Should've read this before making my last post, sorry about that.



Either way, it looks like alot of practice time has been spent on some quality 4x's in the past, and it looks like you've got a firm handle on how this sort of thing should go.

SpaceTroll wrote:
We want the player to feel that there are a lot of things to do out there without there actually being that much to do.

There, I fixed it for you.

slkslk wrote:
[...] and i felt that science is too quick to archive. [...] Does anyone agrees with my opinion?

As it is now, everything in the game is very fast. I've been playing on huge galaxies with as few star connections as possible, but I still feel the game pace is very, very fast, especially since the way it is now that the one that manages to colonise most systems fastest will win the game.

Usually by turn 200 I have 30+ systems, am more than halfway through all the tech trees, I can colonise every planet type and I can make dreadnoughts.

I played a little, about 80 turns, 2 games, 2 races, slow pace, and i felt that science is too quick to archive. Most discovers i ignored because production pace is slower... I like very long games, chess like style, where is needed several battles to conquer a system. Right now, i felt my games like counter-clock ones. Does anyone agrees with my opinion?

Forgive me if this was asked before, but is economic management monolithic for all races? For example, would an economy work differently if a race had a hive mind, didn’t require food (e.g. robots), employs slavery, didn't use money, uses telepathy, uses caste structures, etc…

Hi all,



During my reading of the posts of "Spacetroll", I have seen many times that the actions will take times (construction, colonization, invasion). Is it possible to have more info on this?

Will we really have to make choice due to the time required to construct ships?



For example in a really old game "SW rebellion", the construction time required for a star destroyer was really long and resources hungry. So from the start, we had to make a choice because this had a big impact on the development and tactics used by the empire. On the other hand, spying was here to help to make decision.



Will endless space be close to this kind of things?

In the future, will the dust cost vary in function of the ship constructed?

aReclusiveMind wrote:
I haven't played Shogun 2, but I've never been that impressed with the Total War series on the diplomatic side.

I've never been impressed with the Total War series' AI not only on the diplomatic side but on all sides.

Ashbery76 wrote:
I dislike this happening as it is artificial and ruins game stories.Shogun2 had a similar system called realm divide and it generally pissed people off because you had vassels and alliances you made in the whole game just suddenly change due to a game factor and it ruined your personal game story.I would prefer other ways to penalise aggressive or expansive players like stablity,internal issues and general empire inefficiency

I don't think they intend for your allies to suddenly up and drop their relationship with you. That would be pretty unrealistic unless you were a complete tyrant or changed your politics wildly. Of course, if your allies race was known to be the backstabbing or selfish type it should be expected as well. In that situation, I'd say you are making a deal with the devil and should expect to get burned, sooner or later. I think the intent is for individual races that maybe are neutral or enemies of yours to start conversations with one another and realize that while they keep bickering with one another, they are letting you dominate the galaxy. If you look at ancient wars in world history, it is not uncommon for people from different nations and backgrounds to come together to form a combined defense. I don't think it is a stretch to think that alien races could do the same. That is assuming of course they can communicate with one another.



Being able to manipulate the AI diplomatically without consequence makes the mid to end game very boring in 4x games. Maybe allow that in the easiest modes, but harder modes should allow the AI to realize what is going on. If my power rate compared to them has grown exponentially, they should get concerned. I haven't played Shogun 2, but I've never been that impressed with the Total War series on the diplomatic side.

Ashbery76 wrote:
I dislike this happening as it is artificial and ruins game stories.Shogun2 had a similar system called realm divide and it generally pissed people off because you had vassels and alliances you made in the whole game just suddenly change due to a game factor and it ruined your personal game story.I would prefer other ways to penalise aggressive or expansive players like stablity,internal issues and general empire inefficiency

We are not sure how Fear is generated, so for example to avoid what you said, Fear level could increase more slowly for allies compared to neutrals. This could ensure that you will not be fighting against everybody, at least not at the same time. You will have enough time to deal with some of the enemies, before your allies go to war against you.

aReclusiveMind wrote:
From Overcolonization:



"An alliance with most of the remaining Factions would form against that player

In case that wouldn’t be enough, we can play on existing factors"

I dislike this happening as it is artificial and ruins game stories.Shogun2 had a similar system called realm divide and it generally pissed people off because you had vassels and alliances you made in the whole game just suddenly change due to a game factor and it ruined your personal game story.I would prefer other ways to penalise aggressive or expansive players like stablity,internal issues and general empire inefficiency

When a construction is finished, any remaining Industry points are stored for the next construction (up to 1 or 2 turns worth of industry points).

