Hey guys,



I thought the game should make use of empire leaders, the guys in the portraits.



Here's a simple proposal surrounding the assassination game play:



1. You have the option to hide your leader at all times, so he/she cannot be assassinated. However, making public appearances at any system provides a faction-specific empire-wide bonus. The leader can move around systems or be reassigned at any time. The public appearance location will be live-fed to any empire that had explored that location before.



2. During public appearances, a leader is vulnerable to assassination attempts by other empires; assassination can be done by assassin heroes that can be "assigned" to a system. The assassin must be planted before the public appearance of the leader is triggered. The success of assassination depends on a series of "battle" cards that will be played over two phases: The Event Phase (guns fired) --> The Chase Phase (the assassin leaves the system). Advanced cards must be researched, and the party with better cards will succeed, resulting in either successful or failed assassination. Depending on the cards played, even a successful assassination could result in the identification of the culprit empire. However, a failed assassination could still hide the culprit empire's identity if an appropriate card was played without facing its counter.



3. Upon losing your leader, the bonus the leader was providing to the empire becomes a negative penalty for 50 turns. The next leader with the same bonus will be born in 50 turns as well. Horatio can clone the leader once to serve as a double, but the double provides bonus at X 0.5 and cannot make public appearances at the same time as the original leader. The death of the double incurs no penalty to the empire.



4. Even empires at peace can assassinate your leader.



5. Leaders from empires at peace can choose to meet for a summit at a particular system owned by one of participating empires. The summit tech must be researched by the hosting empire and a meeting lasts max 15 turns and a leader can quit it any time. Simply assign your leader to the system for the meeting. Empires that attend the same summit receive participating leaders' bonuses. The hosting empire receives X 4 bonuses. If Horatio sent a double, the double provides other empires the original leader's bonus (X 1), but the original cannot make any public appearance anywhere during the duration of the summit. Also, the double only receives X 0.5 of other leaders' bonuses. If the original attends the summit, the double still cannot make public appearances anywhere during the duration of the summit.



6. Summits can be public appearances (x 1 bonus) or behind doors (X 0.5 bonus). If behind doors, non-participating empires cannot assassinate. Otherwise, the summit location is live-fed to others that had explored that system before, and a non-participating empire can kill one leader per summit (once again, "battle cards" will be played between the two involved parties). The public appearance rule for Horatio applies to the both types of the summit.



7. Participating empires can assassinate other participating leaders (choose your target, you can kill only one per summit), but because this is a summit, the death of the other leader incurs a penalty associated with that leader's death to everyone who attended the summit, and at X 2. The penalty lasts 50 turns while the culprit empire will recover in only 25 turns. The hosting nation receives X 4 penalty (2 X 50 = 4 X 25; therefore the hosting nation still receives the same amount of penalty as other innocent empires even if it were the culprit. So if any assassination occurs during summit, you can probably rule the hosting empire out of the suspect list).



8. During a war (not cold war), your leader can take refuge in a friendly empire's system with their permission. During the refuge, the leader provides X 2 bonus to the hosting empire.



9. The identified culprit empire will lose all trades for 50 turns (however, trading partners will still receive goods). If Eternal War and/or Blockade Breakers are in effect, there is no penalty.



Basically, it's hard to get assassinated as long as you have good cards against assassination. But, it won't hurt to have smaller summits with those you trust. Avoid those with Blockade Breakers, and if you are the assassin, feel free to shift blame on anyone with EW and/or BB, assuming you weren't identified!



Foxx

I like the idea, which would add some more depth to the game. But if you're going to have leaders at all, (imo) they should give empire wide bonuses and negate some stuff (Sheredyn leader gives +2 ship xp but -10% science or something like that).



And for 8. the emperor being away should cause unhappiness and -x% FIDS



Just some ideas

T41 wrote:
I like the idea, which would add some more depth to the game. But if you're going to have leaders at all, (imo) they should give empire wide bonuses and negate some stuff (Sheredyn leader gives +2 ship xp but -10% science or something like that).



And for 8. the emperor being away should cause unhappiness and -x% FIDS



Just some ideas

Good idea. I think the negative trait of the leader you mentioned should be something small, but still provides some relief to the empire if the leader dies.



I think emperor's absence during refuge should affect the approval rate only, since that will automatically affect FIDS anyway.