XML tags for the Planetfall Leaders

[Pfeffersack]

I tested this in game and now the score-relation-modificators show up as intended (though a-low-score-Morgan-AI will like you, as explained above, for "having a higher score than you"):

 

[Maniac]

Wow, thanks for the new discoveries and files! Those text strings should be easy to change - I guess DaveMcW understood them wrong.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I discovered recently how to make AIs forget past war declarations. If you add in the <MemoryDecays> section of a leaderhead these lines...

<MemoryDecay>
<MemoryType>MEMORY_DECLARED_WAR</MemoryType>
<iMemoryRand>X</iMemoryRand>
</MemoryDecay>

...the AIs will forget the declare-war-penalty someday. The "X" is for setting how quick they should do so. "X" seems to get figured into a 1/x chance per turn to forget the entire penalty (I tested with 5 and Yang lost around 8 turns after doing the change the entire -2 I had towards him for a past DoW)

Leaves only the question, how fast the leaders should forget and if their should be differences (I tend to say yes - the ideological leaders should be longer angry then the realpolitikers). The memory decays used in BTS range from 200 (AI remember value for receiving help) to 10 (cancelled OB recently, though that seems to have no effect in game, because it lacks an entry in the memory attitude section) or 20 (voting for/against, trading with enemies or recently made demands)

 

[Maniac]

I don't really have inspiration for concrete numbers for war declarations.

I wanted to mention another idea I had though regarding the huge diplo bonus Lal gave Miriam for voting for him. I could simply remove the diplomatic bonus for voting for someone else's victory. But of course keep the bonus for voting for someone as secretary-general/planetary governor (or perhaps even increase it for certain leaders). As governor elections happen at a fixed rate, it's much easier to fine-tune the diplomatic bonus for it. Sounds good?

 

[Pfeffersack]

I don't really have inspiration for concrete numbers for war declarations.

We could start out conservative and use 200 for the more unforgiving leaders, while the others get 150. That's still a lot of time average time to get over it and shouldn't hurt anything. We might decrease it in future, but then we have to deal with the question, if the AI should really remember a gifted tech so much longer then a declared war...

I wanted to mention another idea I had though regarding the huge diplo bonus Lal gave Miriam for voting for him. I could simply remove the diplomatic bonus for voting for someone else's victory. But of course keep the bonus for voting for someone as secretary-general/planetary governor (or perhaps even increase it for certain leaders). As governor elections happen at a fixed rate, it's much easier to fine-tune the diplomatic bonus for it. Sounds good?

That sounds like a fine solution Your are absolutely right about it being easier to balance and from the point of realism, giving out points for diplomatic victory votes is questionable anyway - either the vote suceeds...then the game is over. And if it doesn't, the leader who was voted for hasn't gained a lot (except the unlikely case, that the voting civ could have voted for the opponent instead of just abstaining)
So giving a bonus for this just cries for exploiting it (a human player can always vote for someone else to gain the points, as long as he or she isn't going to win the election)

 

[Pfeffersack]

I noticed that Afforess has already made an entire mod component out of the idea of more "forgetful und forgiving" AIs - maybe this could be something for Planetfall?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=330881

 

[Lord Tirian]

I noticed that Afforess has already made an entire mod component out of the idea of more "forgetful und forgiving" AIs - maybe this could be something for Planetfall?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=330881

I think it could be implemented for some leaders. SMAC's setting actually rationalises Civ4-diplomacy a lot better: They are *really* single leaders (meaning holding grudges like a person instead of a nation makes much more sense) and the events are "only" covering a couple of centuries, as opposed to Civ's millennia.

On the other hand, I could see more pragmatic and/or Machiavellian leaders acting more "forgetful" than others (for example, I don't think Yang would really hold grudges, because he doesn't care for something like individual pride and Lal should be a rather forgiving person). And Zakharov really holding grudges for espionage (i.e. caught spies) would also make sense.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

I don't think it would be a good idea to just take this over without reviewing it on a case-by-case basis.

for example, I don't think Yang would really hold grudges, because he doesn't care for something like individual pride

I'd argue the opposite. Yang is depicted as someone with strong self-discipline. He probably has a strong personal moral code (just one no one else agrees with) and could be the leader to hold personal vendettas the longest. He would also be under the least pressure from other elements in society to change foreign policy.

