Distant Worlds: Introduction of the alien races.

[Okim]

...and Russians are ruled by evil forces.

[:-]

[Duckfang]

ORIGINAL: Mad Russian

This is where your language has devolved to.

Fixed. [;)]

[Scott_WAR]

ORIGINAL: Sarissofoi

This is no problem for me.
Whe will see races when we see game.
If I get DW in my hands I propably mod this for furry race.
You know Crazy Cats, Dumb Dogs, Mighty Chickens, Sneaky Snakes, Lazy Lizards,Bad Bats and the most evil and morderous race in universe the Rabid Rabbits(aka Killer Rabits).
So yeah.
This look like easy thing to do.
About nine lives. Nope. But Cats are that feriocius that many races belivie in this.

BTW If anyone can help me and throw some ideas about animal race I will apriecette this. Becoze max is 20 races!

Arrogant Apes
Evil Eagles
Fanatical Ferets
Holy Cows
Imperial Iguanas
Mad Monkeys
Scared Sheep
Terrible Tigers
Timid Tulips
Vicious Vipers

[Webbco]

Careful now...

[Erik Rutins]

Getting back on topic, here's the race I've most recently been at war with and they are tough!

Short insectoid race with thick black exoskeleton covering. Sluken have many small forearms enabling them to perform multiple actions simultaneously.

Sluken are very aggressive and intelligent. A central theme in their customs involves a macabre reverence of death.

Sluken have the bizarre and gruesome ability to incorporate into their own bodies the biological appendages and organs from other alien races. Thus some Sluken have additional limbs, eyes or other body parts.

Some other alien races allege that Sluken are in fact genetically modified creatures, designed as an ultimate warrior race. But the Sluken themselves denounce such claims as outrageous slander.

Sluken technology includes the StarBurner XX-12, a very fast and powerful engine. With these engines, Sluken star ships are able to outrun nearly any opponent.

Sluken are found in dry temperate regions of Continental and Marshy Swamp planets.

[Erik Rutins]

Forgot to add their characteristics:

Characteristics
Race Family: Insectoid
Default Reproduction Rate: 16%
Quite Intelligent (+8)
Very Aggressive (+19)
Slightly Cautious (+3)
Very Unfriendly (-18)
Very Unreliable (-20)
Warrior Class: troop maintenance -20%
Fierce Rivalry: lower war weariness -40%
Special Government: Hive Mind

[Erik Rutins]

For comparison, here are the characteristics for the previously posted Quameno:

Characteristics
Race Family: Amphibian
Default Reproduction Rate: 9%
Extremely Intelligent (+35)
Extremely Passive (-30)
Very Cautious (+17)
Very Unfriendly (-25)
Extremely Dependable (+30)
Gifted Scientists: faster research +40%
Special Government: Technocracy

[Webbco]

Nice one Erik, thanks! I love the idea of a race capable to use other races organs etc as their own...pretty original. I'm loving the creativity put into this so far, keep going guys! [:)]

[cdbeck]

OOOOhhh.... Erik posted my favorite (so far) race pic! Those Sulken are wicked looking (and wicked in the game). I love the armor and the side view.

What amuses me most, is that some of the race speculation is not far from the mark... while others are WAAAAAAY off. I love chuckling to myself evilly when I come here...

Oh, and in the upcoming preview, you'll see a third race - the Ackdarians. The actual race art is not in my copy, so you'll have to just see the, very cute, placeholder art. I doubt that they will be as "cutesy" in the final art - given the way the artist is going with the changes. Anyway - they are sleek aquatic mammals, smart, trusting, and good with space ships. More detail will be literally placed in your lap soon...

[Webbco]

The Atuuks from the exploration vid look funny...like a cross between monkeys and easter chicks you get on easter cakes. Are they going to look like that when the game comes out? [:D]

[ASHBERY76]

luken have the bizarre and gruesome ability to incorporate into their own bodies the biological appendages and organs from other alien races. Thus some Sluken have additional limbs, eyes or other body parts.

