Since it wasn't a topic originally conversation, I'd like to bring up some thoughts that weren't covered. But if I have all of them in one post it'll get way too big for one day so I'll cover individual topics in separate posts.
Since this went over so well, I think it's time for another one. But I think this one will be a bit more... controversial than the last one.
Today's thoughts: Feds and Vassals, Diplomacy and Espionage.
Let's start with the former. The biggest problem with Feds is that they are too secure. Once you form them, there is very little chance of them going away. Yes, certain members can leave from time to time (mostly because the fed dragged someone in that they don't like, usually through vassalizing) but they very rarely if ever outright
collapse.
We have a whole precursor chain, called the 'First League'. The long story short is that it was a biiig federation that then devolved into infighting and the whole thing collapsed in on itself. Let me ask you this: when was the last time you saw something like this happen in game? The answer is more than likely
"never". That simply does not, nor can it happen. The only way Feds disband naturally is when:
- A bigger empire or vassal block or fed or crisis beats them down in a total war to the point of them only having one member.
- The Galactic Imperium or War In Heaven forces them to disband.
On the flipside, there is very little actual interaction with members of your federation. There's no real way to get them to get them to vote with particular items or increase or decrease cohesion. This can lead to some total AI-Holes just sitting in your federation blocking everything you try to do and decreasing cohesion but no one wants to kick them out. This is especially problematic when they bring in vassals that clash with each other.
So here's my general proposals for Federations:
- Make Cohesion loss actually deadly instead of an inconvenience. Right now, Federations cannot lose levels, let alone forcefully disband on their own due to internal strife (well it _can_ through repeated use of smear campaign/diplomatic incident. But it takes so many usages of it that it really isn't even an option. We'll come back to that later.) So my proposition is that when cohesion loss causes XP to dip below last level up point, it actually reduces a level. If a federation goes to 0, it has about 4 months to try to increase cohesion gain. If it doesn't, the federation is forcefully disbanded and its members cannot form another one for a decade or two.
- To prevent newly formed feds from being disbanded immediately, they get a 4 month grace period upon start where they are immune to this.
- Laws votes are no longer immediate. Instead, they take 2-3 months to discuss, like the Galcom but faster (another thing I'll go over albeit briefly.) This is to give room for a new trade action: "Accept (Vote)" or "Reject (Vote)". This is because again, You can get an AI-Hole empire that just sits there and rejects everything and/or pushes through really stupid stuff (For the last time, no, we are _not_ going to switch to 'Arena Succession in this Research Cooperative!)
- Federation Fleets use a shipset that is a mix between its member states, like in the trailer. IE If it has three members, two use the Humanoid shipset while one uses the lithoid one and you build 9 federation corvettes, 6 of them will be the humanoid corvette and 3 of them will be the lithoid one.
- And finally, no more gating federations behind the Diplomacy tree. That's not really necessary and there are better ways to go about it. Especially if Federations are more fragile.
The other big thing to talk about with Feds is how many of them feel like they're an amalgamation of mismatched items. So here's my proposed rework of a few of the federations. I've learned from exerience not to include solid numbers as those tend to be nitpicked, so I'll just give a general idea.
A few general concepts I'm going to introduce for all of them:
Requirements: This already exists, but the requirement for all (Except Hegemony) would be 2 full tradition trees, 50 trust, and certain federation-specific requirements. This is meant to make the Diplomacy requirement obsolete as Diplomacy should stand on its own merit as a tradition, not simply be a gate. That's lazy and stupid.
Favored/Hated/Banned ethics: Certain federations are tailored towards certain objectives. As such, they favor certain types of empires (which cause more cohesion gain) and dislike others (which cause more cohesion loss). While a select few simply outright ban them (IE: Holy Covanant bans synthetics or gestalts.)
Quirk: All feds now have a special 'quirk' to them, an inate ability or downside to differentiate them from other ones.
"Per Member": Some effects below are dependent on the amount of members. Members that match the favored ethics increase thier contribution to this effect, fanatic versions increase it more.
Galactic Union
Gal Union is the 'big tent' Federation. Open to everyone, and focuses on cohesion gain/reducing cohesion loss, but doesn't really offer anything substantial to the table in terms of perks.
