One species per planet.

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Daveybaby
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One species per planet.

#1 Post by Daveybaby »

This was initially posted in the uplift thread, in response to this statement
Sapphire Wyvern wrote:If the uplifted races are to actually have much impact on the game, it would imply that the uplift's racial traits probably need to be different to your own racial traits. Otherwise they're just bonus population.

Therefore, do we need to rethink the "one population type per planet" rule? Allowing mixed population also permits us a certain amount of flexibility in handling conquered populations, but introduces an unattractive layer of complexity to managing planetary populations (eg shuffling your farming specialists to farming worlds, etc) that we have been trying to avoid.
I think that having to completely vacate a planet in order to repopulate it with another species is going to end up being a total pain, in terms of potential micromanagement for the player, unintuitive game design (what, we have to move everyone out first?), and possibly even coding (a special case where you have a completely empty yet fully developed planet). And this is something that is potentially going to crop up a lot, for example when taking over another empire's planets, you might not want their populations on the planets they are on.

Personally i think that the '1 species per planet' rule could be relaxed slightly. Instead of having a hard coded limit of 1 species per planet (which would make it abnormally difficult and tedious to do things like change which species you want on a planet), have the player designate one species, and have the population gradually shift over time until the planet is entirely full of the designated species.

So a planet could have more than one species on it at a time, but this would only be a transitionary state towards a monoculture. Since it is only a transitionary state, dont bother with prioritising which species perform which roles etc, just have them perform jobs in equal proportions, i.e. dont bother to assign them based on their strengths and weaknesses.

Planet X has 75% klackons, 25% psilons
Planet economy is 75% industry, 25% research

Population breakdown:
56% klackons working in industry
19% klackons working in research
19% psilons working in industry
6% psilons working in research

Note that this would require a fairly complex migratory model, but this is not necessarily something which would require player intervention. Possibly the player could set government policies like 'assisted relocation' which would increase the rate at which population moved from planet to planet, but cost the empire money, depending on how much movement was going on.
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Daveybaby
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#2 Post by Daveybaby »

From the uplift thread again...
Geoff the Medio wrote:... but the problem with all the races wasn't just micro, it was also the difficulty easily explaining any effects that population has on production or whatever in terms like (56% race A) * (+5) + (33% race B) * (-0.5) = (+2.635) bonus, or various other fractions of bonuses in complicated arrangements that could then occur. With one race, it's just (+5), which is easy and simple to explain and understand.
But this would be a transitionary phase. Eventually you *will* end up with just one race - but while it is transitioning the bonus for farming will change gradually from the value for race A to the value for race B. This is no more complex or confusing than the transitionary phase that occurs if you change a planet's focus from farming to mining - it doesnt happen instantly, the infrastructure has to be built up first.

What this gives you the ability to do is to say, very simply via a dropdown menu or something, 'i want this planet to be a klackon planet now' and then just let the game get on with it. 10 turns (or whatever) later the process is complete.
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marhawkman
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#3 Post by marhawkman »

I have a really big question here. How detailed is the race function going to be? As far as I know the only thing that's been decided already is to have the planet your race is most comfortable with be variable. As is we don't have a reason for segregating ppopulations.
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Daveybaby
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#4 Post by Daveybaby »

I believe the reason for segregating populations, (i.e. the 1 species per planet rule) is primarily a gameplay/UI one.
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marhawkman
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#5 Post by marhawkman »

Daveybaby wrote:I believe the reason for segregating populations, (i.e. the 1 species per planet rule) is primarily a gameplay/UI one.
Nuh uh.... In the MoO games it was because of racial differences. As an example: In one MoO2 game I'd managed to mind control members of 3 different alien races. So I colonize a planet then put equal number of Sakkra, Humans, and Darloks and my race "PsiCorps" on the planet. The Sakkra would consistantly out reproduce the other three races.... why? it's part of their racial definition... they have a reproduction bonus. Also I've noted that if a race like Klackons has a bonus to food or construction that gets applied as well.
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Daveybaby
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#6 Post by Daveybaby »

Umm... there wasnt segregation or a 1 species per planet rule in moo2 or moo3 (and moo1 was much simpler in this regard anyway - you didnt even have multi species empires let alone planets) - so what exactly do you mean?

Regardless - as i understand it, the primary reason for 1 race per planet is to reduce micromanagement and UI complexity. In other words, to do away with the need to shuffle chunks of population between jobs on the same planet. In Moo2 it was a tedious chore (and imagine how tedious it would become with even more planets in FO), and as a result Moo3 had an AI to do this for you. Problem was that with the AI doing all the work no-one could figure out what was going on on their planets.
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snakechia
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#7 Post by snakechia »

but what if you have 10 planets with two races on each planet. Each planet has 50% klackon 50% psilon.

What happens if you set each planet to "I want klackons here". Then nothing would move? Then you're stuck with two populations on each planet which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place.

It gets even more complex with the amount of races and planets you add to the mix. I don't think it's as simple as hitting next turn and you're planets change.

guiguibaah
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Simple solution

#8 Post by guiguibaah »

Here's a simple solution to get multiple species per planet, the uplift ability, and a lot of snorting Thraddash shoving hot tungsten up your cushy, posterior arse.


