My thoughts on cultural conquest

I concur that it is sometimes too easy to win by cultural conquest - my suggestion - have star bases not give out culture points. Culture should eminate from the planets - that's it.

Hmm, I think star bases are essential for magnifying your culture in a given area.

I think culture needs to be tweaked but I think the other issue is that early on, constructors are expensive but once you get up and going, you can crank the things out like crazy.

Any suggestions?

Suggestions to control starbase expansion.

(a) Limit the range of starbases to a single sector no matter what techs are researched. This would expand them from your controled sectors gradually.

(b) Only allow starbases to be built in setors you control or have a system in

(c) Only take the highest bonus from starbases in a sector. ie. if you have 5 starbases you take the best upgrades from them not the sum of the upgrades. Mined resources would be seperate.

(d) Increase the base maintenance cost of starbases

(e) Increase the maintenance cost of starbases as you add to them. Each upgrade adds x maintenance.

Paul.

Brad,

I totally agree that starbases are necessary. But just like you said, "once you get up and going, you can crank the things out like crazy". At that point, it just becomes a race to see who can build them faster.

I like the fact that influence has a big role in the game, but there should be limits. It just seems unnatural to have five starbases in one sector. I would compare that with having five McDonalds in one block. One would draw all customers from the block because of its uniqueness, but five would probably make the people sick of seeing them all over. As a personal example, there was a Boston Market nearby that closed down. They opened up a McDonalds in its place. My reaction was "just what we need, another McDonalds". The AI should be very wary when such a thing happens, because the end result is the same as losing a planet in a war. After losing several planets to an opposing race, relations should head toward hostile, not close.

Another thing I would like to see is the AI build a starbase in its own sector to counteract the influence from an opposing race's starbase. I like some of Paul's suggestions, but I don't think limiting the range of constructors is a good idea. The mined resources are scattered all over, so most would be hard to reach if you are limited to one sector at a time. The AI should also be a lot more aggressive at the genius level in going after resources and anomalies. I don't think the AI ever builds any survey ships, even after they are destroyed in a war. The bonuses from the anomalies really add up.

I hope I don't sound too negative. I like the direction the game is heading. I'm just trying to give some suggestions to make the game even better.

I think once the AI is really programmed to build starbases and hunt anomalies aggressively that this problem may balance itself out.

One of the things that could be done is that the formula for culture influence in a given sector is built on a logarithmic scale which means that the amount of influence each successive starbase has would decrease to a given plateau. After 3 starbases you would only be getting 20-30% of the value the first one was getting.

I was thinking last night how it might be interesting if the effects of some of the anomalies didn't activate until the survey ship reached a port, or some of the anomaly effects were only applied to specific systems or starbases(the ones the survey ship landed on)instead of globally. That would really change the shape of the game........

Being able to only build Starbases in sectors you controll would kinda riun the whole point of Starbases wouldn't it? I mean, isn't their purpose to help you gain control of sectors that arn't yours?

I still prefer no culture from star bases - but I think this will be a good compromise to have some -

Planets should give the most culture influence - they have the most people. Star bases by definition have only a few thousand people - and 1 planet with Billions of people should be able to have more influence than than several star bases.

Building more star bases for more influences is a cheezy way to win over and there should be limits - either a decresing amount or after a certain amount - say 5 - there is no additional affect.

Also - influences should be suttle - it's still too easy to win by cultural victory - I think an overall decrease in the cultural change percetange is called for.

Also - the Good evil factor should way in - if you are a good civilization - there should be "no way" for you to find the Evil civilization apealing.

Jerry

I think SB are good as they are but

- limit the cultural influence of starbases to the current sector OR to a similar large area centered around the base.
- no accumulation for cultural effects, only the highest developed SB counts. I do think repair could be cummulative as you might think of several maintanence shops take care of the ships,consequently it should be divided by the number of ships currently repaired in the sector.
- IMHO the cultural impact of a star base is not negligible compared to a planet. I would compare star bases with market places in more ancient times, where merchants presented their goods, people met and enjoyed social life and discussed current issues. I think this place of exchange is where culture is flourishing and developping, rather than inside the 4 walls that surround our homes.

Cheers,

TT

I agree. Starbases should produce more culture than a planet, because they are there as cultural centers for aliens... more Aliens would be on a Starvase soaking up cultural items than on a human planet I'm sure...