Favorted/Hated Ethics: None, it's open to everyone.
Requirements: three trees completed. Trees can be any of them. You must not be any degree of Xenophobe, and your target must not be a fanatic xenophobe.
Quirk: Xenophile/Xenophobe pull/push on all empires in the federation. This increases per level.
- Level 1: Same as is now (SAIN)
- Level 2:
- Swap Unity from Diplomats with Holy Covenant's anti-cohesion loss effect since it makes more sense here.
- Less cohesion loss from Espionage events (replaces naval contribution effect. Which let's face it, is kind of useless.)
- Level 3:
- Increase trust increase per member.
- Replace unity per member with cohesion gain per member.
- Less cohesion loss from failed votes
(President)
- Small influence gain per member
- Increased fed XP from diplomat
(Members)
- Small influence gain (static)
- Increased fed XP from diplomat
- Level 4:
- Even less cohesion loss from failed votes
- Even less cohesion loss from conflicting ethics
(President)
- +Diplo weight (SAIN)
- More Leader XP gain from your diplomat.
(Members)
- +Diplo Weight
- More Leader XP gain from your diplomat.
- Level 5:
- NO Cohesion loss from failed votes
- NO Cohesion loss from opposing ethics
- More diplo weight per member
- Small Galcom session time reduction per member
Research Coop
A federation that concentrates on research, megastructures, and Ascention.
Requirements: Two completed trees, one of them must be Discovery. You must be some form of materialist or a machine mind.
Favored Ethics: Materialist, Machine Mind
Hated Ethics: Spiritualist, Hive
Quirk: Greater Cohesion loss from number of members
- Level 1: (SAIN)
- Level 2: (SAIN)
- Free Research Agreements
- President:
- +2 Research Alternatives
- Non-President:
- +1 Research Alternatives
- Level 3:
- Massive increase to research from research stations
- Increased research speed from research agreements.
- Small research speed increase per member
- Diplomatic increase from technology (More for President)
- Level 4:
- Unity cost production for ascention trees
- +1 Psionic/Cybernetic/Synthetic pop assimiation per ascended member
- (Genetic Only) Species modification cost reduced per ascended member.
- (Genetic Only) Small trait/trait picks bonus per genetically ascended member.
- (Cybernetic) increased research from jobs
- (Synthetic) increased assembly speed per synthetically ascended member
- Small megastructure build speed bonus (increased for science related ones)
- Level 5:
- Larger megastructure build speed and cost bonus.
- Small Synth Queen situation resolve speed per member
- Bonus damage against Fallen Empires, Synth Queen, and Contingency
- Small research alternatives bonus per member
Trade Leage
A federation that concentrates on profit. Unfortunately, it doesn't help Megacorps much. Time to change that...
Requirements: Two completed trees, one must be Mercantile. Neither you nor proposed target can have Shared Burdens or be a Gestalt.
Favored Ethics: Megacorp
Hated Ethics: Shared Burdens
Banned Ethics: Gestalts
Quirk: Starts with succession type "Strongest" with criteria "Economy"
- Level 1:
- (SAIN)
- Free Commercial pacts with all members
- Level 2:
- Small trade value bonus
- (Megacorps) Increase branch office income
- (Non Megacorps) Small trade value bonus per member
(President)
- (With Megacorps) Gain small amount of income from all branch offices in fed territory
- (Without Megacorps) Small amount of trade value bonus per member
- Level 3:
- More trade value bonus
- Consumer goods per month bonus
- (With Megacorps) Branch office cost reduction in federation space
- (Without Megacorps) increase to trade value from jobs
- Level 4:
- More trade value bonus
- (With Megacorps) More branch office value income
- More branch office cost reduction in and out of fed space (the former stacks)
- More branch office profit sharing
(President)
- Increased diplo weight from economy
- Level 5:
- More trade value
- (Megacorps) More trade branch office income
- (without MC) More trade value from jobs per member
(President)
- More trade Value
Hegemony
This one is kind of an odd duck among federations. It was created before Overlord was a thing, and the purpose it's supposed to fulfill has since been taken up by Vassal Blocks, which does what it does just way better. I was going to propose getting rid of this one entirely on account of it (and its associated origin, instead swapping it with a miniature version of the Fiefdom where you are the Imperial Fief) But I had another idea:
What if this 'Federation' is instead something more akin to a miniature Galactic Imperium? Basically my rework would serve to make it distinct from the Military Alliance, which right now is somewhat overshadowed by this in terms of usefulness.
