In a future expansion pack, I would like to see the introduction of a system by which you can have alien populations on conquered world that differ from the citizens of the rest of your Empire and have different abilities aswell as an extra potential for revolt.
The mechanics of planetery invasion.
Planetery invasion happens as it does at the moment, the attackers and the defenders attack with the full numbers and take casualties each round. However both sides also have a courage bar, which represents their continued willingness to fight on. Generally speaking the courage bar is depleted long before either the planet's defenders or the attackers forces are wiped out completely. If the defenders courage bar is reduced to 0, they surrender and the population becomes citizens of the new rulers (ablait unassimilated alien ones), while if the attackers courage bar is reduced to 0 they are forced to abandon the invasion.
If an attacking force is forced to retreat, the transport goes on enforced autopilot back to the world from whence it came. 25% of the time the transport is destroyed while attempting to withdraw, if so all the attacking forces die. The rest of the time they will take a random amount of damage to represent defenders firing at the retreating craft as it attempts to evacuate the attacking forces. They will proceed at full speed to their homoworld, avoiding enemy ships and they cannot be controlled by the player until they reach their destination (at which point they can be re-launched and sent onto a new invasion). A random percentage of the attacking forces troops, decided by technology and soldiering skill of the defending race is also killed while attempting to retreat into orbit.
The Courage bar
The courage bar of the defenders is decided by the morale of the planet, modified by the courage score of the race. The courage bar of the attackers is the total approval rating for the civilization, modified by the courage score of the race. Courage is reduced by particularly de-moralising invasion tactics (mostly available to evil civs) and by taking casualties in battle.
Alien citizens
Just beacause you forced the alien population of a world to desist active resistance against your rule, doesn't make them human. Indeed you can never make them human, merely get them to see the benefits of being under human rule and expose them to human culture (replace human with whatever race you are playing here).
Aliens populations come in four types.
1. Unassimilated aliens
2. Semi-assimilated aliens
3. Assimilated aliens
4. Enslaved aliens
Unassimilated aliens provide only half production, economy and research and no culture to their civilization. They also impart a 25% morale penalty. They do not fight in planetery invasions.
In order to assimilate aliens you must ensure the following
1. They are not part of the cultural borders of a civilization that is of their race. As long as they are, they will never assimilate.
2. They are part of the cultural borders of your civilization, if they aren't then assimilation happens at 50% speed.
3. There morale is kept high, if a planet is unhappy then alien populations will begin to de-assimilate.
Semi-assimilated aliens are aliens that are reasonably well accustomed to human rule, they provide 75% production, economy and research and 50% of the culture of native citizens. The fight in planetery invasions, but impart a courage penalty.
Assimilated aliens are aliens that are well accustomed to human rule, they provide full production, economy and research and 75% of the culture of native citizens. They fight in planetery invasions at full strength.
Slavery is an option available only to evil civilizations and those of an evil leaning (such as Drengin, Yor and Korx). The alien population is not treated with the same rights as citizens of the ruling civilizations and is considered legal property to be bought or sold and has no legal rights at all. Slaves produce full production, economy and research, but only 25% culture.
Slaves do not fight in planetery invasions and may occasionally decide to rebel (see below). If slaves should fall into the hands of a civilization that is not evil or evil leaning they are automaticly freed and become Semi-assimilated aliens. If slaves should fall into the hands of the evil civilization from which they were part originally then the civilization has the option of freeing them. If they elect to do so, they gain a few points towards good (due to the mercy inherant in such an act and also beacause of the influence of these ex-slaves on their civilization). If they do not, they become even more evil.
Revolts
If a planet unhappy (which is very easy expecially if they're unassimilated aliens), then every turn there is a gradually increasing chance of a revolt. There are three kinds of revolt, xeno revolt, civil revolt and slave revolt.
Xeno-revolt
This happens if less than assimilated aliens make up the majority of the world's population. The "attacker" controls the forces of all population that of his race in addition to all assimilated aliens against all unassimilated and semi-assimilated aliens. The attacker decides whether to use planetery invasion tactics against the alien rebels as though he were attacker in a planetery invasion, using his forces, the defender that is the rebels counts as the defender.
Things are decided as though it were a planetery invasion, with courage bars like normal. If the attackers lose the planet falls to the rebels and all surviving population that were of the race become unassimilated aliens. If they win, all semi-assimilated aliens become assimilated and all un-assimilated aliens become semi-assimilated. However a low morale can still cause de-assimilation however as mentioned above.
Civil revolt
This occurs when a world not predominately alien is unhappy. The attacker (the goverment) controls the percentage of the population that is happy. A world with 10% morale would give the attacker 10% of the population, while the defender has half the unhappy population of the world, so that world would give the rebels 45% of the worlds population as rebels. The attacker decides what planetery invasion tactics to use as normal.
Slave revolts
Slave revolts are randomly occuring, they have nothing to do with morale. A random number of the planets slaves fights against the "free" evil population of the world, aided by 50% of the unassimilated "good" aliens that are present and 25% of the semi-assimilated good aliens. Nuetrally aligned aliens take no part in the fighting.
Assume there was a Drengin world called Weber I, on it there are 5 billion Arcean slaves, 2 billion unassimilated Torians and 3 billion Drengin. The randomly determined percentage is 50%, so 2.5 billion slaves would battle against 3 billion Drengin with the help of 1 billion Torians.
The effects of a revolt
The effects of a revolt succeeding vary according to the nature of the revolt and the galactic situation. If a xeno-revolt occurs the planet will defect to their original civilization, if that that civilization no longer exists, it is reborn and goes back into play (see the rules for new civilizations below). A civil revolt will result in the planet either joining a galactic movement, their counter-civilization (such as the Terran Federation) or defecting to an alien civilization (if they are culturally influenced). Culturally revolting planets, always start of as assimilated aliens in their new civilization.
Slave revolts vary in their effects, if they are pre-dominately alien, then they act like a xeno-revolt, however one catch, they will never join an evil civilization, even if they are of it's race, so Drengin slaves will never join the Drengin Empire. In that case they will usually set up a counter-civilization which is neutrally or good aligned or join a galactic movement.
If they are predominately of the same race as their rulers then they will either join a counter-civilization or a galactic movement which is not evil aligned or leaning.
New civilizations
A new revolter civilization recieves the following upon it's creation.
The total income of the planet for 10 turns.
The same technology level as the civilization is revolted from, minus any ethically incompattable techs.
A special defender for every 5 basic industrial points on the planet, so if a planet produces 20 industrial points, then it recieves 4 of these defenders. They are small ships, with no engines, life support, or sensors, that are equipped evenly with the best weapons and defenses available to the race.
Differing abilities and the effects
The innate racial abilities, plus the 10 selected bonus abilities of the race at start are treated as inherant racial abilities. Technology, event based bonuses to a specific civilization do not count as this, only the inherant racial abilities of the species.
The amount of bonus that you recieve depends on the percentage of the population that they make up. In order to recieve 100% of the bonus, they have to make up 100% of the population.
