Please, improve Barbaric Despoilers

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Netherim

Second Lieutenant
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Dec 29, 2014
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Barbaric Despoilers give up migration treaties, have malus on diplomacy, and take away a civic slot for the whole game.
EDIT: You also cannot form some federations.
In exchange, you have a meh wargoal and a useful but slow bombardment's stance.
Barbaric Despoilers should have the possibility to plunder without declaring war, but, if you don't want to do that, at least, give them bonuses to:
Fire rate, ship speed, war exaustion and slave production. For additional downside, you can give them a sprawl penalty, like +100%.
Do what you want, off course, but please, give some love to BD.
 
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The Despoilation CB needs to be fixed, it's really bad. This is how I'd change it:
Upon victory you get
  • You gain 50 influence immediately
  • You instantly steal 20% of their mineral and food stock
  • You gain a buff for 6 months that give +5% happiness and +10% unity
  • You become a Despoiler of the enemy, for 10 years they must give you 10% energy and consumer goods from their production
  • Systems that you have claimed and occupy (as per normal conquest rules)
This will encourage Barbaric Despoilers to constantly wage war and use the Despoilation CB.
 
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The Despoilation CB needs to be fixed, it's really bad. This is how I'd change it:
Upon victory you get
  • You gain 50 influence immediately
  • You instantly steal 20% of their mineral and food stock
  • You gain a buff for 6 months that give +5% happiness and +10% unity
  • You become a Despoiler of the enemy, for 10 years they must give you 10% energy and consumer goods from their production
  • Systems that you have claimed and occupy (as per normal conquest rules)
This will encourage Barbaric Despoilers to constantly wage war and use the Despoilation CB.

Yes, but they need also buff to ships and war, to helps with the necessity to costantly go to war. And the buff should last at least 3 years, the time to prepare for another war. And this buff (and this only) should be obtained even in case of white peace, but only 1/2 of that. The despoiler should also grant 10% of alloys, strategic resources, and 3-7 of their pops (based on enemy total populations).
 
Yes, but they need also buff to ships and war, to helps with the necessity to costantly go to war. And the buff should last at least 3 years, the time to prepare for another war. And this buff (and this only) should be obtained even in case of white peace, but only 1/2 of that. The despoiler should also grant 10% of alloys, strategic resources, and 3-7 of their pops (based on enemy total populations).
I'd probably give them bonus sublight speed during war and an innate disengage chance to emphasis their guerilla tactics. Something unique like a 10% chance to disengage and survive if their ship hull is reduced to 0. I don't think they should necessarily be better at killing than other empires, driven assimilators don't get any war bonus for example and their style is way more war focused.
 
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Maybe they should work in something like Crusader Kings' raiding system were you don't actually have to declare war, but are just automatically hostile.
 
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Maybe they should work in something like Crusader Kings' raiding system were you don't actually have to declare war, but are just automatically hostile.
Yeah, the whole problem it's that PDX will never add a similar feature, which will be limited to those with BD civic. So, at least they should give BD some buff.
 
Yeah, the whole problem it's that PDX will never add a similar feature, which will be limited to those with BD civic. So, at least they should give BD some buff.
Except they do have hostility without war (first contact) as well as non-war raiding that triggers hostility (marauders), so I don't see how difficult it would be to add a simple raiding toggle that makes you hostile to an empire when you enter orbit of one of their planets (and also allows you to cross closed borders).
 
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Plundering another government's people and territory is inherently an act of war, so I don't see how the idea of plundering without it being an act of war could possibly be coherent even within the game-format that Stellaris provides.
 
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I like the idea of being constantly hostile with those around you. I think one way you can balance this is by making the Barbaric Despoilers have low ship cost but very high upkeep costs when outside their territory. That way they're encouraged to play in a way where they mostly hang out in their space, but will ocassionally go out on quick raids to grab pops. It also makes it difficult to take them out because they'll likely have an oversized force if you try to bring the fight to them. It could be done via the policy menu.

I don't think it should be allowed to conquer territory the traditional way with a claim system + conquest casus belli. Instead it would only be able to turn factions into satrapies and then eventually absorb them if you so choose.

I would also like to see armies able to do the same thing ships can do. As long as you have an army on the ground in an occupied planet, you'll be extracting slaves form it at a reasonable rate.
 
