What exactly is a Gaia world?

[Hell Driver]

I spawned next to a fallen empire which has a bunch of Gaia worlds around it (not in it) when I hallowed one, they praised me, when I tried to colonize one, they threatened to declare war, are they theirs? did someone make them?

[ArcticISAF]

Spiritualist fallen empires always spawn with four gaia worlds around them. Hallowing is good, colonizing is not. Basically it's theirs for all intents and purposes.

[Ficelle]

Gaia planets are 'ideal' worlds with 100% habiltability for everyone
They also spawn with a lot of ressource bonus on squares
So, they are great...and quite rare too

Some are labelled 'holy world'
Those are nothing special compared to other gaia planets, but the spiritualist FE sees them as sacred and will war anyone settling on them

[al_x_ator2411]

Basically "paradise" planets in both meanings of the word. The ones that are not close to Spiritualist FEs and flagged as "holy worlds" you can colonize freely.

[Shgon Dunstan]

... Still kind of wonder why earth isn’t classed as one ingame.

1: They are described as having a lot of different ecosystems... Like earth. Which mind, isn’t the case with continental worlds.

2:... Their called freaking “Gaia” worlds... That is like calling it an “earth class world”, and... Earth still not being classified as one.

[ArcticISAF]

Originally posted by Shgon Dunstan:

... Still kind of wonder why earth isn’t classed as one ingame.

1: They are described as having a lot of different ecosystems... Like earth. Which mind, isn’t the case with continental worlds.

2:... Their called freaking “Gaia” worlds... That is like calling it an “earth class world”, and... Earth still not being classified as one.

They probably had to do the whole ecosystem thing so it would apply to all races... but I can think of one example off the top of my head that could work. There was a planet in Starship Troopers (the book) that was basically a perfect earth. The planet supposedly had weak background radiation, so all the life there was weakly evolved. Such as planting wheat crops was incredibly easy, as it would just push aside all the native plantlife without trouble. The day/night cycle were also something like 26 hours in earth time, so there was 'more time' in a day... I think the seasons were mild as well, something to do with the axial tilt maybe. It's been years since I last read it. There's probably more little things for it. But yeah - it was basically a much more friendly planet for us.

[Shgon Dunstan]

Originally posted by ArcticISAF:

Originally posted by Shgon Dunstan:

... Still kind of wonder why earth isn’t classed as one ingame.

1: They are described as having a lot of different ecosystems... Like earth. Which mind, isn’t the case with continental worlds.

2:... Their called freaking “Gaia” worlds... That is like calling it an “earth class world”, and... Earth still not being classified as one.

They probably had to do the whole ecosystem thing so it would apply to all races... but I can think of one example off the top of my head that could work. There was a planet in Starship Troopers (the book) that was basically a perfect earth. The planet supposedly had weak background radiation, so all the life there was weakly evolved. Such as planting wheat crops was incredibly easy, as it would just push aside all the native plantlife without trouble. The day/night cycle were also something like 26 hours in earth time, so there was 'more time' in a day... I think the seasons were mild as well, something to do with the axial tilt maybe. It's been years since I last read it. There's probably more little things for it. But yeah - it was basically a much more friendly planet for us.

But... It's called freaking "Gaia"... You know, mother of Zeus? The living embodiment of the earth? THAT Gaia?

It is literally just calling it an "earth" class world... And yet earth isn't one... Huh?

[ArcticISAF]

Originally posted by Shgon Dunstan:

But... It's called freaking "Gaia"... You know, mother of Zeus? The living embodiment of the earth? THAT Gaia?

It is literally just calling it an "earth" class world... And yet earth isn't one... Huh?

Earth was bragged up on the brochure? :P

[Astasia]

It's an old sci-fi 4x trope that goes back to I think MoO. Pretty much every game since has used "Gaia planets" as some sort of ultra planet without really thinking about the meaning. It's especially bad and obvious in Stellaris only because there is zero originality in the planet types and it's just 10 flavors of Earth. Let's pick 8 biomes from Earth, turn each of them into a planet type, call Earth a continental planet, and add another special planet type called Gaian that has all the same biomes but is somehow different and better. Even though the word means Earth.

It's even better when the games call "Earth-like" planets "Terran planets" but still have special Gaia planets. I guess if you say it in Greek instead of Latin it's magically better.

Edit: IIRC previously in sci-fi novels and such Gaia planets were used to describe rare Earth like planets that humanity could safely colonize. They weren't better than Earth, except perhaps in a sense they weren't polluted. Somehow MoO twisted that.

[Chip Chipperson]

Originally posted by Shgon Dunstan:

Originally posted by ArcticISAF:

They probably had to do the whole ecosystem thing so it would apply to all races... but I can think of one example off the top of my head that could work. There was a planet in Starship Troopers (the book) that was basically a perfect earth. The planet supposedly had weak background radiation, so all the life there was weakly evolved. Such as planting wheat crops was incredibly easy, as it would just push aside all the native plantlife without trouble. The day/night cycle were also something like 26 hours in earth time, so there was 'more time' in a day... I think the seasons were mild as well, something to do with the axial tilt maybe. It's been years since I last read it. There's probably more little things for it. But yeah - it was basically a much more friendly planet for us.

But... It's called freaking "Gaia"... You know, mother of Zeus? The living embodiment of the earth? THAT Gaia?

It is literally just calling it an "earth" class world... And yet earth isn't one... Huh?

Yeah they’ve been using the term Gaia since Master Of Orion 2. It’s a thing in sci-fi games now.

[Azunai]

i think the concept may have been inspired by the gaia hypothesis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis )

afaik the hypothesis defines a few different "strength" of the gaia principle. the strongest form would be a self regulating synergistic system that evolved to be optimal for life.

our earth in such video games is not that perfect type of world.

[LuNi]

Spiritualist fallen empires spawn with 4 gaia worlds around their borders that are considered holy worlds. Prophet's Retreat, Emerald Garden are two that I can remember at the top of my head.

If you colonize them the FE will most likely declare war on you and purge the holy worlds of your taint. They also might try to humiliate you. Don't make the mistake of colonizing those worlds untill you can win against them in a war.

You can also hallow them by yourself and the Spiritualist FE will praise you for it.

[Exarch_Alpha]

Gaia worlds are planets full of cocoa trees and cheap chocolate.

[Steve-O]

Originally posted by Shgon Dunstan:

It is literally just calling it an "earth" class world... And yet earth isn't one... Huh?

Maybe Earth used to be one, until we mucked it up.

[LuNi]

Originally posted by Steve-O:

Originally posted by Shgon Dunstan:

It is literally just calling it an "earth" class world... And yet earth isn't one... Huh?

Maybe Earth used to be one, until we mucked it up.

Gaia worlds are completely untouched natural paradises without any life in there. Earth is a continental world.

[Chastity the Celibate]

We need more Planet Classes