So an idea I've seen floating around here is as follows:
"All Hive Minds feel the same."
This certainly isn't entirely without merit. Hive Minds have a grand total of 2 personalities, Hive Mind and Devouring Swarm. Compared to the 4 that Machines have, and the 15 that regular empires have. 17 if you count Fanatical Befrienders and Metalheads.
There've been a lot of ideas floated around on how to resolve this, from having Gestalt Consciousness cost only 2 ethic points and let you be a Militarist-Hive, Xenophile-Hive etc, to having there be an entire separate series of ethics for Gestalts like Autonomous/Centralized.
The solution I came up with - knowing full well it's just me wishing for it and it'll never actually get into the game - is based off the Machine Intelligence model - 3 special civics. Obviously, going by this, we have the Determined Exterminator-Devouring Swarm duality, and the Machine Intelligence-Hive Mind one. That just leaves a Hive-Assimilator and Hive-Servitor.
But I didn't want it to just be 'Assimilator but made of meat', 'Servitor but made of meat'. I wanted them to have something special to them. At the same time I wanted them to be simple enough that a player scrolling over the civic selection ingame wouldn't have to read a whole memoir to understand it. What I came up with is as follows:
and
Please read through, tell me what you think.
"All Hive Minds feel the same."
This certainly isn't entirely without merit. Hive Minds have a grand total of 2 personalities, Hive Mind and Devouring Swarm. Compared to the 4 that Machines have, and the 15 that regular empires have. 17 if you count Fanatical Befrienders and Metalheads.
There've been a lot of ideas floated around on how to resolve this, from having Gestalt Consciousness cost only 2 ethic points and let you be a Militarist-Hive, Xenophile-Hive etc, to having there be an entire separate series of ethics for Gestalts like Autonomous/Centralized.
The solution I came up with - knowing full well it's just me wishing for it and it'll never actually get into the game - is based off the Machine Intelligence model - 3 special civics. Obviously, going by this, we have the Determined Exterminator-Devouring Swarm duality, and the Machine Intelligence-Hive Mind one. That just leaves a Hive-Assimilator and Hive-Servitor.
But I didn't want it to just be 'Assimilator but made of meat', 'Servitor but made of meat'. I wanted them to have something special to them. At the same time I wanted them to be simple enough that a player scrolling over the civic selection ingame wouldn't have to read a whole memoir to understand it. What I came up with is as follows:
What the player sees:
- The Hive Mind is in reality an incredibly contagious neural disease, which takes control of its hosts in return for physically enhancing them.
- Native Pops are Infested rather than Hive-Minded
- Must Assimilate non-Infested organic pops
- Can use the Raiding Bombardment stance, which in turn allows us to abduct pops from enemy worlds and assimilate them on our own
- Enemy Occupation forces will be dislodged from our worlds over time.
- Decreased opinion for most empires.
- +40% Army Damage
- +5% Worker Output (It's a free Very Strong)
- Cannot survive outside Creeping Contagion empires.
- This species has been utterly enslaved by a disease, gaining immense strength in exchange for the loss of free will.
- Non-Infested pops are infested over time.
- Have the Disease Takeover Living Standard, with flavor text:
- Braaaiiins...
Just as you have the Barbaric Despoiler raiding stance - but no accompanying Plunder CB, much less a Total War CB like assimilators - people don't like you much for being an "Ominous Infestation".
- -20 Opinion from Materialists, who'd like to study you.
- -40 Opinion from Militarists, who insist they aren't scared of you.
- -80 Opinion from Spiritualists, because you're a horrible plague
- -50 Opinion from all other non-Gestalts
When an enemy force Occupies your worlds, your disease will slowly go to work on them, subverting soldiers who are then killed by their fellows. Mechanical soldiers are, obviously, unaffected. The ingame effect is that Occupied World armies suffer the damage of Selective Bombardment constantly, and once the last enemy invader has been expunged, the world goes back to your control.
This, as you can imagine, is poor consolation when in Total War.
This, as you can imagine, is poor consolation when in Total War.
AI Empires with this civic gain the "Creeping Contagion" personality, with the following effects and flavor:
- Creeping Contagions are hive minds capable of propagating their will by infecting other species. They will rarely bother with diplomacy, believing their worlds unassailable.
- Conqueror behavior, they will attempt to annex you.
- Infiltrator, they will Infiltrate primitives
- Opportunist, they're likely to attack an empire already embroiled in war
- Aggressiveness, 2x, they're likely to attack you if they hate you
- Border Friction, 0.2x, they only have -1 opinion per shared hyperlane
- Bravery, 1.5x, they'll attack enemies stronger than themselves
- Colony Spending, 0.9x
- Military Spending, 1.2x
- Threat Concern, 0x, they don't care about the Exterminator over there killing everyone.
