ENDLESS™ Space 2 is turn-based 4X space-strategy that launches players into the space colonization age of different civilizations within the ENDLESS™ Universe. Your Vision. Their Future.
I basically was in an alliance with 3 other races for the majority of the game.
In an alliance, the victory conditions are increased (ie needing more than just your race to research all the "endless" techs to win for example).
I road the coatails of the alliance, researched the 4 endless techs, dropped the alliance and bingo! --> won the game.
It doesn't make much sense to me to link the victory condtions to alliance status and how many are in the alliance; afterall isn't each race trying to win.
The fact that there is no penalty (with respect to a victory condion) in leaving an alliance is a bad mechanic.
I reap the benefits of an alliance all game and when I want to win, I drop out of it?
Poor mechanic.
Possible solution is perma increasing the victory condition when joining an alliance. Ie, having to build 5 obelisks (instead of the normal four) for example. Perhaps when leaving the alliance, any endless techs you researched while in the alliance would retro disappear and you would have to research them again on your own.
Building "win" techs, Wonders and generally being close to a victory condition should have a real negative hit toward other races (perhaps even if you are in an alliance with them). The alliance members should be more willing to leave the alliance in these circumstances; and become more hostile. The opponents should "see" an alliance memeber is trying to win and become more hostile toward that race (who is trying to win).
On a side note, the victory condition where you have to control multiple star systems seems bad. Perhaps this condition should be based more on empire population than star systems you control.
I mean really, if you control more than half the galaxy's population and still need another 8 systems to meet the vicotry condition, seems a little senseless.
Leaving an alliance 'just by pressing' a button seems to be the problem here. There should be some consequences (though I think removing already researched tech in retrospect is not a good idea IMHO) to it. Or maybe there should be some upfront cost for beeing able to leave in the first place. Something like paying influence to break off. The value required to do so then scales depending on how close the alliance is to game victory.
It is quite an issue that may be hard to fix. I feel what they could do is add somesort of penalty, where leaving an alliance makes you unable to win by yourself for about 50-75 turns or so. That sounds like a ridiculous high number of turns, but that'd be enough for anyone to react and deal with the person that's supposed to win and would make that person question if leaving the alliance is worth it.
Alternatively, when you've reached the set goal to win by yourself in an alliance (such as having researched the last 4 techs) you shouldn't be eligible for that win condition anymore unless you're in an alliance again. That ofcourse requires the former as otherwise you could just leave when close at reaching the last tech anyway.
The latter might be harsh, but I think both are fair, you can probably tune them to be less forgiving. It atleast adds an importance to creating/joining and leaving an Alliance, so you have to think twice when you do either or set yourself up for a rough ride afterwards. If you plan to leave, you gotta leave early or plan way ahead which gives the other factions time to attempt stopping you from "using" them if you're a threat.
This might not work too well with AI who already got hard time responding to a player being close to victory, but would work well for players. You could however do it so when you leave an alliance you lose a big diplomatic status with the previous AI allies so they're more likely to declare war on you for it, since joining and leaving an alliance shouldn't be a small thing you do on a whim, imo.
Agreed. I think alliance victory should either be reworked entirely or removed from the game altogether. Like you said riding the coat tails of an alliance is a big issue and we've been discussing stuff about victory conditions in general in another thread. The flipside abuse of the instant change in victory conditions when leaving / entering an alliance is that empires who have never worked together before in the game can also ally together if both sides notice they have enough systems, wonders, victory techs, Dust, or capitals, and win instantly in one turn. There is no counter to this.
I've been complaining about these issues for so long that I decided to turn them into few possible ideas.
removing alliance victory would turn the late game in multiplayer into a backstab party. why not if one member would win, everyone of the alliance win, or if you have a soloi win condition, but not an alliance victory condition, you can't leave the alliance
In addition, a "buyout" penalty for leaving an alliance would not be sufficient; I was swimming in dust and influence at this point and could easily pay those kind of costs.
It is quite an issue that may be hard to fix. I feel what they could do is add somesort of penalty, where leaving an alliance makes you unable to win by yourself for about 50-75 turns or so. That sounds like a ridiculous high number of turns, but that'd be enough for anyone to react and deal with the person that's supposed to win and would make that person question if leaving the alliance is worth it.
