One thing I often ask myself in most 4x games: "Is there anything to gain from cooperation that I cannot gain from war?"



I feel that this is the greatest weakness of all 4x games. The formula for winning is almost always pre-defined. Rush a particular science tree, amass a huge army, zerg all foes, win.



In Endless space, I often found the AI making laughable demands. I'd have control over 4/5ths of the galaxy with dozens of fleets several times more powerful than the remaining AI enemies I hadn't gotten around to crushing yet, and I get an AI request: open borders if I give them all of my siderite?!? I can roll my armies through your empire in 5 rounds and not only gain "open borders" in what used to be your space, but also every resource you control... why the hell would I give you *anything* for open borders?!?



But what if the calculus was different? What if it was actually worth it to give up a bunch of resources for a cooperation agreement with a lesser power? What if you could actually gain something through cooperation you cannot gain from war?



Civilization IV tries to do this but it really fails in a lot of ways. Civilization IV doesn't so much reward cooperation as much as it just penalizes war. The more war you wage, the lower your peoples happiness and the worse every other leader hates you which in turn denies you benefits that warfare generally do not replace. you also receive an artificial penalty to science, economy and culture as your empire grows which makes no logical sense and is clearly a slapped together afterthought to discourage warfare in favor of other options. The cost of warfare is increased, and that's basically that. What's more it's absurdly over the top: wage 1 war in 1000 bc and world leaders still hate you in 2050. God forbid you raze a city and you will be reviled for all time.



Endless space goes the exact opposite direction. AI foes sit idly by as you plow through every other faction until they are sitting there alone making absurdly lopsided in their favor demands when they have nothing to bargain with, no leverage, and pose no military threat. The faster you conquer foes the faster you win the game and there really isn't a viable path to avoid at least *some* conquest in order to win as otherwise you won't have the science you need to keep up.



I think there can be better, more intricate and elegant solutions.



Don't penalize warfare in unrealistic ways like Civ IV. Keep the benefits of warfare like endless space 1. But build in a counterbalance for diplomacy. For every allied civilization you unlock aspects of the science tree that are only available if you are allied with other civilizations. Provide other benefits that are only achievable if one follows a peaceful path. Answer the question "Is there anything to gain from cooperation that I cannot gain from war?" in a way that forces players to actually ponder the answer rather than just rolling in the tanks.



An easy way to think of this is via the standard "rock paper scissors" balance mechanic so many games use. Perhaps you can build ships with amazing defensive capabilities if you go the route of diplomacy. Or perhaps some of the victory conditions like the science victory relies on "joint research projects" completed by working with at least 1 other civilization. you get the gist...

I think Sins of a Solar Empire had the right idea with pacts (not that its diplomacy on the whole was great).



Pacts could be formed between empires with peaceful relations. More powerful pacts got unlocked the better that relationship was (by sending emissaries). Each faction offered unique pacts, which when made benefited both parties. Pacts ranged from things like increased accuracy to increased fleet supply (most powerful TEC pact). In order to not overblow this, an empire could only make one of each pact.



It created the situation where one had incentives to keep allies alive and well, because the value of increased max fleet supply surpassed the value of conquering an additional 5 or 6 planets. I have also found myself a lot more eager to protect these allies.



With the asymmetric and diverse factions in ES2, this sort of mechanic can be expanded upon to provide really unique benefits. I can see an empire benefiting from keeping the Sophons alive for a research pact that boosts both of their science outputs considerably (in addition to trade), for instance. Or an empire providing bonuses to activated boosters...etc.



It will create incentives to form, nurture, and maintain alliances for the sake of unique benefits that would rival the value of conquest.

I am not sure that would be good to double deep the effects of having an ally.



An ally might :



ensure a safe border

give income and research benefit



It is just something you need to balance. I'm not sure you need to design something new.

I believe that 4X games in general have a long way to go in that aspect.



However, there are genres that we can look to for guidance. When it comes to cooperation, I think the most successful are grand strategy games as well as trust games (is that a genre? I mean games like Diplomacy or Battlestar Galactica Board Game).



In grand strategy games, such as ck2, cooperation is essential as it is not only relevant when dealing with other empires but also with potential internal strife within your own dominion; nobles need to be kept in check, spymasters pleased, excess children/wives taken care of - all the time you need to work to remove potentially harmful individuals and keep the helpful ones.



Most 4X games usually don't bother to look at the empire the player controls beyond the usual approval system. The fact that ES2 does care about the will of your population is incredible. And it may force you to seek cooperation with other players if you have difficulties with internal strife that you can't solve on your own. Time will tell how this all plays out in ES2 but I'm optimistic.





However, forcing the players to trust each other like in Diplomacy or BSG board game is something that we're probably not going to see. Comparable levels of paranoia can usually only be reached if information is extremely sparse and/or there is intended unbalance in the game. We obviously want ES2 to be balanced so that leaves us only with the first option. But the diplomacy system would have to be purposefully ambiguous for that; forcing players to supply each other with information instead of simply giving it to them. Unless ES2 was designed with that idea from the get-go, I doubt that we can get anything of the sort.

PANCZASU wrote:
I believe that 4X games in general have a long way to go in that aspect.



However, there are genres that we can look to for guidance. When it comes to cooperation, I think the most successful are grand strategy games as well as trust games (is that a genre? I mean games like Diplomacy or Battlestar Galactica Board Game).



In grand strategy games, such as ck2, cooperation is essential as it is not only relevant when dealing with other empires but also with potential internal strife within your own dominion; nobles need to be kept in check, spymasters pleased, excess children/wives taken care of - all the time you need to work to remove potentially harmful individuals and keep the helpful ones.



Most 4X games usually don't bother to look at the empire the player controls beyond the usual approval system. The fact that ES2 does care about the will of your population is incredible. And it may force you to seek cooperation with other players if you have difficulties with internal strife that you can't solve on your own. Time will tell how this all plays out in ES2 but I'm optimistic.





However, forcing the players to trust each other like in Diplomacy or BSG board game is something that we're probably not going to see. Comparable levels of paranoia can usually only be reached if information is extremely sparse and/or there is intended unbalance in the game. We obviously want ES2 to be balanced so that leaves us only with the first option. But the diplomacy system would have to be purposefully ambiguous for that; forcing players to supply each other with information instead of simply giving it to them. Unless ES2 was designed with that idea from the get-go, I doubt that we can get anything of the sort.

I see plenty of cooperation in Multiplayer, I think the Main problem is Singleplayer, where cooperation is really impossible because the AI is totally unreliable and randomly declares war because of score sometimes. Though obviously more ways to cooperate would be nice obviously.

So I had a bit of a chat with the dev team, and there is a strong consensus that we want to give more options for a pacifist gameplay. It is unlikely that the game will not require you to fight (after all, if only one of two factions want to fight, the fight will still happen), bit through our new Diplomacy, our set teams, our alliance victory, there will be ways to make things happen that don't involve setting the galaxy on fire and planting your flag everywhere.