Update on Progress

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I was wondering if some kind of "diplomatic interest point" could resolve the issue with system claiming. Any AI receives a monthly value of "diplomatic interst point" and can save them or distribute them on the values it determines systems do have. Since these numbers are very limited it will begin valuing some systems more than others. If it then so happens that another player claims a system, if and how the AI will react to that claim depends on the relative number of "DIP" the AI has given that system.

Example:
Known Systems (Internal AI Value): Cygni-17 (22), Epsilon-2 (28), Arandi-9 (22), Alpha Centauri (9), Magellan-4 (15)
Every month the AI receives one DIP. Lets say it spreads them as this:
Jan: 0 - 1 - 0  - 0 - 0
Feb: 1 - 1 - 0 - 0 - 0
Mar: 1 - 2 - 0 - 0 - 0
...
Dez: 4 - 6 - 1 - 0 - 1

Next January another player claims Arandi-9. So the AI looks into its numbers. Since Arandi has a relative low DIP value of 1 it does not react.
In February the Cygny-17 system is also claimed by the other player. And since Cycni has a relative high DIP value of 4 here it will react - even though both systems have an identical internal value of 22.

With such a system you could simulate political interest. Maybe you even could link that system to the commanders and political leaders of that empire. Maybe those points are linked to the leader in your leader pool - and depending who is in charge, some systems will be to them of more value than others - and they will steer politics into that direction... .

Its an interesting idea. I'll probably do something on these lines when I get to the concept of trying to resolve competing claims in an overall deal, rather than individually.

[Inglonias]

I'm aware the world is going through some disruption at the moment. The island is completely locked down with no flights or ferries, plus my asthmatic daughter, who is isolated with my 9-year old grandson, was tested due to chest pains (she tested negative). I am doing my part by keeping her well supplied with quality wine left on the doorstep for her to collect . My wife and I have been isolated for two weeks but I've been well-stocked with everything since the end of January (my day job is predicting what is going to happen)

However, the world has gone through far worse in the past and the vast majority of people will come out of this unscathed, if a little more aware of life's frailties. My wife, my adult children and my grandson are managing due to preparation, a lot of humour and an understanding there is no point worrying about something beyond your ability to influence the outcome.

In the meantime, I may as well take advantage of the situation by spending more time on Aurora, even though I am pretty frustrated I can't get the van on the road

https://lindylou-lifeinthecraftlane.blogspot.com/2020/03/weve-got-it-let-adventures-begin.html

I know. I was joking somewhat. Take the time you need, Steve.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Another minor conundrum

In order for an NPR to accept your claim on a system, it must recognise that you have established a presence. This is defined as populations with a combined EM signature of 500 (about 4m pop with infrastructure).

I'm currently using the Alien Population intelligence as the basis for that, because every time an NPR (or a player) detects a alien population they will update the EM and Thermal signature of that population for the Alien Population record. So when an NPR is considering if your claim is worthy, it will use the latest information it has.

The problem arises when you have a population of the required size, but the NPR hasn't visited the system for a while so it doesn't know the population is large enough. You make a claim and it is immediately rejected on the basis you don't have an established presence. I am considering three options:

1) Leave as is. If the NPR isn't visiting the system, then whether you claim it or not doesn't matter. The downside here is that the next NPR visit might be a colony fleet, which changes the situation.
2) Allow players to pass information on their own colonies to NPRs (and add the same code to NPRs).
3) Use actual population data. This assumes that 2) is happening in the background. The downside to both 2) and 3) is that it assumes races believe each other

Tempted to use 3) as 1) could be frustrating and I think 2) adds an unnecessary step.

[alex_brunius]

Another minor conundrum

In order for an NPR to accept your claim on a system, it must recognise that you have established a presence. This is defined as populations with a combined EM signature of 500 (about 4m pop with infrastructure).

I'm currently using the Alien Population intelligence as the basis for that, because every time an NPR (or a player) detects a alien population they will update the EM and Thermal signature of that population for the Alien Population record. So when an NPR is considering if your claim is worthy, it will use the latest information it has.