A planet will have the "Uplift" special. You colonize it, and you can say "Oh, you know what, I'd like the bulbous-fatfragged big jobendoggers on this globe to be part of my civilization". So you build the "MEGA UPLIFT DOMING SUPERCONDUCTING RESEARCH CYCLAMATRON" building and presto, it says your bulbous-fatfragged big jobendogers are now reticulous jeagermeistered huge macliavellian CITIZENS.


Poof - they are transformed in to "Colonists". We'll say 7.5445643 to be exact. The planet has a BONUS to productivity or some other asinine task they would rather not do instead of sitting in front of the Tele watching Richard Greermeglobbenpoof's "THE PRICE IS RIGHT ON THE Hubblendoshendoorggo". So the game doesn't have to do all that complex stuf and instead can add code like

10 Print "I am going crazy!!"
20 Goto 10


Now all that is find and crazy, but what does the player get out of it? Aside from the humongous COLD, HARD, WET and JUICY bonus bonus BONUS on the planet from uplifting the race, they get to see a picture and they'll EXPLODE in their pants at the marveloussness of it all.


Hey, and if you capture an enemy planet with enemies on it, why not have the SAME variable tag along with it. You capture the horrendous Plurfigen kleiptomaniacal Geishabluggendorphs on Bu 1, and PRESTO, you get the "Civilize" option, which is really the same as "Uplift" but it is coloured in Blue text as opposed to green.


Once they are civilized, you get some bonus based on their race on the planet. I don't know. Maybe +apple to taxes or something. And OF COURSE (of course), the required exploding-in-the-pants galore of the simplicity of it all.

So basically all it does is spawn a bonus you can take advantage of.


Then, everyone was happy.

And God smiled, for on the 8th day, he invented time travel and went back to the 3rd day to meet God and they had a grand ole chat, when the first God then got angry and stole the second God's stars and hid them in a box containing rabbit pellets.


Phew
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skdiw
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#9 Post by skdiw »

I say the foreign race loses it's technology and racial traits and is idle when you first colonize or annex. then during tranistory period, the foreign race works as if there were your own citizens (with your traits and techs). any new population growth are your own citizens, and foreign races can't reproduce and will die out eventually.
:mrgreen:

marhawkman
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#10 Post by marhawkman »

skdiw wrote:I say the foreign race loses it's technology and racial traits and is idle when you first colonize or annex. then during tranistory period, the foreign race works as if there were your own citizens (with your traits and techs). any new population growth are your own citizens, and foreign races can't reproduce and will die out eventually.
But that only makes sense if racial differences are entirely cultural in nature....
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Sapphire Wyvern
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#11 Post by Sapphire Wyvern »

marhawkman wrote:
skdiw wrote:I say the foreign race loses it's technology and racial traits and is idle when you first colonize or annex. then during tranistory period, the foreign race works as if there were your own citizens (with your traits and techs). any new population growth are your own citizens, and foreign races can't reproduce and will die out eventually.
But that only makes sense if racial differences are entirely cultural in nature....
Which they won't be, I think.

EDIT: clarified double negative
Last edited by Sapphire Wyvern on Thu Mar 02, 2006 10:56 am, edited 1 time in total.

Daveybaby
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#12 Post by Daveybaby »

snakechia wrote:What happens if you set each planet to "I want klackons here". Then nothing would move? Then you're stuck with two populations on each planet which is what we were trying to avoid in the first place.
Well, first up i doubt you would be able to get every planet in your empire in a 50/50 state, since the only time you can have more than one species per planet is when it is transitioning from one species to another.

The main problem is when you have no spare space anywhere for the current population to move to - in this situation its simple to put mechanisms into the game to deal with this.

For example, if you decide to kick a race off a planet and there is nowhere for them to go, the population will have to go via 'natural wastage', i.e. the pop growth for that species goes negative on that planet. You could speed this up by setting governmental policies for that species, such as 'Genocide'.
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Daveybaby
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Re: Simple solution

#13 Post by Daveybaby »

guiguibaah wrote:Lots of scary stuff
:shock: Ermm... needs more medication :P
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MikkoM
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#14 Post by MikkoM »

Hello! This is my first post! Personally I think that there could be many different species on one planet and it could lead to ethnic conflicts like we see in the real world.

Also it would be nice to make the decision after you have captured a planet what you want to do with the population. Do you want them to work as slaves, live side by side with your own citizens or do you want to kill them all and so doing get rid of the possible problems that they might couse.

All so all this features could have an affect to your civilizations general moral debending on what kind of civilization you are leading.

But of course the majority of the planets would be populated by only one species because in the beginning of the game the majority of planets are naturally uninhabited.

marhawkman
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#15 Post by marhawkman »

MikkoM wrote:Hello! This is my first post! Personally I think that there could be many different species on one planet and it could lead to ethnic conflicts like we see in the real world.

Also it would be nice to make the decision after you have captured a planet what you want to do with the population. Do you want them to work as slaves, live side by side with your own citizens or do you want to kill them all and so doing get rid of the possible problems that they might couse.

All so all this features could have an affect to your civilizations general moral debending on what kind of civilization you are leading.

But of course the majority of the planets would be populated by only one species because in the beginning of the game the majority of planets are naturally uninhabited.
This seems unneccesary to me. If you don't want the people why not exterminate them before you take over? and setting a policy towards slavery or genocide would seem like it would inevitably lead towards massive revolts...... A setting about treating captured populations as slaves might not be a bad idea though...
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