Corey: We're currently looking for any and all feedback to decide if we're going to add this feature to Imperial Civil War in 2.2.
For the past few years I have been working on bringing diplomacy to Empire at War and finally I can say that I am more or less finished.
I would like you to try this new feature with base FoC for now and hopefully when we are done we can add it to ICW.
Here is how it works:
1. Influence
-The galaxy map is divided into sectors. Each planet gets assigned a value that represents your current influence on that planet.
-If you lose a planet in a sector you lose influence on all other planets owned by you in the same sector.
-If you conquer a planet you gain influence on all other planets owned by you in that sector
-You gain a little influence every day on each planet you own.
-If your influence on a planet drops to 0 you lose that planet (affiliation changes to neutral if no enemy diplomat or fleet is present)
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You can have a look on your current influence by clicking on the Show Credits filter button on the command bar (will be changed later)2. Diplomats
-Every faction gets a diplomat unit with a build limit of one at a time
-Diplomats have galactic stealth
-If a diplomat is in orbit of a planet owned by another faction, the faction's influence on that planet will decrease every day
-If the influence hits 0 while a diplomat is present the affiliation of that planet will change to the faction the diplomat belongs to. The diplomat also gets removed.
-Diplomats are also removed when the planet affiliation changes due to another faction conquering the planet
-Diplomats are minor heroes that can be killed by bounty hunters(currently the only way to get rid of a diplomat)
-AI diplomats only choose planets owned by the player
-For now diplomats are units that only cost 1 Credit
-The rebel diplomat has a mon calamari cruiser icon, the empire and underworld have Tartan cruiser icons.(since you can only play the empire in this version you'll have no problem identifying which diplomat belongs to which faction)
What I would like you to look out for while testing:
-Is the AI targeting always the same planets with its diplomats? (this is what I have seen so far in the beginning of a GC, however I have not played a full GC yet)
-Are diplomats always removed correctly? (due to losing planets after battles etc)
-Are AI diplomats always spawned at the same time? (this can happen, but should not always happen)
-Is the AI also killing your diplomats?
-Does the AI place troops on planets that have been taken over by diplomats?
Design related things:
-Is diplomacy actually a threat to you? (at the moment I think if you keep track of your influence you can easily prevent any planet from being taken over)
If you have any suggestions on how to improve the diplomacy system I'd be glad to hear them.
However, there is one thing I'd rather not change if I don't have to and that is adding more diplomats per faction.
This is due to two reasons:
1. I have designed the whole script to work with one diplomat per faction and it would take quite a while to change that
2. While having diplomacy is fun I think the main aspect of Empire at War is the combat part and I don't think being able to take over the whole galaxy with diplomacy is a really good idea
And finally, the download link:
DownloadEDIT:
For those who'd like to have some more details on how the system works:
What happens with the influence every day:
-If you have more than one planet in a sector you gain +5 influence on each of your planets in this sector
-If you have a hero on that planet you gain additional +5 influence on that planet (having more heroes on the planet does NOT increase the influence bonus)
-If you don't have other planets in a sector you lose 5 influence on that planet
-If an enemy diplomat is on one of your planets you lose 20 influence on that planet
How does the AI determine which planet is most suitable for a diplomacy mission:
Diplomacy_Desire =
(1 - Low_Ground_Defense_Score ) * 33 +
(1 - Low_Space_Defense_Score) * 33 +
GenericPlanetValue * 100 +
(100 - current_owners_influence) / 3
( + a random desire bonus from 0 to 20 if Diplomacy_Desire <= 70)
Low_Ground_Defense_Score, Low_Space_Defense_Score and GenericPlanetValue are AI functions that return a value between 0 and 1
current_owners_influence represents the exact current influence of the planet's owner with a value between 0 and 100
I'll also give you a list with the planets in each sector, since there is currently no visual representation that tells you which planet belongs to which sector:
Sector I:
"AlzocIII",
"Carida",
"Ilum",
"Jabiim",
"Manaan"
Sector II:
"Coruscant",
"Byss",
"Abregado_Rae",
"Anaxes",
"Corulag",
"Fresia"
Sector III:
"Bothawui",
"Corellia",
"Kashyyyk",
"Kessel",
"Kuat"
Sector IV:
"Hypori",
"Mandalore",
"NalHutta",
"Ryloth",
"Shola"
Sector V:
"Dagobah",
"Geonosis",
"Mustafar",
"Naboo",
"Tatooine",
"Utapau"
Sector VI:
"Atzerri",
"Bespin",
"Bestine",
"Hoth",
"Sullust"
Sector VII:
"Endor",
"Fondor",
"Polus",
"Taris",
"Thyferra"
Sector VIII:
"Bonadan",
"Dathomir",
"Muunilinst",
"Myrkr"
Sector IX:
"Korriban",
"Yavin"
Sector X:
"Honoghr",
"Kamino",
"MonCalimari",
"Saleucami"
The planets "AetenII", "Dantooine", "Felucia" and "Wayland" are missing from that list. They cannot be taken over with diplomacy in this version. The reason for that is a bug that is already fixed, but I forgot to put the planets back in.
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Patch1:
Bug Fixes:
-Fixed a bug where planets would lose influence even if a friendly diplomat was in orbit
-Fixed a bug where the AI would kill enemy diplomats even when they were on planets not owned by an AI faction
-A new diplomat should be buildable now once the old one is lost
Changes:
-When diplomacy desire is calculated the script now checks if the desire for a certain planet is lower than the current maximum desire for another planet and only then adds a random integer from 0 to 40 to the desire value.
Maybe this will help with the issue of the AI always targeting the same planet.
Download