Reading through all the posts, I have to say I'm impressed with the level of detail here.

Actual values for the mechanics aside, I'd say this could be a very interesting mechanic to have implemented.

It's a shame that this couldn't simply be modded in in some manner... I guess we'll have to just focus on brainstorming for now.



There was a popular mod for Civ5 that did something similar to this idea, only it went a step further with the concept and rigged things to not only make world domination harder, but also create "culture wars".

Similar to what's suggested here, it implemented a seccondary "unrest" counter that was linked to city happiness, culture, and access to luxury resources. The unrest counter, however, was linked to the control various factions had over it.



(taken from mod description)

'Culture' in this mod is not the same 'Culture' that allows the player to unlock social policies. The 'culture' from the mod is spreading from cities (based on the city output from buildings/wonders) and 'mark' the surrounding land, raising in value each turn if close enough from the city or other plots with higher culture value.



Neighbors civs have their culture mixed on some plots, and during wars the conquered land is still marked by the culture of the previous civ (even if values can be lowered/converted to new culture when a city is conquered)



Cities that are away from the Capital will create separatists. The allowed distance from capital raise with each new era and when the city is connected to the capital by road or harbor (but roads are better). Separatists create unrest faster than normal citizen.



Unrest raise faster in conquered cities until a Courthouse is build, and raise slower in puppet cities.



Revolt (city enter resistance), Rebellion (rebels unit spawning nearby) and Revolution (city flipping to rebel faction) can occurs if a city unrest is too high.



Cities in Revolution can decide to join another Civilization after a few turns, or create a new City State (check the option in the setup screen)

There were various ways to deal with unrest like having a strong military presence nearby, making the city happier, etc. but what was really interesting is that if your city was close to another player's city, a faction belonging to the other player would begin contending for control for your city. If their city had more happiness than yours, separatists would convert to their faction, and if their city produced more culture than yours, your faction would convert to theirs as well.

This made it possible for cities to become incredibly unstable as multiple armies would begin spawning belonging to multiple kinds of separatist. (The armies could conquer the city if not handled every turn)



The new city state would convert into a city belonging to whoever had the most control within it after x amount of turns.



Conquered cities would, by default, begin with unrest and 50% control for the previous owner.



To keep things balanced, seperatist generation and the various bad things required that the city be above a certain population level. This created a realistic tactic where players would willingly starve cities to keep rebellions from happening if they couldn't get unrest down through other means fast enough.



Actually looking the mod over would do a better job of conveying how all this works out, but I mention it to offer a resource for mechanic and balancing ideas while also not so subtly suggesting the mechanic be made slightly more imposing by creating culture wars in a similar manner.

I'm not comfortable enough to go in depth in mechanics, as I am still relatively new to the game. But I definitely agree that expansion needs to made more difficult. While that already exists indirectly, in terms of empire plans and boosters becoming extremely expensive in addition to the happiness penalty, truth of the matter is that this remains indirect with no direct threat or risk. I think a rebellion system would be worth looking at.



The thing about Total War games is that it's not only a question of oppression in a region, but also cultures (or religion depending on the iteration). Foreign cultures are resistant to foreign invaders, and a lot of time and investment is needed to spread your own culture. It would be very difficult, I imagine, to introduce a culture mechanic in Endless Legend, or a race relations mechanic like in Age of Wonders III. Furthermore in Total War, esp Rome 2, managing happiness becomes even more interesting when a lot of necessary buildings have a happiness penalty to them. That entire dynamic is absent in EL (in fact, as much as I love the game, internal management of a populace's happiness is weak), so it would be very difficult to have a similar system on paper without its nuances. All one needs is a few boosters and rebellion is easily averted.



I think it's more feasible to have a system where, as opposed to managing your own internal happiness, you have factions trying to impact each other's happiness via the introduction of espionage. Spies would be able to affect the happiness in a region, perhaps even able to incite a minor village to spawn a rebelling army, at the cost of some influence. So happiness becomes less of a purely internal problem, and more of a vulnerable under belly for opposing factions to exploit. Naturally, the lower your happiness, the better the chances of enemy espionage to wreck havoc.



Of course, I recognize that it will not be necessarily easy to teach the AI to use spies effectively (they are not bad at it in Total War games).



What I propose is of course much less complex than the op's great suggestions, but in my humble opinion, I think EL lacks the "infrastructure" so to speak to implement a happiness manager with the nuances and complexity that other games offer.

The looping effect is an intended effect: if you don't counteract the buildup in some negative way, the situation will degrade faster and faster. That is why for cities there are two accumulators, the small and the big one. The loss in occupation value will cause the next negative big accumulator event to be reached faster.



If the original owner is dead, my initial thought is that defect/ mutiny will use the closest neighbor... Or, since we are already using something that can't be modded right now anyway, why not make it a Civil War? The defecting army will defect to a new, rebellious faction ... Once it conquers the first city it will become a capital for this "rebellious" faction...



