A mechanism to change the status of the homeworld and colonies of a conquered superpower from an occupied people to citizen of the empire that conquered them might add some more depth to the game.
If for example the federation manages to occupy cardassia and its colonies, wouldn't they try to integrate the cardassians into federation society over time? In the case of minor races there is according to http://www.trekmania.net/temp_files/botf2_home.htm the option to simply occupy a hostile minor for some time (to remove the hostile government), grant the race independence (with neutral instead of hostile relations) and start the process of peaceful joining as full members. For the major races no such mechanism exists even though there are 2 canon examples of superpowers consisting of more than one major race - the klingon-cardassian alliance in the mirror universe and the dominion during the early stages of the dominion war, where the cardassians were considered at least formally equal to the vorta and jem'hadar as servants of the founders.
I am not saying that this should always occur (I don`t see the cardassians for example offer the subjugated romulans a seat in central command) but a full occupation of romulus or qo'nos for an indefinite time period doesn't strike me as quite fitting with federation philosophy either. And considering that it is planned to allow rebellious colonies of one power to join another empire it would be fitting if the entire populace of a conquered power can become members of their new empire and not just the lucky few who rebelled early enough.
Whether this status change should occur during the occupation or if the subjected superpower can be released as a minor race instead of a superpower and then wooed for membership in your empire would depend on the programming involved in such a feature.
If you are playing the federation you can this way eliminate a hostile rival without violating your core tenets. Similarly the founders don't seem to be the types who keep a jem'hadar death squad around just for the fun of it, if a subject race has understood their role in the universe (ie serving under the founders).
Maybe there should even be the option for a major power to join another superpower if they are in danger of being defeated - as cardassia did with the dominion. Of course in this case if morale is too low a secession should be possible to restore their former glory, as their military and civilian infrastructure and authority is still intact.
Besides the roleplay element of this feature a morale bonus for the affected systems might be in order as well as maybe some unique structure similar to those of minor races that can be built if the conquered race achieves citizenship status. For example the klingons might provide a ship training facility similar to the andorian imperial guard while the romulans might give an espionage and/or internal security bonus.
Thoughts?

I had some thoughts for "integration" because I also disliked how if you subjugated a world (especially as the Federation) there was no way you yourself could ever free them.

To create a more "dominion" effect I figure if you occupy a race for long enough and are a tolerant enough society (i.e. Federation) then why not be able to integrate them, with appropriate risks & rewards.


Same goes for other minor races joining otherwise "intolerant" societies.


A very basic mechanism would work where each minor race has a certain "xenophobia" score while each major power has a "tolerance" modifier.

Some minor races, like the Mintakans would be incredibly easy to integrate while a xenophobic race, even after acquisition through alliance or subjugation would remain apart.

Meanwhile, Federation would be the best at integration, followed by Klingon (hey, if they're strong and "Klingon-y" you can be a part of the Empire), Dominion (as a neutral ground), Cardassian, and finally Romulan (they take allies, but they don't bring them into the inner circle).

This means that while Federation remains the best at diplomacy, Klingons which are typically difficult at diplomacy would have an easier time at maintenance while Romulans, which do pretty good diplomatically, woudl have a harder time at integration.

So, each minor and major race is has a score of 1-10 for integration. Each major race has a "adjuster" that modifies that. Something like 0.25 for Federation down to 0.10 for Romulans.

Each turn the score gets the modifier subtracted and at "0" they are full fledged member races.

So a fully xenophobic race brought into the Federation would take 40 turns to allow integration while Romulans would have them for 100 turns before the same options would be available.

But what does integration mean for the player? Morale, plain and simple.

A fully integrated race gets a bump to morale (why not, they're full class citizens). THe next "level" of integration would be 2nd-class citizen (no morale modifier) and takes 1/2 the time as full integration or is the default for an alliance. Finally you have "subjugated" or "enslaved" which is the default for military conquest.


New structures/projects can be put into place to speed that up. So you can have a project that would bring the race into a ruling council to speed up the transition from "2nd class" to "full fledged".

