A 4X game. There are 100 planets, 50 are inhabited by various aliens (at the start of the game), player start at one of these planets and want to assimilate various aliens into the empire.

That's the ideal scenario, but I have with it problems. For example, since there are 50 inhabited planets that are independent the natural assumption that there is a separate race living in each of these (so 50 alien races). Which brings problems like the need to make 50 separate graphics for these aliens. But even if there were no technical problems (which could be overcame) there is still a problem with the player's brain capacity. If there are 50 alien races... the player will simply be unable to remember/grasp them! It's way too much.

I don't know how to bite it, on one hand I like mthe multi racial empire concept on the other I can't see it working... Note I'm willing tro change some assumptions if needed.

At the moment I lean toward making all these planets inhabited by one race (Terrans), so it's simply a single race in the galaxy that is divided and the player try to unify them into one empire (and there are evil aliens that disrupt it). So no multi racial...

The aliens could have evolved space travel already, when the game starts? Either they have built little empires themselves, or just colonized various planets, that are sort of independent of each other (or a loose federation-style).. this way you dont need as much species as you have inhabitated planets.

The aliens could have evolved space travel already, when the game starts? Either they have built little empires themselves, or just colonized various planets, that are sort of independent of each other (or a loose federation-style).. this way you dont need as much species as you have inhabitated planets.

Yes, I was thinking about it too, but it has one important problem, it does not really allow assimilating planets one by one. Imagine a player wanted to make one planet that already belongs to a federation to join his/her empire, wouldn't rest of the federation react? Wouldn't they oppose it? Especially if the player wanted to conquer that one planet... The whole/primary idea behind a federation is mutual defence.

Plus, even if we talk about peaceful assimilation, I find it unlikely that an alien race would want to leave a federation composed 100% of their brothers to join an empire of some aliens...

Yes, I was thinking about it too, but it has one important problem, it does not really allow assimilating planets one by one. Imagine a player wanted to make one planet that already belongs to a federation to join his/her empire, wouldn't rest of the federation react? Wouldn't they oppose it? Especially if the player wanted to conquer that one planet... The whole/primary idea behind a federation is mutual defence.

Plus, even if we talk about peaceful assimilation, I find it unlikely that an alien race would want to leave a federation composed 100% of their brothers to join an empire of some aliens...

It would make it more difficult indeed, but it would add to the game as well. The player would have to take into account the possibility of retaliation. You'd end up with something similar to Civilization, depending on how complex you want to make it.

If you want to keep the game simple, you could make 5 to 10 alien races and have the others be variations of the first (for example, renegades that fled to another planet some centuries ago and developed minor differences).

As for the player having to remember too much ... I suggest an encyclopedia/help section about each of the races. It depends on how much the differences between those races actually matter, other than the name and appearance.

Hi, the federations doesnt need to be by-species, they could be mixed as well.. and if a planet decides to leave to join the players empire, it might be their right by contract. Or it is only allowed when a majority of planets vote for permission to leave... but in any way, you need to a way to deal with hostility, I guess?

It could e.g. be the one planet leaves, but in return the rest of the empire/fed is more hostile to you afterwards.. but then I dont really know how your mechanics are done/planned wrt to hostility... bit of guessing on my side atm:)

Hi, the federations doesnt need to be by-species, they could be mixed as well.. and if a planet decides to leave to join the players empire, it might be their right by contract. Or it is only allowed when a majority of planets vote for permission to leave... but in any way, you need to a way to deal with hostility, I guess?

It could e.g. be the one planet leaves, but in return the rest of the empire/fed is more hostile to you afterwards.. but then I dont really know how your mechanics are done/planned wrt to hostility... bit of guessing on my side atm:)

That's where it starts to sound too complex :( I wanted to make one empire (player's) and conquest/colonization of lone planets. It starts to turn into a traditional (there are several empires/federations that fight each other).

My idea was sort of "warring states" gameplay, many independent small states and the player with the ambition to unify them all in order to defeat the common enemy (aliens from outside the galaxy/space monster/etc). I don't want the AI to form competitive empires. I want the conflict to be on the line "join the empire" vs "stay independent".

You know, I strive for a true "emperor of the galaxy" feel (where becoming the emperor is not the goal, you start as emperor, the goal is to defend the empire/galaxy).

A small number of alien species might still work if humanity is the only species that forms interplanetary federations/empires, with other alien species tending to be more independently-minded with regards to colonised planets. In this case, each planet newly-colonised by an alien species would be expected to handle its own affairs, and has neither benefit from nor loyalty to other planets settled by the same species. This might also answer the question of why the aliens don't start forming their own federations once they learn about the incoming threat.

Note that I'm not suggesting that the alien species don't form associations within a given planet, just that, unlike humanity, they don't extend that idea beyond their current planet: colonists are seen as leaving their people to found a new place of their own; whether this is seen in a positive, neutral, negative or other light may vary from species to species.

You could explain the small set of races away with fluff. For example: Jump gates / FTL travel goes down for several hundred years (galactic storm, alien intervention, whatever), and when the player's game starts, either the storm has subsided or new technology has finally been invented to re-allow interstellar space travel. Now it's perfectly reasonable to have many independent planets of the same subset of races.

I've been playing a lot of imperium universal IV(do not buy this game unless you want to to lose all your free time) recently and in that the the whole world is simulated with hundreds of small independent countries, as well as large empires. Small and large countries rely on diplomacy to create alliances and vassels for defense and expansion. Even if you are the most powerful nation in the world if you expand to quickly your empire will start tearing itself with revolts and the other nations might join forces into massive coalition to destroy you.

You don't need do more then give each race a set of stats and a unique symbol or flag. What also makes things interesting is having each race develop at different rates and start at different technology levels.

You could explain the small set of races away with fluff. For example: Jump gates / FTL travel goes down for several hundred years (galactic storm, alien intervention, whatever), and when the player's game starts, either the storm has subsided or new technology has finally been invented to re-allow interstellar space travel. Now it's perfectly reasonable to have many independent planets of the same subset of races.

That's a really good idea for a theme: being the emperor who reunifies galactic civilization after something happens to isolate all the worlds. It would explain why planets are mostly singletons (rather than the galactic map being already carved out into existing empires) -- they *were* an empire until they all got cut off from one another.

NB: Even if you wanted to keep everything human, you could still have races and factions of posthumans. If the travel network was down for (say) 1,000 years, people would probably adapt themselves to wherever they found themselves -- willowy low-grav humans with wings, stocky high-grav humans, water-world humans with fins and/or gills, cyborgs hardened to the vacuum, etc. In some of the worlds the surviving civilization might consist only of AIs or uplifted pets.

Also, this scenario would give you races without them being natural factions. Two populations of aquatic posthumans won't necessarily have any common political history, nor will regions of space be inhabited primary by one race, since this is only a post-isolation change.