I love the game, but one aspect that bothers me is that despite the visual and cultural differences between the various races of Fallen and humans, they perform the exact same on the battlefield. Some Kingdom/Empire wide traits can influence their combat abilities, but in general they are no different from each other.
Summary of idea: Allow for the creation of new species with slightly different standard statistics. These species can be chosen as the base for your kingdom/empire, and can be recruited into your empire to help with your armies.
With the summary done, here's a possible Creation process.
Similarly to how you can create your own faction, allow an option to create your own species. The baseline appearance is chosen (based on the currently available species, and potentially in the future custom made appearances) and some modifications can be made (allowing and disallowing face/eye/hair/clothing options for the randomisation, etc). Next the player chooses their allegiance. The species has preferences for side, but they won't be locked out of use for the other allegiance, as explained below.
After the appearance and allegiance, the mechanical customisation is open. Essentially it has the same options as the level up screen (strength, dexterity, movement, combat speed, etc), with all the options sitting at the current in-game standard as a baseline. The player can then apply a number of points (probably 3, just to allow for genuine differentiation) that affect all soldiers of that species.
For example: I create a new species, giving them a fearsome appearance with beady eyes and powerful builds. These creatures shall be ferocious warriors called the SnugglyWugglies. The SnugglyWugglies are renown for their brutal abilities in combat and the crushing nature of their bear-hugs, and so when I reach the mechanical modification part, I place all three level-up-points into Strength, giving them a brutal strength of 16! If I decided to make them quicker, I would place all three points in combat speed, reaching probably up a fraction more than one full point. This could make them into brutally quick warriors, or offset the penalty of heavy armour. Or were I to decide they were incredibly tough, I could add the points into constitution, giving them a higher baseline health which would be modified by experience. Or a combination of all this, one into strength, one into constitution, and one into combat speed to offset heavier armour/weapons.
And now, use In-Game.
When creating a new faction, you can choose which species makes up their members in the beginning. It has to correspond with the allegiance of your faction. As you play they are treated no different to the way the game treats your current populace. When creating soldiers, the points you spent on improving them comes into play.
However, along with this idea is a new tree in the diplomacy research. For Kingdoms this would be the Integration tree, while for Empires this would be the Slavery tree. Originally you are not able to recruit soldiers from outside your own species, but after researching the first option in these trees you are presented with a dialogue window. In that window you have a choice, and may choose an extra species to integrate into your nation. From this window you ARE able to choose species from the other allegiance, but when recruiting them into your army they have a 1.5x modifier for gold cost, to represent that while they are welcome (or 'welcome', for the Empire) they are not common by any means.
Of course it isn't a "BLAM, you're in" deal. In post apocalyptic fantasy world, trust is a hard thing to come by. When a new species is within your empire, they can be recruited into your army (when designing soldiers, you would be able to choose their species), but their gold has a modifier, likely 1.5x or so. This represents that while the species is within your empire/kingdom, they are the vast minority and not as easy to integrate into your forces. This is in addition to the 1.5x for cross-faction species, so a Kingdom trying to recruit a Trog into its millitary would have to pay 2x the normal gold cost!
However, as you continue researching Integration/Slavery there would be twin benefits. Firstly you would be able to choose more species to integrate/enslave (up to a particular maximum) into your Kingdom/Empire. Secondly the cost modifier would be lowered, until eventually it drops to a 1x (except for creatures from the opposing faction, of course, who would probably have a minimum of 1.2x) to represent the species is either completely integrated into your multicultural metropolis-like kingdom, or you have so many of them in your slave pens it's just as easy to use them as to use your own kind!
Comments/criticism welcome!