Requirements: 1 Tradition Tree, one of which must be either Supremacy or Domination., but you must possess more than 2 vassals.
Ethics Favor/Hate: None, but conflicting ethics causes greater cohesion loss.
Quirks:
- The only federation type you can form directly with your vassals.
- All members are vassals to the president
- Negative cohesion does not cause disbandment. Instead, continuing cohesion loss causes increasing disloyalty among vassals.
- Level 1:
- Members cannot freely leave federation
- Members gain Secede Casus Belli
- +20 intel between members
- Level 2:
- Members gain "Overthrow" Casus Belli (Member wages war to overthrow the current president. If successful, member becomes president and gains all vassals of the previous president, who is subjugated to the current president. If a status quo, member leaves the federation)
- No migration treaty upkeep between members
(Presidential Modifier)
- Small Naval capacity modifier per non-president member
- Small ship upkeep and cost reduction per member
- Level 3:
- Increased vassal specialization effects for members and president.
(President)
- Influence gain per subject member
- Level 4:
- More increased vassal specialization effects
- Hyper Relay build cost and time reduction
(President)
- +1 Overlord holding
- Can build gateways in federation territory
- Level 5:
- Even larger vassal specialization effects
- Even larger hyper relay and gateway build cost and time reduction
(President)
- +2 overlord holding
- 0.3 influence per subject
- Megastructures in subject territory transfer +20% of their effectst to the overlord.
Martial Alliance
Another one in a weird spot. It's
supposed to be a defensive alliance, but its geared more towards conquest, which currently makes it a crappier version of Hegemony. So another one I propose a redo for to make it more tailored towards defensive/NATO (in theory) like.
Requirement: Two trad tress, one must be Unyeilding (if you have apoc)/Supremacy (if you don't). Must be some degree of Militarist or Pacifist
Favored Ethics: Militarist/Pacifist. However, cohesion loss from these ethics conflicting is increased.
Hated ethics: None, but as mentioned, having Militarists and Pacifists causes greater cohesion loss from conflicting ethics.
Quirk: Wars won gives lump sum of federation level. Losing wars causes one levels worth of XP loss.
- Level 1:
- Small increase to defense platform construction speed
- Small increase to ship construction speed during defensive war
- Small increase to starbase hull, armor, shields, and damage
- Level 2:
- Small increase to naval capacity per member. This contribution is doubled in defensive wars.
- Small increase to defense platform build speed per member
- Small increase to starbase hull, armor, shields, and damage per member
- Level 3:
- Upgraded defense platform segments unlocked (Upgraded defense platform segments have 1.5x their weapon, utility, and aux slots, but take up 0.25 more defense platform slot per segement.)
- Increased defense platform fire rate per member
- Increased defense platform cap per member
- small sublight speed and hyperlane jump speed in friendly territory per member.
- Small damage increase against crisises (includes midgame ones and crisis aspirants)
(President)
- Increased Federaton fleet build speed and cost reduction per member
- Increased diplo weight from fleets.
- Level 4:
- More defense platform cap per member
- More damage against crisises
- Marginal Increased damage against crisises per member
- Slight Federation Fleet increased armor, shield, and hull per member
(President)
- Gains "Intervention" ability. This allows the federation to join any war on the side of the defender. Intervention must pass a vote like a normal declaration however. If they do however, defending empire gains a diplo boost with all fed members, and a further one upon winning the war.
Cannot intervene in the case of uprisings/fealty wars or if the defender is a genocider, crisis aspirant, or fallen empire.
- Level 5:
- Unlock Apex Defense Platform segments (Apex Defense Platform segments have 2x their weapon, utility, and aux slots, but take up 1 more defense platform slot per segment)
- Slight Federation fleet fire rate and damage increase per member
- Marginal Federation fleet shield and armor hardening per member
- More damage against crisises
- Intervention ability extended. Can join uprising wars on either side, or wars against Genociders/crisis aspirants on the side opposing the genocider or CA.
