end game sequences

[scaper12123]

The War in Heaven is a very interesting and intense concept that makes for an exciting climax to any game of Stellaris, but surely that's not the only thing that could/would happen in a realistic scenario. You could only imagine what would happen if one empire was expanding inexorably across the galaxy: everybody else would probably band together against them. Or maybe some sort of galactic united nations would arise, or something else.

What I would like to suggest is for there to be a bunch of end game sequences that can happen that would help drive a game to its ultimate conclusion, each based on the circumstances present in the galaxy. I made up a few examples of sequences that could happen although this shouldn't be considered an exhaustive list of ideas.

My suggestions for sequences are:
Nothing would happen, and the game would play out as it would normally. Could happen under any circumstance
A War in Heaven would occur, which we already have
A Galactic UN would be formed to preserve the sanctity of the more peaceful nations of the galaxy. Would be likely to occur if there's a lot of peaceful nations.
A federation would be formed between every small nation to fight the largest non-FE foe, which could happen if a single nation was much stronger and more powerful than everybody else.
Galaxy-scale war would break out between every nation, pitting everybody against literally everybody else, which could happen if most nations were on even ground

 

[PalmettoExplorer14]

I actually like this. I remember a game where you could form a galactic UN and try to create policies, trade agreements, etc that the other space empires had to follow or face expulsion. The problem was if someone else was the leader of the space un you had to obey their policies! Made for some interesting gameplay.

 

[GC13]

We don't need pre-scripted events for these, we need game mechanics that cause them to happen. I'm especially thinking of the federation forming to oppose a dominant empire: we already have Threat to theoretically make this happen, except they miraculously don't care about your expansion if you either do it slowly enough or if you liberate, feed, and integrate vassals. They aren't reacting to how easily you could crush them, they're reacting to how quickly you expand. Threat or no Threat there really needs to be a balancing impulse for empires, so nobody is left on the dance floor alone with a big, scary empire looking to conquer.

 

[PalmettoExplorer14]

We don't need pre-scripted events for these, we need game mechanics that cause them to happen. I'm especially thinking of the federation forming to oppose a dominant empire: we already have Threat to theoretically make this happen, except they miraculously don't care about your expansion if you either do it slowly enough or if you liberate, feed, and integrate vassals. They aren't reacting to how easily you could crush them, they're reacting to how quickly you expand. Threat or no Threat there really needs to be a balancing impulse for empires, so nobody is left on the dance floor alone with a big, scary empire looking to conquer.

Wait a moment wouldn't vassalizing others generate threat? It should make even isolationist empires want to band together to stop you.

But yes I agree. In addition to these events we also need mechanics to make them actually work.

 

[melkor88]

Those are some good ideas. The only one one I don't like is nothing happening. As I feel the reason we have these scripted events is because otherwise after a hundred years or so you would become too powerful, snowball and then quit because there was no one else to fight - Much like in CK2/EU4 etc

 

[scaper12123]

We don't need pre-scripted events for these, we need game mechanics that cause them to happen.

That's a bit what i'm leaning towards. A set of game mechanics that can come into play post-crisis that encourages these things to happen, with the one chosen depending on the current circumstances of the galaxy. It's worth noting that it's actually very difficult for nations to form unified federations against a common foe due to the way ethics, border friction, and alliances work. These mechanics all conspire to ensure that any alliances that do form are not unified between all the nations that need to be to face a foe.

The only one one I don't like is nothing happening.

The only reason I bring that one up is to prevent the whole scenario from becoming predictable and easy to game

 

[GC13]

It's worth noting that it's actually very difficult for nations to form unified federations against a common foe due to the way ethics, border friction, and alliances work. These mechanics all conspire to ensure that any alliances that do form are not unified between all the nations that need to be to face a foe.

The diplomacy AI needs serious design time allotted to it. Right now how other empires feel about you is fairly uni-dimensional: the things that decide whether you are their kind of folks (same/different ethics, similar/different policies) apply to the very same score that decides whether they think you are a strategic threat or not (xenophile/xenophobe, threat) and whether a defeat by you will be truly horrible (genodical, terror bombing). The strategic concerns of Threat are kind of simulated by having Shared Threat be a modifier towards defensive pacts and federations, but this is just a crude way to make it look like the AI is thinking strategically.

Just sitting here trying to come up with a solution, first of all I think we need two bars: opinion and threat. Opinion would affect how likely they are to cooperate with you, and Threat would affect how likely they are to balance against you. Terror Bombing and Genocidal would probably apply to both bars, while the two categories I laid out in the first paragraph would go where they belong. Most importantly, Threat would also include a Relative Power calculation, where the stronger you were relative to them the more threatening they considered you, regardless of your actions.

A low opinion and a high threat would trigger balancing behavior, causing federations to form. (Probably calculate the relative power based on the strength of their federation versus yours [or you and your coterie of vassals].) A high opinion and high threat would trigger bandwagoning, where they tried to become a federation member or subject empire.

I do see a problem with this specific implementation though: there's not enough dragging Opinion down. In the real world, balancing is strongly preferred to bandwagoning, so a large aggressive empire should trigger hostile alliances—not pleas for vassalage. I believe that making Threat accumulate to both bars, and adding in an opinion penalty for integrating vassals, could solve this though. At the very least it's an avenue to explore.

 

[Everstill]

Yep, I like this very much. And it must have a lot of options so the game don't become predictable (like if you always do X, so Y always happen).

There can be a lot of things happen to the strongest empire in the galaxy, like a Rogue Sector governor building ships in secret and then band together with other nations to make a coup at your Empire. A Science Ship that go missing and then you discover his crew found an Ancient Planet in a secret system with autonomous factories and spaceport and rebuild the planet with Robots and have a Rogue Fleet that allies with your rivals to make a coup at you, etc....

The possibilities are endless, and if the outcome is unpredictable, it will make for interesting stories.