Author Topic: Multi NPR Inter-Alliance Handling?  (Read 2478 times)

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Offline ChubbyPitbull (OP)

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Multi NPR Inter-Alliance Handling?
« on: December 27, 2019, 09:02:54 PM »
I'd originally planned to hold off until C# Aurora was available, but I've been reading some more sci-fi recently ("Old Man's War" and "The Collapsing Empire" by John Scalzi), and it gave me the itch for Aurora again. I got excited at the idea of setting up an Imperial+Houses galaxy where one NPR was the Imperial race, and then multiple NPR "House" races on equivalent homeworlds in other systems. They would all start essentially allied with each other, with an Imperial presence (colony) on each House homeworld, and each House having a token colony on the Imperial homeworld. If anyone remembers the game Emperor of the Fading Suns, it would be something along those lines.

From the start I as the player would play a House or the Imperial race, and then let the game play out normally, using Spacemaster for any especially creative events but otherwise letting the other NPRs research, develop, and explore outwards themselves, as well as adjust diplomatic relations between each other as they wish.

How would the NPR AI be able to handle this? Often my past VB Aurora games died out as NPR battles dragged out for hours and obviously adding more NPRs isn't going to improve that. The siren call of playing an EoFS-style game in Aurora is incredibly strong however. I ready a lot of Lets-Plays where one person plays multiple factions simultaneously, but not sure how that would work out when one person knows how everything is going to go, so I like the extra random/suspense factor AI races would add.

Can the AI in Aurora handle this kind of setup?
 

Offline Garfunkel

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Re: Multi NPR Inter-Alliance Handling?
« Reply #1 on: December 28, 2019, 07:07:22 PM »
It cannot.

VB6 Aurora basically has no diplomacy. IIRC, you cannot use SM to force certain relationship level between NPRs or human and an NPR. You can only mandate a truce period when you have multiple factions starting in the same system. Any active sensor and/or contact in a system with a colony will cause relationship hit and since NPRs do not know to avoid this, they will eventually ALWAYS go to war. Only human action can prevent this war, since you can put a Diplomatic Team to improve the relationship with an NPR and avoid annoying them, leading to a Trade Deal and maybe even an Alliance later. But the ally NPR will not know how to help you in your wars, though it will not stab you in the back either.

What you're thinking about absolutely requires a human playing all these factions, because then you can use SM to fiddle with the diplomatic relationship. Players have come up with a bunch of methods to help a single person running multiple races/powers/nations/empires - for example, you could have a diplomatic events table which you roll every month/year to see how factions behave towards each other. You could have a specific political ideology for each faction and then have them adhere to that as closely as possible. You could have outsiders issue generic orders to some/all factions either via forum messages or discord. You can use the Commander Traits as guides for roleplaying how a specific commander/administrator/general would act in a given situation or make another random even table you roll - or use one of the dozens available on the Internet.

Naturally, you will miss out on the surprise element, but a strong roleplaying flavour for each faction, with a random event element, and a high-level general "plot" to follow, can keep things going.