Tag Archives: Diplomacy

BB73 – New Eden Diplomacy

This month’s blog banter, #73 in the series, asks:

So soon(tm) we will have Eve Online, Valkyrie, Gunjack and the as yet untitled FPS to replace DUST514/Project Legion. Are we missing anything else? Are then any other games CCP should be looking into? Colony building simulators in the style of Sim City or Rimworld. Should it be on a grander scale link Civilisation or Stronghold Kingdoms. How about RTS games ala Command and Conquer. Survival games such as Rust? Planet based combat like World of Tanks? Would you like to see other game types expanding the Eve Universe or should CCP stick to what it knows?

Well, given the popularity of the past week’s events, I am going to have to go with a strategic title, something of a New Eden version of Diplomacy.

Who gets stuck with Feythabolis... I mean Turkey?

Who gets stuck with Feythabolis… I mean Turkey?

(Diplomacy board and screen shot likely the property of somebody somewhere.)

I wouldn’t/couldn’t/shouldn’t condone a direct knock-off of the game, but there are clearly aspects that one could borrow, especially the simultaneous movement and the diplomacy phase.

The game should be focused on the strategic aspect of the game, which necessarily means a top down strategic map.  Maybe they could get Rixx to put together a nice strategic map for the game.

New Eden done Rixx Javix style

New Eden done Rixx Javix style

New Eden is broken up into its various spheres, and the game should try to somehow incorporate all of them, including high sec, low sec, null sec, wormhole space, and that bit where the Jovians live… because Jovians!

Hat tip to Rhavas...

Hat tip to Rhavas…

In my vision a multiplayer game… with maybe six players total… would start with each of them getting a null sec region worth some amount of resources.  I would try to keep resources simple, with maybe some way to improve yield via infrastructure, but nothing more complicated than in, say, Civilization II.  Jump bridges for roads, other enhancements for improving mining yield or keeping down the local pirate factions.

From there players can expand their null sec holdings… I might actually chop things down into constellations within regions as the level of play… until they come in contact with low sec space.  From there they can influence low sec to their will, something of a reverse on faction warfare, to be able to use that space as a connection to high sec.

Connecting to high sec grants an economic boon that allows greater expansion.  But, in a twist, your foes connecting to high sec also boost high sec output overall.  So you want your foes to have access, but you want more access through more and more secure low sec avenues.

Wormholes should have a technology threshold, after which you can exploit them for resources or use them as temporary access to other regions, including high sec.

And then there is high sec space, the NPC empires.  I don’t think they should be conquerable, so maybe just a level of influence over them that affects your economic relationship.

Finally, there is the victory condition.  I wouldn’t want to make outright conquest a requirement, or even possible.  You might be able to eliminate a couple players along the way, but over-extending yourself ought to come with consequences or infrastructure costs.

And I like the Civilization V idea of having multiple victory conditions.  So maybe a conquest based one where a player wins if they control a given number of resource generation points in null sec, as in Diplomacy.  Then an economic influence victory where you end up with one of the NPC empires aligning with you.  A surrender option where you get/force your player foes to support your reign.  And perhaps some sort of technological possibility that brings in the Jovians on your side.  Can’t forget about the Jovians after I used that picture.

So that is my general, broad strokes idea for a strategic/diplomatic game based in New Eden.   I’m not sure if the starting empires ought to have fixed names with special attributes or not.  What would you do to distinguish Band of Brothers, Ascendant Frontiers, Goonswarm, Pandemic Legion, Solar Fleet, -A-, CVA, or whatever current or historic groups you might want to represent?  Plus, you should be able to roll your own alliance.

Finally, the whole things should be multiplayer, obviously, with a chat interface that lets you have individual, group, and game-wide conversations. Seems that CCP might be able to manage that by taking chat straight from EVE Online.  It also should have some sort of AI player support and allow 4-10 players.  Then it should be on Steam and cost $29.99 at launch, $17.50 at the first Steam Summer Sale, and $19.99 there after.

And, if I really want to ask for the world, it ought to have an in-game client so you can play it while in a fleet in EVE Online for a truly meta experience.

That is what I’ve got.  The details are left as an exercise for the reader… like a title.  What should the game be called?

Others have answered the question as well.  You can find them at the Blog Banter 73 page or linked below as I see their posts.