I think this feature isn't TOO complex to implement, though I realize it may have to wait for add-ons. I think a great feature to enhance the usefulness of an ally is, if they like you enough/you give them enough stuff, you can request the deployment of a fleet to one of your systems to intercept enemies at war with you. In this way, the Amoeba could ask their allies for military assistance, or the Empire could hire the Hissho to keep someone out of their borders (and why would the Hissho turn down mercenary work, afterall, it puts you where the fights are!) Of course even if you can't request deployment to specific systems, it'd be nice if you could sign something like Defensive Pacts from Civilization (IE if a faction declares war on me, you will automatically declare war on them, and vice versa).



Now in multi-player of course, you can just ask a human ally for deployment of reinforcements.



And it is largely multiplayer that inspired the original thought, and second part of the suggestion. Multi-faction fleets. Now if I am the Sophons and I have a small military, and the Empire is attacking me.. I hire my good buddies the Pilgrims to come defend my crucial wormhole system, yeah? I have a 2 CP fleet in this system, and they send 4 CP of ships to defend. So long as one of us has a empire CP limit of 6, if this system is attacked by Cravers, the two fleets will join forces to fight the enemy. At the end of the fight the two fleets split up again, presuming at least 1 ship from each side survived.



To avoid gameplay complications, in a SP game, the human player gets to choose the cards for the merged fleet. In the case of two humans, you can have a toggle setting at the start of an MP match for fleet command. Decision or fleet size (ties broken by coin toss). In a Decision match, you can simply decide for yourselves who will command. If no decision is made by the time the battle timer is filled, toss a coin. In a Fleet Size match, the payer contributing the most CP to the allied fleet gets to decide what cards are played. If both players contribute equally, toss a coin.



In the case of fleet admirals. If only one Admiral is present in the fleets being combined, that admiral is used regardless of the controlling player. If both fleets have an admiral, the battle is commanded by the admiral of the player who is choosing the cards. The second admiral has no effect on this fight (because if you can stack heroes, this becomes an OP exploit) but is still injured if all of his faction's ships are destroyed in the fight.



I believe these additions will add a lot to the multiplayer experience of fighting a war with your friends, and to the single-player experience by allowing a diplomatic race like the Amoeba to use their strength in diplomacy to a defensive application.

.... In hindsight, um, did I make a mistake by posting this directly to this forum with the [suggestion] header? Is this somewhere Devs dump ideas directly, is that a dev tag? I'm confused now.

UrsaClaire wrote:
.... In hindsight, um, did I make a mistake by posting this directly to this forum with the [suggestion] header? Is this somewhere Devs dump ideas directly, is that a dev tag? I'm confused now.

No, it is the right tag and forum. Don't worry.



Mixing defense capacities of allied fleets is a good idea, though. The player with most CP should control the battle. In singleplayer this should be reduced to "always the human".

If this idea comes up for voting you got my vote