- Combat Bravery, 2x, no retreat!
- Trade Willingness, 0.5x, they want trades heavily in their favor
- Hull Ratio on Ships - 0.2x
- Armor Ratio on Ships - 0.6x
- Shield Ratio on Ships - 0.2x
- Prefer using Energy Weapons
- -100 acceptance to Nonaggression Pacts
- -100 acceptance to Defensive Pacts
- -100 acceptance to Federations
and
What the player sees:
- The Hive Mind has developed a great interest in those who live outside its being.
- Can form Migration Treaties with non-Gestalt Empires
- Native Pops have special Integrated Drone citizenship in non-Gestalt Empires
- Non-Gestalt Pops can have special Outsider citizenship, giving you Unity
- Has sensor access on any worlds with our native Pops
Once you convince an empire to open a Migration Treaty, your Drones can populate their worlds. While Purifiers and such can still set your drones to Undesirables, they can't actually be 'enslaved' and have their own special Citizenship:
Integrated Drone
Auxiliary Laborer
Integrated Drone
Auxiliary Laborer
Integrated Drone
- Pops from a Gestalt Consciousness that can work Auxiliary Laborer jobs.
- They're kind of creepy. Always staring, always speaking in unison.
Auxiliary Laborer
- 0x Consumer Goods Upkeep
- 0x Political Power
- 0.5x Amenities Usage
- 0.25x Housing Usage
- Exempt from Military Service
- They never demand a raise, never go on vacation, never join a union. The perfect worker!
Integrated Drone
- Below Worker
- Cannot be Enslaved
- Semi-Autonomous drones from a massive gestalt mind that are trying their best to fit in to our society.
Auxiliary Laborer
- +2 Food
- +2 Minerals
- +2 Amenities
- Tireless drones working in the fields, working in the mines, and serving our citizens.
It goes both ways, too. Outsiders come to your worlds with a special Citizenship, Living Standard, and Stratum. You can of course still decide "No, I don't like THESE particular outsiders" and enslave, displace and purge them as you please, but for the rest you can give them the Citizenship Status of:
Outsider
Outsider
Outsider
Outsider
- Pops from other Empires can work a variety of jobs in place of our drones.
- Colonization Forbidden
- Those outside our mind are strange. But it is this strangeness that makes them valuable.
Outsider
- +1 Minerals Upkeep
- +1 Energy Upkeep (To simulate them having to make their own Consumer Goods)
- Produce +2 Unity, regardless of employment
- -40% Happiness if Unemployed
- It is difficult to provide for their needs. But we will try.
Outsider
- Below Simple Drone
- Can work a variety of jobs as if they were outside the empire. List is: Miners, Technicians, Farmers, Crystal Miners, Gas Extractors, Mote Harvesters, Translucers, Gas Refiners, Chemists, Metallurgists, and Researchers (Though Researchers have a Mineral/Energy upkeep rather than Consumer Goods).
- Whatever Stratum those jobs normally have, it's all the same Outsider stratum here.
- They work on their own. We expend no effort, and yet resources appear as if by magic!
AI Empires with this civic gain the "Inquisitive Mind" personality, with the following effects and flavor:
- Inquisitive Minds are hives that are greatly interested in life outside their own corpus. They will gladly mix with the population of other empires, and equally gladly take in alien species.
- Subjugator, declares war to make Subjects
- Multispecies, while the player can decide they don't like a specific species, the AI will love everyone
- Robot Liberator, in theory, but without access to Robot Techs to tell 'this is a Synth, no, it's a Droid', robots get disassembled anyway
- Uplifter, they will make Protectorates out of primitives
- Aggressiveness, 0.5x, unlikely to war you if they hate you
- Border Friction, 0x, get as close to them as you want
- Bravery, 0.9x, a little wary of declaring war on equally strong empires
- Colony Spending, 1.2x
- Military Spending, 0.9x
- Threat Concern, 1.2x, a little more worried about the Exterminator melting everyone into batteries
- Trade Willingness, 0.9x, willing to make somewhat balanced deals
- Hull Ratio, 0.3x
- Armor Ratio, 0.3x
- Shield Ratio, 0.4x
- Guided Weapons (Missiles) Preference
- Has +30 Opinion to everyone else for being an "Exotic Curiosity".
- +20 acceptance to Nonaggression Pacts
- +20 acceptance to Defensive Pacts
- +10 acceptance to Research Agreements
- +100 acceptance to Migration Treaties
- +10 acceptance to Federations
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