Knowledge of Other Races at Game Start

Only races that you've met should be in the UP.

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On 0.60 the gang's all there from Turn 1 - complete with their respective Influence %.

On the last game I played it was all academic as the UP never met - and I didn't have Never as the setting for UP...

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Quoting mrblondini,

On 0.60 the gang's all there from Turn 1 - complete with their respective Influence %.

On the last game I played it was all academic as the UP never met - and I didn't have Never as the setting for UP...

They need to fix that.

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Since everybody was yakking (and sometimes conquering) with each other via the stargates, before the start of the game, shouldn't you at least know who's out there?

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DARCA1213

Join Date 01/2014

+106

Quoting ,

quoting post

I know that, having picked them, all the Races in the game I'm playing are going to exist and that I should meet them at some point.

Therefore it's logical I can't have diplomacy with a Race I have yet to say Howdy to.

But it's not logical that although I have yet to met the Drengin, I can see they are part of the UP and that they have 22% influence. If I know that then it makes sense I should know how they have that 22% - planets, influence blah blah - and if we're going to have access to that information, we may as well have Diplomacy from the get-go, which therefore makes a lot of the early Governance Techs - Universal Translater etc meaningless. If I'm only getting this because I'm playing Terran and I have this as a gift, then the Terran should at Turn 1 get Universal Translater and a couple of other Techs in the Governance Techs tree Researched so they know the reasons for the Dregin's 22% power in the UP.

Whatever the reason, it's a bit of a weird middle point approach to starting Race Knowledge for me as it now stands.

I think all information should be clouded/dark until you actually come across a Race's planet or ship. At least for now until you developer folk confirm Race Abilities etc etc.

And maybe a kind of penalty at the start where at Turn 1 you don't start as a member of the UP until you meet another Race and that Race Invites/Nominates you. It makes sense if the Race's Relations with you are good (and because they genuinely like you, not because of those 4 Lost Cutters you found and they're actually scared of your superior military.) This would discourage being an evil warmonger from the get-go and encourage patience, grasshopper before unleashing aforesaid evil warmongering.

Cheers and thanks for all the hard work.

No, only known races should be in the UP. Only known races points should be seen. Only known races should be accessible from diplomacy. IMHO.

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drakkos137

Join Date 10/2013

+12

counterpoint.

If the required number of NPC races meet, without the player being involved, shouldn't UP start, and get down to business, regardless of the fact the bumpkin terrans (player race) aren't involved?

Also, we meet race A. Race A informs us of the existence of Race B. This is particularly relevant if Race A is benevolent, and Race B is not. How could Race A consider themselves benevolent if they don't warn us about Race B?

Hence, we know about Race B without ever meeting them.

Reverse the scenario. We meet Race B first. They do not tell us about Race A, that would be counterproductive. Assuming the Race B is Drengin, we immediately go to war, and the lack of knowledge is moot. If Race B was Iridium, they might start trading with us, and lie shamelessly about Race A, so we go to war with them before we meet them. Shoot first, ask questions later, which has already borked our diplomacy, which is very good for Race B.

Their evil plan proceeds apace.

I see this as requiring multiple levels of awareness; awareness they exist, awareness of their specifics, and finally, trading/warring/diplomacy with them.

At the first tier of awareness, you should be able to send a blind envoy, with an obvious penalty, to their ZoC, and hope for the best.

At the second tier of awareness, diplomacy should be possible, without any real penalties, but also without any real advantages, mitigated by technology levels.

Third tier should have an active bonus to both participants, due to familiarity, and ease of practice.

I'd also like it very much if the NPCs felt, and behaved, like "real" opponents, rather than waiting for "player one" to get things started.

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Fair points - but I still think your Race shouldn't get to know that the UP exists before they meet/greet another race.

By all means, then let the Alterians tell you about those evil Korath Clan so you can know of their existance before you actually meet. But at that point you know only what the Alterians tell you and the Alterians may:

Tell you everything they know.

