Ideology in Multiplayer

from GalCiv3 Forums

Right now ideology in multiplayer is kind of pointless.  The game starts off playing very similar to a single player game, however, after the colony rush stage of the game the human players have no way to easily get ideology points.  At this point they are stuck trying to generate ideology points on their own with any building that they may have unlocked during the colony rush.  Now I know Multiplayer is a very small percentage of all players but, without the mega events ideology events (as it's disabled in multiplayer games) ideology becomes useless and, here is why....

  • Colony Rush Human player able to colonize 15 planets = 210 ideology points (some special precursor events give more than 10 points).
    • Human player uses this to unlock 6 ideology items with no points left over.
    • Human player unlocks ideology building provides 1 ideology point every 10 turns.
    • Human player can't give up space at beginning of game on most planets as most planets are class 10 or less
    • 4 ideology buildings built = 4 points every 10 turns. 
      • Next ideology building unlocks after 70 points (each purchase increases the cost by 10 for next one).
      • This means it will take 180 turns to unlock the next building, being we're already on turn 100 at the end of the colony rush this means no more ideology unlocking until around turn 280 if the player is lucky.
  • Please allow for mega events in multiplayer games to allow ideology to play a role in multiplayer games.
  • Or...  Please create other options for ideology points in multiplayer games such as anomalies or invading planets.

Any other ideas on how to make ideology more relevant in multiplayer games??

34,493 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Well but thats basically your desicion, if you would build idiology buildings whenever possible, you would be getting

15*0.2+0.5+1=4.5 Idiology-points per turn, which makes ~16 Turns for the next idiology then ~19, ~22...

seems pretty reasonable to me

(of course this is only true if you focus on one idiology, and this is not pragmatic, since they only get 2 Idiology buildings)

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting mortili, reply 1

15*0.2+0.5+1=4.5 Idiology-points per turn, which makes ~16 Turns for the next idiology then ~19, ~22...

even if you built one per planet 15*0.1 (as earns 1 point every 10 turns) + 0.5?? (don't know where you're getting the 0.5) + 1? (don't know where you're getting this from either) = maybe 3 per turn but, I don't know where you are getting the extra .5 and 1 from.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

the colony-unique buildings give +0.2 points per turn, the player achievements give +0.5 and +1 per turn (pragmatic only gets one player achievement with +1 per turn)

 

do you play with mods which change this?

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

A while back were were supposed to get ideology from invasions, instead they made it a trait. I think we should have more options on how to get ideology. Since we interact with the map ONLY for colonizing or invading we need to derive them from those sources. I daresay trade would be good but we only really have a handful of trade routes per game, although those would also be a good source.

 

In addition to those, Espionage can and will open up possibilities to get ideology points.

 

Personally what I would like to see are more moral or thought provoking choices where the options presented are all good or all come with consequences if you chose another. 

 

As an example: 

We are given a choice upon Colonizing of several events that we can have happen. Most do not come with a malus and playing with a malus is bad design. Instead lets play with "Sure you can make slaves of the population now for +10 raw production or if you integrate them your chances of unlocking a secret tech tree go up by 20%". Notice that both are good choices and one is an unknown. 

What secret tech tree you say? Why the one that is there to all players if they can unlock it! There are actually 3 trees that are secret (weapons & defenses, Diplomacy and trade, and finally population and production), This also forces us as players to make choices that can and will 'drag out the game' well into and past the Ascension era..

 

Sorry Seilore, I had a thought and ran with it. 

Reply #5 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

double post. 

Reply #6 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting mortili, reply 3

the colony-unique buildings give +0.2 points per turn, the player achievements give +0.5 and +1 per turn (pragmatic only gets one player achievement with +1 per turn)

colony-unique buildings give +0.1 points per turn, the faction building (one-per player) gives +0.2 buildings per turn.  Don't know what you mean by player achievements...  didn't know ideology only path auto gives +1 per turn.

Quoting mortili, reply 3

do you play with mods which change this?

No mods and I'm going right off the building description in game.

Quoting Larsenex, reply 4

Sorry Seilore, I had a thought and ran with it. 

Always love more ideas.

Reply #7 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

from 1.9, and it has been like this for quite some time now, dont even remember anymore in which version they changed this

Reply #8 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting mortili, reply 7

from 1.9, and it has been like this for quite some time now, dont even remember anymore in which version they changed this

Then the descriptions in the ideology screen where one unlocks the building is incorrect.  Unlocking all three buildings in Merciless with unlocking 6, Benevolent takes 5 choices to unlock all three, Merciless takes 7, Pragmatic takes 4.  

Lets say you can unlock all 3 options and you only choose one ideology that get's you 23 points every 10 turns based on 4 planets can support buildings (maybe more as the game progresses).  This still means to unlock a 7th it would take about 30+ turns and an 8th almost 40 turns beyond that.  (now that is far less than my original projection using information off the ideology screen but, unlike some players I rarely choose one ideology path normally I'm split between Pragmatic and Benevolent which means at most I've unlocked all 3 on benevolent in this theory and 1 pragmatic.  This still shows the problem.  Because in reality we know this doesn't always happen this way.

Reply #9 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

btt:

-I agree, that all DLCs should work in multiplayer

-(not only for multiplayer) I would also like an option to set Idiology costs, so you can choose to have high cost (2x, 4x,..)

or low cost(0.5x, 0.25,..) for ideology

Reply #10 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Ideology costs could go in the setup screen for each game.

Default would be normal.

Reply #11 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Are custom races not allowed in multiplayer? I couldn't imagine not using one! I'd imagine there's lots of conquests and planets change hands. Take the Zealots trait and gain Ideology points the first time you conquer a planet.

Reply #12 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting neilkaz, reply 11

Are custom races not allowed in multiplayer? I couldn't imagine not using one! I'd imagine there's lots of conquests and planets change hands. Take the Zealots trait and gain Ideology points the first time you conquer a planet.

Custom factions are allowed in Multiplayer, however, why are you handicapping all other factions in MP?

Reply #13 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting Seilore, reply 12


Quoting neilkaz,
reply 11

Are custom races not allowed in multiplayer? I couldn't imagine not using one! I'd imagine there's lots of conquests and planets change hands. Take the Zealots trait and gain Ideology points the first time you conquer a planet.


Custom factions are allowed in Multiplayer, however, why are you handicapping all other factions in MP?

At least vs the AI's the standard races pale in comparison vs custom ones. What size galaxy is your typical MP game played in? Surely, you have to take some planets and knock out some enemies to win. +15 IP per conquered planet is very nice and moves your ideology along.

Reply #14 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting neilkaz, reply 13

What size galaxy is your typical MP game played in?

Largest possible I believe is Huge/Gigantic Usually play with abundant planets/stars/habitable.  Although I thank you for that suggestion, however, I should be able to take my normal faction I play with in SP games and play with them in MP with similar experiences, I shouldn't have to have one faction for MP to be able to use Ideology and one faction for SP.