This woudl be an automatic thing though so if the player has conquered a minor race for long enough (50 turns? 100 turns? 200 turns?) then the player has the option to bump up from slave to 2nd class or from 2nd class to full fledged.

What would be the benefit of keeping them at one level or another? Random events & structures

A subjugated race is the only one that has access to the "high profit" slave mines (like the Klingon and Cardassians have access too). In addition, the minor race can never rebel.

A 2nd class minor race could attempt to succede from the empire, and the morale of the system will continually drop for a period of time until it reaches 0 or the rebellion ends. If morale bottoms out the system becomes neutral and the race breaks it's ties to the major race.

A full fledged member will not rebel, but each full fledged member race decreases internal security (the more races there are, the more guises a traitor can take.) Second, there is a chance for a major schism between ruling races causing empire-wide morale to drop. I think a full-fledged civil war would be overkill, but having a 1-turn 2pt morale hit would be pretty nasty.

The special buildings of minor races can only be built if the minor joins the empire, not if they're subjugated. Usually, (one of) those buildings provide a Morale bonus.

I guess the crux of my issue is that if you subjugate a minor race, you have no ability to ever "free" them and let them join.

Now, this could be a design decision (why should I join you? You massacred my people!) or it could be a design limitation.


Again, the crux is the Federation and "subjugation" although looking at it another way, Feds don't have slave structures like the other races do, so perhaps that is the way they show their gentler nature.

The Federation shouldn't be subjugating other races. That's not their way. If the player decides to do so, that's probably because he doesn't want to bother with the diplo way (which is the Feds way, so he should be playing something else most likely - or he'll just have to take the consequences), or because the minor race just didn't want to join the Federation (in which case it makes sense that they will not be cooperative anyway).

Well, I certainly agree that the Federation would never occupy a world simply to expand its territory or exploit the inhabitants of that world - but during the dominion war they together with the klingons and romulans occupied a lot of territory during their drive to cardassia and maybe unlike their allies I don't think they planned on holding on to these territories indefinitely. Therefore it should be an option to release conquered systems of another major empire (maybe only if that empire is completely conquered) or find another way to integrate them into the society of the conqueror - it's all right for cardassians or romulans to treat subjugated peoples as second-class citizens (if even that) but the federation should have other options than that.
While they wouldn't declare war to conquer another civilisation, I could certainly see them decide to neutralise a threat to peace eg during the first romulan war if they manage to turn the tide and go from defensive to offensive to oust the xenophobic regime on romulus. Similarly why shouldn't the Feds try to remove the Tzenkethi dictatorship and liberate the common Tzenkethi if they declared war on the Federation. I would certainly like to see the option to release a former major power or a hostile minor power as a minor with neutral relations that can then be diplo-annexed.

Then again, that might make the Federation too easy to "liberate" other aliens.

If the Klingons diplo-annex the Nausicans and then the unified Klingons declare war on the Feds, the Feds could take Nausica, release it and then diplo-annex them.

There would need to be some time of time delay (i.e. must occupy for 50 turns) before you can release them, or not at all to prevent the Federation from just swallowing up every available minor race.

OR not allow it, period. After the Dominion war, the Feds oppressed the Cardassians by not allowing them to build up a military. It's not "subjugation" per se but it is a form of control. I think the Federation's softer side is shown by them not exploiting prisoners and slaves like the other races can, and while subjugation might be a little harsh of a term, I'd imagine that the Federation would still take tight control over a warring nation.

Also, if a minor race declares war on you, you can always just blockade the planet until they sue for peace, you don't "HAVE" to bombard the planet, invade with shock troops etc...

In conclusion: I think the subjugation system works just fine as is.

The diplomacy system is still very much incomplete, so assuming there is no way to do something is not very realistic.

About releasing systems conquered from other empires, I was actually replying to the issue of conquering minors, but since this is a game of galactic domination, I don't see why you would want to relinquish any territory - and to whom. The Feds "liberating" a Klingon colony? Why would the Knlingons want to be liberated? Would it become an independent system? Why would the Klingons in that colony become independent after "liberation" from the Feds?
As for minors, if the Feds didn't want to "control" the minor, why would they conquer them? Notice that removing a dictatorship from an oppressed race works in a TV show, but not in a game of galactic dominance.
Regarding integration of alien colonies in an empire, that's what some Buildings are for IMO.

