Conquering colonised planets - culture,assimilation,genocide

[utilae]

When a planet owned by RaceA is conquered by RaceB, RaceB has the following options:
(1)-kill all RaceA population
(2)-enslave all RaceA population under RaceB rule
(3)-Encorperate RaceA population under RaceB rule
(4)-Exile RaceA population (to other RaceA colonies/give colony ship)
(5)-Leave RaceA population to rule, while RaceB withdraws (can destroy buildings/can insert spies)

Option (1) involves killing all of the RaceA's population. This would be seen as genocide by other races, so it may annoy more than RaceA.
Option (2) forces RaceA's population to work for you. They are effectively made into the lower class and treated very badly (depending on your slavery policy). In this case there is a greater chance of rebelian than with option 3.
Option (3) incorperates RaceA's population into your own giving them the same level of class, ie they are not lower than your people, they are equal. This incourages the incorperation of RaceA culture and would also encourages breeding between RaceA and RaceB (it would be interesting to have a gameplay element of this) on that planet. There is a chance of rebelian here, but less of a chance than option 2.
Option (4) involves exiling RaceA's population to a planet of RaceA or another planet. They are either loaded onto transport ships or colony ships. This option may only be available if you have enough transport ships/colony ships. This option would allow you to avoid any chance of a rebelion, avoid any kind of genocide and avoid having to assimilate RaceA's population into your own.
Option (5) involves leaving RaceA to rule their planet, while Race B withdraws. This is similar to the Iraq war where the USA invaded Iraq and removed their leader, then setup a different government, etc. While this option seems like what you would do if you think you made a mistake and do not want to incurr the wrath of RaceA, there are some interesting things that this option could achieve. While I don't think changing the government should be aloud, affecting the local government might be an option. A puppet government could be setup, this would basically be a spying element. Spies would be inserted into government positions, etc. This option also has the result of destroying most of their industry/buildings and leaving them as a weak colony. This would be cheaper than assimilating the population and then managing a colony and also dealing with rebelions. A further option is to pollute the populations culture (intriducing your own culture). This would have the effect of spreading your culture through their empire. The cultural effect might be small, but it is an influence that could make assimilation easier when you conquer their planets.


Some other things:
Rebelians-When you are trying to assimilate the enemy race as a result of conquering their planet, their is always the chance that they will rebel. This would lead to civil wars and could involve you loosing the planet if your forces are overwhelmed or if the costs to keep the planet are too great. Oposing cultures could increase the chances of rebelions. Introducing your culture through trade, interaction and conquering (mostly option 5) could polute their culture with your own, making it easier for them to accept your culture when you conquer them. This would reduce the risks of rebelions.
Culture-Each race could have it's own culture. Thier could be types of cultures and some cultures could opose each other, while some go well together. A race that conquers another race, both races have similar conquers will mean less chance of a rebelion. There is greater chance of a rebelion if cultures are oposed or not close enough. Over tine interacting races can experience each others culture. What this does is increase the interest and liking of a culture. Each race would have a rating for every culture. Cultures they don't like would be rated low. Cultures they do like would be rated high. Oposing cultures would start rated low. Similar cultures would start rated high. Different culture might start in the middle. As races interact and cultures are experienced, the ratings increase for those cultures they experience. So after a while, if two races have been allied and at peace and allowed migration between their empires, then this would share culture. If the time was long enough, their ratings of each others cultures would get quite high. If one race was then to conquer the other, the assimilation would involve little or no rebelions.


That's my idea of how all of this should work.

[Carbon Copy Man]

Interesting, but I think that Option 3 (coexistence) would have the highest chances of rebellion. I expect that it would subside much faster than Option 2, but the lack of control means that people are still free to exercise their patriotism. Terrorism, rebellion, sabotague is likely to be frequent. Add to this the difficulty of policing for enemy spies.


Option 1 (genocide) - Progressive over time. High war-crime. High chance of rebellion and it takes a lot of military power to execute well, but your military won't have to stay for very long.

