The following outlines some pretty serious changes to the way the game works, particularly relate to war, zone claiming and empire expansion. It is sumbitted here for comments, questions and particularly ideas on how to abuse it.
Sphere of Influence
Goal: To more limit the scope of war to create a more 'fair' player vs player environment, and to pit like-powered empires against like-powered empires in a way that simplifies gameplay.
Overview of Changes:
Attacks will ONLY BE ALLOWED on empires that you have declared war on.
Declarations of War will only be allowed on empires at your level or one level above.
All cities (built zones) will cast a Sphere of Influence (SOI) depending on their size and proximity to the cities of other empires. ALL UNBUILT ZONES WITHIN THIS SPHERE WILL BE OWNED BY THAT EMPIRE.
Conquering non-city zones will no longer award you the zone, but instead allow you CONTROL of that zone, meaning you can move units in/out/through it uncontested. The zone will remain "OWNED" by the defending empire, even though the attacker now controls it. You will remain in control of said zone until you no longer have a military presence in that zone.
To gain OWNERSHIP of a zone, you will need to either: A. Conquer the enemy city that is casting the SOI over that zone or B. Build a large enough city nearby to encroach on the SOI of the enemy city.
Though the threshold will be high, and also weighted by empire level to help protect small empires, you WILL be able to subvert enemy cities with your SOI. This means that conquering a particularly large enemy city could actually win you additional surrounding cities, or building truly massive zones in an area where there are very small enemy cities could win you those cities simply through your SOI.
There will be a system where certain cities, perhaps a designated capital and other government seats can NOT be subverted for any reason.
Building/Claiming/Unclaiming: Building new buildings will ONLY be allowed within your direct SOI. Whil you may still claim/unclaim zones that are not in ANY empire's SOI, you will not be able to build there. You also will NOT be able to unclaim zones within your SOI. There will be a system that will allow you to claim remote zones and designate a government seat, thus exerting your SOI over that area and allowing you to begin construction. Government seats will be limited based on your empire level and/or research/class levels.
This effectively limits the practice of 'gangbanging' to empires at or one level below you, since only they can DOW you, and thus only they can attack you at all. Inside faction war, this means you will only EVER BE ATTACKED by empires in the opposing faction. Outside of faction war is another matter. We will likely implement other measures to limit this further, but let us stay focused on this SOI change for the purpsoes of this discussion.
Why can't you attack empires you don't have DOW declared on? Because it is unnecessary. Most all enemy cities will have some buffer of empty zones around them, in most cases a large buffer, that you can easily hot drop or claim zones next to and begin an attack. There will be rare cases in which enemy cities are surrounded by cities from a larger or smaller 'protecting' empire, but we plan on making it so that you can easily surrender them in other manners. We may even limit how many units you can stack in a zone to prevent people from 'hiding' their entire army, particularly at smaller levels.
This is a huge step forward in limiting warfare to be between empires of like power in a way that allows for limited, if any, abuse. Please feel free to ask questions and I will explain as best I can. We plan on creating thorough test scenarios in place to prevent any issues before it is fully implemented, and there will definitely be player testing involved.
WS
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Sphere of Influence: Proposed change to make war more 'fair.'
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