Holy Covenant
The last of the current ones. I find this one more or less enough as it is, but I'll add some minor adjustments anyway.
Requirements: Two Tradition Trees. One tradition tree must be harmony OR Psionics (or cybernetics if you have cybernetic creed).
Favored Ethics: Spiritualists, Psionically Ascended
Hated Ethics: Materialists
Banned Ethics: Any Gestalt, synthetic or cybernetic ascended empire (the latter is only permitted if they use the Cybernetic Creed origin.)
Quirk: If members sythetically or cybernetically ascend, they are automatically ejected and gain a "traitorous heretic!" -200 negative diplo with all members unless the latter is a cybernetic creed empire.
Starts with succession type "Challenge" with type "Spiritual Conclave"
- Level 1: (SAIN)
- Level 2: Unity from diplomats (swapped with Galactic Union perk because it makes more sense here). Otherwise SAIN
- Level 3:
- Small increase to unity from priests and high priests per member.
- All spiritualist pops in the federation produce +0.1 xp for the federation
- Level 4:
- Further unity increase from priests and high priests per member
- resource gain from psionic pops per member
(President)
- Gains "Holy War" Casus Belli. This is actually two types at once depending on who the target is. Against normal empires, this is a ideology war that automatically forces the target empire/occupied territory into the federation upon victory. Against machines this is a total war. Cannot be declared against Spiritualists. Does not require a vote.
- Level 5:
- Increased damage to machine empires, and halved that to materialists.
- Increased psionic assimilation speed.
- Slight increased psionic assimilation speed per member
- Increased damage against The Unbidden
- +50% robot purge speed
- Slight robot purge speed per member
Alright, and now a couple of new ideas for two new fed types that I feel are completely missing. Specifically, one for egalitarians (AKA 'Anti-hegemon') and Gestalts (since I find it odd that Gestalts don't get a fed type of their own.)
Burden Bloc
The Egalitarian one. More specifically, the Shared Burdens/Worker Coop ones. As mentioned, it serves as a sort of anti-hegemony and anti-overlord faction. Also anti-megacorp, anti-slaver, and anti-bourg.
Requirements: Two tradition trees. You and your target must both be some degree of egalitarian
OR a megacorp with Workers Coop civic.
Favored Ethics: Egalitarian, Democratic, Shared Burdens, Worker Coops
Hated Ethics: Dictatorial, Imperial, Megacorps (unless they have Worker Coops).
Banned Ethics: Gestalts (except Rogue Servitor machines), despoilers, slave guilds/indentured service.
Quirk: Members cannot be an overlord. They cannot propose subjugation nor propose vassalization wars. If they gain vassals via secret fealty, they are freed but still join the bloc. Rogue servitors can join, though any worker bonuses are translated to biotrophy output.
- Level 1:
- Cannot have organic slaves.
- Dictatorships, Imperials, nor Megacorps (Unless worker coops) Can become president.
- Massive worker political power
- Minor shift towards egalitarianism per member.
- Level 2:
- Increased resources from the egalitarian faction
- marginal Increased resources from the egalitarian faction per member
- Slight worker upkeep reduction per member
- Slight "Sow discord" espionage op chance of success and effect
- Level 3:
- Slight worker resource output increase per member
- Further Egalitarianism shift per member
- Worker happiness bonus per member
- Higher "Slave Liberation" Espionage op chance and effect.
- Gains "Intervention" Ability. This version however only allows them to join an uprising on the side of the rebels.
- Level 4:
- Increased damage against overlords or empires with
- Further Egalitarian faction output
- Further Egalitarian faction output per member
- Enable "Destroy Hegemony" Casus Belli. Must target an overlord specifically. If victorious, overlord is forced to release all subjects and cannot reaquire them. Subjects gain a diplomacy gain or hit depending on their loyalty to the overlord at the time. If status quo, any occupied territory is split off from the overlord as an independant victory.
- Level 5:
- Dyson Spheres and Matter Decompressors share a quarter of their output with all members of the federation split between them. In exchange, -25% build time and cost to build these megastructures.
