Brazilian_Joe wrote:
Mechanic propositions:



CULTURE METAGAME



Culture should be important to make pacific gameplay possible.





It should be possible for several cultures (factions) to hold ground in a single planet. If a planet is ruled by another race, but is close to another player's territory, the 'cultural pressure' would slowly turn citizens towards the alien culture.



Letting an alien culture dominate an owned planet should NOT be all-bad, to give the player a strategic choice of just letting it happen - or even stimulating it - in exchange for a tradeoff.



A cultural takeover would give more advantages for the culture holder though. Cheaper trade and science deals should come with cultural sharing, and higher costs and dissatisfaction on the faction declaring war. Perhaps even a 'troop morale malus' for fighting against their perceived brothers.



Dominating by culture would still have the planet owned by the other factions but should give some financial benefits - maybe a passive FIDSI income without the associated infrestructure/management cost of owning the planet, based on the planet's production.



OUTPOSTS



In the outpost stage, it should be possible for multiple races to set themselves afoot in the same planet. Instead of a fixed "20 turns to colony" there should be a way for players to tweak, advance themselves or setback the other faction - without necessarily declaring war - so that one of them can create a colony. The bar to upgrade the outpost into a colony should be much higher. This initial setting could be very important to create mixed-culture planets and create a pacifist race. Or create bitter grudges between empires which would last through that game.

Realy like those two suggestions. Especially the last one since it was stated that the population of Systems can now consist out of different species.

The announcement of Endless Space 2 is a great news! Now I have no doubts about GOTY 2016. However I'd like mention one thing which is quite important for me.



When people speak of sequels of 4X-games they usually mean that sequel brings a set of improvements and extensions to the mechanics of original game. We may even say that Endless Space 2 would be 'Endless Space ver. 2.0'. That worries me because once we have '2.0' then would it be any reason to continue playing '1.0'? I don't wish that Endless Space 2 will become a replacement for original Endless Space; that it will overshadow the original game. Don't make ES2 simply 'better' than ES1, make it different. It would be really awesome if ES2 will give a player new experience but will not make him to forget ES1 completely.



Consider HoMM (Heroes of Might & Magic) III and IV as an example. Some of the gamers loves HoMM III and hates HoMM IV and vice versa. But most people will agree that both of these games are great in its own way. Each have advantages and disadvantages and mechanics are slightly different but gameplay foundation is the same.



I hope you understand my worries. Don't make ES2 a killer for ES1, let both of the games live alongside.

Sovereign wrote:
Besides the new inner political system (which is imo the best idea they ever had) new trade mechanics are one of things I look forward the most. Cant wait to hear what changed there. I dont dare to dream about controlled piracy, smuggling etc ^^

Why not? I do!!!

Stepuk wrote:




I hope you understand my worries. Don't make ES2 a killer for ES1, let both of the games live alongside.

Unfortunately, this will be the killer, because it will improve on ES in every conceivable way.

CULTURE META-GAME, SENATE & DIPLOMACY



An empire may have a number of races and immigrants/colonists of other factions living under its rule.

How it treats these different groups will have an influence over the general happiness, and may have effects in the diplomatic relations as well. The effects could be specific to a faction, but in some cases may be related to that species, and affect all factions of that species.



Large enough groups of alien citizens living under your rule may be given senate representation. This may wield advantages going from extra FIDSI to granting bonus diplomatic relationship with the faction or factions of that same species, or even unlocking one or more bonuses of that species to your empire. The tradeoff would be to make concessions about that species requirements, and having a large enough population in you empire to gradually get the bonuses.



To the other end of the spectrum, a ruthless empire could decree that alien citizens are second-class and have diminished rights. It could go as far as treating them as slaves, which would have bad consequences for diplomatic relationships - but may cheapen the cost declaring war and tearing down agreements.

MULTIPLE FACTION OUTPOSTS, THE ROAD TO GOVERNMENT & THE CULTURE META



An outpost would be limited in the number and types of buildings it can construct.



Species would have different growth factors according to the harshness of the environment, and each species have different native environments.



As such, certain species would be at a natural advantage to colonize certain environments.