Option 2 (enslavement) - Moderate-Low chance of rebellion (doesn't reduce with time). Moderate-Low war-crime. High production potential (+50% production, -50% research?). High maintenance (military) cost.

Option 3 (coexistence) - (see above)

Option 4 (relocation) - Moderate chance of rebellion. Low-Nil war-crime. Expensive. You also need to find a place to put them (negotiate with the empire's owner -- or move to your "slave colony" up the other end of your empire).

Option 5 (withdrawal) - Smash things up a bit and then leave. Low-Nil war-crime (higher, depending on deathtoll). Cheapest option.



You should also be able to switch from one option to another. Say, for example, you want to kill 60% of the locals so that your new settlers will outnumber the locals (making rebellion more difficult).

[Pasi]

But with relocation, you could basicly just start to move the people, and when they are in the ship (like 1 turn away from destination), you could blow them up?

[yaromir]

I have a HUGE problem with the concept of multi-species empires, especially by subjugation. If a border world decides to join an empire of another species for political reasons...well...maybe

But what kind of co-existance and inter-marriage could there be between a gas-based etherian and some crystaline form?

Enforcement of some sort of supra-specie ideology would have to be pretty strict.

I am doubly sceptical seeing how we, humans, cannot find even supra-national ideology to rally around.

Lukyanenko (modern Russian sci-fi writer) wrote a few stories set in MOO universe, and one thing he points out is this:

The static defense batteries would scan anyone trying to enter and the scanner only discriminated between human and NOT human. If a human, ANY human, tried to enter, he would be let in.

What sort of moron betrays his own species??? You cannot inter-breed with the silicoids.

The choices are good, and if you feel you must have "Full Citizenship" then the above proposal is fine.

I, personally, would only leave

Speciecide
Expulsion
Forced Labor
Leave

[Carbon Copy Man]

Actually, I'm not too sure about the interbreeding either, and I envision that "coexistence" would generally entail two different civilisations living on different parts of the same planet.

But I do believe it's possible to convert the aliens to your cause, though I expect it would take a while, and it would be especially difficult to make them approve of war with their home empire.

But, like you said, humans fight with each other all the time -- fighting your own race isn't as big a deal as you might think.

Extra questions are, would game mechanics allow you to recruit soldiers from subjugated races?


Pasi: If you blew up the transport ship mid-flight, you're still killing them. If you move them to a slave-colony on another planet, you're still enslaving them -- I imagine the effects of relocation would be coupled with the treatment at the destination.

This could also depend on spying -- if it's a hidden part of your empire and no one knows, I guess they'll have to assume their fate.


Although I just imagined something that could be a cunning strategy if the game mechanics were built for it... Send the transport ship at your other enemy. If they destroy it, then they've commited an atrocity against your enemy. Suddenly their diplomatic situation gets more complicated. ^^


EDIT:

Actually, now that I'm talking about spies... Who would you think the spies are? I doubt they'd last long if they were just some kind of ninja, hiding in the shadows, spying from the shadows. At the very least, they would have informants. At the most, key figures within the enemy empire would secretly be tools of yours.

[Impaler]

Agree cross species breeding ala StarTrek should be rulled out. It just stretches belivablity too much.

I realy like the Exile idea, reminds me of HomeWorld.
I think this would best be handled by having the player give starships (old rusty slow ones ofcorse) to the Exiles. These ships are then under the control of the Exiles, they can fly them back to their kin-folk or if you just concoured their homeworld and these Exiles are all thats left then they could go out and Colonize a new planet. Ofcorse your going to strip them of most of their tecnology and colonies started by these Exiles will be tec-backwards.

As for Assimilations, I think it would be great to have and DaveBabby did some nice work on "Racial Status" that can be used to determine how they interact. A scale from "Vermin" to "Living Gods" reflects the full range of status that a group might have. Lots of interesting possibilites would be avalible with relations organized along these lines.