To expand on this idea, the longer you stay in an alliance the longer you can profit from it, so the cost of leaving it should raise accordingly.
So maybe we can imagine something like this:
- If you were allied for 50 turns with another player/AI, when you leave the alliance it will take 50 turns to return to single player victory conditions.
- If you were allied for 100 turns with 2 other players/AI and one player/AI leaves the alliance after 25 turns, it will take 25 turns to return to 2 players victory conditions and then, if you leave, 100 turns to return to single player victory conditions.
Maybe the changes should not happen instantly after x turns, but instead slowly decrease over time.
Edit:
- This system can lead to interesting strategic decisions like: how many turns should I stay in an alliance if I intend to leave it and pursue a solo victory?
- This system is immune to players trying to destabilize alliances by joining and leaving, because if they join and stay 1-5 turns, the alliance will revert to its former victory conditions in 1-5 turns.
I can see how the drop in victory conditions upon leaving an alliance could be unfair in multiplayer (I personally don't play multiplayer).
In single player, as it stands now we need the ability to leave the alliance if necessary to win. I tend to avoid alliances with AI's, but when I have been in them it seemed that the AI wouldn't reach for the victory condition I'm reaching for. There's no way to ask the AI to start researching endless techs or start building wonders for the wonder victory. Changing that would require more work on the AI and diplomacy system (and there is still a lot of work to be done on those fronts, even aside from Allied Victory).
I like hera's idea that alliance victory should not be scaled up versions of solo victories, but be something the alliance commits to, resulting in a permanent alliance that has to reach some condition to win. He mentions Sid Mier's Alpha Centauri in the idea post, which also made me think of SMAC's economic victory. For that you had to earn a ton of money, then select the option to "corner the energy market," and then the other players had a set number of turns to capture your headquarters to prevent you from winning. Maybe have some sort of peaceful alliance victory to win along those lines and a conquest alliance victory, but either one would require a commitment to initiate it.
Maybe in (short term at least) there should be a game creation option for multiplayer that makes all alliances permanent (to make it impossible to leave an alliance once you've joined it) or to only allow preset alliances (alliances agreed upon at game creation).
Yeah, it's practically impossible to win a science or wonder victory in an alliance, because the AI doesn't go for those. Dropping out is the only way.
Acutally, I just looked at my Empire Chronicles and I did win a wonder victory as part of an alliance. I had forgotten that I built 6 copies of the wonder (that's allowed). But you can't research the victory techs extra times.
I've actually had the Sophon AI research 2 of the Endless tech in my playthrough, but they were fairly far ahead in science compared to everyone else, right behind me, and our alliance had more members.
I think it's fair to assume that what the factions are best at that's the kind of victory they'll go for, so I can see Sophon and Vaulters AI actually getting Endless tech with given time, but doubtful if the other AI factions would since they're not science focused. Wonder victory is one I've not seen the AI go for, so assuming they don't is likely for now.
I've actually had the Sophon AI research 2 of the Endless tech in my playthrough, but they were fairly far ahead in science compared to everyone else, right behind me, and our alliance had more members.
I think it's fair to assume that what the factions are best at that's the kind of victory they'll go for, so I can see Sophon and Vaulters AI actually getting Endless tech with given time, but doubtful if the other AI factions would since they're not science focused. Wonder victory is one I've not seen the AI go for, so assuming they don't is likely for now.
I think I have seen my Unfallen ally building a wonder (by which time I had already completed 5). I am not sure how that translates in difficulties above normal.
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Looking for "small solutions" this is what I would think about:
-Remove alliance victory from current system.
-Add the option of forming a "permanent alliance" as an upgrade to the standard alliance (just like a trade contract offer).
-Pop Up warns you (the orange full screen warning dialogue that is already in the game): Permanent alliances will last forever and cannot be undone, are you sure you want to offer/accept this?
-Add allied victory back to "permanent alliances".
I'm a new player (3 games at the moment, one lost, one won in alliance by conquest and third one won leaving an alliance just before research the forth victory tech).
Was this issue ever addressed in any way?
Paying insane amount of Influence to leave a long date alliance seems the correct solution for me.
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