Why no option for single sex empires?

[Dorian Ertymexx]

Ok I did not understand well but now I agree a bit more. On the other hand antropomorphism is a huge trope in SF. Aliens tend to be really human like both in physiology and cognition. Arrival is the exception and not the rule. Having sex with an alien seem a big trope (and yeah for some reason author like to think of convolutied way to make offspring work in that case. Like for Asari, they have a whole pseudo scientific "makes a clone of themselves but can take DNA from the father" to justify it even if we know that there is no single reason that other lifeforms would use DNA as encoding).

In stellaris they already added a biocompatibility perk. I imagine that in that case "special" aliens are not far fetched (plus look at the aliens in stellaris, 90% of them are antropomorphised animals)

True. Which is why I would call Stellaris a space-fable rather than scifi. I mean, it IS a fable - the majority of the species are intelligent, talking animals (or plants... or fungi) from Earth. It is basically just the wise owl that is missing. ;-)

I would love a scifi game where aliens were truly Alien. Moo3 did that to some degree, or at least went further from antropmorph aliens than most games.

 

[Mr Thursday]

It's already in the game, there is no sexual dimorphism in the Mamalian portraits.

 

[Bearjuden]

It would make perfect sense to me if the asari (to name an example) were dependent on other creatures from their own planet to reproduce - but that was not the case. They were dependent on extraterrestial Life forms. Which begs the question how the heck they reproduced pre-FTL.

Asari are perfectly capable of reproducing with themselves (and I believe with lower life forms as well, if they so chose), it's just taboo to do so now that they have the option not to. They believe that reproducing with their own species doesn't improve their genes at all and runs the risk of creating Ardat-Yakshi, who have a rare and dangerous genetic condition that only seems to appear when Asari mate with other Asari.

Honestly I don't see much reason to avoid putting it in place. As it stands, half of the Mass Effect council can't be readily replicated, since Asari are genderless and Salarians are almost uniformly ruled by females. It's a nice, classic sci-fi trope to have in. I see no reason not to enable male or female only leaders/pictures/etc.

 

[Zergor]

True. Which is why I would call Stellaris a space-fable rather than scifi. I mean, it IS a fable - the majority of the species are intelligent, talking animals (or plants... or fungi) from Earth. It is basically just the wise owl that is missing. ;-)

I would love a scifi game where aliens were truly Alien. Moo3 did that to some degree, or at least went further from antropmorph aliens than most games.

Would be pretty interesting but also hard to manage. Not talking about artwork which would already require a fair deal of imagination to not feel that the thing is coming from earth but a really alien specie would probably have a mindset that is alien to us. And that's fairly hard to create.
In a 4X game it would not make sense though because anthropomorphism is required:
-Species all have a language
-Species all require the same ressourses
-Species all reproduce and that a mindset that drives them to expand
-Etc...
Those make sure that making them compete makes sense.

 

[Ezumiyr]

Empire customization is currently backwards. Let me explain:

We're playing as planetary empires who are just starting to explore. Their past history is one of globalization and unification. Their colonizer past is long gone at the point the game starts, and they have to learn everything. What they should have:

1. A background. How did they unify? What do they seek in space? What's their social structure?
   
2. Factions. It's not possible a global empire wouldn't have several big factions trying to influence power - political parties, religious orders, clans, whatever.
   
3. A government system that is deeply influenced by their culture

What they shouldn't have :

1. space civics that make NO sense for empires who are just discovering what happens
2. very similar social structures and governments
3. very solid ethics that will change very slowly even under a very dangerous threat.

Everything space-related should evolve and adapt depending on what happens during the game. And there should definitly be a past to deal with, and not just for humans. Origins civics have been suggested for eons now, and they are precisely where you could find such things as amazon empires or forgotten edens. There could be a bunch of origin civics that cost nothing and just add some fluff (like different faction names) or slightly alter your social structure, and others that change your gameplay. This also includes different religions and beliefs for spiritualists...

I have no idea why Paradox keeps adding new complex features instead of polishing and enhancing what we already have, such as civics, traits, or traditions. I have been quite supportive of Stellaris in the past, but I'm starting to think they are just doing it wrong.

LET US PERSONALIZE OUR SPACE CULTURES, PARADOX, PLEASE

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

Would be pretty interesting but also hard to manage. Not talking about artwork which would already require a fair deal of imagination to not feel that the thing is coming from earth but a really alien specie would probably have a mindset that is alien to us. And that's fairly hard to create.
In a 4X game it would not make sense though because anthropomorphism is required:
-Species all have a language
-Species all require the same ressourses
-Species all reproduce and that a mindset that drives them to expand
-Etc...
Those make sure that making them compete makes sense.

They do need the same Resources though. Energy and matter are the same to us and every other species in the universe. The only change I would make is to scrap food as a tradeable resource. Heck, even our closest pets can't eat half the stuff we eat, and we are genetically related.

