Power play: same Allegiance must be able to FULLY cooperate

[Marcus Bronco]

If powerplay stays as it is now the super powers are deemed to divide within them.
If instead powers should be able to work together. This would unlock ton of content, player made.
I really hope this is possible in future, made possible by the actual mechanics as for now it's not possible but to undermine for your same color allied... and it is "a bit" limiting.

 

[zimms]

If powerplay stays as it is now the super powers are deemed to divide within them.
[...]

Good.

[...]
If instead powers should be able to work together. This would unlock ton of content, player made.
[...]

Nah, it would reduce possible interactions, hasten the one-sided-ness and "force" people to join the winning team even more. We've seen with PP1 already that it's not good for the game, if half of the Powers are in an alliance.

 

[Rubbernuke]

There are twelve powers because although some share superpowers they do not share ideology. For example Gran Gran and Blue Gnome don't see eye to eye at all.

 

[Rebel Yell]

Within PP2, alliances are specious.

Each Power should just play exclusively in its interests.

 

[Dillon Fallon]

I'd say that within superpowers, cooperation should be worse, if anything. In theory whoever has the most support is in a position to arrange a coup (or early elections if we're being nice) if they're not already in charge.

 

[madmongoose]

Within PP2, alliances are specious.

Each Power should just play exclusively in its interests.

I find this argument tiring. Often it's in the interest of powers to cooperate. It would be nice if there was a mechanic for that.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Often it's in the interest of powers to cooperate. It would be nice if there was a mechanic for that.

Good news, there is! The players supporting those Powers simply need to choose not to Undermine each other this week - and the game provides plenty of incentive for them to follow that strategy.

- Undermining is generally less efficient activities intrinsically than the equivalent Reinforcement activity (also often slightly more difficult and much worse paying)
- Undermining is often given an extra penalty via System Strength Penalty "just because"
- most weekly tasks are Reinforcement or Acquisition rather than Undermining
- if you want a new system, you have to pay at least the same Acquisition costs whether it was one you'd previously undermined or one which has always been neutral, but the undermining itself will cost something - and probably considerably more, if it and/or the subsequent reacquistion is opposed.

As a result, the ZYAJDANELPAF alliance is regularly adding hundreds of systems a week to its cooperative project to control the entire bubble, with around 75 million control points of net Reinforcement/Acquisition over Undermining being added every week.

Some people say that it would be nice to have a mechanism to encourage Powers to fight each other, but I don't think we need one of those. That 75 million might sound big, but Colonisation will soon start expanding the bubble even faster than that, so wasting time attacking each other is just a bad idea when it comes to the ultimate goal of turning every system into a max-strength Stronghold.

 

[Rubbernuke]

ZYAJDANELPAF alliance

Its not called ZAJAF ENDPLAY for nothing.....

 

[Marcus Bronco]

If they are not cooperating then the game must allow for power to disappear so that players elect\decide\define who actually lives, rules etc or not.
But there must be also opportunity for players to have a chance to decide to cooperate withing an allegiance among the powers and the mechanics on this are surprisingly limited on release of ascendancy. Forcing players to fight "because otherwise there is no gameplay" ... is so limited and killing imagination and gameplay too: so I do play because I have to keep alive the game for the company who designs it.
No, the game must provide full stuff and I agree also mechanics for stuff like: if a place was ruled by x and z wants to get in, then depending on how long it was ruled for and other many statistics (players would have to find out unless they are disclosed by devs or else), then the Z power will have hard time or not to take over and rule because citizens\residents will be happy not happy or else..
And this will also have to involve BGS (A big reviving tool this would be for BGS) .. by making factions inside a sphere that is being targeted to change, to be affecting the entire results and process too: if a place was ruled by Indies and federals or empires wants to come in well that will be facing specific consequences and obstacles..
Same with other many cases..

Factions also government would have to be put in count.. as some will be more aligned with the new shifting into power, or the previous.,
Some depth .. some depth... I am sure there is but there is need for more to come, a bit more complexity and simulative\ realism.

 

[Marcus Bronco]

Such thing would have to be featuring a decrease in how you affect the outcome - of the player action - (of course) - because you are after all still a different power supporting commander. (NOTE: I am not saying you can support a different allegiance. in that case you just flip on the other side forever I guess.. unless you are a traitor!)

Allies then can not only shift jersey for such purpose to the other Same color allegiance power, and this is possible now.
But they should be also able (with a limited amount of effect like maybe half of it or 25% reduction over the effect) to retain their power side and still be able to help the allied side with A FULL ARRAY of action that is available to the side they are helping (which must be same color).

Anyway the switching of Power will just reset to zero the rankings which are anyway reachivable after a little time...(AT THE MOMENT) already with a few days or weeks of gameplay I guess...
Still ... it would be cool if players could be allowed not to be forced to divide and compete within the same Super Power Allegiance.

(Sorry but I can't edit)

 

[DemiserofD]

I do think it would be nice to have some sort of difference for powers of the same allegiance. Like, it makes very little sense for ships of Felicia Winters(president) and ships of Jerome Archer(shadow president) to be literally blowing each other up, in public. It should at least be a bit more covert than that.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I do think it would be nice to have some sort of difference for powers of the same allegiance. Like, it makes very little sense for ships of Felicia Winters(president) and ships of Jerome Archer(shadow president) to be literally blowing each other up, in public. It should at least be a bit more covert than that.

Having "Power Kills" be ineffective when undermining same-superpower (either not at all, or halved or something like that), but some of the other actions (the rest of the undermining action set are pretty much all covert or at least deniable or plausibly in a spirit of friendly rivalry, and other than "commit crimes" not even intrinsically violent) being slightly more effective to compensate would seem a nice bit of flavour and not unbalancing.

(They'd need to stay at full effectiveness for contested acquisitions between two powers of the same superpower since it's one of the most effective Acquisition mechanisms and suppressing it potentially disadvantages them in 3+-way battles by reducing the set of CZs that they can use, but that's a case where it's pretty undeniable that players of those two powers want to fight and the game should let them)



That said, same-superpower BGS Wars are absolutely normal and no-one even thinks they're particularly weird (for the Feds and Empire, they're made a little less likely by the limited mix of ethoses, but only a little), so I think there's plenty of precedent for agents of the same superpower freely resorting to open violence to settle internal disputes.