About the actual occupation effects... I think they would stand as they are... This is complementary. That is why it is important to have a strong economy before venturing into napoleonic conquests when the new rules proposed are active.

abmpicoli wrote:
@Caotico09: about the unit attrition: it will all depends on the values of the parameters, and the factors used to increase or decrease accumulators... if you change the factor from unit count to unit power (that includes factors as the unit level and equipment), to simply place some inexperienced grunts as garrison may not cut. The specific values are only a vague suggestion and, of course, will need balancing...



The idea here is to make the warmonger's life more difficult, but not impossible. After all a conquest victory must still be an attainable goal...



The current proposal currently makes a city stay in rebellion longer, and even cause it to defect to the enemy, unless the player take action to mitigate the issues... Notice that the bad events for the big accumulator cause the empire's control over the city to drop, generating a cascade effect.



I agree with you that you wouldn't use your main army for garrison... But only by the fact that you have to actually build garrisons for the recently-taken cities, instead of simply leave it be and go conquering the next is already something that only a warmonger that is already steamrolling can do.

Disregarding values, let me see if I understand your idea. Two new counters, the first controls each faction village and ranges from happy to angry with " spawning barbarians" on one side and "resource boosts" on the other. The second controls the city itself and is based on the %occupation. Bigger cities, with higher pop, more buroughs, and more buildings are more angry, as are cities that have 'friendly' units nearby. This second counter can be counteracted mainly by placing units/heros inside of the city and creating buildings.



The idea is purely on the per region level, and doesn't stop me from conquering the next city. (IE, beyond the existing expansion-disapproval, conquering another city doesn't hurt the one I conquered 5 turns ago. Indeed, it might help it by moving enemies further away from it.)



So basically the thought is to have units supplying approval (or stopping negative approval). I really like this idea (I actually have posted about something similar before). It reminds me of SMAC where new cities that you found and cities you conquer stay in continuous rebellion where nothing can be built until the negative modifiers are counteracted- The easiest way is stationing 2 garrisoned unit in each city, and moving citizens from "resource production" to "rebellion suppression". These units are defenders and are good at it. You would never attack with them, but they do a good job at defending.



This is where the problem would be in EL. In EL, you either are strong enough to stay on the offensive and kill units without many losses. OR weak enough where attacking AND defending is suicide. The defensive action is garrisoning, BUT garrisoning "defender" units will eventually die from siege. To me this makes garrisoning units less appealing, but if this was implemented, it would be a necessary action.



I am trying to see how this would slow my expansion:

1) My "economy" cities would spend time building units to fill garrisons instead of economy boosts.

2) Dust costs from excess units would increase (note that garrisons don't cost as much per turn I think)

3) If a large city that I didn't get enough units to quick enough spawned units, or changed owners, I would have to backtrack and re-take it. (Note that retaking it should be fairly simple, any units that spawn will not be leveled up, wont have a hero, and probably wont have a full army).



Do you see any other ways that this would significantly slow me from attacking the next city? I could potentially see myself taking out an entire empire then backtracking to "fix" trouble areas and garrison units to make cities happy.





A couple questions:

-What would happen to a city that is "defecting" or "mutiny" if the original owner is dead?

-What would happen to a city if using salting the earth made region control not 100%?





(Note on the quoted areas below: Are you planning on getting rid of the existing negative approval effects from occupation? Since the amount of occupation already affects approval, without getting rid of it, you are basically doubling and tripling the amount of "small accumulator" in an almost exponential way. Does that make sense? Low occupation = More Negative approval and More Negative Approval = Lower Occupation in a looping effect)



Normal negative approval modifiers for occupation +

• 10 * (region occupation -50%)...

• 20 * (region occupation -50%)...

...

• 5 p/t if the region is unhappy; We are unhappy!

• 10 p/t if the region is revolting;We hate you!

...

•-5 p/t if the region is happy; We are happy!

• -10 p/t if the region is fervent; We are radiant!

• -3 p/t if your empire is happy;THis is a happy realm !

• -6 p/t if you empire is fervent;This is a radiant realm!

• 3 p/t if your empire is unhappy;Revolution!

• 6 p/t if your empire is revolting;

@Caotico09: about the unit attrition: it will all depends on the values of the parameters, and the factors used to increase or decrease accumulators... if you change the factor from unit count to unit power (that includes factors as the unit level and equipment), to simply place some inexperienced grunts as garrison may not cut. The specific values are only a vague suggestion and, of course, will need balancing...



The idea here is to make the warmonger's life more difficult, but not impossible. After all a conquest victory must still be an attainable goal...



The current proposal currently makes a city stay in rebellion longer, and even cause it to defect to the enemy, unless the player take action to mitigate the issues... Notice that the bad events for the big accumulator cause the empire's control over the city to drop, generating a cascade effect.



I agree with you that you wouldn't use your main army for garrison... But only by the fact that you have to actually build garrisons for the recently-taken cities, instead of simply leave it be and go conquering the next is already something that only a warmonger that is already steamrolling can do.

(FYI, i didnt read all the posts... some main post and few under it).