The problem arises when you have a population of the required size, but the NPR hasn't visited the system for a while so it doesn't know the population is large enough. You make a claim and it is immediately rejected on the basis you don't have an established presence. I am considering three options:

1) Leave as is. If the NPR isn't visiting the system, then whether you claim it or not doesn't matter. The downside here is that the next NPR visit might be a colony fleet, which changes the situation.
2) Allow players to pass information on their own colonies to NPRs (and add the same code to NPRs).
3) Use actual population data. This assumes that 2) is happening in the background. The downside to both 2) and 3) is that it assumes races believe each other

Tempted to use 3) as 1) could be frustrating and I think 2) adds an unnecessary step.

I think it sounds fairly reasonable that population data and the aliens verifying that data is correct ( sending a 50 ton civilian/diplomatic ship or something if needed ) is abstracted away and assumed to happen in the background here for a game on the scale and focus of Aurora 4x ( option 3 ).

What happens in the reverse situation? ( Player want to claim a system where NPC has an established population ) Would the player be informed of that presence as feedback of why the player can't claim?

[Kristover]

I think 3) is a good solution to this problem.   I personally like the idea of 1) for the realism side but you’re right that it would create frustrations and conflicts which could have been avoided - ‘I thought that Cygni 61 situation had been resolved so why did the Draks just show up with a fleet?’.   It isn’t unreasonable to assume that when you announce a claim to the Galaxy it comes with a stipulation ‘We have people there’

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Another minor conundrum

In order for an NPR to accept your claim on a system, it must recognise that you have established a presence. This is defined as populations with a combined EM signature of 500 (about 4m pop with infrastructure).

I'm currently using the Alien Population intelligence as the basis for that, because every time an NPR (or a player) detects a alien population they will update the EM and Thermal signature of that population for the Alien Population record. So when an NPR is considering if your claim is worthy, it will use the latest information it has.

The problem arises when you have a population of the required size, but the NPR hasn't visited the system for a while so it doesn't know the population is large enough. You make a claim and it is immediately rejected on the basis you don't have an established presence. I am considering three options:

1) Leave as is. If the NPR isn't visiting the system, then whether you claim it or not doesn't matter. The downside here is that the next NPR visit might be a colony fleet, which changes the situation.
2) Allow players to pass information on their own colonies to NPRs (and add the same code to NPRs).
3) Use actual population data. This assumes that 2) is happening in the background. The downside to both 2) and 3) is that it assumes races believe each other

Tempted to use 3) as 1) could be frustrating and I think 2) adds an unnecessary step.

I think it sounds fairly reasonable that population data and the aliens verifying that data is correct ( sending a 50 ton civilian/diplomatic ship or something if needed ) is abstracted away and assumed to happen in the background here for a game on the scale and focus of Aurora 4x ( option 3 ).

What happens in the reverse situation? ( Player want to claim a system where NPC has an established population ) Would the player be informed of that presence as feedback of why the player can't claim?

NPR claiming from Player works differently than Player claiming from NPR. At the moment, the player will just be told the system is important to the NPR, but no more detail than that. However, as players are much more flexible than NPRs, they will probably conduct a stealthy recon to find out why.

http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg118318#msg118318
http://aurora2.pentarch.org/index.php?topic=8495.msg118362#msg118362

(from the second link) Note that the player vs NPR and NPR vs player functionality for claiming systems are a little different. Both sides can send messages to each other and the types of messages are effectively the same. The difference is the method of delivery and the potential reaction. This is because I wanted to give the player maximum flexibility in Diplomacy, while still proving a structured approach for the NPR. For example, the player view of the NPR in terms of diplomatic points does not drop if the NPR ignores demands to leave. The player can decide whether it is necessary to go to war.

