Influence Development topic

[alpaca]

This topic is about our possibly most innovative and important feature, the influence system.

I'd like to encourage you to read the Influence preview that was created earlier for some additional information.
Here's what it's about anyways:

One of our main aims is to design the mod in a way that makes the AI actually competitive. That is, the gameplay we want is not a challenge to survive (as usual when you increase the difficulty setting) but a challenge to win!
The main problem with this is that in vanilla or any mods you can see right now, the AI is simply not up to the task of expanding to anywhere near a level where it could win the game; in fact a lot of the time it doesn't even seem to be aware of its victory conditions.
Our solution to this problem was partly inspired by MTW's system of using so-called glorious achievements to determine the game winner. This in itself still won't make the AI try to win but I believe if we milk the system properly we'll be able to get to a state where it actually is strong enough to win (at least sometimes).

After the short motivational passage, let me describe what we have at the moment. I devised (and am in the process of devising) a point system called Influence; Influence points are gained and lost through certain game events.
Basically, anything I can trigger on is possible, but for the simplest system we want to award the player (or the AI) for owning certain key provinces for his faction. These points will flow in continuously and increase your realm's influence rating.
Other examples include having allies, getting royal marriages with other factions (which will also boost your faction standing), building certain structures, winning battles or simply buying them with gold (after all you can bribe a lot of people; I'm not yet sure about how to implement this though).
In addition to being responsible for who wins the game, influence points play another role as a kind of currency. Some of the more advanced buildings will cost Influence as well as recruiting a larger army through the levy script. In general, you will either sacrifice it for either a short-term or a long-term advantage and in both cases you should only do it if you think that it'll pay in the end by returning some revenue on your investment.

As of yet I'm not quite sure whether it makes more sense to have a set upper threshold for Influence (and if one faction reaches that it'll win) or if we should let players play through the whole campaign and count points in the end. The second option is probably more difficult to implement but either of these fosters a certain set of different strategies (with the first you'll just try to race to the line, the second will make long-term investments more calculable).

The second point why we chose to use this system instead of the traditional victory conditions is that we want to allow factions to win without even having to wage an aggressive campaign. You can win through diplomacy, trade and wit instead of just stupidly bashing your opponent over the head.

So how can you help with this? Easy: Suggest possible conditions for awarding Influence points (either faction-specific or general), or suggest possible things that you could spend influence on.
Help with the implementation is always welcome, too.

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Ok since I somehow can't properly work on traits (don't ask me, they just annoy me after looking at the traits file for some minutes, maybe I need a break :P) I decided to do a bit more work on Influence.

I'll write some detailed lists of how much influence certain things give, let's call it a documentation. It's mainly a list for reference to see what has already been implemented. I'll add ideas later


Generic Influence

These conditions are valid for all factions.

Name: Alliances
Description: This gives a few points for each ally you have
Conditions: Be allied to a faction at turn start
Points: 0.05 per ally
Frequency: once per turn
Implemented: all

Name: Sign alliance
Description: Gives you points for signing an alliance
Conditions: Sign an alliance with another faction
Points: 0.33
Frequency: once per alliance agreement
Implemented: all

Name: Marriages
Description: Similar to alliances, rewards the player for having marriages
Conditions: Have a marriage alliance with a faction
Points: 0.1 per marriage
Frequency: once per turn
Implemented: all (except muslim)

Name: Sign marriage agreement
Description: Gives you points for an inter-faction marriage
Conditions: Marry one member of your family to the ruling dynasty of another faction
Points: 1
Frequency: once per marriage
Implemented: all (except muslim)

Name: Settlement reward (low control)
Description: Gives a few points for controlling settlements
Conditions: Control a settlement with a low control level
Points: 0.02 per settlement
Frequency: once per turn
Implemented: all

Name: Settlement reward (high control)
Description: Gives a few points for controlling settlements
Conditions: Control a settlement with a high control level
Points: 0.06 per settlement
Frequency: once per turn
Implemented: all

Name: Battle victory
Description: Rewards you for winning battles
Conditions: Win a battle with at least 300 men on each side
Points: 0.3
Frequency: once per battle
Implemented: all

Name: Battle defeat
Description: Punishes the player for losing a battle
Conditions: Be local faction and lose a battle with at least 300 men on each side
Points: -0.15
Frequency: once per battle
Implemented: all

Name: Conquest
Description: Rewards you for taking a settlement (applies to being gifted or sold one)
Conditions: Take a settlement
Points: 1
Frequency: once per conquest
Implemented: all

Name: Settlement lost
Description: Punishes you for losing a settlement (applies to settlements being gifted)
Conditions: Lose a settlement
Points: -1
Frequency: once per loss
Implemented: all

Name: Core settlements
Description: Rewards you for controlling certain core settlements. This will probably change over time
Conditions: Control a certain settlement
Points: Varies (used for balancing smaller factions)
Frequency: once per turn
Implemented: Pisa (to some extent)

[alpaca]

Updated first post with a bit of info.