- All fanatic Egalitarians Without Shared Burdens gain it and lose Technocracy or Pleasure Seekers. Megacorps will automatically gain Worker Coops if they don't have it already.
- Increased damage against the Great Khan
- +100% Egalitarian push for all non-egalitarian members.
- Specialists gain a small amount of happiness per member
- Specialists gain a small amount of resource output per member.
Consciousness Collective
The Gestalt one, because Gestalts get shafted from a lot of these, either directly or indirectly, so I think there needs to be a Gestalt federation.
Requirements: Two ascension trees, must be a gestalt of some form.
Hated Ethics: Determined Exterminators can join, but will cause
massive cohesion loss if Hives or Rogue Servitors are present and vise versa. Rogue Servitors will also cause friction with Driven Assimilators.
Banned Ethics: Non-Gestalts
Quirk: Determined Exterminators can join/form one with other robots. Devouring Swarms cannot join ever.
- Level 1:
- Small amenity increase from maintenance drones
- Level 2:
- Increased amenity increase from maintenance drone
- Small menial drone output increase per member
- (RS only): Small biotrophy output increase per rogue servitor
- (DE & DA only): Small naval capacity increase per DE and DA member
- (Hive and Generic Machines): Small pop assembly increase per hive/generic robot member (they don't mix)
- Level 3:
- Small Hunter killer drone deviation removal increase per member
- Further menial drone output per member
- marginal complex drone output per member
- (RS Only): Further biotrophy output per RS
- (DE only): Increased purge speed per member
- (Assimilators and Hives): +1 Pop assimilated per year per member
- (GM): Further pop assembly per machine member
- Level 4:
- Increased damage against non-gestalts
- small pop assembly increase per member
- small ship hull and armor increase per member
- (RS only): Increased naval capacity per RS member
- (DE only): increased unity gain per member when a pop is purged
- (DA and Hives): increased pops assimilated per year per DA/Hive member
- (GM): Increased marginal drone output per machine member
- Level 5:
- Megastructure build speed increase per member
- Ship build speed increase per member
- +1 Juggernaut capacity
- +1 Titan capacity per member
- Increased damage against Preythorn and Contingency crisises.
- Increase situation speed against Synth Queen crisis.
Welp that was sure a long write. Luckily, that's the end of the thoughts on Feds, and my thoughts on the other subjects are quite a bit less long. . Now to move onto...
Overlords and Vassals:
Luckily this one will be shorter. The short of it is: they suffer the same basic problem as Federations too: they're too
stable. And since unlike Federations there's no minimum requirements appart from trust (and for vassal warring you don't even need
that) it's far too easy to form huge vassal blocks and be all powerful throughout the game.
Just like feds, we have an example of how things ought to be. But we don't need to dig through precusor lore this time for our example, we just need to run the Imperial Fief origin. Halfway to Midgame the fief breaks up completely into warring factions. Again, how often does that happen in game? Not very often.
Yeah, there's the
hint of a check and balance in the form of secret fealties and supporting independence. But three problems here:
- Secret Fealities can just be given to anyone without any input from the receiver. This means AIs will often throw away thier SF on an empire that is either too weak, too distant, or simply has no motivation to fight the overlord in question.
- Support Independence is worthless as it does not allow for the empire issuing it to help them work towards gaining it in any way. So even in any case of them wanting to use it, they simply just sit there and not use it at all even if the issuer is overwhelmingly strong compared to the overlord.
- Neither options offer any way to extend this would-be rebellion to the other subjects, meaning those that have the 'join overlord defensive wars' condition (which is default) will have to end up fighting the breakaway empire, making it even less likely that either party will actually initiate the war.
- When rebellions form due to instability, they only take the vassal's navy into account, not the overlords. This means such rebellions have little if no chance of actually succeeding. Plus, outside parties have no way of interfering with this.
So my propositions here are thus:
- Secret Fealties must be accepted by the receiver. AIs should only accept secret fealties from subjects if they:
- Are close enough to fight the overlord (no more giving fealties to empires on the other side of the galaxy)
- Are strong enough to fight the overlord (no more giving fealties to empires not strong enough to fight the overlord)
- Have bad relations with the overlord (no more giving fealties to empires that are best buds with the overlords)
This prevents subjects from wasting their Fealties on dead-end targets.