And Zakharov really holding grudges for espionage (i.e. caught spies) would also make sense.

Again, one can argue the opposite. If he's more resentful than others towards spying, that will stop making him a more attractive espionage target.

 

[Lord Tirian]

I'd argue the opposite. Yang is depicted as someone with strong self-discipline. He probably has a strong personal moral code (just one no one else agrees with) and could be the leader to hold personal vendettas the longest. He would also be under the least pressure from other elements in society to change foreign policy.

*shrug* - I don't think he won't hold a grudge, but his strong self-discipline makes me think he would never act on it, unless it's aligning with his general agenda anyway - in which case he'd do it without a grudge as well. Holding a grudge only means he allows other people to influence his behaviour/plans, which doesn't fit him, in my opinion.

EDIT: I think it may really depend on the incident in question. I think he would mind interfering with his business on a long term a lot, but wouldn't care for something like "Declared War on Friend".

Again, one can argue the opposite. If he's more resentful than others towards spying, that will stop making him a more attractive espionage target.

Right, I forgot about that - a more forgiving Zak is better gameplay-wise.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

In my recent game I found it silly that Deirdre became pissed off at Morgan for switching from Voice of Planet to Homo Superior, despite him still having a positive Planet value and thus being part of the Concordat.

For that reason I've added a new diplomacy modifier for Deirdre based on other players' Planet Attitude, and I've reduced the effect of religion for relations with her.

This is the edited Excel file showing the changed values.

The next patch will introduce the Data Angels as AI players; possibly the Pirates, Drones and Consciousness as well. Do you have ideas for their leaderhead values?

 

[Pfeffersack]

In my recent game I found it silly that Deirdre became pissed off at Morgan for switching from Voice of Planet to Homo Superior, despite him still having a positive Planet value and thus being part of the Concordat.

Yes, don't like that, too - plus that it happens sometimes that Deidre runs a different religion then VoP and hates you for running the VoP.

For that reason I've added a new diplomacy modifier for Deirdre based on other players' Planet Attitude, and I've reduced the effect of religion for relations with her.

Simple, but brilliant idea to tie it directly to the PA Creates also a difference to how Miriam behaves technically. Is it one diplomatic +/- for each point of positive/negative PA you have? The amount of reduction of the different/same religion modifiers needs to take the strength of the new effect in account. From what I have seen in my games, PF has already "strong" leanings in both direction (more then +20 or -20 in relations is not uncommon in the late game), so we should probably don't add more on the top of it.

This is the edited Excel file showing the changed values.
The next patch will introduce the Data Angels as AI players; possibly the Pirates, Drones and Consciousness as well. Do you have ideas for their leaderhead values?

I have some ideas (mainly influenced by the original SMAX design) and already wroted them down in numbers as a start, but since the file contains a lot of values there are still a lot of white feels.

Some questions in advance, before going into the specifics for the new factions/leaders:

- I noticed that several expansion leaders have no shunned civic set; from the ones you are about to add, this applies to Svensgaard and Domai. Is this by
design or just open to debate?

- another point regarding the Pirates and Drones - an important consideration IMO is here how they are designed in game. For the Pirates - I assume they will
start in the ocean, but will they have at least a tendency to stay there (= no or at least not much land colonization)? For the Drones - since they rely on unhappy and revolting bases from others to expand - are there plans to introduce new diplomatic modifiers? The existing ones just allow a very general design and it might be better to build them around any specials you have eventually planned.

- Aki Zeta is troublesome as well - I still have here in mind as "just another university leader", but now that she represents an entire faction, I wonder what the Cyborgs should be about. I noticed already a connection to the Telepathic Matrix and I remember an idea with gaining something out of fallen Cyborg units in the world... Then we have the SMAX design. Rational, peaceful, building style. What role should religion play for her?


My brainstorming...