Not really. MoO3 did a fairly good job of it. I don't say that it has to be totally groundbreaking in new ideas, just that it is a tad, well, silly with space peacocks and warthogs. But that is admittedly just my very subjective point of view, and not an objective truth.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

Empire customization is currently backwards. Let me explain:

We're playing as planetary empires who are just starting to explore. Their past history is one of globalization and unification. Their colonizer past is long gone at the point the game starts, and they have to learn everything. What they should have:

1. A background. How did they unify? What do they seek in space? What's their social structure?
   
2. Factions. It's not possible a global empire wouldn't have several big factions trying to influence power - political parties, religious orders, clans, whatever.
   
3. A government system that is deeply influenced by their culture

What they shouldn't have :

1. space civics that make NO sense for empires who are just discovering what happens
2. very similar social structures and governments
3. very solid ethics that will change very slowly even under a very dangerous threat.

Everything space-related should evolve and adapt depending on what happens during the game. And there should definitly be a past to deal with, and not just for humans. Origins civics have been suggested for eons now, and they are precisely where you could find such things as amazon empires or forgotten edens. There could be a bunch of origin civics that cost nothing and just add some fluff (like different faction names) or slightly alter your social structure, and others that change your gameplay. This also includes different religions and beliefs for spiritualists...

I have no idea why Paradox keeps adding new complex features instead of polishing and enhancing what we already have, such as civics, traits, or traditions. I have been quite supportive of Stellaris in the past, but I'm starting to think they are just doing it wrong.

LET US PERSONALIZE OUR SPACE CULTURES, PARADOX, PLEASE

Interesting, I was just thinking in similar lines just the other day. It is odd that we don't have any traditions from start. A socially blank slate after millenia of social and societal evolution.

I would also imagine that traditions would be far more dependent on the mindset of the species. Either making the traditions vary depending on your races ideology, or make more, where some simply contradict, so that you cannot pick all of them in one game.

For example - Harmony for pacifists makes sense to give social bonuses, as they are social creatures. For a more militant species, Harmony might however mean a greater ease of organising armie and fleets, or instilling a sense of honor and duty among warriors, like the samurai, for example. Admittedly, it would take some work to achieve something like this, but I Think it might make Traditions far more interesting than they are right now.

 

[Chthon]

Best reply in a forum thread ever.

Also, possible new Ascension path...?

I just felt, who needs to imagine up crazy new biologies when Earth has some crazy ones still.

 

[Duuk]

Personally, I've always wondered why every one of the options for every race wasn't lockable. So I want to play an entirely female dominant blue-favored space-vulcan/elf race, who cares? It will also allow people to lock-and-play China, Russia, etc into space.

And yes, I don't care that it means that the HOI forum gets to play Nazis into space. It's not like that mod doesn't exist secretly anyway.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

I just felt, who needs to imagine up crazy new biologies when Earth has some crazy ones still.

Granted, but peacocks, foxes, warthogs and parrots are not among those crazy ones. At least not from my granted very mammelian viewpoint. ;-)

 

[Ixalmaris]

True. Which is why I would call Stellaris a space-fable rather than scifi. I mean, it IS a fable - the majority of the species are intelligent, talking animals (or plants... or fungi) from Earth. It is basically just the wise owl that is missing. ;-)

I would love a scifi game where aliens were truly Alien. Moo3 did that to some degree, or at least went further from antropmorph aliens than most games.

You were not around when the SciFi genre became more mass market in the 80s? Anthromorphic Aliens were pretty normal back then.
Kinzi, Kilrathi, several other Star Trek species (animated series),...

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

You were not around when the SciFi genre became more mass market in the 80s? Anthromorphic Aliens were pretty normal back then.
Kinzi, Kilrathi, several other Star Trek species (animated series),...

I was, and I found it extremely silly even back then. Star Trek aliens are, with a few exceptions, basically humans with an odd thingamajig on their noses and/or foreheads. Sometimes not even that.

Still, at least they tried to make an explanation to that, silly as it still was, with the precursors having seeded most of the planets that developed intelligent life to mimic themselves. A trope that was later adapted by the Stargate series.

 

[Ixalmaris]

I was, and I found it extremely silly even back then. Star Trek aliens are, with a few exceptions, basically humans with an odd thingamajig on their noses and/or foreheads. Sometimes not even that.

Still, at least they tried to make an explanation to that, silly as it still was, with the precursors having seeded most of the planets that developed intelligent life to mimic themselves. A trope that was later adapted by the Stargate series.

The reason for that was to keep costs for costumes down. Still, we had a Gorn in TOS.

When costumes were not an issue like in the animated series you had two different kinds of cat and bird people (some of them as bridge crew). And the newest Discovery season has a Saurian and also mentions Caitans.

So yeah, using animals as aliens was hardly uncommon. Actually having real alien aliens was and still is quite rare and usually reserved to aliens which basically serve as monsters.

 

[Dorian Ertymexx]

The reason for that was to keep costs for costumes down. Still, we had a Gorn in TOS.

When costumes were not an issue like in the animated series you had two different kinds of cat and bird people (some of them as bridge crew). And the newest Discovery season has a Saurian and also mentions Caitans.