Tell you what they want you to know (Tell you of the Korath's weak military, which is true, so you can weaken/destroy the Korath on the Alterians behalf. They don't tell you where all the Korath planets are though...)

Tell you what they want you to think...(Tell you of the Korath's weak military, which is in fact strong, which you find out after the Korath kick your military's asses black and blue and to get a new ship quickly you need to be nice to the Alterians, give them that neat technology and they'll give you a ship, an old crappy Small hull with 1 Laser 1 and 1 Point Defence, but it's as good as you're going to get without money...)

I'd love to see an AI being that downright devious...

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Quoting drakkos137,

reply 6

I'd also like it very much if the NPCs felt, and behaved, like "real" opponents, rather than waiting for "player one" to get things started.

Agreed. The less player-centricity the better, in my opinion. It also fits with the fiction of the series (for whatever that's worth) for all races to be known at this point in the chronology. I would still prefer options to control this behaviour, as I occasionally like to play random games and this would spoil the surprise.

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Quoting mrblondini,

reply 7

Fair points - but I still think your Race shouldn't get to know that the UP exists before they meet/greet another race.

Again, refer to this document (the GalCiv backstory): https://www.galciv3.com/databanks/timeline

At the start of the game, BEFORE anyone constructs a hyperdrive capable ship (IE prior to the start of the game), ALL the major civilizations not only know of each others' existence, but have a means of communicating with each other (subspace communication invented by the Yor a hundred thousand years ago).

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peregrine23

Join Date 02/2007

+79

Quoting ClaytonHollowell,

reply 9

Again, refer to this document (the GalCiv backstory): https://www.galciv3.com/databanks/timeline

At the start of the game, BEFORE anyone constructs a hyperdrive capable ship (IE prior to the start of the game), ALL the major civilizations not only know of each others' existence, but have a means of communicating with each other (subspace communication invented by the Yor a hundred thousand years ago).

While the campaigns follow the lore of the game, the sandbox never really has. Lore is useful for the personalities of the races, but each race starting with one planet, hyperdrive, and no diplomatic contact clearly does not jive with the lore.

+1

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Might I suggest that the game use a different UP council algorithm than the current one? My suggestion is that the UP council shouldn't be so player-centric. So for example, the first race to meet at least 51% of the other races in the galaxy gets to hold the first UP council, and all other councils are determined from that from that point on. It gives an incentive for earlier exploration, and if the player hasn't got to meet a race in the UP council, then they aren't included in the UP councils, but all UP council decisions will be active for the player retroactively (so previous decisions of councils prior to the player joining will apply to the player once they join).

In fact, maybe add a late-game tech to allow the creation of secondary councils of races that do not wish to participate in the original UP council and so have those secondary UP councils start acting as an alliance or federation of sorts and create interesting diplomatic games and allow ensuing of galactic-wide wars.

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Quoting DARCA1213,

reply 5

Quoting ,

quoting post

No, only known races should be in the UP. Only known races points should be seen. Only known races should be accessible from diplomacy. IMHO.

Just cause you dont know them, doesnt mean other people in the UP don't know them. If they have meet at least one person in the UP they should be included. HOWEVER you shouldnt' be able to see their stats if you don't personally know them.

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

[quote]So for example, the first race to meet at least 51% of the other races in the galaxy gets to hold the first UP council,[/qutoe]

2 things

1) 51% seems like an awfully big number especially if they are saying it would be "possible" to have 100 player games i think something like 2 other races with more joining as they meet member races

in the event of a 100 player game this means you could have 30+ U.P. vying for control it should also be possible for U.P mergers and splits to occur.

2) i think it should be has knowledge of rather then direct contact

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DARCA1213

Join Date 01/2014

+106

IMHO, over thinking this big time. I agree with few of the previous post entirely as its way to complex and hardcore.

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erischild

Join Date 01/2012

+136

We all know about each other from the interstellar space radio. That seems an easy concept to me. I would allow players to know about the UP, but you can't participate in the elections until you research Universal Translation. I have visions of the UP dialogue coming up with all garbled text. (Your diplomacy team finds out the results through third parties.)