I do love this. It avoids the fact than a non-construction oriented system can be able to build something big by waiting, which is unlogical.

SpaceTroll wrote:
If the Invasion is a success, the planet’s population may still have local fights that affect the planet’s Approval factor. However, little by little the new owner’s population will replace the old one.

Will there be a way to get strong rebels ? Guerilla is a strong way to deny legitimity. There are some real world example of military victory that lead to defeat in the end because population never stop claiming they wouldn't accept the invaders.

From Overcolonization:



"An alliance with most of the remaining Factions would form against that player

In case that wouldn’t be enough, we can play on existing factors"



"Fear: if a Faction has more solar systems than others, they will increase their Fear level. At a certain level, all the Empires with Fear toward the same player will try to make an Alliance against that Empire"





Those are my favorite lines in this whole discussion. Please make these happen! I would love to see the AI be smart enough to realize the player, or even another AI, is a legitimate threat.

SpaceTroll wrote:


Temples are well-hidden; the player will have to organize a moon survey party on each moon to find out if it contains a Temple or not. A moon survey can’t fail: if no Temple has been found, there will never be one.

I got my survey party all prepped and ready to go sir!

Not sure if this could be helpful or not, but perhaps you could make it so that you spend twice as much dust to rush-build anything that isn't at least 10% complete, meaning if it takes perhaps 20 weeks to build something but only 1 week has passed, the dust required to rush-build is greatly increased...maybe double or more of the exponential amount, but if it's at 3 weeks done, the cost reverts to the normal exponential cost.

Sounds like this game is going to make me feel like God, but I don't mind that, I would love to control the lives of billions of people, and when the game is finished I'll finally be able to.

Introduction



From the planet to the galaxy, there can be a million things to manage. We want the player to feel that there are a lot of things to do out there without being overwhelmed by that potential.

The player should easily understand the impact of each decision they may take.

Star Empire’s economy system will be kept simple:

• A Planet has its production rates and population;

• A Solar System can increase all its Planets’ factors through System Improvements, Trade, and other bonuses;

• An Empire will have an impact on all its Solar Systems through its Tax Rate, Diplomacy and Luxuries.







Parameters and production

The most basic units of the economy are FIDS: Food, Industry, Dust and Science. Each planet produces all 4 of them. Bonuses and maluses (penalties) that affect these units include Anomalies and Strategic and Luxury Resources. Together these elements determine the Base production of the planet.

Next we take into account the population. To make it simple, each “population point” will produce that base FIDS, acting as a multiplier. The population capacity of a planet is determined by its Size.

Each planet will also have an Approval level that can be altered by some bonuses, but doesn′t depend on population number.

A planet’s production can be adjusted by making a Planetary Improvement that affects one of the basic units (F-I-D-S). This Improvement can be changed whenever the player needs it. However, only one FIDS type can be improved on a planet. If the FIDS type of the Planetary Improvement is changed (e.g. from Food to Industry), the previous Planetary Improvement is lost/removed.



There are also System Improvements which can boost all the planets at the same time, with a slight upkeep cost that will make the player choose to establish only the most useful improvements.

Moon Temples, Administrator Heroes, Trade routes and the population’s Approval may add some more system-scale bonuses:

• Moon temples are random and have to be discovered

• Administrators will have to be hired and gain experience

• Trade routes require knowledge about peaceful opponents' Solar Systems as well as certain System Improvements

• Approval bonuses depend on the base planet’s Approval, Improvements and Tax Rate

Finally, all the player’s Solar Systems can be boosted by Empire-scale bonuses like Luxury and the Empire Approval coming from Tax Rate.

Speaking of Heroes... what is the time scale of this game?



It would seem flying between stars would take quite a while (or are we bucking Einstein w FTL speeds?)...



For the Human types at least it would seem it would take a while to take over an entire galaxy. Do Heroes age? Die of old age, disease, wife sticking a laser cutter in his neck cause of the blue-skinned mistress?

It seems that after playing this game you would be able to run a small country merely from your experience. Is a Bachelor's Degree in Political Science necessary before purchase of the game?

read ALL of it looks good cant wait for beta!

I was wondering how you intend to introduce the players to the economy, I ask this because I consistently find myself ignoring the tutorials in most 4X games because of all the boring parts of the tutorial. If you can find a way to introduce players to the economy through small missions (not just tutorial text) I think that you can keep up their attention while introducing them to something that I consider extremely vital to the game.

That is an impressive list!



One of the hardest balances to strike for any developer is the game economy - too simple and it feels like a disconnected afterthought, too complex and it can de-rail the whole gaming experience.