Native population vs. immigrant population



A native population would be the result of vegetative growth of the initial colonists. Each unit of population becomes native after a certain time. The higher the proportion of immigrant population vs. native, the longer it takes. A smaller population becomes native faster than a larger one.



There should be science-related buildings which would accelerate the conversion rate from immigrant to native. Tehcnology would eventually unlock the option to produce a 'consumable' building which upon completion converts one unit of population into native.



It should be possible to use trade route slots domestically instead of inter-factions to create immigrant routes, and populate a planet faster.



It should also be possible to dial the FIDSI sliders to use a variable poportion of the production of an outpost or colony to convert immigrant population into native faster, by exploring the planet and teaching the immigrants about the nature of the planet they are living.



Depending on which mechanics eventually come into the game, Diplomacy, Espionage or Senate resources can be used to order operations which can be used to affect the growth of other outposts in the same planet. Those events can be considered disasters or provoked sabotages. Successful attacks can still be considered provoked, and create a distrust penalty between the factions of the shared outposts. A botched sabotage could uncover the identity of the faction attempting it, and give a higher penalty between the factions involved, and additionally a global distrust penalty.



Depending on the level of attrition, the outposts could have skirmishes. Skirmishes can be supressed by the deployment of ground troops. Ground troops can be used to pacify or foster teh unrest depending on both faction's choices. The deployed troops can be used on land battles for the control of the planet.



Upon dominating the land, troops can opt to control the enemy faction population, deport it, or erradicate it. Controlling it has the advantage of maintaining the planetary population, but carries unrest penalties. Deporting relocates the population to the other faction's empire, 1 unit of population per turn. Genocyde clears up the alien population immediately and gives a one-time resource bonus via plundering, but carries a global distrust penalty across all factions because of the ruthlessness.



For an outpost to become a colony, it would need to have a minimum number of native population, and to build a government center construction. Only one faction can build a government center in a planet, and that one becomes the dominat ruler of the planet. The other factions which invested in creating outposts in the same planet would still reap some benefits from the planet, and could use the planetary plurality to forster a peaceful relationship if it chooses. These planets can also be double-edged swords in the case of espionage and all-out wars.



An outpost can be created in a 'safe' position. If a planet is inside the control range of another colony, only that faction can create outposts there, unlesss the other faction is at war. It should be possible to negotiate via diplomacy to get authorization to place an outpost in a 'safe' planet of another faction, and there should be some scenarios where it could be played as an advantage to either/both sides. Outposts created with the aid of diplomacy carry 'no penalties', but xenophobic species could still have the species diplomatic penalty applied.



Hostile outposts are the ones created on the same planet between two factions at war. Those outposts would carry a long-term penalty, but not permanent. Even if a truce or peace is declared, that grudge would be carried on for some time worsening diplomacy between those factions.

Brazilian_Joe I tip my hat to you.



Those are alot of suggestions but i found them all magnificent.

I'd be all for more tactical combat, but I'd settle for camera angles and fleet animations that didn't

a) make me want to auto every battle

b) feel like im missing all the interesting stuff b/c it's off camera

c) represented something more than 2 fleets pulling alongside each other and pounding till there's only 1 left- the sense of tactics and chaos that made Star Wars space battles so exciting to watch was sadly absent from ES1

Faze2 wrote:
I'd be all for more tactical combat, but I'd settle for camera angles and fleet animations that didn't

a) make me want to auto every battle

b) feel like im missing all the interesting stuff b/c it's off camera

c) represented something more than 2 fleets pulling alongside each other and pounding till there's only 1 left- the sense of tactics and chaos that made Star Wars space battles so exciting to watch was sadly absent from ES1

The camera could be set to free camera mode in ES1, I'm sure Amplitude will do the same for this game.

Adventurer_Blitz wrote:
Sort of an "I have your back, you have mine feeling no? Maybe there could be something like mutual defensive packs or a system where the better your relation with the AI, the more favorable trades you can have, and possibly even a trade route bonus? Does that seem right to you?

Would be cool for ai to donate warships if he sees the other guy is in trouble or even economic resources. If this is a benefit to the ai why not (for example if the player is a front border for the ai friend.) Obviously only if the AI is really friend with the player. I agree such stuff would be really cool for immersion.