Another prime example of why Armada style invasion policy and orbital bombardment of population needs to be in the game.You have to have these dudes in your empire if you invade in the present DW design kinda kills the roleplay.

[cdbeck]

That's funny Ashberry, I actually see it the opposite way. In Armada, you can commit genocide against undesirable aliens as a matter of course, like in Rome: Total War. Whereas in DW, you have to deal with having these folks live on the planets you conquer - you can just "get rid of them quietly" with little or no penalty. So this makes you roleplay an emperor, rather than use "gamey" tactics of killing a population and leaving a nice pristine planet to colonize. I mean, think of how terrible genocide is - not put it on a galactic scale. Murdering millions of inhabitants of a planet - even nasty ones like the Sulken - would have massive diplomatic repercussions, IMHO.

Then again, I tend to play the peace-monger in games, so that might be my thing.

SoM

[ASHBERY76]

From what the developer has said you get no unrest or social problems from Aliens under your occupation after invasion and war has fininshed, so there is little to deal with.

Maybe your Empires subjects would be willing to part with their organs.I do not think many others would.

[Ron]

Sarissofoi, your cat race preview is bloody hilarious Good stuff, you should be writing all the race bios!

[Sarissofoi]

I must agree with Ashbery. He has point.
If you are only limited to one option where is roleplaing part?
You cannot play as bad or good if you are forced to play as good only.
One of best model "dealing with aliens" I seen in Master of Orion II.
First you can bomb enemy colony and send them to oblivion or only give them some punishment before invasion.
When you take planet you can decide if you wanna assimilate local population or exterminate them. Any choice take time. Even if you decide to assimale enemy population into your empire you still must reeducate them(and this take time). Still you can used non reeducated population as force labor, starved alien population to death or ressetle them from big nice worlds to some harsh colony when they work on glory of your empire or die from harsh coditions.
You can be mister nice guy or leader of genocide fanclub - the choice is yours.

Terrible genocide is - yes it is but mass murders and genocide was always part of war and always wll be. Look at history of mankind.
USA get rid of redskins simply exterminating them or closed in concetration area. Some was resetled from their land and many die in this proces.
In II WW west allied forces targets population center and use their bombers and phospor bombs as terror weapon. USA use 2 nukes to wipe out two cities full of civilians and they dont get any diplomatic penalty(in fact they gain bonus to their standings - on the other way USArmy plan to invade Japan using chemical weapons and that will be real genocide - estimated civilian casaulty in millions). Look on Chinawith their great hunger or USSR with holodomor(Great hunger) on Ukraine. Look at Turks when they mass murder Armenian and Germans whose do similiar things to Poles, Russians and Judes.
Forced ressetling? Migrations after war? Look what happend after II WW in East Europe. Milions of people was moved.

Backing to game. I dont see why you cant exterminate enemy popualtion(nazi way) or send them to work camps and reeducated them(soviet way) -o fcourse some of them willdie from work, hunger and cold.
I dont see why after war enemy populatian cant migrate to their empire if you allow them to do(meyby in peace talks should be condition about it) or why you cant send them to some prison planets.
On the other hand there should be possibility that you can grant autonoy rights to taken enemy colonies, granting them some level of local authority.
Some poeple will colaborate with enemy but some will fight to death or continue resistance even if they are deafeted.

Anyway occupied teritories should need strong occupation force or some local collaboratiing goverment.
On the other way if you reqonquest your old colonies, or race who was allied with you, or local population hated their current overlords and look at you as liberator this is another story.


BTW
Thx Scott_War for Holy Cows and Fanatical Ferrets. Sounds funny.
Ron that was my plan. To make people smile. When I get game in my hands and see how it works I plan to make 20 furry animals race(or more if you can make minor race) and send them to fray. I will do TAR about it. This is for sure.
BTW2 This is my TAR from SotS with Crazy Cats.
http://www.kerberos-productions.com/for ... 12&t=12594
Also you can look here:
http://www.kerberos-productions.com/for ... 04&start=0
for more TAR from SotS. Some of them are really good and fun to read.
Then READ OR DIE!

