should culture convert planets?

from Sins Forums
hope the title says it all. back in beta culture would not only reduce enemy allegiance, it would flip his planets to your side too.

so my question would be, whether you feel it should be changed again. from my experience, I have rarely seen culture as a big factor in any game, which is sad, because in that part the game does have a good potential, especially, since many have asked for alternative routes to victory other than pure conquest. and even if am wrong about culture not being such a factor, I think if it is, its more for secondary effect like increase in your % and the race specific effect. maybe those should be split, at least merits discussion.

back to offensive culture: keep in mind that this wouldnt mean it alone could do the job, you still need a fleet to protect what you conquer and hit hard where enemy culture is too strong. also, culture didnt switch orbital structures (though I would appreciate a balance where there is a % chance they do).

since I leave the balancing to others, lets just view this as yet another discussiion/ brainstorming thread. maybe something good comes from it.

edit: just had an idea from another game. even if we keep the current way, wouldnt it be nice if the planet became not just "dead", but rather independent? sort of like those neutral planets you get in map designer maps. they could keep the planet upgrades, the structures and even build new ships, but they should remain passive, i.e. they probably shouldnt go on and build their own empires. well, now that I think of it: rhye's and fall of empires (if you get the pun) would be a nice thing too.
19,967 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
It should be able to flip planets because in the description it says FRIENDLY CULTURE WILL OVERTHROW the planet, meaning take over not blow up! Then a plenet goes neutral does that 60 - 280 MILLION* people just die?

Culture should make a planet neutral then after 5 mins the planet and ALL STRUCTURES in orbit will turn to your side!

And we should also keep the current planets upgrades because their in place its just the leaders of the planet will killed.


*I say million because it is not pratical to have 60 people on an asteriod but 60 million inspace stations and on the surface*
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
What does the broadcast station do? Just reduce allegiance? If so what is the effect of that exactly?
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
What does the broadcast station do? Just reduce allegiance? If so what is the effect of that exactly?
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last I checked it does three things:

1) increase the allegiance of your surrounding colonies, which in turn increases resource rates.
2) decreases allegiance of enemy colonies.
3) race specific effect. iirc tec get a credit bonus, vasari weapons bonus and advent extra shield mitigation.

check it out in the tech descritions also and play around with it a bit. its somewhat useful if you have the money and place to use it.

else I dont think I need to add anything now, bc I think I made my point clear in the op. maybe one last thing: for those of you in the betas, when it could still flip, do you really think it was overpowered? I remember it was an issue you definately had to guard yourself against, but that's effectively a good thing. but overpowered? not really, since it only really worked with bordering planets and if you weren't cought totally offguard, a quick strike to take the stations out would give you enough time to get your own stations up and stabelise the situation.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
3) race specific effect. iirc tec get a credit bonus, vasari weapons bonus and advent extra shield mitigation.
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TEC gets an antimatter regeneration bonus...

which owns.  :D 
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
my bad then.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
I agree, definitely a good idea to flip planets over...it will add a new dynamic to the game rather than just bombing the crap out of everyone :-)
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
I also like the idea of it flipping the planet (and a percentage of structures.) This would lead to some orbital defenses staying loyal and in-system fighting which would be more realistic to what you could expect in the case of a rebellion.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
Definately should be in the game! Really important IMO. Would add a new danger to be on the look out for and thats always good.

Could be a huge deciding factor in a small multiplayer game with close planets. First player to get culture centre would have a good advantage!
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
maybe one last thing: for those of you in the betas, when it could still flip, do you really think it was overpowered? I remember it was an issue you definately had to guard yourself against, but that's effectively a good thing. but overpowered? not really, since it only really worked with bordering planets and if you weren't cought totally offguard, a quick strike to take the stations out would give you enough time to get your own stations up and stabelise the situation.
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You know, to be honest I don't exactly remember why it was changed to not flip. I think part of the reason was that it made it way too easy, and the other for "in-game reasons" - mainly that your culture only affects the general population, so when the allegiance drops to 0 the population rebels against their government, but you still don't have any of your own presense there to establish your own, which is why you need to "colonize".

One of the main things though that changed is that when the planet is NOT flipped (as it is now) the player who lost it can still send capitals, which do push back culture from neutral planets (the beta, when planets were flipping, did not). So the defender can still try and recover it with his fleet, because back in the beta if you built all labs, and the other guy built all culture, you were more or less screwed because short of scuttling all your buildings and building broadcasts there was nothing you could do.

