Nomadic Races

Windborne · #1 March 1st, 2001, 06:00 PM

I had an idea earlier today that I'd love to get everyone's oppinion on. To my way of thinking it's odd that the galaxy of space empires IV lacks nomadic races. Why haven't some species left behind their "primitive" planet dwelling existence to move out into space as their natural habitat?

Unable to inhabit planets the nomadic race would initially start out with a great disadvantage. It would start out with a single space station in an astroid belt somewhere deep in the galaxy. From there on it could gain multiple advantages over the many younger races evolving in their sector of the galaxy.

Nomadic play would be based on two key concepts: The inability to colonize planets, and a specialized tech tree that allowed various facilities to built in space.

Advantages:

The nomadic race could build as many facilities as it could support

The nomadic race would be able to move it's people and facilities out of the path of conquerers if need be, defending the fleet rather then stationary planets.

The nomadic race would explore the galaxy faster making more contacts with other species.

Disadvantages:

The nomadic race would depend on remote mining, trade, tribute, and treaties of subjugation for all it's resources

The nomadic race would have a lower population as each ship it built to hold people would have to be supported somehow

DirkHowitzer · #2 March 1st, 2001, 06:15 PM

Though this has been brought up before, never with such a detailed plan. I think nomadic races, especially in the format mentioned below, would be a terrific asset to the game. As I said, this has been mentioned before and I believe I recall that the main problems regarding this is that it can't be modded. It would have to be something Aaron would hard code into the game. Correct? Not correct?

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"He's dead, Jim."-- Lt. Commander Leonard "Bones" McCoy |Chief Medical Officer / USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

Windborne · #3 March 1st, 2001, 06:26 PM

Yes it would have to be coded in, the tech tree could probably be modded but if you left players the option to both build facilities in space and the ablity to colonize planets they'd win every time.

Tampa_Gamer · #4 March 1st, 2001, 06:39 PM

Like everyone else stated, this has been proposed and (by many people) attempted in terms of modding. I think everyone agrees that a PROPERLY balanced nomadic race would be a great addition. The two major hurdles would be to:

(1) have Aaron hard-code the limitations/disadvantages in (no planetary building); and

(2) the abilities of certain facilities (point generation, storage, population, etc.) would have to be changed to be usable by components as well.

There are also a host of minor hurdles that would have to be hard-coded as well (pop growth on spaceships, morale of colonists, etc.) The rest can all be modded.

mac5732 · #5 March 1st, 2001, 06:50 PM

how about the nomadic race having the ability to build small or medium stations where they could have various facilities for their race and for their Tech tree? Also how about giving them certain additional tech's that none of the other human or AI players have or could obtain. A few, not all of them, they could be allowed to trade to other players for ships, additional resources, etc. if the price was right? you would have to give them something in order to survive or they'll be wiped out very quickly. In addition if possible, you could make or put as option, that once they are done mining a specific area, that they abandon these bases and move on to another system. These empty bases could then be colonized or whatever by other players as refueling or other types of bases, or when they mine an area that when they leave, all resources from their mining areas whether astroids or planets, that their is nothing left for others to mine or use. This would create a race that could threaten all players
in that they remove all resources from their systems. Just some ideas, your ideas sound good. mac5732 "Never say Never"

Windborne · #6 March 1st, 2001, 07:15 PM

I like the locust-like aspect to macs idea, though I'd also hope there would be a specialized, more efficient form of mining they could use without destroying the resources, this would of course give them less resources per turn then simply strip mining the area.

On the other hand I'd think that since their ships could have weapons and troops on them they wouldn't be in a lot of danger from the other players, they could fight or run at their own discretion and never be tied to one area of space, especially after they learn to open and close warp points.

The big thing is they must NEVER be able to colonize planets, take them over yes, but never build a single colony ship. As soon as they learn that technology the game is over, they win.

dmm · #7 March 1st, 2001, 07:40 PM

They could be natural nebula dwellers, which explains why they can't colonize planets. But they can see through nebulae, and collect resources from them. So they would be very non-threatening in the early part of the game, when nebulae are worthless to other players. Then when people start getting stellar manipulation techs, watch out! They'll want to turn everything into nebulae, and everyone will want to turn their nebulae into planets!

Same idea for asteroid dwellers.

Nitram Draw · #8 March 1st, 2001, 07:53 PM

It could definitely be done if a human played and abided by the house rule not to colonize any other planet.
They would need their own tech tree to allow for ship minig and such. I would think the research costs would be real low, as they won't be building many research facilities.
Would be an interesting race to play!

Suicide Junkie · #9 March 1st, 2001, 09:23 PM

A simple way to prevent planet colonization from making nomads powerful, it so give them

-100% reproduction and -100% environment resistance

with zero maintenance (no mod needed), and the maximum negative settings for:
-reproduction
-environment resist.
-mineral prod.
-organic prod.
-radioactive prod.

You'd be most of the way there. They would get almost nothing from planets, but would not lose ships from lack of income.

-Have a racial trait 'non-nomadic' that provides access to colony ships & colony components, and normal ships, at a cost of 10,000 racial points.
-Add another racial trait 'is a player' that gives the nomadic racial modifiers, at a cost of -10,000 racial points.
-A third trait 'is-nomadic' would provide nomadic attributes (as above), allow non-colony ship hulls, and would give special components that store resources and can be built on space stations. As well, you may want to provide access to a low-tech SM storm generator component.

So, every race needs to have the 'is-a-player' trait plus 'is-nomadic' or 'not-nomadic' in order to build ships at all.
Nomadic races would no be able to research or steal colony tech.

Now, the SE4 engine will give them Rock colonization or something by default.
That's OK, since they still can't build colony ships, or the actual colony component.

How's that for designing nomadic races? you just have to change the AI's files so they choose the racial traits 'isaplayer' and 'non-nomadic', as well as research 'non-nomadic tech I' first, so they get colony components.

Sinapus · #10 March 1st, 2001, 09:36 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Tampa_Gamer:

There are also a host of minor hurdles that would have to be hard-coded as well (pop growth on spaceships, morale of colonists, etc.) The rest can all be modded.

Hm. This might help with planet-bound races building space colonies in deep space. Big O'Neill type cylinders and such.

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