Igard
Posts: 2282
Joined: 3/29/2010
From: Scotland
Status: offline
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With the empire borders suggestion flying high in the polls right now, I thought I'd post up my idea for how to implement a border system that wouldn't destroy our freedom to colonise.
It would create a penalty zone around your colonies. This would represent your area of influence or your border. The settings for the size of this region could be changed in the game setup options, 1 sector, 0.75 sector, 0.5 sector, 0.25 sector, or not at all (switch the system off).
What would it look like?
A coloured region is out of the question since we already have that for long range sensors. A dotted line or solid line denoted by empire colour would suffice.
When can I and when can't I, colonise?
If an alien race has good relations with you, say 20 or above, then you can colonise within these regions without penalty, just as you can do in the game now. If the relationship is between 0 and 20, then there will be a penalty for any colony that exists in the other empire's space. From 0-10, this penalty will be noticable and from 10-20, it will be minor.
If an alien race has bad relations with you, you will find that the colony has a 'can colonise but proximity to hostile race will reduce culture and development' warning, just like there was a hostile independant race on the planet but with some differences. The colony ship will be successful, but the colony will be compromised by its undesirable location. If relations with the other empire are significantly bad, say -30 or less, then the colony will have no chance of success and it will not be possible to send a colony ship.
What if I want to sell a planet in another empire's space?
Colonies within these regions would appear in the diplomacy trade options. They would have to be priced according to how prosperous the planet is, so new colonies would be reasonably affordable, since they would have a low value/GDP. There would have to be a way to avoid exploiting this. If I were to colonise a planet in enemy space, the colony ship might cost me say, 8,000. So, to sell the colony to the enemy, it would have to go for less than this, so I'd be losing out.
If I colonise a system and then another empire colonises next to it, how do we resolve who owns the space?
The larger the population, the greater the claim to the region. This could be exploited by building larger colony ships, so to prevent this there would need to be a minimun population size before the system could be put in place. Say about 300m population and the region is yours, that's if the other empire doesn't beat you to it. If this works, it could create some nice scenarios.
Do race stats make any difference?
Yes. It emulates the nature of a civilian population. More aggressive or the less intelligent races may be amenable to the idea of living near a hostile empire. A passive or an intelligent race would most likely be averse to moving to such a place with the realisation it would be first to be conquered should both sides go to war.
How will the AI behave?
The more aggressive the alien race is, the more likely they are to attempt colonising within your borders as the penalty for such colonies is not as severe. A passive race will only colonise if you have good relations with them, say 20 or above. The more aggressive the race, the more likely they are also to invade a colony within their own territory (defending their space), rather than try to trade for it as a passive, friendly race would do.
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