The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
Let me say that while I like the concept of involving the opinion of both populations in diplomatic deals, the implementation can have serious consequences for gameplay.

Anybody who has played EUIV will know the feeling when you can't strike a deal with another nation because your opinion of them is a few points short, but they show no interest in improving relations with you, even though they stand to gain a lot.

And when I played Stardrive 2, I often had the AI suggest unacceptable trades, often literally suggesting treaties beyond either our people's tolerance, and every rejected deal decreased their opinion, quickly leading to a spiral in which "declare war" was the only option left.



However, I believe Endless Space 2 has a great basis for implementing the opinion of your people without causing such frustration. If ES2 uses the same Influence currency for diplomacy as EL (and we have seen the Influence symbol in some screenshots), then the cost of diplomatic treaties could change depending on ruling party: The scientists are in charge, war declarations are more expensive, cooperation agreements cheaper. Pacifists? War declaration is ridiculously expensive in influence.

For anything other than war declarations, the enemy senate composition could play into it as well. (Not for war declarations, as there's no reason for it to be harder to declare war on a pacifist nation.)

That is a good way to keep players looking at every move for the end-game.



Diplomacy involves other players as well, so I think it would be great if multiple players decide to spend the influence(perhaps per turn) to target single player to maybe embargo or put some kinda empire-wide debuff on that specific player. I think this would help put some kind end to prolonged wars as well as give diplomacy more uses.

Just by reaching a certain threshold of points, regardless of the size of the galaxy and its total population.

In other words, an updated/more developed version of Alpha Centauri Planetary Council. This is a neat, and well needed, concept for Endless Space indeed.



Another thing that can make diplomacy more "alive" is giving the factions more personality. Ditch the "Good, Neutral and Bad" axis and swap it by a wider set of behaviors. Perhaps something like this:



War-tendency: Aggressive, Neutral, Peaceful



Expansion-tendency: Expansionist, Neutral, Defensive



Pacts/treaties-tendency: Honorable, Neutral, Dishonorable



Values-tendency: Approval, Tech, Money.



..or something like that. Perhaps give each faction fixed values in 1 or 2 of these to represent its ethos, and randomize the rest for each new game. Make these values drive not only the AI factions own behavior but also its opinion of the neighboring factions. So a money-valuing faction would have natural good relations with a neighbor that builds more Money-making facilities, while being wary of neighbors that focus more on approval. The same faction would be easier to accept Dust in diplomatic deals, and less prone to accept tech as payments.



Another option is to bring Civ and Alpha Centauri political models, only adapted to the sci-fi setting of Endless (democracy, autocracy, plutocracy, etc). This would make it even easier to channel the AI behavior into certain directions. eg:



United Empire:

Agenda: Corporation-based Plutocracy

Abhors: Democracy



Sophons:

Agenda: Academy-based Democracy

Abhors: Plutocracy



Amoeba:

Agenda: Pacifist Democracy

Abhors: Autocracy



Etc.

Personally the whole galactic UN idea seems kind of bland. For some inexplicable reason all of the game's factions managed to get together into a galactic body with wide judicial powers? It seems incredibly unlikely given the lore of these games that the factions would either agree to abide by the decisions of or even attend the senate. The goal of building an anti weapon as well on all planets the senate controls seems too easy a way for basically every player to win. It lacks competition and just doesn't seem satisfying as a victory condition. On the other hand, what if you cut out the whole galactic UN idea and just attached the idea about resolutions and influence to alliances between factions? It seems to me that it would allow for far more diplomatic actions between individual empires, making diplomacy a stronger part of the game through economic and military treaties. I don't have an idea how to expand this into an actual diplomatic victory, but what do you think about applying such a concept to treaties between individual empires?

I guess I should have added that I don't believe that every faction should be able to achieve every victory type. For example the Amoeba could be designed to be able obtain the diplomacy victory but are unable to invade other systems their goal is to pacify and bring harmony to all races. They will help other races achieve their goals as long as it coincides with their goal of galactic peace. Where as the United Empire would try to take advantage of this and try to corrupt the galaxy with their vast wealth if they do not outright conquer the galaxy. I was also thinking that the senate should not be a mechanic that even exists in every game. It requires great effort on behalf of the founder to get other races to join, like striking a deal with the Sophons agreeing to share discoveries with them or outright bribing the United Empire to join. If they cannot even manage to get any other members to join they cannot make any progress towards diplomatic victory. In this way diplomatic victory would be a game long commitment.



The Senate does not exist merely as a way to obtain diplomatic victory other factions could very easily subvert the council to serve their goals. I believe this would provide a fun and interesting challenge to those that wish to win diplomatically, it is a challenge catered to them and no other player has to go along if they don't want to it's the diplomatic players job to get the others to go along. The senate might also be formed by another faction to exploit the benefits of its other resolutions with no intention of ever winning the diplomatic victory, of course if they are the only member the resolutions will have no effect so they still have to convince others to work together... for the time being.

