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IDProjectCategoryLast Update
0015028The Last FederationSuggestionMay 8, 2014 11:26 am
ReporterL4m3ness Assigned To 
Status newResolutionopen 
Product Version1.016 (Finish Him!) 
Summary0015028: Benefit/Cost of warfare; Suing for peace
DescriptionHow does the diplomacy/pacing in TLF differ from something like, say, Civilization? That's something I was wondering recently.

I kinda of immediately noticed two differences:
-In Civ, making war is a trade-off. You turn your current economic power into military power, at the cost of future economic power and science.
-In Civ, you make war to get something from your neighbors other than "all their cities" (= all their planets; genocidish situation)

So, does the AI sue for peace? For example, do Acutians decide to punch someone hard, in order to steal economic RCI from them? Or raw resources? After all, you don't need to win a ground invasion in order to hurt the other guys RCI by bombarding.
Obviously, unlike Civ, you can't just give the other race "a town or so" - but RCI score and techs are still possible. Then again, you've got a situation where everyone has "one town" but with different population sizes, trade powers, infrastructure.. (Venices everywhere!) - and the ability to build outposts.

Does it really make a difference, pacing wise, whether a race was in constant war or not? It feels to me that the most races really quickly rush to "the current end of the tech tree" - and then get stopped by a timer (zzz). The mysterious and "peaceful" Evucks therefore never turn up with a small fleet of scary high tech ships that murders a massive low tech Burlust armada.

May wars prevent the (attacking!) AI to invest in into positive/stable RCI trends? Is there another winning strategy for the AI other than "Well, better build some ships and get another planet right now"? For example, does war hurt the attackers planet's population growth (= no investment in infrastructure or terraforming) and thus the planet's future economic power?

There is probably more things to come up with when you enter that perspective.
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Ragwortshire

May 8, 2014 4:07 am

reporter   ~0037710

I support this suggestion mainly because it feels very odd for wars to end only by annihilation or player intervention. Particularly when the attacker fails to get any advantage (maybe because the player destroyed his attacking fleet). It doesn't have to be complicated; maybe just that when an attacker has < 50% the forces of the opponent, they stop attacking?

CygnusX1

May 8, 2014 9:52 am

reporter   ~0037718

With wars happening now much more often than before, I think there should be also some counter-mechanism.

GC13

May 8, 2014 11:26 am

reporter   ~0037727

I've been asking for this for a while now. A few things need to be done to make the economic tradeoffs work:

*Maintenance cost on armadas. You can make various races have more or less maintenance costs; ones with higher natural research should pay more for maintenance.
*RCI that trends towards zero. This way you can make the RCI stats have real effects that get very high if you're somehow able to build enough buildings to keep it there, not cap them at +30% because otherwise the guys with 1,000 will roll over the guys with 100.
*Outposts capturable normally, with their destruction being the exception.
*More steps between removing enemy armadas from orbit and bombarding the planet. I keep saying it: fortified moons!

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
May 8, 2014 1:42 am L4m3ness New Issue
May 8, 2014 4:07 am Ragwortshire Note Added: 0037710
May 8, 2014 9:52 am CygnusX1 Note Added: 0037718
May 8, 2014 11:26 am GC13 Note Added: 0037727