Extermination is a the quintessential component of the 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate) and Grand Strategy genres where opposing factions can forcefully take their competition out. Although many 4X and grand strategy games offer alternative victory conditions, extermination remains among the most popular and viable options to pull off.
In the first couple of OpenDevs, extermination occurred when a culture held no territories or controlled any units on the map. This became relatively simple once a culture's territory was conquered as war desire drained away slowly providing ~50-100 turns to hunt down any remaining units. At that point, the player could often already force surrender upon the other culture yet war desire limited the amount of territory, cities, and vassalization which would change hands. Thus it was often in the player's best interest to totally eliminate the other culture to gain everything at once instead forcing surrender and going to war multiple times(which took time to build war desire).
Humankind should allow extermination to prevent others from accumulating additional fame, but I feel the ability to do so should be unlocked through a civic or event choice much later in the game. The benefits for doing so include:
Using diplomacy and vassal system to resolve early era conflicts
Keeps lieges alert for potential vassal backstabbing
This would incentivize the usage of the vassal system to restrain early conquests yet allow vassals to continue accumulating fame to compete in the end. As not all territories and cities are under the direct control of a victorious warmonger, the vassal has the opportunity to reorganize and potentially co-operate with or backstab their liege. Such interplay is desired to provide more intriguing options potentially available through espionage or a more expansive vassalage system.
As cultures could only be eliminated after a specific civic choice, aggressive players and multi-player games would have two (3) options to handle other cultures. Either (1). keep the other culture as a competent vassal, (2). repeatedly free their vassal and re-wage war until nothing remains aside from a one territory zero pop city center, or (3.) wait for the elimination civic.
If/when a culture no longer has any territory and units (by virtue of war) without the elimination civic being unlocked, the war would automatically be resolved by forceful surrender as per normal with territories being divided up through the war desire (war score) system.
A good civic for unlocking the ability to eXterminate cultures could be:
Humankind should be about more than curb stomping your competition and delaying the ability to totally eliminate another culture could help alleviate the amount of snowballing typically seen in 4X games.
Elimination should be "Ha... Wow.. I did what?!" not "Another Empire down, 2 more to go." -FlamingKetchup
Such a deliberate change should be discussed and I am very interested in what the rest of the community thinks about this matter.
I definitely think that should be included. (currently the war desire mechanics almost forces you to eliminate civs). It would also be good if territories had some cultural memory that made rebellions more common. (because the alternative to elimination by conquering cities is elimination by ransacking cities)
Perhaps unadministrated cities should produce their own culture that is considered mechanically distinctive but related to the culture. Think English, Welsh, Scottish all part of a Brittish culture but not a single colour blob. Everyone of my play throughs involved my culture just blobbing out.
Very much agree with all the reasons above, especially the encouragement of vassalization: Being a vassal and continued to gather Fame is already a viable strategy clearly supported by existing game mechanics; however, being a liege only have adequate benefits - adequate, yes, but not great enough to let the player viewing complete extermination as less good than vassalization.
Form this line of reasoning, I would also like to suggest a civic that will increase the benefit of vassalization. Actually, the current "Imperialism" civic as shown by the screenshot will be a good start: "Imperialism" was not primarily about the "extermination" of other people, rather, it was basically evolved around rule over and dominate other people - which fits the concept of "vassalization" in the game.
I would suggest change the Imperialism civic choice to something alone the lines of "+50% on income from vassals"/"able to levy vassals' military" in order to encourage vassalization instead of extermination, and add "+10 war desire when tried to break vassalage as a vassal" to the Anti-Imperialism civic choice in order to give vassal play a change of revival (imagine it as decolonization).
As for the civic choice of extermination, it can be moved to a much later civic - say, the Nuclear Policy civic as we know of - so that the ability to totally beat another player out of existence can be delayed into late game, to help limit snowballing and encourage competition. The current Imperialism-Extermination civic can be unlocked very early, which is probably too early.
