Koranis wrote:

MezzoMax wrote:

Perhaps the minor faction on your home planet is an Early Access thing? I guess so to test the system of an assimilated minor faction and to spice up the political system. Also the Vodyani don't start with one.

I hoped so too, until I've read design document regarding the population. Sadly, it's a feature.   

When they talked about political factions I thought they would come from the same population pool, like dividing the Sophons between the scientists and a newly arisen militarist faction that fears for their security - that's what I understood from various interviews. I've never thought it would be just a plain "race = political faction" and that political conflict would arise only if you had more than one race on the same planet.

Political conflict CAN arise if you have only one race in your empire. Each race has a predisposition towards certain ideology but that doesn't mean they aren't influenced by various events in the game. If you have a Sophon population but are in a lot of wars then the Sophons will mostly vote for the military party, though the scientists will also receive some limited support.

Cravers should have a traid that don´t let other races come to their planets willing.( who would migrate to a planet to become a slave) and other factions shouldn't alow craver to come to their planet ( who would acept a population that will destroy their planet).

So it would be a trait with advantage and advantages for cravers. 

maurodelia wrote:

Cravers should have a traid that don´t let other races come to their planets willing.( who would migrate to a planet to become a slave) and other factions shouldn't alow craver to come to their planet ( who would acept a population that will destroy their planet).

So it would be a trait with advantage and advantages for cravers. 

Perhaps we will see such a mechanic. They are redoing the immigration system and the influencing of each other (empire wise).

Koranis wrote:

All this "multiple races Empire" really strikes me as odd, expecially in the beginning. It's really strange to start with Sophons and another advanced minor faction on the same planet... and then meet their ships in space and treat them as aliens. It's a galaxy full of different races, not a continent full of different nationalities... They shouldn't be wandering around and settle the planets of other races "just because". Plus Cravers really should not immigrate ;) It's a life form incompatible with any other, as long as they're not on the top of the food chain.

After all the efforts of the writing team to create a believable universe they ruin it with these gamey additions.  

It would be much better to add minor factions to your empire through exploration and colonization, and then assimilation, just like in Endless Legend - through an organic progression that at least would feel as natural...

As it is, it feels forced - and for me, personally, it's an immersion breaker....

But maybe it's just me.

It's not just you.

For me, it's even worse when we get to Heroes from other factions that you might get before you even meet them in space, and who will happily participate in genocide against their own race. The whole idea here is that we're venturing out into space for the first time, and knowing about all these other races in advance just makes no sense. It's been a pet peeve for me with Endless Space and Endless Legend, but I don't expect it to change. This is apparently how Amplitude wants to set up their game worlds. 

It would still be nice if we could get an option in the game setup screen for "Heroes only from our faction, and no minors on our home planet until we meet them in space." It would at least help support the fiction that we're moving out and exploring the Galaxy for the first time.

Honestly, it's weirder to me that the heroes work for their own faction, since almost all of their backstories have them being rejected by their own faction for one reason or another. 

The easiest solution would probably be to have different backstories for the heroes depending on which faction you are in relation to them. You could get complex by having a Morale value for them that can drop for committing genocide against their own race, but I'm not sure Amplitude wants using heroes to be that finicky.

Koranis wrote:

All this "multiple races Empire" really strikes me as odd, expecially in the beginning. It's really strange to start with Sophons and another advanced minor faction on the same planet... and then meet their ships in space and treat them as aliens. It's a galaxy full of different races, not a continent full of different nationalities... They shouldn't be wandering around and settle the planets of other races "just because". Plus Cravers really should not immigrate ;) It's a life form incompatible with any other, as long as they're not on the top of the food chain.

After all the efforts of the writing team to create a believable universe they ruin it with these gamey additions.  

It would be much better to add minor factions to your empire through exploration and colonization, and then assimilation, just like in Endless Legend - through an organic progression that at least would feel as natural...

As it is, it feels forced - and for me, personally, it's an immersion breaker....

But maybe it's just me.

Makes no sense to me either.  At the start of a game your home planet should only have your own race IMHO.

Perhaps the minor faction on your home planet is an Early Access thing? I guess so to test the system of an assimilated minor faction and to spice up the political system. Also the Vodyani don't start with one.