While your idea is an interesting one, i dont think that the "unit attrition" you mention would occur. Ideally i would have a few roaming units that delt with issues. If the negative affects were fairly immediate and across the board, i would use weak un-equipped units i could create in one turn as "garrison units". At no time would i consider depleting my 1-3 main attacking forces. I tend to agree with Propbuddha on spawning enemy units being kinda "whack-a-mole"ish. Two examples come to mind:



1) In Warlock: Master of the Arcane, various tiles would create a "monster" spawn point where units would spawn in mid-to-late game. (i cant remember what controlled their appearances). Destroying the spawn point granted various boosts, while leaving them alone was dangerous. While it definitely affected me some, by causing me to use units to take care of them, it was more annoying then anything. Not once did i change the actions of my main army.



2) In Civ 5, capturing too many cities too soon with large approval drops can cause two major issues. Barbarians appear at -10 and cities can change hands at -20. Obviously losing cities is a major no-no, so as a war mongerer my approval usually ranged from +5 to -9 with typical drops to ~-17 every couple turns when a major city was captured. The barbarians are annoying, but you can guess where they will appear and counter them fairly easy.



So whats the point? The point is that the spawning enemies in both games didnt stop me from warmongering, it didnt really slow me down in either of them.



(however i really do think that having to conquer minor factions in a region separate from the main city would be really interesting)



1) The only time i can really remember myself slowing war mongering was very early on in Civ 5. Very early war mongering in Civ 5 is almost counterproductive. So much of resource/science production is based on population and even having a single point in the negative approval stops ALL pop growth (obviously mid-late game i dont care about this anymore).







My opinion is that the city take over system that should be revamped. Cities need to be harder to take, and then stay in rebellion longer. Global approval penalties need to be much more severe. Right now cities can be taken without losses and garrisoning units is a death trap.

I agree that conquest is far too easy int he current state of the game, and that something should be done about the assimilation of conquered cities. I'd also love to see more dynamic interaction with the minor factions in the late game.

However, I do agree that this system might have too many layers to work well in Endless Legend as is. The games are over too fast (especially in multiplayer, from what I hear), and there are enough other mechanics to keep track of.



I believe we have a few moddable options, however.

- It's definitely possible to remove base Approval Recovery, and give a small boost for keeping a garrison present.

- Adding approval recovery for trade routes should also not be difficult. However, I don't think it would be possible to restrict this to only trade routes with your own empire.

- Adding a building that drastically boost approval recovery would not be difficult, either, and could possibly even require a payment in Influence points. However, if buildings can not be set to be destroyed on conquest, this could pose problems if another region conquers it afterwards. Another option would be handling it as a booster, but that presents the problem that they could be produced in one city and used in another.

- Similarly, if buildings could be destroyed on conquest, then watchtowers could be set to improve Approval Recovery, as they allow keeping an eye on potential separatists.

- The quest system could possibly be rigged to spawn neutral armies in unhappy regions or empires.

First of all, thank you all for all your feedback! I'm totally aware that the suggestion is the kind of thing that must be really brainstormed... When I appear to be taking a sort of "defensive" action on "my" initial proposition, it is only to explain better the reasoning behind it, so we can eventually reach a final solution that will supposedly work.



Regarding allied minor factions::: there is already a similar factor in the initial proposition: "the faction is assimilated by the region owner"... What you are proposing is that the for each assimilated minor faction , there is a positive impact in village stability overall? Something like this?

-0,5 pt/turn for each assimilated minor faction?

The only thing is that I think it is an issue is that this kind of scale up empire wide, beating the purpose of this suggestion, that is to diminish the steamroller effect...

So, I think this rule could be better:

-0,5 / # of owned regions pt/turn for each assimilated minor faction: That is , if you have 3 owned regions and 3 assimilated regions, this effect would be -0,5 pt/turn... But if you have 30 owned regions and 3 assimilated factions, this effect would be -0,05pt/turn...



Regarding Total War... This is really the kind of convergent thought.. Never played Total War. . And the current proposition is already something similar, isn't it? The bad counter for cities get increased and eventually spawns a roaming army, or even an army with the opposing faction and make the city ripe for re-conquest...



About the influence, I think I didn't understand well what you are proposing , regarding levels... because there is already the possibility to transform an active village into a dead one, and a dead into a pacified alive village... So, depending on the weight of the influence produced, there will be the possibility of pacifying / building villages using influence buildup in the region's city... And with the noise factor, it is not sure that all villages will pacify themselves at the same time... THis if the influence factor proposed is placed into play. And since this is something that is a "per/turn" stuff...



Regarding the slave uprising, maybe we could have recently conquered cities have the "big counter" already at 3, so the first bad event that will happen would be something similar to the "slave revolt", instead of a simple production sabotage...

Notice that I´m not questioning your lore reasons behind the effects, I think they make perfect sense. When I state obvious things like "the villages are destroyed, so they´re not pacified", it´s just to illustrate what are the premises for the train of thought, where I´m looking at the table of values.



