Matrix Games Forums

Hello,

I love Distant worlds but there's one area I would like improved and that would be Extermination.
I tried playing an evil race that exterminates all other races but it was harder than it should have been because the migration and extermination rates are totally out of the players control.

First of all, I think extermination and troops on the ground of the planet should be related to determine the unrest and how fast the extermination happens there. It would make sense as the more troops on the planet, the faster they can corral and better organize the termination of the alien species.

I also believe it would be a good idea to have massive unrest penalties to the planet/s that are exterminating the alien races but have it be dependent on how many aliens are on the planet/s. This could be countered to how many troops you have there. If you have alien troops stationed there of the same race you are exterminating they should have a high chance of defecting. I think you already have a system like this in place for unrest, but its too low or tapers off too quickly.

The other problem was if I was exterminating an alien species on a planet, it would take forever for my migration ships to drop off people of my own race there so the planet would almost never improve. Most planets I never even seen migration ships take my own people there. Only after a long long time (sometimes never because game would be over by then) until the last of the alien species was exterminated would my race recolonize it. It would be better if migration should be a higher priority for planets that are being exterminated to stabilize the planet.

I understand this isn't a very big priority because you guys are doing bug fixes and AI treatments, but just wanted to give you ideas for areas that might need some improvement sometime in the future.

Thank you.

That is funny, I just posted a thread similar to this in the war room.

I have a feeling that we are both being erroneous in our tactic of simply jumping right to the mass culling of an enemy race is not the correct way to preform the task properly. Enslave them first and have the bulk of them moved to a colony that is better equipped to deal with them. Once you have them rounded up and you do have your own race thriving on the captured planets... Hit the kill switch.

Yeah, the problem is known, though it's pretty low priority compared to fixing bugs and balancing. There was a nice thread on a similar matter:

tm.asp?m=3622714

Here Mensrea suggests that a modded Xaraktor virus tech could improve the extermination process, though I don't think anyone made it. I'm pretty lazy to get into modding just for that, but if any of you is willing to do some research and testing... it would be welcomed I guess.


Meanwhile I has two workarounds. The first is not to care - I can perfectly vision enslavement even while having colony policies set to 'assimilate' and receiving the nice racial bonuses and population growth. Does it matter if I don't have a minority ruler group on a specific colony if they know that oppressing military can land any day to regulate them? Not to mention the nukes.

And that leads to the second solution: planetary annihilation. When I totally wanna' eradicate a race, I don't let them meddle with my superior people when I can just turn their planets to a glassy wasteland. Nuking is cheap, fast and efficient. It also causes a nice diplomatic fallout that fits races that want to clear everyone else from the galaxy. Yeah, you kinda' lose the planets in the process, but it's totally worth it. There usually are enough worlds untainted with lowly maggots.

EDIT: And as Spidey suggests: the game editor is there to implement changes that the game engine doesn't lets but should be totally possible.