how would the player or the A.I deal with a overpowered faction

Hopefully, there will be mechanics for factions to split into smaller groups, like internal strife, or simple housekeeping.
Large factions should be hard to manage for player and AI in my opinion, so that it becomes optimal to split larger factions into smaller allied factions.

But the other AIs could all team up against them, much like players would if they were playing on the same server.

There could also exist inherent weaknesses with being a large faction. For example larger factions have to deal with more crime, more members which are susceptible to bribery, factories and trade routes which require more assets to protect them, along with tens of other things that could potentially go wrong and bring the faction to its knees.

I believe that if the AI in Limit Theory are fairly crafty and if there are many factors to running a successful faction, then there ought to be little concern about overpowered factions. Instead there will likely be much concern about maintaining a large empire for any significant period of time.

Silverware wrote:Hopefully, there will be mechanics for factions to split into smaller groups, like internal strife, or simple housekeeping.
Large factions should be hard to manage for player and AI in my opinion, so that it becomes optimal to split larger factions into smaller allied factions.

But the other AIs could all team up against them, much like players would if they were playing on the same server.

I strongly disagree with this. Relying on management difficulty means that if you don't like management you cannot possibly play that way. What the hell would I be paying all these NPCs for if not to micro manage for me?

Black--Snow wrote:

Silverware wrote:Hopefully, there will be mechanics for factions to split into smaller groups, like internal strife, or simple housekeeping.
Large factions should be hard to manage for player and AI in my opinion, so that it becomes optimal to split larger factions into smaller allied factions.

But the other AIs could all team up against them, much like players would if they were playing on the same server.

I strongly disagree with this. Relying on management difficulty means that if you don't like management you cannot possibly play that way. What the hell would I be paying all these NPCs for if not to micro manage for me?

I take this to mean you have never worked in a large corporation.
Past a certain size, efficiency starts to REALLY drop as bureaucracy and red tape starts getting thicker.
Once things get too bad, companies tend to form subsidiaries, rather than expand the core business.

I think factions should follow this too, because why shouldn't the AI drones get a chance to be corrupt?
Why wouldn't you need to lay down increasing levels of change and management control, to keep idiot AIs from making stupid decisions?

It would also not only allow for steady change to happen over the course of years, and prevent large corporations from becoming unbeatable.
But it would innately enforce groups to work together, form nations, and have the nations dissolve from internal strife.

Black--Snow wrote:I strongly disagree with this. Relying on management difficulty means that if you don't like management you cannot possibly play that way. What the hell would I be paying all these NPCs for if not to micro manage for me?

I imagine that's the point. You can't micromanage an extremely big corporation, even if you like to manage everything by yourself, so having to rely on NPCs to do all the hard work could mean having to deal with all kinds of bureaucracy problems, including corruption, strikes, poor management decisions, etc. So like in real life many will prefer to keep their organizations small and manageable.

I imagine that extremely big empires or factions may become that evil empires we have all heard about, so if everything goes to hell you may better find a suitable spaceship and get out of there as fast as you can, trying to look for a distant quite and small place to start your life again. After all, space is big, or, in the case of Limit Theory, infinite, so I'm pretty sure it will not lack such places.

EDIT: Particularly if it is your own faction/empire the one that has become evil. At least you want to keep around to see how your evil empire consumes everything from the shadows.

While I understand the gist of the ideas put forth here, I have to ask myself a fundamental question. Will these things make the game FUN, or will they just make it complicated and annoying. There is no reason to try and force "reality" in a game unless it makes sense and adds to enjoyment.

Now I understand that, "fun" is subjective, on the other hand, hard coded mechanics that force you to deal with them even if you don't find them fun, is not a good idea in my view.

Poet1960 wrote:While I understand the gist of the ideas put forth here, I have to ask myself a fundamental question. Will these things make the game FUN, or will they just make it complicated and annoying. There is no reason to try and force "reality" in a game unless it makes sense and adds to enjoyment.

Now I understand that, "fun" is subjective, on the other hand, hard coded mechanics that force you to deal with them even if you don't find them fun, is not a good idea in my view.