Have you considered a private economy? Instead of running around creating multiple freighters and then manually set their trading routes etc, it could play out as an a.i. natural progression as your planets evolve. For example, if you start off in a system of 6 planets and colonise an additional 2, then the a.i. will beginning shipping new colonists, materials etc from your more advanced homeworld to the new outposts automatically - slowly at first though, as it would represent the 'real world' pain of getting people and materials to distant, uncivilized areas. As the colonies evolve, freight traffic increases automatically and it assists in providing a real feel that there is a living economy at play with an element that you don't have direct control over.



Imagine the player on the edge of their seat, having just colonized a critical borderworld close to another empire, only to find the build up of materials for defenses etc being delayed by a lack of freighters - due to the area being a new territory. It would mean the player would need to actually assign a defense fleet to protect both the trade route and the colony from attack while being constructed, which in turn would stop players from running rampart across the galaxy overwhelming the opposing a.i. or other players - it would cause them to strategically plan their next expanision and ensure they could spare the defenses from their inner systems to protect the outlying territories.



Giving the a.i. control over the private sector would also allow it to create it's own traderoutes between colonies and trading partners - so while you're happily scrolling around the screen looking at your empire, you'll see freighters beginning to form trade lanes automatically over time. Other than allowing you to visually see the amount of real time traffic and supply/demand between colonies, it would also allow the opposing a.i and players to determine the best places for potential pirating raids to disrupt essential supplies or create a physical trade embargo (there is no worse feeling than having an essential borderworld suddenly cut off from the materials need for defense, because the trade lane has been compromised elsewhere away from the system). It's a real world way of crippling your opponent prior to launching a full scale offensive - plus it forces the player to redirect or split the defense fleet(s) away from the planet to restore the trade lane, thus weakening their defensive position.



I hope some of the above may give you some additional thoughts



Jase.

Heroes

A Hero can be assigned to a system as Governor to boost its production and/or defenses.

Cf. Hero document for more details.



End of Turn

When every player validated the end of turn, we can calculate:

• Economic factors

• Automatic Fleet moves in warps or free space

Tax rate and Approval are already modified during the player’s turn.

Fleet Movements are instantaneous when the player gives an order to its fleet, then automatic fleet moves will be done at the end of each turn (travel between stars). When a fleet just arrived at its destination star, remaining movement points can still be spent during the new player turn.





Empire management screen



Rationale

From there, the player will have access to the most important information of each of his systems.

He can compare each system’s FIDS production in just one look, and see which ones are not constructing, striking or lacking population, and even if ships are still waiting in hangars.



Everything affecting directly Planets and Systems production should be on the same screen: Luxury bonuses, short-term bonuses (may have common displayed elements with diplomacy screen).

Tax rate is also concerned, as changing its rate will change approval in all the player’s systems.

Cf. Empire Management doc for more details.

Planet side

Planetary improvements



As the player will already have to manage dozens of solar systems and hundreds of planets, we can’t ask him to supervise the construction of numerous buildings on each planet. Instead, the player will give a “direction” for the planet to take in the form of a Planetary Improvement.

Each of the Planetary Improvements will give a planet-scale bonus in one of the FIDS, with the bonus varying depending on the planet type. Establishing a new Improvement on a planet will replace the old one.

Each type of Planetary Improvement has its use at some point in the game. Though the number of Planetary Improvements are limited, players might still want to change them at strategic moments to make better use of their planets’ production.

If there already was a Planetary Improvement in place, the new one will replace the old one only when the construction is completed (its bonuses are still in effect during the construction).



Moon survey party



Moons aren’t really useful. It costs too much Dust to try to extract materials from them, and those types of resources can be found on planets.

But the Endless, due to a strict policy of non-interference in planetary ecology, installed Temples beneath the surfaces of some Moons in the galaxy. The technology within those temples or the knowledge stored in it can help the player’s entire faction, often in a unique way.

Temples are well-hidden; the player will have to organize a moon survey party on each moon to find out if it contains a Temple or not. A moon survey can’t fail: if no Temple has been found, there will never be one.

When a Temple is found, its bonus is activated and will remain active as long as the player controls that system.

Temple bonuses are system-scale, and may have various special effects that can boost the System’s production, protection, expansion and even movement within its borders.

Some System improvements may depend on its number of Moons.

 

Colonization

A colonization base is the only construction available on uninhabited planets in an already colonized system. When completed, it will have the same effects as if the planet was colonized by a Colonization Ship.



Terraforming

Terraforming will change the planet type when completed. It will not erase the Planetary Improvement if there is one.



