Given the success of my last idea I think I'll dare to bring up another!
Currently in Galactic Civilizations it appears that you, when you invade a planet and conquer it successfully, simply eradicate the population down to last man and your soldiers become the appropriate colonists. Although it doesn't technically state that you've wiped them all out the way your remaining number of soldiers suddenly vanish and are replaced by surviving colonists of the exact same number heavily implies it.
This is certainly one way to do things but is, currently, the only way. I think this is bad when it opens up such a wonderfully large realm of possibilities while adding very little 'work' to the game as far as the player is concerned.
I think it would be interesting if, once a planet has been successfully pacified (that is, the number of your soldiers considerably outnumbers the native survivors), you could choose to allow them to live. This is something I could see the Terrans doing rather often, the Altarians, the Torians, the list goes on.
Moreover, Galactic Civilizations already has a precedent for this distinction: The very root of the Drengin versus Korath conflict. That is, slavery versus extermination.
Give us that choice.
Doing so would allow endless new possibilities. To list a few: Putting other racial bonuses to use (Terrans fielding Drengin Shock Troopers? Yes please!), the idea of assimilating aliens into your culture (perhaps the speed is governed by your cultural influence and other factors), possible rebellions should unassimilated native populations grow too large, an additional means of building and reinforcing Ideology (extermination, slavery, freedom), opening up the ability to liberate conquered populations of allies (for a MAJOR relationship boost since you could have just taken the planet), and the list goes on. That was just off the top of my head.
One more that I think I should mention is also quite possibly the biggest: The satisfaction of the players being able to do as they please with their defeated foes. Whether they want the sweet taste of vaporizing Drengin families for daring to start or war or maybe find great pleasure in bringing the Altarians under heel, they get to choose. No ambiguity.
I feel as though this approach works very well on two of the biggest fronts: It complements existing game mechanics by making a relatively small one and strongly complements existing canon, bringing more of the world of Galactic Civilizations from words to life in the actual game.
I'd certainly have no shortage of fun with this.
This has been wanted for a very long time by a large number of people,. hopefully they do it.
I just want to be able to liberate a previously-conquered world and return it to its rightful owners for a diplomacy bonus. That would be cool.
Or maybe that ultra-rich civilization (who you've totally been sucking up to) is suddenly assaulted by a major military power, opening up the potential for you to swoop in and return any invaded planets as necessary in order to build up the favor you couldn't get before? I bet they'll be a lot more receptive to your Trade Treaty once you've liberated a couple billion of their citizens a handful of planets.
I mean, I would be.
That would be an interesting idea...
-Allow the remaining populous to join your citizenry - +10 Benevolent and Population bonus (remaining troops + 25% planet population upon invasion)
-Enslave the remaining colonists - +10 Pragmatic and Production Bonus for the planet
-Exterminate the existing populous - +10 malevolence
Every time you settle a planet you get these choices. Why not have these choices upon invading a planet (or varients)?
agree
agree strongly
That right there is a perfect example of an incredibly easy way to implement that. And you did that entirely off-hand.
So let's work on that more, focusing on the middle two.
I'd love to see the ability to actually have multiple populations on a single planet: Such as the invader and the invadee, so to speak. So for instance, let's say you conquer a planet and they surrender with 25% of their population remaining. Fold that into the total population of the planet.
Now you've got your three choices, as Parrotmath outlined, and what to do. Bring them into your citizenry (probably takes time, as I mentioned), enslave them (maybe they can't be taxed or research but, as Parrotmath also brought up, contribute directly to production in a BIG way?), or simply eradicate them to eliminate the complexity of losing taxable, researchable population or having to worry about social issues from integration, and the universal issue of rebellion.
Boom. You just brought Galactic Civilizations 3 that much more to life in a big way for comparatively little effort in the grand scheme of this game.
All that sounds so complicated. My only real thoughts are why in GalCiv2 did I invade a planet with 8 billion people and when I'm done they have 1 billion. Did I really kill that many? I don't need math formulas or psychoanalysis on the subject. I simply wanted to know where all the people went after I invaded? I didn't kill them ALL did I?
That one always got me. Hell if I bring troops to a planet that is already ready to turn to my side, shouldn't I simply be able to arrest the planet and annex it sooner based on some monetary cost? Putin did it in Crimea, why can't I?
