Greetings everyone. This is an idea I'm currently working on to make a playable nation based on the information we have gotten from the irassian precursor anomalies. I'm not just making it flavorful as I feel thats not enough to garner my interest. I would like to change the way we play the game on a fundamental level, and I have a basic system in place currently. As of now no mod has been posted to the workshop, but it will be once a basic feature-set has been completed and is relatively bug-free.
The working name I have right now is Nova Imperator Astrorum. It's somewhat dodgy latin for "A new ruler of the stars" and I went with this as the irassians felt rather roman imperialist. In general, I will borrow some ideas from the days of the roman empire to spice things up.
So what do I plan to do? and why make this topic? Previous experience developing the mod polished primitives has taught me the value of having a solid plan from the start. Retracing steps already taken is frustrating and becomes exponentially more time-consuming the larger the mod becomes. As a partial overhaul it is important I know what I plan to do well in advance.
Hence the brainstorming aspect - I am inviting anyone interested to post their thoughts based upon my current/planned changes and my overall goals. Any criticism is valid, so long as it is not flaming, but do keep in mind that I have a particular vision that I want to create here.
Goals are in bold
Planned changes are below goals in #
Greatly complicate the process of creating large empires
# Cannot colonize any planet that is not a unique terraformed planet. Working name is "Ammonite Cryosphere".
# Can terraform only certain planets into the cryospheres. Currently settled on toxic or cold barren worlds.
# Terraforming requires a unique resource that is also needed to keep your citizens happy. Working name is "Ammonite Ice"
# Terraforming is relatively cheap. However, expanding rapidly or losing a large war can break your empire.
# Acquiring ice must be done through resource intense production with certain buildings.
Create incentives to take vassals and protectorates
# Adapt a system of client-states as mentioned in the anomalies. You can receive certain bonuses for subjugating an empire instead of annexing them.
# Create a series of events/modifiers to add debuffs as the empire grows larger. One example is a soft-cap to your total owned planets. This is raised somewhat as you acquire client states.
# Client-states are special vassals that add to your soft-cap of total owned planets. However, they can only be created after following an event chain regarding a regular vassal.
# Multiple varieties of client-states should exist to serve certain playstyles or functions. EX: A client may give boosts to your research rate, but they don't join wars.
Smooth out progression as you enter the mid-game
# Add techs to deal with vassals, protectorates, client states and other empires.
# Client-states can take decades to create from scratch, and still retain the possibility of rebelling or interfering in your affairs.
# Slow expansion rate will shift snowballing back by many years. Game focus will be on client-states as well as acquiring Ammonite Ice.
# Some bonuses and events should be specific to protectorates, and client states that started as protectorates
Interactions with other empires, including Fallen Empires
# Extra events and interactions from threat. Too little threat creates internal disorder (similar to hordes in EU4), too much results in retaliation wars (similar to coalitions in EU4).
# FE's remember your tyranny and may influence galactic politics to slow your advance. Can result in a crisis if left angered for too long.
# Ethic of FE will determine interaction, EX: xenophiles will take offense to violent subjugation or pummeling current vassals into submission.
Javorian Crisis countdown active from the games start
# The javorian pox is still around and will cause a nearly un-surmountable crisis that will wipe out most, if not all, of your pops. Finding a cure is a necessary goal by the end-game.
# Can only make progress with certain conditions. TBD, but one way of handling this might be through diplomatic events, EX: Progress can only be made by attacking a certain empire, or angering a subject.
# Should be a secondary concern early on, and a primary concern towards the end of the mid-game. As such opportunities must be numerous, but normally undesirable.
# Finding a cure then requires it to be created and distributed. These are resource intensive projects across every planet. Being too slow will mean the crisis will kill off certain planets.
I've yet to flesh out ideas for the end-game, but subjugating the FE's to enable event chains that can finally remove irassian suceptibility to disease is one idea.
As you can see this is quite a lot of work to get done! I think the basic ideas are fine so far, but they do need refining. I'm not certain if having to worry about the pox, ice, client states and FE's is going to be too much to handle or too little. I would like the game to be slower in general with more interactions in otherwise bland areas. This list is an attempt to do that, but there may be better ways of achieving the same goals.
If you want a more tangible example of how I did some basic incentivization for enlightening primitives then take a peek at the screenshots section in my other mod - polished primitives, linked in my signature. I'm going to take various aspects from there and generally use it as my testbed for this mod. I'll still be updating that one of course
Once I recover my old files and set them all up I'll be showing you guys how it looks in game with pics. So far I have the terraforming done, some modifiers setup, a few custom graphics and a couple of early game events to describe the mechanics. This should help you get a better feel for how it will work before its available for download.
