Insectoids

Picky, pick, picky ...

Actually I was thinking the same thing, that a hive mind doesn't have elections, etc. But I don't know if changing it would upset the game balance too much.

It would be super awesome if appropriately changed

well the hive mind could alow certain freedoms such as fashions to its individuals since evolutionary speaking it would be bad to evole a system in which one mind thinks about evrey little detail for billions of people, it would make any mind go completely insane the individuals have to be able to make some sort of choices though it would probably be just simple ones like fashion, also if the hive mind just said "eveyone wear the same thing" it wouldnt have to think too much on that. another thing is that it could have one mind but different ideas and different pertsonalities within that one mind that like different ideas thus there is the election process when it decides what idea it likes the most and goes with that

bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz we are the Thalan we lovezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Frictionelezzzzzzzzzzzz Clothezzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!!!!

You're justifying the current implementation of a hive mind by giving that concept human attributes. Fashion is a social function and is irrelevent for a being who doesn't even understand the concept of friends and family full stop. I can see where clothing _might_ fit in - but only as regards protection from hostile environments (battle, factories, etc). Then again hive insects rely on numbers for many tasks, so losses due to environmental factors may not be important.

Anyway this is kinda off track. My point is GalCivII could set itself apart from... um... other stuffs... by implementing distinct styles of play depending on which race the player is using. But I think it might be too late for that!

But they are insects and have an outer skeleton, it's not a hive mind thing - they just don't need clothing.

Well, I think it's safe to say that our Thalan friends might have access to a *limited* collective consciousness rather than a true "hive mind." Perhaps they can share experiences via direct contact a la Heinlein's "Puppet Masters." Or maybe it's more like StarCraft's Zerg, where each planet in the "Hive" is run by its own "queen" with some form of independent identity (that would explain elections and morale issues.)

Honestly, the only true "hive mind" I've seen that came close to holding water is the Tyranid race in WH40K, and that's because their collective consciousness extends through the psychic medium of warpspace. GC doesn't allow for "dimensions of thought" or similar constructs, to my knowledge, so actually maintaining a unified intelligence across the interstellar void would be absolutely impossible.

I think that the solution would be to have different tech trees for each race or for some of the races, or maybe some techs for particular types of races. Instead of frictioneless clothes for thalan, maybe Hive Mastership or some wierd tech that would be the equivalent of frictionless clothing.

Seperate techs for the races makes sense, except then the Thalan have noone completing with them for their trade good. Possibly made up for by the fact that noone else would be interested in it, but I'm not sure of that.

They could have some special techs such as behive manipulation for Population control (create a galactic wonder that helps your civ to avoid cultural flipping) it is an example.

How about custom races? I'm the Umbreal Sentience. The Sentience is a purely Artificial Inteligence. It has robot drones to do the grunt work. Similar to the Yor. How does that affect the tech tree and trade goods?

I've noticed that the example of "frictionless clothing" has be put forth as some barrie to races that don't need clothes. But with frictionless clothing, the emphasis is on FRICTIONLESS. The Thalans don't wear it for the warmth, but for the lack of friction.