Well, really, all this actually adds to the game is the following:
Three options after you successfully conquer a planet. One population pool per species on a planet.
How much more complex it gets than that is up for debate. I like my TBS 4X gameplay to be very big picture--the less minutiae the better.
However, I feel like this is the very sort of big picture decision I'd like control over.
It also adds a fun layer of "Well I'd love to bring them into my population but they're robots." when you conquer people you can't assimilate or can't enslave, removing the option that you might actually use a lot. So much you could do here and it seems like a massive missed opportunity.
I don't think adding a layer of sub-populations would be a good idea. Add to fun, maybe... add to complexity, yes. The gameplay of Gal Civ has largely been on abstraction and not the details. Try to hard to force the details into the game and you begin to write another TBS altogether. I have no problem believing my population consists of a variety of intellectual beings / slaves of other cultures. But I don't think I need to know that 40% of this planet is Torian, because how does this play in the role of space emperor?
Will I have edicts to remove this populous?
Will I be able to expand this particular populous through inter species genetic manipulation?
Will I have to manage the unrest of the Torians when I'm at war with their friends?
What happens when my selected race becomes a severe minority in the population, will I lose control of my space empire due to the lack of support of the people?
If we do add these controls, won't this begin to dominate what I have to do in the game as I get 20-40 planets? Not to mention the 100's of planets of the enemy.
We have to recall that Brad has suggested that he would like to see 100 major civilizations on a map. Does that mean my population on a planet could be divided into 100+ different species to represent each population? Then it is feasible to have a planet where there is 10 billion people, and each race is represented as .1 billion. Or do we also include the minor sub-races that will be in the game, I could forsee another 200 of these individuals. Leave a population dynamic of 300 sub-divisions.
I like the idea, but it doesn't scale well with the game. Not tedious in the beginning, but in the end it is too much to worry about.
The simple control of picking what to do with the populous after combat may also get annoying, but I think it is better than nothing. I would rather see a diplomatic option for War. Go to war yes, but you can also threaten them further... (Choose how you will fight this war. Give a response to the enemy, in other words you select the option at the beginning of the war and you can't change it, until your war status changes with that civilization)
Surrender to me or I will exterminate the rest of your species." Leaving you no option when you invade, but you eradicate the population each and every time. (No war unrest penalty when settling a new planet)
For the benevolent action, "I only fight you because you make me. I will not visit any more cruelty to your species than necessary. Please consider peace." Always set the citizens free. (Population bonus on each conquered world)
For the pragmatic action, "Let loose the dogs of war. I shall reap what you have sewn." Enslave the citizenry when invading. (Production / Research / Wealth bonus on the conquered world for 10 turns). Production... slave labor. Research... species experiments, you have a lot more "willing" applicants. Wealth... Taxes on the sales of new household automated tools.
All of that is an excellent point. This could get crazy fast depending on how deep you go with it. That very possibility is why I mentioned that you would need to make the decision very carefully as to how far you let it go.
Features in games, especially ones like this, are a delicate balancing act of work required and the gain.
Honestly, I think the ideal for me would be something like this.
You conquer a planet and make your decision. If you integrate them it takes time for the populace to assimilate, at which point they share the sentiments of any of your other citizens--for the most part. If you enslave them they don't contribute to wealth or research of a planet but contribute far more than normal to production. If you eradicate them, well, that speaks for itself.
The next, and only other, feature I think would be a neat would be the potential for species-based uprisings should morale get too low. This gives incentive to keep your morale extra high should you be big on conquering other species and bringing them into your empire. Slaves will revolt and fight en masse, assimilated species will not (representing those few not truly comfortable with living under your flag).
I think something like that is great. You don't need to worry about the minutiae, I know I wouldn't want to. But it does add value to other aspects of the game (such as morale, as I just outlined) on top of the expanded diplomatic potential. At most it's a multiple choice question and remembering "Oh that's right I have a bunch of pissed off Drengin slaves here so I should make sure the general populace stays happy and can keep them down."
Simply having a record of there being a considerable alien population would suffice, honestly, in order to provide the aforementioned "You liberated our people and now we love you long time" sort of situations.
See what I mean?
I wouldn't want to worry about the actual intricacies that would be involved in something like that while playing a game with 50 planets. Because you're right, it should scale well and that's what I love about Galactic Civilizations as a franchise. I'm not playing a general, commanding battles. I'm not playing a governor, designing cities on each colony world.
