are very high, therefor any sensible player will invest in countermeasures.  This leaves a simple conundrum: we have a highly complicated and elaborate feature that will require significant development resources to implement, but because of its nature players are going to work tirelessly to prevent it from ever actually occurring.  The feature is self-defeating, its own ramifications ensure players won't ever allow it to come to pass.

That's not to say that there isn't a middle ground where it's preventable but still happens, but I think you have to make a case for that.

You mean like the Starbase/minefield combination?  giant structures that take entire fleets/other starbase to take out?



If you can't come up with a reasonable idea of how your own idea would work, why would the devs devote time and energy to do so?
 
It's a suggestion.  thus, being only a suggestion, it won't have much in the way of detail.  deal with it.  the lack of further detail also only means that the OP doesn't think they have the programming knowledge to specify.

Reply #27 from Sins Forums Top

@Orodum- The Dunov does not have the ability. You did get the ability itself right, just the wrong ship. Its the Akkan that has it.

As for the idea: I think it is a very interesting idea. Personally, this is how I view it-

Effectively, low cultures that would usually allow for easy (albeit at a long duration) culture flipping by the enemy would be the most susceptible. Thus, it is POSSIBLE that those planets could secede.

HOWEVER, a secession should be preceded by something like a huge defeat, or a complete drop out of the player's economy, or something like that (such as a HUGE and devastating pirate raid, as the pirates are getting overhauled in Diplo!).

The only other thing I think that would possibly be a good idea to use this with is other random events.  Mostly minor stuff, like a giant space beast rampages at a planet, or a long-lost battlefleet returns to its home, only to find it conquered by the enemy (the player it happens to), so the fleet starts going on a rampage that, is equivalent in damage to the space beast, but spread out over several planets.

However, it would likely take A LOT to properly implement such things into Sins. But it would add a lot of 4X style elements to it.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #28 from Sins Forums Top

drat.  been too long since I played TEC.

Reply #29 from Sins Forums Top

As I understand it, the more money you spend, the less likely a rebellion would be as you'd be caring for the planet, providing the defence, culture, economy, whatever that would be desired, so if you had invested less money, a rebellion would be more likely but you'd lose less money.

Presumably, far out areas with lower culture are going to be bordering with your enemies and therefore are likely to be more heavily invested in through starbases etc, reducing the likelihood of losing these worlds on those grounds anyway.

Sorry if I've misunderstood the idea, but I also think it would this system would solve some arguements.

Reply #30 from Sins Forums Top

I like the basic idea and I read a bit on the first page about scepticism and its massive impact, so here is my take on things:

I think allegiance is a good base for such a mechanism, but you would need more factors to influence it. culture can be one thing, another could be general level of development for the colony, military presence, defense grid, general state if your empire etc. I would appreciate one or two more major factors for internal politics, but I think that would lead to a whole package and probably be too much for this mini-exp. pack.

now, those are the factors going in, what is the outcome? as I said, use allegiance, which would then be based on more input variables. one the one hand this directly influences your income from the colony. on the other hand I propose a chance of rebellions at lower levels of allegiance. say, below 20% there is a 5% of happening, while below 10% the chance is already at 20% chance of a rebellion, while at 0% it is pretty high, let's say 80 - 90%.

now, next part is, how do rebellions work? First of all, you need to get a few warnings that there are said tendencies. then, I would propose one or two short rebellions. I think civ IV had such a feature, where cities (mostly recently conquered ones, I hope I am not referring to things of LoR mod) revolted, which means they were unproductive for sereval turns, but they did not go altogether roughe, yet. so  my idea is, you get one or two of these where you severe limiations, like no income at all, huge production rate penalties for everything, etc. for a few minutes. it normalises and you will have the chance to take measures, but it it continues, then only your colony would go rogue. as anothe reference, also GC II had something like this where you have a index how loyal the colony is - which was especially tricky with border planets and enclaves - and these could have a rebellion chance if the value dropped to low. that too could be an inspiration-

such a system would probably require more player attention, but I don't mind more focus on non-military mattes anyway. also, while the effect is big, I think you would be given ample warning time and chance to take measures against it. if you still fail to act, then you'd deserve to suffer a huge loss. and let's be honest: civil wars and secessions are by definion huge events and in a way they can and do dwarf any military superweapons your enemy can bring to bear.

and again: will we see this in this pack? most likely not, it sounds like a pretty huge thing and diplomacy is not quite the same as this kind of domestic policy issues. but it would certainly be an nice feature to be sure.

Reply #31 from Sins Forums Top

Ascension is rising on one of your planets...