Trith and Racial Purity

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Grummel7
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Trith and Racial Purity

#1 Post by Grummel7 »

Other player species may need some balancing, but Trith have been totally crippled. Here a list of what has changed for them, compared to 4.10:
  1. They got bad influence.
  2. They got bad stability.
  3. Their home planet has been change to medium.
  4. Self Sustained Metabolism now only give a bonus on good planets. They already had narrow tolerance, but in 4.10 that didn't bother them much, since they could immediately settle poor planets and even hostile ones as soon as they had Xeno Genetics. Now they need Xeno Genetics to settle anything but Radiated. Nevertheless their xenophobic penalty applies to all planets.
  5. Concentration Camps now have prerequisites and cost influence.
  6. Point 1 is made worse by the fact that they get penalties when employing other species to generate influence (or for anything else).
  7. Point 2 is made worse by the fact that they also get stability penalty when they conquer other races. And of course stability is now much more important than happiness was in 4.10.
The Trith description says that they aim to eliminate all other thinking species. The game should allow them to be played that way.

First of all they definitely need some bufs. I suggest to at least take away narrow tolerance and give them good influence. Telepaths should know how to influence others, shouldn't they? Probably the xenophobic population penalty should be reduced, too. In a game with Natives, the penalty often completely eliminates the self sustained bonus on their home planet.

Then I suggest that Racial Purity gives influence and stability bonuses to capital species colonies. We could possibly rename it to something like "Superior Species" or "There shall be only one!". That could make it an interesting option for other species, too, thus adding more strategic options.

What do you think about it?
Last edited by Grummel7 on Wed Dec 22, 2021 7:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#2 Post by Oberlus »

Regarding bonuses from Racial Purity (renamed to whatever), I like this: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=12199&p=108599#p108599

The idea would be to consider default empire (no policy) not very good to foreign species (hence the capital species bonus) but neither openly ethnocratic.
Then one policy would fit empires that seek extermination of others (Racial Purity as a name lacks strength to represent the "doom" in this strategy, but something like that), another would fit multispecies empires (Diversity I guess), and another fit ethnocratic empires that openly exploit other species without seeking extermination (something about slavery fits well here, but dunno).
I think Trith should be able to play both slavery and extermination paths. The former with help of a tech or another policy that allows to turn enslaved species into drones that don't think too loud (like exobots, removing the bads effects of xenophobic trait), and the latter with bonuses like the ones you suggest.

I also thought of a policy about species evolution.
In the Vorkosigan series, there is a species whose high class abuses genetic selection and edition to improve the species, the Cetaganda. And they are rather racist.
So I thought of a policy, Racial Purification, that builds up small bonuses for capital species with time, something like +0.5*pop to whatever they are focused, growing at 0.01 per turn. This together with a building to turn population into resources (the extermination building that could replace conc. camps) should make the xenophobic monospecies empire viable, I hope.

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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#3 Post by Oberlus »

Regarding Trith, aside from policies.
Grummel7 wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 11:11 pm I suggest to at least take away narrow tolerance and give them good influence.
+1

Maybe also give them back the large planet.
Grummel7 wrote: Tue Dec 21, 2021 11:11 pm Probably the xenophobic population penalty should be reduced, too.
I think the whole Xenophobic-Selfsustaining species trait needs to be reworked along with policies. But a good start could be to fully remove the population malus of Xenophobic (and maybe leave this kind of effect for some policy). This would make the trait only punish multi-species empires and be a net gain for mono-species (no bonuses to the xenophobic species, and maluses for other empires' species nearby), and the only drawback being the difficulty to get along such empires in games with alliances.

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LienRag
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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#4 Post by LienRag »

If you remove the population malus of Xenophoby, what would be the malus of Xenophoby then ?
I'm okay with rebuffing Trith because they were extremely nerfed (especially with Concentration Camps needing an expensive Policy) but the Trait needs to force a different playstyle than non-xenophobics...

Having two paths (slavery and extermination) is interesting though, but probably more for Eaxaw than for Trith (that can't stand thoughts of others).

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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#5 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag, I already said it:
- Xenophobic still penalizes non-capital species PP and RP output, so it hinders multi-species empires (unless certain policies are adopted to better exploit the slaves or whatever), which are the best.
- Trith would be able to pursue slavery with a policy to turn enslaved species into ones that think quietly, like Exobots.

