Unfortunate species antipathy mechanics.

[boolybooly]

I am playing Extended AI Improvement Mod 1.05 no pirates, 800k research, harsh start for me and agreeable for AI, extreme difficulty, sparse indy and colony, 1.5 sector colony range.

Playing Kiadian Republic, colonised a fairly remote marshy planet with Kiadian 30M with civs using fairly slow gerax hyperdrives and later discovered a Sluken insectoid indy several sectors away. Civilian passenger ships carried many Sluken migrants to the marshy planet until they outnumbered Kiadians and other indy races and then were dissatisfied and stopped paying taxes because they have racial antipathy of -23 for Kiadian which dominated the planet stats and the planet only got +7 for development. +77% leader and governor happiness bonus adds one point because they % is on a low number to start with.

I tried to build a station to add medical and recreation and it wont even build.

I find this does not ring true. If they were conquered or enslaved Sluken it would be justified but they are not, they migrated from an indy at their expense and of their own freewill, like a new immigrant to the USA for example. They would be optimistic and adjusted to the empire they chose to join not fomenting rebellion based on speciesist rage.

This mechanic is unsatisfactory and that is the modders' responsibility, FYI the antipathy numbers are imbalanced and much too negative, they only make sense in the context of conquest (where they are offset by existing development), and are at their most punitive in the context of migration which is the context in which they should be least punitive.

This is why I think there needs to be separation of population identities based on their history in a location for DW2, not simple speciesist stereotypes applied across the board. Even if it is unintentional this has the appearance of a racist premise and we should do better.

[Siddham]

I think the problem might be setting difficulty to extreme. I find that setting greatly increases many negative factors that can really hamper empire development.
I think you just need to be patient. They will settle down over time and the station will eventually build whjich will help. Even on normal difficulty these things take some time.
Although species antipathy can be inconvenient especially on higher difficulties I think it works well overall.

[boolybooly]

OK fair point about difficulty, thanks.

I would still say the current mechanics have a flaw and could be better.

It takes a little art to make mechanics which are credible but it could be done.

Its not politically correct to suggest location population history modifiers is it? Its not unrealistic to code either as planet pops have plenty of other modifiers in operation.

e.g. if 1.2m Sluken immigrate voluntarily in a passenger ship then > reduce batch antipathy by 50% then merge with existing pop to give an average antipathy for the location pop for that species.

If the entire planet pop for a species is immigrant then it follows they would have a 50% reduction of antipathy in that location.

If there is a planet with a conquered Sluken population then add 50% to antipathy, fair enough. Subsequent immigration would lower it, subsequent conquest would set a new antipathy to the new overlords for the entire population.

Where another third conqueror takes the planet then if the conditions are better then the previous conquerer eg assimilate as opposed to exterminate then the population remaining ought to be grateful for not being exterminated and so have a reduction in antipathy, say 25%. That kind of thing.

So the pop modifiers need to recognise species, individual locations, treatment received from individual empires at that location per species/family.

The beauty of art is that it immitates life and in real life intellligent creatures respond to the way they are treated, is all. Building a game where all Sluken hate all Kiadians seems to miss a trick to me.

[Siddham]

I should not have mentioned the war....as in the culture wars
Apologies [:)]

I always find that taking a colony with a species which has a strong antipathy to mine will take some time to settle down; but they do eventually.
You will get a notice to say they wont pay taxes etc. You should ignore that. The tax rate should be set to zero (imo).
The initial station should be a purpose designed absolutely bare bones station; only the minimum amount of the necessary items and the rec & med facilities - nothing else (again imo).
It will take time for the station to be built and for the colony to settle down but in my games they do eventually.