Things themself dont have to be fun if they improve the overall experience.

Sure, your empire getting harder to handle with increasing size isnt fun.
But an AI snowballing to infinity because it lacks limiting factors is less fun

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

Poet1960 wrote:While I understand the gist of the ideas put forth here, I have to ask myself a fundamental question. Will these things make the game FUN, or will they just make it complicated and annoying. There is no reason to try and force "reality" in a game unless it makes sense and adds to enjoyment.

Now I understand that, "fun" is subjective, on the other hand, hard coded mechanics that force you to deal with them even if you don't find them fun, is not a good idea in my view.

Things themself dont have to be fun if they improve the overall experience.

Sure, your empire getting harder to handle with increasing size isnt fun.
But an AI snowballing to infinity because it lacks limiting factors is less fun

But the mechancis proposed only stop people from being able to run their own faction as an all powerful dictator. As far as we know AIs are simply employed by you to do things. If they like the payment, they'll do it, else they won't/they'll quit. They have no contractual obligation like real life employees to stay employed.

Black--Snow wrote: But the mechancis proposed only stop people from being able to run their own faction as an all powerful dictator. As far as we know AIs are simply employed by you to do things. If they like the payment, they'll do it, else they won't/they'll quit. They have no contractual obligation like real life employees to stay employed.

Do you know of the worker/executive AI dichtomy?
Because most npc's flying around will be classic RTS minions with no demands beyond the initial cost to aquire them.
Only a small subset of the population will run the full AI and have the (mental) freedom to chose not to do what you order them to do.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

Black--Snow wrote: But the mechancis proposed only stop people from being able to run their own faction as an all powerful dictator. As far as we know AIs are simply employed by you to do things. If they like the payment, they'll do it, else they won't/they'll quit. They have no contractual obligation like real life employees to stay employed.

Do you know of the worker/executive AI dichtomy?
Because most npc's flying around will be classic RTS minions with no demands beyond the initial cost to aquire them.
Only a small subset of the population will run the full AI and have the (mental) freedom to chose not to do what you order them to do.

I do, that doesn't change the fact that those mechanics should inherently stop AIs from being upset because of 'low pay'.

Cornflakes_91 wrote:

Poet1960 wrote:While I understand the gist of the ideas put forth here, I have to ask myself a fundamental question. Will these things make the game FUN, or will they just make it complicated and annoying. There is no reason to try and force "reality" in a game unless it makes sense and adds to enjoyment.

Now I understand that, "fun" is subjective, on the other hand, hard coded mechanics that force you to deal with them even if you don't find them fun, is not a good idea in my view.

Things themself dont have to be fun if they improve the overall experience.

Sure, your empire getting harder to handle with increasing size isnt fun.
But an AI snowballing to infinity because it lacks limiting factors is less fun

That, is not a rebuttal. Who's definition of "improve" do you use? That is also subjective. I do agree however that a runaway AI would be problematic. So then, gimp the AI and not the player.

And how to gimp the AI but not the player without braking player-AI parity?

Cornflakes_91 wrote:And how to gimp the AI but not the player without braking player-AI parity?

By limiting the autonomous actions that an non player controlled AI can do.

It's indicative of the importance of this question that it's come up several times:

• Preventing the big blob
• End game players too OP?
• The God Emperor Test

I mention these not to try to stop this latest conversation, but to encourage it with more ideas.

Also:

Silverware wrote:Past a certain size, efficiency starts to REALLY drop as bureaucracy and red tape starts getting thicker.
Once things get too bad, companies tend to form subsidiaries, rather than expand the core business.

Worth noting: this is a naturally-occurring effect in pretty nearly all human organizations as they grow in size and complexity, not just corporations.

Related: the Reality Distortion Field that forms around energetic decision-makers as layers of bureaucracy grow to insulate them from what's actually happening; the relentless migration of all cultures toward rule-based, process-oriented "role cultures"; and the conversion of instruments (organizations that actually do what they were created to do) into institutions (organizations whose primary goal, regardless of what they say they do, of permanent self-perpetuation).

The bigger the organization, the worse all these effects get.

So how much of this sort of thing would be appropriate for LT factions?