I agree that instant switching seems a little too excessive.
The problem I have with the way it works, is you find a planet that an enemy has, you bombard the planet, and then set up shop, and all the guys you sent, immediately turn around and join the otherside, that just doesn't seem very realistic, you arn't going to have people who spent their entire life in one culture/empire switch in whatever the time period of one second is.
"So Roger, we are about to settle on this new planet..."
"For the Empire!!!"
*Craft Lands*
"Wow these cities our Empire just completely oblitherated are pretty neat looking"
"Yea"
"Lets join them!!!"
"Ok!!!"
When there is a stronger culture nearby, it seems that people who grew up around it are much more apt to switch sides, compared to the ones who settled there. (For example, look how when people immigrate to another country, they usually culturally are still very much of where they came from, but their kids are usually much more apt to be like the country they now reside in)
Two ways that IMO would work better.
#1 - Whenever you colonise a planet, your culture loyalty starts out at 100%, and then begins to slowly go towards what the value would naturally be. (Also an easier way to see who a colony is loyal towards, espcially useful when there might be 3 empires that their loyalties are split between
#2 - When you bombard a planet, you have two choices, either you basically occupy the planet, but keep most of the infrastructure, however if its far away from your empire/no Broadcast centers, they switch fairly quickly (as your people are only a small percent of total population. Or you raze the planet, and start over (perhaps with some penalty of having to clean up?, dunno) but your culture starts out at 100% (like above) and if you don't increase the the culture loyalty (or take out neighboring systems) you loose it.
Agreed on principle. A game shipping with a "feature" like instantly losing your planet once you take it is perceived as buggy or unpolished. Just look at the number of people in this thread who've come into it thinking that it was a bug! "This can't be right!" Please, do not do something so counterintuitive or the game will be injured significantly. I consider this a blocking issue.
Someone mentioned the idea of planetary anarchy. I am tempted to agree with this, or *some other* explanation which flat-out prevents you from colonizing the world while it's under a net cultural stress from the previous owner.
In other words, rather than having the counterintuitive, mechanically-broken functionality of repetitively colonizing and losing the world, make it temporarily uninhabitable. No one owns it - the previous owner doesn't have the logistics or infrastructure in the sector to colonize it, and the cultural forces are so great that the invading army can't set up a foothold there. This wouldn't eliminate the waiting problem, but people have suggested very good solutions to this (e.g., losing culture at 4x the rate that it's gained once the broadcast center is destroyed).
Also, I would like to suggest the (perhaps novel) idea that the Sova Carrier's "Embargo" ability should also help to drain residual culture that is no longer being maintained by a broadcast center. The embargo, in everyday parlance, could be described as two simultaneous actions:
1. The carrier's fighters are intercepting and apprehending/destroying any ships - civilian, microscopic or otherwise - that might be entering the sector to deliver culture.
2. The carrier also has advanced electronic countermeasures that have the opposite effect of propaganda: rather than broadcasting influential data, the carrier inhibits such communications from reaching the planet's populace. After a repeated successful use of the Embargo ability, the sector would be colonizable much sooner than it would be otherwise.
I think the larger issue here is one of strategic diversity vs. necessary elements.
Let's define "strategic diversity" as the degree with which a player can choose a certain technological, logistical and strategic path while excluding others.
Necessary elements are those which have absolutely zero strategic diversity: without the necessary elements, you basically can't go anywhere in the game.
Let's look at the existing necessary elements in Beta 1:
1. Planets (duh)
2. An economy. The economy is itself a bit diverse, though; you could:
A. Build orbital refineries
B. Constantly expand to sectors with usable materials
C. Build trade posts, get tons of credits, and buy resources on the black market
3. Some sort of military force. Defenses weren't enough in Beta 1; you needed to have offense too.
In Beta 2, things have changed quite a bit:
1. Planets (duh, again)
2. An economy which is just as diverse as before
3. Some sort of military force. But thanks to the huge role of culture, it's conceivable that players could specialize in tactical defense and, with the help of a few cruisers, never have to aggressively build a war fleet. So you can either build a war fleet or you can not build a war fleet. Diversity - yay!
4. Broadcast Centers! Without them, you're basically screwed. You can't attain a cultural victory; your planets will gradually get taken over; AND your military strategy is ineffective unless you're *also* a culture monger. Loss of diversity - boo!
Do you see what I'm getting at? I would like to retain the *option* for players to take a risk and not build culture. Sure, you can still lose your own planets when the enemy's culture overwhelms you; this is by design. But should you have to establish this "balance" between culture and military? The more elements you add like this, the more stale the game becomes. You can start building a recipe for how to play the game, and unless broadcast centers are an ingredient, you lose. That didn't use to be the case.
Dunno, guess that's just my perspective, plenty of people seem to think it's reasonable to have streamlined strategy games. I like it when there are many separate ways to win the game, meaning that there is an "OR" between each aspect, rather than "AND".
-allquixotic
