What i think about races(so far)

[terololo]

Honestly, gameplay-wise, i think 20 races is a little overkill for a 4x game, and most of the difference between races are their victory conditions. Personally I Prefer good ol' Ability Penalties in 4X games to make gameplay variations, instead of Racial Goals/Victory Conditions which i feel very limiting(e.g. you can't play as The "Union of Evil People's Democratic Socialist Soviet Republic of Quameno" if racial goals are enabled). Without Racial Goals enabled, some race just felt like a copypasted, "de-extremed", or "jack-off-all-trade'd" version of others, which i find uninteresting.

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For me, in DW, races can be categorized into several categorisations:
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By Foreign Affairs:
*Militaristic/Warmongers: Races with major Troop cost/War Weariness Reductions
*Neutral: Races without major troop cost/war weariness reductions
*Pacifist: Discarding Victory Conditions, there are technically no race that could qualify as pacifist. Negative points are still unmoddable. Utopian Paradise Races could be categorized into Pacifist though, but Government Types are always optional.

By Internal Affairs:
*Moneymakers: Races with major income bonus, with Teekans as the most obvious.
*Researchers: self-explanatory.
*Builders: Low maint, huge ships, fast construction, fast mining. Builder races can build many things fast, cheap, and HUGE.(Ackdarians is the most obvious example)
*Spies: Major bonus on intel operations. So far only The Ketarov Comrades qualify for this.
*Diplomat: Race with diplomatic events and major Ambassador bonus(Securans, mostly)

I put Happiness and Pop Growth in another independent variable groups since they affect many things.
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Well, i guess this is the end of my rant, i still love the concept this game tho, can't wait for the more moddable universe expansion!

[Ares106]

The races are quite distinct diplomatically and politically, i like how racial/ideological blocks are often formed in the game. But i think they should be more distinct militarily and visually. I think each race should have its own tech tree not just specific racial techs. This means more weapons effects and some work balancing. But id rather have 6-8 starcraft like races then have 20 copy pasted races. Also they dont have to be balanced as tightly as SC because this is a single player game so it should be feasible to do in a mod. Also would be nice if each race has its own military doctrine and special strategies to implement it, i know this is there to some degree but it should be more pronounced.

Still I think vanilla does overall a good job at making races look distinct. Just last night for example something quite intriguing happened to me. Im playing as humans and am on good terms with Ketarov, was considering them as an ally. Now i know they are unstable and I can see a new government type almost every time i check up on them. But i never expected them to do this. One of my forward bases located next to their territory has a resident fleet of about 20 ships in orbit of a planet with a medium space port. I get an attack warning, and see on of their destroyers firing on one of my destroyers guarding the planet. Immediately I assume they declared war. But they are still at peace. I protest the attack, they say something like "sorry about our overzealous commanders" but do nothing. Eventually their ship warps out because of low shield, but 2 minutes later returns and opens fire again on the same destroyer. Now im annoyed so I order my fleet to vaporize their ship in 2 seconds, but this lowers my reputation. Thinking the story is done i return back to other tasks. But surprisingly, 5 minutes later an ENTIRE Ketarov fleet warps into my outpost and opens fire on the same destroyer causing my jaw to drop. I protest and get the same "sorry our commanders are trigger happy" reply. This time I let them kill my ship. Which they promptly do and then to add insult to injury they proceed to refuel at my space port. Our trade treaty is now canceled, and Ketarov has earned a slot on my shitlist, I shall be returning to dealing with them as soon as im done with some other undesirables.

Now i dont know if this was a bug or working as intended, but its little things like this that give races character and make the whole game very immersive.

[terololo]

Talking about diplomacy and politics, maybe "distinct" is not quite the word, but Governments and Racial bias do make diplomatic games interesting. But i want to be interested in playing with every races. I just feel like that some races just "added" there to make interesting diplomatic outcomes, and not mainly to be played.

Diplomatic games is also the reason i often play with fewer pirates, since playing with strong pirates in shadows game makes even mid and late game felt like playing tower defense with pirate base-hunting elements, not to mention that AI empires tend to handle pirates very poorly. By midgame it's often the case that i control almost half of the galaxy while the AI has just begun colonizing.

[JCVocke]

I will only ever support there being fewer playable species if the game allows you to have more empires than there are species.

[Henzington]

I highly recommend the extended mod for extra races. I don't totally agree with the idea of the OP as the issue of balances that come into play with those types of bonuses.

[DasTactic]

Distant Worlds is beautifully unbalanced and always different. More races the better I think.

[Hrdina]

ORIGINAL: JCVocke

I will only ever support there being fewer playable species if the game allows you to have more empires than there are species.

I think Endless Space did that. I would have a game with 4 different Amoeba empires, 3 different Sophonts, etc. I did not care for it.

[elanaagain]

One of the wonderful things about the Mod for Viv 4, "Fall from Heaven 2" is that each of the races are very distinct form one another. It is unbalanced game wise - but almost always a wonderful experience. playing. Adding a variety of distinctive species/races to DW seems like a valid way to extend the shelf life of the game. I don't mind some races being more powerful that others, as along as its not overpowered because it has better stronger yada everything. Distinctive strengths and weaknesses make it interesting. Any suggestions about designing one or more truly distinctive species that the modders can then draw ideas from?

[Modest]

ORIGINAL: JCVocke

I will only ever support there being fewer playable species if the game allows you to have more empires than there are species.

I think Endless Space did that. I would have a game with 4 different Amoeba empires, 3 different Sophonts, etc. I did not care for it.

Just for the record - in DW You can set up many empires with the same race.

[terololo]

ORIGINAL: Henzington

I highly recommend the extended mod for extra races. I don't totally agree with the idea of the OP as the issue of balances that come into play with those types of bonuses.

I don't expect balance though. 4X games were never really balanced, there's always super-factions and underpowered factions. I'd rather have 8 races that have their own flavor and plays slightly different, rather than 20 races that feels copypasted. because those things really adds replayability.

Well maybe because i grew up playing Alpha Centauri where every faction have their own distinct flavor and each have quite different strategies to play, so yeah, it's just my own personal preference.