Anomaly Reduction

Anomaly reduction will erase the Anomaly of the planet, or replace it with a new, better version of that anomaly. Anomaly Reduction will not erase the actual Planetary Improvement if there is one.





System side



System improvements



These improvements are like “objectives” given to a solar system, and they will alter living conditions on each planet (even if it is colonized after the establishment of a System improvement).

This way, each planet can potentially have many bonuses without having to construct many times on each of them. It will also encourage the player to construct improvements that will give a useful bonus to each planet of the system.

System Improvements will give all kinds of system-scale bonuses. Some of them will have an upkeep cost, reducing the Dust FIDS gain per turn, but the bonus will be accordingly higher.

A player can establish as many improvements as they want, but some of them might be less useful than others and not interesting enough based on the upkeep cost (it depends on the system). Therefore, building every improvement thoughtlessly won’t work out well.

Bonus types:

• Same as planetary improvements but at a system’s scale

• Depending on the number of moons



Ship construction

Ship Designs must be created before construction. The player can see all of his Ship Designs in the construction list. 





Trading



Peace has one advantage: It encourages economic cooperation between empires, and Trade is the main tool to represent that. The longer the player is at peace, the better he’ll know the friendly empire. Therefore, the better the player will be at trading and making Dust each turn. And Dust is power.

Trade only works with foreign empires, not between the player’s own star systems (Tax Rate plays this role already).

Trade is considered from two different points of view that we’ll describe below:

• Trade routes (automatic)

• Diplomacy (player vs opponent)



Trade routes

Cf. Trade Routes Thread (coming later)



Trading in Diplomacy

When negotiating with other Empires, many different things can be exchanged. Most of them have a direct impact on the economy, but others are more subtle:

• Dust

• Resources (Strategic and Luxury)

• Solar Systems

• Technologies

• Maps

Cf. Diplomacy Thread (coming later)

Overcolonization



If there is no form of limitation or constraint, a player might obtain too many planets compared to his opponents -- who would have no chance to compete on the same level. Therefore, we may need to add some special rules to avoid those problems. However, this may not be necessary if the existing rules can already do that job:

• If someone expands too much, he may not have enough ships prepared for defense, and a war would be devastating if it occurs quickly

• An alliance with most of the remaining Factions would form against that player

In case that wouldn’t be enough, we can play on existing factors:

• Solar System upkeep cost (the more the player has, the more they pay)

• Exponential loss of Approval with the number of systems (forcing the player to lower the Tax Rate to 0%, but then no player would ever use the 100% Tax Rate)

We could add new elements:

• Loyalty: loss of FIDS, Approval, Food stock needed for new population point, depending on distance from the Empire's center

• Colony limitation: can’t have more than 1 outpost at the same time (a newly made colony joins the player’s Empire only after a population point has been earned)

• Fear: if a Faction has more solar systems than others, they will increase their Fear level. At a certain level, all the Empires with Fear toward the same player will try to make an Alliance against that Empire



For now:

• Outposts’ ownership will start at 50%, creating a loss of Approval, slowly regained each turn

• Outposts that aren’t already inside the player frontiers will be considered as foreign territories, thus will cost more Dust.

• A larger number of systems will create more local disapproval, forcing players to improve their systems before colonizing too many new ones. Otherwise, they will have to lower the Tax Rate too much.

(Cf. “Preventing infinite expansion” document for more recent info)

 

Construction

Each construction element has a cost in Industry points.

When a construction is started, a system's Industry points are added to that construction each turn. When the industry point stock reaches or exceeds the needed Industry points, the construction is finished.

There can be only one construction at a time in a Solar System.



Construction queue



There are moments in the game when a player knows exactly what elements he wants to build and in what order.

As the player has to rule over many systems and planets, we don’t want them to have to constantly rethink simple construction needs. For those cases, we need a construction queue.

The System construction queue will be the same for all construction types: Planetary & System Improvements, local system colonization, terraforming, Moon Survey party and ship construction.



Construction funding



Dust can buy many things. By adding extra Dust when building a construction, the system will find a way to build it faster (generally because Dust will find a way to network, organize, and improve the project).

This is the only way in the game to change Dust into industry points.

At any time in the game, the player can spend Dust to speed up a construction. This will be very useful for building additional ships in times of war, especially if enemy fleets are approaching the player’s frontiers.

A construction that is funded by a player will be available the next turn. But that doesn’t mean you can pop full Fleets out of thin air: construction funding will have an exponential Dust cost depending on the remaining Industry points needed.