[bovi]

How about a per-turn decay of influence, based on empire size, in the order of 0.01 per turn for a tiny faction and 1 for one dominating the world with over 50 settlements (effectively cancelling out the per-turn region gain)? It would balance out the inherent advantage of factions that start out big, and make them have to keep being crafty in diplomacy and war, while a tiny faction needs less activity to keep up. My thought is no faction should be able to stagnate/rest on its laurels and still harvest nearly as much as a smaller faction making headway.

Also, riots and revolts could reduce influence more than losing a settlement to war, as it would be seen as particular weakness to not be able to control one's own populace.

I'm influenced by EU3's prestige here . I'm not sure if it suits your vision though.

[alpaca]

How about a per-turn decay of influence, based on empire size, in the order of 0.01 per turn for a tiny faction and 1 for one dominating the world with over 50 settlements (effectively cancelling out the per-turn region gain)? It would balance out the inherent advantage of factions that start out big, and make them have to keep being crafty in diplomacy and war, while a tiny faction needs less activity to keep up. My thought is no faction should be able to stagnate/rest on its laurels and still harvest nearly as much as a smaller faction making headway.

Also, riots and revolts could reduce influence more than losing a settlement to war, as it would be seen as particular weakness to not be able to control one's own populace.

I'm influenced by EU3's prestige here . I'm not sure if it suits your vision though.

The problem is that I do want to reward the player for having a big empire. It just shouldn't be the only way to win.
I agree that factions which are large from the start (in our case maybe the two empires) have to be counter-balanced though, so maybe I should somehow balance the influence gain between what you start with and what you gained during the game.
I could for example code something like only half the Influence gain for settlements you controlled from the start (removing the bonus altogether would underhand large factions and be over-compensation in my opinion). Actually I think that might be what you meant in the first place.
Another way to balance them is to give smaller factions more Influence for certain things, such as gaining settlements or for their core regions.

[bovi]

I could for example code something like only half the Influence gain for settlements you controlled from the start (removing the bonus altogether would underhand large factions and be over-compensation in my opinion). Actually I think that might be what you meant in the first place.

A more detailed but still not exact explanation: My thought was to have a monitor on faction turn start, reducing influence. Sample figures are fuzzy due to the authority limiting the control, but they could be
*if the empire have 5 or less settlements, it decays by 0.01 (leaving 0.05-0.29 of the settlement bonus)
*if the empire have 5 < settlements < 15, it decays by 0.1 (leaving roughly 0.2-0.6 of the settlement bonus)
...
*if the empire have more than 50 settlements, it decays by 1 (leaving roughly 0.2-0.4 of the settlement bonus, plus 0.02 per settlement above 50)

So it complements the settlement bonus, really, and leaves the profound effect the authority has through firmer control over more settlements. Without any form of check, the big empire would gain as much just sitting still as a smaller one which gains a settlement and wins a major battle too. I would think the latter would get the more publicity in that time . But your other suggestions would make sense as well. Just a suggestion, and would of course require tweaking of the values .

[alpaca]

A more detailed but still not exact explanation: My thought was to have a monitor on faction turn start, reducing influence. Sample figures are fuzzy due to the authority limiting the control, but they could be
*if the empire have 5 or less settlements, it decays by 0.01 (leaving 0.05-0.29 of the settlement bonus)
*if the empire have 5 < settlements < 15, it decays by 0.1 (leaving roughly 0.2-0.6 of the settlement bonus)
...
*if the empire have more than 50 settlements, it decays by 1 (leaving roughly 0.2-0.4 of the settlement bonus, plus 0.02 per settlement above 50)

So it complements the settlement bonus, really, and leaves the profound effect the authority has through firmer control over more settlements. Without any form of check, the big empire would gain as much just sitting still as a smaller one which gains a settlement and wins a major battle too. I would think the latter would get the more publicity in that time . But your other suggestions would make sense as well. Just a suggestion, and would of course require tweaking of the values .

What would this actually have to do with authority? Do you mean that for the decay only cities with a low LOC (level of control) should be considered?