I'm the leader of a galaxy-spanning civilization who's working with biggest of big pictures.
You said it very well, it must scale well.
Parrot, you have a point, but there are much simpler ways to do this than keeping track of every single population.
For instance:
Every planet in addition to having an owner has a "native species" tag. When you colonize a planet you get tagged as natives. When you conquer a planet, its new population is split between the owner species and the native species. As the planet grows, the owner species will see more growth than the native species, and if the owner goes over 50% they become the natives. That way you are only dealing with a maximum of 2 species on a planet.
This also opens up a slew of possibilities:
-Bonuses for invading planets where you are the native species
-Sending colony ships to conquered planets to establish yourself as native
-Diplomacy bonuses for gifting a planet to it's native species.
-Taking a bunch of planets under your control that have the same native species and granting them their independence.
-If civ of native species is at war with owner, reduced effectiveness when defending against invasion.
-Trade bonuses between planets you control and the civ of their native species.
-etc.
I live this idea (in general, not necessarily exactly as I just outlined it), though I think maybe it's better suited for an expansion than the base game.
I like the way in which existence of multiple nations in single city is done in Civilization 4. However, population there isn't used in battle and there is only one specie in that game. Taking into consideration all possible species (major and minor combined could easily number hundreds) and their cultural/political affiliation (also possibly in hundreds, one for each player) would easily make number of subpopulations on each planet in excess of 10.000 which is ridiculous.Using only division by species would negate the possibility of members of one specie living on foreign planet affiliating themselves politically with the planet owners' specie governmnet.
Using only native and owner tags is not enough, I think, because what if the planet is counquered over and over by 5 different players?
Idea is interesting and it would be nice if someone could think od scalable, simple to use and plausible system, but maybe that is too much to ask.
I think it can't be meaningfully done without at least diving the population into subpopulations of species. Then they could be assigned status by each player for his empire, for example if I am A and I assing status to species A, B, C, D, etc. in several tiers:1. Free - free and full citizens of the state (the state could still be feudal or monarchy for example, but the members of this tier would be the most priviliged in the state)
2. Underprivileged - free but without all the rights, no say in politics etc.
3. Slaves - used for forced labor, food, whatever the empire wants
4. Targeted for extermination - killed on sight
Default status could be locked 1. for player species and changeable 2. for all the rest.
Every specie could also have a global standing towards each player distinct from player to player diplomatic status in several tiers:1. Loyal
2. Opposed
3. In open rebellionI don't think any of this would significantly add to the depth of the game in the present from of the game but it would make it feel more real which may not be too important. The main problem I see is that you could always exterminate everyone (if you are not concerned with ideology and diplomatic status) and just wait a few turn for your people to overcrowd the planet because population growth in this game is ridiculous (sometimes billions in one turn). It would be necessary to make bonuses of having slaves or free citizens from another specie significantly more useful than just waiting a few turns to repopulate with your loyal citizens.The bonuses could be access to special abilites or techs of that race (you can colonize aquatic planets easily with your loyal minor race sea monkeys but not with humans), diplomatic bonuses, manufacturing, culture, influnce, but IMHO they would have to be significant enough not to be easily dismissed.Also if something like this is implemented, it would make sense to implement migration as a result of overcrowding and/or cultural/economical superiority, mixing of populations due to trade routes etc.
I can envision the game dividing things up into two categories, my species, other species. This has enough abstraction to provide the necessary ability to control the situation and allow it to scale better. But I'm not sure if that is meaningful enough to get at the dynamics you want in the game. Really the effect you want to see in the game is more supporters / non-supporters, an element of unrest. Just because you are not my species doesn't mean you dis-agree with what I'm doing. But, this is already done under the guise of cultural production (See project "Culling")
Basically the game play element wanting to be added is an RPG element. Should Galactic Civilization 3 go into this direction of game play? Should Gal Civ 3 be so immersive that you feel you are actually the leader of the empire you will make?
If this is so, then to accomplish this correctly, it must fold into the game. In order to keep the immersion, we need to ensure that other aspects of the game do not break this immersion.
In part, I think the element needing to be seen is the unrest of each planet. Thus, we see the unrest go down as culture production goes up, as the citizens become more indoctrinated with your galactic culture / galactic civilization so to speak.