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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#6 Post by LienRag »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 6:33 pm - Trith would be able to pursue slavery with a policy to turn enslaved species into ones that think quietly, like Exobots.
Fluff-wise, it works, but it still removes the particularity of Trith compared to other Xenophobic species.
I like the idea, but I think that keeping Trith unique is more important.

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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#7 Post by Oberlus »

LienRag wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 6:48 pm
Oberlus wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 6:33 pm - Trith would be able to pursue slavery with a policy to turn enslaved species into ones that think quietly, like Exobots.
Fluff-wise, it works, but it still removes the particularity of Trith compared to other Xenophobic species.
I like the idea, but I think that keeping Trith unique is more important.
Unless player wants to pursue the extermination path, which wouldn't require that policy.
But you are right, it would make Trith the same than Eaxaw in terms of bad effects from Xenophobic.

OK, then I guess best idea is Grummel7's about decreasing pop malus.

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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#8 Post by Oberlus »

What about splitting the trait in two?
Currently it has two separated effects, one for all Xenophobics, which is the malus to output of non-capital, non-exobot species (the harrasment), and an extra one for Self-Sustaining Xenophobic, which is the malus to population on capital species (the frenzy). But the trait is just one, Xenophobic.
We could have one trait for the each effect, one for the harrasment and one for the allergy to other species. Eaxaw would have only harrasment, Trith both, or only the allergy to others.


Independently, the trait for Xenophobic Self-sustaining could be about punishing stability instead of population.

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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#9 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 11:20 pm Independently, the trait for Xenophobic Self-sustaining could be about punishing stability instead of population.
+1
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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#10 Post by Ophiuchus »

Also let us boost Trith environmental preferences; before restricting self-sustained to good planets this was basically a no-go.

But having now some options for adequate environments is a preparation path for terraforming.

PR-3623
edit1: got already merged
Last edited by Ophiuchus on Mon Dec 27, 2021 10:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#11 Post by Grummel7 »

Oberlus wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 11:20 pm Independently, the trait for Xenophobic Self-sustaining could be about punishing stability instead of population.
Well, Xenophibic already gives a penalty to stability (also production and research), but only for nearby planets belonging to the own empire (and not currently being killed by concentration camps). If we give Trith a stability penalty for all, they'll get -2 once they conquer another race. Could still be done, but then I think we should remove bad stability.

Btw. when I look at the Trith description, there is an explanation for why the found other species disturbing, which refers to their telepathy. Perhaps we should change the explanation of that penalty as well, saying it applies to xenophobic & telepathic species. It'll still only be Trith of course.

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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#12 Post by Oberlus »

Agree to both.

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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#13 Post by wobbly »

Playing Trith at the moment. A minor note before I forget. Trith should probably like isolation and possibly divine authority (they are a theocracy)

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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#14 Post by Ophiuchus »

Grummel7 wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 3:26 pm Btw. when I look at the Trith description, there is an explanation for why the found other species disturbing, which refers to their telepathy. Perhaps we should change the explanation of that penalty as well, saying it applies to xenophobic & telepathic species. It'll still only be Trith of course.
It is only happening to Trith specific kind of telepathy. And it is the reason they are xenophobic. There could be other xenophobic telepaths which do not suffer.

So the label could be something "Unfiltered Thinkers nearby", "Other Species Brainwaves" or similar. But no automatism/reference to xenophobic & telepathic combination.
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Re: Trith and Racial Purity

#15 Post by Ophiuchus »

Grummel7 wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 3:26 pm
Oberlus wrote: Wed Dec 22, 2021 11:20 pm Independently, the trait for Xenophobic Self-sustaining could be about punishing stability instead of population.
Well, Xenophibic already gives a penalty to stability (also production and research), but only for nearby planets belonging to the own empire (and not currently being killed by concentration camps). If we give Trith a stability penalty for all, they'll get -2 once they conquer another race. Could still be done, but then I think we should remove bad stability.
Never mentioned "stability penalty for all". The xenophobic+self-sustaining population malus is based on the number of nearby planets with other species. So basically the stability malus would be higher for self-sustaining species.

The intention of the population malus was to have something to make the great self-sustaining pop bonus be a little lower in the beginning (but the malus does not work so well). For other metabolisms there are three growth specials which can be acquired while playing. But the self-sustaining species have it from the beginning. We could nerf it to e.g. only two but I rather think we could rather increase it slowly based on colony age. E.g. start with +1 extra habitable size and after 20 turns make it +2 and after another 40 turns make it +3 (also giving a congratulations sitrep for ~ "tuning in to the environment")
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