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What would you like to see?
Published on April 7, 2009 By Frogboy

We have some pretty specific things in mind for a micro-expansion that adds more diplomatic features to Sins of a Solar Empire.

But before we talk about them, we'd like to hear - specifically - what you'd imagine seeing in a $10 diplomacy oriented expansion for Sins.

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April 7th 2009, at 12:58 AM

Evolution of government types throughout game ala GalCiv2 -- i.e.dictatorship, democracy, federation, etc. and different bonuses/negatives attributed with each of those government types.

 

I also like the political party aspect of GalCiv2 with a voting in your govt.'s senate AND the ability to join a United Planets and vote on game-changing issues.  One game changing issue could be the creation of a universal trade station that benefits all players -- think Babylon 5.  More visible game changing stuff that you really SEE and FEEL the effects.

 

Religion types -- monotheism, polytheism, etc. (see above).

 

Creating/destroying phase lines -- more embago type tech.

 

The ability to hire or assign agents, mercenaries, bounty hunters, saboteurs/terrorists, assasins, etc.  

 

Leaders -- and I'm not talking flagships or cap ships.  UNIQUE LEADERS with their own UNIQUE VESSELS.  Your emperor with his own throneship or grand admiral with his fleet command vessel.  Give us characters to care about.  To paraphrase Stalin: "To kill one person is a tragedy, but to kill a million, it's a statistic."  Give us that one person, we can't help but keep alive.  PS I'm a screenwriter, so if you need help in this area, don't be bashful haha.

 

When your culture overtakes another planet, that planet's population begins a process of converting to your side, rather than disappearing. 

 

Troopships -- you can invade rather than seige if you so choose.

 

Advanced trade -- I feel the two trade resource mechanic feels too simple.  I like how EvE online approaches this.  Different types of minerals that yield different results.  You can still place them all in one MINIRAL category.  Same thing with crystal -- what are the different types of crystal we want to hunt down?

 

Advanced colonization -- moons!  gas planets!  terraforming/stellar conversion! 

 

Ancient artificats that are more visible -- dyson spheres!  ringworlds!  monoliths!

 

Eventually, I'd love to see a game that's more of an RPG/4x/RTS in space.  Creating a character ala Mass Effect or Star Control that travels the galaxy and eventually builds up an empire/fleet.  That's probably a different game than SOASE altogether, but perhaps you could even do something like EvE's "walking in stations" for SOASE.  Again, it comes back to character, and that's what good RTS/4x games are missing.

 

Overall, I feel early game is way stronger than late game.  If your goal is improve the quality of the 4x play on those larger maps, then really think about how civilizations develop.  Do the people evolve genetically -- changing appearances along with technology?

April 7th 2009, at 1:04 AM

Before adding new things, I'd say fix old things first (seriously, solve the capital ship abilities imbanaces. Many of them NEED MAJOR BUFFS. I made a big suggestion thread and others did similar thing.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

AFTER old things FIXED, these are my wish list for new things. But again I'd prefer old things fixed before I see new things.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Singleplayer.

1.) AIs make alliance based on distance (further the distance better chance to make alliance)

2.) Player should can make request for credit/resoruce or AI should can make request if they are in trouble.

3.) Rehaul how like/dislike meter works.

-> If you blow AI's homeworld you and AI should never make alliance that easy (by solving 1~2 missions)

-> When not in peace treaty, the culture should be counted as 'hostile' to AI.

 

Multiplayer.

1.) Give us more intelligent feeding option. I am getting tired of mindlessly clicking the buttons when I am in pocket. Give us a automatic feeding option that I can set a certain percentage of my income goes to my ally(allies)

2.) Please fix the position problem. If we are in same team we should be close together.

 

General.

1.) Give us option to 'bribe' defense forces and neutral worlds. Sometimes too much heavily guarded worlds are problematic and forther unbalance the gameplay. The cost of bribe should be 1/2 of the cost of the defense forces, since giving up capital ship experience is quite significant that there needs some compensations.

2.) For alligance, make culture centers stacked. I want my planets alligance over 60%+ in further worlds if I invest enough.

3.) Give us more varied neutral defense forces. Sound weird all of neutral forces are TEC.... Maybe volcanic world it is Vasari, desert world it is Advent... Ice/Terran world it is TEC.

4.) It is time now, give us a campaign creater/editor. *hint hint

 

At last, borded words like these are THE MOST IMPORTANT, not others. And obiously borded AND italic is even MORE the MOST important. AND obviously, borded, italic AND underlined is...... understand?

April 7th 2009, at 1:08 AM

Now some of not so Diplomacy stuffs.