Eysteinh wrote:
Would be cool for ai to donate warships if he sees the other guy is in trouble or even economic resources. If this is a benefit to the ai why not (for example if the player is a front border for the ai friend.) Obviously only if the AI is really friend with the player. I agree such stuff would be really cool for immersion.

Yeah why not!?



Apperantly some 4X games do have the diplomatic option to trade ships.



Yet I did not saw an AI which just donated or even made an offer to sell me the warships in those games even when I am in a bad position against a common enemy.



I realy dont want to be always the active part who has to open the diplomatic screen too.

Speaking about diplomacy,

do Cravers will have access to diplomacy without war ?



I think about it because, especially in multiplayer,

if a Cravers player could obtain certain things as technologies or systems by threaten his ennemis,

it would be probably a bit more interesting.



I am not saying that Cravers must have access to all diplomacy,

but, I am not 100% convince by the fact this race must be at war to do diplomacy.

Sovereign wrote:
Yeah why not!?



Apperantly some 4X games do have the diplomatic option to trade ships.



Yet I did not saw an AI which just donated or even made an offer to sell me the warships in those games even when I am in a bad position against a common enemy.



I realy dont want to be always the active part who has to open the diplomatic screen too.

I think, if that option is available, it will be settable (On or Off) at the creation of the game as technologic trade in ES.

In Endless Space I have trouble with reorganizing fleets. When command points increase, fleets are allowed to become bigger, and more powerful. For instance if I have 4 fleets 12 command points in size and tech research increases the fleet cap to 16 command points, I have to divide 1 fleet to increase the size of the 3 other fleets.



This is a lot of work (micro management) especially with a large number of fleets. In addition the user interface of Endless Space is limited. Only a small part of the screen (lower left corner) can be used for this. A lot of scrolling is needed. Having multiple types of fleets (e.g. ship to ship battle fleets, and invasion fleets) in the same solar system make this more complicated.



Suggestions:



1. Create a fleet organization screen to assign ships to another fleet in the same solar system.

2. Allow a ship to be ordered to join a fleet in a different solar system. It needs to catch up with the new fleet, but it should probably not take a shortcut through enemy territory. Otherwise it would not survive before it reaching it new fleet. Smart routing through safe territory would be welcome.

3. Add fleet designs a new game concept similar to ship designs. Create this is a policy so that fleets will be formed automatically.

4. Perhaps extend this to ship building orders. Instead of queuing ship building orders manually, allow the ordering of entire fleets. Separate ship building orders are automatically spread over ship yards in the empire.

5. Extend this to the the market place or ship yards of friendly factions. This may create a total different dimension to the economic and trade system. Finished ships needs to travel to it's delivery point before it can be used for active duty, and maybe ambushed by competitors (Either your war adversary or an competing ship builder/broker). Same goes for resources to build ships.

A question which came into my mind:



-Are the "Militarists" the "Scientists" and the "Pacifists" all political parties or are there more of them your people can vote for?



-Or are the parties race specific?



- Will it be possible to customize a political party?





I would love a possibility to customize them even if it would just mean to rename them and write a little description. (for RPG playing I love such things)

Though advanced customization would be even more awesome ; )

How will one races Frigate ship differentiate from another races Frigate ship? How varied are the units of the factions?



Thanks!

Sovereign wrote:
A question which came me into mind:



-Are the "Militarists" the "Scientists" and the "Pacifists" all political parties or are there more of them?



-Or are the parties race specific?



- Will it be possible to customize a political party?



I would love a possibility to customize them even if it would just mean to rename them and write a little description. (for RPG playing I love such things)

Though advanced customization would be even more awesome ; )

Same here. If I can customize parties, I already have an idea of what to name the ones in the United Empire and what they stand for:



Imperialists: conservatives and "friends" of Maximilian Zelevas. They want to maintain the Empire as it is, as an autocracy.



Aurelians (named after the leader of the movement) or Girondins (still undecided about the name, sorry): led by a politician named Aurelian Friedstadt (made up name), they support the reformation of the Empire into a constitutional monarchy that has more respect for the personal liberties and rights of the population (filthy xenos included).



