Proposal: Dynamic Victory System

[mroyer]

This discussion got me thinking...


In my opinion, the one-dimensional, expand-and-conquer-all victory system gets stale and doesn't do this magnificent game justice. A game so rich in depth and detail doesn't deserve a victory system that is so very shallow.

So, I'd like to propose a dynamic victory system that is based on regime profile. For each round, a regime's victory score is calculated by summing the product of each if it's nine profile levels multiplied by its respective victory criteria score.

[font="Courier New"]
Profile ------- Victory criteria score derived from
Democracy ----> population and worker happiness
Autocracy ----> population conquest
Meritocracy --> administration level
Enforcement --> security and Culture levels
Commerce -----> private sector economy
Government ---> civilization score
Fist ---------> territorial conquest
Mind ---------> technology level
Heart --------> military and militia loyalty
[/font]

(Of course, the victory criteria above are notional for example purposes. It would take careful thought and balancing to come up with a solid, implementable set of criteria.)

This has multiple benefits:
(1) Re-playability will be enhanced further as strategies for each game will vary dramatically with victory requirements.
(2) Adversaries will be have a more difficulty assessing opponents motivations, goals and strategies.
(3) A regime's victory criteria would actually migrate along with its profile scores within a single game making victory a moving target - sorta' realistic.
(4) it eliminates the snowball effect of the current victory system where one nation gets bigger earlier on and typically can parley that into more and more gains to victory.

[eddieballgame]

Good stuff, Mark...well thought out.

[Zanotirn]

I'm not sure how some of these would work in practice. E.g. civilization level has a cap. Do you win if you are a certain amount of points ahead of everyone else? In that case the easiest way to win would be to rush QoL early in the game and win early on. Later in the game on the other hand it would be difficult to have a big advantage over other empires. Same goes for other stats with cap or softcap like loyalty, happiness and the other regime levels.

Also with the setting generally being focused on a world exiting postapocalyptic anarchy some degree of taking care pragmatic concerns like your defense and economic/industrial potential could be expected for any regime. Otherwise you could have a small one-zone regime win the game by happiness just as it was about to be swallowed by a much bigger one.

I could see that working maybe if profile-related stat acted as a modifier on your normal victory score - i.e. everyone would still need victory points, but a democratic state would have a harder time achieving victory if it didn't take care of pop happiness and so on.

[mroyer]

I'm not sure how some of these would work in practice. E.g. civilization level has a cap...

Yeah, I agree. The example is intended to be purely illustrative of the overarching concept of having dynamic victory conditions. For sure, implementation details will need to be VERY carefully selected, scaled and balanced for it to work properly.

However, I think if done well, a victory system like this will provide a much deeper, rich experience for players.

I could see that working maybe if profile-related stat acted as a modifier on your normal victory score

This could be a workable twist on the theme too.


-Mark R.

[misterprimus]

That's certainly a good idea, but just like in Distant Worlds Universe, there should be a default "Conquer All Hexes" condition for people who just want a simple goal like that. It is called "Planetary Conquest" after all! That would be good for people who don't want to risk "losing" just because the AI recklessly blitzed the minors on Round 1.

[BlueTemplar]

Conquer all Majors ?

Great suggestion !