And perhaps you are right about the Galactic peace ending being too "easy" it needs to be the hardest victory type to feel like an accomplishment. I may be wrong but I think making it harder than other victory types will make it more engaging for the people who choose to win that way. I know I at least wish it was that way.

Adventurer_blitz,



Diplomatic councils hapenned on Earth everytime two or more cultures/peoples met together, be it a moot of clans, or a federation of gaulish tribes, or a council of nations. Why would it be any diffrent in space ?



Also, if the idea of a "United Nations" like council feel artificial for you, then make it so traties and alliances between two or more factions form diplomatic "blocs". (which, at long game would be the same as single council anyway, only would make things more complicated).



And really, if you think the idea of a council would only serve the purpose of allwoing a diplo victory, you should take a look at games that already implement the concept like Alpha Centauri or GalCiv2. It will blow your mind.

I think Blitz's point is more that a Galactic UN is boring because most games that have implemented something like it take its establishment as a given. I propose that the difficulty of establishing it be part of the challenge of the game, a challenge that is not guaranteed to be overcome. I believe that if implemented in such a way the game would be more enjoyable for everyone. Because it is possible to sabotage the council any player that deplores diplomacy gets another way to play against the other players.



Also perhaps the abolish war galactic edict should require multiple special late game technologies of which each race only has access to one?

I agree with that. So perhaps the alternative would be my diplomatic "blocs" idea. When more than 2 factions form a peace treaty it would open up the option to form a council with those factions. From there it would be possible to implement rules encompassing all member factions based on votes or something. Eg: voting for prohibition of atrocities (razing and pillaging planets, assassinating populations, etc), prohibition of chemical/biological/nuke weapons, or prohibition of covert actions/espionage between members, signing Pacts of mutual protection, Pacts of commerce (perhaps increasing the value of trading luxuries), etc. This could be used strategically by some members to win a situational advantage over others, or be used to strengthen its members in regard to external factions. It should even be possible to buy out other players votes so they support your proposal in the council meeting. In other words: it would give depth and nuance to the game political layer.



Aaaaand if a particular faction don't see the need to engage in such diplomatic blocs, they don't need to.



For more ideas on inventive multi-party rules, just take a look on Civ4/5, GalCiv2/3 or SMAC.

I never really liked how those games did things. They were too formulaic, the institutions always existed and always had the same predetermined structure and always had the same proposals available to them. So perhaps you are right about allowing this system to flow organically from coalitions.



Upon founding you could decide the rules for voting. You could for example choose: one nation to lead the coalition, all founders to have a vote, all members to have a vote, votes to be assigned by population, or votes to be assigned by how much each nation funds the coalition. Also as the game progresses and technology increases new edicts become available, where at first it may just be a basic military alliance in the end it could be a galaxy wide super government with vast control over the way its members run themselves.



However I think one of the most important things about this idea is that there remains a way to undermine and block the progress of these coalitions, from both inside and out. The only idea I can come up with now is being able to blockade the planet that they are meeting on. Maybe a second espionage mechanic could be used to sabotage the effectiveness of the council but that requires the addition yet another new mechanic just to make it feel like players aren't being forced into just putting up with a mechanic they don't want to use which just gets us back where we started, only this time more effort was used and the game is more complex.

What about cumulating influence points equivalent to "buy" all planets populations hearts in the entire galaxy ? If I remember right, this was how economic victory worked in Alpha Centauri, only in that case it was calculated on buying all cities and their structures together. It was only possible after a late game tech was developed, and you had to agressively pump your economy through radical measures (in that game case, Free Market and Luxury domestic policies), that capped your capacity in other areas like warfare.



By the way, how diplo and econ victory are achieved right now in ES ?

Diplomacy in Endless Space sucks, it really sucks, but it doesn't have to. I bring this up because not to rail on it but because I think that it can be improved in a way that will make a good game better, otherwise i would just play a different game. In this post I will outline how diplomacy can engage the players and how to make diplomatic victory feel more like a victory for the player who obtained it, and also how it will feel more like a defeat to those that wish to conquer the galaxy.



In the first Endless Space game Diplomatic Victory was obtained by acquiring enough diplomacy points throughout the game by being at peace and having alliances and through various other means, eventually a certain threshold was reached and the game declared that the player just won, it did this regardless of the power of the remaining factions. To me that was never as satisfying as a military victory. Mainly because it doesn't really build to any significant objective like the military victory does. With the military victory your empire grows, expands, and conquers until no other faction exists in any meaningful competition to your own. Either by way of you conquering all other factions home planets or by acquiring 75 percent control of the galaxy. While the game ends before outright extermination it is still a satisfying resolution because by the time these objectives are accomplished it should be evident that no player has any capacity left to obtain victory by any other means the victor can be you only. On the other hand diplomatic victory only requires that you get a certain number of points before the game just ends and declares the player that acquired those points the winner. As you can see there is no satisfying resolution (the economic victory has the same problem and I will try to get to it in a later post).



