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colonialism

Posted: Fri Oct 12, 2007 10:42 pm
by Tortanick
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?

Re: colonialism

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:31 am
by utilae
Hmmm, I like.

Re: colonialism

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 8:49 am
by The Silent One
Nice, but not KISS.

Re: colonialism

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 1:14 pm
by Rho
I like this idea. While I agree it's not simple, it could be made very intuitive by incorporating a kind of loyalty meter into it. Unrest, revolution and independence would result from too rock bottom loyalty, while general low numbers would mean unrest, production penalties, and such. In the higher range, wars don't cause unrest, and the military isn't penalized by morale problems.

This doesn't have to be colonial vs imperial, just unrest-ness. If the colony would gain independence, you'd just have a small new empire to deal with... and they might grow to become an ally, to join your empire at a later time, become an enemy, or just Croatoan.

Re: colonialism

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2007 4:59 pm
by Tortanick
Rho, I think that is too complicated for a feature unique to one/a few race(s). Its also unnecessary, the point of the rising unrest in Colonial worlds is to force you to keep growing your empire, or to try to use military power to keep the people in line. That dosn't need any loyalty meter, unrest is good enough.

That said maybe loyalty could be used as a standard problem that all multi-species empires have to deal with, if that's the case you'd have to worry about disloyal colonial worlds.



Silent One, I disagree, its quite a simple idea in fact only three unique rules are needed to impliemnt it, assuming multirace empires are already part of the game:
1) Colonial planets over X turns old gets -10 moral, after Y turns -20.
2) Colonial planets produce imperial ships
3) Imperial Colony ships create Colonial planets.

An even simpler way to do the same effect with one rule is to have a large bonus for physical labour, that decreases as a planet becomes more developed but gets replaced by a bonus in science and economy. And a moral penalty that increases with time and decreases with development. That said I prefer the previous way because the binary switch makes it easier to keep track of things and oppress Colonials.


utilae, thanks

Re: colonialism

Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 10:44 am
by Pasi
But maybe a colonial word could be kept as a happy colonial world a bit longer with morale boosters...

in theory it could include things like decreasing taxes (would cause a morale drop when the colony becaomes imperial and the tax goes through the roof ;) )
or maybe give the planet more money to spend for people well-being.

Just an idea ...! (?)

Re: colonialism

Posted: Fri Oct 19, 2007 6:06 pm
by Tortanick
Pasi wrote:But maybe a colonial word could be kept as a happy colonial world a bit longer with morale boosters...
Of course you could :) But as you said the key word is "a bit longer", eventually you'd either have to force unhappy colonials to work or start new colonies

Re: colonialism

Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 4:10 pm
by Pasi
IMHO you should be able to keep them happy forever by just throwing in more and more cash... That's what I do with my wife :D

Re: colonialism

Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 4:42 pm
by Tortanick
That depends on external factors, namely how the unrest system is developed, if you can put in infinite amount of cash (I doubt it) to remove infinite amount of unrest, then sure but your costs will go up and up and up and up... and you'll still need some way of preventing the planet from reaching the required development level. Not a long term solution.

Re: colonialism

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2007 4:18 am
by yoshi
the thing is there is never a long term plan when your trying to keep your unwashed masses unwashed

Re: colonialism

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2007 9:53 am
by Tortanick
exactly! And I want that to be in the game. Unsustainable short term plans to keep them unwashed are in, no long term plans except possibly genocide and starting with a new colony ship.