Roze: Very high espionage spending, moderate to high political aversion vs. Power, rather peaceful with some variance in behaviour (limited and dogpiles wars, rarely full wars), tolerant to close borders (crazy idea...maybe she should actually like this, because it allows easy spying?), moderate religious feelings, likes OB treaties;backstab risk; rather low military spendings, tries to compensate by signing DP's and drawing other in wars (I think here it would help to mod in the things with AIs paying you for going to war). Frequently asking for something for free, both meeting or refunsing the demand will have a strong influence on relations (though her "memory" should be rather short in both directions) Unlikely to extort - steals instead...that would offer an interesting way to deal with her...give in to her requests or suffer from here espionage potential! Rather willing to accept vassalage.

Svensgaard: strict no-member civic follower, eventually razing (land) bases, should favor scavenger/bloom/marine regiment/"hidden nationality" abilities/promotions, very picky about close borders (would make sense if he sicks to the water, then he will just get mad if you try to colonize the ocean), heavy militarist (but focussed on navy), low peace values, hardly any interest in secret projects, another fan of limited/dogpile wars, strong overestimate of combat odds on the tactical level (though he calculates carefully on whom to declare before), [ likes OBs - perhaps rather not, because that limits his use of HN units, also Pirates might not like someone knowing their waters] , also ressource trades (even at very bad relations!)...if he don't extorts them, high sneak attact % if demands aren't met, likes the weak like Yang, but rather unwilling to help; low interest in religion/politics; backstab risk. Unwilling to become a vassal.

Domai: he should care about politics like Lal (but which civic he should like/dislike?), though in a different way. Great emphasize on happy population (perhaps no Genefactories for him?), focus on ressource trading. Not a dogpiler or fan of tactical wars, but willing to pick his true enemies, even if they are far away. Perhaps some diplo modifier based on the number of Drones in another factions bases? Trustworthy. Perhaps unwilling to become a vassal as well?

Aki-Zeta: prefers peace over war, if at all rational wars (should she look for weak targets or rather focus on relations?) also on the tactical level, strong desire to acquire secret projects, low espionage leaning, can become vassal easily ("survive to fight another day")

 

[Pfeffersack]

Some more thoughts on Favored/Disliked Civics...

What we have:

+ -
Aki Z-5 --- Consensus --- Fundamentalism
Cha Dawn --- Hybrid --- Terraformed
Deidre --- Hybrid --- Free Market
Domai --- Planned (Wealth) --- ??? (Police State)
H'Minee --- Biodomes --- Terraformed
Lal --- Member --- Police State
Marr --- Police State (Planned) --- ???
Miriam --- Fundamentalism --- Knowlegde
Morgan --- Free Market --- Autarky
Roze --- Autarky (Democratic) --- Power
Santiago --- Power --- Wealth
Svensgaard --- Power (Autarky) --- ??? (Wealth)
Yang --- Police State --- Democratic
Zhakarov --- Knowlegde --- Fundamentalism

Some civics are used doubled, others not at all. While I don't think that we must obsolutely go for each civic one time like/disliked, I see room for improvement...

After Lal has now "Member" as favourite, "Democracy" is unused - why not give in to Roze? She would benefit a lot from the GP + in terms of getting Hackers...and freedem of information has to do with being Democratic. The current choice of Autarky hurts here - OBs make espionage easier, but she has no economic benefit out of them

Autarky would fit better for Svensgard (would create an atmospheric break with Morgan, also we could design then Svensgaard better as Pirate faction - rarely OBs, instead hidden attacks on ships) and he could dislike being a Member (would lock him out of the PC, but the differences with LAL would add to atmoshere...U.N. and piracy don't go well together)

Domai could shun Police States as well and someone else perhaps should not like Consensus...?

 

[Lord Tirian]

Simple, but brilliant idea to tie it directly to the PA Creates also a difference to how Miriam behaves technically.

So... Deirdre cares about how you treat Planet and Miriam is the religious proselytiser? I like that!

On the brainstorming:

Svensgaard seems to be a likely candidate for Autarky - more than for Power, since that sounds more like Santiago's thing. Perhaps have Wealth as hated civic - better than Member, I think (he shouldn't care about other people being in the council, it's just that he doesn't care).

