Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: J HG T

Great ideas there Simulation. One idea I actually came up recently is from good old Total annihilation and GalCiv 2. the ability to gift ships to other empires. I don't how this could be done but it would open some seriously funny possibilities. Your weak ally is fighting a losing war. Give him couple state-of-the-art capital ships to even the odds. And this would work other way around also. Allies giving you some ships on hard times. If the ships are more advanced than the ones empire has they would give tech bonus when retired, just like those derelict vessels.

And proper alliances are definetly needed. It should be next step from mutual defence pact and hard to achieve. But it would give some nice bonuses for both sides.

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More diplomacy options would be nice.

I love the new diplomacy model in Victoria II, its awesome, you can choose exactly why you are declaring war on an other empire, Annex country, annex specific provinces, subjugation war, liberating nation etc... that is Awesome..

I also loved the diplomacy and AI skills in galciv II which led to epic situations

Space empire V had a good dipomacy model but the AI was to bad to make any use with it, I like beeing able to create an union between several empires like the EU, or ONU.... and than you also can modifie a lot of things in that alliance like forbidding use of some weapons etc... that was great but unfortunatly SE V had a very bad AI even with all the mods that exist for that game.

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ORIGINAL: luke.h

Thanks Simulation01 and others for the input.
We will consider it for the fututre development of DW.

Thanks

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ORIGINAL: Igard

Nice idea, Simulation01. I think this would be cool, but only for certain races. I'd like to see a xenophobic/isolationist modifier for each race so that we could set how much they interact with other races (maybe this could simply be worked into the friendliness modifer already present). That way, if the race was distrustful of aliens and preferred to keep to themselves, they would never contemplate selling arms or tech to other empires.

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ORIGINAL: Simulation01

What do you think about the idea of being able to mothball ships?  You would mothball old or obsolete ships, but not destroy them.  They would be put in 'storage' basically to be brought back into service during times of national emergency.  These mothballed ships would not cost anything to maintain or at least very little to keep in mothball.  They would be kept in mothball at a certain planet or major starbase.

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ORIGINAL: Igard

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ORIGINAL: Simulation01

What do you think about the idea of being able to mothball ships?  You would mothball old or obsolete ships, but not destroy them.  They would be put in 'storage' basically to be brought back into service during times of national emergency.  These mothballed ships would not cost anything to maintain or at least very little to keep in mothball.  They would be kept in mothball at a certain planet or major starbase.

We could have great big starship museums! I used to send all my old favourite ships (ancient ships and the sort) to a remote system somewhere to be put into 'mothball' although of course they were still functional and would actually act as a defence force. I liked to think this was a fitting end to a ship with a long and proud history.

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ORIGINAL: Igard

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ORIGINAL: Simulation01

What do you think about the idea of being able to mothball ships?  You would mothball old or obsolete ships, but not destroy them.  They would be put in 'storage' basically to be brought back into service during times of national emergency.  These mothballed ships would not cost anything to maintain or at least very little to keep in mothball.  They would be kept in mothball at a certain planet or major starbase.

We could have great big starship museums! I used to send all my old favourite ships (ancient ships and the sort) to a remote system somewhere to be put into 'mothball' although of course they were still functional and would actually act as a defence force. I liked to think this was a fitting end to a ship with a long and proud history.

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ORIGINAL: Simulation01


Lol....that's an interesting work around, but they are still costing a great deal to maintain...whereas if you had a mothball function or option they would either cost very little to maintain or nothing at all.

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ORIGINAL: Igard

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ORIGINAL: Simulation01


Lol....that's an interesting work around, but they are still costing a great deal to maintain...whereas if you had a mothball function or option they would either cost very little to maintain or nothing at all.

Money is no object for a sentimental old tyrant like me!

I would say mothballed ships should cost a very small amount as they would need to be maintained by a quartermaster. Trek fans will remember Mr. Dokachin(sp?) the Zakdorn quartermaster of the Starfleet surplus depot.

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ORIGINAL: Simulation01

...Zackdorn Quartermaster?...are you referring to the episode of the Next Generation where Data was playing that crazy game, and the Enterprise was conducting war games with the old ship Star Gazer?

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ORIGINAL: martok

I'd be down for being able to mothball ships. It's a feature I've always wanted to see in a 4x game.

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ORIGINAL: Simulation01

...Zackdorn Quartermaster?...are you referring to the episode of the Next Generation where Data was playing that crazy game, and the Enterprise was conducting war games with the old ship Star Gazer?

He's referring to the TNG episode "Unification Part II". With Picard & Data on Romulus, Riker takes the Enterprise to a Starfleet junkyard in trying to track down some missing mothballed Vulcan ships.

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ORIGINAL: Carewolf

The game seems to have some peace brokering built in. Every now and then my advisors suggest I should propose a peace on my friends behalf, but for some reason I am not allowed to take this action on my own, and can only take it when advised to do so.

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ORIGINAL: Aures

I use the option to speak on behalf of someone I have a free trade agreement with all the time, really helps keep things calm when aggression is set to chaos.

Regarding the OP explicitly multi-lateral diplomacy is an interesting and ambitious idea. But in my experience the game already has some pretty interesting power bloc dynamics. Scrolling down the list of empires usually reveals a pretty good webs of wars and free trade agreements. But is it kind of messy like system borders. Personally, I like being able to be enemies with the enemy of my enemy, enemies with a friend of a friend, friends of my friends enemy etc. That ability is sorely missing in lots of diplomacy systems. If there was some kind of graphic where all the connections could be seen at once it would make it much easier to see all the different power blocs. I have seen that in pvp diplomacy systems that otherwise aren't more sophisticated than SW and it usually works quite well, especially if the nodes rearrange themselves based on the relationships they have. I think I have even seen it in a 4x but I forget which one.

There is of course a lot of room to extend the diplomacy system. Top on my list would be adding 100,000 and 1,000,000 options to the cash part (or better yet allowing us to just type in whatever we want). The ability to only offer disputed bases and colonies that are in what is regarded as the other player's territory is limiting. So is only being able to demand ones that are in space regarded by the game as yours. I'm not sure if the ability to buy or sell any tech level rather than just the most current would mess up how races with special techs currently works (though there seems to be special mechanics dealing with trading those anyway) but it would certainly add a lot more flexibility. Being able to trade ships would be somewhere on that same list of suggestions.

I am starting to learn how to really bend the diplomacy system to my will. Going to war for just long enough to grab a planet then bribing for peace and swapping the planet back for a tech is a great way to get to the cutting edge of technology at the start of a slow research game. It is also much cheaper than just buying the tech off them. I never even give away my territory map now, I just pay the AI for theirs. If they offer to swap territory maps with me I can usually just open the diplomacy screen and get them to give it to me for nothing. Using the suggest setting on diplomacy (I play with suggest gifts, treaties, war and trade sanctions) to allow me to speak on a friends behalf is part of the mix as well. I'm not 100% sure what the relevant automation setting is, but it would be a simple process of elimination to work it out.

Mothballing ships is another interesting idea but it would have to be worked out properly. You don't want mothballing and unmothballing to be too quick and easy or there is a temptation to always mothball something if you will not be using it for even just a brief period. If the ship can't move until a construction ship comes to unmothball it and it requires a visit from a construction ship to mothball it in the first place that would go a long way towards balancing it.