Is it too easy to rapidly expand with diplomacy on Siwa?

[KingHalford]

A friend of mine plays multiplayer Shadow Empire a whole lot. His group have a bunch of house-rules, one of which is to disallow using Foreign Affairs Council to "capture" neighbouring Minors diplomatically, because they've found it is way too easy to do and winning becomes a matter of who has the most minor neighbours. They do mostly play on Siwa with large populations and relatively easy Minors regimes (mostly farmers I'm guessing).

This didn't sound right to me so I've done some testing, including in multiplayer, and I'm wondering if he might actually be right. I think farmers particularly should be the most willing to subject themselves to the rule of a stronger warlord promising them protection, but I don't think it's something you should be able to do over and over again in quick succession.

With some early investment into Foreign Affairs and a good character in there, you can pretty easily take massive amounts of territory with relatively little effort. This could have the potential to force players into all taking this one strategy because I don't think that an equal amount of resources/PP directed into military conquest is likely to have the same success. It might also become a "no-brainer" on Siwa and Farmer heavy planets, and I hate no-brainers.

I want to stress that I think that Shadow Empire is so big and complex, with such drastic variation in meta-game depending on settings and planet type that I'm not willing to assert this is true on the more hostile planet types. It's likely not. However, I'm interested to know if others have come across this, and whether they think it is a problem or not?

If so, how would you go about making diplomacy a little less overpowered on Siwa/Farmer planets? Or is it just fine as it is?

My only concern is that if dedicated players are having to make house-rules, that's usually when you should examine what it is they're changing and see if it's something that might need tweaking.

Edit: I am aware of Severe Violence History Class, and perhaps that was added to prevent this very thing. I'd still suggest that there be some kind of penalty or cooldown to using Foreign Affairs to annex/confederate minors to at least make it a bit less of a race.

[Voker57]

Without Severe Violence it's too easy on any map.

[Arralen]

I found that the major AIs do a pretty good job at neutering the players foreign affairs council by declaring war on each and ever minor they come across within a few turns.
Minor in a war => no way to declare protectorate => all routes to Unification/Annexation blocked.
Even if you are 98% friends with them, there's nothing you can do.

All the while you can bomb them with "Pleas of Friendship" during peacetime 'til they glow in admiration for you and join you for free ... gullible farmers, one might say?

I'd see this become more costly ("Plea of Friendship" costing you 500cr and -10 relation with every other minor neighbour?), or plainly reversed - if you come in to rescue them from that imperialistic warlord, they'll gladly join you, but if there's no obvious threat, they just show you the finger ...

[KingHalford]

I think diplomatic actions in 4X games are traditionally easy for the player to exploit, and I like the way Shadow Empire works by giving such actions some chance of failure to help mitigate that. For me that's one of it's strongest points and is such a huge improvement of the status quo in the genre. That said, anything that allows you to take victory points (and all the other benefits from taking a new zone cheaply) probably needs to have a higher cost.

I think Shadow Empire has potentially dozens of ways the player could "pay" for these actions beyond a mere increase in PP, whether it's making cultural adjustment affect more than just colonists/recruits (at the moment this doesn't really matter too much unless your war is going so badly you're desperately needing recruits from new cities) or something else.

[arvcran2]

I think diplomatic actions in 4X games are traditionally easy for the player to exploit, and I like the way Shadow Empire works by giving such actions some chance of failure to help mitigate that. For me that's one of it's strongest points and is such a huge improvement of the status quo in the genre. That said, anything that allows you to take victory points (and all the other benefits from taking a new zone cheaply) probably needs to have a higher cost.

I think Shadow Empire has potentially dozens of ways the player could "pay" for these actions beyond a mere increase in PP, whether it's making cultural adjustment affect more than just colonists/recruits (at the moment this doesn't really matter too much unless your war is going so badly you're desperately needing recruits from new cities) or something else.

It is interesting to read this post because I was thinking of saying similar things for DW2.

Negotiating trade agreements with independents in DW2 can be done despite having any researched diplomacy techs. And every additional independent assimilated via colonization increases the reputation which make subsequent assimilation easier. Gaining the independents territory and resources is quite a boost.

[KingHalford]

Generally speaking, in 4X games, diplomacy was originally there to give the player a way to interact with the AI that made it feel like they weren't playing against a faceless computer. Unfortunately the general implementation, from Civilization onwards, made it become as a way for the player to delay going to war until they're ready to do so.

Unless the game has diplomacy baked into the game design (only Master of Orion really comes to mind here) it's usually a poorly done mechanic.

