2022-01-13 FYI

[Vivalas]

Here’s a thought that could be explored.

Avatars accumulate points based on online time. 

Some large number of those points could be spent to establish a new empire. 

The game could start up with two to five existing empires that always allow new players to join.

This gives me an idea.

Concept: NPC Empires inside "Civilized Region of Protected Space
Goal: Give new non-emperor avatars a place to adventure, give empires a safe meeting ground, provide a bit of lore and populate the universe.

...

I really like this system as well. I don't think "mutual terms" would spawn very many interesting wars, however, so perhaps on the more "complicated and less likely to fit into Haxus' vision" end, some sort of basic "casus belli" system (I know I keep drawing from Paradox games) could be implemented. That is, war must have some sort of legal grounds (whether you denounce which gives, say, a week-long period to prepare) and war is limited to the conquest of a few systems per war rather than complete and total destruction (in semi-civil space). I don't think mutual war agreement would be very common, but at least having some legal framework for war would make sense under the whole "governed by NPC powers" rule while still allowing for regular conflict and PvP, which is a large portion of SoH's nature.

Some sample CBs could be:
"Border Friction" (settling a system too close to another empire, who gets to choose this CB, NOT the person settling the system)

"Total War" (you get to use this with a shorter warm up period than denouncing, and with the ability to take more systems, but EVERYONE else gets the opportunity to join the defender.

"Denounce" (you get to attack after a determined time, and the war is limited to the accumulation of certain amounts of war score or conquest, to prevent total KOs



These are just some ideas, but the goal of a system would be to prolong conflicts and political drama to more than just quick extinction of the losing side and will provide a more rich ingame history and lore more akin to the complex and more "civilized" limited conflicts of European history. Someone on the discord brought up sec levels akin to Eve, and I think Phoenix's  suggestion fits well there. Similarly someone else mentioned that if wars lasted longer, people would have a chance to intervene and perhaps come to the aid of the defender before they're totally wiped, if say, some galactic bully is running around being a warmonger. This also prolongs the universe and presents some checks against one empire snowballing and taking over, while still allowing more conflict on the outer "frontier" sector. I would also add, perhaps, that maybe this full PvP space has greater quality resources, to compensate for the extra risk of settling in this area.