Here is the idea I had that I was working on for a while. I considered watering it down a little, but it might be more practical for the devs to do that, if at all.
Note: This might make a better story for an expansion than as a mega-event.
_________________
#9 Divine Rapture
An entity claming to be a god shows up one day. When the races in the galaxy start acting skeptical about its claim, it proceeds to prove its power. It firsts improves the quality of every race's homeworld by 1. It then for the next month, it gives out minor "gifts", such as curing balbness or allowing people to lose weight. This results in a +20% morale bonus on all worlds for that month.
After that month, it then starts telling everyone why it is here. It is making preperations for the end of the world. It then gives each civilization 2 choices, either reject all heritical ideals, and beleifs that contradict its existance, and join it as a servant of its religeon, or be destroyed as a heratic. Each civilization gets 1 month to decide. For that month, and that point on, this entity is available as a race you can talk to in the foreign policy screen.
To join, one merely has to talk to this entity, ask for its special treaty, and offer some planets (the only thing it will accept as payment). This treaty cancels all wars with anyone else who has this treaty, and effectively become allies with other members. Those civilizations that do join, have all of their remaining worlds PQ increased by 1, and the morale bonus remains further increases.
Those that don't join after the first month, suffers its Divine Wrath... (couldn't resist adding)... All worlds not only lose the morale benefit from this entity, but now also suffers from terrible disasters including, but not limited to, seismic distructions, vulcanic activity, and rain of frogs (someone might like this one).
________________
Although many might question its legitamcy as a divine entity, none can question that it is powerful. It'll function as a Major race that produces its own influence, and has its own super ability, Super influencer.
Super Influencer:
-Primary effect: The civilization can culture flip planets more easily. This race only needs half as much influence to flip planets (2.00+ instead of 4.00+), and all planets that may flip is 50% more likely to do so.
-Secondary effect: This race can buy planets from other races at discount prices.
________________
Hey, Frogboy, could you provide us some feed back for some of our ideas?
I am curious why, from a gamer perspective, one would not always say yes unless they wanted to up the challenge level? It would be relatively easy to nab a couple of class 3s and offer them up for the wonderful bonuses before TT rushing every last planet under god's control. I like the idea in general, but I think there should be a price for the compliance to make it a real choice. A few ideas come to mind.
1. The god is either good, neutral, or evil, chosen randomly, and any race that accepts the god loses all benefits of their chosen ethic, if they have one if it does not match their god's alignment. For instance, an evil race who accepts a god not evil loses access to their evil weapons, the ability to construct evil wonders, the benefits of evil wonders, etc. Their alignment is instead set to that of the god's, but, as they lack the cultural background, they do not get the benefits of that alignments. They can rebel against the god but doing so brings on double secret divine wrath, which is like divine wrath, only double.
2. God demands tribute over time, in ships of a certain value (to conquer unbelievers), more planets, more technology, population if the developers can manage it, etc. The god will also issue demands for ships or for you to declare war on its enemies, and so forth if it's territory is threatened, which, hopefully it will be when the races that don't go along for the ride decide to stamp out its influence in the galaxy. Refusing to meet the demands will trigger divine retribution, an earthquake on one of your planets, a space storm that destroys a fleet or three, etc.
3. God has a strict moral code that impacts how you are able to run your civilization, say, three of the following six attributes chosen at random:
*Pacifistic God - Your civilization cannot declare war nor can your warships set destinations anywhere not in your own space. Alternately:
*Crusading God - Demands a perpetual state of war with at least one race, so long as there are any, who does not worship this being. Also, you cannot set your military production slider to less than 40%.
*Frugal God- You can no longer use credits to buy items, nor are you allowed to increase your expenses to 5% greater than your income.
*Demanding God- Worship of this being takes up so much time, your production and research are reduced by 15%.
*Blood God- Demands sentient sacrifice, reduces growth rate by 20%, reduces morale by 10%.
*Isolationist God- No income from trade and tourism and influence is reduced by half when considered for converting planets other races' planets.
*Tithing God- Economy reduced by 10% (money goes to church).
The numbers can be moved around to balance with the morale bonus and planet quality bonus and other advantages for accepting the offer if the attributes listed are too strict/lenient. Failure to obey these edicts results in Divine wrath until you are brought back in line with the rules and offer a planet as restitution.
-------------------------------
I think something like that, or some combination of the above, would leave the player with a real choice in whether or not to join and whether or not to stay outside and face divine wrath (until they kill god).
Also, I would appreciate some feedback from the staff on ideas presented here. For example, my Ion Storm idea; is it the kind of thing you are looking for? Is it feasible to implement with the code? Is it too weak/powerful? Do you see any obvious tweaks that could make it better? I think some guidance would be helpful in getting us to a point of understanding what you can do with the code and what kinds of suggestions you are looking for or what suggestions you don't believe would improve the gameplay experience.
