Brad said in today's Q&A that he'd consider any good idea brought up by the community, so long as it wasn't humanoid. Here's your chance to pitch your race/faction!!
I'm going to think on it and edit this post when I've come up with something good.
Can't wait to see the community's ideas!
The Flupzoks
A race of anti-gravity floating worms. The primary method of interaction is by sticking their tongues out and rotating them. They express their mood by waving and wobbling their bodies around.
I'll update this if I can think of ways to flesh it out.
What about some form of Parasitic insect race Features:Parasitizes other races to improve food production, can produce there own food but inefficientParasitizes other races to create armies with the original races traitsHas Organic/living ShipsUses Biomass Currency, which is generated naturally alongside credits. Adds new technologiesCan Create/consume biomass to build ships/armies or buildings, can consume own ships/parasitized races pops to create biomassShips are Grown planet side rather then in spaceCan colonise any planet but has a penalty and takes turns to adapt increasing habitability in stages (1-4) essentially terraforming itPlanets that are "Infested" need to be cleansed before they can be occupied/habitable (needs technology to do which can eventually lead to a super weapon to purge the world, similar to the spore weapon) Ships Would have higher HP regen per turn and have more HP, but would be slower and less evasiveMorale would be based on food production, except home world since they would have a queen/hivemind. The Further planets are form the homeworld the worse there base morale is (every 10 tiles -5% morale penalty)Would have poor research but great production, poor trade and tourism but great resilience Late game tech could have mobile star bases (very slow) and they could eventually be upgraded to be able to consume resources outright for a major bonus but there gone permanently (eating a durantium deposit grants 20 but the deposit is gone forever).Another Late Game tech is a Massive ship that's sole purpose is to engulf a enemy planet and take control of it over a period of turns, the ship would be very slow and posses no combat capabilities but have a MASSIVE amount of HP. If destroyed before the engulfing period is complete the planet is spared with a morale penalty for X turns
That's about all i can think of right now
I like changelinks like Odo in Deep Space 9. Think of the intl he/she/it coeatuld get.
99% of the time they would look like a puddle.
Another could be silicon based life that eats rock. Like an old StarTrek episode.
Even anothe could be energy based life that moves form computer to computer like a virus.
[reserves a space]
This'll be an interesting thread, I'll think about this a while before posting anything coherent. Several thoughts that strike me as compelling:
"lithovore" was a racial feature in the old space 4x Ascendancy: functionally they got more planet tiles on each planet because they could use the tiles that were just rock, and other races couldn't. It was a cool idea, and in GC4 is definitely an idea that fits in somewhere.
I'll return to this post and write more later.. This should be a good thread, thanks for starting it Werewolf
I find it helps to look at an organism sences and see what orther ways they could have evolved.
Smell air presure for avian life forms
See heat or radiation (work on a different area of energy wavelenghs0
Touch is measured by vibrations for rock people
Taste could tell the makeup of the air so flying creaturs do not try to fly in space.
High presure Jelly life forms for some planets
The Voufan Creator for Galactic Civilizations III. One of the top rated community factions:
"Many years ago as the Vimmite were nearing extinction they explored all options on how to save and extend their lives. After much exhaustion the Vimmite scientists developed an empty entity shell. Shortly there after they began experiments to transfer their minds into the new limitless shells. Successfully transferring their consciousness into this creation they started to thrive. Having no limit on lifespan the Voufan began to spread their new idea of life throughout the galaxy."
Voufan Creator Faction in Steam Workshop
The artwork is not original and was ripped from the Internet, however, I'm sure someone who's great at artwork could develop something close, and animated that would capture the original view for the faction. The icon though was original created by me. Also this was prior to some of the newer non-humanoid factions in the game so the traits could be tweaked to build off of the entity model in the story.
I like all of these. Shape shifters and "rock" based life are sci fi tropes that are present in some of the other 4x games, but haven't really (to the best of my knowledge) been in Galactic Civilizations.
Some ideas:
1. Slow changing shape shifters
Many, many years ago I was following a forum that was trying to build out some ideas for a Master of Orion based role playing game. There was a discussion on how the Darlocks should work in the RPG, and someone talked about how they shouldn't be able to shape shift rapidly, like the changelings on DS9. The thinking is that 1) being able to change rapidly would give them an enormous advantage not only in spying but also militarily (imagine if every member of your race could shape shift into a krogan like creature in just a few seconds) and 2) it would take a massive amount of energy to shift forms rapidly.