Empire expansion



Colonization



Colonizing a Class I planet should be easy; living conditions are almost perfect. But trying to colonize a Class IV planet with toxic air, or Barren planets / asteroids with no atmosphere at all, would be a waste of time without help from nearby higher planet classes.

We want the players to colonize the galaxy in a specific order: At first, without advanced technologies, players would be able to colonize only Class I and II planets. They would then be able to colonize the other Classes, but those planets wouldn’t always be interesting. Finally, with appropriate technologies, even those planets would become more and more profitable.



There are two ways to colonize a planet:

• Using a ship equipped with Colony Module, positioned at the desired neutral solar system, and selecting a colonizable planet

• Colonizing another planet in a system already under the player’s control by making a “colonize” Planetary Improvement.



 

Making an outpost in a new system



Colonizing a first planet in a new system provides a very low production rate compared to systems that already have colonized planets with Improvements. But if money flows in an Empire, the player can make an Outpost very productive in a relatively short time. Even poorer Empires, given more time, will be able to make successful colonies.

When creating a colony, the Colonization ship will be scrapped to create an Outpost base, providing at least enough Food and Industry for the new inhabitants to start their new life.

But Outposts will usually be founded in neutral territory: it won’t be safe nor will it be recognized by other Empires until that outpost becomes a full-grown colony, capable to defend itself.



To colonize a planet, a player needs at minimum a fleet containing at least 1 ship with a colonization module (the colonization module should have a weight of 100% the maximum weight of a small ship).

When a fleet containing at least 1 colonization mod wants to colonize a planet:

• the colonization ship in the worst state (HP) disappears

• population is set to 1 on the colonized planet

• a colony base will be built automatically, giving small food and industry boosts (just enough to keep that 1 pop alive and active even on the worst planet)





Colony Evolution



Outpost

If the player colonizes a new solar system, that system will be an “outpost”, and not considered as part of the player’s Empire until being Rightful owner (100% ownership; starts at 50% when colonized).

Outposts don’t create frontiers (outside their orbit, they are blind).

Any opponent in Cold War with the colonizing player who passes by can attack that colony without changing status to War (as long as that Outpost isn’t inside the player's frontiers by some other means).



Colony

The colony is the next step after the outpost. It will create frontiers, and any attack on it will be considered as a declaration of war. Enemies won’t be able to travel between player colonies if there are player fleets defending them.

At this point a provincial Solar System becomes part of your homeland; it is considered part of your civilization and its citizens would rather die than let anyone else claim it.



Invasion



This is the last resort to deal with an opposing player. It has the biggest impact on the Empires involved in it.. With surgical hits all ground units can be wiped out, but it's not always fast...

Though ships are supposed to do the entire “protection job”, some Factions may decide to overprotect certain Solar Systems with shields, artillery, additional ships and even mercenaries.

But if a system sits without any fleet protection, an opponent can start an Invasion.

Invasion takes many turns. With spaceships against ground troops, it’s only a matter of time before the planet is conquered; the defenders can only hope it will last long enough for reinforcements to come in the form of new battle fleets who drive away the invaders.

If the Invasion is a success, the planet’s population may still have local fights that affect the planet’s Approval factor. However, little by little the new owner’s population will replace the old one.

Anomalies



Planets with similar compositions can be made more or less interesting to colonize due to the availability of basic resources or to its flora, local life forms, or other unique phenomena.

In Endless Space, Anomalies will change the interest of each Planet Type in FIDS, population cap and Approval, thus creating a great difference even between two planets of the same Type and Size.

This helps to make all the planets unique and interesting, so that when a player selects one of their Solar Systems they immediately recognize which one it is.



The purpose of Anomalies is to alter the base factors of a planet. They may double the base production of one of the FIDS or lower it to 0. Most of the anomalies give only bonuses, though some rare anomalies give bonuses and maluses at the same time.

“Bad” anomalies won’t make a planet completely uninteresting, but will make the player think twice before colonizing a planet which would be great otherwise. There will be technologies that can counter those negative factors by suppressing the anomaly or its effects.

We want the planets with higher Classes to be always great, so they will have only rare “bad” anomalies, whereas Class IV planets will have the most negative factors. Class V planets can’t be terraformed and already have low factors in 3 of the 4 FIDS, so they’ll seldom have negative anomalies.

Each planet favors one or two of the FIDS; Anomalies will also reflect that by having a higher probability to boost favored FIDS.

The same Anomaly can be found on different Planet Types, but not with the same probabilities.



 

Resources



Some planets may hold precious resources without anyone being aware; with the proper science level a useless material can become a Strategic Resource.

