Empire "factions" (Companies! Labs! Institutions! Your own personal Enclaves)

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Spaceception

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Jan 25, 2018
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From the https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...sion-wishlist-be-brief.1238212/#post-25777592 thread, I thought I should make a separate suggestion here.

I'm only going to focus on the first half, but tl;dr, entities similar in some ways to Enclaves should be able to pop up within your empire with different roles and effects and interact with your empire, and other (friendly) empires.


Some of this was on the fly


I would like to see a new type of faction (to be renamed) worked out as random entities you can interact with.

You should be able to interact with them on a deeper level than the Enclaves, but not as much as empires (or you could, but you'd have different "diplomatic" options).
There could be a bunch of these that pop up and grow within empires throughout the game, some could even become budding empires in their own right over its course, closely working with whatever empire they're within. And potentially affecting diplomatic deals, and the internal politics of your empire.

So you could have one faction pop up within your empire which is big on trade, and gets a merchant fleet. You may think of them as personal caravaneers, but they have different roles. You can ask them to manage a major trade route in exchange for some resources, and maybe a few pops every x years. Or they could build a special building at sector capitals which will give resources to them, and some to you (a bit like megacorps actually). They should even grow in size and power, to the point they could work more closely with your government/economy to help support it. So this would require reworking trade to be more important/impactful.

You would be able to deal with factions within other (friendly) empires as well (this could be deepened in federations), like asking for research of a new technology you don't have via a project of some sort, in exchange of like a tech they don't have, or something like that.

(Maybe not, just a sudden idea) Pirates could even prop up their own factions if not dealt with long enough, giving away resources and information to nearby empires in exchange for ships and pops. Like baby marauders or something like that.

In addition, the types of factions that could spring up could be dependent on the government and even ethics of your empire, this way you don't have like 10x the same faction pop up in every game. It also gives variety in general.
So Imperial governments may get factions controlled by their elite, with secretive intentions but lucrative deals, while democratic governments would get factions controlled by a few enterprising individuals with open intentions and moderate deals, and megacorporations would get factions that outsource services with empires they have commercial pacts with. The way they interact with you should also reflect that.
Each empire could only gain a handful of these factions as well, so the game isn't too saturated with them. Maybe if espionage is added, you should be able to infiltrate these to gain information about their empires, and dispatch agents of your own to make sure the factions aren't freely giving stuff away to anybody you don't trust. But that's a maybe.


Good idea? Should this be merged with current (and new?) Enclaves instead? Or should the idea of outright trading tech, or having someone manage trade routes be incorporated into current Enclaves, and new entities should be added to fill in the gaps? What are some factions that would be interesting to see?
 
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One of the recent-ish Dev Diaries outlined plans to include something called "Institutions". Details were sparse, but IIRC it was mentioned they might be things like an "Imperial Cult" or the like.
 
This is actually really similar to a big proposal I've been working on for a while, so I definitely think it's a good idea.
 
One of the recent-ish Dev Diaries outlined plans to include something called "Institutions". Details were sparse, but IIRC it was mentioned they might be things like an "Imperial Cult" or the like.
I know! I'm looking forward to seeing their plans for those. But to be perfectly honest, I was just trying to come up with a third type of example for the title. And institutions were the first thing that came to mind.

This is actually really similar to a big proposal I've been working on for a while, so I definitely think it's a good idea.
Thanks! Looking forward to seeing some similar ideas better articulated than mine :D
 
I, too, would like a properly-done X-COM: Apocalypse that is not confined to planet Earth.
What are the mechanics of that? How similar is it to this?
 
What are the mechanics of that? How similar is it to this?
The original design document of X-COM: Apocalypse had, like, a bazillion factions, with things like corporations, cartels, rebels, etc, that would interact with each other and the government in a lot of ways, with the player having to favor (or sabotage) different factions to further their interests. Unfortunately, the final product was a broken, incomplete mess.
 
more internal management/interaction would be great. something like crusader kings where there are 'countries within countries'.
 
more internal management/interaction would be great. something like crusader kings where there are 'countries within countries'.
Yeah, I agree. I'd love for your empires to feel more alive and active

The original design document of X-COM: Apocalypse had, like, a bazillion factions, with things like corporations, cartels, rebels, etc, that would interact with each other and the government in a lot of ways, with the player having to favor (or sabotage) different factions to further their interests. Unfortunately, the final product was a broken, incomplete mess.
Like this, if Stellaris could make something along these lines work, it would be amazing. I'd love to see various factions work together and grow their influence to get on the galactic stage.
 