 

1.) More types of the planets? Like ones in Deadly Sin?

2.) Un, more new units?

 

OK, this is enough for now.

April 7th 2009, at 1:18 AM

Some animosities between the three factions as an option would be great.   I like to role play a bit and think its ridiculous for a Vasari faction to offer a favorable deal to a TEC faction just as well as a fellow Vasari. 

Combined effort treaties that would boost the productions of factories/contructors with a significant decline of income for both empires but think that would be hard to balance.

The second option actually makes me think about faction specific treaties such as Advent factions can offer to strengthen their Unity abilities only with another Advent faction.  Examples would be longer "Lingering Presence" or use your Progenitor to transfer the souls of one of your lost Radiance to their recently built Radiance battleship.

No idea for Vasari or TEC specific treaties. 

April 7th 2009, at 1:25 AM

I want the ability to give missions to AI players in the same format they dole them out to humans. Also, demands; I should be able to demand a lesser empire cough up a wad of crystal like the AI players so often do to me. I'd also like the ability to give the same kinds of missions and requests to other human players.

Perhaps this could be tied into the existing diplomacy framework, some kind of conditional request/demand/proposal thing. Example: I might demand that Frogboy send me 3000 crystal within a time limit, with a condition that if he does not we break our peace treaty and go to war. Or I might ask for a trade agreement, and he might counter by asking me to destroy 20 of another player's frigates - and once that condition is filled, the treaty comes into effect.

April 7th 2009, at 1:34 AM

Extremely specific missions would be cool.  For example, "Please sneak x number of ship/s into a system and take out their (specific) factory/temple/etc."

 

This would make the game feel more real.  Like you're apart of the inner workings and backroom handshakes of an empire. 

 

Also, give us STEALTH ships!

April 7th 2009, at 2:02 AM

Although this suggestion isn't specifically about diplomacy, I feel it fits in this micro-expansion more than any other.

 

New planet types! Wouldn't have to be too varied and I'm sure you could get lots of help from SIN Plus by Uzi. Finding different planets and phenomena (ie Celestial Bodies Mod with black holes and quasars) makes each random map feel like you are really "exploring" an unknown segment of space. I know I got a whole lot more excited when I ran into the cool worlds from SINS Plus than when I run into your run of the mill desert planet.

 

Just a suggestion, but I'm sure you guys have your bases covered!

April 7th 2009, at 2:23 AM

Specifically:

Spies!  I want to see some ability to place spies either on planets or fleets, with the ability to conduct some sabotage.

Also, I would like to see those planets that revolt due to culture to have a chance of joining the dominant culture's faction.

Generally:  I would just like to be able to interact with the AI at a higher level.  As some of the others pointed out, being able to assign my own missions to the AI would be a must for me.  Also, being able to trade planets and perhaps grant temporary passage to fleets would be cool.

April 7th 2009, at 2:30 AM

I want to be able to take over a planet without cauterizing its inhabitants first.

April 7th 2009, at 2:40 AM

Diplomacy?  Hm.  Going to throw out some mostly non-interdependent ideas.

1- Display showing public treaty/war status between factions.

2- The ability to negotiate treaties with other 'stuff'.  Like offering some amount of resources as an inducement to accepting a trade treaty, or offering an alliance in exchange for a declaration of war or a treaty cancellation against somebody else.  Or demanding control of a particular planet in exchange for peace.  One-time and periodic bribes and tributes also come to mind.

3- Possibly, the option to share non-logistics research between same-faction sides.

4- For a vaguely-neutral stance, the ability to designate a DMZ of one or more mutually bordering gravity wells (trade ships permitted) might be good.  This should not be enforced by the game, but violation would raise tensions and might provide a casus belli.  A related function would be the ability to designate a system for safe passage, which would *not* translate into safe passage in any other system.

5- The ability to 'claim' systems adjacent to one's own (not having any force, merely an indication that "we see this as our sphere of influence, and any entrance might raise tensions") might be interesting.

6- Regarding casus belli, perhaps there should be a loyalty hit for declaring war against a same-faction (TEC vs TEC, say) without one, especially if there are remaining other-faction rivals.

7- Secret treaties might be interesting, but should not be implemented before an espionage system that gives some possibility of identifying them.  There's a lot that can be done with espionage but I don't know if that has any chance of being included in the next expansion.

8- Rules tweak:  it might be interesting if trading resources requires actual ships to carry the material (and be vulnerable to destruction).  Heh.  But choosing from where to where may be tricky in a game with universal treasuries (unlike, say, _Anacreon_, where all treasuries are strictly planetary.).  Capital-to-capital, nearest-to-nearest, or ?

