Truce Negotiations

Since this is a fairly complex and important issue, I'll try to keep this structured:

Problem: The current truce system takes away the player’s sense of agency, for the loser and the winner both. I don’t think many players are terribly happy with that.

Goal: Introduce player agency into the truce deal without undermining the design goal of providing losing players with a tool to at least delay annihilation, and ideally without requiring a massive production effort.

Suggestion:

The basic idea is to hijack the Pressure system to track who is winning the war and to enforce demands that the player himself sets up through the diplomacy screen, and refusal will cause penalties scaling with how favorable the deal was.

Normal pressure generation is suspended in wartime. Instead, battle victories and conquered systems generate pressure, according to the size of the empire, their economic might, and the size of their navy. (See below for an example), with the value of any given system or ship set at the beginning of the war.

Either party involved in the war may make a peace offer at any time (subject to cooldowns to prevent spamming offers or gaming the system). If this offer is more favorable for the recipient than the current pressure indicates, they will suffer an approval penalty according to the difference between the pressure score and the offer value. E.g. the winning side offers a deal with a value of 30 while at 40 pressure, so if the loser refuses, they will suffer a 10 point approval penalty. If a losing empire offers a 25 value deal to the winner while at 10 pressure, and the winner refuses, they suffer a 15 point approval penalty.

Note that this system does not require any conquered planets to be diplomatically ceded in the peace deal (unlike the Paradox games it was inspired by). Furthermore, because all values are calculated and set at the beginning of the war, it is possible to achieve a 100% warscore without conquering all of the enemy’s systems. In fact, if the losing side keeps building/hiring new ships, it is possible to achieve 100% without any conquest. This should also discourage attempts at feigning weakness in order to trick the system, as each lost ship would have much greater value if the war was started with a small military.

Example “Warscore” Calculation (Numbers completely untested):

Systems are valued as:

• Population size x System Level

• +Number of Planets

• +Resources

• +Number of Buildings

Military might is measured as:

• Total industry cost of all fleet assets

• Total industry output of a single turn

• ¼ of (Current dust stockpile + Dust production)

• This sum then divided by 400

Industry and dust are included in the military score as a measure of the empire’s ability to rebuild after losses.

Now for an actual example:

In one game as Sophon, I had the following systems and military around turn 50:

• Aeri (Level 2), 5 planets, 14 pop, 14 resources, 7 buildings

• Izar (Level 2), 3 planets, 2 pop, 7 resources, 4 buildings

• Pavo (Level 2), 4 planets, 8 pop, 6 resources, 9 buildings

• Seginus (Level 2), 3 Planets, 15 pop, 5 resources, 6 buildings

• 1 Combat-scout (628 ind), 1 Accelerator (848 ind), 1 Magnet (728 ind)

• Total industry: 601, dust: 2600, dust income: 541

This gives the following percentage warscore for each

• Aeri: 54/160 = 33.8%

• Izar: 18/160 = 11.2%

• Pavo: 35/160 = 21.9%

• Seginus: 44/160 = 27.5%

• Fleet: 9/160 = 5.6%

Now, let’s say the Cravers decide my weak military makes me the ideal target, jump me, crush my fleet, and take Pavo. That puts them at 27.5% Warscore. Knowing I can not turn the war around quickly enough to survive, I send a truce offer including some luxury resources and most of my dust per turn, for a deal score of 32. He refuses, suffering a 5 point approval penalty across his empire. But knowing I am willing to negotiate, he sends a counter-offer, demanding much of my Titanium. Though the deal is worth only 15 points, my choice is now to hand over the Titanium I need to rebuild, or suffer a 13 point approval penalty across my empire and continuing war.

Advantages:

• increases player agency

• potentially allows wars to enforce treaties

• The game already tracks a warscore of sorts, as seen in the Forced Truth screen

• May tie into laws by altering warscore values of assets or negotiations

Disadvantages:

• Possibly exploitable

• May require interface work to show relevant values to players

• Probably requires substantial AI work

Further considerations:

What value to blockades contribute?

What about destroying trade freighters?

Should the approval penalty be scaled according to the representation of militarists and pacifists in each system?

How would alliances be handled? Can empires be peaced out individually?

How exactly are the values of systems, fleets, and offers calculated?