Religious Talisman - unbalancing or not?

[Grandpa Kim]

Or have it selectable at game setup.

Religious_________2000 pts.
Hidden Religious__3000 pts.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
The problem is that when you meet a race, most of their traits would be painfully obvious. How do you hide the fact that you use organic stuff on your ships? Or crystalline? Or the fact that you are deeply religious (your entire demeanor would give it away)? Some traits could be hidden, but most would be obvious, especially if you ever get to scan or visit a planet of theirs...

I think that's the point he was trying to make -- it would be "better" if you could only discover these traits through interaction. (I put "better" in quotes because I'm not sure I agree... but it does make for an interesting twist). And your "painfully obvious" examples carry a few assumptions, I think, that don't necessarily apply to any given game...

edit: spellink

[ May 05, 2004, 20:10: Message edited by: spoon ]

[spoon]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:

it would indeed be good if you had an optional field in RacialTraits.txt that was "Hidden Trait := TRUE"

Yeah, good idea. Post it in the SE5 wishlist thread!

[tesco samoa]

That item has been sent to MM.. On the level of what you can see on initial contact... I believe that you will know nothing... And the options to show what can and cannot be seen will be shown. Such as Ship names , planet names, Ship classes , Race descriptions and traits.

Now I would love it if everything was named differently for each race... And that as one race updates their names etc... They can only see it... For Systems, Planets , Ships..

[Fyron]

Originally posted by spoon:
I think that's the point he was trying to make -- it would be "better" if you could only discover these traits through interaction. (I put "better" in quotes because I'm not sure I agree... but it does make for an interesting twist). And your "painfully obvious" examples carry a few assumptions, I think, that don't necessarily apply to any given game...

edit: spellink

How so? It is very hard to hide the fact that your ships use organic technology, or crystalline. It is hard to miss someone from a deeply religious race if you converse with them... just talking with them yields all the clues you need... "deeply religious" does not mean "is religious", it means "is very religious, religion deeply permeates all aspects of their lives". Or it could be "deeply spiritual", which would have a similar affect...

[spoon]

1) Seeing a ship across the system does not mean (necesarrily) that you can scan it for it's makeup.

2) I could be Deeply Religious, but fear persecution (which, funny enough, is what would happen in a game against experienced players), so I keep quiet about it.

3) I could be Deeply Religious, and part of my religion is to not talk to outsiders. You wouldn't know if I was religious, xenophobic, crazy, or what.

Your reasoning just seemed a little steeped in role-playing, which is fine and all, but not something which should necessarily apply to SE4.

[Fyron]

Roleplaying should most certainly apply to SE... this isn't chess here.

And anyways... this is why I suggested a field for every racial trait, so you can mod it however you would like...

[ May 05, 2004, 23:28: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Kamog]

Well, at least some of the racial traits aren't obvious. For example, "ancient race" or "lucky". It would be nice to be able to hide those traits.

[Baron Grazic]

It would be nice to have an option to turn off these sorts of details of other races in the game setup screen as well.