[Dreamer]

Pasi: If you blew up the transport ship mid-flight, you're still killing them. If you move them to a slave-colony on another planet, you're still enslaving them -- I imagine the effects of relocation would be coupled with the treatment at the destination.

A simplier way to do this: killing civilian ships may have a default diplomatic penalty during all the game. As in real life, you cannot go shooting transports and colony ships without it being considered an unnecesary bloodshed. You can then just forget about the transport once you decided to relocate, as other game mechanics will deal with that.

What happens in situations like Iraq? I don't think that's more than just Option 5. It also have something of option 2. Ok, you got there, change the goverment, leave your spies and then retreat, but you also leave some forces to "ensure peace" and meanwhile you left in place mechanisms so you exploit their resources production and influence their desitions. But maybe this kind of indirect subyugation would be a little complicated in game terms.

[yaromir]

but you also leave some forces to "ensure peace" and meanwhile you left in place mechanisms so you exploit their resources production

That's just colonialism/imperialism/forced labor.

I was thinking about the whole issue of forced labor.

It would be nice if there was a slider that affects the harshness of treatment of forced labor (ALA moo3). Unlike Moo3, the effects should be plainly visible.

At setting of 1, FLU's have population growth of 0. If you set it below 1, their number will actually shrink, so you use them up as you would use up coal or petroleum (treating them so harshly they cannot reproduce well enough). Slow speciecide!

This could be usful for working mineral-rich planets or liberating your own people for more enlightened tasks.

[Carbon Copy Man]

Pasi: If you blew up the transport ship mid-flight, you're still killing them. If you move them to a slave-colony on another planet, you're still enslaving them -- I imagine the effects of relocation would be coupled with the treatment at the destination.

A simplier way to do this: killing civilian ships may have a default diplomatic penalty during all the game. As in real life, you cannot go shooting transports and colony ships without it being considered an unnecesary bloodshed. You can then just forget about the transport once you decided to relocate, as other game mechanics will deal with that.

Question 1: Would it be possible to distinguish between military and civilian transport ships?

You're not going to just let 2000 enemy troops slip past your border. Of course, I think the diplomacy should be treated logically (ie "He sent them at us as if they were enemy troops![/i]"). I think it should have a negative effect on diplomacy between all three groups. It would need to be properly balanced and worked into the game though.


Question 2: In an all-out war, would it be unreasonable for the enemy to kill any and all of your troops to come upon their border in order to protect the integrity of that border? Or to stop an enemy transport from landing in your colony?


Question 3: Are you saying that after choosing "Relocate", the process should be completely automated?

I think that having to find a destination for them is the very thing that'd balance it against options like "genocide". It's the most secure and humane option, but unless you've got a system already in place for it, it's a challenge to have it arranged.

[Dreamer]

Answer 1:
Well, I'm assuming you can tell between military and civilian ships. You could eventually try to use a civilian ship as a troyan horse, but that is another topic entirely. Any military ship would be designed to be tought and practical for troop deployment. Maybe even have some weapons to provide for cover-fire, etc. I would even use the ship-design interface to design troop transports in a good configuration, to use them more intelligently. So basically from design

If this is not satisfactory enought we can say that a scan on weapons is known tech.

Answer 2:
Not at all. But even in war certain respect for life is considered. Of course a race can do whatever it wants, but the diplomatic consecuences can be quite different. It's like using biological weapons in Moo1, it had dire consequences even with races not involved at all.

Answer 3: As you wish. I'm only saing that once the event is done the rest should be acomplished by standard game rules, so the game don't have to keep track for several turns of what happens with the colonists of X planet after they were relocated.

[Argus]

I like all of these options but not too sure about the last one.

Unless you mean that it becomes an independent planet when you leave and not controlled by the origional owner any more. Of course why wouldn't the independent planet then just join up with it's old owner again.

