Multiple Empires Sharing Single Planets At Once?

[aitaituo]

If you think that complexity and difficulty are tedious and boring, I question the hours of Victoria II you've played. I also wonder if you find the SWMH mod "too complicated". Others have already expressed an interest in seeing this done properly and having a plausible sci-fi scenario when it comes to the playable human species, so its blatantly obvious I'm not online.

I don't think it'd be complex or difficult. Just tedious and boring, due to it's predictability and simplicity. It's like how in Vicky 2 one of the first things you should always do is encourage bureaucrats. With the historical setup of Vicky, it's effectively a starting scaled debuff for some countries and even then still not very interesting. In a symmetrical start, it'd be a hit this button and wait until you can actually use the national focus for something useful beyond removing a debuff you will never see again in core territories.

No matter how developed a divided Earth minigame was, it's just 25 tiles or so and then you get to actually play the space game. The minigame can even mirror the regular mechanics quite well and nonetheless be a tedious and boring minigame you have to wade through every time you start a new game. See the Fallout 3 start, where you inevitably want to punch Liam Neeson in the face and get out of the damned vault already, so you make a save just before the end of the tutorial quest at the character editor and that becomes your new new game button.

 

[zukodark]

Perhaps factions should work similarly to the new Estates in eu4? An empire could have several factions, each with an influence, loyalty and territory value, and their own ethics. In terms of Earth, this could create scenarios like:

"China is disloyal, so they grant us penalties on the planets where they have a presence. Perhaps we should give them these territories to regain their support?"

"Russia is growing too influential. At this point, they could attempt a complete take-over, which would change our ethics and government... We will take back this planet to limit their influence, while also decreasing their loyalty..."

"USA has declared war on Russia. This will limit both their contributions, but supporting them would make them more loyal, and also decreasing Russia's influence..."
- Support USA
- Support Russia
- Enforce Peace

"After the European Union were given [planet], their influence has far surpassed that of China. China demands [another planet].
- Give it to China
- Don't give it to China

"China feels that they have been neglected for too long. They have revolted against us, on these planets:"

"We have conquered Eksid from the Yltanop federation. Eksid was governed by the Filakian Triarchy. What should we do with them?
- Expel from planet
- Attempt integration
- Exterminate members

It would be interesting to see this in the case of other empires. Also, it would be fun to try to tempt the factions to change their ethics to be your own. If they did it this way, I wonder how this would relate to governors and other characters. I see two ways they could handle this:

1. Factions could rule as an alternative to governors, providing their own. They would have more influence and loyalty to your nation, while the planet would have more autonomy and their ethics. Of course, you would also not have to expend your own governors.

2. Governors and other characters could be part of factions. Thus, granting a governor from Russia an important planet could do the same thing as what was stated above.

 

[SIEGE-109]

The focus of the game is galactic. Terrestrial politics is a pointless distraction.

 

[KaiserRichter]

Terrestrial politics aren't a pointless distraction if the plot is completely unrealistic.

 

[KaiserRichter]

I'm not even suggesting in depth, complex nations on a single planet. I'm suggesting that there be 2 or 3 human empires sharing Earth's tiles at the very beginning.

 

[aruon]

First of all, from a gameplay standpoint, a multi-faction Earth would make everyone unhappy, including anyone who believes that in no possible universe does [favorite nation] and [unfavorite nation] cooperate. It would be a mandatory tutorial. It would have no long term impact on the game. It would let you lose the game before you develop FTL, if you play the Unify the Homeworld minigame poorly. It would be tedious and boring.

Second of all, it's just a flag flying over every country. In your head-canon, it doesn't have to mean anything more than that. The European Union has proven that a bunch of countries can change pretty much nothing at all and still convince people they've become a single-flag megastate.

how would a multifaction earth be bad? if anything it would be a hardcore mode way to start, since you'll be competing against others from day 1 rather than exploring without a care in the world. and it would only get boring once you beat opposing factions, but then you get to expand into the galaxy as the sole representatives of humanity. (and minigame? really? since when does establishing dominance over major rival powers become a minigame?) and that's just with a pre-FTL setting that the view of stellaris opposes.

what i'm talking about is a 3-pronged start (no one is at war!) from a single planet. sure war could eventually breakout as the trio of earth empires goal inevitably run up against each other but really the only difference from a standard stellaris start is more than one faction in immediate contact. something like what zukodark suggested.

as for the flag flying over the country part, headcanon means little since you can actively and canonically choose what path your society goes down. and even without modding there's plenty variations to model any potential space empire aspirant.

 

[Fratricide]

I'm not even suggesting in depth, complex nations on a single planet. I'm suggesting that there be 2 or 3 human empires sharing Earth's tiles at the very beginning.

What if there is no Earth though? What if you are playing as an alien civilization? Should Paradox create multiple Empires sharing starting tiles for every Empire?

 

[SIEGE-109]

By way of example, the level of detail on planets is not enough to represent several nations. Each would have only 3 or 4 tiles and 1 building at start. A different game about solar-system development would have a place for them, not a game about exploring a galaxy of 1000 stars. If you want it, mod it.

 

[aruon]

What if there is no Earth though? What if you are playing as an alien civilization? Should Paradox create multiple Empires sharing starting tiles for every Empire?

why should the possibility of it be out of the question?

 

[KaiserRichter]

I'm less concerned about multi-faction alien empires than I am about human ones.