9- Rules tweak:  it might also be interesting to have a notion of having agreed to establish official diplomatic channels, and until they do so restricting communication to times when they both have ships in the same gravity well (or one has a ship in the same well as the other's planet).  Heh.

April 7th 2009, at 3:12 AM

Hi!

what you'd imagine seeing in a $10 diplomacy oriented expansion for Sins.

Thanks for asking. I have some qute regular requests:

- make diplomatic relations only possible after we meet each other.

- I'd like to give missions to other players.

- Partially completed missions give partial avards. Divide the bonus: 1/3 is avarded upon completition, and 2/3 is reserved for partial completition. Like: I have to destroy 6 ships of one player. Mission time runs out with only 3 destroyed. I don't get 33% bonus for completition, but I completed the mission 50% and get 50% of the 66% of the avard, that is 33% of the avard.

- I'd like to have an option to make other players change their relations. Like: I pay the Hand of Illus xxx credits to go to war with Slave Kar Majistra. He should give me its own "price".

- if I can have diplomatic relations to one empire, I can also spy on it. I'd like to have a new set of techs under Defense section, that deals with info gethering, like:
  * Establish spy network --> Enhanced spying --> Sabotage.
  *                       \->CounterEspionageCenter --> Total control
All those techs would give me buildings and "payable" missions to get some info on other empire, from basic info (what planets, how many ships, how much income, to temporary planet and fleet vision, research levels, and some ability to disrupt the empire with various sabotage missions.

Out of diplomacy expansion:

- please give me the possibility to just queue research without paying for it. Only take resources when the research of the queued item starts. If there's not enough resources, give me a warning, and keep waiting for the proper amount.

BR,  Iztok

April 7th 2009, at 3:19 AM

I had some ideas a while back for some simple upgrades to the current system for AI missions and diplomacy.

 

First and most simple; being able to accept or decline missions.

Accepting a mission would raise both the happiness gained and lost for completing or failing the mission. This would also be the only way to gain whatever resource reward might be on the table for it.

Declining a mission would result in an instant loss of happiness, but much less than simply letting the mission expire.

Leaving the mission as it is and accomplishing it in that state only gains you happiness for that empire.

 

I also had a new addition to how the AI interacts with you; fear. Fear would be a measure of how erratic the AI behaves in its dealings with you in peacetime and how much of a threat it considers you when at war. For instance, at 100% happiness and 100% fear, the AI would behave very randomly, sometimes sending small task forces into your systems to check up on you, other times avoiding your ships altogether. Missions might range from extremely simple to nearly impossible. In contrast to an AI with 0% fear, they'd get along just fine with you, offering you consistently moderately challenging missions and trying their best to work as a team.

Making AI players fearful of you is simple. The more things you kill and the bigger your empire and fleet, the more wary of you they become. The more you complete missions and attack their enemies, the less they fear you. Alliances would also factor into this; the more alliances you have, the more fearful they are. The inverse of that is also true, as you might expect.

April 7th 2009, at 3:46 AM

More use of cultural influence. In the current gameplaye culture is a good option to stabilze your empires borders, but how about taking over a independet colony by culture?

And if it is possible some kind of cultural victory like in civ. BTW i am not quite shure but is it possible to spread your culture from one system to another?? I think not, maybe this will also be a good addition as a new research.

Also more diplomatic interaction between empires would be a good thing.

April 7th 2009, at 4:21 AM

thx for asking.... so nice to actually ASK ur custumers what they want!!!

 

ok.... all those previous demands are great....

 

but what I really want is  to get more pirate factions.... Some Neutrals pirate (at first) can be used as ''loyal''(as long as you pay them with a % of your income) henchies.  you know... like a private millice.

 

and of course(it as been said b4) more Planet types.... u guys should try a game with Sin+ .... or 7DS.... or Celestial bodies(deaply love that one).... oh did i mention a Scenario Editor?

 

oh... and thx for giving us such a great game

April 7th 2009, at 4:25 AM

Minor races/factions -- other than generic "rogue" -- ala GalCiv 2.

 

Timeline: an ever-changing chronology of events.  For example, let's say you (race A) attack race B.  What if there was an icon you can click bringing up a list of events sorted by the game's internal clock, showing the time/place you attacked?

 

*Year (minutes played)/day (seconds played) -- Battle of Arcturus -- Blah Empire invades Meh Federation -- 1 billion (lives lost).

 

Galaxy-wide EVENTS: plague, revolts, extradimensional invasion, etc.

 

 

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