Playing pirates

Well, perhaps instead of proclaiming a civilization as simply pirates you can send your own ships/fleets to do pirate activities, under pirate flags, etc. Privateers, corsairs, etc.

I have always wanted to do this in Sins or other 4X games. It annoyed me to no end that Sins had long trade routes you could raid but it was pointless because you gained next to nothing from doing it. At the very least if other players have unguarded trade routes you should be able to run in and steal everything that isn't nailed down for a serious economic reward, and a serious penalty for the robbed player. A way to disguise the controller of you ships would be icing on the cake.

If you want a full civilization, I would not think of them as pirates.  Instead, think of them as nomads with the traditional nomad economic model of raiding boarding lands.  Besides raiding, they would specialize in rapid construction of building and extraction of resources but their buildings would degrade over time.  They would like also develop techniques to extract resources from planets that other races could never hope to colonize.

The nomads could have specialized ships for research production, which in addition producing a steady stream of research points, could steal research from other races when raiding.

They should also get a increased bonuses from studying anomalies.

I am surprised you did not suggest it, but the raiders should be able to steal enemy ships.

I think your proposed victory condition is very similar to the one proposed in the espionage thread, so you may want to look at it for some ideas.

Instead of pirate civilizations (which doesn't make sense to me), we should have some ships assigned to do pirate activities (privateers).

Jarac is an idea thief!

I'd like the idea of NPC pirates. After each skirmish, a number of destroyed ships are added to the pirates' forces instead of being removed from the map. A small pirate force could realistically grow rapidly if left unchecked. Complete pirate dominance over space would make for an interesting game.

Pirates would originate by rebelling from existing empires. They don't have planets, just ships. Their ethical alignment would always be opposite of the leaning of faction they defected from, or randomly chosen if the initial civ is leaning neutral.

You could negotiate or bribe pirates to carry out various tasks (attack fleet, attack ship, blockade X for Y number of weeks, etc). Pirates would only accept money, which would (invisibly) be used to cause more ships to rebel and join their cause.

Maybe a pirate DLC or Mod someday? If anyone else is interested, I could start a dedicated thread (I could also write a long post with exact suggested mechanics).

Arrrrrrrr!

Lol, sorry about that. Didn't see your post. I'm thinking in terms of Civ IV where we had Privateers that we would use against enemy ships and the AI would never know who did it. 

I certainly like the idea of giving a pirate flag to certain ships; making them a free game for everybody else, but also available to raid ennemies.

People previously proposed the idea of stealth starbases hidden in asteroids. Well we could also have stealth pirate bases that give bonuses to your neighbouring pirating activities; maybe a spawn point for your pirate fleet.

I realy like the idea of a nomad civ

they can't build starbases or colonize planets but build the largest ships

so they build ships from ships...

They could have gigantic and heavy armed colony ships flying among solar systems

> this ships could have unlimited range and range of others smaller ships is calculated from them

They could deploy in empty solar systems and exploit planets

they could exploit inhostpitable planets so they could share a solar system with an ally with is permission??

they could recycle destroyed ships

they could specialize in :

• movement (speed + range (if limited) + speed/cost of deployment and undeloyement)
• piracy (black market + stealth...)
• farming planets and asteroid (to have a more classic gameplay)
• low costs ships and great recycling activities
• fight abilities with mercenaries diplomatic capabilities
• trade
• exploration (detectors, range...)
• ...

they have no influence but influence of others has no effect on them

It make me think about the Quarians in mass effect

Giving a pirate flag to our ships to make them corsair is a good idea but should be balanced to have a negative effect on the player using that (he could be catch and pay a fine...)

This is where espionage comes in, using spies you should be able to determine which race the pirate ships belong to and then if they make an ill judged act of piracy against you you will have a very good reason to go to war against that faction, same in reverse if the AI has sufficient spies to know that your pirate ships belong to you and you attack them then they'll go to war with you too.

Also Any ship that is flagged as a pirate ship would be targetted for destruction by any other civ if the ship is found. So for this to work for player to have pirate ships, and the AI too, we'd probably need a cloaking technology

Those are well thought out ideas.  An alternate cost of making pirate vessels could be that you actually lose control of that vessel or fleet once you set them loose.  That way, if you don't place them well, they might come after you and will have your technology when they do.  You'd have to think ahead when making the build.

Then it would make even more sense to sponsor stealth pirate base to spawn the pirates ships safely away from your borders.

The latest expansion of Distant Worlds (Shadows) lets you play as a pirate though I think the game play mode itself needs a bit of tweaking.

