Primitives for proportions?

[Erax]

I believe most primitives should have a ground combat bonus. Just a little, for flavor, so you would sometimes get a Zulus vs. British scenario (high-tech empire underestimates primitive bravery/warrior spirit; primitives win but take huge losses).

About plagues... when Europe invaded the New World, the New World got TB, but Europe got siphylis. Not so good, hm ? I know it's probably impossible to mod, but primitives should be able to plague anyone who invades them.

The word 'Barbarian' comes from a Greek expression meaning, basically, 'people whose language sounds like Bar Bar Bar'. Therefore, the SE IV equivalent would be... Yubyubians ?

Regarding primitive shipsets... please, please do the Dwarves in Space race / shipset !

[PvK]

Combat bonus can of course be set as you please. Some primitives might be good fighters, others not.

Giving some of them plague weapons would be trivially easy. If you want to create some which have built-in infection abilities that aren't entirely intentional, that'd be pretty easy too. The problem is, if they're neutrals, then the only thing they could infect would be colonies in their own system, and only if they had some spaceflight ability. I guess you could also give them some plague causing intelligence missions, which would represent your own traders spreading their diseases to your systems. In Propotions, this could be quite disastrous!!!

PvK

[Erax]

Your suggestion for plague causing intelligence missions with potentially disastrous results describes quite well what I had in mind. They should be low-cost missions, so they would be hapenning all the time (potentially infected citizens arrive every day at your planets) but would be fairly easy to block (representing the efforts of your health service). But if one got through, it could be a disaster.

[Dingocat85]

Originally posted by Aloofi:
Think about it, we could roleplay a contact, TODAY, of Earth with an space filled of power hungry alien races.....

What if the Krill Dominion lives 2 systems away from us........

Getting way off topic, I was thinking of something along those lines...would it be possible to make a scenario that matched the description of the SE IV races *exactly*?

In other words:
1) Eee and Drushocka would start nearby (maybe even in the same system ),
2) The Norak homesystem would have 3 suns,
3) Terrans' homesystem is just like ours ,
4) Xenophobic races would start far, far away from any other races

...and so on. Sound doable?

(Come to think of it, maybe this should be a separate thread entirely...)

[narf poit chez BOOM]

i hope it's doable

[QuarianRex]

Yup. easily. Just mess around with the map editor. You can designate which player starts where, what's in the system etc.

I suggest altering a random map rather than trying to do one from scratch. It can be somewhat tedious.

[Dingocat85]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I think making the primitives be able to defend themselves is really not something a lot of effort should be spent on. My view of the primitives is adding another "resource" for the space faring empires to take advantage of. The question won't be who can kill the primitives, but who can make the best use of them in their empire.

One defense I would give primitives would be some sort of cultural unity. I can think of three ways this could be done:

>>>>> 1) Make it well-nigh impossible to use intelligence on the natives.

>>>>> 2) Natives ought to be blissfully happy.

>>>>> 3) Make it impossible for the natives to surrender. What good is it keeping a massively inferior race alive, when with a surrender, you could control them completely, get all of their resources, planets, etc? UNLESS there would be some other reason to keep the natives alive...IOW, something the natives could build/do that nobody else could, that would make it worth keeping their Empire around. The 'Plague Intelligence Project' sounds great, but something in addition might be good...off the top of my head, maybe a long-range plague infestation missile weapon, called (for now) Foul Catapult?

Originally posted by PvK:
Giving some of them plague weapons would be trivially easy. If you want to create some which have built-in infection abilities that aren't entirely intentional, that'd be pretty easy too. The problem is, if they're neutrals, then the only thing they could infect would be colonies in their own system...

Maybe so, but I was thinking that the natives would build a ship with a unique component, and the player would "buy" it from the natives, by trading resources, Tech levels, other ships, etc. for it.
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On another topic, it might be a cool feature if natives didn't actually speak your language, but instead there had to be translations. This would have no affect on gameplay, it'd just look neat . For example:

We have received a message from the Ewok Chiefdom:
" 'Yub Yub Inga Ooooohah...' Translation: We admire the many shiny things your empire has"
(General Message)

...or, conversely:
" 'Yub Yubaaaaaah Yah!!' Translation: We shall play your fighting game with glee!"
(response to declaration of War)

...and so on. Might be fun

[ April 30, 2003, 21:14: Message edited by: Dingocat85 ]

[PvK]

One reason to keep natives alive would be trade. If their production is inferior to yours, they can still receive trade income from full empires, which generates resources which wouldn't exist if they were wiped out. Players can then try to jip them out of those resources through diplomatic trade, threats, intel, or gift them ships which they could maintain on their trade income (unless the AI is too pathetic to realize it could maintanin them with low production but high trade).

Unique intel and techs would be other reasons.

Of course, it'll still be tempting to conquer them and use their population.

PvK

[Dingocat85]

Originally posted by PvK:
One reason to keep natives alive would be trade. If their production is inferior to yours, they can still receive trade income from full empires, which generates resources which wouldn't exist if they were wiped out.
PvK

But if you made them surrender, then you would control them entirely, get 100% of their resources, planets, etc. - It ought to be impossible to force Natives to surrender.

Originally posted by PvK:
Unique intel and techs would be other reasons.

Of course, it'll still be tempting to conquer them and use their population.

PvK

Exactly what I had in mind. Anyone have any ideas on *what* the unique Intel/Techs should be?

[QuarianRex]

Dingo,

Why do you think that primitives would have cultural unity. Usually, the less advanced a culture, the more isolated and fragmented it is. I'm not sure why you would think that they would be acting with one mind, one voice.

As far as never surrendering, primitives may be a little technologicaly backward but they are not stupid. Courage and bravery mean nothing when your foe opens up the heavens and liquifies a small continent with a hail of APB XII's (or even just the threat of such). As for why you would bother keeping them around, that all depends on how you are simulating the primitives.