PBW Idea - Population Victory

[Jmenschenfresser]

Another short discussion gave me the idea to suggest this PBW game. Think on this...

What if surrendering were outlawed, as well as total genocide of another race? The second of the two couldn't be completely restricted by the game. A rule or two would have to be made.

However, victory would be determined after so many turns...say 200, could be more, could be less. And it would be determined by population rather than points.

It is easily moddable to restrict players from taking any reproduction bonuses.

How I see it:
-Every 1 million pop at the end gives you 1 point.
-Every 1 million pop of subjugated races gives you .5 points.
-Total genocide would not be restricted as just penalized. Resulting in the subtraction of say 4000 points from the end score. Or something to that effect. The population of a moderate HW.

I can see that plague bombs will now become excellent sabotage weapons.

Also evacuating Population from a system in threat of being invaded is an option.

I see this as a way of encouraging humane playing, and the end game would be composed of major empires and minor ones.

Subjugation would encourage terms of surrender, possibly.

One problem I can see is that once a player's military is beaten, he could just continue to harass the larger player with a few ships here, a few there, knowing full well he won't completely erradicate him. However, for the losing player, that isn't much fun. It would be better to ask for mercy before the carnage begins, so that later you may make a come back.

I guess it is also possible to set each empire to zero reproduction...that way there are a finite number of people in the galaxy, and a finite number of points. Then glassing planets is useless in the long run because you cannot just drop a colony ship on the barren world and gain back some of the loss through reproduction.

Any one interested or see any snags in this?