Trade embargoes work in Civ because the things that are traded are actual resources. IE: horses, gems, spices, bronze, iron, tin, etc. Each of those resources have a positive impact on your civilization other than just giving you more money. They sometimes allow you to build units you couldn't previously, or increase your happiness/health in your cities, etc.

Trade in BotF is simply more credits. You might also be able to trade deuterium or something, but again, that stuff is all bankable. Not to mention that if you stop the trade, both sides are hurt equally in BotF. The trade system is an entirely different animal in BotF than it is in Civ. Thus, there is little point to embargoes as there is nothing vital to prevent people from getting. Every empire will get credits. Every empire will get fuel.

But in Civ, not every empire will get horses. Not everyone would get iron (or plutonium ) so I don't see how an embargo concept would work in BotF.

Also, I believe the raid order essentially established a blockade. And the % chance of the raid order "succeeding" was essentially the percent chance of stealing some of the trade instead of simply stopping it. I could be wrong, though.

I had included some discussion in my latest response to the tech-tree thread and realized that I was going to derail the conversation pretty hard. So... I cut it out to include here. And now....

It sounds like the allied joint-technology research idea is pretty much decided on (I like it). Any thoughts on what diplomacy level is required to gain the bonus? Allied probably?

This is a slight derailment from the tech tree discussion, but I stumbled across a word document that I had written last year concerning diplomacy options which is related to the whole research-sharing idea. I'm pretty sure I posted it (I'd have to find it) somewhere in the Supremacy boards... but it essentially suggested that allied powers would probably confer some passive bonuses to their allied empires that correspond to their empire's strengths. For example, if the Federation and Klingons were to become allies in a game, they would be more inclined to work together on all fronts, rather than simply agreeing to shoot at each other's enemies.

This would include strengthening the Klingon's internal security (which the Feds are decent in compared to the ridgeheads) and boosting their research ability (another Fed strength). The Klingons would then pass along some sort of passive combat ability (probably in the rate ship experience is gained) and whatever else they excel it. Also, I would assume that the two empires also gain very slight bonuses in their "specialized" fields. For example, a random Klingon suggestion could very well be the key to a technological advancement that the Federation was missing. So while the Feds are clearly stronger in research and have a noticeable effect on Klingon research, the Klingons in turn would offer a slight bonus to Federation research as well. Two heads are better than one, after all... even if one was evolved to excel at headbutting. Yeah, i'm ragging on Skeeter :p

Anyways, Klingons aside, this part of the conversation would be better warranted in a diplomacy-only thread, mainly because it would have to consider research as well as construction, credits, resources, experience, growth, diplomacy, internal security, sabotage, espionage, and just about any other major gameplay area. Not every area is feasible, but it's a thought and should at least be considered. As for how strong of a bonus... well... that's a whole new discussion and could become somewhat complicated. I suggest that anything diplomacy related is shipped off to a seperate thread since, at the moment, the main research-related thing it will do is essentially grant a research bonus.

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There might not be a whole lot of canon resources to justify this (I wouldn't really know), but I would argue it should still be included regardless. For starters, other games have made this leap including SFC3 which included Unity Station. Secondly, there is precedent in current political climates that allies sometimes contribute in research ventures and I would find it foolish that two super-powers who are closely allied like bread and butter would not want to work together to further benefit themselves and their alliance.

Supremacy would have a stripped-down simplistic take on it: a passive research bonus. Would it be the most accurate solution? Of course not. But it'd be easy to impliment and easy to understand concept-wise. The devil is in the details of course....

Also, as I mentioned above, I would like to see this same concept spread across as many other gameplay areas as possible. When you are allied, you promise to watch each other's back. So, internal security, training, trade, and whatever else would involve both sides to some degree which, again, benefits the alliance as a whole. And there is at least one canon reference I know of that points this out... primarily in the TNG episode that involved Data taking command of a ship that was part of the cloak-detection net to flesh out Romulan aid to the Duras family (you guys should know which episode that is )

I don't see any faults in this... Am I missing something? ;)

If you are at war, you automatically have *some* tech sharing. Yes. I agree wholly. Now, if we're all in agreement, we move on to *how much* bonus.

But can two societies *choose* to share their research without having a common enemy? Or without one society subsuming the other? (eg, becoming a member state?) If so, how much sharing can be allowed? And according to what criteria.

On this subject, I can be little but a cheer-leader: I have too little knowledge to venture an opinion.

Rah! Rah! Sis, Boom Bah! Go team!

Good points... Would a (relatively) simplified fuzzy-logic system work? Using a simple slope-up, slope-down pattern? ... Where each research subject has a spike whose hight is dependent on current expenditures of both races -- militarily, research, espionage, or lots of treaties, etc -- and whose slope is dependent on the attitude of the two races. This would give a "spectra", if you will, of cooperation between two races.

I'm not sure if this makes much sense...

You could even have varying shapes depending on the races allied, would make for an interesting game, a co-evolving fuzzy-logic system would also make each game unique in some way depending on the history and evolution of an AI race.

I had an idea which might simplify some of the research cooperatives. What about doing something simple like implementing a diplomatic option to host a research conference, which you could then invite other major and minor races to? Start out with a baseline research bonus the conference will generate maybe looking like

Research points = (((Host Research proficiency x Initial credits invested) x host tech level x # of participants) / (tech level of most advanced - tech level of least advanced)) / # of participants

You could make it more complicated by adding species weights in different places (Federation maybe puts a 1.4 modifier on the numerator while the Klingons hosting would be a 1.4 modifier on the divisor), or making the formula more complicated by breaking out # of participants into multiple variables for each participant with a weight on that. If you wanted to do this, I'd say the invitees should have to commit resources to join, and turn the bonus they add into a function of how much they pay--i.e.