Researchers may find that a resource is useful before knowing how to use it.

Some resources may become useful for war, others may improve quality of life.

With this in mind, we want the players to make a run for those resources, and even be ready to wage wars to obtain a single resource deposit if it is the only one known in the galaxy.

There are two types of resources: Strategic and Luxury.

Each resource will only add bonuses, never any malus. The same resource can be found on nearly all Planet Types (average: found on 9 of the 13 planet types), although only a few Planet Types may have greater deposit sizes.

There can be only one Resource per planet. It could also be too imbalanced to have the possibility of more than 6 resources per solar system. The Resource deposit may contain one to three deposit points, so a player would need 2 to 4 planets with the same resource to gain its major bonus.

On Tiny maps, there will be at least 2 or 3 resources per solar system, whereas on normal maps there might be systems without any resource at all.





Strategic resources

Having the right strategic resource at the right time will allow better module construction and give an advantage in combat. An adversary possessing more Strategic Resources than the player shouldn’t be treated lightly.

Strategic Resources will add bonuses to Science and Industry, and allow specific constructions (Planetary / System Improvements, Ship Modules). Having more than 1 deposit point of that resource will lower the construction cost (in Industry points) of all the elements needing that resource. Having 4 deposit points of that resource will greatly reduce those costs.





Luxury resources

These resources are rather rare in the universe, but can have a great impact on the player’s entire empire.

Luxuries will add bonuses to Food, Dust and Approval, and give a slight Empire bonus for each deposit point.

Having 4 deposit points of the same Luxury resource will give a “monopoly” of that resource to that player as well as giving a greater Empire bonus, an additional Trade Route in the player’s systems having that Resource, and the restriction that no other race can have that same bonus unless that monopoly is lost.

Resource Production



Planet production



With Terraforming, we wanted the player to be able to transform Huge Class IV planets into Class I planets, so they can have better production with bigger planets (more population). As Class V planets can’t be terraformed, they had to be useful even without those modifications.

Thus, Class I and Class V planets will have the best bonuses in FIDS, but Class V planets will have no Food, so the player will have to increase the solar system’s population with other planets before colonizing Class V ones. The same condition exists for Approval.



Class II to IV planets should be slightly less interesting in population cap, FIDS and Approval, but have bigger planets so they can become more interesting when terraformed.

Thanks to our Terraforming system, we don’t have lower Class planets that are simply “worse versions” of upper Class planets; they all have their unique identities and production parameters.Each of the 3 starting planets must provide good capabilities to expand an empire, but with different styles.

• Terran: With the best Dust factor, population on these planets compensate its weakness in Science and Industry with more Construction boosts.

• Jungle: With the best Industry factor, Empires starting on Jungle planets can construct and expand faster.

• Ocean: With the best Science factor, an Ocean planet gives its owner a technological advantage, but it will take more time to put that technology to use.

Approval



A population′s living conditions will affect their Approval of the systems they live in and in turn system Approval will influence the whole Empire Approval.

The player should care about their people: each decision they make is for their subjects… or at least it will have an impact on them. Even if their subjects are obedient beings, like clones and robots, the player can’t take away all of their Dust without consequences.

As space travel becomes commonplace, working on a planet with difficult living conditions can be mitigated by Planetary or System Improvements, or just by having better planets nearby.

Approval is a simple representation of your popular support. Approval is affected by each planet′s living conditions (Planet Type, Anomalies, Luxuries…) and by the Empire Tax Rate, but not boosted by the actual population number.

Approval is determined for each solar system, and also as a global factor. These two will have different impacts on the gameplay. Unlike FIDS, Approval can be negative on a Planet.



System approval

The System Approval depends mainly on its planets’ base living conditions. Higher Planet Classes will have a better Approval, and some Anomalies and Luxury Resources will increase Approval.

Without enough Approval and a high Tax Rate, a player′s population might go on strike. In that case, FIDS production will be close to zero. When a player has many systems to manage, this situation may re-occur in a few of them. The player should be aware that they may need to lower the Tax Rate for short periods, earning some time to gain adequate Approval (e.g. by building improvements).



The player should make sure that the first colonized planet has positive Approval. If not, the player may have to lower their Tax Rate while they improve global living conditions in that Solar System.



Overpopulation malus

This factor is mainly affected by the Difficulty level.



When a system has many people in it, they tend to disapprove of over-development and would prefer to stop immigration. If population rate gets higher and higher, Approval will fall.



 

Empire approval



Even populations on Strike in a Solar System, hating the living conditions, may approve the way their Empire is ruling.