The Feds being able to diplo-annex any race (by releasing conquered ones and then buying them off) seems kind of crappy to me. These are most likely hostile races in the first place.

You are certainly right that this feature could be exploited but there are ways to prevent that or at least make it more difficult. Releasing a system peacefully could for example only be possible after a certain amount of terms (to represent the time it takes for a social change and the establishment of a new government) and a certain level of morale is reached (to represent public support and force the player to invest in the infrastructure of the system, rebuild the destroyed structures and make sure that the population is properly fed). This would also allow espionage options for rival empires who want to derail that process by e.g. supporting insurgents or forces loyal to the old regime to disrupt the rebuilding process and create public discontent. There is always the option to 'release' a conqered system by allowing an armed rebellion to succeed but the resulting minor should be hostile to its former overlords. If however you decide to invest into the conquered territory you might be able after a while to part on friendly terms and start the process of peaceful integration via diplomacy.
This feature would not only make sense for the federation - the romulans might want for their wayward vulcan, rigelian or mintakan cousins to 'see the light' and help them administer the empire. And why wouldn't the dominion try to make solids into productive members of the greater dominion who willingly support its infrastructure once the threat posed by their armed forces has been eliminated?
And this would allow for the integration of a former rival major power - and as I said before, there are examples of empires jointly ruled by several major races and it would remove the immersion issue of a federation occupying vanquished rivals territory indefinitely.
Besides, if you look at the expanded verse (novels etc) there is the example of Tezwa http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Tezwa where the Federation actually conquered and occupied another world.

Well, if you have that example, then I don't understand why all this talk.
Notice that what I said was, the Federation way is annexing not conquering; but, when conquering, they have to live with the consequences. I never said they should not be able to conquer. Their way is the diplomatic way, but any other way should still be possible. That's pretty much how any 4X works. Each race has a certain prefered playstyle, but it's not limited to that one playstyle. It's more advantageous to play that way, of course. As long as you're prepared to take the penalties, you can play any way you like.

As for removing immersion, any solution will remove immersion at some level. TV show like stories don't tend to translate well into games.

Sure, immersion is always a matter of degree. But isn't alpha and beta stage there to experiment with functions and features (after confirming that the game runs as it should of course) - whether they end up in the final version or are removed to prevent imbalances, is another matter;)
And I probably didn't make myself clear with the Tezwa example: The Federation conquered and occupied the planet (so they are capable and willing to do so under certain circumstances) but they retreated after the post-war cleanup and the installation of a federation-friendly government (which could be simulated by process I described above).
Of course another option might be to change the status of a conquered minor/former major race from subjugated to subject after they have been under the control of their conquerors for a certain amount of time and have reached a morale level of content or higher for some time. This would probably be easier to implement but also less challenging for the player than having to court the former subjects after granting them independence if he wants to make use of the races special talents (ie structures).
I am not saying that this feature is a must. But it would certainly add to the strategic depth and offer another option for dealing with hostile minors or rival empires other than having to watch your back constantly, committing genocide by orbital bombardment or dealing with constant rebellions on conquered worlds.

This features sounds like it could be looked at "After release"

It's not vital to the gameplay as BotF played fine without it.

I don't really want to discuss this much because in the end it's kind of a PoV thing. But, the game uses a "floating" Morale system, where each race (including minors) has a baseline value, which is affected _temporarily_ by events such as conquests, battles, diseases, etc. The Morale level though tends to the baseline value all the time, faster for some races like the Cardassians. So the Morale issue is not _that_ relevant.
Also, changing the status of conquered systems to native is kind of tricky. First, because they'll never be native really. But also because buildings that are buildable only in conquered systems would have to be demolished - a bit like the problem with terraforming, where structures might get invalid after the process is complete.
I think the game handles it well, like mentioned above, with structures specifically designed for conquered systems and others for native systems. Gives the races some "focus" on gameplay style, and advantages to the player that plays "in character".
I say leave assimilation for the