- When a secret fealty or independence support is given, a situation starts. This situation funnels alloys and other resources from the provider to the subject, allowing them to store resources in preparation for a fealty/independence war. The provider can choose how much to give them. Giving more advances the situation more, but carries an increased chance of the overlord finding out. If the situation resolves, the subject is given a fleet (much like how separatists situation more per month, but relative to the fleet size of the provider rather than their own) and the war starts.
However, each month this carries a risk of the overlord gaining a notice that (subject) is plotting against them, and is gaining help from somewhere. They can launch an investigation espionage event on the subject. If successful, the cover is blown, and the overlord gains options:
- Shut it down and discipline the subject. If this is chosen, the subject is forced to close borders with the provider, and the fealty/independence support is cancelled. The Overlord also gains any materials given to the subject this way, and the subject gains the 'humiliation' effect.
- Secretly Siphon supplies: Instead of shutting it down outright, the overlord siphons a protion of the monthly alloys for themselves, allowing them to better prepare for the incoming war. This will cause the Subject and Provider's situation to slow down however. The Overlord is also given the situation to notify them when the war will start.
- Declare War: Attempts to catch both parties off guard by declaring the war then and there. The subject gets a reduce amount of fleet.
- When an independence or fealty war starts, all other subjects are not automatically required to join the war on the overlord's side if they have 'join defensive wars'. Instead, subjects that have overlord wars set to either 'defensive' or 'all' are given a choice to join the war on the overlord's side or the subject's. AIs will more likely side with the overlord if their loyalty towards them is good. In the case of a fealty war, the subjects are also given the choice of joining the fealty or just fighting for independence if they choose to side against the overlord.
Ones that don't have 'defensive' or 'all' conditions are given the choice to keep neutrality in addition to the other choices, allowing them to either join the war or sit it out.
All in all this makes fealty wars bigger and more serious, and more like the Imperial Feifdom.
- And finally, disloyalty gain should increase per year, not decrease, making it more, not less likely for subjects to rebel as the game goes on, not less.
All in all, these ideas are geared on making overlordship more tenuous and less permanent.
Espionage:
I hinted at this earlier. And yeah, talk about a nothingburger system in desparate need of a rework. It's only marginally useful for gaining intel on enemy positions, because most of the espionage operations range from only situationally useful to outright useless
(I'm looking at you, starbase sabatage.) This has the side effect of making the Subterfuge tree kinda useless.
So my thoughts here have two parts. Current ones and ones that need to be added. I'll start with the former first. But first, a semi related thought:
Envoys should be their own leader class. yeah, that's a semi-popular one. But I'm really reiterating it here. Either that or roll Envoys into the Official class and give them a Spy subclass. We already have a Diplomat class for the only other remaining function for envoys (increase/harm relationships. Which I think should also be an 'espionage' opration, but I'll get to that later.) That way, spies can level up and leveled up spies can get more results from them. I'll include this in the below suggestions where appropriate.
Though I do think that Diplomat should be removed from officials and both the spy and diplomat should be rolled into a separate 'envoy' leader class. Makes more sense and requires less work to roll the envoy bonuses into them.
Now, onto the current spy operations.
- Gather Intel/Acquire Asset/Prepare Sleeper Cells/Crisis Beacon/Imperium related ones/Consume Star/Lure Kelidoscope: I'm just going to lump my thoughts (or rather, lack thereof) into one single group. That is, this does what they're supposed to do so other than the aforementioned 'make spies a leader job so they can level up and get better results' part, I don't really have anything to say here. The first three are honestly the only really useful ones (though all three become obsolete when you get the Sentry Array. But nothing to say there.) And the others are quite simply niche that, again, I don't really have much complaints about. So eh.
- Extort Favors: Honestly, I think it's time we took the favor system behind the shed and put it out of its misery, and replace it with a more specific trade action system. It was an old, lazy system of getting around the lack of direct diplomacy and when trading favors was removed, favors really fell off in usefulness. Problem is nothing has replaced them and it's a system that clings to life well past its expiration date.
