Integration of new builds/conquests into the empire

[GloatingSwine]

A longstanding feature of the game has been the ease with which new conquests and techs can add power to an empire, and my suggestion for making it take more effort to stabilise and get value from new things would be an implementation system that gradually ramps up the benefits of new acquisitions:

The ideal for an implementation system would:

1. Happen at a rate which does not scale with empire size. This is the big thing that would act as a leveller between large and small empires. If the implementation happens at a non-scaling rate then smaller empires concentrate it more.
2. Allow the player to focus on it happening in specific places in their empire, but not have a high micro burden.
3. Not primarily hang on things the player was always going to do without it like building hyper-relays, trade routes. or gateways.
4. Compete with aggressive expansion (possibly by using the same system to integrate conquests).

So possibly give each system a metric called "Integration" based on its starbase. Everything built in a system (so all mines, research stations, observation platforms, starbase/orbital ring buildings, productive megastructures, and everything built on colonies) adds to the maximum integration of the starbase, and the actual output of the system scales with the proportion of integration points filled. So a system with 0/1000 integration points produces nothing, and 1000/1000 integration points produces 100% of its resources.

Empires produce a fixed rate of integration points irrespective of their size, and they spread out from the capital (so if the capital has unfilled points they get spent there first, then split between systems next to the capital, and so on), but the player has a set number of workers they can place (like envoys) which act as an extra spreading point for integration points**.

Peacefully settled systems start with a base of integration points, conquered systems start with 0 so that there is a delay in getting conquered places productive and placing an integration worker there is very valuable.

The rate of production and usage should be such that an empire that expands quickly can't keep up and it takes significant time to get a conquest integrated.

It shouldn't affect or be affected by stability though, so that you can keep a conquered planet under control but a badly integrated one will effectively be diverting all its resources to get that control. High integration should probably magnify piracy suppression though.

An empire which becomes a vassal should lose a portion of its integration points empirewide, less if peacefully vassalised, more if forcefully, but the overlord can assign one of their integration workers to share their own integration points with the vassal.

Technologies with a flat output bonus should add to the maximum integration points of whatever construction they apply to proportional to their output bonus. (eg. a 10% output bonus to mining platforms adds 10% to their integration points) so these also have to spread through the empire once researched.

** This could even replace governors as a "manager" type pop who is less of a passive stat stick.

 

[HFY]

This sounds like it could make conquest a lot more interesting and provide more nuance to decisions like "integrate or vassalize".

And it sounds like a foothold for some better internal politics mechanics, which I very much want.

 

[NotAYakk]

Integration sounds a lot like unity.

Like unity generates integration after being divided by empire size "for free" (every empire size of unity is 1 integration point). And you can spend extra unity (at size unity per integration point) on speeding it up.

Integration could flow freely from system to system. Maybe you lose 10% every time you traverse a warp lane?

 

[HFY]

Integration sounds a lot like unity.

If I'm reading the OP correctly, that's related but not identical, because integration would scale with both size and tech speed.

So a slow-teching big empire might use up the same Integration point total as a fast-teching smaller empire.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Integration sounds a lot like unity.

Not quite.

It's not a resource you spend, it's a process that happens over time and it happens at the same absolute rate irrespective of your empire size. Which is what makes it a leveler between large and small empires. Large empires would have a lot more stuff but most of it will be acting at partial capacity and the benefits of new technologies wouldn't be instantly applied everywhere, whereas smaller empires would be acting at full capacity over their much smaller amount of stuff.

It's basically what empire size (and a little bit of planetary ascension) is intended to do, but systematically and interactively rather than with a brute force penalty, and applied to things that empire size can't currently address (like the fact that of the two things that bring victory, science and alloys, it only applies to one and the other can easily overwhelm it).

And it would apply broadly to different playstyles, because no matter how you get the new capacity you have to integrate it. Conquest, colonisation, vassalisation, building and technological advancement all tie in to the same system dynamically so any time you do them you have a new way to make choices about it. Conquer an empire and start thinking about which of your new worlds is most valuable to integrate first, etc.

But because it's just a set it and forget it worker and you never lose integration points they just spill over into adjacent systems once the current one is full it has a low micromanagement load and you aren't penalised for not focusing on it and only interacting with it when something significant happens.