If aliens are on the starbases and "soaking up cultural items", then maybe it should be two ways, as it is your starbase it should give you a higher influence, but it should also give other civ an influence on you as the people on the SB recive influence from aliens..

Okay, how about this:

Cultural influence modules start out much weaker and get stronger. Therebvy creating the incentive NOT to build as many star bases but instead focus on the ones you have.

The AI will start to look for humans building star bases in their territory and send you nasty grams if you are doing it and lower relations if you keep doing it. I.e. they won't just lay down and let you culturally annihilate them. They'll either go to war with you or build counter star bases or pay someone else to take care of you depending on which strategy they are pursuing.

How does this sound?

I think the biggest problem right now is that you can double your influence in a sector with 4 constructors. (2 starbases with the 25% cultural module). Take that away and have the AI start doing something about blatant cultural conquest strategies and I think things will become much better.

I like it. The warnings should be much more severe when the AI is evil and you are good, or vice-versa. I liked the GC OS/2 warnings that you'd be "breathing vacuum" if you continued destablizing.

Frogboy - I think you got it right -

be sure to include something on it's hard to convert opposite aligned empires - such as good and evil.

Jerry

Brad,
While I agree your solution would help I don't think it solves all the problems. I can still build a second/ third/ fourth starbase and increase my influence in a sector. I just have to max the first starbase before building the next. It will take longer, but eventually we'll be back to multiple starbases in a single sector. And just wait until they can be moved. I can see the move all my starbases into a single sector strategy being used.
We need to limit the maximum bonus being given. Just take the highest bonuses from all starbases in a sector should work, especially if the maintenance costs are increased to reduce starbase proliferation.
A seperate problem with multiple starbases per sector is the clutter effect.
While on the starbase issue I would love to see planet moral, planet quality, planet defense bonuses being added as upgrades to starbases.

Paul.

As long as you can plant a star base in an empty sector to increase your range prohibiting star bases in alien sectors may work.

My only concern is that this will pretty well work to remove the cultural win all together. Here is what typically happens when I play. I build on a planet early in the game rated around 16 in a Alien Sector. For some reason Aliens always have planets rated 31 and higher. I build a starbase with cultral improvements and my planet does not defect to the Aliens.
If no starbase can be built in a sector you do not control then over time each sector will be controlled only by one race.

So how can you win only by being a warmonger or by convincing every body to Ally or maybe by waiting it out and win by technology.

I think that the solution is somewhere in the middle. tone down cultural influence, make it less likely planets will defect and in toning down the possiblity to defect you can wipe out the bug where a major race defects to a minor race.

I find the idea of defecting because the power next to you is culturally more powerfull does not make sense, should be rare and is personally insulting. Here is a real life example of what I mean. I drive a American build car, watch US TV programming, movies, work for a US based company etc... The US culturally dominates our country. In your game we would defect a join up with the States. Sorry to tell you it will not happen.

I think that building a starbase to help your planet should be encourged not look at as something evil. Every planet should have a right to defend itself and building starbase helps.
While you tweak starbases maybe make the defence ability of the Starbase greater and let Starbase help out your planets economically should be increased.

Since the model for the influence aspect of star bases was supposed to be taken from what has occured with MacDonnalds and Coca Cola, I have some concerns about any attempts to limit star base placement by "rule of the game". The influencial affect of McD and Coke was rather subtle at first, hardly noticed in the early stages with the affects being rather hard to forsee by the "invaded" country.

Certainly, any attempt to place more than one star base in another civ's sector would be seen as a military buildup, in some cases simply because the civ only thinks in military terms, in other cases, just from fear of being conquered. The idea of nasty grams threatening the destruction of the star bases sounds likely and I encourage that idea. Any attempt to limit any kind of buildup should be based more on what we could expect a civ to do, not on some hard coded rule that prevents anyone from making a buildup wherever they want.

One of the very nice thing about GC (Win and OS/2) is the neat way it ties consequences to actions. This is what makes a strategy game a strategy game, that and trying to find a way around other civs' actions and/or complaints. If there is some aspect of the game that makes a strategy too easy to win with, for the AI or the human player, lets try to find a way to provide a way counter that strategy, instead of trying to throw in hard coded rules to eliminate the strategy. After all, I thought this was a major reason for the Metaverse, and I also thought this was what making a smart game AI was all about.

I agree. Don't limit anything, if someone wants to build massive amounts of Starbases they should be able to... we just need to tweak the modules and maybe the cost. Make it so it might not be a good idea, but don't flat out prevent it if someone wants to.