In any case, I don't expect complete planet flipping to come back, since it was tried and scrapped when culture was re-worked.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
maybe one last thing: for those of you in the betas, when it could still flip, do you really think it was overpowered? I remember it was an issue you definately had to guard yourself against, but that's effectively a good thing. but overpowered? not really, since it only really worked with bordering planets and if you weren't cought totally offguard, a quick strike to take the stations out would give you enough time to get your own stations up and stabelise the situation.You know, to be honest I don't exactly remember why it was changed to not flip. I think part of the reason was that it made it way too easy, and the other for "in-game reasons" - mainly that your culture only affects the general population, so when the allegiance drops to 0 the population rebels against their government, but you still don't have any of your own presense there to establish your own, which is why you need to "colonize".

One of the main things though that changed is that when the planet is NOT flipped (as it is now) the player who lost it can still send capitals, which do push back culture from neutral planets (the beta, when planets were flipping, did not). So the defender can still try and recover it with his fleet, because back in the beta if you built all labs, and the other guy built all culture, you were more or less screwed because short of scuttling all your buildings and building broadcasts there was nothing you could do.

In any case, I don't expect complete planet flipping to come back, since it was tried and scrapped when culture was re-worked.
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well, I didn't say we should bring it back exactly the way it was, implying the exact same balance, but rather that something more could and should be made of it. I interpret your post that you also cant quite pin down, why it was changed, maybe other than to keep it from being it a too strong strategy, but seriously, there are other ways. granted, the fact that it was potent and advent getting it even earlier would be troublesome, but it doesnt mean that there cannot be a good balance.

for example, with the same basic balance now, capships could be more effective in repelling a culture attack. but that would also mean your cap(s) is/ are tied up there and that leaves you somewhat vulnerable to attack somewhere else. or, you could link it to population or infrastructure, so that not all planets are equally strongly affected by culture. maybe even fleet size in the grav well instead of just capships can have an influence, or defensive stations. I see lots of possiblities.

and lastly, as I pointed out. in the past, culture attack was powerful, but investing in three civic labs and the logistics and strucuture cost for any meaningful effect could mean a lack of military to protect it. so yes, there was something you could do other than scrapping buildings and building your own. well, not on the long term possibly, but in sum it sometimes proved to be a very bad investment for the culture player after all.
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
I definitely agree there should be some way for "flipping" to work. In my experience even getting enemies' planets to zero allegiance at all is very hard, and can easily be stopped if the enemy gets even a small fraction of culture stations compared to what I'm using. In situation where they don't do even that (i.e. fairly often for unimportant planets...) I think it makes perfect sense the planet should change sides --with a percentage of the orbital structures.

It just doesn't make sense that as members of the enemy populace start being swayed to my side by propaganda, they just die.

My propaganda is saying "I am awesome. Join me." not "Kill yourself."

The only possible explanation for how things currently are is that propaganda is used as a means of driving the enemy worlds to a single, sudden, world-ending riot... But that is really stretching it beyond what is reasonable, I think.

In retrospect this all seems really obvious.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
i just want this flip too.

I think that the way culture has to work. I think no one will run a away if your culture is very high. So this reaction is totally unrealistic.

I think another possibility is that the enemy planet under my cultural influence slowly loose his population as my planets will get a populationboost. So it will show that the people leave his world to join my great culture :)
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
I have a theory that the overthrown government gets ticked off and nukes the entire planet.

Though I do wonder if flipping could be made to work for Sins as it is now.
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
In Star Wars: Rebellion, you had to keep your diplomats constantly busy keeping your worlds' allegiance nominal. Conversely, and especially for the Empire, you could garrison enough troop regiments on the world to quell any rebellion and keep the populace on your side. Both sides also had units and agents capable of inspiring revolt on an enemy planet.

I'm not saying that's what Sins should have, I think Culture is fine in this game, but I always enjoyed that aspect of SW:R.
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
I also enjoyed that aspect of Rebellion and I've often wondered why planetary invasions were avoided in Sins - does anyone know?

I also think that flipping could be made to work in the current situation, but it would have to be carefully balanced of course.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top
I also enjoyed that aspect of Rebellion and I've often wondered why planetary invasions were avoided in Sins - does anyone know?
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The devs wanted the game's focus to remain on the overall strategic level, which is why planet takeovers are relatively hands-off. ;)