Idea for a new game option - HAP_POP

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Archived from groups: rec.games.empire (More info?)

I've been thinking of ways to penalise large countries to favour small
countries so that, for example, twice as many civs does not mean twice
as strong. The existing TECH_POP makes tech proportionately more
expensive once civs number more than 50,000. I think it would be a
great idea to have a similar option for happiness (called say HAP_POP)
that makes happiness proportionately more expensive once civs number
more than 50,000.

If you look at history empires are very expensive to run and tend to
fall as much from internal weakness as external threats. If happiness
levels become difficult to maintain at the required level a large
empire may be faced with lower work levels and eventually revolts.

The intention is not to cripple aggressive expansion as a strategy but
to give it a bit of a handicap.

Any comments?

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.empire (More info?)

Good idea

At present there is really little chance that a small country can fight
off a big country, unless it has followed a specific strategy such as
pushing tech.


Gary Bone wrote:
> I've been thinking of ways to penalise large countries to favour small
> countries so that, for example, twice as many civs does not mean twice
> as strong. The existing TECH_POP makes tech proportionately more
> expensive once civs number more than 50,000. I think it would be a
> great idea to have a similar option for happiness (called say HAP_POP)
> that makes happiness proportionately more expensive once civs number
> more than 50,000.
>
> If you look at history empires are very expensive to run and tend to
> fall as much from internal weakness as external threats. If happiness
> levels become difficult to maintain at the required level a large
> empire may be faced with lower work levels and eventually revolts.
>
> The intention is not to cripple aggressive expansion as a strategy but
> to give it a bit of a handicap.
>
> Any comments?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.empire (More info?)

> Gary Bone wrote:
>> I've been thinking of ways to penalise large countries to favour small
>> countries so that, for example, twice as many civs does not mean twice
>> as strong. The existing TECH_POP makes tech proportionately more
>> expensive once civs number more than 50,000. I think it would be a
>> great idea to have a similar option for happiness (called say HAP_POP)
>> that makes happiness proportionately more expensive once civs number
>> more than 50,000.
>>
>> If you look at history empires are very expensive to run and tend to
>> fall as much from internal weakness as external threats. If happiness
>> levels become difficult to maintain at the required level a large
>> empire may be faced with lower work levels and eventually revolts.
>>
>> The intention is not to cripple aggressive expansion as a strategy but
>> to give it a bit of a handicap.
>>
>> Any comments?

You'd have to muck with happiness to put some real teeth behind
it. Might even need to muck with che and che combat (i.e. anti).

As is, I would say the majority of nations ignore happiness.
The only reason I see people bothering (myself included) is if
you want to make dealing with che (encountered through invasions)
a little more pleasant. anti has, by and large, effectively
countered any che drama.

But, yes, happiness/edu/tech are the 3 primary areas where one
can really penalize large nations. And I rather like your idea
in principal since it's relatively simple.


Mr. Ed

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.empire (More info?)

> You'd have to muck with happiness to put some real teeth behind
> it. Might even need to muck with che and che combat (i.e. anti).
>
> As is, I would say the majority of nations ignore happiness.
> The only reason I see people bothering (myself included) is if
> you want to make dealing with che (encountered through invasions)
> a little more pleasant. anti has, by and large, effectively
> countered any che drama.
>
> But, yes, happiness/edu/tech are the 3 primary areas where one
> can really penalize large nations. And I rather like your idea
> in principal since it's relatively simple.
>
>
> Mr. Ed

I agree. To be effective che would have to be harder to erradicate. The
anti command can be easily watered down by changing the number of mil
available. Currently this is set to sector mobility / 2. This could be
changed to sector mobility / 4 or if the deity is really sadistic
sector mobility / 8. I also like the idea of setting this variable so
that if the sector is a mountain or swamp the number or mil available
is much lower than for a non-mountain/swamp sector. This would mean che
would be very difficult to remove from mountains and swamps as is the
case with real-world insurgents e.g. Afganistan, Yugoslavia, Iraq.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.empire (More info?)

Gary Bone <garycbone@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I also like the idea of setting this variable so that if the sector is a
> mountain or swamp the number or mil available is much lower than for a
> non-mountain/swamp sector. This would mean che would be very difficult to
> remove from mountains and swamps as is the case with real-world insurgents
> e.g. Afganistan, Yugoslavia, Iraq.

Hmm, have you been playing with my plains -> swamp patches ?
http://www.stack.nl/~marcolz/empire/8th.html

Or were you referring to wildernesses ?

Zlo

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.empire (More info?)

Actually it was a reference to the plains sectors in the Start Wars:
New Byss game. They were used as defacto swamps modified to make them
very difficult to move through.