And to Technician... I come from Canada, and even though we're not officially joined with the states, CULTURALY we are practically the same. And while people may not like the USA, everyone wants to live like an American.

If the AI lets you sit there cranking out star bases in its sectors then it deserves to die.

I'm with Lucky Jack - I would like to see any "limitations" on Starbases within the existing game framework, not imposed by additional rules. For example, we can all agree that a smart alien civilization is not going to like having a flotilla of starbases shilling McDonald's and Coca Cola in their territory. So what can they do about it?

(1) Threatening war or at least to destroy those bases is an option that's already been mentioned.

(2) Using diplomacy to limit them. Imagine a message (like OS/2 "breathing vacuum" one that says, "We notice that you are filling up our territory with starbases. This is the bill for xxx bc a month to lease the space. Thank you for doing business with the Yor Collective." Then it's up to the player to decide whether he will pay it, or incur the wrath of the aliens. (Which might itself lead to a trade embargo or war)

(3) Appeal to the UP. "To respect all civilizations and cultures, cultural influences of starbases in foreign sectors will be limited to xxx".

I would also like to see cultural defections getting harder over time. My thinking is this: once a planet defects, the residents who don't like McDonald's and Coca Cola will probably redistribute themselves throughout the territories. The more planets defect to you, the higher the fraction of aliens disinterested in your culture on the other worlds, and the less likely they will defect. This should last about a generation.

The star bases broadcasting culture is an exploit -

it needs to be toned way down.

After the AI learns to deal with it better, it might not be so exploitable... I mean, when the AI learns to start attacking your Starbases before they get powerful enough to do anything it won't be a problem anymore.

Question: What would happen if McDonald's built 10 restaurants on a single block?
Answer: nothing more than if they built one.

The reason being that there are only so x number of people who will go there no matter how many they have.

Question: What happens if you built 20 starbases in a sector all with max cultural influence?

Answer: Every one gains maximum benefit.

WHY? If you read what the cultural expansions are you will quickly realise that even if there were 20 shopping centres, or water parks, there are still only X people able to go to them. There need to be a limit to maximum amount of influence. It's not a hard coded rule to eliminate strategy. It's a fact of life.

I would strongly suggest that this simple fact of life could be coded into the game to fix the current cultural problems. There is only so much culture that can be absorbed. More starbases won't increase this. Even worse, if another race also builds it's starbase with shopping centre, etc, then the cultural influence of the first starbace should be reduced. People can't visit both starbases at once!

Paul.

Solitar (Paul) said it best - it's called the law of diminishing returns.

Here's a suggestion - build 1 star base- get 100 % of it's cultural effect - build another - get 50 %, build another - get 25 %, and so on.

But in "space" we're talking about PLANETFULS of people who have to go all the way to the Starbases... think of them not as McDonalds but like Disney Lands. And think of them as each being different. Even with 20 of them in a sector, a given "space family" could go to say 10 of them in of their lifetimes... maybe more. All I'm saying is, you have to assume that each Spacestation is running at capacity. More space stations just mean more people being exposed to what you want them to be.

Is planetfuls a word?

I think a good solution might be a combination of what Paul, Star Ranger, and Wyrenn has said.

As long as the starbase can operate at max capacity then it should generate max cultural influence. Once there are enough starbases in the sector so that they do not operate at max capacity then each starbase should contribute less than max influence.

Let's say all starbases are able to support X people at max capacity. Then you can use this equation to figure out how much culture the starbase contributes to the sector:

Let P = total population in the sector (of all empires)
Let S = total number of starbases in the sector (of all empires)
Let C = the amount of culture the starbase can generate
Let X = the amount of population a starbase can serve

CultureOutput = C * min(1, P / (X * S))


With this method, then while there are only a few starbases in the sector they will all contribute their full culture. But once the sector has been saturated with enough starbases to serve all the population, then any additional ones do not add to the total culture pumped into the sector. Instead they "steal" a little bit of output from all the current starbases and output it as their own.

This serves two purposes: It puts a realistic limit on the number of starbases you can have in a sector that add to culture. And it allows you to counteract another empire's starbases by building your own to sap away the enemy's power.

Another thought is this: If the chance of a planet defecting due to culture does not already take into account the amount of population on a planet, then it should. For example, a planet with 1 billion people should be harder to defect than a planet with 1 million people.