Domai should have strong leanings towards Consensus, I think that's the closest thing to SMAC/X eudaimonia we have in Planetfall - and differentiates him from Lal. Lal believes in democracy tempered by bureaucracy (after all, he likes voting, councils etc.) - Domai would love the idea of wide-scale direct democracy that makes everybody happy. He could also like Wealth, since the Planetfall interpretation includes social welfare and general materialism (wheras Lal would probably prefer Knowledge a bit more).

Cheers, LT.

 

[Pfeffersack]

So... Deirdre cares about how you treat Planet and Miriam is the religious proselytiser? I like that!

On the brainstorming:

Svensgaard seems to be a likely candidate for Autarky - more than for Power, since that sounds more like Santiago's thing. Perhaps have Wealth as hated civic - better than Member, I think (he shouldn't care about other people being in the council, it's just that he doesn't care).

Domai should have strong leanings towards Consensus, I think that's the closest thing to SMAC/X eudaimonia we have in Planetfall - and differentiates him from Lal. Lal believes in democracy tempered by bureaucracy (after all, he likes voting, councils etc.) - Domai would love the idea of wide-scale direct democracy that makes everybody happy. He could also like Wealth, since the Planetfall interpretation includes social welfare and general materialism (wheras Lal would probably prefer Knowledge a bit more).

Cheers, LT.

I like your ideas. Your explanation regarding Svensgaard and the council makes sense.

IIRC, one (probably Marr) of the Alien factions in SMAX liked a Planned Economy, so if we set Domai to Wealth (Consensus would make sense as well, but then we would have a double with Aki Z-5), we would free that one.

I have edited my list with your suggestions.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I have made my way through the excel sheet and found a value for each tag. Unless I found reasons to exceed them (marked red), I sticked with the tag limitations we have used for the first 7 leaders and tried to used to those values we have already used for others (just in a different combination).

I gave Svensgaard some unique, extrem diplomatic values - he will trade ressources with everyone and you can build up a relation plus quickly, but he might also decide to withdraw his support, if someone bribes him. On the other hand, he doesn't like trading maps or signing OBs. And don't get in his way - do not colonize where he does and think twice before refusing his demands... Another way to get him on your side is fighting his wars (like Santiago)

Roze is similar to Zhak in regard that you can buy her favor (but in her case by fulfilling her requests..and she has a short memory) and she likes of course spying a lot. She isn't very interested in warfare or extortion, because she uses different means to get what she wants.

Domai (similar to Lal) and Aki Z-5 (similar to Zhak/Morgan) are more conservative, though I have tried to make him value ressource trades a lot - he does not like to be the victim of a trade embargo, but if he thinks someone should be boykotted, then he will get mad as well, if you don't follow his ideas (he is interested in social instability in his enemies bases...) Aki will probably need most work, but as said above that has to wait IMO until we have designed the Cyborg faction as a whole.

 

[Maniac]

Is it one diplomatic +/- for each point of positive/negative PA you have?

Yep.

The amount of reduction of the different/same religion modifiers needs to take the strength of the new effect in account. From what I have seen in my games, PF has already "strong" leanings in both direction (more then +20 or -20 in relations is not uncommon in the late game), so we should probably don't add more on the top of it.

I have never ever seen +/-20. If anything I'd prefer to give Zak back his bigger effect re tech trading.

I noticed that several expansion leaders have no shunned civic set; from the ones you are about to add, this applies to Svensgaard and Domai. Is this by
design or just open to debate?

Open to debate. I don't know what to give them. Svensgaard didn't have a Social Engineering aversion in SMAC either, and IIRC Domai's one was Green. And I don't want to restrict more factions from Planetfall's equivalent Hybrid.

For the Pirates - I assume they will start in the ocean, but will they have at least a tendency to stay there (= no or at least not much land colonization)?

Yeah in SMAC the Pirates as played by humans were coasthuggers rather than a true sea based faction. I was thinking I could solve this by giving them +1 food on Ocean, +1 energy on Shelf and nothing extra on Coast. That way the deep ocean is most attractive.

For the Drones - since they rely on unhappy and revolting bases from others to expand - are there plans to introduce new diplomatic modifiers?

Nope. Do you have ideas?