[DasTactic]

I agree. I play with a 'house-rule' of not implementing the Foreign Affairs Council.

[KingHalford]

That's another thing I love about Shadow Empire: the whole modular approach of adding Councils means you can more easily ignore certain parts of the game you're less interested in. We were talking about the Internal Affairs Council, where after the initial tax changes they tend to get defunded completely, and it's a rare game where such things are considered optional in that regard.

[Daza99]

Tldr:
Minor regimes, make Client state the first step after getting friendly with them initially, then there could be a random period of time before you can try to unify them etc. Which i think is currently like that when trying to get friendly with them enough to try and lower the difficulty roll. But this is after getting them as a client state. In this period as a client state, depending on how different their political profile is with yours there could be some rebel activity seeking to turn the people away, and if funded from a major regime who hates you this will have higher difficulty rolls with the events that crop up where rebels demand neutrality/independence etc- if you fail the roll they will succeed in sabotage operations eg. damaging private infrastructure and instigating riots etc.
If the population unrest reaches a certain level then the client or even unified state to break away from you. There is a bit more to this idea in the longer version.
This gets more harder/serious if there is a Major regime funding the rebels, which more events are added that you have to succeed in order to squash the rebellion, such as capturing the main arms smuggler and finding out the location of where the rebels are so you can directly attack them etc. A funded rebel operation could mean there 'might' be another leader popping up if you take out the initial leader. Yes there is already a scripted rebel event in the game and also chance of a low rel leader rebelling but this idea is more impacting when you fail the series of event rolls with a client or unified state regarding this. There could new (high cost) Spy Stratagem cards to help weaken the rebels maybe.

Longer version:
An interesting thread. It kind of makes sense farmers would want to have some protection especially if they have hostile neighbors like Slavers for example. I'm am no expert of the game and my ideas might seem silly. Something needs changing or adding to the current diplomatic system if players are disabling parts of the game to make it more realistic. Starting off with an obvious statement, make it harder to get full control of a neighbor even with Farmers via Unification or Annexation (unless they have serious issues on the borders) and the best you can do is have them as a client state most of the time. What if you have to have them as a client state before you can hope to unify them?

Maybe on planets that have little water could mean some minor regimes can eventually into trouble running out of water sources or food production issues, i believe weather is going later on have more of an impact in the game? and are more likely to seek Unification earlier? or might make them more hostile and even a minor regime might attack you for your resources. One game i had, I think one client state once asked to be unified when they were getting attacked by another regime (i think). I thought that was immersive, but usually i got control of the entire state and seldom went for a client state status. While on this thought, what if a major resume makes demand for food and water, when there is a drought on, else face invasion.

Currently in the game Major allies can have political factions within the regime that might come to power and try and turn their leader against you. It would be interesting if minor regimes, even farmer ones, who are Client states might have this happen too, thanks to another Major regime who hates you, meddling in minor regime politics. And if they are successful perhaps the new elected leader breaks off the Client status with you. Which i think isn't currently possible for a minor regime to break that agreement?

In general more depth is needed making getting and holding onto client or unified states more difficult and as well having more dynamic events related to that, which can have them become more and more unhappy with you. If Client state has to come before unification, this period could open up to chance for foreign meddling if there is a major regime close by who hates you for example. Foreign meddling as in a chance of a series of events that if you fail to win, will lead to rebel cell groups cropping up who demand their nation to be neutral or independent. The main rebel leader is hidden to you at first and their stats might also influence the difficulty roll. There will be events that follow that open up chances for you to find the arms smuggler who if caught might reveal who the rebel leader is and where they are, which appear on the map (as currently happens when one of your cabinet leaders start an uprising). In the meantime some events where some major sabotage operations occurred and failing to stop (your Covert Ops leader fails rolls) then private infrastructure gets damaged which naturally leads to civil unrest etc. This might happen even without foreign meddling if there is a percentage chance of such a group of people hate your regime, especially if their political views are different. Seldom chance if their political views are very similar to yours. But if there is foreign meddling it will be a worse effect (or just higher diff rolls) where the rebel leader is getting funding and weapons sent to them across the border. So there could be more of them to mop up militarily once they are exposed and are seen on the map. A funded rebel operation could mean there 'might' be another leader popping up if you take out the initial leader.

