Are the races really different??

[minger]

Since you can change every race, how different are they anyways? The only difference I see is Yor, which somehow gets +100% loyalty; which is unachievable by other races. EVeryone else is just kinda generic, and you can change their traits on the fly anyways. I don't know, this makes me feel like it doesn't matter at all what race you choose since you can just "reset" and then pick whatever.

[Peets]

Their AI is very different!
And with the different bonus abilities the races are different.
Yes I know you can reset them. But you have to choise your own then which makes it different.
Different ship styles.
Starting alligment is different.

[Gufnork]

To me they don't feel very different, that's one of my biggest beefs with this game. The game plays pretty much the same regardless of race you choose.

Regarding the AIs, they don't feel that different either. It's very possible that that'll change in 1.1 however, since the AI has been given a big overhaul and emphasis has been made on making the AIs even more unique.

[Badtz Maru]

Some races, like the Drengin, are very reluctant to trade military technologies, while others don't care, even at the same relations level. The Drengin are also frequently dicks to me.

[minger]

Yeah, I think I meant that while the *AI* plays the races arguably quite differently, they do not play that differently from the perspective of the *player*.

ALthough I will add that even the "age-old" enemies don't seem to be age old (i.e. when I am altarians, I exepct the drath to hate my guts)

[ZargonX]

I find the AI invariably plays the Altarians as totaly jerkwads. I've had more games where I'm on friendly terms with the Drengin than the Altarians, regardless of ethical alignment.

[tetley]

In the beta, you don't want to be facing the Torians!

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by minger
Yeah, I think I meant that while the *AI* plays the races arguably quite differently, they do not play that differently from the perspective of the *player*.

ALthough I will add that even the "age-old" enemies don't seem to be age old (i.e. when I am altarians, I exepct the drath to hate my guts)

You can set your initial relations during the game setup so they do.

[Hansolo88]

The age-old enemies thing is set up the way it is because if it was too powerful it would wreck the balance of the game, and you would have way more people complaining about that.

It might be cool to somehow set it as an option and make all those age-old relationship factors far more important, but it just doesn't work for a normal sandbox game. Or, as previously mentioned, you can set certain civs to start as your allies/enemies.

As it is, I think it is still in the game, I'm not totally sure but it seems that there is a small relationship factor depending on ancient friends/enemies. Maybe someone could verify this?

[Badtz Maru]

Originally posted by Hansolo88
The age-old enemies thing is set up the way it is because if it was too powerful it would wreck the balance of the game, and you would have way more people complaining about that.

It might be cool to somehow set it as an option and make all those age-old relationship factors far more important, but it just doesn't work for a normal sandbox game. Or, as previously mentioned, you can set certain civs to start as your allies/enemies.

As it is, I think it is still in the game, I'm not totally sure but it seems that there is a small relationship factor depending on ancient friends/enemies. Maybe someone could verify this?

I'm pretty sure there's an affinity between the Terrans and that race that looks just like them, but maybe that's just the way I play them.

When choosing which races you play against, you can set their initial relations, though this defaults to random. This was probably done for balance reasons, a player who did not read the background information on the races might choose the...Altarians,yeah, them, because of their bonuses with the intention of playing peaceful builders, and think the AI is too aggressive because they are always getting attacked by their age-old enemies no matter how they play. The way the game is made, if you'd like to start with someone hating you, you can. Besides, I'd wonder how important those age-old animosities would be in an era where all the races are suddenly expanding into space at the same time. I don't think the Native Americans would care too much about how the Europeans treated them if some aliens started attacking them and they needed allies. In a universe with Drengin in it, politics can make for strange bedfellows.

[The Rusty Gamer]

I think it would be good if individual races had a + or - class effect to different planet types. So a planet with a class 15 to one race may be a class 0 to another. Now - THAT would make a difference.

[minger]

I agree -- that would be a good idea. There were many good ideas from MOO3 and that was one of them; it was just too bad the implementation was a disaster.

[Peets]

That is a very bad idea.
It would be very hard to balance things.
You have to life with it or mod it yourself.

[The Rusty Gamer]

Would it be possible to mod something like that then?

I thought it would be kinda fun to watch a planet next to you which you see as a class 0 being colonised by another race. Of course, if you invade itand win, you then have to abandon the planet as it is useless to you.

I was thinking something along the lines to races having different positives and negatives depending on such things as planet type and star/sun type.

[Colonâ„¢]

I think it'd be a good idea if the bonuses were larger but more concentrated. Instead of scattering the bonuses in 6-7 fields, maybe just 3 or so. Right now, pretty much all the races have a logistics bonus, which pretty much renders the point of it moot.