Make assimilating minor factions more interesting.

Minor faction diplomacy is definitely bland and sometimes unbalanced... the quest to assimilate is often merely a matter of waiting a number of turns for something you'd already been doing, while other times, especially with a large empire, they can get completed in less than one turn. Doesn't feel like much of a 'quest' at that point, at least to me.

I'd recommend a system similar to the way that Civilization 5 handled City-States with the Brave New World expansion: you can certainly bribe or praise minor factions to improve relations with them, but the best way of making them allies is to complete their various quests. Each offered up to three quests, none were mutually exclusive, quest rewards were always large relations boosts, and the content of the quests was similar to the city-state's outlook on life: militarists wanted their neighbors bullied, mercantilists wanted trade routes sent to them, etc. It was logical, well designed, and occurred at a reasonable pace, such that converting them to an alliance on the turn you met them was very rare until the end game if you had lots of money to spend on bribes.

Another useful thing you could do to improve relations was send military aid if they were at war with another major empire. In this game, that's sometimes hard (partly because it doesn't tell you the diplomatic relations between minor and major factions, as far as I am aware) because invasion fleets typically declare war, invade, and conquer minor factions in one turn. If minor faction systems were made more defensible, then perhaps that trouble would be avoided to some extent, and military aid could be an effective if dangerous way of raising relations. Examples include sending manpower to help defend against a siege, or gifting them military vessels which they'd use exclusively to guard their systems. (that reminds me - I think the pirate vessels and minor faction ships should be separated, so that minor faction generated ships always guard their home system against other fleets, including pirates, and that pirates are generated in a manner unrelated to minor factions.)

Agreed that we need a change away from just hitting the Praise button a bunch- I'd like to see minor factions with political views- for instance, a Democracy run by the Scientists party could Praise the Z'Vali for a much reduced cost than a Militarist Dictatorship. 

TheTakenKing wrote:

Minor faction diplomacy is definitely bland and sometimes unbalanced... the quest to assimilate is often merely a matter of waiting a number of turns for something you'd already been doing, while other times, especially with a large empire, they can get completed in less than one turn. Doesn't feel like much of a 'quest' at that point, at least to me.

I'd recommend a system similar to the way that Civilization 5 handled City-States with the Brave New World expansion: you can certainly bribe or praise minor factions to improve relations with them, but the best way of making them allies is to complete their various quests. Each offered up to three quests, none were mutually exclusive, quest rewards were always large relations boosts, and the content of the quests was similar to the city-state's outlook on life: militarists wanted their neighbors bullied, mercantilists wanted trade routes sent to them, etc. It was logical, well designed, and occurred at a reasonable pace, such that converting them to an alliance on the turn you met them was very rare until the end game if you had lots of money to spend on bribes.

Another useful thing you could do to improve relations was send military aid if they were at war with another major empire. In this game, that's sometimes hard (partly because it doesn't tell you the diplomatic relations between minor and major factions, as far as I am aware) because invasion fleets typically declare war, invade, and conquer minor factions in one turn. If minor faction systems were made more defensible, then perhaps that trouble would be avoided to some extent, and military aid could be an effective if dangerous way of raising relations. Examples include sending manpower to help defend against a siege, or gifting them military vessels which they'd use exclusively to guard their systems. (that reminds me - I think the pirate vessels and minor faction ships should be separated, so that minor faction generated ships always guard their home system against other fleets, including pirates, and that pirates are generated in a manner unrelated to minor factions.)

I did like how civ handled that but im not sure i would want to copy and paste their system in endless space 2. We could perhaps borrow and expand on those mechanics perhaps? Im not to sure how to do that but im sure the devs can figure it out.

Tagma wrote:

Agreed that we need a change away from just hitting the Praise button a bunch- I'd like to see minor factions with political views- for instance, a Democracy run by the Scientists party could Praise the Z'Vali for a much reduced cost than a Militarist Dictatorship

oh thats a good idea! scientists could not approve of your religeous inclinations, ecologist against industrialist etc. while like minded alignments help you win over the minor faction. nice idea indeed.