some cents..
I would influence debt to mean that the empire kind of lost its cohesion/central control. That is well modeled by not being able to adapt a policy and that planets loose stability which in turn could lead those colonies to leave the empire.
It could also mean other things of cohesion go broke; e.g. pirate events, supply lines do not work...
another idea would be that there could be a difference between being-in-debt-and-having-a-deficit and being-in-debt-and-having-a-surplus; E.g. not apply the bad effects because people can see it is really bad but is getting better.
i am not sure that we wanted a playing style of being permanently in debt or not. Personally i would prefer that debt would apply some (mounting) pressure to the player, so that getting rid of debt is always the solution, but being in debt for a while can pay off if done right.
Some more concrete ideas,
1) reduce the effectiveness of stability if in influence debt.
1a) e.g. make stability decrease from low influence happen after dream recursion; that effect seems to be half the square root of influence debt (0.5 * Abs(float, EmpireStockpile(empire=Source.Owner, resource=Influence)) ** 0.5). probably need to do something about thought buildings. maybe those only work if cohesion is high enough , so no stability gain if in debt.
2) add more bad effects if debt rises (and don't forget to explain that to the user)
2a) for every multiple of 100 influence debt (rounded down), decrease global supply; maybe decrease supply from the capital faster(=)
2b) policies, buildings stop working if debt increases; can be a gradual effect; so one would also get a sitrep "Collective thought buildings do not provide any bonuses as citizens are unruly because the influence debt is higher than 50". That would explain to the user that they probably should do something about it.
p.s. i was surprised to find the influence+stability effects in troops (i.e. species/species_macros/troops.py )
I would influence debt to mean that the empire kind of lost its cohesion/central control. That is well modeled by not being able to adapt a policy and that planets loose stability which in turn could lead those colonies to leave the empire.
It could also mean other things of cohesion go broke; e.g. pirate events, supply lines do not work...
another idea would be that there could be a difference between being-in-debt-and-having-a-deficit and being-in-debt-and-having-a-surplus; E.g. not apply the bad effects because people can see it is really bad but is getting better.
i am not sure that we wanted a playing style of being permanently in debt or not. Personally i would prefer that debt would apply some (mounting) pressure to the player, so that getting rid of debt is always the solution, but being in debt for a while can pay off if done right.
Some more concrete ideas,
1) reduce the effectiveness of stability if in influence debt.
1a) e.g. make stability decrease from low influence happen after dream recursion; that effect seems to be half the square root of influence debt (0.5 * Abs(float, EmpireStockpile(empire=Source.Owner, resource=Influence)) ** 0.5). probably need to do something about thought buildings. maybe those only work if cohesion is high enough , so no stability gain if in debt.
2) add more bad effects if debt rises (and don't forget to explain that to the user)
2a) for every multiple of 100 influence debt (rounded down), decrease global supply; maybe decrease supply from the capital faster(=)
2b) policies, buildings stop working if debt increases; can be a gradual effect; so one would also get a sitrep "Collective thought buildings do not provide any bonuses as citizens are unruly because the influence debt is higher than 50". That would explain to the user that they probably should do something about it.
p.s. i was surprised to find the influence+stability effects in troops (i.e. species/species_macros/troops.py )
Statistics: Posted by Ophiuchus — Tue Nov 05, 2024 9:32 am