-The idea of making a proportional counter for the effect of Military Units is both good and a lot of work. In fact, for the developers, it´s just a matter of using the (sorry, but extremely questionable) scale that dictates the Military Points overview. It makes sense, because higher levels units are objectively stronger. At the same time, the Minor Faction units are also levelling up, so in a way, it´s justifiable that there´s not a progressive increase in how much your levels would impress them. And yeah, militia level up regularly.



-Assuming fixed values, like it is now, why not make Allied Minor Faction units count? The way I see it, they should even count slightly more, since they´re sort of a proof that the Major Faction is not a Major Douche.



-Increasing the way bad things can potentialize bad things (while making sure things are perfectly managable by making good choices) is the way I can see this working. Let use two examples:



-In Civ5 there´s is only one counter for Happiness. While your empire can support expansion, you can capture cities at will and the only problem you´ll really need to solve is the production. But your empire can barely support it´s own populational expansion without a good deal of diplomatic awareness and proactivity - you need neutral/friendly nations for what I´d suppose is around one third of your total happiness in the first 20% of the game. And that is barely ever mitigated, especially on higher difficulties when your chances of getting most useful Wonders are close to none for at least half the game.



The warmonger always needs lots of wisdom in controlling his population growth/population productivity to reach that thin maximized line where he will never lack science (mostly from population) nor units to keep conquering and maintaining a level of units that doesn´t immediatelly turn him into a target for everyone else. And every city that he plans to take, he need to have the "happiness room" to do so, which grows smaller and smaller the less friends and the more cities he has.



-In Total War: Rome 2, there are two counters - one for each city, which results in a Region one (like EL has one for each region, which results in an Empire one). Happiness there has a lot do to with Culture and Warfare in the region, regardless of the empire. Enemy armies looting passing trade routes, taxes, slaves, a Religious(culture) counter, sieges and simply the act of conquering the city are things that throw the city counter down. If the counter decreases too much, slaves revolt. I´m sure you, abmpicoli, is familiar with it since it´s a counter -100/+100 pretty much like this one.



It works wonders for one main reason, the way I see it - conquering a city instantly creates the threat that the region will be attacked by slaves that are able to take the city from you - slaves that can even choose to not attack you immediately if you happen to reinforce the city just for the turn that they show up, but instead fall back and increase in size under basically the same rules that any of your armies can, to the point that (in a game that lasts around 300 turns) not dealing with this problem can become an exponentially bigger problem in 5 turns.



At the same time, this threat can be perfectly managed by a few steps, like: keeping the army that conquered the city as its garrison - because the larger the army, the larger the bonus for "happiness" (as in oppression) and it needs to heal and possibly recruit anyway; devote part of your resources to build religious happiness buildings; stop taxing the region. They are simple steps, but all of which stop you in some way. The number of armies available is very very limited - for most factions, one army is half of all the armies they can possibly have for a good 50 turns. Income is limited, so paying for religious buildings means you´ll only recruit units for that army in the next turn. And reducing the taxing means you´ll have less money to get those units, and you´ll have considerably less after you do recruit them.



-Regarding influence, I think there could be levels of how it affects it. To a point the game presents the player with the choice of focusing exclusively on Influence in a certain region in order to reap serious benefits in a period, for example, proportional to 20 turns (fast example without thinking - when a content city is producing 10 influence, it will be able to pacify two out of three destroyed villages in 20 turns/when a content city is producing 20 influence, it will be able to pacify all three villages in 18 turns). I think that helps to propose an actual choice to the players, to turn that city into an influence focus, giving up extra other yields especially production, in exchange of not having to produce Villages in a near a future. It doesn´t have to be necessarily this, or close to this; but in this direction, I think.



hope im helping

About the culture influence factor, what are you thinking about? Something like this? (and, of course, the numbers are something to be adjusted)...



City accumulator:

-0.5 p/t for each influence point generated by the city. This city is influential! (good factor).

+0.1 p/t for each influence point generated by neighbor region. Our neighbors are influential! (bad factor).



Maybe something similar for the native villages?

BPrado wrote:
Extending it a little.







1st sc.

The villages are destroyed, therefore they´re not pacified, right? So increasing the amount of garrison would be a threat, increasing the count for bad things. Because, at "5 units" (considering a hero, two militia, 2 MjF units and even 2 MnF units that don´t count) this is still a weak garrison after turn 50.

The villages are destroyed, yes, and want to revolt, but they are afraid of the occupation force, so they simply stay quiet. The point of this rule is to give extra reason for the need to keep an occupation force: to keep the villages from revolting.



The point that what would be a good garrison at turn 1 would be a weak at turn 50 is a very valid point... So maybe we could add an "inflation" factor: the good factors reduce and the bad factors increase as the game goes by. *And* change the rule from garrison cost instead of garrison size: the same rule that affects base market price for units would be used to identify the "garrison worth"... and the militia is given an extra $100 credit (do militia increase in power as the game goes on?)...

