Bay 12 Games Forum

I wouldn't describe breaking things until they fit as 'making room', personally. Definitely not a good for approach for moving furniture either...

That's more the alternative approach of trying to remove them from the system entirely, which....yeah not a good approach.

The way I'd do an internal politics system for Stellaris is probably too sweeping a rework even for Stellaris' famously sweeping reworks. But I'd like to see Sectors be made into a kind of Vassal-lite, where you have more direct influence over them but they still have some required autonomy that you have to work with and appease.

So you control your core sector, and Sectors less, and Vassals even less so. But at each level they also get boosts in other aspects that make them desirable, so it becomes a matter of trade-offs. An unruly sector may want to push for independence but making it a Vassal placates it without losing the resource production. The further away from your core system, the greater it's desire for political autonomy.

Basically my ideal is an empty galaxy should be a political experience of managing an expanding empire that is otherwise trying to tear itself apart. And in a populated galaxy it'd be an extra challenge or aspect to going wide that needs attention that Tall doesn't need to deal with.

There also could be an element of "I'll vote for you knowing it won't pass but it'll give you motivation to give even more away for the rest of them rather than packing in now" going on. Far as I can tell the only option this 'opens up' unless the rebels fold is now he's ahead of the Dem candidate he can push for a plurality vote rather than a majority using the pre-Civil War 1855 situation as precedent?

In general, without education in how a topic works at scale people are bad at understanding it. Applies to physics just as well as economics.

'Reasonable' assumptions fall down at significant enough differences in scale. Taking on debt in absolute terms can mean you have more money in relative terms. You'd need to put in infinite effort to go any faster than the speed of light. Neither of these things make intuitive sense to the average persons lived experience without being educated in them. Neither are particularly well taught to the average person, in part because of a lack of interest in teaching them to the average person and in part because doing so is just really hard.

(side-note, I propose we call a financial idea that works for the average person but not for governments "Newtonian Economics" /jk).

Another interpretation of the Tonal Mechanics stuff is that it's basically finding the resonance frequency of the laws of physics and then figuring out which particular parts to shake to make things happen. The laws of physics in TES are powered by et'Ada that gave themselves up to become the laws, so everytime you shout "Fus" the spirits powering the rules of motion get very confused about what the heck just happened.

I'll use Stellaris as an example, comparing the old movement system vs the new one.

Old Stellaris allowing different means of galaxy travel meant it had to use a zone of control system for ownership of systems. Ownership of systems could transfer based on whose starbase had the greater radius/force of control. This leads to interesting emergant properties, but they happen without player input based on background numbers. The possibility for emergent scenarios makes it viable sandbox design, but frustrating for players who set out a specific goal to conquer an area. It lacks player agency.

New Sterllaris uses direct hyperlanes, where the player has to click and choose to build a starbase on every system. That starbase can only be lost in conflict or traded away. There is no emergent behaviour in who controls that starbase. It is placed in the realm of player agency. This is better from a game design theory pov, but doing so reduces the number emergant scenarios that can occur.

That's the distinction between Game Design and Sandbox Design as I'm using them: Emergent behaviour vs player agency. When you break it down, CK3s design has clearly placed a higher emphasis on player agency that CK2s did. Stellarises systems have moved over time towards increasing player agency. The Stress and Lifestyle Systems in CK3 and Hyperlanes rework in Stellaris are my go-to examples of that difference.

tbh the things you mentioned are all not what I'd call core gameplay features. Core gameplay of CK3 is playing as a Western King trying to expand their domain, or Lord scheming to become King to then try and expand their domain. That's the core gameplay loop it was all bult around. The others are there to support that core and provide extra variety. I never even noticed pretty much all of their absences except Secret Societies (which were a recent DLC addition to CK2 and one that many complained about, especially the secret socieites, as being too magical seeming. The lack of demon worshippers running around is the main way you notice their absence).

So the next update is letting gas pass through vents.

Is putting a bong on the other side of a vent and getting an invading army incredibly stoned so that they move and fight slower considered a war crime?

If things ever go violent in America, it won't be like the last American civil war. It'll probably resemble the Troubles where people will carry out a constant state of low-level warfare and intimidation, complete with politicians calling for vague "action" directed at their opponents

One could make the argument that the American Troubles has already begun, it's just whether it continues to grow in size or gets cut off early enough to not go down as that in history yet at this point.