Ithkul eating enemy

[sir0die]

ok, i'm starting a game as the ithkul, i got a few questions, i understand they "EAT" alien races.

so, here is my senerio (this is made up so i can have a better understanding of things)

lets assume i find a planet, it has 10,000 humands on it.
i colonize it with 1,000 havesters. lets also assume my population growth is .1

will my next turn, 1,000 haversters eat 1,000 humans? will the havester population increase the amout of humans eaten?(2,000 harvesters, 9,000 humans) more like assimilating them instead of eating them. what point does the pop growth factor get added? (1k harvester*.1 pop growth=1.1k havesters, that then eat 1.1k humans=2.2k havesters?) or (1k havesters eat 1khumans=2k havesters*.01 pop growth= 2.2k harvesters) ok, maybe it was the numbers i picked caused it to be the same, but i'd rather not go into too much math. the logic is there, hopefully you can see it.




Do i need to worry about bioharvesters on planets that have alien races to be eaten? I'm assuming that i'm eating the poor bastards, i might as well make them slave labor till they get eaten. how do i ensure that as many of them as possible are slaves? how will that effect empirewide unrest? would it be better to be a hive or unification gov?

[SamuraiZombie]

I don't know the exact math for how fast Ithkul eat other races, but it's not nearly as fast as 1 population for each Ithkul per turn. Really, it varies. Presumably, the more Ithkul, the more they eat. However, the Ithkul population does not rise in proportion to how much they eat; they're not like Xenomorph Aliens or anything. They just eat and their population growth is unrelated. A planet with lots of race X and only a little bit of Ithkul will take a long time before all of race X is eaten and there are only Ithkul left. However, a planet with a favorable enviornment for the Ithkul means a higher growth rate and therefore, more of race X will get eaten faster.

You can't "colonize" planets that are already colonies of another empire. You can only conquer them. Even after you conquer them, their populations will remain the same; your troops, presumably, are so small in number that they don't really affect the population of a planet.

Populations will migrate from planet to planet within your empire without your prompting and sometimes against your will. Ithkul have a tendency to want to migrate to planets with available regions and "free-range" food (i.e. another race). Likewise, other races have a tendency to want to migrate away from planets with Ithkul populations on them. There is nothing you can do about this. You can encourage migration to a planet (but not away from it) by selecting a planet and setting migration on it (in the Planets screen or in the System view).

Each region of a planet can only have one kind of population. If all the available regions are filled (as they usually are on developed planets), then no Ithkul can move to the planet.

You still have to worry about bioharvesting on a planet infested with Ithkul. The victim races have to eat too. And I don't think the moo3 system distinguishes between "real" food and "ithkul" food...if a planet doesn't have enough food to meet its requirements, everyone starves equally.

Unlike Moo2, you can't turn the entire population of a planet into forced labor. There is a slider bar in the Empire screen that lets you adjust the degree to which your empire uses forced labor. If you have forced labor enabled, then sometimes a small amount of population gets turned into "Organic FLUs (forced labor units)" attached to a specific DEA on a specific planet. The FLUs increase productivity. When you conquer a planet and have forced labor activated, you tend to immediately generate a bunch of FLUs across your empire. The higher the forced labor slider, the harder you work your FLUs and the quicker they die. Generally, the higher the forced labor slider is, the greater the empire-wide unrest is, but it's a relatively small addition to unrest.

Hive vs. Unification is a matter of focus. Hive tends to focus more on resource gathering and manufacturing. Unification is better at research and economy. Both are quite good but which one you want to choose is simply a matter of preference. If there are a lot of good tech races in the game (Nommo, Trilarians, Psilons), then pick Unification to help keep up. If you find yourself ahead of the other empires in technology, pick Hive to boost your production.

[teecee]

Your Ithkul are attaching themselves to the host. They draw nutrition from the hosts while they are riding them. Ithkul will "use up" their host and move to a new one. The host isn't being eaten in the literal sense of the word.

Ithkul will also gain memory and knowledge from the host organism.

You DO need to worry about bioharvest as the hosts that the Ithkul are using need to eat as do the "free range cattle" still on the planet.

I don't know the exact rate at which an Ithkul population will use up a host population.

You do know that you are the "Scourge of the Galaxy" when you're Ithkul, don't you?;)

tc

[sir0die]

ok, so do i eat the other races even when there is ample food produced by bioharvesters? or only when food is scarce? or all the time?

as far as colony growth, it's still the same as whatever the terrain dictates (just like all the other races).

Yes i know i'm the scourge. heck, last game i played, i was psilons, i attacked anyone and everyone, so why not be the scourge, i'm gonna attack anyone and everyone anyways.

the one thing that surprised me when i created the race, was that they have absolutely NO economic tech tree! so of course i set that research to 0% and locked it.

:o

for a race that is parasitic of other race, and gain the intellegence and memories of the host race, you'd think they would have all the techs that other races have. heck, and even be a litlle more advanced at it.

my goal, MWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH MWHAHAHAHAHAHAH, TOTAL GALACTIC ANNILALATION!!!!!!!
:haha: :haha: :sour: :haha: :weird: :haha:

[SamuraiZombie]

Ithkul eat other races all the time as long as they're on the same planet. They Need to. With a capitol "N". The process of eating is abstracted in the game; population of non-Ithkul drops and as it does, it adds a temporary bioharvest boost.

Also, just because you didn't see anything in the economy tree doesn't mean there wasn't anything higher up. You can only see 4-8 levels above where you are right now; so even if at level 1, the tree was empty, there are probably advances in economics you can learn at higher levels. Also, some of the advances in other schools need you to have a minimum level in a different school, and economics is no exception. It's worthwhile to research evey school, but definetely concentrate on what you think is most important and keep the sliders low on less important schools.

[pedxing]

also, "locking" the slider for a tech school does not prevent it from changing.

the lock is there to help you set the sliders: to keep the ones you have set where you want them from moving around while you set the others.

go back next turn and see... nothing will be "locked" anymore.

[sir0die]

well, when i look at the tree for economics, the whole thing is greyed out, not empty black slots, the whole thing is grey, like the window borders.

[grinningman]

Originally posted by sir0die
well, when i look at the tree for economics, the whole thing is greyed out, not empty black slots, the whole thing is grey, like the window borders.

You do have an economic tech tree, it's just that you don't have any eco techs visible at level 0. Once you research a few economic tech levels and some higher level eco techs become visible, then the tree will appear as normal.