Why You Fight: Challenges and War in the 31st Century Celestial Empire
Hello! Steve here with another development diary. Today, I wanted to take a look at the ‘why’ you might use military force as opposed to the ‘how’. House Challenges will be the last game play feature put in for the next major build, but I wanted to explain how they work and how they fit into the game’s lore.
So first of all, since you are a (happy) Celestial Empire, you don’t ‘go to war’ like you would do in a traditional 4X, since it would be essentially civil war. Instead, much like personal challenges, you can declare a House Challenge against another House as long as your Relationship with that House is ‘Unfriendly’ or lower (you can’t blindside your allies).
There are 2 types (well, 3, but we’ll get to the last shortly) of House Challenges (HC). The first is an Honor Challenge, in which you challenge the House Leader directly as a proxy of their House. The second type of Challenge is a Holdings Challenge, in which you challenge the House for control of their Holdings (planets, systems, and provinces). It costs 2 AP to declare an HC.
When you declare an HC, you also select a Warscore in 25-point increments to set the challenge’s intensity. Basically, the higher this number, the more you have to do to win the HC, but the more you can gain. You can set a maximum Warscore up to half your current Power.
Once a House Leader/Emperor is sent an HC, they have 2 turns (6 months) to respond. If they decline, the House Leader/Emperor loses 25% of the Warscore bid by the player, and if the HC was issued by the player, the Pops who make up the House’s Popular Support will drop by quite a bit and the Empire’s Fear level in general will rise.
To win an HC, you have to attain at least the number of bid Warscore points in combat. Note, however, that the challenged House only has to win half. The more points you bid, the more Power or territory you can take, but the harder it is for you to win! You also have a time limit – you have 2 years for every 50 points you bid.
There is no limit to the number of House Challenges you can have, although several at once would be very difficult to prosecute!
Normal HCs can be made only against one House – they can not call in allies. These are considered mano-e-mano.
So here’s the special exception HC. If one House attacks another without issuing an HC first, that is considered a Dishonorable Challenge, and any other Houses can ally with the attacked House to defend. Whichever House attains 100 Warscore first wins, and they can request double their reparations with either Honor or territory, or a combination equaling double their attained Warscore. There is no time limit – this is considered ‘unrestrained war’, and the winning side can also request a Subjugation of the defeated House. If this is you, you lose the game!
A House Leader/Emperor can surrender an HC before a winner has been declared. In that case. the surrendering Leader loses double the current Warscore in Power, and relations are reset to TENSION.
So what happens when you attain the bid Warscore? When a House has attained the number of winning Warscore points, they can demand peace (or keep going for more until the time limit runs out). At peacetime, for a Holding Challenge, the winning side can select Holdings with a Warscore value equal to the Challenge Warscore (your Warscore – their Warscore) If the number of Warscore points won exceeds the total territory score of the House, the House can be subjugated – they must always agree to any Orders for their Holdings, and they give you 80% of their resources, but the House remains intact. You can also vassalize them, which essentially means they become a part of your House and you control all Holdings, but you will take a severe Fear hit for doing this, and you will take a significant relationship hit with all other Houses – forced annexation is considered tyrannical. Note that if a House chooses to be a vassal of their own free will, these penalties do not apply – they want to be part of the Empire and would only do this if your relationship was outstanding with the House Leader and the House as a whole.
For a Honor Challenge, the losing House Leader (or you as the proxy for your House) loses the amount of Power equal to double the Challenge Warscore. Thus, large-scale Honor Challenges have the ability to change the political landscape significantly even if the Holdings don't change!
We wanted to have this framework in the game for several reasons – first, we wanted to give positive relationships added value. Since you can be secure in the fact that friendly Houses won’t attack you, maintaining those positive relationships for a peaceful player can mean more. Now, that doesn’t mean that Houses who decide it’s time for direct action won’t try to decrease the relationship, but generally you’ll have plenty of time to see this coming since House Relationships don’t change quickly.
Another reason is that Houses are still part of your Empire, and with the reversal to a more feudal age even in the far future, combat and war would be more regulated after the second Xyl War. The last thing humanity wants is a ‘final war’ that leaves them open for the Xyl to finish them off, so combat and challenges have become highly ritualized. This means that you have clear goals as a player, while still maintaining some flexibility. For instance, if you wanted to attack a House that has been giving you trouble because they are pumping out warships at alarming levels, you can declare a Territory Challenge and try to take the planet that is their core ship facility. However, if you get into the Challenge and determine that you’d be facing a meat grinder, you can attack other Holdings they have and try to attain your WS goal some other way.
Players should have clearly defined, smaller goals. If you want to take a Province of another House, you can! It might be easier, however, to declare smaller HC’s to take systems first, since you will have to bid a lot to take an entire Province! (You will always be able to see a Province, System, and Planet WS at any time in Military Command Mode so you know what you will need)
Finally, we added the idea of Dishonorable Challenges because, hey, at the end of the day you’re Emperor and you can do what you want. We wanted to add the option of a sneak attack for players who don’t want to mess with lowering Relations with another House, waiting for a Challenge response, etc. However, know that this will change your game forever – even your Allies will probably reduce their Relationships with you down to Indifferent or worse, and your empire Fear level will be so high that you will probably be forced to rule as a tyrant for the rest of your game, or at least for a long time! You were warned…
Until next time, have a great week!
