Was going to post this in the Dev Diary but it quickly turned into a suggestion brainstorm rant thing that is probably kind of hard to follow. I underlined what I feel the important parts are, non-underlined stuff are brainstormed ways to implement the underlined ideas.
TL;DR: Please add Trade Ships, Trade Routes, and Trade Leagues to the game as these 3 things can be expanded off of almost indefinitely to promote conflict and interaction between Empires. Because of this I believe it will take an expansion to have them added, but please add Regional Bonuses and Border Conflict Events in the interim to make MP have more of a Conflict basis in place of the Build-Up basis that I think permeates the game in a negative way.
Currently I feel as though MP Stellaris is VERY lackluster after early border disputes, everyone's borders have filled out, and the amount of 'free' expansion is very low.
Unless you're putting a decent amount of energy into RP'ing as your species and going "My species are militaristic xenophobes, I'm attacking all my neighbors when i get the chance!", it's like the game suddenly permeates with this feeling of "Well... what now?" as people are faced with the option of
A. Attack one of your neighbors to get more resources for more ships, and
B. Sit there and build buildings to get more resources for more ships.
In the MP games that I've participated in it feels as though more often than not players will choose option B as ultimately the same result will occur and you don't have to risk losing to your neighbor in order to reach that result.
I think the strategic resource rework could definitely help with that depending on how you do it, especially if you add in certain events that alert neighboring empires to the existence of said resources and what planet they are on.
The event could read something like "Our scouts/spies in Insert Empire Name have noticed a drastic increase in the amount of traffic to and from planet with strategic resource. It appears as though the species name have discovered a new resource there." and couple that with something like (if has that strategic resource technology, give knowledge of what planet in that empire has the resource, if does not have strategic resource tech, start event chain to get tech for free). I would argue that giving a tech for free here is justified as it would promote conflict between the two empires if strategic resources are made to be justifiably important. If possible, I think the best way to do that is make the mean time for the event chain completion to be equal to the time it would take that empire to research said tech.
However I think one of the things that would benefit Stellaris the most would be to promote some sort of regional conflict. Ultimately I can think of a couple ways.
One way to do this would be to add regional bonuses to the game, you know how there is already nebula regions and what not, you could make it so that (if controls nebula, empire has +10 energy production) as an example. I'm not sure what the best way to go about this is, should every solar system in the galaxy be in a region? Should there only be specific region, like nebula regions? IDK
Another way would be to add Border Conflict Events to the game. If one empire's borders suddenly overcomes yours and you lose control over a solar system you previously "owned" there is currently no way to contest the loss other then declaring all out war. I think it would be really awesome to implement a way to declare a border conflict where the scope of the conflict is limited in some way.
For example declaring a border conflict could allow hostilities only within a single solar system on your border with the opposing empire in a "1v1 me bro" type fashion where the war goal is to build a military outpost(with reduced influence cost? and only enough border strength to keep hold of that system?) in said solar system. However, both sides should also have the ability to escalate the border conflict to a real war either through event chain or a button in the war screen in the face of overwhelming odds (the person who declared has his entire fleet in the region while yours is on the other side of your empire) or perhaps that solar system has a lot of resources/an important strategic resource that you would rather contest in an all out war than simply fighting over the single system. This wargoal could also implement a limit on fleet sizes allowed in the solar system, otherwise there is immediate escalation to a real war. If someone escalates to a real war, the other person should probably get the option to de-escalate the border conflict beforehand and thus return to status quo.
Personally I think the best way to promote regional conflict is to add Trade Ships, Trade Routes, and Trade Regions. Whilst this is almost definitely expansion material (Hopefully with the first expansion) you can expand off of these three things almost indefinitely in order to promote conflict between two empires.
Make it so that players can establish trade routes between themselves and other empires, and then allow empires to establish an arbitrary tax for allowing a trade route to pass through their borders. (Too much tax on trade routes can be conflict starter, or simply not wanting to have a tax at all) Now that I think about it, it would probably be good for trade routes to be generated automatically by the game, and simply have the player be able to tell a trade port what resource he wants to trade for and what he wants to trade for it(maybe have a list available resources to trade for) and have a slider for Cheapest ---- Fastest, and then the game has the trade port send trade ships to whatever empire fits the criteria.