Wait, where was I? Oh right, the espionage event itself. Personally, I think the favor thing should be removed for a straight up diplo boost with that empire, replacing 'Improve Relations' with this more interactive version.
- Spark Diplomatic Incident: My problem with this is that it's just a lesser version of Smear Campaign and there's little reason you'd do this over the other. The penalties are too small for the amount of effort put into it (they lose 60 opinon with a random empire, or you lose -15% diplo weight or you lose 10 influence.
Oh no. Anyway...
Yeah, the penalties need to be bumped up. Quad the influence loss, triple the opinon loss, and double the diplo weight loss. Plus, like Smear campaign is now, you need to be able to choose the nature of the target. Basically, while the latter would give a reduced opinion with everyone, this would be more targeted. Also the higher the spy level, the bigger the impact.
Oh, and if the member is a federation member or president, they lose some cohesion. Moreso if they're the latter.
- Smear Campaign: Right now this is just the 'better' Diplo incident, but that's not saying much. So my fix for this is making it so that instead of the current system (change that to the above), it gives a negative opinion modifier to all empires for a while. If empire is an overlord, they lose loyalty with subjects and gain a negative mod to loyalty per month for a while. If they're a member of a federation, that federation loses some cohesion and increases their ethics friction in the federation. If they are a federation president, they lose cohesion per member, making it more of an effective means to destroy Feds.
- Steal TechnologyOnly minorly useful. So my suggestions are:
- Make it so you get a choice of the tech you will steal. The more research options you have, the more choices you have.
- If you can't steal any tech, you simply steal a portion of their research per month, making it useful against empires less advanced than you.
- Level 8 spies can steal two techs or double the research.
- Sabatage Starbase: Wow, talk about a nothingburger of an operation. You waste 100 influence and several months to destroy one building in one starbase which you can't even choose.
"Oh no. That's going to marginally inconvenience me for one or two months while I rebuild it."
Like really, what were they thinking? Okay, time to remake this one.
- You choose the target.
- Most importantly, you 'destroy' the whole starbase, not just one pidly little building. All the modules, all the defense platforms, all the buildings, etc.
- All starbase buildings are replaced with 'wreckage' modules/buildings. They can't be deleted, only replaced. Each one of them reduces starbase module buildspeed by 25% each.
- More experienced spies can also steal some resources from the starbase and/or destroy all mining stations in the area.
Basically, this makes this sabatage operation actually damaging and not just 'less than a minor inconvenience'.
- Arm Privateers: Another nuscance. In theory they scale, but really they don't. Instead, give an option on how much you're going to arm them with. Giving them less scales them less, giving them more scales them larger.
Okay, so those are the empire ones. Not really going to cover the primative ones as again, not much to talk about there. So now, onto the operations I think we desperately need to be added:
- Forment Unrest: Increase crime/deviancy on a target planet, reducing stability and increasing chances of crime related events.
- Plant Dissent: Can only target a subject that isn't your own, or members of a federation you don't belong to that aren't the president. If successful, decreases subject loyalty towards the overlord or causes cohesion loss in a federation and increases their chance of leaving the federation.
- Enforce Loyalty/Reinforce Cohesion: The exact opposite of the above. Only available to overlords or federation presidents. Increases loyalty towards you or increases federation cohesion from that member. Is not considered a hostile action.
- Freedom Trail: Only available if you are an egalitarian, worker coop, xenophile, or rogue servitor. Can only target an empire that has organic slaves, assimilated cyborgs (DAs), or in the process of purging/assimilating. In the latter case, will target currently assimilating/purging pops first. When successful, will steal a number of slaves from a target planet and add them to your own empire. Freed pops will have the 'saved from slavery'/'saved from assimilation'/'saved from purge' modifiers on them. Amount of slaves scales to total slave pop on the planet. Planets with more slaves give better results but come with a higher chance of failure. Higher level spies will take a higher percentage of slaves. If found out, will cause a disposition hit with the empire in question.
