OK, this is actually my posting from this thread:

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/10010-can-we-please-see-hostile-super-races-random-spawn-in-the-expansion

before I knew that this sub-forum for game design ideas existed.



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My idea of a mechanic that poses a late game challenge:



Working Title: The Four Intergalactic Horsemen



Late game catastrophic events that provide a threat to your whole empire and are linked with too much FIDS of your empire.

Based on the individual FIDS ressources (food,industry,dust,science) a random event can strike once per game per ressource.

It is triggered based on your total value of that ressource. Once your total exceeds that of all the other players + pirate systems there is a chance each turn the event will happen.

Chance Formula something like

(TotalYours / TotalAllOtherPlayers -1)^2 /10

So if you got 10% more science than all other AIs combined it is only a 0.1 % chance of it happening but quickly rising if your more powerful. 1.1% at 33% more science, 2.5% at 50% 10% at double and 40% at triple the science.



The events that will happen:



The Rage of Plenty:

Ressource: Food

Fluff: Massive bio-engineering in agriculture creates an unusally viral interstellar plague that infects the biosphere of your planets, goes nuts in chaotic pattern and displaces friendly lifeforms including your race.

Mechanics: The system with your most food production will instantly have all pop max reduced to 1 and stay there while the plague is active. It spreads from there to bordering systems. It will slowly lower the population max while increasing the food and decreasing the production value of the base planet. Non organic planets will get terraformed to organic ones. It can be combatted by a a special available terraform that is very costly and not so easy to complete because of the decreasing pop max and production. The source system is most difficult because of population 1 but doing that ends the plague permanently. Non affected systems through the galaxy including all other races get +33% food as a positive side-effect while plague active.



Terror from the Deep Space:

Ressource: Industry

Fluff: Vast amount of ressources are scanned by a mighty extragalactical hive empire of devourers and they send a fleet to collect the ressources through a temporal intergalactic wormhole.

Mechanics: A fleet of Craver ships from another galaxy arrives. Its strength is that of your total military strength combined. It arrives at the system of yours with most production in 3 turns. It sits there and if not killed will remove one ressource every 3 turns and deplete one planet every 3 turns.



The great Pirate Lord:

Ressource: Dust

Fluff: Other races of the galaxy are jealous of your wealth and a great pirate leader is forming to take that dust from your dead body.

Mechanics: Random uncolonized system becomes a Pirate nest with full pop, large fleet and a lvl 20 hero. If no uncolonized system available it is one of yours that gets converted. In addition the system spawns free pirate fleets every turn until a cap is reached depending on your empire strength. All other races except you get a -20% discount on all ship building as a side effect while active. Threat ended when system destroyed.



We created a Monster:

Ressource: Science

Fluff: Science project gone wrong. A twisted higher lifeform is created out of thousands of dying ppl during an experiment.

Mechanics: One random planet of yours is stripped of all but one population. A unique planet wide anomaly is created called "Psychic Abomination". This has to be removed needing an extreme amount of production or alternatively by bombing it in expansion. While it is not removed other planets in your empire (ca. one per turn) receive random anomalies and each anomaly kills population when appearing. These are normal anomalies that can be removed later and have the usual side effects.



For the effect I tried to choose effects that can be done with existing mechanics without having to create new models and such. Apocalypse events can of course be deselected as an option in game creation.



I'd appreciate your feedback

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I was inspired by the great Civ4 mod FallFromHeaven that has an Apocalypse counter and biblical plagues and stuff.

Maybe you can think of other cool mechanics that pose a late game threat. They should not be just a single event but something that stays on for some time and can't be immediately overcome with one large fleet or 5k of dust reserves.

All great ideas. Amplitude, please give us galactic threats!

Very neat.

I am sorry but I can't agree with this. People play strategy games do not like to have their pet empires wrecked by random events. Civ designers had specifically stated these sort of things are not desirable.

I Love this idea would sound great and add a new element to late gameplay just when you have things under control it can all go south.