The “randomized pile of traits as species” was, to me, one of the most intriguing ideas in the game design, and while I do think they fell short of making it totally work, I remain hopeful that future work is gonna make this part in particular far more interesting.
Piling context and meaning and flavor onto randomization is totally possible, although getting a computer to do it even fairly well is gonna be tough. I think back to, say, Red Box-era D&D, where the GMing guidelines pretty explicitly called for a lot of activities to be adjudicated by die-roll. The contents of rooms, the types of monsters encountered, even the temperament and state of said monsters! A good GM operating under those principles could transform that randomness and chance into what seemed like carefully planned fate and design, particularly with the assistance of a willing band of players.
As it is, each particular trait and ethos-spoke seems to generate one or two interactions/behaviors, pretty samey, across any aliens that have it (mind you, I died pretty fast in my first game and am still getting spun up in the next, so I don’t have nearly the experience some of y’all do yet). There doesn’t appear to be a LOT of interaction between various ethea and traits, or multiple options for behaviors, or generally very much flavorful diplomatic interactivity. “Rival > Insult > War Dec > Vassalize > Integrate” is about the most steps you can hope for, and they tend to play out similarly time and time again.
I think ethea and traits could behave a little like M:tG’s color system, where allied/enemy color pairs, triple-color combos, etc. all produce various shades of behavioral grey amidst the 5 primaries. There being a meaningful difference between Spiritualist Xenophiles and Materialist Xenophiles, and just a much between Repugnant Spiritualist Xenophiles and Charismatic Spiritualist Xenophiles, would go a long way toward making the various races a little more interesting and varied (as it is, the primary interactivity spokes seem to be “warlike” vs. “pacifist” and “easier to integrate” vs. “easier to enslave/purge.” Not a lot of variety to be had there, unfortunately.
I also think Fallen Empires could do with a lot more backstory richness (what are they? how did they fall? what drives them now?), and the game could do a better job in general of communicating the developing “story” of the galaxy as a whole. Having research on a race unlock a summary of their major achievements and challenges, for instance (similar to the little blurb the game generates about your own race’s backstory upon game-start). Or some form of Galactic News or similar that can report on major happenings (“The Ugooboogoos are tampering with dead worlds within the Fallen Xikikikitiki Empire’s borders, but we’re sure it will be fine.”) could also make the galaxy feel a little more alive.
None of which is to say I want to see the game become a fully scripted experience–some degree of randomization even after-race-creation is still fabulously useful, and similarly, some degree of incomplete information for the player goes a long way toward personal story-writing. But doing a little more to flesh out the pure numbers-and-percents element of racial differentiation would go a long way toward livening up the game and helping players craft the sorts of stories and narratives they always have in, say, CK2 or EU4.