So yeah, using animals as aliens was hardly uncommon. Actually having real alien aliens was and still is quite rare and usually reserved to aliens which basically serve as monsters.

I know, and it kinda makes me sad. I think there should be at least some attempt to being immaginative in the scifi field. It is sort of the whole point of the genre.

 

[Less2]

So yeah, there are two different cases here.
Species with only one sex. Which is already in the game for some portraits. This could easily be extended to other portraits and I would like the option to do so.

The second case is a super gender biased specie which is something more complicated because it has gameplay implications.
Leaders only being of one gender is one but it's probably the easiest to solve.
Then there is the problem of the population: It would depend on what role exactly the oppressed gender fulfill.

There is the case where one gender is enslaved: This is the most simple case because just forcing a stratified society represent that fairly well

There is an often seen case where females are basically considered wombs to bear children and have no other role in the society (not even working slaves). Warhammer's skaven have that for instance. I am not sure if that kind of society should be represented gameplay wise because having half the pop do nothing productive seem hard to put into the system without it being problematic (maybe a biotrophy like job with highly reduced upkeep for half the pop but it seems very weak).

Probably the easiest to deal with all of this without gameplay implications is to just allow to choose Leader's allowed gender in the specie creation and people can just make a stratified society to reflect the population without being forced to do so.

Are you working on the assumption that 1 male pop = 1B (or however many) men on a planet and 1 female pop = 1B (or however many) women on a planet?

I think it's assumed that 1 pop is itself a 50/50 mix of genders or however the default for a species would be. What the pop actually looks like on the planet screen is cosmetic. A skaven-like society would have normal pops like everyone else, the breeders would merely be implicitly part of the working population that naturally reproduces.

 

[Aotrs Commander]

I know, and it kinda makes me sad. I think there should be at least some attempt to being immaginative in the scifi field. It is sort of the whole point of the genre.

One place I always thought it most odd that this sort of thing occurred was in SpaceMaster (RoleMaster's sci-fi spin-off) between 2nd ed and SpaceMaster Privateers. The former's aliens were interesting, or at least alien at worst, and some of them got highly detailed in culture and background, non-humanoid and actually alien cultures... And in SM: P, these were all entirely replaced with the most unimagnative antropamophic animal races I've ever seen. (Digging the book out, they were literally labelled "PC Nickname: lion, bear, wolf, drac and insect" with least uncreative looking like a wookie-rip-off.) Whereas Aliens and Artefacts from the former game spent half the book detailing races, SM: P gave them about three lines and half-paragraph about their physical characteristics. I mean, I can maybe understand that Iron Crown couldn't use the old stuff because presumably because of Legal Reasons or something, but why they replaced them with something to totally banal I had never been able to comprehend.

I mean, this was an RPG even, where you were limited only by imagination and THAT was all they could come up with? Given the rest of the stuff they put out was not similarly lacking, I remain to this day utterly and totally bewildered as to what went on there.

 

[Zergor]

Are you working on the assumption that 1 male pop = 1B (or however many) men on a planet and 1 female pop = 1B (or however many) women on a planet?

I think it's assumed that 1 pop is itself a 50/50 mix of genders or however the default for a species would be. What the pop actually looks like on the planet screen is cosmetic. A skaven-like society would have normal pops like everyone else, the breeders would merely be implicitly part of the working population that naturally reproduces.

That's basically where I was going at in my last two lines when saying that just having the leader change and let the player use stratified society or not for pops for the rest.
A society with a gender enslaving the other would work nicely with stratified and the cases like the skaven would work with non stratified and implicit females.
Representing such a society explicitely would be possible but add complexity that is not always welcome.

 

[anamiac]

Lots of good stuff in this thread.

They do need the same Resources though. Energy and matter are the same to us and every other species in the universe. The only change I would make is to scrap food as a tradeable resource. Heck, even our closest pets can't eat half the stuff we eat, and we are genetically related.

Never thought about this, but yea, food would be different. Could you imagine making first contact a fungoid race and going to their welcoming party? "Yea, he was a fun gi, but the hors d'Oeuvers were crap."

Are you working on the assumption that 1 male pop = 1B (or however many) men on a planet and 1 female pop = 1B (or however many) women on a planet?

Outsider comic has a race where there are 10 woman to every man. They're warlike amazonian of course. It's explained in the forums that access to males is controlled by their government, with some people with lots of influence/favor getting monogamy and most others get a one-night stand if they get anything at all. In times of war, they really loosen the restrictions though, allowing for much higher population growths. The people in this race think that human's 50/50 ratio seems like a strange survival choice as it doesn't allow humans to grow their population quickly in response to a threat.

 

[szmik]

wait, is sex in game even relevant to anything? isn't it completely negligible for gameplay? ... but it makes for a nice discussion at least

 

[Duuk]

wait, is sex in game even relevant to anything? isn't it completely negligible for gameplay? ... but it makes for a nice discussion at least

Everything in this game is about the RP.