Perhaps instead of being independent it just stops contributing to it's owner's production as long as it's under your control. Also you could force the planet to fork over a portion of it's production to you as a consequence. This would also have diplomacy potential. Give me this tech or I bomb your planet to bits!

Here's some other thoughts:
Option 1) Definitely need the option of killing everyone on the planet iff you have the means to do it. If you didn't have the ships with the right bombs this would take a long time.

Option 2) I don't think there would be any problem with this. I don't think it should incur any production penalties. It would be just like the Roman Empire with like 10-1 slave to citizen ratio. Just as long as slaves could be controlled somehow like heavily protected food depots etc. But I think this would all depend on the races involved and cultures involved.

Option 3) I also don't like the idea of interbreeding. Civil unrest if a good portion of the population is of a race you are currently at war with definitely. Otherwise the chance of unrest would drop every generation. (My mom is Dutch and she doesn't really care that much about Holland cuz she's lived her most of her life. I care even less but I'm sure my grand parents care quite a bit!)

Also for both Options 2 and 3 I think the races would breed at different rates would be nice if a bit much to program or too much to micro-manage (especially considering terraforming!). I don't know if we are allowing population transport or not but I think it would be easier if the "natvie" population couldn't be moved to other of your planets.

Option 4) (What was option 4 again!? tee hee) Right. Get off my planet! I like the idea of the population leaving a bit at a time in little pods like the troop transports in Moo1. I don't really like the idea of making this cost something. I say not cuz that would have to be reported to the user somewhere but anyway....

The pods could just go to the next nearest colony of the conquered race causing havoc with the infrastructure it having to deal with the extra mouths to feed and such and perhaps over population! I definitely don't like the idea of giving them a colony ship and letting them go their own way unless they don't have no where to relocate to.

Anyways I would like having all these options but some of them (2 and 3) have micro-management potential I think we would rather not have if we make it too complicated. Just a bare bones approach I think would work pretty well though. As long as we don't have to deal with population dynamics all of these options could be automated.
Argus

[Carbon Copy Man]

Option 5 is essentially a more advanced form of bombing the planet, except that by sending your troops in there, you can better find and attack your targets (more risk to your army, but less "collateral damage").

Option 4, I feel, should be kept as a difficult option, because it has the best resolution -- that is, very limited rebellion, also being the most humane choice (assuming you're sending them back to their empire -- which has room).

You can also negotiate them back to their empire as hostages (assuming the empire has the ability to facilitate them) -- or to another empire.

Like I mentioned before, you might even just throw them at another empire and try to offload the work on them.

Or you could move them to another of your colonies, which can better handle a few million rebellious civilians (I'm guessing that there would be a HIGH chance of rebellion in such a situation).


I think that just relocate and forget makes it a far too obvious choice to make. I know that it'd be the only choice I'd ever make if it were so easy.

[Setjhaba]

What about OPTION 6?

Integrate the submerged culture into your own but sterilize the males. If that insn´t "humane genocide"...

[Dreamer]

I think there is some beauty in keeping it simple and limiting options to 1 to 4. Else we will end with option 27:

"Kill some population to cripple planet's production and retreat. But not before inserting your own agents, disguised as the other race, to sterilize the population with a sexual disease. Then give money to that planet as an apology to minimize diplomatic damage and be seen as an "humanitarian" by other races. But give the money as free travel tickets so your hidden decease expands on all the enemy race".

I think you all see my point.

[utilae]

The thing about option 5. It's like giving the planet a punch and and then holding back, saying "now you'll behave". It's like a peacekepping tactic, the galactic police, etc. The enemy empire is being naughty, so you go and smack there planet around. You don't have the power to kill the entire empire, but you have the power to make a statement, saying that you can raze their planet.

What it would achieve is benefiting your spying. Basically you have not completely destroyed the planet, but gotten close enough to setup some spying (bugs, deep cover spies, political influence). To the player it would just be something like spying increased by 10%. Of course tech could even be taken, though I guess it would happen in the long run, as those spies you inserted do their spying.