colonialism
Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:42 pm
I've just had an odd idea and I thought I'd run it past you guys to see if its feasible.
My idea was to create a special feature of some race or another based around the theory of colonialism, it occured to me when I realised every Human empire in history behaves in a colonial fashion yet in 4x games no one ever dose.
Basically this race is two races in one, for the sake of example we shall call them "Imperials" and "Colonials". Imperials are the default race, on the race selection screen you choose to play as Imperials (or some generic name that applies to both), your homeworld starts with a population of Imperials, and you can manage Colonials like any other non-primary race in your empire.
When a new planet is created, no matter who built the colony ship it will always be a Colonial world, when the world reaches a certain level of development it turns into an Imperial world, if the world is unable to reach the required level of development for a long time then it gets a moral penalty that grows and grows until it becomes Imperial, or gets glassed.
Colonials get strong relative bonuses in farming, mining and manufacturing.
Imperials get bonuses in research and economy and really really suck at farming, mining and manufacturing.
The two are identical in combat and ship design, its the same army in both cases.
The idea is that you have this luxurious upper class of Imperials who while capable economists and scientists are pretty much dependent almost entirely on the lower class of Colonials for physical labour. But if you don't allow your Colonials to turn into Imperials they get huge moral penalties so your pretty much forced to keep expanding and expanding to get new Colonial worlds, completely oppress the existing Colonials or periodically glass your Colonials. All should be valid with advantages and disadvantages, possibly something like this:
constant expansion: requires lots of space and good management skills.
constant oppression: A cycle, oppressing colonials angers other colonials, and slightly demoralises Imperials. But it dosn't require space.
Glassing: Creates a large spike of discontent among colonials and a smaller spike among imperials, but fades in time.
What do you think? is it feasible? is it fun?
My idea was to create a special feature of some race or another based around the theory of colonialism, it occured to me when I realised every Human empire in history behaves in a colonial fashion yet in 4x games no one ever dose.
Basically this race is two races in one, for the sake of example we shall call them "Imperials" and "Colonials". Imperials are the default race, on the race selection screen you choose to play as Imperials (or some generic name that applies to both), your homeworld starts with a population of Imperials, and you can manage Colonials like any other non-primary race in your empire.
When a new planet is created, no matter who built the colony ship it will always be a Colonial world, when the world reaches a certain level of development it turns into an Imperial world, if the world is unable to reach the required level of development for a long time then it gets a moral penalty that grows and grows until it becomes Imperial, or gets glassed.
Colonials get strong relative bonuses in farming, mining and manufacturing.
Imperials get bonuses in research and economy and really really suck at farming, mining and manufacturing.
The two are identical in combat and ship design, its the same army in both cases.
The idea is that you have this luxurious upper class of Imperials who while capable economists and scientists are pretty much dependent almost entirely on the lower class of Colonials for physical labour. But if you don't allow your Colonials to turn into Imperials they get huge moral penalties so your pretty much forced to keep expanding and expanding to get new Colonial worlds, completely oppress the existing Colonials or periodically glass your Colonials. All should be valid with advantages and disadvantages, possibly something like this:
constant expansion: requires lots of space and good management skills.
constant oppression: A cycle, oppressing colonials angers other colonials, and slightly demoralises Imperials. But it dosn't require space.
Glassing: Creates a large spike of discontent among colonials and a smaller spike among imperials, but fades in time.
What do you think? is it feasible? is it fun?