[Shuul]

Maybe we can do 3) but only for system that is being claimed? So when you say I will claim this you transmit data about that system populations to interested parties.
Also, will this be happening if NPR is already hostile? You do not care if they accept the claim and sharing pop info is dangerous in that case.

[Hazard]

I'd go with a mix.

When an NPR/player claims a system they also say roughly how large their operations there are (a combined thermal/EM signal strength of 1 or 5 followed with a number of zeroes, pick the closest to the actual system wide combined colony signal strength). It may also say 'this is a transit corridor'.

The AI can then decide if it wants to accept the claim and do nothing other than update the charts and routing code, inspect the claim and send a small fleet to check for signals, contest the claim and try to deploy a battle fleet to scare off the rivals or try and enforce its own claim on the system with a war. Because if the NPR thinks the system is valuable enough it will reject foreign claims, possibly regardless of how big the population is. I mean, would you let millions of tons of high accessibility of Duranium slip through your fingers when you desperately need it? Or would you go to war over it even if you are likely to lose disastrously?

This might be more complex then you want to implement now though.

[Tikigod]

#3 seems perfectly fine. No good getting tied up on minor decisions when a perfectly workable solution is also entirely plausible in-game, it'll just encourage second guessing more and more things in a "Yeah but what if you choose to look at it like this..." abyss spiral. heh


As it will be driven by intelligence data regardless, as soon as the data says otherwise it's not like it'll stop NPRs acting if opportunities become open again.

[hostergaard]

Another minor conundrum

In order for an NPR to accept your claim on a system, it must recognise that you have established a presence. This is defined as populations with a combined EM signature of 500 (about 4m pop with infrastructure).

I'm currently using the Alien Population intelligence as the basis for that, because every time an NPR (or a player) detects a alien population they will update the EM and Thermal signature of that population for the Alien Population record. So when an NPR is considering if your claim is worthy, it will use the latest information it has.

The problem arises when you have a population of the required size, but the NPR hasn't visited the system for a while so it doesn't know the population is large enough. You make a claim and it is immediately rejected on the basis you don't have an established presence. I am considering three options:

1) Leave as is. If the NPR isn't visiting the system, then whether you claim it or not doesn't matter. The downside here is that the next NPR visit might be a colony fleet, which changes the situation.
2) Allow players to pass information on their own colonies to NPRs (and add the same code to NPRs).
3) Use actual population data. This assumes that 2) is happening in the background. The downside to both 2) and 3) is that it assumes races believe each other

Tempted to use 3) as 1) could be frustrating and I think 2) adds an unnecessary step.

Haven't read everything you might have written about claims what considerations there, but maybe instead of making what players and NPC's know a problem, make it so its a feature? I can imagine not knowing if a claim is valid could lead to a lot of emergent gameplay.

So to start with, make it so they do not have to react immediately? Basically, they can be like yup, we are aware of the claim you made and the reasons you provided. Then they have to decide how to react to said claim, you already discussed what makes it valid and how they think of it when they have all knowledge they need at hand so I wont' get into that, what happens first is more interesting to me. First they have to evaluate the veracity of said claim. This can happen several ways. If you got really good relations, they like and trust you a lot and you have some fantastic diplomatic teams, they will accept your word no question asked. If you don't maybe they got some great intelligence on you then maybe they already know it, and thus also accept the facts of the claim. Maybe it will trigger a response from them to go check it out with a ship. Maybe they will ask to be allowed to or maybe not. Maybe they will ask to have some information send, or have an observer team check it out. And you could have them be more likely to accept the fact without question if you do stuff like solution #1 and send info along from the beginning.

This all leads to players having to consider how much info they are willing to part with and consider that versus how likely an NPC will accept the claim without issue. And do note, there is two stages to accepting the claims; accepting the facts, and accepting the claim. The facts are what is what the problem is right now, how the NPC (and players too!) knows whatever there actually is a population there. A player or npc could lie... Once the facts are established, the question is of course, if the fact matters, maybe there is actually a population there, but the system is neighboring the capital system, so the NPC don't want you there no matter what and rejects any claim whatsoever.