BPrado wrote:


On the other hand, it´s not that hard to go from content to happy. If I manage to keep another 3 units as garrison, increasing 1,5; but keep the region happy, for -3,0 then how long would it take?



In my humble opinion, if this value is still higher than 25 turns for the first village in this scenario, then I think that most people would never see the color of the mechanic because the free population is way too valuable to wait all this time for, when there are other mechanisms that turn the village in a simple building like a founder´s memorial, or a spice extractor. Even if you´re hoping that many other factors will still come in play, like more districts and fervent status for example, the districts have little chance of being around the villages and fervent is a matter of chance or late game.

2nd sc.

I suppose the only reason you´d have three destroyed villages and an unhappy two tile city is because you´ve just conquered it, right? Then this is your worst case scenario. Your situation will only get better from now on, or stay the same. But there´s no way a city will ever go 100 turns unhappy, and at the same time there´s no way 4 unequipped minor faction units will be even a minor nuissance to a "5 units" army like that after turn 50 - otherwise you´re bound to lose the game anyway.



Bad things should potentialize other bad things, not accumulate, so that things can escalate. Endless Legends is too fast. You have to think about mechanics that have a meaning within 20 turns.

That's a valid point... Maybe we should increase the different factors' weights? This would cause meaningful effects in 20 turns or less.

Such as , if every bad factor is active, and every good factor is absent, an effect will be felt in, say, 5 turns...

BPrado wrote:


And I disagree a little with the thing that a single army can conquer continents, but I´m sure that´s true if the poor AI doesn´t have a bunch of bonuses.

I was thinking that considering the current AI state... .



We are in dire need for having something to model the changes and those effects... :l I'm creating a free site where we could test the different factors and vote for the best factor weights...

I think that the heavy association that the Civ mod does between culture and unrest could really benefit abmpicoli´s mechanic, in the form of influence. It´s kind of missing from the things that affect what´s supposed to be internal politics. Right now, it can only be used to get a little more happiness (or, of course, discounts to building production/buyout reduction i.i).

I've heard everywhere the "steamroller" issue for Endless Legend middle to end-game, and how Supremacy victory is something that is so easier to achieve than the other victory types.



I think this comes from the fact that to maintain occupied regions is *too darn easy*. Destroy the villages, and you don't have wandering armies... Conquer the region, and in some turns you have a happy frolicking city giving you lots of free resources...

The main concept

The idea is to make mindless expansion and conquest less valuable and build your cities more important; Increase the value of city garrisons, and defending armies, and decrease the value of raw adventure from a single roaming army strolling through the board.



So, I would place the following rule changes:



Native relation dynamics

Each village can slowly become pacified / recess to war-status depending on many factors. This will stimulate parley over village attack, and force the major factions to keep an eye at the villages, to avoid revolt.



I'm thinking about an accumulator per village: If it reaches 100 points something bad happen; if it reaches -100 points , something good happens, and the accumulator is counterbalanced in 100 points.

Bad things

• the pacified dead village becomes an active village;
• the pacified alive village becomes dead;
• the active village spawns a new army;
  
  

Good things

• The active village becomes pacified dead (abandoned);
• A dead village becomes a pacified alive ; if the faction was rebuilding the village, it gains a refund in gold, like the major achievements buildings.
• An alive village provides a minor gift (say, 30 dust, 10 luxury / strategic resouce... )
  
  

And here is a list of factors that give, or takes, points to this accumulator

• -6 (p/t) if the region is currently fervent; I love being here!!!
• -3 (p/t) if the region is currently happy; This is a nice region to live...
• -2 (p/t) the faction is assimilated by the region owner; You are our blood brothers!
• -0,5 (p/t) if there is a village in this region providing a quest; We are trying to be friends
• -0,5 if the village is pacified for each major faction unit or hero 3 or less squares away (including garrisons) You seem strong!
• -0,5 for each borough or city tile 3 tiles or less away Your city is wonderful!
• -0,5 for each alive pacified village at this region at the turn end; My blood brothers like you!
• 0,5 (p/t)for each minor village that is dead at this region per turn; My blood brothers are no more!
• 0,5 If the village is non-pacified for each major faction unit or hero 3 or less squares away at the turn end; You are threatening us!
• 0,5 (p/t) for each minor village that is currently destroyed at this region at the turn end; You have attacked our brothers!
• 1 (p/t) if the village ends the turn under fog of war for the region owner or under fog of war for every player Hahaha! You can't threaten me!
• 2 for each active village at this region at the turn end; My blood brothers are calling to arms!
• 3 (p/t) if the region is not occupied at the end of turn This is our ancestral lands... Begone!
• 3 (p/t) if the region is currently unhappy;Your people is unhappy
• 5 (one time) for each attack on other villages or wandering armies at the same region; You are a bloodthirsty warmonger!
• 5 (p/t) if the region is occupied and the village is destroyed or active We will rise again!
• 5 (one time) if a ruin is explored. You desecrated our holy lands!
• 6 (p/t) if the region is currently in revolt; Your people hate you! So do we!
• 20 (one time) if a quest provided by a village in this region is failed; You've proved untrustworthy!
• -0,25 to 0,25 (p/t : random) as minor noise, just to avoid that all villages suffers the same event at the same turn.
  