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

what if there were two tiers of U.P. rather then the possibility of multiple U.P's

what i mean is we have the U.P which represents the whole galaxy

then we have maybe the coalition of evilmongers or some such which would represent something like 3-5 races in an area. (these could be made up of races anywhere in the galaxy not specifically neighbors) they would be able to pass resolutions for their area of space but would not specifically be able to counter the resolutions of the U.P.

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Seilore

Join Date 10/2006

+154

Quoting Ornlu_Wolfjarl,

reply 11

Might I suggest that the game use a different UP council algorithm than the current one? My suggestion is that the UP council shouldn't be so player-centric. So for example, the first race to meet at least 51% of the other races in the galaxy gets to hold the first UP council, and all other councils are determined from that from that point on. It gives an incentive for earlier exploration, and if the player hasn't got to meet a race in the UP council, then they aren't included in the UP councils, but all UP council decisions will be active for the player retroactively (so previous decisions of councils prior to the player joining will apply to the player once they join).

In fact, maybe add a late-game tech to allow the creation of secondary councils of races that do not wish to participate in the original UP council and so have those secondary UP councils start acting as an alliance or federation of sorts and create interesting diplomatic games and allow ensuing of galactic-wide wars.

I was going to suggest something very similar.

I agree the UP should start to meet after any race meets 50% of the galaxy, however, this plays into this question...

Race A knows Race B and Race C

Race B knows of Race A only

Race C knows of Race A, Race D and Race E

Race D knows Race C and Race E

Race E knows Race C, Race D, Race F and Race G

Race F and Race G know of just Race E

So in this case Race E, C, D, F, and G start the UP, however, wouldn't they wonder why other races they know aren't included?

Best Answer I can think of. UP requires one race after meeting more than 50% of the races to propose through diplomacy to join a UP, only one UP can be founded so which ever race proposes this first and has another player join is the UP. At that point any race that is part of the UP can invite additional members to join, or any race that is aware of the UP can apply for membership and have the races of the UP vote on including them. At this point any UP members would become aware of said race and have diplomatic options available.

What this solves...

Question: Why additional races that I wasn't previously aware of appear in the UP?

Answer: Other races that were aware of said race, invited them.

Question: Why aren't races known by Race B included in the UP?

Answer: They haven't been invited or applied for inclusion in the UP.

Question: Why don't I have diplomacy options for Race B even though they are part of the UP?

Answer: You would with this proposal as soon as they become part of the UP or apply for membership for you to vote on adding them.

Question: Why shouldn't their be two or more UP's

Answer: This is a peaceful general agreement non-alliance between many races, if races want to create alliances on their own they can but it's not the UP.

Question: Stardock has a goal of having games with 100 races, this would mean that 1 race could meet only a fraction of the races at 20 and still no UP?

Answer: In larger games with more races this number should be reduced to any race that meets 5 can propose a UP.

Question: Why isn't this game realistic

Answer: This is a game for fun and not based on reality.

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I am of two minds in this.

I would like an option at the start, for races to be known or unknown.

I'll expand upon this a bit as I realise I was vague.

Unknown, so I don't know how powerful they are, or known so they get a vote in what happens next. Just because I haven't met them shouldn't mean they don't get a say in the UP.

A third option would be to blank either their portraits or vote count from the players eyes. but still allow them to vote.

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

Question: Why shouldn't their be two or more UP's

Answer: This is a peaceful general agreement non-alliance between many races, if races want to create alliances on their own they can but it's not the UP.

Well we don't like your U.P. so we are going to make our own and we will call it the supreme rulers of the galaxy it's laws will be absolute and no laws of the inferior U.P will count so there

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But its reasonable to assume that once Race A meets Race B, they might agree to form a UP (whether they formally ally or not) to govern how their two races expansion into the great beyond (ie best use of resources, agreements about which Race gets what etc?) And then they meet Race C, at that point they might decide to invite Race C, Race C might apply or they migh decide to exclude Race C. And so on.

