[Suicide Junkie]

So instead of one nice clean slider, you want to use a bloated monstrosity of checkboxes in a list providing less utility overall?

The UI is already bad enough.

Cultural techs are definitely no replacement for racial setup, since in this case research points turn into racial points.


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If we were to get any racial setup system out of the blue, what I would want is a supply & demand system...

When setting up your race, you don't choose what values you want... instead, you set an "importance" score for each trait, along with the minimum and maximum trade amount.

When the game is first started, each race will then trade attributes, buying low, selling high until they can no longer make a trade which will increase their holding's importance.

So if everybody values minerals very highly, but one race is willing to sell, they will get a LOT of other attributes in exchange.
The race which values minerals the highest will get the most offers, but will also be willing to give up the most in other traits to get those mineral skill points.

Overall, all the races in the game average out to "average" skill by definition, which makes sense.
And as a bonus, there is no balancing required. The cost of each trait is determined by free market forces.