Trans-Species Mating?

from Stardock Forums
in GalCiv, the concept of 'population' seems very abstract. It is just the number of registered taxpayers on your planet. But, I have one problem wwith this simple system: Species is not taken into account. The species of your population should matter very much. I mean, the backround of the Altarians says that they can control energy and matter to a limited degree with their minds, so why don't they get a building bonus? And the short-person race gets, say, -10% production on BIG projects? And then, there comes the title issue: Trans-Species Mating.

When you conquer a planet (say, in this case, a Torian one) the population is Torian. But you can move new (human) settlers in, or transferr the Torian settlers onto worlds already populated by humans. At some point, two of them are bound to mate, right?

I really just don't like having the word 'population' mean a number. I'd like there to be a graph ,a pie graph maybe, that shows the percentage of certain species making up a population. What do you peple think of all this?
284 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
Luke,

These are all good ideas, worthy of a true Jedi. But my impression is that the original design of this game was to keep things like this oversimplified on purpose. I think that they wanted to keep the player focused on the big, big picture, not these kind of details and also to keep the game accessable to casual players. Personally I'd love to see this kind of thing too, but (and I may be wrong) I just don't think they'd do it.

BTW, I like the way your mind works. Come join us in the Republic Empire, where you belong.

Oh yeah, I think a couple of us here are your father.
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top
Can of wyrms. Next thing, folks would be asking for atmospheric, gravity and temperature preferences, and there'd be headaches about how to handle mixed colonies. It'd be more realistic, sure, but would it hurt gameplay, or take too much time that could be spent on other things?
Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top
The only great thing about genocide is its simplicity. I agree with Twirlip. While some minor changes to add some depth seem nice, one needs to be careful, lest we end up with Galciv II: Son of MOO.
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
My first thought upon reading the title was that ANZAC had make breakthrough's in their Sheep-bombing techniqes... ;)

Im interested in the possibilities that Luke has proposed, and I have to admit that this particular thing bothered me as well. One of the few good things about Civ3 was the idea of citizenship- it might change over time, but opponents were still citizens of other empires. This is obviously harder with different species, but I would like it taken into account, especially on conquered planets- if you're fighting a war against their homeland and you're producing weapons there, well, they might attempt to slow it down. Alternatively, make the random events more intelligent- the probability of a terrorist attack should be higher on planets like this. Along these lines, when you choose to sacrifice people on a conquered planet (as part of some random event), it should have effects- it would be nice to incorporate more cause and effect play into the game..
Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top
Hm, gravity, temprerature, radiation level? Reminds me of Stars!, which is a different type of game entirely...
...and in fact is dealt with in a sideways fashion through PQ (of course, this means all aliens prefer the same type of worlds, but if they didn't, the whole 'get best planets, not most' wouldn't apply.)

If you take a look at that game, you'll see why it works for them, but you'll also get the impression that it would needlessly complicates things here...

Much like populations. If you had seperate entries for different races, you'd end up with a whole slew of mixed bonuses from taking over certain alien's planets. And then they'd have to keep track of seperate birth rates - which, logically, is also different per alien. And of course you'd have to wonder about the alignment of a people, and perhaps they could defect, or rebel... It would lead to another element of the game, perhaps where you give a planet to someone and they can populate it with their people, and then you take it back, repeat with other aliens. But then that would mean that giving away a world would mean you have to transfer all your people to your own planets...

Details aren't always good...it's a nice idea, but even in Civ3 the population never gets mixed amounts of people...and then you'd have the whole culture thing. Taking a look at Star Wars, aliens intermingle freely to create a (basically) unified planet economy/production. Just because they're aliens doesn't mean we all just can't get along...

...unless you want to perform genocide of course. And the logistics of doing that when planets start getting mixed populations would be horrible.

:notsure:

~SDC~
Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top
My first thought upon reading the title was that ANZAC had make breakthrough's in their Sheep-bombing techniqes...
End of quote


Little do you know....... ;)

I tend to agree with those above who argue for simplicity. Luke is obviously arguing for a MOO-type species attribute, but I think these things are dealt with in the 10 points you get to spend on this up front. This is why you are ALWAYS the Terrans although you can MAKE them into your personal equivalent of builders, diplomats, espionage agents, etc. by careful use of political party and 10-point spread. It's just GalCivs easier (in a coding sense) answer to this issue.

And Luke....I am your father....