This is a fantastic idea. Still doesn't solve the 1 scout defense problem, but does somewhat address the player inequality problem.
It does, somewhat. Eliminate scout defense entirely, and small powers will still have a strong chance in war.
But we need to admit something. There are huge empires. They can AND SHOULD be able to destroy small powers without overwhelming effort. Probably, any even reasonably fair system will result in big powers having a BIGGER advantage than presently.
The advantage we want to remove is the advantage of ACTIVITY. Just because you can devote hours of time to building scouts on each planet shouldn't mean you always get to win. What is needed is a passive defense improvement that reduces the burden of activity, and simultaneously relatively strengthens smaller powers enough to compensate them for the lost "playtime-per-planet" advantage.
Two things in combination could do this:
1. Aforementioned empire size-capitulation ratio
2. "Waste": bigger empires have rising upkeep costs for upgrades. A new player might pay 20% of GDP for an upgrade. A player the size of uranus might pay 30%. Across the whole empire, applied to every upgrade, this could have huge effects on the long-term warmaking capabilities of big empires. Similar efficiency penalties could be levied on production of resources.
Between these two, small empires would have relative production and conquest advantages.
They will still lose if attacked by a huge empire. This is as it should be. We should not create a game where your success in expansion yields no advantages. What is different is that passive defense will be better for small empires than big ones, and active defenses will have to be more focused on specific, strategic planets rather than dispersed to every planet. Simultaneously, small empires will be relatively more efficient: if 10 allies could costlessly coordinate their strategies, they would have an advantage over an empire equal in size to their combined size.
Penalizing empire size promotes alliances and diplomacy at the expense of infinite expansion. This in turn promotes RP, involvement, and communication. This builds a game community. But it will NECESSITATE a message system that isn't completely !@#$ty.
