This turned out to be much longer than I thought it would.
Hehe... That's what she said.That is not even slightly true because this is how I actually play the game using house rules. First of all I usually play with multiple human controlled factions so it is a must unless I want to go insane from micromanagement.
The decisions I need to make is how each colony should grow within a five to then year period. I can only change the production roughly once every year and only a fraction of it. I can only turn around a planets production into mostly war production in a few years. Before that they are on long term production schedules and I often have some planets producing. War in these kind of conditions also tend to be low intensity wars, no one really want's to fire the big gun because everyone are afraid on being on the loosing side.
But it is true. Everybody who either does the bare minimum of roleplaying (me), or just doesn't roleplay at all, is just going to pick whichever focuses will let them actually access the core of the game: space wars. You can
roleplay that all of your factions are scared of wars for whatever reason, and then do things to arbitrarily keep them all at even levels in power so that there's actually some basis for it, but it's still just make-believe. It's not really supported by any of the mechanics, and I don't view results gained from roleplaying as real practical evidence that a system works.
Why do I view roleplaying as bad evidence? Because it's effectively arbitrary in the game. It's just the player intentionally playing in a
suboptimal way for fun and to create a story.
And that's not an attempt to belittle you for playing the game in a way that you feel is fun, because a lot of Aurora fans seem to have fun the same way. I just don't think you understand what's going to happen when your house rules become actual game mechanics and get into the hands of minmaxers like me. I read this and all I think is:
"I will have less choices to make and less things to do, so now I have less actual game to play."But you could also introduce this with a slight update to the economically model in the game. The civilian industry should be much more important and dynamically expand industry in planets anyway as well as consume resources. You should rather set up contracts with the civilian part of the population when you want government stuff produced. I think it should work more closely with how you interact with the civilian fleets.
I promise you, the decisions you make are fewer but in general the have a bigger impact and is important when you do them, they also require you to think hard because you can't easily change your mind later.
But I already know exactly what needs to be built, so let
me build it. I think until you add actual working internal politics to the game, leaving your empire's development effectively in the hands of the RNG is really not ideal. In my eyes, it would just remove actual gameplay for the sake of simulation or roleplaying.
The game would become, as
@froggiest1982 amusingly called it, an "aquarium game"
You see, the decisions I make now are all probably just as high impact as the ones you make under your house rules, they just have a large number of individual pieces as far as actually implementing them goes. All I want is to eliminate the repetition of the micro involved in implementing my strategies.
To imply that what the player is doing has less long term impact because they have to perform more individual actions is silly. And to imply that if the player had less direct control over the game, they'd have more strategic options available or more "deep" ones, is even more silly. The only reason your system would be more deep is because you're making a hundred decisions in one go, whereas somebody like me would rather only make 50-60 if that's all he needed to do to achieve certain goals.
The core of my desire for more automation comes from keeping the game basically how it is, only a little easier to play. I just think I shouldn't have to perform any task more than once per match if that task itself isn't all too enjoyable or individually important. Those tasks should be much easier to repeat.
Games like Factorio support that very concept with things like automated construction blueprints, and something in the same vein as that would work perfectly with Aurora. I'm even fine with it if it has to be eventually unlocked through technology or something else, although preferably before the point where it'll start to really matter.
As for how this would work:At every single new colony I'd like to be able to apply a colony "blueprint". All I'd do is load a thing, and (using my ideal "blueprint" for every non-factory world as an example) it'd automatically apply terraforming targets, stockpiles, a demand contract for certain facilities (usually a few construction factories and terraformers), and the order to repeatedly construct financial centres until there's no pop to support more (and to start again when there is).
Maybe optionally add in a toggle that automatically disables and then puts a supply contract out for all of the terraforming installations on the planet when both 1) the terraforming targets that were set by either myself or the blueprint are met, and 2) the planet is habitable. That way these expensive and bulky facilities return to the supply system and can be used elsewhere once they're not needed, so I don't have to remember where they've gone.
Alternatively: civilian terraformers.Coupled with this, I'd like to be able to just place an empire-wide construction order for certain transportable installations, similar to Distant Worlds' "ship production order" screen.
My designated construction worlds would distribute the contract amongst themselves based on their production rate at the time, resource availability, and when their factories will actually be available. Then they'll get to work fulfilling my request after finishing whatever manually assigned tasks they have. Once the facilities are built, they'd be automatically added to a supply contract wherever they are.
The current system is also harder to have the AI keep up with the player in efficiency. With a slower less controllable system you can always have the AI cut some corner here and there and it is harder to abuse the mechanic to min/max. Min/max mechanic should be reduced as much as possible if you want the AI to be a bit more competition in general, there simply need to be less good or bad decisions and more bad/bad or good/good decisions to make.
Going to war should always feel like a huge gamble unless you are a super power and there are no other powers even close to rival you. Since there are no internal social pressures in the game aside from RP most decisions in the game then become rather binary.
But then again, this game is all about RP in the first place... there are too many loopholes in the game mechanics and you may Space Master anything you want at any time.
I disagree that this is even a game about roleplaying, let alone
all about roleplaying. You don't even want to know what I think about not being allowed to minmax just because the AI is dumb.
I actually think this is a game that is mostly about space warfare, with a very detailed logistical side to it. Because this is a wargame, I see that the best way to make the AI competitive is for them to make better tactical decisions and to have better ship design guidelines. That way they'll have the tools they need to actually make you think twice about going to war, which would also satisfy your desire for war to be a gamble. Although, it'd be less of a gamble (RNG MAKES HULK ANGRY) and more of a problem which, in order to solve, will require a lot of strategic manoeuvring, scouting, and preparation, so that you can seize the initiative and hold it until you win.
Admittedly, they'd still be pretty dumb on the empire building front, but I think that can be remedied if you'd implemented my idea of colony blueprints by just giving them good blueprints to work off of. Wouldn't be perfect, but it'd be a vast upgrade.
Besides, they could just keep using cheats like they (and basically every other 4x game's AI) do now. They'll still be a pretty substantial threat if all you do is give them better ships and the ability to have more consistent doctrine.