Replace Gaia Worlds with City Worlds?

[Mitchz95]

There's been plenty of discussion about whether Gaia Worlds are good and/or necessary for the game. Instead of re-hashing those arguments, I thought I'd propose a compromise: replacing them with city worlds, but leaving the functionality virtually identical.

Here's how Gaia Worlds work right now:
- 100% habitability to any species
- Very rare random spawn
- Fallen Empires have a lot of them
- Terraforming them is expensive and takes a long time
- The tech to terraform them is rare

All of the above would also apply to City Worlds like Coruscant or Trantor, or Hive Worlds from 40k:

- They're covered in artificial structures, so they can support any kind of species
- They'd require a lot of resources to make, so there won't be a lot of them around
- They're exactly what one would expect a Fallen Empire to use (Imperium of Man, anyone?)
- Building them would be an extremely difficult and expensive undertaking
- Figuring out how to make them wouldn't come easily, but could come into play around the same time we're figuring out how to build megastructures...

Really, the devs could just swap them in without changing functionality at all. Although perhaps instead of terraforming uninhabited worlds to city planets, they could make it so the "Ecumenopolis Creation Tech" unlocks an edict you can use to create a special project at one of your colonies, allowing it to be transformed into a City World for the same time/energy/mineral cost as a Gaia World.

What do you think? Would this be a happy medium?

 

[corny.1234]

Additional Planet class, city worlds - maybe
Removing Gaia worlds - no

 

[stavern]

Ring worlds would be better to call city worlds in my opinion. They are created by the FE or whoever built Sanctuary. Gaia worlds are more special planets in my games where I have artic and desert species living together.

 

[Ezumiyr]

There's no compromise to find. There's no reason to remove Gaia planets from the game, adn Wiz answered "no" to that thread anyway.
I'm pretty sure that the same who didn't like Gaia planets will dislike city planets, because one of their reasons is that they found Gaia planets unrealistic.

However, City planets are also a common trope in science fiction, and they might be a nice addition to the game if the devs decide to allow the player to have heavily specialized planets. Let's rather talk about planet types we would like to see in Stellaris.

 

[The Danish King]

I like the idea of adding hive worlds in some form, but not sure about removing gaia worlds.

Maybe give the player/AI a choice when colonizing a "gaia" world and have two set of aesthetics. You can choose it to be as it is now, a lush "green" planet or a brutal, menacing hivecity.

 

[corny.1234]

I like the idea of adding hive worlds in some form, but not sure about removing gaia worlds.

Maybe give the player/AI a choice when colonizing a "gaia" world and have two set of aesthetics. You can choose it to be as it is now, a lush "green" planet or a brutal, menacing hivecity.

In my opinion, city world should be upgradable via the terraform menu when certain conditions are met. Pretty much like an upgrade.
But they should have positive and negative sides.

For example:
No food tiles anymore
Increased research and energy production
Increased habitability
Decreased happiness (for overcrowding)
Maybe increased unity or influence

Just as an example...

 

[hagen_hase]

I dont think Gaia worlds should be removed, but FE shouldnt use them, they shoudl protect them yes, but dont use them as their homeworlds. city worlds are a better idea for FE homeworlds.

 

[akrim111]

I think he didn't mean removing them, just renaming them and changing the look and description.

 

[Sarius1997]

I think City Worlds certainly have their place in a game like this, but i honestly can´t bring myself to support them as long as the pop is capped with the number of tiles. Or would you want a moon completly covered in living space to still only have space for 12 pops?

 

[SWVRoma]

I could imagine city or fortress worlds as planets for the militarist FE (mainly a form of fortress world) or the pacifist FE. Materialists make sense for the ring world and spiritualists certainly make sense for the gaia worlds.

 

[SamuraiLordofWii]

mhh with that idea i wonder if we should add 2 new ethos to the game one for a natural conection with planets and one for heavy industrialisation im not sure how far this is repersentet but it could be like one side prefer to leave the planets more in a untouched way and coexit with the exiting flauna and flora and the other is heavy manipuliating and forming the planets to there own will and hunger for recourses. Could unlock some new buldings and add some modifiers to planets which affect the pop happiens.

 

[BIGTEX285]

Why are so many people attached to Gaia worlds? My RP is much more intact with city worlds, instead of magical atmospheres. Idk, I don't have a real preference anyways...

 

[Zoinker]

Gaia worlds could be re-defined as planets whose biosphere has attained a degree of collective consciousness or maybe even sapience, allowing it to tailor parts of its surface to suit whatever species is living on it. This would fit with the general sci-fi concepts associated with the word 'gaia' and would be a more interesting explanation than 'generic super planet'. This wouldn't require any change in the basic mechanics of Gaia worlds and would explain better why spiritual empires are so protective of them.

On the other hand, living planets could go the other way, actively viewing colonists as an intruder and kill them off (ex. Chiron from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri)

 

[ModZero]

Yeah, I dunno, I feel like "gaia" should be more of a modifier to the actual biome, making it far more habitable (and "pretty"?) for species that prefer that biome, rather than flat 100% for all. After all some biome preferences are at odds with each other. Flat 100% feels like something more suited to artificial environments.

 

[Held der Arbeit]

They certainly make sense now that food is finally becoming global. And if you can build a frikkin dyson sphere you can damn well build a Hive World.

I agree with the others though that they should not be a replacement for Gaia Worlds. Not just because there's no good reason to kick out one planet type to get another, but also because a global city is nothing you just find lying around uncolonised. It is more akin to a megaproject

 

[Magnificent Genius]

As an additional planet type, I'm for it. As a replacement, no.

I see Gaia worlds as semi sentient, So the whole, perfect habitability for everyone thing never bothered me, as that is kinda what the term and nature of the world implies. Perfect habitability for all, and named after a nature goddess? Yeah, sentience confirmed for me. Someone could ping Wiz and ask for a word of God on whether Gaia worlds are prefect habitability due to active sentience, then we would know.

 

[Voidlord]

Yeah, I dunno, I feel like "gaia" should be more of a modifier to the actual biome, making it far more habitable (and "pretty"?) for species that prefer that biome, rather than flat 100% for all. After all some biome preferences are at odds with each other. Flat 100% feels like something more suited to artificial environments.

Gaia worlds ARE artificial in nature, created in the previous cycles...

 

[Zaltys]

Yep, though it would be great if there were random planetary modifiers that'd result in gaia-like planets. Not full 100% for everyone, but still high percentage for most species.

Because currently you can't really build a proper xenophilie multicultural utopia without gaias. Even with maxed technology, all species stay on their own planet type and are unwilling to move. So you end up with one set of alien species living on Dry planets, another on Frozen, and third on Wet.

 

[kirell]

Gaia worlds ARE artificial in nature, created in the previous cycles...

Yeah, but one species perfect world is another species nightmare, with toxic athmosphere (far too much oxygen), far too hot (25° C average, everyone will die from the heat) etc.

 

[ModZero]

Gaia worlds ARE artificial in nature, created in the previous cycles...

This will teach me to decide "compartmentalised" is one adjective too many. I didn't mean just "artificial", but actually designed in a way that makes it possible to completely separate atmospheres. Which sounds a lot more like a city than a peaceful forest somewhere.

I don't really get the "sentient/secretly mechanised" vibe off Gaia planets. Too few sentient oceans and generally I'd expect more story development in such a case. It feels more like something designed for the more, uhh, rustically sensitive highly developed species.