 

[aruon]

By way of example, the level of detail on planets is not enough to represent several nations. Each would have only 3 or 4 tiles and 1 building at start.

not really. even if there are only 30 usable tiles on earth that humanity can use, it's more than enough to depict a few opposing blocs with a reasonable level of accuracy. not including africa, EU, and south american participation; the USA, russia, and china are all continent sized. and would occupy 7-8 tiles with europe and africa taking the rest and following the USA. and there'd have to be plenty of space for buildings even with few provinces otherwise earth (a homeplanet AKA cash cow) as well as tall empires couldn't be modeled accurately, and PDS is making sure of that not being the case.

 

[Fratricide]

why should the possibility of it be out of the question?

For the same reason people complain about all the species looking to humanoid. The assumption that alien civilizations are going to evolve parallel structures to our own strikes many as ridiculous.

 

[kineticspartan]

I suppose it could be dependent on what you government type?
Military/Fascist gov- Earth united by "unification" war
Oligarchy- Earth now literally "owned" by a limited amount of people
Democracy- Earth still divided into totally independent nation states, with another independent parliament governing all extra-solar territories
etc.

 

[IsadorBG]

I just caught up with the Stellaris Dev Diaries and I'm extremely impressed with it. But I was disappointed in a certain trope that seems to be a constant theme in modern sci-fi. I'm not wholly against the idea, but I'm highly skeptical of how this United Federation of every nation-state could become a reality. From the images of the alpha version, the game seems to take place in 2200's.

I can definitely see super-bloc alliances like a hypothetical North American union for example, but I question the plausibility of the complete unification of approaching 8 billion people with radical differences worldwide. 8 billion from radically different cultures, ethnicities, religions with diverse beliefs and founding civilizations.

How would you get the modern powers of the present to capitulate their sovereignty? I just can't see Russia and China magnanimously giving up their government to join the United States and Europe in the name of democratic socialism or liberal democracy. Not by the 2200's a the very least.

Humans are a cooperative and egalitarian species, but they're also extremely fractious and competitive. This is a serious and naive over-estimation of our ability to put aside our differences and maybe an unintentional disregard for our history on this planet as a species.

That being said, is it possible for multiple empires to own different tiles on single planets? It'd be far more realistic to have 2 or 3 empires on Earth governed by different ethos POPs. Otherwise this trope is called the "Generic Federation" for a reason.

The UN in Stellaris is a government with a"fanatical" individualistic ethos which is probably there to represent altough in a very broadly manner the fact that it doesn't have much controll over the population and the nations.

In the recent devs diary it was said that individualistic society have different event for colonisation than collective ones. (Corporate/Pionneer Vs State funded ?) Maybe it's not limited to it.

Human probably will form some kind of unified representation in case of Alien contact and some joint space operation is not that out of the scope all things considered (and only thing that matters since we probably won't have much control over internal affairs)

In any case the realism problem will quickly fade as human expands with a few colonies the weight of the old Earth Nations will matter less and less in the pan-human government.

There's a bit of sacrifice early game with the UNE already seeming unified even tough it should probably be a process but maybe in dlc ?

Personally what bugs me more is how the UN is represented as a democracy with a "President" as the head instead of an Oligarchy controll by the most powerfull states for the benefit of the most powerfull states just as it is right now... .

Another thing that I find intriguing is how the UNE will deal with a great space empire as it still represent the Nations of Earths... and not necessarily its colonies. Will this be represented in game or not will be interestings.

 

[KaiserRichter]

The UN in Stellaris is a government with a"fanatical" individualistic ethos which is probably there to represent altough in a very broadly manner the fact that it doesn't have much controll over the population and the nations.

Personally what bugs me more is how the UN is represented as a democracy with a "President" as the head instead of an Oligarchy controll by the most powerfull states for the benefit of the most powerfull states just as it is right now...

I completely agree with this. Many would consider it subjective as to whether or not many western nations actually are genuine federal democracies, but I see things the same way. Are countries like Russia and the U.S. sincere federal democracies or are they plutocratic oligarchies.

 

[Atlantians]

Gundam 00 has what I think is a relatively realistic projection of a future Earth:

http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/Anno_Domini_Nations_and_Factions

 

[KaiserRichter]

Gundam 00 has what I think is a relatively realistic projection of a future Earth:

http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/Anno_Domini_Nations_and_Factions

Not a bad representation. I can see the whole of South America belonging to its own faction, and Russia with China in some sort of Eurasian pact, but Japan with the west makes sense.

 

[Atlantians]

Not a bad representation. I can see the whole of South America belonging to its own faction, and Russia with China in some sort of Eurasian pact, but Japan with the west makes sense.

The divisions are based around orbital elevators and electric power networks.

Even so, I would expect an African Union of some sort, as well as fewer independent middle eastern states.

The only thing perplexing is the division of Russia; but that could happen if the Russian Government collapsed.

Otherwise, it seems very sensible.

 

[aruon]

For the same reason people complain about all the species looking to humanoid. The assumption that alien civilizations are going to evolve parallel structures to our own strikes many as ridiculous.

except there's a very big difference between the reasonable/ridiculous ideas of what's considered humanoid, and the idea of multiple organized governments within the same species coexisting in an antagonistic way into their space age. that's not just parallel structure, that's common sense. after all how would a race lacking any kind of centralized authority organizations ever progress beyond hunter-gatherers let alone technology? there wouldn't be any organized direction.

i'm not even saying that a race should've emerged from a cold war the was preceded by a world war, just that spaceflight and FTL invention doesn't guarantee the newly unlimited race won't solve universal issues like ideology, history, etc.

 

[Wulfburk]

This is a must! Otherwise, how can the 40k mod portray Cadia?!