I wonder what the Cyborgs should be about

As said before, good question indeed. No anarchy seems a good benefit (and the reason why Telepathic Matrix costs less for them). I was also thinking of giving them -100% distance maintenance. The Autarky civic doesn't fit their theme anyway. They could get the Scavenger promotion for free on research of Mind/Machine Interface. Or a more limited promotion that only affects a few unitcombattypes. That's all I have right now.

Storywise, I've never like the official origins of some Unity algorithm taking over Aki Luttinen. It's anachronistic in SMAC's own universe as Digital Sentience is still faaaaaar away at that point. Also to allow the Consciousness to appear early enough in the game to make a difference without feeling out of place, I was thinking to make their faction about becoming some shared Consciousness rather than already being one from the start. I'd also drop 'Cybernetic' from their name, so that the Psionic/Affinity route can also be seen as an alternative valid way to achieve their faction's goal. Though gameplaywise they should still be encouraged to research the computer techs, and roleplaywise the rational guys.

tolerant to close borders (crazy idea...maybe she should actually like this, because it allows easy spying?)

IIRC Civ4 makes spying easier on civs with whom you don't have open borders?? If so, I'd like to reverse that.

What does iCloseBordersAttitudeChange do by the way? IIRC I saw a seperate diplo modifier for open borders.

Domai: he should care about politics like Lal (but which civic he should like/dislike?), though in a different way. Great emphasize on happy population (perhaps no Genefactories for him?)

I've already added a unique building for the Peacekeepers and Drones, the Hab Complex replacing the Genejack Factory, which gives the same effects plus an additional .

Aki-Zeta:low espionage leaning

Disagree with this one - should be average I feel. They're also computer guys after all.

I like your descriptions.

Just two notes:
How about giving Roze a -2 to worserankdifferenceattitudechange. She dislikes Power after all.

I'm not a fan of AI extortions. Besides those are already Yang's thing. So I don't really like the idea of Svensgaard's DemandTributeAttitudeThreshold at Friendly.

Some more thoughts on Favored/Disliked Civics...

Yeah the Pirates as Autarky makes sense. Moving Angels to Democratic makes sense then. Then I'd prefer to keep the diplomatic effect with the Angels for running Democratic limited though. The reason being (same as the one why I moved Lal to prefer Member):

Police State has Yang only weakly liking Police State, and Lal strongly hating it.
Democratic has only Yang weakly hating it.
Fundamentalism has no one liking it, and TWO factions hating it.

Thus diplomatically speaking Democratic already is the preferred choice, even before adding an Angel preference. Most of the time Democratic already seems like the better choice to me (and the AI), so I'm wary of adding more benefits to it.

Domai should have strong leanings towards Consensus, I think that's the closest thing to SMAC/X eudaimonia we have in Planetfall - and differentiates him from Lal. Lal believes in democracy tempered by bureaucracy (after all, he likes voting, councils etc.) - Domai would love the idea of wide-scale direct democracy that makes everybody happy. He could also like Wealth, since the Planetfall interpretation includes social welfare and general materialism (wheras Lal would probably prefer Knowledge a bit more).

Consensus is already covered by the Consciousness, while no one prefers Planned or Wealth. Wealth could makse sense for the Drones, except it would be a little weird if Domai liked Morgan if he was running Wealth as well. Then again, Morgan uses Planned as well.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Open to debate. I don't know what to give them. Svensgaard didn't have a Social Engineering aversion in SMAC either, and IIRC Domai's
one was Green. And I don't want to restrict more factions from Planetfall's equivalent Hybrid.

I think one faction without an aversion would be ok (as a kind of special). Domai hating Green never made a lot of sense to me; at least their are better candidates (Police State or Free Market)

Yeah in SMAC the Pirates as played by humans were coasthuggers rather than a true sea based faction. I was thinking I could solve this by giving them
+1 food on Ocean, +1 energy on Shelf and nothing extra on Coast. That way the deep ocean is most attractive.

Sounds good. Boni for sea tiles are both necessary to give the Pirates a chance at all and to distract them from land coloniaztion.

Nope. Do you have ideas?