Can also implement resource discovery events, "whilst trading in x empire our traders saw that x empire has been using alien pets for quite some time, and it appears to have a positive affect on their populace. Perhaps we should look into similar acquisitions? ~start event chain to discover the alien pets resource, again would probably make sense to have mean time of completion be in relation to how long it would take the empire to research it
Make it so that empires can send a small amount of military ships to pirate, destroy and loot specific empire's trade ships along specific route and then add events for specific empire to possibly find out who was pirating them and disrupting their trade, capturing pilots/crew or researching the pirate ship's debris and having X% chance of finding something the other empire forgot to remove from the "pirate" ship that serves as evidence for their guilt. (A little side note, i think it would be cool to be able to frame other empires somehow. Maybe by fitting the pirate ship with old tech from the other empire that you researched through their debris in a war?)
Add Trade Ports(trade with other empires) and Trade Depots(collector of materials to trade) to allow the player to further manage and personalize their empire. Do they want a trade sector that has all of their trade ports and depots in a centralized location (read: a single solar system) to make defense of it easier or in a more dispersed fashion to make it so they don't lose all their trade buildings by losing control over a single solar system?
Trade regions might be a bit hard to implement, I was thinking something along EU4 lines. But whilst thinking about it, something that would make more sense than trade regions would be allowing trade leagues to form. To start a trade league one empire sends an offer to another empire, "X Empire wants to start a trade league with Y Empire, with X Empire as Leader of the Trade League." (the person sending the deal would be able to choose between having themselves as the leader or the person they're sending the invitation to as the leader. And the leader of a league can invite others ofc) The trade league would be able to act as a single trade entity in terms of allowing trade routes through their borders, the trade leader is able to set a maximum tax rate for trade between league members, is able to set if trade members must/can/can't join defensive wars of other members in the league, and if the strategic resource rework is good perhaps all members of the trade league have access to strategic resources in said league? I think a system like this should attempt to emulate current "trade leagues" in real world diplomacy, i.e. NAFTA, the EU, etc. This opens up other features such as embargoes having a real-time effect, a cost effect by forcing trade routes to go through more empires, thus getting taxed more on the cargo. OPEN MARKET COMPETITION? whoever offers the lowest price gets more of the trade? is 1:1.1 a good enough gain just to ensure that you're getting more trade?
Adding trade to the game would hopefully open up the trade empire style of play that Paradox seemed to be trying to make a viable way to play what with the resource ethos and such, but seems to have fallen flat in my experience.
TL;DR: Please add Trade Ships, Trade Routes, and Trade Leagues to the game as these 3 things can be expanded off of almost indefinitely to promote conflict and interaction between Empires. Because of this I believe it will take an expansion to have them added, but please add Regional Bonuses and Border Conflict Events in the interim to make MP have more of a Conflict basis in place of the Build-Up basis that I think permeates the game in a negative way.
Currently I feel as though MP Stellaris is VERY lackluster after early border disputes, everyone's borders have filled out, and the amount of 'free' expansion is very low.
Unless you're putting a decent amount of energy into RP'ing as your species and going "My species are militaristic xenophobes, I'm attacking all my neighbors when i get the chance!", it's like the game suddenly permeates with this feeling of "Well... what now?" as people are faced with the option of
A. Attack one of your neighbors to get more resources for more ships, and
B. Sit there and build buildings to get more resources for more ships.
In the MP games that I've participated in it feels as though more often than not players will choose option B as ultimately the same result will occur and you don't have to risk losing to your neighbor in order to reach that result.
I think the strategic resource rework could definitely help with that depending on how you do it, especially if you add in certain events that alert neighboring empires to the existence of said resources and what planet they are on.
The event could read something like "Our scouts/spies in Insert Empire Name have noticed a drastic increase in the amount of traffic to and from planet with strategic resource. It appears as though the species name have discovered a new resource there." and couple that with something like (if has that strategic resource technology, give knowledge of what planet in that empire has the resource, if does not have strategic resource tech, start event chain to get tech for free). I would argue that giving a tech for free here is justified as it would promote conflict between the two empires if strategic resources are made to be justifiably important. If possible, I think the best way to do that is make the mean time for the event chain completion to be equal to the time it would take that empire to research said tech.
However I think one of the things that would benefit Stellaris the most would be to promote some sort of regional conflict. Ultimately I can think of a couple ways.