So the question is how do we fix this? I propose that the final objective of the diplomacy victory is achieving through cooperation, dedication, technological development, and infrastructure throughout the galaxy the means to prevent war from ever occurring again in the galaxy. This is a long term goal that satisfies what it means that diplomacy regins victorious, But It has a number of prerequisite objectives along the way that build to galactic peace slowly making it harder and harder to conquer, and will make peace more and more widespread. One of the first steps being the establishment of a Galactic Senate that will represent all the factions of the galaxy (except the Cravers of course because they are confused by the concept of diplomacy and would not attend and may in fact try to disband the Galactic Senate).

At first the Galactic Senate would hold less binding treaties that grow in power over time until the final one where the aforementioned galactic peace ensues, but in the beginning the council mostly offers bonuses to factions to entice them to join, for example funding Sophon scientific endeavors and, guaranteeing open boarders to the United Empire's trade consortium. This means that the different factions will have to participate to remain competitive, but they will try to use their own influence the council for their benefit. Over time the various Factions will purchase resolutions with their influence resource, and perhaps bribe or extort other factions to vote a certain way. Resolutions can have various effects. like increasing resource output, increasing the popularity of a certain faction, or ejecting members for starting wars with other members. I also believe that the pacifists should gain power and the military becomes more expensive and harder to build with every peaceful resolution until finally no weapon may ever be forged again and all existing weapons destroyed. (for members of the senate that is you can leave at any time but remember you lose if the diplomat develops the "anti-weapon" and gets the council to build it on all planets)



Anyway that is the overall idea of how I think diplomacy should work and I am convinced that it will make the game way more fun and exciting. I will continue writing my ideas based on the feedback I receive from this post, but for now I just want to know what you think.

I also think that the diplomatic victory in ES should have some improvement. My favorite faction was the amoeba, but when I try to get a diplomatic victory, it's so boring to see the percent grown up slowly, so it usually end by a giant fleet of amoeba who go annihilate all those inferior species who don't understand what mean the word "peace (like the cravers or the sophons).



I think this victory would be more attractive with a more interresting type of diplomacy, even if it become more difficult to reach this victory.

Easy, it was lifeless!

Right what I'm saying is that if the "good" path to overcome evil is the path of least resistance then going about it that way isn't really much of a choice it's just the obvious strategy. If winning by meeting evil with evil is the typical strategy then it makes your decision not to do so actually meaningful.



Still it is fun to watch the galaxy burn as the Cravers.

vini_lessa wrote:


Diplomatic councils hapenned on Earth everytime two or more cultures/peoples met together, be it a moot of clans, or a federation of gaulish tribes, or a council of nations. Why would it be any diffrent in space ?

Keep in mind that in these occurrences you speak of, the nations in question were of the same species. Cultures in the Endless universe can be so different as to make even basic communication difficult, by the sheer difference between the concepts underlying their society (with the exception that many ES1 races were of humanoid descent, or UE-related).

Frogsquadron wrote:
Keep in mind that in these occurrences you speak of, the nations in question were of the same species. Cultures in the Endless universe can be so different as to make even basic communication difficult, by the sheer difference between the concepts underlying their society (with the exception that many ES1 races were of humanoid descent, or UE-related).

In the Endless Space galaxy people use sentient dust as currency, so I'm pretty sure fun takes a higher priority than believably in Endless Space.

Frogsquadron wrote:
Keep in mind that in these occurrences you speak of, the nations in question were of the same species. Cultures in the Endless universe can be so different as to make even basic communication difficult, by the sheer difference between the concepts underlying their society (with the exception that many ES1 races were of humanoid descent, or UE-related).

And this is why diplomacy in SotS 1 was so brilliant. First you figure out how to even talk to each other and that requires increasing levels of cultural penetration and research. Then you base diplomatic interaction around the fact that you are competing galactic species.



I said this before in the AI thread. Diplomatic victory should not occur because you(the leader) are friendly with all the other leaders. It should occur because the citizens of the other races hold you in such high regard that their leaders cannot act overtly against you. That means there needs to be racial tolerances and dispositions that can be affected by various types of action and manipulation. It means you can't just buy the affection of another nation by offering them all your best stuff unless/until your people allow you to make such deals. This also acts to prevent the AI from selling their souls out for a few credits.



A system based on this should simplify a lot of the mess that bogs down overly complex diplomacy systems in so many 4xs and makes them unfun and unfulfilling. It would absolutely make espionage something meaningful, with actions like spreading favorable propaganda about your people to other races instead of just sabotage and tech stealing.

What Slashman says is spot on. All of it. In fact, so many games already do that (having to study other races before establishing contact; and leaders with distinct agendas and bias towards each other). I dont know why ES2 couldnt do that. Its doesnt sound like a difficult thing to implement, even.



One thing that dont make sense is having heroes from different factions before even meeting those factions for the first time. Initial heroes should be limited to your faction only, with the exception, perhaps, being inter-human factions (Eg: hiring a Vaultes hero as the Empire)

Slashman wrote:
It would absolutely make espionage something meaningful, with actions like spreading favorable propaganda about your people to other races instead of just sabotage and tech stealing.

Now that's a fun idea!