[Britich]

Another minor conundrum

In order for an NPR to accept your claim on a system, it must recognise that you have established a presence. This is defined as populations with a combined EM signature of 500 (about 4m pop with infrastructure).

I'm currently using the Alien Population intelligence as the basis for that, because every time an NPR (or a player) detects a alien population they will update the EM and Thermal signature of that population for the Alien Population record. So when an NPR is considering if your claim is worthy, it will use the latest information it has.

The problem arises when you have a population of the required size, but the NPR hasn't visited the system for a while so it doesn't know the population is large enough. You make a claim and it is immediately rejected on the basis you don't have an established presence. I am considering three options:

1) Leave as is. If the NPR isn't visiting the system, then whether you claim it or not doesn't matter. The downside here is that the next NPR visit might be a colony fleet, which changes the situation.
2) Allow players to pass information on their own colonies to NPRs (and add the same code to NPRs).
3) Use actual population data. This assumes that 2) is happening in the background. The downside to both 2) and 3) is that it assumes races believe each other

Tempted to use 3) as 1) could be frustrating and I think 2) adds an unnecessary step.

What about option 4? Forcing claims, ie "This system is my system dont come here" how the NPR or players handle this could be one of two things.
A) Dont agree (see options 1-3, or conduct further survey).
or
B) Agree (you take a diplomacy hit for staking a claim, as an example).

[chrislocke2000]

I'd think option 3 makes sense to me. If you have sufficient diplomatic relations with another race to be able to discuss claims it seems a pretty reasonable assumption that you would tell that other race the foundation of the claim.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Maybe we can do 3) but only for system that is being claimed? So when you say I will claim this you transmit data about that system populations to interested parties.
Also, will this be happening if NPR is already hostile? You do not care if they accept the claim and sharing pop info is dangerous in that case.

If NPR is hostile, no check takes place.

[Zincat]

I would keep this particular thing simple. Number 3 seems reasonable, no reason to build a very complex system over somethig like this.
Especially for a first version of diplomacy, which may or may not be changed after extensive playtesting (from us too, if c#aurora is released  )

Maybe what you can do is that if you make a claim over at a system, and at a later date you remove people/infrastructure from it and DON'T communicate it to the other nations, and they discover it, you take a diplomacy hit for that. But even this may be too complex for now.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Another minor conundrum

In order for an NPR to accept your claim on a system, it must recognise that you have established a presence. This is defined as populations with a combined EM signature of 500 (about 4m pop with infrastructure).

I'm currently using the Alien Population intelligence as the basis for that, because every time an NPR (or a player) detects a alien population they will update the EM and Thermal signature of that population for the Alien Population record. So when an NPR is considering if your claim is worthy, it will use the latest information it has.

The problem arises when you have a population of the required size, but the NPR hasn't visited the system for a while so it doesn't know the population is large enough. You make a claim and it is immediately rejected on the basis you don't have an established presence. I am considering three options:

1) Leave as is. If the NPR isn't visiting the system, then whether you claim it or not doesn't matter. The downside here is that the next NPR visit might be a colony fleet, which changes the situation.
2) Allow players to pass information on their own colonies to NPRs (and add the same code to NPRs).
3) Use actual population data. This assumes that 2) is happening in the background. The downside to both 2) and 3) is that it assumes races believe each other

Tempted to use 3) as 1) could be frustrating and I think 2) adds an unnecessary step.

What about option 4? Forcing claims, ie "This system is my system dont come here" how the NPR or players handle this could be one of two things.
A) Dont agree (see options 1-3, or conduct further survey).
or
B) Agree (you take a diplomacy hit for staking a claim, as an example).

The whole mechanic is based on "This system is my system don't come here". This part is about what information the NPR has access to when deciding a response. There is always a diplomacy hit for making the claim. Have a read through the Diplomacy posts in the changes log. The relevant ones for this are at the top of page 14.