Racial Dislike
Shard
I was mucking about with a race concept for an (another!)
environmentally friendly race and I was thinking about how to give
them a racial dislike or even hatred of the "we destroy whole
biospheres for profit" IMT. I've seen a suggestion on one of the
discussion pages the wiki of 'not being able to turn off attack
commands against a particular race' and I didn't think that went far
enough. I was thinking that generally speaking this kind of racial
dislike option might be an interesting option to have in a game -
personally I don't think the EE and Rebels should be able to ally, or
the Colonies and Robots for that matter. Or the Draconians and
Coalition. Or the Borg with just about anyone!
My idea would be to (configurably) link the race commands to happiness
- so if you're playing the Rebels and you disable 'Attack!' against
the EE a wave of unhappiness would sweep across all the bases in your
empire every turn. This could be linked to population size, with the
biggest bases being the worst hit. Sharing any data or allowing
commands would have a similar but reduced effect.
I was also thinking of two levels of this - dislike and hatred. So
dislike would cause a noticeable but potentially manageable
unhappiness effect (e.g. Feds and Stormers might be candidates for
'mutual dislike'), whereas hatred would cause your population to start
rioting in the streets after a turn or two. The actual values for the
unhappiness negatives, and who feels what level of emotion about who
could all be configurable (the whole lot could also be turned off by
one switch), so could be mucked around with to find a balance, or
altered to match the requirements for a particular game (a 'no
alliances' game could have everyone hating everyone else for
example).
As the Borg don't suffer from unhappiness I would suggest not allowing
them to change any of the Ally Commands at all, and make them at least
disliked by all other races (except possibly the unassimilatable
Crystals).
I guess there is also the potential for going the other way and
getting a happiness boost if you turn off attack options against a
race that you get on well with (or maybe if the other race is simply
not in your dislike/hatred list). Because not being at war is
something that your colonists are likely to find comforting.
KlingonKommand
One spin-off would be, it would help limit the numbers of people in
mega-alliances.
Another is that it could help limit the number of "clients" that races
who depend on allies engage with: IMT and Scavengers for example.
It could also be used to discourage certain racial combinations which
are particularly powerful. For example it may not make logical sense for
CoM *not* to ally with Crystals, but one could artificially put in a
huge disincentive this way.
One could also use this to help isolate some of the more powerful races,
like Robots, which are quite powerful enough alone (in standard game
setups).
It would have a huge impact on team games.
It would be amusing to see the "disincentive" for certain races allying
with *themselves*. Borg + Borg? There can be only one!
--
KlingonKommand
Shard
Just about everyone (should!) dislike the Privs and Borg I think!
Feds - dislike Stormers, Privs - hate Borg
Lizards - dislike Privs, Borg, Crystals
Birds - dislike Feds, Lizards, Privs, Borg (Loki)
Stormers - dislike Feds, Privs, Borg
Privs - dislike Borg, Crystals, EE, Bots, UEA, Scavs (contraband
lockdown, mines, competitors)
Borg - N/A
Crystals - dislike Lizards, Stormers, Privs, Crystals, Cols, Peeps,
Solorians, IMT (Crystals + scalar wave amp = nightmare for everyone
else)
EE - dislike Privs, Borg - hate Rebs
Bots - dislike Stormers, Privs, Borg, UEA, RCS, Aczanny - hate Cols
(some insectoid competition going on)
Rebs - dislike Privs, Borg - hate EE
Cols - dislike Birds, Privs, Borg, Crystals - hate Bots (someone has
to dislike the Birds!)
Peeps - dislike Privs, Scavs, Aczanny - hate Borg, IMT (assimilation
or grinding up of natives = big no no)
UA - dislike Privs, Borg
Scavs - dislike Privs, Borg, EE, Peeps, Aczanny, IMT (makes things a
bit more challenging)
Dracs - dislike Privs, Borg - hate RCS
UEA - dislike Privs, Borg, RCS - hate Bots (insectoid hatred)
RCS - dislike Privs, Borg, Bots - hate Dracs
Aczanny - dislike Borg, Scavs, RCS - hate Bots (insectoid hatred)
Centaur - dislike Privs, Borg
Solorian - dislike Privs, Borg, Crystals
IMT - dislike Privs, Borg, Crystals, Peeps, Scavs
No-one dislikes the UA or Centaurs yet. The Rebels and Birds are
popular too. The Bots I think need to be a little more disliked than
they are.