-Steve
So first of all, since you are a (happy) Celestial Empire, you don’t ‘go to war’ like you would do in a traditional 4X, since it would be essentially civil war. Instead, much like personal challenges, you can declare a House Challenge against another House as long as your Relationship with that House is ‘Unfriendly’ or lower (you can’t blindside your allies).
There are 2 types (well, 3, but we’ll get to the last shortly) of House Challenges (HC). The first is an Honor Challenge, in which you challenge the House Leader directly as a proxy of their House. The second type of Challenge is a Holdings Challenge, in which you challenge the House for control of their Holdings (planets, systems, and provinces). It costs 2 AP to declare an HC.
When you declare an HC, you also select a Warscore in 25-point increments to set the challenge’s intensity. Basically, the higher this number, the more you have to do to win the HC, but the more you can gain. You can set a maximum Warscore up to half your current Power.
Once a House Leader/Emperor is sent an HC, they have 2 turns (6 months) to respond. If they decline, the House Leader/Emperor loses 25% of the Warscore bid by the player, and if the HC was issued by the player, the Pops who make up the House’s Popular Support will drop by quite a bit and the Empire’s Fear level in general will rise.
To win an HC, you have to attain at least the number of bid Warscore points in combat. Note, however, that the challenged House only has to win half. The more points you bid, the more Power or territory you can take, but the harder it is for you to win! You also have a time limit – you have 2 years for every 50 points you bid.
There is no limit to the number of House Challenges you can have, although several at once would be very difficult to prosecute!
Normal HCs can be made only against one House – they can not call in allies. These are considered mano-e-mano.
So here’s the special exception HC. If one House attacks another without issuing an HC first, that is considered a Dishonorable Challenge, and any other Houses can ally with the attacked House to defend. Whichever House attains 100 Warscore first wins, and they can request double their reparations with either Honor or territory, or a combination equaling double their attained Warscore. There is no time limit – this is considered ‘unrestrained war’, and the winning side can also request a Subjugation of the defeated House. If this is you, you lose the game!
A House Leader/Emperor can surrender an HC before a winner has been declared. In that case. the surrendering Leader loses double the current Warscore in Power, and relations are reset to TENSION.
So what happens when you attain the bid Warscore? When a House has attained the number of winning Warscore points, they can demand peace (or keep going for more until the time limit runs out). At peacetime, for a Holding Challenge, the winning side can select Holdings with a Warscore value equal to the Challenge Warscore (your Warscore – their Warscore) If the number of Warscore points won exceeds the total territory score of the House, the House can be subjugated – they must always agree to any Orders for their Holdings, and they give you 80% of their resources, but the House remains intact. You can also vassalize them, which essentially means they become a part of your House and you control all Holdings, but you will take a severe Fear hit for doing this, and you will take a significant relationship hit with all other Houses – forced annexation is considered tyrannical. Note that if a House chooses to be a vassal of their own free will, these penalties do not apply – they want to be part of the Empire and would only do this if your relationship was outstanding with the House Leader and the House as a whole.
For a Honor Challenge, the losing House Leader (or you as the proxy for your House) loses the amount of Power equal to double the Challenge Warscore. Thus, large-scale Honor Challenges have the ability to change the political landscape significantly even if the Holdings don't change!
We wanted to have this framework in the game for several reasons – first, we wanted to give positive relationships added value. Since you can be secure in the fact that friendly Houses won’t attack you, maintaining those positive relationships for a peaceful player can mean more. Now, that doesn’t mean that Houses who decide it’s time for direct action won’t try to decrease the relationship, but generally you’ll have plenty of time to see this coming since House Relationships don’t change quickly.
Another reason is that Houses are still part of your Empire, and with the reversal to a more feudal age even in the far future, combat and war would be more regulated after the second Xyl War. The last thing humanity wants is a ‘final war’ that leaves them open for the Xyl to finish them off, so combat and challenges have become highly ritualized. This means that you have clear goals as a player, while still maintaining some flexibility. For instance, if you wanted to attack a House that has been giving you trouble because they are pumping out warships at alarming levels, you can declare a Territory Challenge and try to take the planet that is their core ship facility. However, if you get into the Challenge and determine that you’d be facing a meat grinder, you can attack other Holdings they have and try to attain your WS goal some other way.
Players should have clearly defined, smaller goals. If you want to take a Province of another House, you can! It might be easier, however, to declare smaller HC’s to take systems first, since you will have to bid a lot to take an entire Province! (You will always be able to see a Province, System, and Planet WS at any time in Military Command Mode so you know what you will need)
Finally, we added the idea of Dishonorable Challenges because, hey, at the end of the day you’re Emperor and you can do what you want. We wanted to add the option of a sneak attack for players who don’t want to mess with lowering Relations with another House, waiting for a Challenge response, etc. However, know that this will change your game forever – even your Allies will probably reduce their Relationships with you down to Indifferent or worse, and your empire Fear level will be so high that you will probably be forced to rule as a tyrant for the rest of your game, or at least for a long time! You were warned…
Until next time, have a great week!
-Steve