Food for Thought: Making the Advent More Offensive

Thought on how to allow the Advent to use culture for territorial control offensively.

from Sins Forums

While playing the Sins: Rebellion beta as Advent, it felt to me that they (the Advent) lacked territorial control abilities that were similar to the TEC or the Vasari.  For my post, I will focus on the use of culture with the Advent loyalist ability to spread culture from controlled planets.

 

I like how the Advent can spread culture.  However, I do not feel that it provides comparable benefits the TEC economic strength or the Vasari military strength.  When playing the beta for Rebellion, I rushed an early build for the ability to have culture spread from controlled planets.  The ability was nice for establishing an early lead in culture, but did not provide any strategic incentives to pursue it.  As a result, I came up with the following proposal.

"The spread of culture for the Advent race will allow for the colonization of controllable bodies governed by minimum threshold value of culture"

In key points, my idea is broken down as follows:

-  The Advent race would be granted an ability to automatically colonize uncontrolled bodies through the presence of culture on that body.

-  A minimum threshold value for culture and time will be required for culture-activated colonization of a controllable body.  This value will require that players maintain culture on an uncontrolled body above a minimum threshold and for a minimum period of time.

-  Culture-activate colonization of a planet will be identical to the colonization of a planet through a basic colony ship.  No upgrades will be possible.  This will allow players to leverage culture, but still require them to invest funds into benefiting materialistically from the acquisition of a controllable body.

 

As this mechanic is culture-based, it would affect and be affected by currently existing culture mechanics or abilities in the game, such as the deliverance engine.  Below are some thoughts for integration into existing mechanics and abilities.

-  When Advent culture removes a controllable body from control of another faction, a 120-second timer (adjustable) is started.  At the expiration of the timer, if no actions have been taken that would otherwise reduce the level of Advent [player] culture on that controllable body, the body will be colonized under control of the player.  The level of colonization will be equal to that of a basic colony ship.

-  When a space station that is cable of preventing the loss of the planet through bombardment is present at a body being overthrown by culture, the defending faction may bribe the local populace into remaining loyal.  The amount to be paid will be proportional to the quantitative value of culture threatening the body.  The bribe will be paid from the resource pool.  It may be paid either in full credits or a mixture of credits and raw material resources.

-  The deliverance engine system will be able to deliver exactly 1/4 of the amount of culture required to overthrow control of a controllable body, scaling to the target body.  Players would be required to fire all four [required] deliverance engines within a time period equal to the cooldown of a single deliverance engine ability activation.

-  Defending players will have the option to bribe the population of a controllable body that is the target of an organized deliverance engine salvo.  The bribe required will be a scalar amount greater than the cost for a body being overthrown through the linear spread of culture.

 

To help counter the projection of power that this concept is proposing, the following ramifications for an Advent player should be considered:

-  When utilizing the culture mechanic for expansion, Advent players are susceptible to "wavering faith".  "Wavering faith" will be a passive effect.

-  When a planet that is colonized through the use of culture is overtaken by a hostile faction, the defending Advent player experiences a loss of culture spreading from the body which was overtaken.

-  The loss of culture will effectively repel, or reverse the spread of, the culture of the defending player.  The "anti-culture" will act as an opposing force to any existing established friendly culture around the body.  No replacement culture will be gained by any other factions.  The "anti-culture" will behave as a neutral culture.

-  The rate at which neutral culture spreads and the starting strength value will be dependent on the strength of the defending player's culture at the time of loss.

 

The objective of this concept is to provide the Advent a means to utilize the culture as a respectable threat that can assist in establishing an early-game presence.  The concept should not allow Advent to exert entire map control without requiring a military presence.

As this is simply a surface-level conjecture, this proposal will likely need additional work for implementation and balancing.  I would greatly appreciate additional comments and feedback regarding this proposal.

Saber

6,556 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

Good idea, I supported this idea when I tried to convince the developers that truce among rogues should retain its extreme style of play and that they should give advent and vasari a style of play that was similar to their strengths.

The suggestion I made about the advent was the one that was almost exactly like your idea.  I'll tell you that the developers didn't sieze the opportunity to add a lot to the depth of the strategic gameplay by adding in my suggestions, they instead made truce among rogues a strategy that wasn't very viable by increasing its lab requirements. 

I hope you have better luck then I!

 

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

Now that you mention that, It would be a very nice counter the TEC ability to negate the pirate bounty system.  However, I'm not quite sure off the top of my head how the Vasari would enter that rock-paper-scissors of playstyle.  I think their ability to wage a scorched earth policy is pretty devastating as it is.

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

To streamline it a bit, how about if all neutral worlds started with 25% (or more) neutral allegiance like the pirate base and neutral-controlled planets (note: you currently only see neutral controlled planets with the map editor).  

When culture from a player (AI or human but we'll assume you are the player here) starts hitting a planet (neutral or enemy, doesn't matter now), the allegiance on the planet starts going down as normal.  Once it hits zero, the planet will gain allegiance to you, but you don't control it until it reaches the maximum allegiance it would have if you controlled it in your culture.  

So, if you wanted to capture a planet that was 1 jump from your capital planet, you just have to wait until its allegiance to you was 100% (not that you would use this to capture a planet next door).

However, enemy culture can obviously slow this down or tip it back.  A timer mechanic would be needed to avoid planets tipping back and forth like pacts did in original Diplomacy.