  

To give a clue on how this will look, I've made the following spreadsheet for scenario evaluations.[ATTACH]17511[/ATTACH]



Some samples:

A destroyed village is near a 2-tile city with a 5 unit garrison (including militia): there are 3 destroyed villages at this region, and city happiness is "content". This village will "build itself" into a pacified village at roughly 50 turns, more or less 7 turns.

The same destroyed village is at an unhappy region: the village will become active (at war) again in about 100 turns.

The same situation, region in revolt: the village will become active (at war) again in about 25 turns.

The same village, region in revolt, but in a far away place, in the same region, hidden by fog of war: the village will become active (at war) again in about 11-12 turns.

The same village, region in revolt, far away place, but with a scout army 4 tiles away: the village will become active (at war) again in about 13-14 turns.

The same village, region in revolt, with the scout army of 3 units 3 tiles away: village becomes active (at war) again in about 16-17 turns.

The same village, region in revolt, but with 2 "at-war" villages, instead of 2 "dead" villages. village at war in about 11 turns.



Of course, the exact values for these factors are only a suggestion, and we may put that to a weighted vote later.



City occupation dynamics



Currently the city occupation dynamics is that when you take over a city, the region control starts at 0 and keeps growing up to 100%, when the region is fully assimilated. This makes conquest something very cheap: conquer the region, leave the city to it's own luck and after some time you have a pretty city running at all steam...



I propose that we add the same kind of accumulator-type solution. For each 100 points, something bad happens. For each -100 points, something good happens. When something happens, the accumulator is counterbalanced. There is also a "big-accumulator" for each bad and good event, that increases or decrease the intensity of the bonuses or events;



BAD THINGS:

• 1 or less; Riots cause queued production loss; +1 to the big accumulator;-10% to the region control;
• 2 Sabotage! lose a building (the cheapest one: on a tie, get a random one from the eligible ); +1 to the big accumulator; -10% to the region control;
• 3 Uprising! the most experienced unit in the garrison or inside one of the city armies become a wandering army at your territory. +1 to the big accumulator; -15% to the region control;
• 4 Mutiny! lose 1 population; an army composed of 2 random units from the unit models you can build appear outside the city as a wandering army with full movement points and action points. You lose the resources needed to build those units. +1 to the big accumulator;
• 5+ Defection! No big accumulator; The city fortification is reduced to 0. Any militia in the garrison vanishes. 3 random units from the unit models you can build appear outside the city, under the control of the previous owner, with full movement The city defects to the previous owner or, if there are no previous owner, defects to the nearest neighbor, at random, under 60% region control of the new ruler. An army composed of 2 units from the unit models you can build appear in the city garrison, under the control of the new ruler.
  
  

GOOD THINGS:

• -1 or more : +10% to the region control; -1 to the big accumulator;
• -2: +15% to the region control; -1 to the big accumulator;
• -3+: +20% to the region control; if region control is already at 100%, gives a one time boost of 2 x for each of the products this region produces.
  
  

Factors for the small accumulator:

• 3 p/t for each unit belonging to a wandering army or privateer at the region at the end of turn; brigands are roaming our lands!
• 10 * (region occupation -50%) for each unit from a major faction that you don't own at the end of turn; (that is, if you don't control the region, to have other faction units contributes for the loss of control; if you control the region, this actually contributes to the region occupation factor, and it may helps build stuff during sieges). They are invading us! To arms! or They are going to free us! To arms!
• 20 * (region occupation -50%) p/t at the end of turn; (that is, a bonus raging from 10 to -10, depending on the city occupation). You are strangers here: begone! or We are <>!
• 5 p/t if the region have tiles not yet explored by the occupying empire; Here there be dragons!
• 5 p/t if the region is unhappy; We are unhappy!
• 10 p/t if the region is revolting;We hate you!
• (-5 * (1+0.2*level)) p/t for each unit from the owner in the region.You are strong...
• 5 * (region occupation -50%) for each city or borough tile in the region (that is, if you have just conquered a major city, you will have a hard time controlling it). This is our beautiful city! Begone! This city is beautiful!
• 2 * (region occupation -50%) for each worker in the city (that is, to control a just conquered major city, you will *also* have a hard time controlling it). This is our beautiful city! Begone! This city is beautiful!
• -5 p/t if the region is happy; We are happy!
• -10 p/t if the region is fervent; We are radiant!
• -3 p/t if your empire is happy;THis is a happy realm !
• -6 p/t if you empire is fervent;This is a radiant realm!
• 3 p/t if your empire is unhappy;Revolution!
• 6 p/t if your empire is revolting; Down with <>!
• -15*(1+0.2*hero level) p/t for a hero assigned to the city at the end of turn;We are well governed!
• -5*(1+0.2*hero level) p/t for a hero at the region at the end of turn;<> is here!
• -5*(1+0.2*unit level) for each non-militia unit in the garrison at the end of turn;This city is well guarded!
• 100 p/t if the "salting the earth" is being at the top of the queue, at the end of turn; We will be homeless!!
• -20 points, one time, each time you complete a building or exploitation.We are building a beautiful city!
• 5 * (region occupation - 50%) p/t for each building or exploitation this region has, at the end of turn; This is a beautiful city!
• 20 points, one time, each time you destroy a building or exploitation.You are tearing this city apart!
• 20 * (region occupation -50%) if the city is under siege. (That is, a city out of control is more likely to revolt if it is placed under siege; and a city that you control is more likely to have production bonuses if under siege).They are sieging us! or THey are liberating us!
• -0.1 * total city trade route income per turn. (That is, a region integrated to the rest of your empire is more likely to be assimilated. And commerce is an integral factor to that. So right of way becomes a prioritary building). All roads lead to <>!
  