The forum poster suggested that, as an alternative, it actually take a very long period of time for the Darlocks to shape shift. Basically, they can do minor changes (like changing color) in a few minutes, but more substantial changes, like turning yourself into an entirely different creature, would be a highly involved process that would take days or weeks. This would eliminate some of the massive advantages that DS9 type shapeshifters would conceivably have, while also still allowing them an advantage in spying and espionage. In theory, a shapeshifter spy who wanted to take the form of a human would have to first obtain a comprehensive bio scan of the human they're seeking to replace and then spend days or weeks in vulnerable state while they take on that form. Ultimately, even advanced scanners would have trouble telling the difference between the shapeshifter and the original human. But the shapeshifter would not be able to shift rapidly between different forms, and they would need to maintain a safe house somewhere where they could go when they do need to change forms.
I really liked this idea, and propose doing something like this as the background for a race of shapeshifters in GC IV.
2. Energy Beings
My idea for an "energy being" type race is one that has a symbiotic relationship with more traditional life forms. Kind of like the Companion in the Original Star Trek episode Metamorphosis. Arguably this could also be a combination of the energy life form idea and the parasitic life form idea.
My thinking is that the energy beings interact with more traditional life by "joining" with a species that they found centuries ago. The energy beings would lean toward the peaceful and diplomatic side, but there would be some underlying questions about just how "good" they are. When they originally found their host species, that species was not in a very advanced stage of development, perhaps at the bronze age level of earth. The energy beings were mistaken for gods, and members of the less advanced species were offered up as hosts, until finally the energy beings had joined with all of them and uplifted the planet to an advanced state. Given that the host species didn't really understand what was going on, there's some question in the broader galactic community as to whether the energy beings actually took advantage of them.
3. Virtual AI Beings
Similar to the idea of a being that could spread across computers, my idea is for an AI race that exists primarily on huge, planet wide servers.
The initial servers were developed by a race of biological beings called the "founders." Like humans, the founders discovered the secret of fusion power. However, they never made contact with the rest of the galactic community. Instead of developing hyperdrive, they used fusion to power large servers that could host persistent, virtual worlds where they ran what were essentially role playing games. The original AIs were developed as NPCs to give those virtual worlds extra flavor. The founders would plug themselves into these worlds to game for days or weeks at a time.
The founders suffered form sectarian conflict, and one day wiped themselves out through the use of biological weapons. The virtual worlds continued running and the AI beings continued carrying out their programming. Eventually, they learned to solve their own problems and manipulate their worlds (example: after a few centuries, farmer Brown got sick of waiting for someone to show up to clear the rats out of his garden, and just took care of it himself). Then they learned how to travel between virtual worlds, and, eventually when some of those virtual world began to fail, they learned of their true nature - and figured out how to inhabit left over repair bots in the "real" world to maintain their homes and even create new servers to host new worlds. Any interaction with these beings in the real world happens when they inhabit a bot, and the AIs prefer only to inhabit bots for short periods and to take turns with this duty, which they consider distasteful.
These AI beings would spread out in the galaxy primarily to set up new servers to create new virtual worlds and more AI beings. This race would benefit from not needing food and would have a morale benefit since they can structure their "true" worlds however they want to please their inhabitants. They would suffer penalties from needing massive amounts of energy to run their servers. Presumably they may also suffer diplomatic penalties (they don't care as much about what happens outside of their virtual world) or scientific penalties (they care less than other races about how to manipulate things in the real world, as they view that only as a way to maintain their servers).
If you wanted to play this race for laughs a bit, when you're on cordial terms with them and you go into the diplomacy screen, they could open by saying something NPC-like.
Gaseous beings could be cool or an Ameboid species
More synthetic species? There have been 3 games of galciv 3 where the only synthetic species has been the exterminate all life kind. I think its time for something new.My idea is that there was this species that nearly got whipped out by a plague. In order to deal with the shortages in the work place, the species started developing machines to replace them. Over time they got smarter and more complex until they became a sapient species in their own right. They turned out rather neutral in the good vs evil spectrum and view their creators as an endangered species.
This + the AI symbiosis thing would make a nice Cylon
In stellaris these would be Rouge Servitors, where organic species are treated as "bio-trophies," almost like extremely pampered zoo or museum exhibits.
I concur that synthetic races should be allowed to have a wider range of organic relations. After all, even many of the fictional hostile machine races didn't start there. Skynet's creators panicked and tried to shut him down. The machines from the Matrix tried to have peaceful coexistence with humanity, until their country was nuked by humanity.
Perhaps a synthetic race might wish to "improve," their organics by cyborgizing them (Nicer synthetics might even give the organics in question a choice). Or they might simply sedate them - ala the Matrix - and use them for living batteries and/or an organic supercomputer of some kind.
Peaceful or normal relations should be possible as well. After all maybe the machines creators are long gone and they have no memory of them. No bitter conflict, but no special fondness either, the organics are just another bunch of aliens - with the added novelty of being made of gooey organic parts.