Zenicetus wrote:

It's not just you.

For me, it's even worse when we get to Heroes from other factions that you might get before you even meet them in space, and who will happily participate in genocide against their own race. The whole idea here is that we're venturing out into space for the first time, and knowing about all these other races in advance just makes no sense. It's been a pet peeve for me with Endless Space and Endless Legend, but I don't expect it to change. This is apparently how Amplitude wants to set up their game worlds. 

It would still be nice if we could get an option in the game setup screen for "Heroes only from our faction, and no minors on our home planet until we meet them in space." It would at least help support the fiction that we're moving out and exploring the Galaxy for the first time.

Do not forget - the Academy is a thing.

Your empire recruits heroes from the Academy - it's a place well known to be a den filled with all kind of different weirdos. Weirdest forms of elite, dust-enhanced (corrupted?) aliens reside there and nobody asks questions if they're a part of a larger civilization or a failed genetic experiment. What matters is that they do their job.

This is why it makes perfect sense that you can recruit heroes in the Academy even if you haven't met the empires they come from. They don't come from other empires, they come from the Academy. As for how they got to the Academy in the first place - some heroes' bio explains just that.

PANCZASU wrote:

MezzoMax wrote:

1 question regarding the Cravers: Are they really eating other pops? My minor faction is still growing and doesn't starve. Or does it really take a long time?

No, that mechanic has been changed since gamescom because right now there's no way to kill your population so having 1 craver migrate to you and eat your entire empire would be kinda devastating

Oh I see, didn't know that. So I guess it will be implemented later on? Like I said, it's not immigration, it's an invasion! (Damn, that sounds racist as hell.... I mean only the Cravers are the problem here... That doesn't make it better, or? )

Koranis wrote:

...

Having the Vodyani take some population also from the minor faction instead of emptying the planet only of my hard working Sophons would also make the situation more acceptable (How racist does it sound?...). Also it's really strange to have the pacifist still take lead and promote "peace & love" with the invaders in orbit. All the interviews lead me to believe that with an enemy at the gates the militarists get a chance to improve popularity. 

...

(Not as racist as my above statement. We are talking video game logic. Mix this up with different political ideologies and different racces, in this case quite literally, and you have a minefield to navigate.) Well perhaps it takes some time to settle in and adabt a militaristic view. Also it doesn't sound to unreasonable to me that they are all for pacifism. I mean they saw what war can do? Perhaps they want to surrender to the Vodyani and negotiate a peace deal?

PANCZASU wrote:

Do not forget - the Academy is a thing.

Your empire recruits heroes from the Academy - it's a place well known to be a den filled with all kind of different weirdos. Weirdest forms of elite, dust-enhanced (corrupted?) aliens reside there and nobody asks questions if they're a part of a larger civilization or a failed genetic experiment. What matters is that they do their job.

This is why it makes perfect sense that you can recruit heroes in the Academy even if you haven't met the empires they come from. They don't come from other empires, they come from the Academy. As for how they got to the Academy in the first place - some heroes' bio explains just that.

I thought you could not recruit from the Academy until you located it in space?  If that is true then it makes sense to recruit whoever is available there.

PANCZASU wrote:

Koranis wrote:

MezzoMax wrote:

Perhaps the minor faction on your home planet is an Early Access thing? I guess so to test the system of an assimilated minor faction and to spice up the political system. Also the Vodyani don't start with one.

I hoped so too, until I've read design document regarding the population. Sadly, it's a feature.   

When they talked about political factions I thought they would come from the same population pool, like dividing the Sophons between the scientists and a newly arisen militarist faction that fears for their security - that's what I understood from various interviews. I've never thought it would be just a plain "race = political faction" and that political conflict would arise only if you had more than one race on the same planet.

Political conflict CAN arise if you have only one race in your empire. Each race has a predisposition towards certain ideology but that doesn't mean they aren't influenced by various events in the game. If you have a Sophon population but are in a lot of wars then the Sophons will mostly vote for the military party, though the scientists will also receive some limited support.

Panczasu is correct here, don't worry. Your starting species can develop different political idiologies. Also look at the wiki screen of the Academy. Let's stay at the Sophons as an example. There is a hero for the religious party, one for industrial party and one for science party. So you will likly get these heroes as leaders of you different parties.

