It is clearly arbitrary.

Geneticly enhanced humans makes more then a few hundred people living on a planet impossible do to the amount of food they must eat.

It increases at a constant rate (not exponential like pop growth would in reality), and I seem to remember the devs likening it to the amount of tax infrastructure, you destroy it and it lowers the income, but the people are still alive, and over time the links are reestablished.

They also used this to explain why culture flipping 'kills all of the population on the planet', it's just the other civ's government collapses, so there are no taxes being collected until you move in and reestablish a government on the planet.

"It is left undefined because they don't want it set in stone that you are causing mass genocide. "

This only makes sense if the administrators are the only people who live along the equator, with the bulk of of the population concentrated at the poles, safe from the reach of orbital bombardment.

I believe it's in trillions of people. I mean come on, there are buildings sticking several hundred miles off the surface of the planets. Obviously they have plenty of room.

Right! The administrators are in harm's way! In reality, they'd probably put children up on the rooftops for use as human shields while taking shelter in palatial underground bunkers.

When I play this game I like to think of myself as the evil Darth Sidious, the Emperor in Star Wars. That's more akin to who you are as the commander of your forces in this game. (Sorry, I don't think the Rebel Alliance would commit planetary genocide even against slimey alien Vasari civilians; we are all Sith Lords in this one.)

Speak for yourself. Anytime I play the Total War games, I make sure to destroy any city I take over.

"I love the smell of burning space ponies in the morning"

The only game I've played that made me experience some kind of emotional response to genocide was Defcon. It begins with conventional forces, escalates to volleys of missiles slowly arcing their way across the globe, and then as the warheads begin to hit their marks there's the combination of the numerical casualty estimates popping up next to each city, and the soft sobbing in the background...


Bombing an entire enemy planet in sins seems pretty tame in comparison to one trick you could pull in MoO2:

You've got a colony on a planet with a dud ecosystem. Your scientists cant figure out how to terraform it. If it was an asteroid belt, you'd have something to work with. The military is a bit hesitant to let lose its full planet killing potential upon your own citizens. But how about we surrender sovereignty of the planet to the enemy? Then the military are more than happy to turn the entire planet - fellow ex-citizens included - into a floating ring of rock orbiting the sun. Now it's fit for terraforming. New homes for all in this soon-to-be paradise!

Taking up a career in necromancy, are we?

 

Seriously, check the date of some of these threads before posting in them.  This one is two and a half years old!