In the same way, people living on a paradise world might rebel if they feel the Empire is going the wrong way.

A rebellion is never good; the player’s Empire may shatter and create many new small Empires.



Fervent people will be more inclined to work hard, on planets as well as in battle. But if the Empire Approval drops too low, there will be the potential for Rebellion.





Rebellion [notactivefornow]

In a state of Rebellion population will start to leave your Empire; all Food values will be equal to 0.

This will eventually decrease the Approval malus caused by overpopulation, thus leading to the end of the Rebellion.

If at least one System is on strike during Rebellion, then one Improvement will be destroyed each turn, starting with the least expensive in Industry cost, on the System with the lowest Approval.

Food

Rationale

Food is more a representation of population growth than of food being eaten by the population. As a result, it also reflects other factors like immigration.



Food is consumed by the system’s population; each surplus will contribute to population increase, so Food shows the rate at which a system’s population can grow. It can easily be boosted by Planetary and some System Improvements.



The population needs a certain amount of Food points to stay in the solar system. The amount of Food stock needed depends on the actual population number.

• If the Food stock is lower than that amount, then the player will lose 1 population.

• If the Food stock is higher than the next needed amount, he will gain 1 pop.

Populations eat Food points every turn, and surplus Food will be added to the stock. The more population the player has, the more Food they will need, exponentially. If there is not enough Food production, then missing Food points will be withdrawn from Food stock.

A newly colonized system starts with 1 population point and its Food begins at 50% of the Food points needed to obtain the next population point.

Food can’t be exported or imported from one system to another. System Improvements can replace this trade in terms of Food bonuses.

 



Industry

Rationale

This parameter represents all construction capacity of the Solar System. Instead of having slow production on many planets, this will allow one fast construction per system.



Populations in each system will create industry points that can be used to create buildings or ships, or execute other actions (colonization of other planets in the system, terraforming, ...). Each element the player can construct has a cost in Industry points.



Only 1 “construction” can be made at the same time in a Solar System.

When a construction is finished, any remaining Industry points are stored for the next construction (up to 1 or 2 turns worth of industry points).



 

Dust

Rationale

The currency in Endless Space is Dust. As Dust can only be activated by some rare Heroes, Dust is inert and harmless for the rest of the population. This allows us to use Dust for everything that can be bought or spent, even for Hero powers, instead of using another money parameter that would act as “Mana” or “Energy” in other games.



Once gathered, Dust will be global for the Faction, in a sort of “Dust budget”.

Each planet can generate Dust based on its type, Anomalies, Luxuries, and Planetary and System Improvements, but financial revenues will come mainly from Trade and the Tax Rate.

Planetary and System Improvements may have an upkeep cost. As a result, a Solar System may very well cost Dust to the player instead of earning it. This is the only way for a FIDS to become negative at the Solar System level.

Dust can be accumulated, traded, exchanged by Diplomacy, and can boost other Empire elements (construction, Science, Approval).

As Dust is also Power, it will be spent for each activation of a hero’s Dust Power.

System Trading bonus and Trading routes will be described further below.



 

Lack of Dust

If an Empire′s Dust will become negative in the next turn, the player receives a warning.

There are 3 ways to reduce upkeep costs:

Tax

• Increase Tax Rate (best way: major gain of Dust, but loss of Approval)

Ships

• Merge Fleets (lower upkeep cost per fleet)

• Engage in battles in which ships will be lost, then merge fleets

• Store ships in hangars instead of making fleets

(a gain only if the fleet had few ships or if the player has many fleets)

• Dismantle ships stored in hangars (+1 Dust per turn for each dismantled ship)

Colonization

• Colonize a planet with at least 1 Base Dust production

Planetary and System Improvements

• Dismantle improvements with upkeep cost (small gain per improvement)

Heroes

• Discharge Heroes

If the player doesn′t solve the Dust problem by themselves, the IA will dismantle first Fleets, then ships and Improvements, until the Dust gain is brought back to a state where next turn’s Dust will either be positive or zero.





Spending Dust

Dust can be spent actively by the player for:

• Instant construction

• Instant technology discovery

• Hiring Heroes

• Hero Dust Action in a battle

• Diplomacy exchanges



 

Science

Rationale

This factor will be global: each system will combine their efforts on the same Research subject, as each of them will benefit instantly from the results of a discovery.



Science is primarily boosted by Planetary and System Improvements. Each System’s Science is added each turn to the Empire′s ongoing research.

Science cannot be traded, and can only be spent each turn to research a technology.