Plundering another government's people and territory is inherently an act of war, so I don't see how the idea of plundering without it being an act of war could possibly be coherent even within the game-format that Stellaris provides.

I theory, sure, but in practice it depends on the context and how much people are willing to retaliate. Piracy, Raiding, Sabotage etc. are all things which happen even in the modern world without necessarily inviting a full war in response, although they could probably be used to justify one.

In game terms, being raided [by a non-war mechanic] (or even another empire harboring pirates which raid you) should probably make the fleet hostile, and give you a CB against the perpetrator (you should probably be able to push it as pacifist, maybe not as Fan. Pacifist), but shouldn't necessarily force you into a war neither side actually wants.
 
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The difference though is that you aren't just some random pirates or raiders here - you represent the government of an entire star nation. That's why its an outright act of war to do so. If your government fires on another star nation's people or kidnaps them, that's as good as a declaration of war.
 
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The difference though is that you aren't just some random pirates or raiders here - you represent the government of an entire star nation. That's why its an outright act of war to do so. If your government fires on another star nation's people or kidnaps them, that's as good as a declaration of war.

Only if the nation you "attack" decides to treat it like that.

During both the cold war and even more recently there have been many instances of the governments of various countries launching attacks against the property or even citizens of other countries and not having it come to open warfare.

To be honest, having an overhaul to raiding (along with things like pirate havens and Privateers and other similar economic attacks) as part of an espionage update would be pretty reasonable - potentially it might even be worth opening up who can raid to more than just barbaric despoilers - but in a similar vein to Voidborn or Feudalism origins/civics, making Despoilers get access to it earlier and/or be better at it in some way.
 
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The base problem with Barbaric Despoilers is that if you have the fleet strength to steal someone's pops with raiding, you also have the ability to just conquer their planets and get all their pops and more with zero downsides.
 
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The base problem with Barbaric Despoilers is that if you have the fleet strength to steal someone's pops with raiding, you also have the ability to just conquer their planets and get all their pops and more with zero downsides.
It' for play tall, and even better if they can't/not want go for unrestricted war. Sadly, they not get any bonus for playing tall (or any bonus at at all) and they can't even be paficist, because of the requirement of being militarist. So it's a civic for those that not want to conquer or conquer very much, but should be buffed, because right now make little sense.
 
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The base problem with Barbaric Despoilers is that if you have the fleet strength to steal someone's pops with raiding, you also have the ability to just conquer their planets and get all their pops and more with zero downsides.
Costs influence to claim it though. IMO Barbaric Despoilers should get to very slowly siphon off resources or pops from occupied planets during war, it would make it very dangerous to allow them to occupy planets they haven't claimed (yet)
 
Barbaric Despoilers is actually a pretty good civic, the problem is just that the real benefit it provides isn't mentioned anywhere in the description. You trade the pretty weak Diplomacy tradition tree for the excellent Adaptability tree, the effect of which include -10% pop housing usage, +10% habitability, and a free building slot on every colony. That is the actual bonus of Barbaric Despoilers. The CB and raiding bombardment are just a bit of extra flavor on the side.
 
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Barbaric Despoilers is actually a pretty good civic, the problem is just that the real benefit it provides isn't mentioned anywhere in the description. You trade the pretty weak Diplomacy tradition tree for the excellent Adaptability tree, the effect of which include -10% pop housing usage, +10% habitability, and a free building slot on every colony. That is the actual bonus of Barbaric Despoilers. The CB and raiding bombardment are just a bit of extra flavor on the side.
It's not BD that is good, it's Diplomacy tree that's not very good. But adaptability it's not very good for Void Dwellers, because building bonus apply only to planets and habitability it's not very useful, when you live in an habitat (but it's good if use slave to works planets). So, if, like me, you play BD with VD, than...
 
Code:
 country_war_exhaustion_mult = -0.5
        ship_interstellar_speed_mult = 1.0
        planet_jobs_slave_produces_mult = 0.2
        pop_resettlement_cost_mult = -0.75
        ship_disengage_chance_mult = 0.5
        empire_size_penalty_mult = 2
        ship_home_territory_fire_rate_mult = -0.10
And, off course, BD now require only Xenophobic or Auth, not militaristic.

That's are my (new) personal modifications for BD. Tomorrow I'll try. I think I'll try a Technocracy with Xenophobic and void dwellers origin. :)
Edit: I've also improved the bonuses gained after victory on a plunder war.
 
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