Ancient Wars, SEIV style

[Singollo]

Gotcha. So, you want to do away with cultural-specific "techs" altogether?

Changing the topic: why not have each star be sort of like a ringworld, with the equivalent of being like a larger city. That way you can have each star/city be the center of the surrounding area, with all other towns (planets) in the region (system) being outlying satellite towns or suburbs. That creates a more realistic idea of a piece of land, with one cultural center and a bunch of towns that spring up around it. (Obviously I don't mean that the culture starts with a free ringworld, just that the concept of a central uninhabitable star exerting gravity and keeping the planets near it should be translated as a central inhabitable town that exerts its cultural/political influence on the surrounding area.)

[geoschmo]

I don't diagree that you empires culture greatly affects many aspects of it's development, even technology. I was thinking along the lines that sinec these empires are all made up of men, they just shouldn't have any prediliction towards one or the other until the game starts. That the research points spent in effect would be your method of choosing a cultural path, and that would result in the various plusses that came along with it.

You could make stuff expensive enough that it would be very hard to change the course in the game, just not impossible. You'd have to tart over from scratch basically. Not a good thing to do with other empires about.

Yes, a large central city and smaller surrounding towns fits quite nicely with what I had in mind for the maps.

Geoschmo

[Karras Barrens]

Engines would be supply wagons, no matter how fast the fastest member of a unit is, without foot and ammunition he's fooked. Just increase the amount of supplies along with movement as the engines get better

[Suicide Junkie]

Essentially, Geo, you are arguing that predetermined cultural "traits" should only be defined by a scenario, not the SE4 race setup, right?