In fact there is a major problem with a nomad civ :

if they leave solar systems, others will colonize them and they won't be able to come back

at the end of the game there will be no more available solar systems (or the galaxy is enough big and impossible to colonize at 100%)

Nomads will just have poor systems with only inhospitable planets at the end

But this problem could be part of the gameplay nomads could spread widely at the beginning but then have to settle in the middle of the game

They have to spread to maximize their trade or pirate abilities 

if they choose the pirate way they could hide in inhospitable systems and move to an other when they are attacked the fact that the systems is poor is not a problem as their incomes come mainly from piracy (poor system ensure only a minimum income)

If they choose the trade way they could settle in more interesting systems but if they choose very interesting systems others will be tempt to military drive them out and they are weak... So they could first take the most interesting systems and then leave to other systems, less interesting, when other players came in the area it could be part of a negotiation.

I find the idea of a nomad civilization a bit silly in a universe similar to GalCiv2.

Well, you can have the nomad civilization be able to enter populated territories and be able to extract percentages of materials from it (civilian/corp trade and such) and resultantly expand the host civ's economy or some such.

Allow the nomads to mooch off the host civ and in return the host civ will receive a bonus somewhere.

The nomad civ will start off having to build "mining" bases or some-such. As they move on they either completely disassemble them for the materials or leave them for another civ to find, which could result in a positive diplomatic outlook in the future.

As civs become more widespread and more powerful, the effect on the nomads would be increased, too.

This would keep them pretty much on a parity throughout game time.

May have to give the nomads an increase in diplomacy and economics and maybe increase system unhappiness within a certain range.

There would be pros and cons for the host civilization to consider.

GC2 has a NPC Pirates 2 events actually.There is a pirate logo in the setup screens but I wouldnt mind playing as a pirate civ.

How so?  I could easily see the humans with the Patriot fleet going nomad as they get pushed off of the colonies, kind of Battlestar Galactica esque.

Not a bad idea.  This was done by the Romans, though it did not turn out too well for them in the end.

The strengths of a nomadic civilization I see are:

• No high valued targets - Settled civilizations put large investments into building planetary infrastructure.  For nomads, the wealth would be spread throughout the fleet.
• Mobility - Nothing a nomad owns is bolted to the floor.  This means if trouble comes, they get out of the way.  They are never where their enemies expect them to be.
• Stealth/anonymity - It is often hard to identify a nomad for what he is.  If ship capture is possible then this makes even more sense since a refitted ship will still look like the other race's normal ships.  It is also hard to attribute the action of a group or clan of nomads with those of the entire civilization, give you plausible deniability.
• Warrior mentality - Nomads go on hunts/raids to supplement their income.  This means that most nomads have experience fighting and know how to defend themselves.  Ever nomad ship is likely to be armed.
• Born on a ship -  The nomads will have lived all of their lives in space.  This should give them an advantage but I am not sure exactly how it would manifest itself in game.  Should probably give them faster repair time.
• Live in inhospitable areas- E.g. space.  They would be willing to learn how to extract resources from planets no other race would be able to inhabit, e.g. gas giants.  An additional game mechanic could to be to farm anomalies, as the nomads are more willing to spend the time in the middle of nowhere to gain the maximum benefit from them.

Weakness of a nomadic civilizations I see:

• Resource extraction - Even if the civilization is capable of extracting resources as fast as settled civs, they are going to miss resources as they move between locations.  This is definitely the biggest weakness.
• No influence - Nomad don't normally develop the products of culture that attract settled peoples to their point of view.
• Diffuse power/decision making - Nomads are generally independent/clannish people.  They often have problems agreeing to coordinated actions.
• No professional military - Nomads live on their ships and most ships are going to be family/clan ships.  This means that the destruction of a single ship has a larger impact to nomads.  It also means that they are less likely to have high end military units.
• Fewer in numbers - One of the biggest advantages settled civs have over nomads is food production and max sustainable population.

While I will continue to flesh out the idea, I don't think I would want Stardock to actually make one.  It would be very difficult to balance and I would rather they focus on core game play.  It may be reasonable for an expansion though.

They could still be able take resources from the uninhabitable planets if the civ does not use the its military to stop them.

I see two possible solutions to this problem.  First, destroy, or hopefully capture, enemy colony ships or take a page out of the Mongols and let the nomads create ships that would make habitable planets uninhabitable.

Except that BSG was a relatively empty galaxy. GalCiv's games usually end up with a heavily filled-up galaxy, with every free planets being up for grab.

Both BSG made a case as to why the Colonials couldn't just settle on any world that crossed their path: the impending threat on their asses. The Mass Effect Verse's Quarian also made a case as to why they couldn't just pick up any build home on any available planets. Except for the COOOOOLZ factor, there's no logical reason for a "nomad civilization" to exist.

In the original, they were constantly running into inhabited worlds.

See some of the posts above.  There are perfectly viable ways for nomads to live in a crowded galaxy.  In fact, a crowded galaxy means there is more to loot.

Same would go for the human fleet in my scenario.

Make your case.  In a previous post I have provided several advantages a nomad civilization would have. 

Plus, I would not expect any race to be completely rational.  A nomadic lifestyle may seem more preferable to an alien race.  Historically that has been the case and, though much fewer in comparative numbers, even today there are still some cultures who prefer a nomadic lifestyle.