Primitive Proportions

[QuarianRex]

JLS and Dogscoff: Thanks, I was pretty happy with the end results.

Originally posted by dogscoff:
Now... how about some more "primitive" techs for them? Airships & early firearms for steam, hunting implements and mounted warriors for dirt etc etc. Ideas anyone?

Good ideas but how do you do it without unbalancing them? Right now they are set up so that all of their tech is below that of normal races (as it should be). That doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room for primitive tech.

Also, I didn't want them to be gifted with any and every tech. I figured that if you want a primitive ally to have something you can girt the item. I figured that (with the propper instruction) they would be able to use and maintain and item even if they do not have the scientific and industrial base to make it themselves.

On a side note, I wanted to put in more uplift techs (besides resupply and refining) but couldn't think of much that wouldn't overpower or cripple the primitives. By cripple I mean that I don't want the primitives to have to rely on gifted techs for advancement. I tried to reflect this in the research progression (since, for the most part, they can't research without a patron). This way if a primitive teams up with an AI is won't be hopelessly retarded compared to the players pet primitive.

However, try adopting one and see how it goes. Right now there are major advantages to cultivating one since their homeworld facilities are much cheaper (10 to 20 times less than equivalent proportions facilities) and so can turn the homeworld into an industrial juggernought in a, proportionately, short amount of time. The tech progression is pretty accurate I think but I put this together over the weekend. My testing was mainly to make sure that the tech tree worked. I don't know exactly how close to playable they are. Are they advancing too fast, too slow? Maybe I can work on the AI a little, make them more likely to accept a treaty and such.

Be sure to give me any of your ideas of how to improve the mod. Also, take a look at the components and facilities (facilities are at the bottom, in components do a search for "primitive"), or don't if you want to be suprised in the game.

[Aloofi]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
OK, I've just played a test game and it worked like a dream. Excellent work QR!

I immediately met the Clukruk, who were steam-tech. They didn't want any of my uplift tech, so I invaded them ( ) and was immediately repulsed by over 3000 infantry! Cool!

Well, according to Proportion's scale, if 1m people weight 1000 kt, then 3000 infantry would be something like 3 000 000 soldiers....
Pretty cool, isn't it?

[dogscoff]

Just started another test game, and so far I've only met the Kithra, who are being very unfriendly. Thing is though, they are right on the edge of my supply range. They would be perfect candidates for partnership + resupply tech...

[Aloofi]

Originally posted by dogscoff:
Just started another test game, and so far I've only met the Kithra, who are being very unfriendly. Thing is though, they are right on the edge of my supply range. They would be perfect candidates for partnership + resupply tech...

Shouldn't those primitives be friendly?
I can't imagine an alien race coming here to our planet and any goverment being stupid enough to be agressive instead of waiting for the aliens to show what their intentions are.

[dogscoff]

Shouldn't those primitives be friendly?

Probably, but then the AI never was completely predictable. They might cheer up, given time.

Besides, just because we wouldn't do it doesn't mean some wierd alien wouldn't.

[Lord Kodos]

and some countries are pretty stupid...

[Dingocat85]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
I think making the primitives be able to defend themselves is really not something a lot of effort should be spent on. My view of the primitives is adding another "resource" for the space faring empires to take advantage of. The question won't be who can kill the primitives, but who can make the best use of them in their empire.

One defense I would give primitives would be some sort of cultural unity. I can think of three ways this could be done:

>>>>> 1) Make it well-nigh impossible to use intelligence on the natives.

>>>>> 2) Natives ought to be blissfully happy.

>>>>> 3) Make it impossible for the natives to surrender. What good is it keeping a massively inferior race alive, when with a surrender, you could control them completely, get all of their resources, planets, etc? UNLESS there would be some other reason to keep the natives alive...IOW, something the natives could build/do that nobody else could, that would make it worth keeping their Empire around. The 'Plague Intelligence Project' sounds great, but something in addition might be good...off the top of my head, maybe a long-range plague infestation missile weapon, called (for now) Foul Catapult?

Originally posted by PvK:
Giving some of them plague weapons would be trivially easy. If you want to create some which have built-in infection abilities that aren't entirely intentional, that'd be pretty easy too. The problem is, if they're neutrals, then the only thing they could infect would be colonies in their own system...

Maybe so, but I was thinking that the natives would build a ship with a unique component, and the player would "buy" it from the natives, by trading resources, Tech levels, other ships, etc. for it.
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On another topic, it might be a cool feature if natives didn't actually speak your language, but instead there had to be translations. This would have no affect on gameplay, it'd just look neat . For example:

We have received a message from the Ewok Chiefdom:
" 'Yub Yub Inga Ooooohah...' Translation: We admire the many shiny things your empire has"
(General Message)

...or, conversely:
" 'Yub Yubaaaaaah Yah!!' Translation: We shall play your fighting game with glee!"
(response to declaration of War)

...and so on. Might be fun