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Tetrasodium

Join Date 03/2006

+17

Quoting ,

quoting post

I know that, having picked them, all the Races in the game I'm playing are going to exist and that I should meet them at some point.

Therefore it's logical I can't have diplomacy with a Race I have yet to say Howdy to.

But it's not logical that although I have yet to met the Drengin, I can see they are part of the UP and that they have 22% influence. If I know that then it makes sense I should know how they have that 22% - planets, influence blah blah - and if we're going to have access to that information, we may as well have Diplomacy from the get-go, which therefore makes a lot of the early Governance Techs - Universal Translater etc meaningless. If I'm only getting this because I'm playing Terran and I have this as a gift, then the Terran should at Turn 1 get Universal Translater and a couple of other Techs in the Governance Techs tree Researched so they know the reasons for the Dregin's 22% power in the UP.

Whatever the reason, it's a bit of a weird middle point approach to starting Race Knowledge for me as it now stands.

I think all information should be clouded/dark until you actually come across a Race's planet or ship. At least for now until you developer folk confirm Race Abilities etc etc.

And maybe a kind of penalty at the start where at Turn 1 you don't start as a member of the UP until you meet another Race and that Race Invites/Nominates you. It makes sense if the Race's Relations with you are good (and because they genuinely like you, not because of those 4 Lost Cutters you found and they're actually scared of your superior military.) This would discourage being an evil warmonger from the get-go and encourage patience, grasshopper before unleashing aforesaid evil warmongering.

Cheers and thanks for all the hard work.

even stranger is if you start on a team with another race. after turn0 (before you can do -anything-), your teammate will say hello in gobbdygook& give you access to his fov

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Seilore

Join Date 10/2006

+154

Quoting mrblondini,

reply 20

But its reasonable to assume that once Race A meets Race B, they might agree to form a UP (whether they formally ally or not) to govern how their two races expansion into the great beyond (ie best use of resources, agreements about which Race gets what etc?) And then they meet Race C, at that point they might decide to invite Race C, Race C might apply or they migh decide to exclude Race C. And so on.

However, once race A meets race B wouldn't be just a diplomatic agreement between the two, to either do something or not? At that point it's just the two of them that know each other so no need to worry about other races. I see your point when you know of at least 2 other races or more but, not only just the two of you.

Quoting androshalforc,

reply 19

Well we don't like your U.P. so we are going to make our own and we will call it the supreme rulers of the galaxy it's laws will be absolute and no laws of the inferior U.P will count so there

What is the difference then many small alliances? I don't want to ally w/ you so I'll just ally with them instead?

The UP is just a general understanding in the galaxy, similar to the UN, there are many countries some of which don't get along at all and some of which may even be at war.

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androshalforc

Join Date 03/2007

+62

the point is if you limit races ability to join the UP by requiring some form of action from a member race

Question: Why additional races that I wasn't previously aware of appear in the UP?

Answer: Other races that were aware of said race, invited them.

Question: Why aren't races known by Race B included in the UP?

Answer: They haven't been invited or applied for inclusion in the UP.

then they should have some recourse to creating their own alliance to counter the effects of the UP if they vote in proposals that unfairly punish races that havent been included.

further if 3 races create the UP on the extreme side of the map and are completely isolated from the rest of the galaxy does this mean that everyone else is denied the ability to create the UP even though they would have no knowledge of the original or anyway to join the original UP until late game?

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Seilore

Join Date 10/2006

+154

Quoting androshalforc,

reply 23

further if 3 races create the UP on the extreme side of the map and are completely isolated from the rest of the galaxy does this mean that everyone else is denied the ability to create the UP even though they would have no knowledge of the original or anyway to join the original UP until late game?

How would having several UP's in the game be any different from several groups of races having alliances?

Otherwise how would you handle the merging of the UP's? Just have them merge automatically once they become aware of one another or should they apply to merge ect?

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DARCA1213

Join Date 01/2014

+106

Divide races by ideology and still have a regular galactic UP.

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Knowledge of Other Races at Game Start

I see numbers at Turn 1 - UP % power - without reasons for those numbers.