One way to do this would be to add regional bonuses to the game, you know how there is already nebula regions and what not, you could make it so that (if controls nebula, empire has +10 energy production) as an example. I'm not sure what the best way to go about this is, should every solar system in the galaxy be in a region? Should there only be specific region, like nebula regions? IDK
Another way would be to add Border Conflict Events to the game. If one empire's borders suddenly overcomes yours and you lose control over a solar system you previously "owned" there is currently no way to contest the loss other then declaring all out war. I think it would be really awesome to implement a way to declare a border conflict where the scope of the conflict is limited in some way.
For example declaring a border conflict could allow hostilities only within a single solar system on your border with the opposing empire in a "1v1 me bro" type fashion where the war goal is to build a military outpost(with reduced influence cost? and only enough border strength to keep hold of that system?) in said solar system. However, both sides should also have the ability to escalate the border conflict to a real war either through event chain or a button in the war screen in the face of overwhelming odds (the person who declared has his entire fleet in the region while yours is on the other side of your empire) or perhaps that solar system has a lot of resources/an important strategic resource that you would rather contest in an all out war than simply fighting over the single system. This wargoal could also implement a limit on fleet sizes allowed in the solar system, otherwise there is immediate escalation to a real war. If someone escalates to a real war, the other person should probably get the option to de-escalate the border conflict beforehand and thus return to status quo.
Personally I think the best way to promote regional conflict is to add Trade Ships, Trade Routes, and Trade Regions. Whilst this is almost definitely expansion material (Hopefully with the first expansion) you can expand off of these three things almost indefinitely in order to promote conflict between two empires.
Make it so that players can establish trade routes between themselves and other empires, and then allow empires to establish an arbitrary tax for allowing a trade route to pass through their borders. (Too much tax on trade routes can be conflict starter, or simply not wanting to have a tax at all) Now that I think about it, it would probably be good for trade routes to be generated automatically by the game, and simply have the player be able to tell a trade port what resource he wants to trade for and what he wants to trade for it(maybe have a list available resources to trade for) and have a slider for Cheapest ---- Fastest, and then the game has the trade port send trade ships to whatever empire fits the criteria.
Can also implement resource discovery events, "whilst trading in x empire our traders saw that x empire has been using alien pets for quite some time, and it appears to have a positive affect on their populace. Perhaps we should look into similar acquisitions? ~start event chain to discover the alien pets resource, again would probably make sense to have mean time of completion be in relation to how long it would take the empire to research it
Make it so that empires can send a small amount of military ships to pirate, destroy and loot specific empire's trade ships along specific route and then add events for specific empire to possibly find out who was pirating them and disrupting their trade, capturing pilots/crew or researching the pirate ship's debris and having X% chance of finding something the other empire forgot to remove from the "pirate" ship that serves as evidence for their guilt. (A little side note, i think it would be cool to be able to frame other empires somehow. Maybe by fitting the pirate ship with old tech from the other empire that you researched through their debris in a war?)
Add Trade Ports(trade with other empires) and Trade Depots(collector of materials to trade) to allow the player to further manage and personalize their empire. Do they want a trade sector that has all of their trade ports and depots in a centralized location (read: a single solar system) to make defense of it easier or in a more dispersed fashion to make it so they don't lose all their trade buildings by losing control over a single solar system?
Trade regions might be a bit hard to implement, I was thinking something along EU4 lines. But whilst thinking about it, something that would make more sense than trade regions would be allowing trade leagues to form. To start a trade league one empire sends an offer to another empire, "X Empire wants to start a trade league with Y Empire, with X Empire as Leader of the Trade League." (the person sending the deal would be able to choose between having themselves as the leader or the person they're sending the invitation to as the leader. And the leader of a league can invite others ofc) The trade league would be able to act as a single trade entity in terms of allowing trade routes through their borders, the trade leader is able to set a maximum tax rate for trade between league members, is able to set if trade members must/can/can't join defensive wars of other members in the league, and if the strategic resource rework is good perhaps all members of the trade league have access to strategic resources in said league? I think a system like this should attempt to emulate current "trade leagues" in real world diplomacy, i.e. NAFTA, the EU, etc. This opens up other features such as embargoes having a real-time effect, a cost effect by forcing trade routes to go through more empires, thus getting taxed more on the cargo. OPEN MARKET COMPETITION? whoever offers the lowest price gets more of the trade? is 1:1.1 a good enough gain just to ensure that you're getting more trade?
Adding trade to the game would hopefully open up the trade empire style of play that Paradox seemed to be trying to make a viable way to play what with the resource ethos and such, but seems to have fallen flat in my experience.
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