4X in space.
You lead the Terran empire (humans). There are civilized alien races (humanoids) and uncivilized aliens (non humanoids, considered unsentient). Civilized races consider other civilized as somewhat worthy of compassion (no genocide allowed, no bio/chemical weapons, etc). Uncivilized races outright eat other races population upon conquest :) Extermination of uncivilized aliens is encouraged by all means. Civilized races can be somewhat integrated into the Terran empire (but not as equals).
Now, I wonder how to model population (especially food and breeding of conquered races). Note that I prefer some simple mechanic since it's not the core of the game.
At this moment a planet can hold X population, when the limit is exceeded the population can still grow (possibly infinitely) but very slowly. Note that the player have no means of moving population between planets, they are local (upon conquest 10 units of Terran population is spawned).
When a planet is conquered by a civilized race other civilized races can live there as well (the conquered ones) but they slowly die over time (negative growth), they also ear no food, pay no taxes and take no space (too unrealistic and inintuitive, I don't like it). So basically when a planet is conquered only the new owner's race is really considered the population...
The reason I made it this way is because I don't want to make options for the player to manipulate/micromanage population (the game is simply not about it), and if I made civilized aliens count as ral population that eat and uses space it would require a player to have some options to exterminate them... which I don't like for many reasons :)
Still, I'm unhappy with my current model :)
At the very least civilized aliens should eat food and act as workers in the industrial facilities on the planet...
