I have often wished, especially in light of the advanced government system that Geoffrey has in Antimatter, that Aurora had some sort of government system that you could select. You could choose from the vague standards of authoritarian, democratic/parliamentarian, monarchic/imperial, and oligarchic. Each would have customizable government departments that provide certain bonuses that diminish based on sector distance. The democratic ones would have elections and a bicameral congress (senate from planets, representatives from population). Oligarchic would have a selection process for some sort of triumvirate or whatever.

Each would, of course, have it's benefits and drawbacks. Authoritarian and monarchic governments would maybe have reduced loyalty (e.g. much higher demand for PPV and garrisons), while democratic and oligarchic would require approval of certain actions (such as declaring war, political parties that you must appease by meeting their demands, etc.). Unhappy pops would rebel and form a new empire of their own design. Meanwhile, Authoritarian might have an increase in certain types of labor, while democratic might have improved financial and perhaps things like throughput of spaceports and the like.

Obviously, I haven't fully thought it out. It's just something I'd like to see at some point.

Since reading the post of the new "Colonization Pressure" mechanic, I was puzzled if the actual "Colonization Pressure" words would clearly reflect what was going on. So I have turned to my friend Chat GPT using the full changelog from Steve, asking the same question. Here is the answer:

Instead of "Colonization Pressure," you could consider using the term "Migration Incentive" or simply "Migration Pressure." These alternatives reflect the concept of individuals being incentivized or pressured to migrate to certain colonies based on various factors such as infrastructure, security, and population capacity.

However, I was still unsure, since if I understood properly, what is going on is that the higher this number is, the higher number of people will be unhappy at their colony and be willing to pay to relocate to another world with perhaps higher desirability. When highlighting this, and after several other conversations, we agreed on the following:

"Relocation Rating"

I think the Relocation might still be better than Colonization. Eventually we could keep pressure and go for the following:

"Relocation Pressure"

Honestly at that size you should just go for an integrated mousepad lol.

I don't see any screens in your post. Did they get eaten?

Quote from: Kiero on May 16, 2024, 04:59:21 AM

Engine technology:
I know this topic has already been raised, but every time I play I wait for the engines to reach at least the level of the Nuclear Pulse Engine.
Maybe it would be worth raising the cost of researching the initial stages of the engines, that would extend the time they can be used, both by players and AI?

Counterpoint: I use NRE tech quite a bit in my conventional-start games. I also play with limited research admin + 50% research speed, so even developing NTE tech takes some time during which I can build quite a lot of NRE-level freighters and colony ships. So personally, I prefer things as they are since I would not want to drag out the conventional starts even longer than they already are.

I agree. As a workaround though: since research costs increase exponentially with tech level, the global and racial "research speed" settings are pretty good controls for which tech level you wish to play your game at. Unless You will always eventually settle into a multi-decade state where there's a "modern" tech, 1-2 levels of "legacy" tech, and an being-researched "prototype" tech.

For example, I personally have a soft spot for fission and slow games, so I've been pondering knocking research down to 5-10% so that majority of my game will be spent with nuclear pulse and gas-core engines, with fusion perpetually 30 years away. Humanity will most likely need to reverse-engineer alien tech in order to master these systems.

Alternatively, if you make research cheap, then you can battle spoilers using endgame tech like in Stormtrooper's COVID-19 campaign.