  

This will:



1) Make the transformation of a conquered city into a productive one an active, and costly task.

2) To keep garrisoned units at the cities is fundamental for eventual city assimilation, so the temptation to simply leave a city to conquer the next region is something to be more carefully weighted.3) To take out the core cities of another empire will be a daunting task: they will be able to crank new units quickly, even if under siege, if the city is big enough.

abmpicoli wrote:


A destroyed village is near a 2-tile city with a 5 unit garrison (including militia): there are 3 destroyed villages at this region, and city happiness is "content". This village will "build itself" into a pacified village at roughly 50 turns, more or less 7 turns.

The same destroyed village is at an unhappy region: the village will become active (at war) again in about 100 turns.

The same situation, region in revolt: the village will become active (at war) again in about 25 turns.

Extending it a little.

abmpicoli wrote:
Regarding the first scenario: Notice this is a kind of neutral scenario... All the villages are destroyed, the region is content, and there is a good garrison and a kind of intermediate city, so it is expected that the village will take a long time to "light up"...

The idea for native villages is that people will still bother to reconstruct/ bribe them, and only if having an overwhelming amount of positive factors the village will become "awed" by your greatness and willingly join you... But what would you think would be a reasonable amount of time (for a normal game speed)? Also notice that at the moment the first village is rebuilt, the other two dead villages will "gain momentum" and be "auto-rebuilt" faster...



Regarding the second scenario: notice that this is a counter-balanced scenario: the region is unhappy, but this village is near a city, with a big garrison... This is kind of to show that one factor, alone, will not make the villages go to war, light up, themselves...



I'm thinking heavily about building some kind of "simulation" to help us reach a good tuning regarding all these factors.



The way I'm seeing this is that napoleons will still exist: but today we don't have napoleons, we have Pizarros and Cortezes: with one small army you conquest the whole continent. If you want to be napoleon, you will have to muster a strong army, and expand first, consolidate your core cities, before go conquering the world... And be prepared to crank more units: you will need them! Even if you have a lvl 8 hero with an army of six up to date dekari rangers.

1st sc.

The villages are destroyed, therefore they´re not pacified, right? So increasing the amount of garrison would be a threat, increasing the count for bad things. Because, at "5 units" (considering a hero, two militia, 2 MjF units and even 2 MnF units that don´t count) this is still a weak garrison after turn 50.



On the other hand, it´s not that hard to go from content to happy. If I manage to keep another 3 units as garrison, increasing 1,5; but keep the region happy, for -3,0 then how long would it take?



In my humble opinion, if this value is still higher than 25 turns for the first village in this scenario, then I think that most people would never see the color of the mechanic because the free population is way too valuable to wait all this time for, when there are other mechanisms that turn the village in a simple building like a founder´s memorial, or a spice extractor. Even if you´re hoping that many other factors will still come in play, like more districts and fervent status for example, the districts have little chance of being around the villages and fervent is a matter of chance or late game.



2nd sc.

I suppose the only reason you´d have three destroyed villages and an unhappy two tile city is because you´ve just conquered it, right? Then this is your worst case scenario. Your situation will only get better from now on, or stay the same. But there´s no way a city will ever go 100 turns unhappy, and at the same time there´s no way 4 unequipped minor faction units will be even a minor nuissance to a "5 units" army like that after turn 50 - otherwise you´re bound to lose the game anyway.



Bad things should potentialize other bad things, not accumulate, so that things can escalate. Endless Legends is too fast. You have to think about mechanics that have a meaning within 20 turns.





And I disagree a little with the thing that a single army can conquer continents, but I´m sure that´s true if the poor AI doesn´t have a bunch of bonuses.

BPrado wrote:
This is a very good solution.



Into details:





I think you could start working on the scaling here.



The first scenario is too incovenient in a game which takes your Dust income to the hundreds in the worst, and thousands in the best scenario in like 60 turns. Everyone would simply buy them out most of the game, either with little effort, or through the several discounts to production/buyout reduction.