- Organic Trafficking: The inverse of the above. Only available if your empire has slavery enabled or you are a driven assimilator (it will be called 'Steal Organics' instead) or a hive that is capable of assimilating organics into the hive (It will be called 'Drone Raid'.) Will attempt to steal pops from a planet on target empire and place them into your own as slaves or assimilation victims. They will have the 'recently conquered' modifier on them. If the raid is traced back to you or it fails, you will gain a disposition hit with the empire in question. Amount of pops stolen scales with pop of current planet. Bigger planets yeild more of a load but also higher chance of failure.
Can target Primitives with this one too.
Toaster Liberation Steal Robots: Organic Trafficking but for robots. Unlike Organic Trafficking, you can use this if your empire has artificial intelligence enabled (in other words, you just have to not be a fanatic spritualist or hive), and the target must have robots (regular robots, synths, or machine mind robots will do.) Works roughly the same way.- Rig Election: Can only target Democratic or Oligarcic empires. Will attempt to rig the next election to bring a canidate more friendly towards you or more hostile towards (target empire) into power. If successful, the next election will be rigged and you gain a big diplo boost with yourself or target empire suffers a diplo hit with another one of your choice. However, if you fail, you get a massive diplo hit.
- Launch Coup: Cannot target Gestalts. Will attempt to overthrow a target's government. If successful, the target empire will become Dictatorial with a new leader and you will immediately subjugate target empire. However, target empire will have the 'recently conquered' modifier on all its worlds for several years, increasing crime and lowering stability. If it fails, you gain a massive diplo hit and they gain the 'Animosity' casus beli.
- Sabotage Logistics: Increases the target's fleet upkeep and reduces their naval capacity for 5 years. Higher level spies increase the amount of upkeep and naval capacity loss.
- Steal Resources: Steals resources from a target empire's resource stockpiles and adds it to your own. If successful, you get a choice of which resource to steal. Can only steal physical resources, not Unity or Research or Influence.
- War Propaganda:Can only target a non-gestalt empire you are currently at war with. If successful, one of several things will happen:
- Enemy War Exaustion will go up by 5-20% (base). Most likely outcome.
- Max ground forces morale will be reduced by half their war exaustion (IE: If they have 50 war exaustion, morale will go down by 25%).
- Stability on unoccupied enemy planets will be reduced by half their war exaustion.
- Enemy naval damage reduced by half their war exaustion.
- (Rare) An enemy fleet will mutiny and do an emergency FTL, killing the admiral in the process and becoming a pirate fleet when it emerges elsewhere.
- (Very rare) An enemy fleet will mutiny and defect, killing the Admiral in the process.
That Wraps up my thoughts on it. Now for my thoughts on Diplomacy and the Galcom. Those are much shorter, as most of what I said about them I already covered above.
As far as diplomacy goes, like I said, Favors should go the way of the dodo in exchange for more direct trade options. Trading for:
- Support on a Galcom/Federation proposition
- Attempting to increase/decrease relations between them and (target empire)
- Etc.
- Hopefully other trade options like rogue servitors being able to trade drones for organic pops, slavers able to trade slaves back and forth directly from each other, etc.
And finally, the Galcom itself. Honestly, the only thing I have to say about it:
Reduce the session time by AT LEAST half.
Because right now it has one major problem: It's slower than molasses in Alaska. There's a lot of options and chains to go down. Too bad you'll not really get much of a chance to explore any of them since every session lasts whole years. And there's no way to speed that up (save for the council but that just ends it early.)
My proposition here are only a few
- As I said, cut it down by 1/2-2/3rds of what it is now. Because it's insufferably slow to the point that you can almost just ignore it.
- A tradition/starter/ender effect for Politics that reduces it down by 10%, and this effect stacks with others that have it up to 80%.
- As previously mentioned, an L5 effect for Gal Union federation types that reduce it further.
Obviously the max cap for the latter two should be 80-90 percent. We don't want the Galcom being
too efficient to the point to where all decisions are instant.
Oh, and maybe take inspiration from
Gordon_CMB's Superstates Mod as alternate versions of the Galactic Imperium. Because it makes no sense for a democratic crusader to proclaim the Galcom, and a Rogue Servitor Gal Imp should look
far different from a depoiler or criminal enterprise Gal Imp