It seems there are some differing views on what Imperialism should mean in this game. But I see it as just a matter of naming and what really needs to be discuss here is how elimination should become available and what consequences should follow. While I agree it appearing in 150 turns is quite early but don't think it should be delayed to the contemporary era. I'd rather suggest unlocking anti-imperialism v imperialism choice for everyone once the imperialism civic gets enacts by someone on the globe - so that others can react to the change of the rule.
Plus to that, in my opinion, while it is natural to related MAD with elimination but elimination can be done in several ways, including cultural extinction without razing the whole empire. And I see Imperialism as one of them in a sense of destruction of indigenous legacies and spreading biased interpretations of history.
PARAdoxiBLE wrote: I'd rather suggest unlocking anti-imperialism v imperialism choice for everyone once the imperialism civic gets enacts by someone on the globe - so that others can react to the change of the rule.
Agreed, this is a civic that better be unlocked by an international event across the board.
Imperialism could be Vassalizing Empires counts towards your territory. Also, the quote "Elimination should be "Ha... Wow.. I did what?!" not "Another Empire down, 2 more to go." is from me, not RobotDoctorRobot.
I like this idea a lot, and I agree with the reasonings. Elimination is a good way to prevent additional Fame accumulation and thus needs to be possible, but being able to do it early curtails the usefulness of the Vassal system, which is more interesting and is also a good way to allow players to lose wars early but still accumulate Fame all game and thus have a chance later.
However, the game's Fame system should already be balanced such that players tend to still be in the race even if they are behind, so elimination as a Fame-stopping strategy does not need to happen mid-game either. I think Industrial is appropriate, and Imperialism is a fine theme for it. I think there should be a window where Imperialists have a chance to eliminate high-scoring but tech-lagging (because they are staying in old eras to score more) opponents before those opponents get to choose Anti-Imperialism for defensive bonuses. This Civic's unlock rules would then seem to be "first to reach Industrial or reach Industrial as a Vassal/Overlord or reach Industrial and know an Imperialist"
Elimination is a good way to prevent additional Fame accumulation and thus needs to be possible
This is why I think Elimination should not be possible/practical. No empire should be able to go, "I don't like that they're ahead, let's just get rid of them." The other issue is that players that are ahead in score likely are ahead in general as well, making it so that it is possible for the empire that is already ahead to prevent others from catching up by eliminating them. Elimination also is not really an "expenditure" (what is that word I'm thinking of?), because it counts towards both the Expansionist and Militarist star.
Elimination is a good way to prevent additional Fame accumulation and thus needs to be possible
This is why I think Elimination should not be possible/practical. No empire should be able to go, "I don't like that they're ahead, let's just get rid of them." The other issue is that players that are ahead in score likely are ahead in general as well, making it so that it is possible for the empire that is already ahead to prevent others from catching up by eliminating them. Elimination also is not really an "expenditure" (what is that word I'm thinking of?), because it counts towards both the Expansionist and Militarist star.
Players that are ahead in score will only be ahead in general if the numbers are tuned that way. If they make additional Era Stars worth more points such that purposely lagging behind to get more stars is worthwhile, and make Era Stars harder to get proportionally to how much yield you have when you enter the next era (or some other condition), then those with more Fame may actually be vulnerable.
Furthermore, even if an empire is ahead, if they are ahead by enough, you still won't be able to catch up to them. So it isn't an auto-win. I am talking about having this elimination possibility only at the end of the game, so that it increases the stakes and gives a possibility to come from behind. If someone is ahead they can end the game early, but opponents can also get combat boosts against such a player so it isn't necessarily so easy to bully other players out of the game.
Also, I think the word you are looking for is "cost" or "loss". "Expenditure" sounds more like you're getting something for your spending, which is actually what it is because, as you mentioned, you get stars for it.
Imperialism could be Vassalizing Empires counts towards your territory. Also, the quote "Elimination should be "Ha... Wow.. I did what?!" not "Another Empire down, 2 more to go." is from me, not RobotDoctorRobot.
Ops, my apologies for mixing up everyone's names from our discord discussion. Fixed
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