Oh, and as an addition, you should be able to catch them doing illegal things as well. Like labs doing immoral research, or companies selling food... But it's made from pre-sapients.

Also, their leaders should have special traits, and may decide to join your Empire as powerful leaders.
 
This is definitely cool. I think the most important thing, in order to make factions and so forth feel alive, is for them to proactively do stuff, to try to force your hand politically in various ways (see this thread for a suggestion as to how that could work). So your 'personal caravaneers' might pressure you to change your trade route policy, for example, or to go to war to conquer a particularly juicy world they don't have access to - or, indeed, to end a war that's crippling your economy. Empires could then covertly make deals with these institutions to manipulate their host empires - perhaps your enemy bribes the personal caravaneers to pressure you to end your war against them, for example.
 
This is definitely cool. I think the most important thing, in order to make factions and so forth feel alive, is for them to proactively do stuff, to try to force your hand politically in various ways (see this thread for a suggestion as to how that could work). So your 'personal caravaneers' might pressure you to change your trade route policy, for example, or to go to war to conquer a particularly juicy world they don't have access to - or, indeed, to end a war that's crippling your economy. Empires could then covertly make deals with these institutions to manipulate their host empires - perhaps your enemy bribes the personal caravaneers to pressure you to end your war against them, for example.
Yeah, agreed. Something like this would only be interesting to me if the AI knew how to use it, and used it to their advantage. And I'll have to check that thread out later!
 
I think this is a great idea, if they had their own planetary starbases and civilian vessels doing various tasks within your space it would bring more life to the game.

In addition incorporated vassals could become factions.

But it would also be great to be able to interact and interfere with factions within another empire.
 
I think this is a great idea, if they had their own planetary starbases and civilian vessels doing various tasks within your space it would bring more life to the game.
Yeah, good for aesthetics, and giving them a base. I'd like to see civilian ships flying around our empires.

In addition incorporated vassals could become factions.
That's a good idea, and maybe you could choose. Let them become a faction, or incorporate them as now. I wonder what kind of faction they would take though. They would be significantly more powerful off the bat for one, having at least one planet and all.
 
That's a good idea, and maybe you could choose. Let them become a faction, or incorporate them as now. I wonder what kind of faction they would take though. They would be significantly more powerful off the bat for one, having at least one planet and all.
I don't think letting the player choose is a good idea - the point of an incorporated vassal faction would be to make your life more complicated, after all. And it's not like a government being incorporated would be super keen on giving up all their power and privilege to their new master.
 
I think they’d be incorporated into your empire as a new faction - that new faction would have its own issues. For each non-fanatic ethic the old government had it would gain two issues from the normal faction of that ethic. For each fanatic ethic it would gain four issues instead.

Rather than give it a world I’d have it cede all of its worlds, ships and stations to you as normal, but it would fill the branch office slot of it’s old home world and be able to produce ships from that world (as we used to before 2.something) that way incorporating is not less beneficial to the player.
 
Anyone else seeing the Illusive Man smoking a cigarette in front of a star when reading this?
Never played Mass Effect before, but that's a cool visual!

I think they’d be incorporated into your empire as a new faction - that new faction would have its own issues. For each non-fanatic ethic the old government had it would gain two issues from the normal faction of that ethic. For each fanatic ethic it would gain four issues instead.
If I'm reading this right, my "faction" idea doesn't work the same as current factions do. It was just the quick n' dirty name I came up with. So they wouldn't create their own faction with new issues. And if vassals do become like a company or something, they wouldn't be a direct part of your empire, and would be able do their own thing with new "diplomatic" options.

I don't think letting the player choose is a good idea - the point of an incorporated vassal faction would be to make your life more complicated, after all. And it's not like a government being incorporated would be super keen on giving up all their power and privilege to their new master.
And yeah, that's a good point.