And also if it could happen that you can keep a part (let's say 25%) of planet population upon successful invasion, it would make no sense that the invasion is a fight to death.
For example, it could happen that you attack with 10B troops a planet defending with 20B population. It could happen that you could lose a close battle and be left with 0B troops while the planet is left with 1B population, but if you had just a little bit more luck you would win and be left with 1B troops and 5B of conquered defenders. That means that if you're more successful in killing the defenders they end up with 4B less casualties which makes no sense.The fights to the death would have to be replaced with something else for this to make any sense if immersion is what it is aimed at here.
When you attack a planet, you could have different invasion tactics, then you have different occupation options; annexation, enslavement, vassaling, setting up a puppet government, genocide, etc.
Its so easy and simple, tons of 4X4 games have implemented a variety of strategies here.
I can't imagine Stardock failing to innovate over GalCiv II here.
I think the understanding I have with a planet population of 20B is that all the people in that planet are not fighters, they only fight if pressed to do so. A person has a lot of courage, if they can be inspired by the right person, but if you are successful in killing the right people, then it would make perfect sense that these other non-fighters would give up and surrender.
When recruiting for an invasion force, I'm assuming these people are receive extra training and learn combat directly. Hence, all become hardened soldiers in the process.
isn't the way that birth rates are explained that your population is simply the amount of people on the planet following your government? Basically a planet has much more population then "your" population. So when you invade, you simply remove people following the enemies government (and probably a good chunk of neutral population)., but not the entire population.
Also propaganda warfware was the galciv2 way to "spare" your enemy, its likely there will be at least one similar invasion method in galciv3. With abit of luck some invasion methods could be tied to ideology.
In GalCiv2 you pretty much did that. When you invade, your troops (1000, e.g.) fight VS the planet population (8000, e.g.) you the corresponding bonuses and if your troops had the largest bonus, the planet is conquered, if not, the remaining population is proportional to the bonuses after the fight.
Just one question here. What about cultural/influence conquest? You actually conquer a planet, just not by militaristic means, right? what does happen with all that population? If I'm not mistaken the population was reduced to a fraction (more or less about the size of a colony ship at the beginning). And since they "surrender" pacifically you don't have unrest (it would be weird to have unrest). Also, you will have a planet full of, let say, Terrans, since you didn't kill any single of them. What uses do they have to the Yor those meatballs? Slaves? That would break the idea of cultural domination because, you see, I didn't wish to join you to become a slave so I rebel, again, or (the conqueror) I didn't want your planet if that means to deal with rebels, unrest, special cares and what not.
In this regard, if you put especial care to military conquest you also need to balance cultural conquest. Both of them are a type of conquest and both of them have they pros and cons speaking of managing population. Yor, for example, does not understand the needs of a better type of government because all his people work as a hive-mind while it makes almost impossible to manage a planet for "organics" with structures that are specialized (not game wise, though) to interact with a cybernetic race.
Game-wise would be way better if we do not think too much about the leftover of a conquered planet (by any means). Just think as all the remaining forces were extradited to the cold and empty space to fend for themselves and/or become part of another civilization/pirate group (pragmatic), not counted as population until they are brainwashed (the way of malevolence) or convinced that you are the nice and good guys and way better than those old folks you used to call "my government" (the path of the good guys). All this would be better as a cosmetic thing according to your ideology score rather than a way to gain bonuses for it.
No, you kill the citizens on the planet, not the actual population (unless you use spore ships or a terror star). Only registered tax-payers are considered members of your empire. Everyone else doesn't show up in the statistics.
No, you only loose population, if the culture-flipped planet had farms on it, that you don't have the technology for (like Yor Charging Stalks, while you're playing the terrans). You still have one turn to rush-buy a farm, before you actually loose the population.
Good to know, but, if they do not show in the statistics (population), how do you know that they do not contribute in the fight? Don't get me wrong but I feel like the enemy soldiers say: "all of those who are at age of fighting and has paid taxes come here to be killed, everyone else, just stay away" .
Really? [e digicons]'[/e] It seems that I mixed all my info.
I think there should be a cost if you do not eradicate everyone though. Perhaps a slider or choice (25%, 50%, 75% survivors). More survivors means more population but lower happiness / loyalty / likelihood of them rebelling and going neutral. So you get more population but you need to spend money / resouces / build things to bring them around to being a conquered people.
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