Jacobins: a more radical version of the Aurelians, they are die hard republicans and are therefore often repressed by the Empire.



The Guilds: this faction/party represents the corporations who work alongside with the Imperial bureaucracy (this was said in the lore of ES1). As is expected from corporations operating side by side with the government, they have political interests and, more importantly, political powers.



And yes, I love roleplaying.

Quickly addressing a questions quickly! We are keeping up with progress and will try and be as active as possible. We are primarily focusing on topics we have GDDs out on, so you will have to be patient on some topics!

Eysteinh wrote:
Would be cool for ai to donate warships if he sees the other guy is in trouble or even economic resources. If this is a benefit to the ai why not (for example if the player is a front border for the ai friend.) Obviously only if the AI is really friend with the player. I agree such stuff would be really cool for immersion.

The issue with this, is the same issue with trading technologies that a lot of 4X face. When you allow these things it becomes easily exploitable for players. A player can essentially win a war between two AI's by donating ships. A player can potentially use diplomacy to 'buy' their ships and then attack them. And if you limit these actions to AI, they are 'playing by different rules' - which creates a number of completely different issues for players.

Then there is a slew of other issues, such as having to transfer ship designs between empires and a player will potentially get an unmanagable number of ship designs to edit due to how that whole system works.

We are not strictly against these sort of mechanics, we have to be a bit careful about the implementation and not making diplomacy even harder for the AI.

Sovereign wrote:
A question which came into my mind:

-Are the "Militarists" the "Scientists" and the "Pacifists" all political parties or are there more of them your people can vote for?

-Or are the parties race specific?

- Will it be possible to customize a political party?

I would love a possibility to customize them even if it would just mean to rename them and write a little description. (for RPG playing I love such things)

Though advanced customization would be even more awesome ; )

The three parties listed are not all of the political parties. A GDD on senate should be releasing soon (tm).

The parties are not race specific, but each population will lean towards certain politics and dislike others.

It is not planned to be able to customize political parties and write your own descriptions. Though this can be done through simple XML modding.

Luring wrote:
How will one races Frigate ship differentiate from another races Frigate ship? How varied are the units of the factions?

Thanks!

Ships will firstly, similarly to ES1 have unique visuals and a hull specific bonus. Besides that, each ship will have a unique ship design and slot layout. This will all be talked about later with the battle GDD and ship design GDD.

Metalynx wrote:
Quickly addressing a questions quickly! We are keeping up with progress and will try and be as active as possible. We are primarily focusing on topics we have GDDs out on, so you will have to be patient on some topics!





The issue with this, is the same issue with trading technologies that a lot of 4X face. When you allow these things it becomes easily exploitable for players. A player can essentially win a war between two AI's by donating ships. A player can potentially use diplomacy to 'buy' their ships and then attack them. And if you limit these actions to AI, they are 'playing by different rules' - which creates a number of completely different issues for players.

Then there is a slew of other issues, such as having to transfer ship designs between empires and a player will potentially get an unmanagable number of ship designs to edit due to how that whole system works.

We are not strictly against these sort of mechanics, we have to be a bit careful about the implementation and not making diplomacy even harder for the AI.

I think it just depends on how it is handled, in my opinion a lot of exploitation can be curbed. A few thoughts/suggestions:



-AI will trade technology, but only for other technology. The technology the AI gets has to be of the same era or later era.

-AI will not trade any technology that enables wonders/special buildings that they are working or could potentially work towards.

-AI will only trade military techs with civilizations that it is on extremely good terms with.



-AI will trade cities/planets, but only for other cities/planets of similar or better values. They will only trade cities/planets on their borders, not on interior of empire.



-AI can 'give' ships but for a GPT cost that cant be avoided. Think the 'Loan System' in SMAC.





I personally would like to see some other features of SMAC show their face in ES2 (with the Amplitude spin of course):

- AI will sometimes "surrender" when almost dominated. They will give you all technology they know, and become an unbreakable Ally for the rest of the game.

- Which means that Allied victories have to be enabled for supremacy games...

