The premise I’ve been intrigued by is the possibility of luring the Hunters/Wardens to a decoy threat, thus allowing the player to attack a prime target
Two avenues (mutually inclusive) to do this: Real threat (e.g. Mercs) and fake threat (e.g. Ghost Fleet)
1)Real Threat (Mercenaries): Classic’s method of doing mercs will be present (perhaps with a new name), but Chris brought up a new version of this concept. In essence, this method consists of signaling a mercenary outfit lead by a capital ship to some planet via the operations tab in the sidebar. In effect, this generates real threat that the AI must contend with, allowing the player strategical choices (e.g. helping the mercs or attacking a different planet)
The relevant issue is resource management. I’m personally not a fan of using hacking or science for this, hacking because of my proposed “ghost fleet” and science because knowledge doesn’t seem to be appropriate as a resource that motivates mercenaries helping the player out. Money does. However, there is a good argument that a basic tech upgrade (e.g. a “transceiver”) would be necessary to be able to call the mercs to a given planet.
So we have the issue that metal by itself is already designated for the classic version of mercs. What I propose is to repurpose planetary controllers as the Merc HQ. To fund them, the player would need to partition metal harvesters/energy collectors to the HQ, thus reducing the player’s income at the planet(s) where HQ’s are setup. The player can allocate how much of these to give to the HQ and can reappropriate them at any time. Once certain thresholds are met, the player can call in a fleet at a planet (given certain scouting and/or tech requisites are met)
2) Fake threat (Ghost Fleet): Primarily accomplished by hacking. This mechanic would in effect alert the AI on the planet of the hack that a sizeable cloaked “ghost fleet” is preparing a massive assault. While the hack is ongoing (and potentially for a time afterwards) the AI will treat this as real threat and respond in kind—luring the Warden/Hunters.
I’m thrilled about this idea because it is both thematically and mechanically addresses the main premise of AI Wars—humanity must be cunning and exploit the fact that their antagonist is an AI opponent.
Naturally, this would be accomplished by spending hacking points, probably scaling with how severe the ghost fleet purports to be and the frequency of using this tactic (The AI would catch on to this over time)
