No. No FIDS penalties. There are enough war related panalties as it is.

Tiavals wrote:
I do think the "multiple penalties" would be an interesting way to go, but it might penalize war far too much. Those penalties will stack and lead to horrible bankrupt situations within a few turns, I would think. You get less FIDS = less dust, an approval penalty means you must lower your tax rate, and a higher upkeep means your money will go out faster.

Of course the numbers can and must be tweaked a bit. But think about WW2, where after "only" 5 years of war, most countries were effectively bankrupt. I personally think that making war expensive, calls for a more strategic and long term thinking game. Than just spam ships at everyone you meet.

Tiavals wrote:
You could of course use the old casus-belli style "choose your wargoals at the start of the war" which you can "cash in" with "war points" you gain from beating the enemy up, but I feel that would make the war in the game far too complicated without adding too much. To me, Endless Space is a very fast based multiplayer 4x that is extremely good, and to slow it down would be a crime.

It wouldn't be slowing it down, more giving a direction to your war, which your opponent could concede. i.e I want this system, that is why I am attacking you, if you give the system to me, the war is over!

Or You have some tech that I want, I will continue to blockage your planets until you give it to me! Etc.

You could of course use the old casus-belli style "choose your wargoals at the start of the war" which you can "cash in" with "war points" you gain from beating the enemy up, but I feel that would make the war in the game far too complicated without adding too much. To me, Endless Space is a very fast based multiplayer 4x that is extremely good, and to slow it down would be a crime.

Just a random point, It's not really a cold war if colonies are being taken.

I like the moral idea, it allows for a way out of wars without total destruction, maybe winning battles increases/decreases moral and once one side's moral is depleted, they must concede defeat and give the winners a concession of some sorts, perhaps agreed apon at the start of the war by both sides.

I THINK IT'S A GOOD IDEA AND I LIKE THAT TOO : "A more complex mechanic would be to add mines, system ships, defensive satellites, Fortress Worlds(exploitation choice) and such to increase passive defense and units that cannot move from one system to another. It would make it possible that an opponent has the power to take one system and keep it, but not advance to the heart of the enemy. And at the same time, the enemy would have the strength to defend, but not to take back the lost system.



Such system defense ships might be dependent on the Influence value of the Colony, meaning that your core worlds and home-world would be better defended than your outer rim colonies by default.



You could also add "logistical" warfare options, like collapsing wormholes, destabilizing hyperspace routes and such.

Some sort of Galactic Council could also exist that makes decisions which alter how well you can engage in War."

CHCK OUT MY IDEAS /#/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13672-some-ideas

The penalty on upkeep might be a good way to go. But if the other side has a huge dust income, he might not care about it, then again it's good that you can wage a big war sometimes.



I do think the "multiple penalties" would be an interesting way to go, but it might penalize war far too much. Those penalties will stack and lead to horrible bankrupt situations within a few turns, I would think. You get less FIDS = less dust, an approval penalty means you must lower your tax rate, and a higher upkeep means your money will go out faster.



Of course, given that at the present it's smarter to just change prod to dust, it's not that bad.

Hey guys, this is a really cool concept and one I think has a lot of potential. Here's the idea I came up with to fix the 'non-consensual' aspect of war economics.



Make the penalty based soley on ship upkeep as previously mentioned. Ships sitting in the hanger have a third of the upkeep of fleets, fleets in the home system have half the upkeep of fleets out and about and fleets in enemy territory have twice the upkeep of standard roaming fleets. Boom. A penalty that applies well to the aggressor without damaging the defender unduly (recognising that the defender didnt ask for conflict).



I also like the initial idea of allowing colonies to be taken and occupied in cold war, it's a cool little twist which promotes realistic skirmishes over neverending meat grinders.

Why simplify the effects of war. What I mean by this is that, of course it should be easy to understand. But spreading the effects over several mechanics prevents people from just stacking that, and then don't care about a 100+ turn war. Therefore as Halken suggest, there are several ways to implement this:

- FIDS penalty.

- Moral penalty (this Cravers could be immune to)

- Upkeep of the ships could go up when you are at war or outside friendly systems. Making defense cheaper than offense.

Mansen wrote:
No. No FIDS penalties. There are enough war related panalties as it is.

I'm not aware of any penalties. Could you clarify? I thought being at war with someone didn't affect anything.

After having played half a dozen multiplayer games with my gaming group, we have come to a conclusion of sorts:



The "Total War" mechanic of the game is unfortunate. What I mean by this is that once you start a war with another player, it will almost surely end only when the other player lies in ashes(barring surprise attacks by other players on both their backs).

I find this mechanic very uninteresting. I yearn for conflicts that are smaller in scale, but much more common.

As it is, most games follow the tendency that all players build themselves up fairly peacefully, until one attacks and the universe is engulfed in a total war to the death.

Fights that are about just one system almost never happen.



That in mind, I have a number of proposals(both easy and simple fixes, and more complicated ones) how to make the gaming experience much more interesting.



Let's start with Cold War.

Now, the concept of Cold War is quite fascinating in the game, but is sadly a pointless thing at the moment.

To make it interesting, we would have to revamp the game concepts of Cold War and Hot/Total War a bit.



What I propose is this:



In a Cold War, you can only go into the Outpost areas of the other players and can capture them. This is pretty much how it is now. However, the difference between Cold War and War is miniscule, in that War doesn't seem to have any drawbacks to it. The only difference is that both sides can advance to the proper territory of the enemy.



This is alright as well, but only if a small change is made to the game.



Each turn 2 civilizations are at War with each other, both sides get a -2% to their FIDS(that stacks). For example, if you've been at Total War for 5 turns, both sides get -10% FIDS.