As said it is hard to model the Drones idea really good with the existing tags.
They could hate more then one civic for being "oppressive" or "unfair" for the workers.
But that alone just does not hit the nail - their goal is a kind of revolution of the Drone citiziens all over the planet. They will get their bases mainly from revolts in unhappy bases, that's sure. This might also cause constant war or at least a war threat for this faction (how will other AIs react if they lose a base to the Drones?)

So it is important, who they like and don't like. I think it is first necessary to clarify what they are against...my first thought was just counting the number of Drones in each faction, setting the number in relation to the factions overall population and then creating a modifier out of this. But the problem with this approach is that this modifier would be very volatile and that they could technically make someone their enemy by isolating the faction from trade or using spies creating unrest (which might create interesting gameplay, but feels very odd storywise). The other way would be penalizing those who treat Drones/Citizien "bad" - but here we might run into the problem that Planetfall does not have a lot of measures for such behaviour. Perhaps each Genfactory and Punishment Sphere, units with nerve stapler special abilities/promotions, lack of food/bad health/high WW (but those last three are again subject to the problem described above). Or a completely different approach...Domai's ideology favors the working class (citizien/drones) and you could argue that any
specialist citizien represents a kind of "elite". So he could hate factions depending on how many specilialists they have - but of course that has the downside that you have to explain, why he employs specialists in his own faction (unless we decide to cut them for the Drones, which would be a pretty major and maybe unfun step). Those last suggestion however would have the benefit that he would like factions where he has a lot of "supporters"...

Maybe after the implementation of the Drones time will tell us a better solution.

As said before, good question indeed. No anarchy seems a good benefit (and the reason why Telepathic Matrix costs less for them). I was also thinking of giving them -100% distance maintenance. The Autarky civic doesn't fit their theme anyway. They could get the Scavenger promotion for free on research of Mind/Machine Interface. Or a more limited promotion that only affects a few unitcombattypes. That's all I have right now.

Storywise, I've never like the official origins of some Unity algorithm taking over Aki Luttinen. It's anachronistic in SMAC's own universe as Digital Sentience is still faaaaaar away at that point. Also to allow the Consciousness to appear early enough in the game to make a difference without feeling out of place, I was thinking to make their faction about becoming some shared Consciousness rather than already being one from the start. I'd also drop 'Cybernetic' from their name, so that the Psionic/Affinity route can also be seen as an alternative valid way to achieve their faction's goal. Though gameplaywise they should still be encouraged to research the computer techs, and roleplaywise the rational guys.

Sounds interesting as a start...I currently have no additional ideas.

IIRC Civ4 makes spying easier on civs with whom you don't have open borders?? If so, I'd like to reverse that.

It works already the opposite - spies are less likely to be detected, if you send them to a faction you share an OB with and you get a discount on the mission ESP costs (15% IIRC)

What does iCloseBordersAttitudeChange do by the way? IIRC I saw a seperate diplo modifier for open borders.

"Close Borders" is the term for tension growing out of mutual cultural pressure at tight border parts and not to be confused with "Open Borders". For the latter there is the usual array of a divisor tag and attitude change limit one.

I've already added a unique building for the Peacekeepers and Drones, the Hab Complex replacing the Genejack Factory, which gives the same effects plus an additional .

Nice idea - UB's for Planetfall. I had the idea of unique buildings a while ago, when I remembered the Recreation Area quote, where Lal talks about the typical buildings in the bases of variuos factions (Casino for Morgan, Garden for Deidre, Barrack Yard for Santiago, Reading Room for his HQ and the Meeting Hall for Yang), but it is hard to come up with interesting effects as always.

Disagree with this one - should be average I feel. They're also computer guys after all.

I like your descriptions.

Just two notes:
How about giving Roze a -2 to worserankdifferenceattitudechange. She dislikes Power after all.

I'm not a fan of AI extortions. Besides those are already Yang's thing. So I don't really like the idea of Svensgaard's DemandTributeAttitudeThreshold at

Friendly.

Done.

Yeah the Pirates as Autarky makes sense. Moving Angels to Democratic makes sense then. Then I'd prefer to keep the diplomatic effect with the Angels for running Democratic limited though. The reason being (same as the one why I moved Lal to prefer Member):

Police State has Yang only weakly liking Police State, and Lal strongly hating it.
Democratic has only Yang weakly hating it.
Fundamentalism has no one liking it, and TWO factions hating it.