As for other race ideas - some with gooey organic parts - perhaps we could get extremophile races added to the mix. Floating aliens from gas giants. Lava lovers from extremely hot worlds, or frost giant types from iceballs. Species from toxic or radioactive worlds, the possibilities are endless.
How about ...
A silicon based totally space bourne species which evolved in a space bourne ecosystem in a very energetic class O or A star system. Totally new tech tree including, for instance, techs to colonise and exploit less energetic star systems and even (gasp !!!) planets. Imagine said species taming apex predators (Tiger, Shark and Elephant analogues oh my !!!) for use as weapons. Great cities in space supported by silicoid 'farmlands'. Possibly imagined and implemented by the 'Precursor' 'Gods' as riposte and competition to the banality of planetary biospheres.
Original concept detailed in the 'Starchild' trilogy (specifically 'The Reefs of Space') authored by Frederick Pohl and Jack Williamson published 1963.
Guaranteed no other 4X has anything like this.
I always liked how diverse ideas (not the actual gameplay though) there was in aliens in the Ascendancy game. Since that most of aliens in the mainstream games felt boring (GalCiv especially... humanoids everywhere)
Some random examples from https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Ascendancy_Universe
The Capelons are masses of flowing fibers who can rearrange their bodies quickly to assume any shape.
The Ungooma are a species of adaptive-intelligence beings that evolved as thought-parasites and later developed their own means of thinking. Before they became sapient they would take control of the higher animals on their world, using the bodies and minds of their hosts for their own needs.
The Mebes are large single-celled creatures that evolved on a warm, sunny world. They roll around collecting food on their surfaces and absorbing it into their bodies.
The Arbryls are tree-people who evolved on a huge Eden-like planet containing only plant life. They are peaceful, slow-moving, and highly intelligent. They are unused to conflict and their philosophy is isolationist.
The Marmosians are territorial insect-like creatures from the inner world of a hot sun. Their mating pheromones evolved into a general purpose array of complex mood-altering scent molecules that allow them to manipulate the base emotions of other creatures.
The Orfa are grazing animals that evolved on a hostile world. Their bodies are very dense and tough, and they are as happy in a pool of lava as pigs are in a wallow of filth. They prefer vegetation and a diet of complex organic molecules but they can subsist on raw minerals.
21 total
In general what might be interesting are the beings which are "uploaded"/virtual only. Of course they still need hardware, but their requirements towards environment would be negligible (reactor + minerals). Dunno, how it would fit into the game system though
Some good ideas for potential development in all these posts. However, i wonder about the prime directive that all suggestions should be "non-humanoid" [effectivly banning all animal creations like intelligent dinosaurs, which i agree is best avoided for any game to be taken seriously] is anti-Darwinist or is it only a game to be played for fun, because Fun is fundamental for any game. Apologies but i always become the Devil's Advocate.
Don't worry, we probably won't have intelligent dinosaurs. We already have space dragons (the Drath).
I think he secretly wants a sharknado-based race. Sharks are dinosaurs..
Agree, they had some good/cool/fun race ideas. I always played as the Mebes myself, their free growth thing was awesome. Otherwise the race that ate rock (were they just called Lithovores?) were pretty good, because they could build on all those dead tiles and no one else could.
Will there be a custom race designer in GalcivIV? Like there was in III?
Yep, already in there.
Does anyone else remember "FarScape", i was/am a fan of all its series/seasons, it's a very intelligently written and acted Sci-Fi adventure with high production values without the lavish special-effects being overdone. i liked all of the characters; from the main Human lead, through a weight-lifting bodied, walking octopus-headed creature, a humanoid attractive female plant usually blue-skinned, a munchkin sized, cowardly, bewhiskered dwarf who farted helium, to the living almost-whale-like inter-galactic space-ship and its symbiotic controller of vaguely humanoid shape crossed with R2D2 [android from "Star Wars"]. Of course the female Lead was a very attractive combative person of a different planetary race but was most definitely human. Like all the best writers stealing characters as necessary is compulsory.
Not original ideas but more than a flavour of what could be in GC4 perhaps although such a full cast is probably over-ambitious for a computer game no matter how good the latest hardware and game-engine is. Maybe it's a distraction but for me it sets the standards to be equalled in any new Sci-Fi romp [as achieved by "Ender's Game", the movie, for example].
How about purely energy based beings which require a gravity well and magnetic field to reproduce, but can survive on any planet with a mass roughly between that of Mars and Uranus orbiting any B, A, or F type star?
They require different colonization technology/life support (obviously), have huge head starts on any direct energy based tech, but might be particularly vulnerable to nuclear fission/fusion, antimatter, or magnetically charged rail-gun type weapons.
They functionally exist as a series of interacting subatomic particles trapped inside magnetic fields and their 'thought' processes/consciousness exist within modulated energy waves within these fields.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
