Mega event

Why not? Because it would seriously unbalance the game, that's why not. The unfortunate 50% of races would loose 25% of their population, and be forced to research/buy the cure etc, while all the other races have to put up with is a drop in trade income (easily sorted by opening new trade routes to non-infected powers). All the infected races would be swiftly exterminated by the non-infected ones.

The current plague hits everyone, so everyone has the same problem, so it's fair.

it could be balanced out, plagued races could be more desperate, they could get "plague assault" invasion technique for killing 25% population instantly and be able to use other invasion techniques at the same time (so 25% dead immediately plus mini soldiers = nice deal) they could plague their enemies with spies... they could force their population to give extra taxes for making a cure so get economy bonus, and still trade to each other, they would be no more hit in trading than non-plagued races...

and it would be MEGA EVENT, no more unbalancing than one player getting ranger or bunch of corvettes early (I was wiped out once by the 2 rangers).
I like to have small number of planets, once, the arcean had one of his planets quality double --> 39, he was on the other side of the galaxy and i couldn't take him out early so he almost kicked my ass... and it wasn't mega event, it was normal event, just like 5 planets becoming habitable and all was taken by him because they were in his teritory...

if you don't have plague and attack plagued race, you would have let say 75% of getting plagued yourself, so you wouldn't want to touch them!

They ALREADY have a mega-plague event. However, it would be cool to make your own custom plague.   

Anyone had the Plague in both 1A and 2 yet?

I'm curious about how the AI updates tackle researching &/or trading for the cure. And I'm kind of hoping that they'll now get ticked with you if you research it and hold on to it for months while you watch them dwindle away.

If you changed it so that 50% of PLANETS got it rather than 50% of RACES it'd be more fair;
The more planets you own, the more likely it affects you more.
So that race who lost the planet rush would actually be better off.

OrdigTroll, where have I missed the 50% thing? When I watched plague effects in my 1A games, it looked very much like *everyone* was zapped except me (I researched the cure in 6 turns, the nearest AI was way slower).

Mind you, I really like the notion of pegging the plague event to a player's number of colonies. Regardless of how you want to describe such a "universal" plague, it seems reasonable to pick a trait that determines how badly a given empire suffers rather than make all empires suffer "equally."

Those last shudder quotes are b/c in 1A it really seemed like tech-obssessed human player would be stoked to see the plague event. I watched much of one and all of a second cycle after the event and even if I hadn't had Super Hive I'm confident that the plague would have been a swell opportunity for anyone whose play style emphasizes research.

OK, let's not call it a plague, call it anthrax, so it would be event that is not already in the game...


but, how exactly does Yor gets the plague..or anthrax..?

I'm curious about how the AI updates tackle researching &/or trading for the cure. And I'm kind of hoping that they'll now get ticked with you if you research it and hold on to it for months while you watch them dwindle away.

It doesn't seem to.
The plague hit at a time when I was doing 49% of research in an 8-player game, so I had it really fast. All the other populations just... declined. It doesn't look like any of them ever researched it. None of them even asked me for it-- though I did give it to the Drengi when they begged my aid in a war-- let it not be said that the Dominion of Krox is not magnanimous to its supplicants!

Galaxy got real quiet after that. All the wars came screeching to a halt, and I was able to proceed with my cultural domination of the now-empty spacelanes.

I haven't seen the plague yet, but I like the ideas of the original poster (modified to 50% colonies, instead of races). I like the damage over time issue, increased cost, plague invasion option (biological warfare), and particularly the invasion deterrent, but mostly the trade factors.

Trade heavily effects diplomacy vic conditions, as should this event. The plague should cause others to drop significantly in their viewing of the races who have it- maybe something like a certain amount per race dependant on the number of colonies affected (regardless of how many of the viewing races colonies are affected). And if the algorithms determine that a race failed plague check as a result of a trade route, the infection should be attributed to the trading partner, so the newly infected colony and their govt knows who to blame (more of a drop in relation status, but also a huge one in morale status for that colony since the govt decided to keep trading with the plague-infected).

This could potentially balance out the severely slanted effect on Conquest Vics that the Mega Events seem to have, at least partially.