Thus diplomatically speaking Democratic already is the preferred choice, even before adding an Angel preference. Most of the time Democratic already seems

like the better choice to me (and the AI), so I'm wary of adding more benefits to it.

I have included those chnages in a new version of the sheet as well (all changes in green)


I could do the changes to the .xml file as well, but it would take some time (also it would be better to them to a file, which already has any modifications you have made in advanace to adding the new factions)

 

[Pfeffersack]

Some additional thoughts regarding the Drone creation mechanics (to make them competitive and counter the issues caused by having isolated bases in or near enemy territory). Some (or at least are all together) are probably unbalanced or not feasible to be implemented, but brainstorming never hurts

- When the very first base in a game revolts often enough to change it owner, it would be the start of the Drones faction, as far as I understand the plan. To give them a better start, at this point all bases which have Drones would switch instantly to Drones control as well(storywise see it as unique situation - no one expects the Drones to unite, other bases follow and the guards are cought on surprise). Of course after that initial "big revolt", the Drones will only win single bases, which revolt
- Always (regardless if it the "big revolt" or if it is just a single base later), give the Drones in each new Base one defender per Drone before
- Also, Drones should suffer no anarchy phase in acquired bases and maybe the first culture ring could be forced automatically
- Fighting the Drones faction in a war should cause double WW (perhaps only if you declare/attack/fight on their territory?)
- generally no revolts in Drone bases?

 

[Maniac]

I hope to reply more later, but I'd just like to note now that I'd certainly appreciate it if you would be willing to make the XML changes. It would speed up when I can release the next patch.

I also had the idea to make Knowledge the civic aversion of the Drones. References to the SMAC Drones' -2 Research, and would cause an emnity with Zakharov and his unethical research practices.

 

[Pfeffersack]

@ Maniac

I have edited the leaderhead .xml and attached it together with the updated spreadsheet.

I incorporated your feedback and also made some additional changes (marked green/red in the excel sheet):

- Domai dislikes now Knowlegde with -6
- Roze is indifferent to close borders (instead of liking this; if you want her to react like others leaders, suggest a numer - however I still would leave here at least as 0, as she might see close broders as an advantage for her espionage business)
- reduced the frequency of Svensgaard demanding tribute by half


- I replaced Svensgaard 0 for iMaxWarMinAdjacentLandPercent with 1 (reason: 0 would allow him to start total wars vs. someone he hasn't even a border with - that might fight for ideological leaders, but not for someone caring for the maritime sphere only)
- removed Svensgaards plus +4 relations with weaker civs (would make him unnecessarily similar to Yang without any real foundation in his character)
- reworked the OB effects for Svensgaard, Roze and Domai: Svensgaard is picky about to sign OBs at all because of his piracy ambitions, so it does not make sense to give him a huge relation effect for when he signs an Ob with you. For the other two, you can gain up to +3 (Domai needs the mobility to reach outlying bases - perhaps I should alter his refuse treshold as well?, Roze is interested in less risky spy movement); for Domai this will take longer than for Roze, though.
- Domai will now ask you twice as often to stop trading with someone else (he also values such actions more, so it is consequent that he asks more often for them as well)
- gave Roze a very slight relation penalty for captured spies back (I first thought it would be nice to set a 0 here - her view could "espionage as a kind of game" - but I'm not sure if her leaning towards it will play out strong enough in the game to protect her to justify completely consequenceless spying; could be exploited otherwise)


BTW, I have realized recently during playing what parameter iLostWarAttitudeChange really means - I always though of some counter for ended wars where the AI had to pay for peace, lost more units and so on, which worsens then the relations forever. But that doesn't seem to be the case. The modifier only seems to appear in currently ongoing wars, if you are about to beat the AI - then they get even more mad by the degree set in this tag. Now the question is what it does influence, if an AI does hate you more or less during a war. The only impact I can image is on peace terms, but I have no idea in which direction it works.
Currently we have it for most leaders at -1 (BTS setting for all leaders), only Santiago and Svensgaard are at -2.