If no technologies are currently being researched, or if a technology has just been discovered, extra points are stored to be used for the next research (up to 1 or 2 turns worth of science points).

Economy parameters

Rationale

With so many planets, there could be tons of economic parameters for the player to juggle with. We don’t want that; we don’t want to lose the player in too complex an economy simulation.

For the player to understand it easily there should be only a few parameters, but used in many different ways.

We divided these parameters into three parts:

• Population

• Production, reduced to FIDS:

• Food

• Industry

• Dust

• Science

• Approval (not linked to the population size)

Each of these will be a key element in the game, will be altered by the other elements of the economy, and will become an important part of each player’s strategy.



 

Population

They are the base of the player’s empire. The larger the population on a planet, the more they will produce of that planet’s FIDS.

There’s a maximum number of population on each planet, determined by the Planet Type, multiplied by the Planet Size, then adjusted by some bonuses/maluses (if relevant) such as Heroes, Improvements, and a few Anomalies.

The population number is global for a Solar System. At any time, the player can transfer population points from one planet to another, as long as it doesn’t exceed the population capacity of that planet.

While this is the only economy parameter that increases at a Solar System level, population can be moved from planet to planet in order to adapt to the player needs in FIDS.



Automatic Population attribution

By default, when a Solar System gains 1 population, it is distributed automatically by the IA where the player will earn more FIDS. Conversely, if the player should lose 1 population, it will be removed from where the player will lose the least FIDS.

The player can choose between different distribution methods:

• Normal (All FIDS) (default): the AI will choose planets with the best overall FIDS. It will try to ensure that the system increases in population, even if minimal.

• Specialized: the AI will increase the population on planets according to the chosen specialty: Food / Industry / Dust / Science

• Manual: The player can also place their populations themselves. The AI will not try to change these settings, but when new populations arrive it will try to place them according to the selected method.



Default Population limit per planet Size and Class

The better the planet′s Class, the more livable it is. In addition there are technological improvements that can increase the total population limit.

FIDS

They are the basic factors that rule the universe: Food, Industry, Dust and Science.

Each planet will generate some of these factors according to the Planet Type and any Anomalies or Resources it may have. There can also be special bonuses to FIDS from Planetary Improvements.

Each Solar System will produce a total quantity of Food, Industry, Dust and Science units based on the activity of its population on each colonized planet within the system.

Each Planet will produce a base number of FIDS that will in turn be modified by Anomalies, Strategic Resources, and Planetary Improvements. That modified base FIDS for each planet is multiplied by the number of inhabitants exploiting that planet. This gives the total FIDS output of the planet.

Adding all the total FIDS outputs from all the planets together will give the base FIDS of the Solar System.

Moon Temples and System Improvements will also give some bonuses to the whole Solar System. Finally, some global factors can also affect FIDS such as System Improvements on other systems, Luxury Resources, and special faction Traits.

Some bonuses might decrease FIDS, but a planet's FIDS can’t be negative (if one of the FIDS drops under 0, then its final value on the planet will be 0).

Some bonuses will add only partial points (like +0.2%). All those points are taken into account for the result, but the player will only see an integer.

Planet Size will only influence the maximum population of a planet.

Construction

Instead of having to plan and track new constructions on each of the player’s tens or hundreds of planets, there will be only one construction queue per solar system. This includes Planetary and System Improvements as well as colonizing the other planets in the system, terraforming, exploring moons and constructing ships.

With enough Dust, constructions can be accelerated.





Empire Expansion

Colonizing a planet won’t always be possible or profitable; it will depend on the Planet′s Class, its base production, and the player′s technological advances.

Ships and Fleets have upkeep costs so a player should be careful not to make too many ships and be sure to put them to good use: Each colonization will cost a ship, and each invasion will require many ships and time. Repairing and building ships also requires time and money.



Colony Evolutions

Colonizing Solar Systems will not happen quickly and will take the newly colonized worlds through very different stages of evolution. System ownership increases slowly each turn. Only at 100% will the colonizing Empire be recognized as rightful owner of that system.

That ownership will represent the Approval percentage of the current colonists; once the Empire is the rightful owner, they will feel happier about their new life.

Without a "rightful owner", that System will have a lower population approval.

If the rightful owner loses the system, they will have no Approval maluses when the system is taken back (as long as they remain the rightful owner).



Colonies start as “Outposts” and will generate no territory. They will become “Colonies” after a fixed amount of time. During this period they will need to be heavily protected, as factions in Cold War can attack Outposts without declaring war (an Outpost does not yet have a rightful owner).

Ownership can be lost only by an Invasion.