Play Style Paradigms

As with all 4x games, FATES: Carpe Moerae will support the orthodox military strategy of domination by raw force, however I want to address in more detail some of the other play style paradigms that FATES: Carpe Moerae will be designed to support.  In many 4x games , the non-military paradigms are often papered over and released with little strategic depth, and this is an area where FATES: Carpe Moerae is being designed to shine.

The first paradigm that FATES will be designed to support is the economic powerhouse player.

This empire will be the financier of the galaxy and will be first and foremost marked by excellent management of their fiat currency to be the most valuable fiat currency in the galaxy.  A single unit of this player's currency will buy hundreds to thousands of other player's money, allowing them to finance wars and buy and sell favors for pennies on the dollar.  This paradigm will also be marked by extensive trading of resources and other player's sovereign bonds in order to create and retain leverage over every other major power player in the galaxy.  The support of this player will mean a sure path to victory for their allies or minions and ample resources for waging galaxy spanning wars.  However, following a purely economic power broker paradigm will force reliance on others for raw security where economic leverage alone fails.  This paradigm will be well integrated into the galactic system, possessed of immense resource storage and shipping capacity, and well-ingrained into the political wrangling in the galaxy.  These players will be the Rothschild family of the galaxy, always in the backdrop pulling strings and financing allies and enemies alike to achieve their own or their federation's ends.

The next paradigm that FATES will be designed to support is the Mr. Universe player.

This paradigm will be marked by extensive intelligence capabilities allowing this player to be the closest thing to omniscience that will exist in the galaxy.  This player will know everything that goes on.  All of the backroom deals, troop deployments, fleet movements, dossiers on every governor, admiral, and player in the galaxy, and a myriad of other useful and salable information.  The juiciest bits and bytes of galactic gossip will be available for the right price.  However, this paradigm will go well beyond simply information.  Need an admiral assassinated just prior to a crucial battle?  A somnambulant public awoken to rebel against the newly minted tyrannical image?  Sabotaging that pesky hypergate ferrying your enemy's armadas to your front door?  The legion of agents at this player's disposal will make all of these actions possible to well-financed buyers.  The line between shadow and truth will be adroitly walked and yield profitable returns for elegant and silent solutions to pesky problems.  This player can either run completely independent of any federation, working for the highest bidder, or operate as the intelligence arm of a galaxy-spanning federation.

The third paradigm that FATES is being designed to support is the cultural power player.

This player will be focused on enhancing cultural influence in the galaxy by means of political sway with nearby star systems.  The culture player will be hallmarked by cultural relics and treasures that are the envy of the galaxy's civilized population.  When other empire's fail to meet their populace' expectation of leadership, this player is ready to fill the lives of those lost souls with cultural meaning and galactic significance.  The cultural power player will acquire new planets by leveraging the discord of nearby enemies and allies systems; and when secessionist movements arise, they are the next most significant influential empire and welcome the new people with open arms and competent political leadership.  The culture player will still need to focus on self defense, or rely on a federation for defense, but they will remain mostly neutral in nearby wars, seeking only to pickup the pieces left after conflicts.  This player can either be a solo pacifist, seeking only to make their own way in the galaxy or a member of a federation serving as a buffer zone to acquire malcontent enemy worlds that secede due to nearby federation conflicts.

The final play style paradigm that FATES will support is the technological player.

This style of play will revolve around copious numbers of research facilities and personnel.  The technological player will advance in the sciences quickly, creating new ways to leverage high technology solutions to social problems and galactic conflicts.  The technological player will seek to be years ahead of competition technically, both in civic and warfare technologies.  Presently, technology transfer is going to be limited, but the technology player will be able to trade away already produced advanced ships and planets for use by allies.  This will allow the technology player to maintain technical dominance and still supply advanced technology to friends, allies, and minions in order to maintain technical leverage to affect outcomes in their or their federation's favor.

In all likelihood though, players will not cleanly fall into one category or another but the paradigms that are described here are extreme cases that FATES is being designed to support.  Players will very likely employ a wide variety of paradigms with several more focused than others.  There have been other paradigms tossed around in various discussions, but these four are the primary ones that are clearly defined right now.

Hopefully, you can see yourself in one or more of these paradigms and think in relation to the others, as each of these paradigms will be necessary for a federation to succeed in FATES: Carpe Moerae.

Until next time.

á na márië,
gumshoe, out