Hive-Mind Changes

[t_b]

Hive-Mind Changes
As hive-minds are currently very weak and do not have as much flavour as other empires I decided to suggest a few changes to improve them.
Growth
Hive-Mind’s pop growth could be changed to an empire wide affect as hive minds should be able to decide where to prioritise growth. Unlike migration this will be controlled by the hive mind. This would work by the addition of “Growth” to the empire tab. This would allow the player to assign pop growth points to decide how much of the growth they get. The categories would be 0-10 (Colonies), 10-20 (Communities), 20-40 (Collectives), 40-65 (Hubs), 65+ (Drone Worlds). This pop growth would then be affected by modifiers. See the image below for how it would work:

The Spawning Pool would also be buffed to give 2 spawning drone jobs instead of 1 to match robot growth.

Ruling
As hives are all connected with one individual representing all the ruler should reflect this. As such I suggest the creation of “Moods”. Moods are very similar to agendas and last for 10 years as the hive is such an ancient being it’s moods change far more slowly than other creatures. The moods normal hive moods are:

• Calm: +5% pop resource production and -5 deviancy
  
  
• Reflective: +10% unity
  
  
• Lonely: +15 other empire opinion
  
  
• Defensive: +20% armour
  
  
• Friendly: -30% diplomatic cost
  
  
• Fearful: +20% ship weapons damage in empire’s systems
  
  
• Idyllic: +20% pop upkeep and +15% pop growth
  
  
• Mysterious: -10 other empire opinion and other empires can not see into your systems
  
  
• Kind: +30% colony development speed
  
  
• Angry: -20% claim cost
  
  
• Raging: +10% ship weapons and army damage
  
  
• Mad: Gain unity equivalent to a ship’s strength when destroying it
  
  
• Neutral: Will change in 5 years instead of 10

Moods can only be changed to specific other moods or be kept. The pattern for what moods can be changed to is as seen below.

AI hive-minds actions will be affected their current mood for example a calm empire will not declare war while angry empire’s are likely to. All Hive-Minds will start at Neutral and be able to change their mood after 5 years. Hive-mind’s moods can be seen by any empire in place of the normal empire’s personalities. As terravores and devouring swarms are more radical they have a different set of moods which they can change between every 10 years. The radical moods are:

• Purification: +20% resources and speed from eating
  
  
• Violence: -15% war exhaustion
  
  
• Unusually Tranquil: +20% ship build speed
  
  
• Swarming: +10% pop growth speed
  
  
• Crazy: Ship weapons damage has a -50% to +50% buff each combat
  
  
• Scavenging: Claim cost -10% and gain food/minerals from destroying enemy ships

Amenities
The current maintenance system disadvantages hive-minds as they have more pops. To fix this I suggest each Maintenance depot would also provide a “Helper Drone” job which reduces amenity usage by 10%.

 

[LordofMayhem]

This should be on the desk of someone who can call the shots on this sort of stuff.

The part on growth in particular is the only place I (tentatively) disagree. I'd like to see Hive minds just flat-out dominate with overwhelming growth rates across the board. Colonies should have no growth reduction whatsoever, and I feel like being able to reach 30 or 35 monthly growth would make them strong enough. I have managed to get 20 monthly growth with immigration-loving, xeno-comp-using Xenophile empires, a Hive mind should thus be able to blow that out of the water in order to compete (IMO), and 1 pop every 3-5 months sounds about right.

 

[Methone]

I like it, though I'd argue the Mood system should be applied to gestalts in general.

 

[Mastikator]

These are the rare cool ideas I come here for, this gives an needed mechanical AND lore buff hive minds. Part of why I feel they are a bit boring is the lack of personality, this would go ways to help that

I take it the moods are random? Or do you get to choose?

 

[t_b]

These are the rare cool ideas I come here for, this gives an needed mechanical AND lore buff hive minds. Part of why I feel they are a bit boring is the lack of personality, this would go ways to help that

I take it the moods are random? Or do you get to choose?

The moods are chosen, but are restricted. So for example a hive can go from angry to mad, raging or neutral and nothing else. This means you have to plan when to start becoming angry before war.

 

[t_b]

I like it, though I'd argue the Mood system should be applied to gestalts in general.

Perhaps, I was largely focusing on hive minds however as they do not have much personality in the game while machine empires have more civics which suggest a personality.