Obviously, pirates and the artifact planet would be immune.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Add it to one of the advent loyalist culture techs- they could use some love anyway, even with their culture techs culture really isn't all that viable.

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Hmm..  I like the idea.  Maybe not for the rebels, but for the Loyalists, I think this would be right up their alley.  Unfortunately, I don't think there's time to implement it.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

If people like this idea, please support it to help give the devs something to consider.  Remember, the more of the idea we can formulate here, the easier it'll be for the dev's.  They'll just have to code it.  Being a dev for a large company myself, I'm not saying that part will be easier, but it's a lot easier when all of the requirements are laid out.  Nothing like being asked to write code to tell the end user what the requirements they're looking for are.

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting stein220, reply 3
To streamline it a bit, how about if all neutral worlds started with 25% (or more) neutral allegiance like the pirate base and neutral-controlled planets (note: you currently only see neutral controlled planets with the map editor).  

When culture from a player (AI or human but we'll assume you are the player here) starts hitting a planet (neutral or enemy, doesn't matter now), the allegiance on the planet starts going down as normal.  Once it hits zero, the planet will gain allegiance to you, but you don't control it until it reaches the maximum allegiance it would have if you controlled it in your culture.  

So, if you wanted to capture a planet that was 1 jump from your capital planet, you just have to wait until its allegiance to you was 100% (not that you would use this to capture a planet next door).

However, enemy culture can obviously slow this down or tip it back.  A timer mechanic would be needed to avoid planets tipping back and forth like pacts did in original Diplomacy.

Obviously, pirates and the artifact planet would be immune.

 

I like that idea.  It could be applied to all races, but I was trying to keep it as Advent-specific as possible.  If this can be done as to keep the focus on culture as a strategic weapon for the Advent without diminishing it's usefulness to the other races, that would achieve the overall objective.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting BoeingB17FF, reply 8

Quoting stein220, reply 3To streamline it a bit, how about if all neutral worlds started with 25% (or more) neutral allegiance like the pirate base and neutral-controlled planets (note: you currently only see neutral controlled planets with the map editor).  

When culture from a player (AI or human but we'll assume you are the player here) starts hitting a planet (neutral or enemy, doesn't matter now), the allegiance on the planet starts going down as normal.  Once it hits zero, the planet will gain allegiance to you, but you don't control it until it reaches the maximum allegiance it would have if you controlled it in your culture.  

So, if you wanted to capture a planet that was 1 jump from your capital planet, you just have to wait until its allegiance to you was 100% (not that you would use this to capture a planet next door).

However, enemy culture can obviously slow this down or tip it back.  A timer mechanic would be needed to avoid planets tipping back and forth like pacts did in original Diplomacy.

Obviously, pirates and the artifact planet would be immune.

 

I like that idea.  It could be applied to all races, but I was trying to keep it as Advent-specific as possible.  If this can be done as to keep the focus on culture as a strategic weapon for the Advent without diminishing it's usefulness to the other races, that would achieve the overall objective.

Yeah, I was thinking in terms of this being an advent-only tech too, so I think we're on the same page. ;)

I suppose if this were applied to just one Advent faction (loyalist or rebels), the other could get a weaker version where the allegiance of the un-controlled world tips toward that player, but they still need a colony ship to colonize.  The new planet just get an allegiance boost right off the bat rather than waiting for it to come up.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

I think its good idea, definitely worth the shot.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

I like that too. 

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

I think the easy way to make the advent more offensive would be to improve their economy. They currently have the weakest one and it slows them down a lot more than it probably should. Add a "collective tithe" tech or something that makes culture centers give .005 gold/pop, .25 min/asteroid and .25 Crystal/asteroid. But I like the idea of culture capturing planets. Maybe instead of uncolonized worlds they convert already colonized worlds.

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Tankbushed, reply 12
I think the easy way to make the advent more offensive would be to improve their economy. They currently have the weakest one and it slows them down a lot more than it probably should. Add a "collective tithe" tech or something that makes culture centers give .005 gold/pop, .25 min/asteroid and .25 Crystal/asteroid. But I like the idea of culture capturing planets. Maybe instead of uncolonized worlds they convert already colonized worlds.

 

The issue I see with the only converting colonized worlds is that this would not give the Advent any traction until later on in the game when most controllable bodies are colonized by all players.  The objective of the concept is to allow the Advent to gain territory give the culture-centric gameplay of the Advent more presence on the 'battlefield'.  I don't think Advent would benefit as greatly from 'capturing' bodies late-game as they would early game.

On the subject of financial gain, I can agree to the Advent needing a way to benefit financially from the culture.  However, in the interest of balance, I think the Advent should have to pay in some form for that financial gain.  To that end we could have the following:

"Collective Offering" Ability, Activated, source, starbse, cooldown, 120 seconds
General concept - the collective would leverage the faith of the people, "taxing" them for a burst of resources, increasing the resource production of the gravity well to a total of 500%.  As a result, culture spread would stop for the next 180 seconds.

 

This could allow Advent players access to early resource boosts that doesn't have the sustainability of the TEC economic prowess.  While the strength of culture does not factor into this suggested ability, the ability would effectively provide an early trade-off of "culture spread for territory gain" against the immediate resource gain.

In small maps, this could give the Advent a distinct advantage as the resources they gain from the ability could exceed what could be gained through sustained ownership of a typical area of the map.  However, in larger maps, this mechanic would allow the advent to maintain a competitive presence without the need to expand to acquire sustained resource income.

This would need some tweaking as well.

 

Saber