Small one for the next Custodians update: rebalancing the War in Heaven

[Liggi]

There are a number of issues with the War in Heaven that should be relatively easy for the Custodians to fix, and I just wanted to highlight them.

• The `ai_weight` for whether the AI will join either side in the War in Heaven, or stay neutral, is balanced only for Commodore. As a result, on higher difficulties, the same thing tends to happen every single time. There are reasons for this:
  • The weights are based on absolute things like `fleet_power`, meaning that on higher difficulties, the AI will be unduly weighted towards staying neutral
  • The weights compound quite dramatically, so it's very, very rare for the AI to do anything other than stay neutral (sometimes up to 350x more likely than joining a side)
  • If the AI do stay neutral, they are scripted to always join the Non-Aligned League: so this results in the the War in Heaven on higher difficulties always being two AI Fallen Empires against the League of Non-Aligned Powers
  • Another annoying consequence of this is that if you aren't the leader of the largest Federation that becomes the Non-Aligned League, the AI will always leave your Federation to join the league, even if you're a Level 5 Martial Alliance with incredibly close allies, a lot of power, and high cohesion

• The `ai_weight` for the relevant Galactic Community resolutions are also out of whack. They don't account for the side that the AI has actually chosen to join.
  • If the AI has stayed neutral in the war, they should vote to denounce both empires
  • If they've joined a side, they should vote to denounce the other side
  • But currently, this does not happen, commonly leading to situations where the AI will vote to denounce anyone who doesn't join one side, while not joining that side, therefore causing themselves (and usually the entire Galactic Community) to become in breach of Galactic Law

• Another small point: Awakened Empires currently don't really seem to do anything. They awaken, then they kinda just... sit there? They don't really seem to attempt to achieve anything.

The War in Heaven is often the climax of a game, and the above points result in a less than optimal experience, when the event could be extremely fun and dynamic. To fix this would simply need a bit of a rebalance of some `ai_weight`, which should be quite straightforward and so seems optimal for the Custodians to look at.

I'd like to see AI decision making around the War in Heaven to be far more dynamic, some suggestions:

• They should take into account the order of "awakening":
  • If the Xenophobes awaken first, AI Xenophiles should be more likely to join the opposing side (righteous Galactic Defense)
  • If the Xenophiles awaken first, AI Xenophobes should be more likely to join the opposing side (we must protect our national values against imperialism)
  • Likewise with Spiritualists and so on
• They should be far more likely to join a side when they neighbour the Awakened empire
• Authoritarians should be much more likely to join a side in the war if they match their ethics (what greater authority could there be than an ancient, powerful empire?)
• Militarists should be keen to join the fight in any way they can, likely influenced by their other ethics

 

[A2ch0n]

The only thing i want to be changed in case of the war in heaven is that my hegemony members not be allowed to leave if i decide to stay neutral. This behavior killed my game experience several times...

 

[Aybara978NE]

The only thing i want to be changed in case of the war in heaven is that my hegemony members not be allowed to leave if i decide to stay neutral. This behavior killed my game experience several times...

And for that matter, wouldn't it also make sense for the weaker members of a hegemony to follow a hegemony leader who allies with a fallen empire (or at least be weighted towards following the hegemony leader's choice)?

I am playing through my first War in Heaven since before Nemesis dropped (perhaps even since before Federation dropped, since I don't always get so far into the late game), and I was shocked to see my hegemony collapse when I chose to ally with one of the fallen empires. The other members of my hegemony all opted to join the Non-Aligned League instead. From a narrative perspective, having hegemony members acting as one makes more sense to me (although I can also see how it makes sense for an empire to use the War in Heaven as an means of escaping a hegemony, hence only weighting the choice towards following the hegemony leader).

But to @Liggi overall point, I think there does need to be some tinkering with the War In Heaven balancing. It does always seem like the War in Heaven ends up being a three way war with every empire in the galaxy vs Fallen Empire 1 vs Fallen Empire 2. It would be nice to see more dynamic match-ups where even stronger empires choose to ally themselves with a fallen empire for strategic reasons. In my game, for example, I still opted to ally with one of the Fallen Empires despite being the most powerful regular empire. I was too overextended trying to defend against L-Gate Nanites that the AI let get out control and a Crisis War I pushed through the senate against a fanatical purifier, so I could not risk going against the fallen empire directly bordering my home constellation.

To piggy-back off re-balancing, I think it might also be a good idea for there to be more in-game transparency in who is joining which side. As it plays out right now, you make a choice and roll the dice to see how the war alignment will turn out. Some kind of conference or decision period (perhaps like the galactic community voting mechanism) would add some interesting strategic / diplomatic choices. Seeing who will join what side may color your own decision on where you throw your own weight.