In MP there might be new Stratagem cards where if you succeed in starting up a rebel cell or group within another player's client state or unified/annexed zone. I guess there could be sabotage operation stratagems that are high PP to play and if you fail eg. the target's agents capture the other players agent trying to set up their operations within your borders or client borders will be made known who tried to do that. There could be an upkeep cost of PP and $$ to keep it going, and the other player has the events play out and they hope to succeed on the rolls to find this rebel leader and defeat them etc. The player could have a card to spend a specific spy who is like an advisor attached to the rebel leader, increasing his/her rolls against the other player when the events come up.

I understand, if I am not mistaken Vic intends to later add more weather impact on gameplay, i guess from combat to more events with things like droughts and disasters i suppose. These things could make the game more interesting and would lead to more types of events that make holding onto client states more difficult. More chances of unhappiness of the population in general. Imagine and event where a client state asks for a lot of food and water, and you are struggling yourself with those supplies and cannot meet their needs and they lose loyalty with that client or unified state and eventually they break away when the circumstances are right. Which if the regime turns against you and you have troops there, you will have to pull them out with fear of being cut off from supply. So that could be a factor when you start losing events and its getting worse, and now unrest is spreading through the population because you cannot get a handle on things, you need your troops in the cities to help quell the civil unrest but they might get cut off if you lose the zone/regime it switches back to being independent and possible hostile to you. So you might lose some troops during a full scale uprising and breaking away from your regime, from the fighting and getting cut off perhaps or even as you pull them back there could be some losses.

It could really make a more dynamic game. But the question is, would it make it harder for the player to focus on a war campaign as well? there could be a limit on how many client or unified states rebel perhaps. And course you would choose to unify or annex a minor regime based on if they have similar political interests, which makes it harder for rebels to stir up trouble. But of course weather events could strain things, especially how you handle these and give aid. Do badly and perhaps the rebel event will eventually appear. Of course these things wouldn't happen quickly, some events related to this could be randomly spread out (there could be Stratagem cards for your Spies to try and locate Rebels locations and also following the money and trying to stamp out weapon smuggling) these could be high cost PP cards and you would have time to try and keep the population happy and perhaps be picky about which nations you try to unify or annex which hold similar values to your regime. If you don't play any cards for that, the events that crop up giving you a chance to find the leader or arms smuggler will give you a chance to succeed but fail too many of these and you will lose. Eventually widespread unrest etc as stated earlier leads to breaking away from your regime.

Sorry about the wall of text. This is actually shorter than the original would you believe lol. I hope i make sense.

[eddieballgame]

It is, primarily the 'farmers' who are the easiest to befriend.
Of course, one can generate planets that will have a low to none 'farmer' population...if that will make the game more of a challenge.
The problem (?) with allowing one to focus on attaining a high score via diplomacy is that the game's Victory Conditions entail, only, Pop & Planet %.
Personally, I like the way this game handles this aspect of the game, I just wish there could be other methods implemented to determine a winner...based on score.
In the 'mp' games I have participated in (with a great group, I will add) the victor has shown himself to be superb in all facets &, generally, has come out on top via military action.
In the end, (at least in 'mp') someone must win (so another game can be started ) & using any & all methods that the game allows should be fair game. imho

[KingHalford]

It is, primarily the 'farmers' who are the easiest to befriend.
Of course, one can generate planets that will have a low to none 'farmer' population...if that will make the game more of a challenge.
The problem (?) with allowing one to focus on attaining a high score via diplomacy is that the game's Victory Conditions entail, only, Pop & Planet %.
Personally, I like the way this game handles this aspect of the game, I just wish there could be other methods implemented to determine a winner...based on score.
In the 'mp' games I have participated in (with a great group, I will add) the victor has shown himself to be superb in all facets &, generally, has come out on top via military action.
In the end, (at least in 'mp') someone must win (so another game can be started ) & using any & all methods that the game allows should be fair game. imho

I'm reluctant to use house rules until I'm SURE there's a problem. We've managed this issue so far in our MP game, doesn't seem like anybody is snowballing because of it, yet.

[eddieballgame]

Agreed, 'BATTLEMODE', I am not a fan of 'house rules' that negate any strategies in 'mp' games that are reasonable.
In all the the 'mp' games I have played I am sure someone got screwed for whatever reason. (myself included, though that could have been my imagination, combined with poor play)
This is part of the fun for me, to overcome a less than perceived favorable start as it is the excitement of competing that I enjoy most.
Again, in all the games I have been a part of (with my group & some 1v1s) I have not seen this to be a problem; & in some cases...a blessing.
Of course, for solo games, do impose whatever rules are necessary for your enjoyment.