Basically I would really enjoy a faction of Revolutionaries that’s trying to overthrow empires and assert itself. But how would that work in a 4X game? My ideas:
First of all, it would not make for them to start as just one of the empires, that defeats the purpose. They should function akin to the Umbral Choir in such they spread their influence and incite revolts but without the hacking mechanics (because I hate the hacking mechanics and I always play with that DLC turned off) Since all players start away from each other, and we wouldn’t want any one player to be basically screwed over by having a revolutionary faction on them from turn 1, the faction could either start as an uprising in a minor faction’s system, in an outpost like the Umbral Choir, a ship like the Vaulters OR (the most interesting option) there could be something like a „Fallen Empire”. Basically an Academy-like bot that’s more powerful then all others at the start but doesn’t evolve and is not overly expansionist, and the faction can start by overthrowing them. Then they would move on to other players and/or minor civilisations. But how would those revolts work?
My idea is that they could employ „civilian ships” similarly to how Vaulters can cloak their ships as „pirates”. Of course, this would need to be balanced, so all Empires should gain the ability to search civilian ships. But to make this balanced too, there should be a penalty for searches that find nothing, something like a temporary approval penalty. This is where my other idea comes in: the ability of this empire to perform revolutions would be tied to approval rating. So low approval ratings would enable greater and greater actions. However, depending on difficulty, by end game a lot of players can keep a permanent „ecstatic” level of approval on all systems. To combat this, a suite of ways to lower approval should be introduced, tied in to the „civilian” ships mechanic. The revolution itself, depending on the level of approval, could range from soemthing akin to the default revolt that just spawns a couple pirate ships, through an internal guerilla planetary invasion, to taking over the system in one turn. How to balance this??
Well, this faction, by virtue of being revolutionaries and not empire builders should get penalties to dust, industry and military. Perhaps disabling the chain-gang improvement, and giving them an alternative technology tree that does not focus on corporations and private industry, but rather on collective improvements. This could be counterbalanced by a much higher default colonisation cap, since the systems after a revolution are only „liberated” not integrated into a larger imperial structure. This faction should also have the ability to perform raids and loot enemy planets without patented invasions, say as an action that grounds a given fleet for 2-3 turns and gives moderate rewards.
Also, in order to preserve the ~Vibe~ of the faction I would introduce reskins of the already existing mechanics. For example, the government types could be called „One-Party” and „Mass-Line” instead of „Dictatorship” and „Democracy” (while being functionally the same). Same goes for „confederations of workers” instead of „companies” or „Collective Partnership” technology instead of „Public-Private Partnerships” technology.
Amplitude will probably never make this, as it infringes as little on the territory of the Umbral Choir (then again same goes for the Vaulters infringing on the Sophons), it is a bit too political and a faction like this would walk the fine line between being Insanely Overpowered and Entirely Irrelevant. It would also be very dependent on RNG in the early game, but that’s realistic as far as revolutions go (although not necessarily fun).
Let me know your thoughts on it and how it could function, or is it even possible to get such a function running (since it kinda goes against the 4X ideal).
PS: I realise this is kind of political, and I will not shy away from this aspect with my own politics, but please keep it civil.
