Most TBS games of course have an Ancient Race. - Antarians in Master of Orion - Dread Lords in Galactic Civilizations - Grox in Spore I'm sure we could make a far larger list. What would you like to see for an Ancient PSS race? Ideas include special missions (middle of galaxy Black Hole in Spore), destroying a super ship, waves of enemy ships, and so on. Another is simply wiping them out. What types of bonuses should the Ancient race have? What should be the reward of said mission?
I Like that you have to fight harder to get hold of ancient tech. I like approach with Anntarians etc that if you beat them in a spacebattle you might be able to get hold of tech that is not available per se.
I'm clearly in favor of this, it's like adding some seasoning to a game. For PSS one could take two different approaches as a starting point. A simpler form of the idea could be implemented quickly, something along the lines of ancient automated assets (base, ship) that become active. The plus here is that the Devs have a simpler task, the negative is that it would be bland, not terribly exciting. A sophisticated approach on the other hand would be more demanding for the Devs and might be better left as a DLC. The positive here is that it could become more creative and fun. The main issue I have with a short term approach is that It would just be one more "monster" type situation in a game that already has enough.
I definitely agree that ancient races can and should be about a lot more than just another space monster to kill. At the moment, nobody does ancient races better and more interesting than Stellaris. PSS could do a lot worse than mining some inspiration from that game when it comes to ancients or fallen empires.
I think that a truly awesome campaign could be added on at a later date as a campaign too. It may have to wait. Still, it's interesting to think about it. Another option is a series of quests that can lead to an ancient discovery of some sort.
Absolutely! Imperium Galactica 2 did this decades ago and it was a huge plus that really enhanced the game. You could still play sandbox mode or a series of scenarios but the main campaigns were a thing of beauty. The thing is it must be done right, no half baked attempts will do as the damage caused to the game could be huge.
And then there was this 4X game that was supposed to be played in a 4X fashion through a grand space-opera like setting. The idea sounded awesome but it was poorly executed and the game was atrocious. I can't recall the name, Pegasus something? The idea of a grand quest is a good one but again it should be possible to activate or deactive it at the beginning of the game (a la Distant Worlds) and it needs to be extremely well crafted, both from a gameplay and a narrative standpoint. It should be a branching narrative so as to allow replayability. It's a type of narrative that is very familiar to Amplitude Studios and their Endless series so perhaps inspiration on how to do it could come from there.
It's an interesting discussion. What would be cool and perhaps game changing as to make it worth getting the quest? Would we want it to be an "I win button" after completing? What about giving the AI a shot at it?