Thanks for reading this massive textwall! I'll try to reply here whenever possible.
The working name I have right now is Nova Imperator Astrorum. It's somewhat dodgy latin for "A new ruler of the stars" and I went with this as the irassians felt rather roman imperialist. In general, I will borrow some ideas from the days of the roman empire to spice things up.
So what do I plan to do? and why make this topic? Previous experience developing the mod polished primitives has taught me the value of having a solid plan from the start. Retracing steps already taken is frustrating and becomes exponentially more time-consuming the larger the mod becomes. As a partial overhaul it is important I know what I plan to do well in advance.
Hence the brainstorming aspect - I am inviting anyone interested to post their thoughts based upon my current/planned changes and my overall goals. Any criticism is valid, so long as it is not flaming, but do keep in mind that I have a particular vision that I want to create here.
Goals are in bold
Planned changes are below goals in #
Greatly complicate the process of creating large empires
# Cannot colonize any planet that is not a unique terraformed planet. Working name is "Ammonite Cryosphere".
# Can terraform only certain planets into the cryospheres. Currently settled on toxic or cold barren worlds.
# Terraforming requires a unique resource that is also needed to keep your citizens happy. Working name is "Ammonite Ice"
# Terraforming is relatively cheap. However, expanding rapidly or losing a large war can break your empire.
# Acquiring ice must be done through resource intense production with certain buildings.
Create incentives to take vassals and protectorates
# Adapt a system of client-states as mentioned in the anomalies. You can receive certain bonuses for subjugating an empire instead of annexing them.
# Create a series of events/modifiers to add debuffs as the empire grows larger. One example is a soft-cap to your total owned planets. This is raised somewhat as you acquire client states.
# Client-states are special vassals that add to your soft-cap of total owned planets. However, they can only be created after following an event chain regarding a regular vassal.
# Multiple varieties of client-states should exist to serve certain playstyles or functions. EX: A client may give boosts to your research rate, but they don't join wars.
Smooth out progression as you enter the mid-game
# Add techs to deal with vassals, protectorates, client states and other empires.
# Client-states can take decades to create from scratch, and still retain the possibility of rebelling or interfering in your affairs.
# Slow expansion rate will shift snowballing back by many years. Game focus will be on client-states as well as acquiring Ammonite Ice.
# Some bonuses and events should be specific to protectorates, and client states that started as protectorates
Interactions with other empires, including Fallen Empires
# Extra events and interactions from threat. Too little threat creates internal disorder (similar to hordes in EU4), too much results in retaliation wars (similar to coalitions in EU4).
# FE's remember your tyranny and may influence galactic politics to slow your advance. Can result in a crisis if left angered for too long.
# Ethic of FE will determine interaction, EX: xenophiles will take offense to violent subjugation or pummeling current vassals into submission.
Javorian Crisis countdown active from the games start
# The javorian pox is still around and will cause a nearly un-surmountable crisis that will wipe out most, if not all, of your pops. Finding a cure is a necessary goal by the end-game.
# Can only make progress with certain conditions. TBD, but one way of handling this might be through diplomatic events, EX: Progress can only be made by attacking a certain empire, or angering a subject.
# Should be a secondary concern early on, and a primary concern towards the end of the mid-game. As such opportunities must be numerous, but normally undesirable.
# Finding a cure then requires it to be created and distributed. These are resource intensive projects across every planet. Being too slow will mean the crisis will kill off certain planets.
I've yet to flesh out ideas for the end-game, but subjugating the FE's to enable event chains that can finally remove irassian suceptibility to disease is one idea.
As you can see this is quite a lot of work to get done! I think the basic ideas are fine so far, but they do need refining. I'm not certain if having to worry about the pox, ice, client states and FE's is going to be too much to handle or too little. I would like the game to be slower in general with more interactions in otherwise bland areas. This list is an attempt to do that, but there may be better ways of achieving the same goals.
If you want a more tangible example of how I did some basic incentivization for enlightening primitives then take a peek at the screenshots section in my other mod - polished primitives, linked in my signature. I'm going to take various aspects from there and generally use it as my testbed for this mod. I'll still be updating that one of course
Once I recover my old files and set them all up I'll be showing you guys how it looks in game with pics. So far I have the terraforming done, some modifiers setup, a few custom graphics and a couple of early game events to describe the mechanics. This should help you get a better feel for how it will work before its available for download.
Thanks for reading this massive textwall! I'll try to reply here whenever possible.
- 2
