This topic is to gather various somewhat related ideas, so feel free to go offtopic I don't have a specific question, I just wanted to discuss something along the lines described below.
The player is the emperor (4X game), there are noble houses (3-8 of those, all AI controlled) and traditional aliens (AI controlled). I'm looking for a mechanic where the player wants to support noble houses (friendly AI) because he needs them (what for?) but not too much because if the noble houses become too powerfull they might want to overthrow the emperor (or do other nasty stuff). Also the player needs to keep in check alien powers (hostile AI), possibly using noble houses for this purpose (but not necessarily).
So, basically it's a single player game where you deal with various AIs (which range between friendly and hostile).
Especially I'm interested in:
- what's the source of political power of noble houses?
- do noble houses have an army? or only the empire has it?
- who controls the army/fleet? the player (emperor) or the AI (noble houses)? Or maybe a mix (like the player gives generic orders and the AI executes it, unless it does not feels like it and want to oppose the emeperor :D)
- what's the economic base of the houses (possibly charters to planets granted by the emperor?)
- I feel noble houses should somehow be a political elite of the empire (admirals? advisors?)
- why the player needs the noble houses?
- why the player does not want the noble houses to be too powerful?
- why the player wants the noble houses to be content?
↧