The second scenario is too convenient for a game that can end in 150 turns to be even slightly bothered by it.





edit: Also, i´d like to point out it would be much more intuitive if -Negative points were associated with bad things. I understand what you meant, it´s just an opinion.



edit2: The examples I picked are just those that encompass most of the actual game. I understand that the way it is now, it heavily penalizes Napoleons. But if the goal is to end Napoleon-like behavior, what will be left? A "colourless" mechanic?

Regarding the first scenario: Notice this is a kind of neutral scenario... All the villages are destroyed, the region is content, and there is a good garrison and a kind of intermediate city, so it is expected that the village will take a long time to "light up"...

The idea for native villages is that people will still bother to reconstruct/ bribe them, and only if having an overwhelming amount of positive factors the village will become "awed" by your greatness and willingly join you... But what would you think would be a reasonable amount of time (for a normal game speed)? Also notice that at the moment the first village is rebuilt, the other two dead villages will "gain momentum" and be "auto-rebuilt" faster...



Regarding the second scenario: notice that this is a counter-balanced scenario: the region is unhappy, but this village is near a city, with a big garrison... This is kind of to show that one factor, alone, will not make the villages go to war, light up, themselves...



I'm thinking heavily about building some kind of "simulation" to help us reach a good tuning regarding all these factors.



The way I'm seeing this is that napoleons will still exist: but today we don't have napoleons, we have Pizarros and Cortezes: with one small army you conquest the whole continent. If you want to be napoleon, you will have to muster a strong army, and expand first, consolidate your core cities, before go conquering the world... And be prepared to crank more units: you will need them! Even if you have a lvl 8 hero with an army of six up to date dekari rangers.

This is a very good solution.



Into details:

A destroyed village is near a 2-tile city with a 5 unit garrison (including militia): there are 3 destroyed villages at this region, and city happiness is "content". This village will "build itself" into a pacified village at roughly 50 turns, more or less 7 turns



The same destroyed village is at an unhappy region: the village will become active (at war) again in about 100 turns.

I think you could start working on the scaling here.



The first scenario is too incovenient in a game which takes your Dust income to the hundreds in the worst, and thousands in the best scenario in like 60 turns. Everyone would simply buy them out most of the game, either with little effort, or through the several discounts to production/buyout reduction.



The second scenario is too convenient for a game that can end in 150 turns to be even slightly bothered by it.





edit: Also, i´d like to point out it would be much more intuitive if -Negative points were associated with bad things. I understand what you meant, it´s just an opinion.



edit2: The examples I picked are just those that encompass most of the actual game. I understand that the way it is now, it heavily penalizes Napoleons. But if the goal is to end Napoleon-like behavior, what will be left? A "colourless" mechanic?

THis is the kind of simulator that, for the end player , can go as "Village X is getting unsettled... Try to keep units close to it, increase region happiness, etc... "... The old colonization game simply placed an "alarm" sign at native villages... (!)... The details on how alarm was increased or decreased was never explained to the player... I'm exposing the mechanics here to help discuss the factors to be considered...



I was thinking about making this as a mod... But it seems there is no way to change the gui to add extra elements... only to add more to the existing ones... I would like to add a small overlay to the villages and a small icon to the cities so the situation of the city / village could be shown...



SOmething like this...



And when you rover over the happy faces, you can see the positive and negative factors that are affecting this, such as:

"+ this is a happy region!"

"- my brothers are calling me to arms!"

"- you are a bloodthirsty killer!"

"- you have desecrated our holy sites!"

"+ you are too strong!"



I've placed in italic the "friendly message" that will appear when the factor becomes relevant at the starter thread

I honestly like the granularity you tried to impose to the mechanic, to make it seem like something organic and fluid. But at the same time, I can´t picture the game explaining these rules to the player, for example.



Endless Legend already has a bunch of mechanics that are not quite clear, even being simple. I think if something like this was to be implemented, it should have less layers, less reach, and the same impact. It really should be something to worry in the "everyday turn", but it can´t be something that forces you into constantly checking the game help, or even a certain window to understand exactly what´s going on.

One thing I did perceive is that this is not doable by a simple xml mod, is it?? I think it would need new event handlers...

One important point regarding both minor villages and city ownership management is that:

1) The bigger your cities are, and the more developed, it becomes less likely that you get minor villages revolts, and instead get bonuses (see that borough count is one factor).

2) To make offshore and distant wars makes the conquered cities more difficult to pacify ... Since trade routes is a factor, so to build infrastructure before going to war is important.

3) To keep garrisons and defending armies is more important, so to simply attack and abandon a city to it's own luck is something to be carefully checked. This will, I hope, cause an "attrition": the main army will have to spawn garrisons to leave behind at the conquered cities.

4) If you keep the empire happy and the villages guarded, they don't revolt... The idea is to stimulate having scouting / occupation forces checking on the villages, so you must build more watchtowers and improvements... Also, settling regions become a more important factor than simply go conquering the other neighbors (because those regions, if left alone, *will* spawn barbs....)...