[cdbeck]

I don't want to open up the "look at history" can of worms really - but I would say that genocide has generally become less and less used and more and more sanctioned as human history goes on. Back in Roman times it was more acceptable as a tactic than now. And you are talking millions and billions of inhabitants of a world. But, if you want realism, at least think about the argument that completely destroying a world's population without also making that world uninhabitable, would be nearly impossible - even if you used biological warfare (it would have to be REALLY tailored). I think SotS does a decent job of showing this, and I applaud Kerberos for that.

But, practically speaking, a game can't be everything to everyone - so put that on a suggestion list and maybe an update or expansion will add it!

[Gertjan]

Thank you for the race discriptions! Very insightful. Please keep them coming. Some questions re: the characteristics:

q1: What is the difference between passive and cautious?
q2: What is the difference between dependability and friendlyness?
q3: how do these 4 things affect the gameplay?

I agree with the point on planetary combat. I don't want it to be a lot of micromanagement, but it would be good to have some alternatives (e.g. like in galciv 2, where you can destroy a planet, but lose quality).

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: Gertjan
q1: What is the difference between passive and cautious?

In the racial characteristics passive means not aggressive (i.e. negative aggression). Cautious means positive caution, as opposed to reckless which is the description for negative caution. Hope that makes sense [:)]

q2: What is the difference between dependability and friendlyness?

Friendliness is often used to determine how likely a race is to form treaties and generally be friendly with other empires. Dependability or loyalty mainly refers to how likely a race is to stick to a treaty once formed.

q3: how do these 4 things affect the gameplay?

In lots of ways. The racial characteristics are used whenever an empire makes decisions: diplomacy, research choices, deciding intelligence missions, ship building. They influence the choices they make, so that the race 'roleplays' their personality.

I agree with the point on planetary combat. I don't want it to be a lot of micromanagement, but it would be good to have some alternatives (e.g. like in galciv 2, where you can destroy a planet, but lose quality).

I hear you - there's some good points made on this thread. The objective was to keep things fairly simple, without having to worry about endless details. But maybe something can be done to allow getting rid of enemy population. I'll give it some thought.

[Erik Rutins]

Here's one more for you all, the Ugnari:

Though not especially gifted with technology, Ugnari are fascinated by machinery and electronics and spend much time diligently studying and experimenting with them.

This fascination often leads Ugnari to invent interesting alternative technology by combining unrelated components together to form new equipment with improved capabilities.

Ugnari also love to gamble and place bets on nearly any activity imaginable.

By nature they are fairly friendly, though cautious. However it is wise to carefully examine the fine print of any business contract made with an Ugnari – they are often devious, even dishonest.

Ugnari do not see underhandedness as a negative trait, nor do they consider cheating someone to be a personal insult to their victim. Instead they deem a highly profitable business deal as a great achievement, even if it was attained by trickery. In fact they highly admire anyone who manages to outdo them in deceit.

Ugnari inhabit the tundra wastelands of Ice Glacial planets. They typically build large cities deep underground in vast ice caves and tunnels.

Characteristics
Race Family: Rodent
Default Reproduction Rate: 9%
Quite Stupid (-6)
Very Passive (-24)
Very Reckless (-19)
Quite Friendly (+8)
Extremely Unreliable (-30)
Industrious Miners: faster mining +30%
Natural Optimists: happiness +10%
Special Government: Mercantile Guild

[Xmudder]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

For comparison, here are the characteristics for the previously posted Quameno:

Characteristics
Race Family: Amphibian
Default Reproduction Rate: 9%
Extremely Intelligent (+35)
Extremely Passive (-30)
Very Cautious (+17)
Very Unfriendly (-25)
Extremely Dependable (+30)
Gifted Scientists: faster research +40%
Special Government: Technocracy

These guys look fun to play. What is Special Government? Don't remember that from the customization guide.