Federation hosts a conference. They pay 1,000 credits and invite others to join by paying 100 credits each, which the Bolians, Romulans, Bajorans, and Caldonians agree to. The research points generated for a participant would be:

(((.3x1,000) x 4 x ((100x.01)+(100x.2)+(100x.05)+(100x.1)) / (4-2)) / 5

The formula might need some tweaking to balance it out nicely, but it's a start. I'd also recommend that the time it takes to complete the conference (hence when the bonus arrives) should be a function of how much is invested and how many participants there are. For my own sanity (unless a mathematician wants to figure this out), a standard format could be used so that 100-1,000 invested takes 2-4 turns; 1,001-10,000 takes 5-14 turns; 10,001-200,00 takes 12-20 turns; etc., although maybe with different ranges depending on the balance issue.

This way, a host could gain research and "prestige" (improvement in relations to those who accept your invitation and maybe even a larger galactic benefit to remove "bad guy points" from declaring wars or sabotage). Conferences could be general (biomedical conference) or aimed at a specific technology akin to Birth of the Empires' special projects. It would also be cool to have specific technologies which could only be gained through research conferences (akin to Birth of the Empires' special projects), maybe even race specific technologies, but these would add a new level of complexity to what I'm trying to propose as a simple idea.

The concept of research collaborations just made me think of all those conferences characters are either heading to or coming from, so it seemed like a logical extension.

anybody played Galactic Civilisation? its pretty much like botf and there is some pretty cool featur in the game that maded the game better then botf like diplomatic option,in the game you could trade technology and at some point all race had to site into some Major race conveference and vote for laws the most powerfull race usualy had more importance in the vote and when you were mad at the result you could just leave the congress and not obey any of these law anybody heard about that game?

the only reason i prefer botf is because its about star trek

cange, that's the moo3-senate idea sir p. intends to implement in later releases

didn't know about that also in galciv. the game severely sucks in my opinion cause it offers no multiplayer. the heck, what's the reason for that? one can provide a challenging AI and allow for multiplayer. we just proved that!

i agree that it sux for the multiplayer thing but you must admit that the game is very detailled,if you could make a star trek game that would have soo much detail it would be pretty awsome if you ask me,there was soo much thing i would love to see

example random event in GC would allow you to react and depending on your answer different thing would happen

***example:you colonised a system but your ppl just found out that inferior race were living there so it give you a choice and each of your choice have a different ending

you could choose to raze that inferior poplation however your ppl would think your empire is evil but it would allow your ppl to have more space for themself

share the planet with them,move them to another colony,turn them into slave and ect...

now imagine that scenario in star trek,fed would not be allow to raze the population of that planet however klingon would be able to turn them into slave.
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huge stuff agreed

maybe you can make a list of all these nice things in a new thread (exactly those random events are the very next thing on our to-do-list for alpha5), so we don't forget any of them. I don't have the game anymore (threw it away ) so you're to be the man here if you want .

I'm presently playing Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords, and Space Empires V. The feature Cange is referring to is a galactic forum, convened every 25 years to decide matters of galactic law, called the United Planets. Decisions meted out in the forum constitute galactic law and remain in force for a short period of time, or indefinitely. Population, influence and economic power all impact the number of votes the player can cast. I'm with Malvoisin. Frankly, the game is little more than eye candy. It's sole selling point is the shipyards, where the player can design ships from scratch. Weak on diplomacy and intelligence management, those features are next to worthless in either of the GalCiv games. A major strength of GalCiv is the AI, which is difficult to beat, even at moderate settings.

Space Empires V, while buggy, is a vastly superior game, in every sense.

(Screen grab: The USS Voyager banks into a torpedo salvo from the JIN K'oo'vak, which impacts her shields. The shields on the K'oo'vak collapsed, and Starfleet Marines have boarded the ship and have begun to seize the ship.)

http://www.cinergisolutions.com/seV/grab2.jpg

in the end I hope our two games here to be the supreme ones of all the two , especially with the new content which ironically is provided by a well-known SE V Modder named Atrocities .

but well it's still a long way to that end. But I'm sure, thx to wolfe, the tactical combat will surely look a lot nicer than that in the picture plus your eye-candy UIs Razor, nothing can beat us (there lacks an emoticon for complete madness.. )

vjeko1701, Captain Bashir and I are working on some backdrops for Diplomacy. This is a model used as a starting point to make the image. It is going to be the Romulan Capital but seen from out over the sea looking back inland.
Rom Sen small.png [ 96.27 KiB | Viewed 11754 times ]

Am I supposed to work with the existing image or start a new one along the same lines? I have 8 new PMs to look at so the answer might be there.
CB

It would be best if you take a look at the Tal Shiar. Work with the concept art.

Senate looks awesome guys I wish i could help but i'm out of spare time, god i have no time even to read posts. I'm glad to see that we have talented new-members like captain and vjeko. Senete is great Kenny just add few polys to central circle for smoother appearance, see is nice though darker color and lower reflection value would improve it imo.

Ok, here is an updated model render of the Romulan Senate, Capital
Complex. The camera has been pulled in closer and the monuments packed in.
This gives some more density to the grounds. The question is can you add things like steps
to the stairs, pedestrian paths, bushes,
people, windows on the upper level of the senate building as seen in the
Nemesis images and anything else you can think of? Also in the blue
background there should be a city skyline. Behind the buildings are the
mountains and in the sky Remus and maybe a small moon.

Two versions, dawn and day.

I favor Dawn myself. That is unless it make the city skyline and the other detail harder to do.