Players belonging to different organizations

[Chris]

Space game in futuristic feudal society, there are several organizations, each player belongs to one (obligatory). Designed to work with 100-300 active players (probably for hardcore players only, but who knows...)

Organizations:
4 noble houses (military)
3 corporations/guilds (commerce)

The struggle is on 2 layers: military (houses) and commercial (guilds). Players of different layers do not compete. You have a military control of a planet, fine, someone else took the biggest market  share on it, it is not your problem and it does not concern you.  The same goes for guilds, you just make business, wars made by noble houses is of low interest to you (unless you can make a profit from it).
There are separate rankings for houses players and guild players. Players from other layers are never perceived as enemies or competition (but could be perceived as friends in some cases).

Players from the same house can not fight (some exceptions?). Players from the same guild can compete (they just have more deadly options available for competitors that are not from their guild).

Planets are the focus point of the game. These are "owned" by house players. Guild players can build their commercial facilities there. House players set taxes, these are paid by guild players on that planet. House player can give exempt from tax to any guild player.

Offices are the second focus point. These are again completely separated into house/guild player offices so no competition between layers. There are 3 types of offices:
- shared among all players (but 2 separate pools for houses & guilds)
- shared among players of the same house/guild (like "Head of the Noble House", "House Elder")
- given to whole organizations (like one house can earn "Imperial House" title if one of their members got elected to be an emperor)

Competition & interaction:
- players compete for the best score within their layer (houses/guilds), which is the ultimate goal of the game
- players compete within their house/guild for position and priviliges (it is best to be in small organization since the amount of these is equal to all houses/guilds but the competition is lower in smaller ones)
- players want their house/guild to be stronger than other organizations (it would give them some bonuses, maybe like top 10 players from a house add their fleet power to the common house orbital bonus), especially they would prefer someone from their house to hold a precious office than the other house (of course it would be better if they hold it themselves, but if you don't have what you like you like what you have...)
- players from other layers can support the other layer somehow (like tax, services, trade... need ideas here)
- maybe house could make an agreement with a guild, which would affect all players in both organizations?
- guild players collectively affect prices of military units that are paid by houses (if they collectively do good and have a lot of factories then houses pay less for the purchases (the money do not go to guilds, these are just price changes))
- from time to time there are alien invasions, houses try to stop these collectively. If failed then houses suffer minor penalties, but guilds suffer heavy penalties (so guilds will root for the houses success and would very eagely look for invasion news even though they could do absolutely nothing themselves )


Questions:
- where are the weak points in this design?
- ideas for more non competitive interaction between houses and guilds
- ideas for competitive interaction of houses/guilds within their layer
- maybe players should be allowed more than 1 account?
- and your other thoughts...

[dsheroh]

The struggle is on 2 layers: military (houses) and commercial (guilds). Players of different layers do not compete.

You say several times that there's no competition between nobles and merchants.  Does that mean that nobles are incapable of engaging in trade and merchants are incapable of engaging in combat?  If not, then they'll still be competing in those areas, even if not for control of planets or markets.

House players set taxes, these are paid by guild players on that planet.

If I'm correct in my interpretation that nobles can't engage in trade, then is there anything else they can use their tax revenues for aside from raising and maintaining fleets?

- players compete within their house/guild for position and priviliges (it is best to be in small organization since the amount of these is equal to all houses/guilds but the competition is lower in smaller ones)

Provided that there are benefits both to being in a large house/guild or a small one, is there any particular reason for having a fixed number of each instead of letting players form their own during play?

- maybe house could make an agreement with a guild, which would affect all players in both organizations?

This sounds like a good idea to me.  Houses sponsoring guilds, that sort of thing.  Maybe even exclusive trade agreements?  (Although you could effectively get the same effect by setting punishingly-high tax rates, then giving a major tax discount to a specific guild.)

- guild players collectively affect prices of military units that are paid by houses (if they collectively do good and have a lot of factories then houses pay less for the purchases (the money do not go to guilds, these are just price changes))

If nobles are able to set tax rates directly and give exemptions to specific merchants, then it seems that merchants should also be able to set prices directly and give discounts to specific nobles, which implies that the money from sales would go back to the merchant/guild who owns the factories.  Although that would in turn imply a need to model production costs so that you don't just get planets where the noble exempts a merchant from taxes and the merchant gives the noble as many free ships as he wants, which may end up turning the guild side of the game into something more complex than you're trying for.

- maybe players should be allowed more than 1 account?

Personally, I'd want to be able to participate in both types of play (indeed, my current project started out as a "space trader" game and my plans for it have grown to encompass planetary purchase or conquest), so I say yes, players should be able to have two accounts, one noble and one merchant.  You might even want to consider making that the default condition, with each account controlling two separate characters, one noble and one merchant.

The only real argument I see against allowing it is that a player would naturally have each of his accounts/characters give the other preferential treatment, but is that really any different than what would result if your best friend played the game?  In most cases, you'd be just as generous to each other anyhow.  Any design which would break if a player were allowed to control both a noble and a merchant would also break if a noble player and a merchant player were close friends.

[Chris]

You say several times that there's no competition between nobles and merchants.  Does that mean that nobles are incapable of engaging in trade and merchants are incapable of engaging in combat?  If not, then they'll still be competing in those areas, even if not for control of planets or markets.

"Trade" is a wrong word, change it to "exerting economical control over a planet", then it will be correct. Houses use combat to obtain military control, Guilds use merchant units to obtain economic control. I even wanted to use similar mechanics (but the Guilds conflict would be more gradual, more of them can coexist on the same planet while Houses conflict would be "all or nothing").

If nobles are able to set tax rates directly and give exemptions to specific merchants, then it seems that merchants should also be able to set prices directly and give discounts to specific nobles, which implies that the money from sales would go back to the merchant/guild who owns the factories.

No, I want to avoid a true economic model, because I do not know how many players would choose Guilds career. If there would be too few Guilds compared to Houses players it would break the system. These are basicly 2 different games (Houses & Guilds), which are mostly separated but there are some connections between them.

Provided that there are benefits both to being in a large house/guild or a small one, is there any particular reason for having a fixed number of each instead of letting players form their own during play?

Because I need them to be more or less the same size and this is simply impossible if players were to create them themselves. Houses are not alliances (I was even thinking about adding these), but more like classes. Each house will have certain traits (like warrior, thief, mage in RPGs) and collectively they will do some rare actions / get bonuses.
Yes... I think I will be forced to add factions inside houses, players will simply force me to do it

Personally, I'd want to be able to participate in both types of play

There might be more than 2 types of play if I made more distictions between Houses. You might require several accounts in such case to get the full experience of the game