Good to know. I just hope that additional minor factions on your starting planet will be possible to mod out if the devs decide to leave it as it is.

Koranis wrote:

Good to know. I just hope that additional minor factions on your starting planet will be possible to mod out if the devs decide to leave it as it is.

If it really is a feature that ain't gonna create more conflict within the empire, leading to population control mechanics, I'd rather mod it out.

I was watching a panczasu video, and at some point he was playing with the sophons and was at war with cravers. He had started a colony nearby a craver system. 

Then when he started growing population, instead of apearing a sophon population, it started to grown a craver population. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHUlwo8Vx_s ( the video, go to 10:12 mark )

For me it was very very odd. It is a bug ?

MezzoMax wrote:

1 question regarding the Cravers: Are they really eating other pops? My minor faction is still growing and doesn't starve. Or does it really take a long time?

No, that mechanic has been changed since gamescom because right now there's no way to kill your population so having 1 craver migrate to you and eat your entire empire would be kinda devastating

PANCZASU wrote:

No, that's an intended feature. The population of the galaxy migrates which is one of the ways your population gets more and more diverse as the game continues on.

Though I will admit, having a bunch of cravers migrating into an empire they're at war with is a bit strange haha. Don't think my sophon settlers liked the new neighbours.

You call that migration, the Cravers call it an invasion.  I mean what is the difference for them? One way or another they will come to your planet and consume it. But yeah, Empires at War shouldn't migrate.

Koranis wrote:

I just lost a lot of my Sophons due to a Vodyani incursion. I had just one planet and all of the sudden my local "minor" faction became "major" as I found myself with a Sophon ethnic minority on a "foreign" planet.

Meh. 

Basically my scientific political party disappeared and the pacifists took the lead. I've lost most of my core population and political struggle in a single alien incursion. Which would be quite interesting if the pacifists would not start to promote their pacifist trash while an alien invading race was still hanging in orbit, turning the scientists into dust and smoking them like a weed.

What? That is exciting! These are the stories good games are made of. OK you wil probably loose, but this makes for a good and rich story telling in a sandbox environment. In ES1 your pop was suddenly switched out to your local pop. Just so. This new system is great, the emphasis on individual pops make for a much better experience and involves more decisions. One story from Stellairs I had on my first game: I played as a hive mind insectoid empire. Then I met some native fungus people who happen to have the same political ideology then my empire. I uplifted them, integrated them and now my ants and their fungus friend settled their part of the universe, it was a great symbiosis. Like real life ants. ES2 is going even further with the political system and I am eager to see what stories will unfold.

1 question regarding the Cravers: Are they really eating other pops? My minor faction is still growing and doesn't starve. Or does it really take a long time?

I actually quite like the gameplay from having Craver's in your system as you have to account for the fact that they'll eventually deplete the planet. I also got a quest after taking over a Craver system that involved trying to stop the reminaing Craver population from eating everything. 

My impression is that the Cravers are meant to operate across a spectrum of individuality. So the ones that would remain in the Empire are either the ones that are the most insectile in their thoughts, or the most aggressively militaristic ones. Whereas the ones that migrate away would be more individualistic and free-thinking.

Once migration is implemented properly though, I do think it would make sense for different races to have different 'rates' of migration, and for the Cravers to have the highest costs/lowest rates.

Cravers shouldn't ever be pops for other races or have other race pops. It contradicts there whole ''consume everything' backstory. Unless there is a really good explanation for this.

Oh sorry. They also could be ecologist cravers. Or religious cravers. Or pacif... no.

SpaceTroll wrote:

PANCZASU wrote:

Though I will admit, having a bunch of cravers migrating into an empire they're at war 

that should not happen in the final game ;)

Why ? Think of them as "unwanted" cravers in the cravers eyes. :p

That would be awesome as people would try to not settle near cravers !

Good to know :)

PANCZASU wrote:

Though I will admit, having a bunch of cravers migrating into an empire they're at war 

that should not happen in the final game ;)

No, that's an intended feature. The population of the galaxy migrates which is one of the ways your population gets more and more diverse as the game continues on.

Though I will admit, having a bunch of cravers migrating into an empire they're at war with is a bit strange haha. Don't think my sophon settlers liked the new neighbours.