Idea for Space 4X game: the Kardashev Scale

[SupremacyKing2]

I've always been fascinated with the Kardashev Scale. For those who don't know what it is, it is basically a scale for measuring how advanced a spacefaring civilization is by looking at their total energy output. The Kardashev Scale categories civs in the following way: a Type I civ would be a planetary civ, a Type II would be an interstellar civ and a Type III civ would be a galactic civ.

For fun, I decided to brainstorm a bit how I would do a 4X space game, like Master of Orion, but with the Kardashev Scale being more prominent in the game design. I came up with this idea of a new "tech tree" that would be in levels, like the floors in a buildings. There would be 9 levels:

level 1: "early" type I
level 2: "developing" type I
level 3: "advanced" type I
level 4: "early" type II
level 5: "developing" type II
level 6: "advanced" type II
level 7: "early" type III
level 8: "developing" type III
level 9: "advanced" type III

To represent how the Kardashev scale is based on energy output, each level would be unlocked not by science like in traditional 4X games, but by how much energy your civ is producing. Expansion would be very important since the more star systems you have colonized, the more places you could harvest energy and hence increase your energy output.

You would win the game by reaching level 9 and building a super wonder to escape to another parallel universe.

Each level would unlock new buildings, units, wonders, and abilities. In addition, for each level, the player could choose an "empire focus" like expansionist, militaristic, isolationist, pacifist, scientific, etc... These focus would unlock extra unique buildings, units, wonders and abilities that would only last while you are in that level. You would get new uniques when you pick your next focus in the next level. These focus would allow the player to specialize their level.

You would use science but as a way to upgrade units or buildings within a level.

I feel like the kardashev levels would also serve as a nice way of describing a civ when you meet them in diplomacy. For example, if you are an "advanced" type I civ and you meet an "early" type III, you know you are meeting a civ far more advanced than you.

My hypothetical game would also feature very large galactic maps with a ton of civs that could be spread out along the kardashev scale. So you would meet other civs that are more primitive than you or more advanced than you.

Thoughts?

 

[Thorgalaeg]

Problem is competition between civs of different kardashev levels would be impossible. Level 2 is incomparably more powerful than level 1 and level 3 are like gods compared to level 2 and barely imaginable for little level 1 guys.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Thanks for reading my thread and writing something interesting.

Problem is competition between civs of different kardashev levels would be impossible. Level 2 is incomparably more powerful than level 1 and level 3 are like gods compared to level 2 and barely imaginable for little level 1 guys.

Yeah, I realize that. So how could the game still make it interesting? I would propose the following:
1) Give civs incentives to be nice to lower civs? That way the player would have an incentive to leave lesser civs alone. Also, if you bumped into a more advanced civ, they would have an incentive to leave you alone.
2) Put type I civs closest to you at the start of the game when you are also type I. That way the competition with your closest neighbors would be fair. As you expand and gobble up your neighbors and become a type II, you would bump into other civs that also had time to expand and hopefully become type II also. As you expand further and say colonize half the galaxy and become a type III, there might be another type III civ on the other side of the galaxy that would be your equal. That way, there should be some competition throughout the game.

Actually if you started all the civs at the same type I level at the start of the game then it should work. Your immediate neighbors would be type I just like you and as the game progressed, the more distant civs would have time to progress to type II and type III at roughly the same rate as you. So as you expanded and became a type II, you would bump into the more distant civs that also expanded and became type II's as well. Basically, the game would start with lots of type I civs across the galaxies. As the game progressed, some type I civs would die or get absorbed by other civs, and some would become type IIs, Then in the late game, some of the type II's would die or get absorbed and a smaller number of type IIs would become type IIIs.

Or perhaps an another option would be to gear the game towards the player's perspective and experience. So instead of having a bunch of equal civs all competing to win like in a traditional civ game, the game would just have the player as the main active civ but have a lot of NPC civs and other challenges based on the kardashev type that the player is at. So the game would be about the player experiencing that growth from Type I to II to III and overcoming increasingly bigger challenges. For example, as a Type I, you might face pirates raiding your home star system. As a Type II, you might experience a star going supernova. As a Type III, you might experience another type III civ invading your galaxy.

 

[civvver]

I mean isn't that kind of how civ5 works since more population = more beakers?

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I mean isn't that kind of how civ5 works since more population = more beakers?

I think there would be some notable differences. In civ5, population directly gives you beakers which are used to unlock specific techs. In my idea, you would need to build energy collectors on planets, stars and asteroid fields and when you reached a certain amount of total energy collected, it would unlock an "age" rather than a specific tech. So, it would be more akin to a system where when you have 5 buildings in all your cities combined, you unlock the classical age, when you have 10 buildings, you get to the renaissance age and when you get to 20 buildings, you get to the industrial age. And when you reach a certain age, you automatically get a bunch of a new units and buildings without needing to research specific techs.

 

[Michkov]

Scale would be a problem I imagine. If you got a K3 that has to manage their planets on a same level as a K1 it's death by micromanaging for the player

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Scale would be a problem I imagine. If you got a K3 that has to manage their planets on a same level as a K1 it's death by micromanaging for the player

Thanks for your interesting response. That issue did occur to me. I think the only way to solve this problem would be to abstract planet management the higher up you go on the Kardashev scale. So Type I's would manage individual planets, Type II's would not manage individual planets anymore but manage things on a star system level and Type III's would not even manage individual star systems anymore but would manage things on a regional level (say 20 star systems as a single region). This would further help differentiate the differences between the different kardashev types too since a type I would feel more like a planetary civ since they are managing planets whereas a type II would feel more like an interstellar empire since they are building things at the level of a star system and not managing individual planets anymore. This could be done by having a build queue for individual planets when you are a type I, then having a single build queue per star system when you become a type II, and then having a single build queue per group of star systems when you become a type III. Of course, the types of things you could put in your build queue would also change. A planetary build queue could have things like a nuclear power plant, a star system build queue might have things like a dreadnought starship or a squadron of destroyer starships, a galactic build queue might have things like a dyson sphere.