- More localized (not empire wide) mid-late game events (eg: Solar Flare stops food production in system but boosts energy output, planets rioting stops industry production, minor factions uprising etc)

Metalynx wrote:
Quickly addressing a questions quickly! We are keeping up with progress and will try and be as active as possible. We are primarily focusing on topics we have GDDs out on, so you will have to be patient on some topics!





The issue with this, is the same issue with trading technologies that a lot of 4X face. When you allow these things it becomes easily exploitable for players. A player can essentially win a war between two AI's by donating ships. A player can potentially use diplomacy to 'buy' their ships and then attack them. And if you limit these actions to AI, they are 'playing by different rules' - which creates a number of completely different issues for players.

Then there is a slew of other issues, such as having to transfer ship designs between empires and a player will potentially get an unmanagable number of ship designs to edit due to how that whole system works.

We are not strictly against these sort of mechanics, we have to be a bit careful about the implementation and not making diplomacy even harder for the AI.





The three parties listed are not all of the political parties. A GDD on senate should be releasing soon (tm).

The parties are not race specific, but each population will lean towards certain politics and dislike others.

It is not planned to be able to customize political parties and write your own descriptions. Though this can be done through simple XML modding.





Ships will firstly, similarly to ES1 have unique visuals and a hull specific bonus. Besides that, each ship will have a unique ship design and slot layout. This will all be talked about later with the battle GDD and ship design GDD.

-Sounds reasonable



-Sounds good to me



-Looking forward to it ; )



Ty for your question adressing.

"The Selfless" sounds like an interesting gameplay option to be toggled during game setup. They're probably some megalomaniac Virtual with a god-complex.



I'd welcome a "give us your stuff or else" option for diplomacy, even if for the cravers that would be more of an "give us your stuff and we'll eat you later" option.

Assassinations to influence the enemy political landscape could be an interesting feature, but might be difficult to implement.

I'd love to see a meaningful surrender/vassalization system, though.

That list looks very intriguing. A few suggestions:



THE POPULATION: Make them do things without your specific permission. What they can "get away with" will depend on your government type (see more on in THE SENATE below). Generally, if you have a strong centrally managed government with a robust security apparatus (e.g. the UE perhaps or the Cravers) , the citizens get away with less. The player has fewer "surprises". But you also get fewer deep range explorers coming back with cool new discoveries and artifacts (these presented as random events). But, if you are, say, the Sophon player, you get more randoms where one of your crazy people has blown themselves up and damaged the infrastructure on one of your worlds but also given you the secrets of some random technology basically for free.



THE SENATE: Love this idea but I recommend that you expand it. The Senate mechanic should work differently for different government types. Every government has a "will of the people" built into it somehow, but create a government model that gives the player (i.e. Emperor, President, Hive-Mind, etc.) a bit more choice over how they interact with the Senate. Perhaps in a Democracy you get elections more frequently (like every 4 turns or so) but in a dictatorship they happen much less frequently (20, 40, 60 turns - representing the Emperor working the noble houses and corporations more slowly over time). Each government type should play a little differently. But to change government types you have to have to manage what you build. It's not as simple as the traditional 4x "screen with a bunch of radio buttons where you pay a reorganization cost for a turn and then get a set of bonuses." Rather, if you want a establish a meritocratic centrally managed democracy, you need to research and build specific system improvements to gain those institutions. It'll come as no surprise that I'm thinking of SotS2 here...I really think that interaction of the population "autobuild" and government systems in that game are a great design element that many 4x could really benefit from and are right in line with what you guys are trying to do here: make the personalities of the player's people part of game.



THE BATTLES: Recommend designing ships such that they are more than a collection of stats determined by modules. You've got 3d models of them - so get into the details of the ships and make them actual OBJECTS. It is clear that your art staff (whose art shows where all the different guns and modules go) already KNOW how the "real" ship is put together. So make the game reflect all that great design work you've already done. When I put on 12 kinetic batteries, write the code so that I SEE 12 kinetic batteries on the flanks of the vessel. Then, track damage at the module level so you can SHOW it on the battle screen with close ups. Bombers can actually do what they're typically said to do in space opera - go after individual systems on capital ships. And you can show that. You can have battle orders that have AI commanders target the opponents' particular modules at a certain range (probably melee) for an accuracy penalty. The list is ... well ... Endless