This is a very harsh penalty, and makes the decision between Cold War and War a much more important one.



However, this is not all. Because of how this works, it practically guarantees the sides will make a peace eventually. After the peace is made, the FIDS penalty goes down at the same rate, +2% FIDS per turn. So it'd take 5 turns to go to the neutral state.(each penalty is tracked seperately and only the largest applies, so if you're at war with 3 enemies, you'll just get the largest penalty)



I feel that such a system(fairly simple in my opinion) would have a massive impact on how the game would be played. No longer would there be an "End crunch" or wars that go on until one side is devastated. Cold War would be common, real Wars would occur sometimes but would be limited in time and scale. No doomsday-scenario where the galaxy is up in flames after some buildup.



Because you know that going to War is a penalty, you would likely fight over the colonies while they are still outposts, so Cold War would be more common as well which is good. Limited scale conflicts are what would make the multiplayer component of the game much more interesting.



Of course, this should be an optional, err, option when you're creating the game. I understand that some people would not like it, so a choice of On-Off would be a good one.





A more complex mechanic would be to add mines, system ships, defensive satellites, Fortress Worlds(exploitation choice) and such to increase passive defense and units that cannot move from one system to another. It would make it possible that an opponent has the power to take one system and keep it, but not advance to the heart of the enemy. And at the same time, the enemy would have the strength to defend, but not to take back the lost system.



Such system defense ships might be dependent on the Influence value of the Colony, meaning that your core worlds and home-world would be better defended than your outer rim colonies by default.



You could also add "logistical" warfare options, like collapsing wormholes, destabilizing hyperspace routes and such.

Some sort of Galactic Council could also exist that makes decisions which alter how well you can engage in War.

It might help if you gave the Cravers a faster recovery from war. Then if they start a new war with the same enemy, it is treated as a new war penalty wise(so it doesn't stack). So if they fought a 10 turn war, then recuperated, but the enemy has minuses left and they attack again, the counter starts from the beginning for both sides(so while the other counter rises due to a new war, the old timer for the penalty continues to drop). This way they may be able to have a fairly continuous war(and thus penalty) for the enemy, but it will likely never be too large since the counter starts over again.



Hmm. Then again, what happens if some people fight for a long time, then make a peace, but the other side immediately attacks again? Would the penalty counter for that war be separate from the first war? If so, that's a loop-hole for avoiding large penalties.

Example: Fight for 5 turns, make peace(FIDS penalty at -10%), then immediately declare war again(thus starting the counter from zero for the new war while the old counter recuperates).



I wonder what would be the best solution to that. Perhaps a nation that breaks the "peace"(while the counter is still recuperating) will get additional penalties?

Example: Fight for 5 turns, make peace(FIDS penalty at -10%), then immediately declare war again(The attacker would start at the old penalty(that is -10%) while the defender would start from 0% for the new war). So 3 turns later the attacker would have -16% while the defender would have -6%(regarding the new war).



But that would also influence how the Cravers worked if they recuperated faster, since they could abuse it more easily than others, supposing they reach 0% while the enemy is still at -20%. Perhaps the penalty for attacking before the other is at peace should be the same as the enemy has? (So the Cravers couldn't attack the same enemy too many times in a row. They could attack one nation, then recuperate, and attack another while waiting for the original enemy to recuperate from the war. So they'd attack other factions back and forth, being able to withstand wars better than others so long as they make peace every now and then.)

Good point. War is not consensual, so you can't have one faction less effected, or they will never agree to a cease fire. It must be equally detrimental to both.

The problem with the Cravers(for example) getting less penalties is that they might declare war against every player, thus crippling all of them while being fairly safe themselves. Declare war against everyone, and 25 turns later they'll have -50% to everything while the Cravers just have -25%. Might be problematic and easy to abuse.

This is not a bad idea. I like that it penalizes long wars, and is realistic (war fatigue is common in RL). It has also worked well in Civ games. I would suggest a few changes:

* FIDS is one option, moral could be another to consider. Moral seems to fit better and leads to the same end result of -FIDS (the people don't like prolonged wars), (sometimes war can actually increase productivity, not decrease it - like US in WWII)

* Need to cap penalty at some level (i.e. -50% max). You obviously don't want negative FIDS/moral.

* It should come down much faster than it goes up. Once the war is over, people usually get back to their lives and the reconstruction effort pretty quickly. In Civ I think it was instant once war ended. I would suggest at least double or tripple the rate of increase. If you stuck it out stubbornly for a 30+ turn war, do you really want the effects to be there 30 years into the peace?

* Reducing (or eliminating) this penalty for some warmonger faction like Cravers, as TheManInRoomFive suggested, is a good idea.

Or maybe the upkeep of the ships could go up when you are at war or outside friendly systems. You could garrison your own planets cheaply and if the upkeep costs would be high enough, most wars would be short, focusing on 1 or 2 systems. A Medieval Total War 2 mod Stainless Steel had similar solution and I liked quite much, but adapting it to 4X game is an another matter.

Your first idea is very good. As for the Craver issue, well they can be in a cold war state. Besides, one could say that they should only get 1% penalty, in comparison to the 2% proposed. I certainly like, and support, your attempt to create a more skirmish like warfare.

Maybe total war could be another game state on top of cold-war=>war=>Total war? giving a bonus for a short time but then an even greater penalty later on?

Tiavals wrote:


This is alright as well, but only if a small change is made to the game.



Each turn 2 civilizations are at War with each other, both sides get a -2% to their FIDS(that stacks). For example, if you've been at Total War for 5 turns, both sides get -10% FIDS.



This is a very harsh penalty, and makes the decision between Cold War and War a much more important one.

Problem: Craver. They cannot be at peace as per the game rules.