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ZT's True Aliens

A mini-mod that removes all those stupid animal portraits as well as space orcs and similar nonsense from the game. With all due respect for other mods removing ridiculous terrestrial and humanoid portraits, IMHO even they do not go far enough.


The formal rule is this: anything that could not convince me it can be explained with convergent evolution had to go.

In practice this means the following:

1. Anything clearly terrestrial is automatically trashed.

Mammalians and Avians are decimated here. But being a bug, sealife, flower or a mushroom is no excuse either.

2. Anything inspired by human mythology or fantasy literature is automatically trashed.

No space elves, space orks, space dwarws or space cyclopses.

3. Anything with a face is a huge red flag.

Oral cavities and optical, acoustic or olfactory sensory organs per se are fine. They could have evolved anywhere. Even having them on one, easily moveable end of the body ('head') makes sense from an evolutionary viewpoint. But having _all_ of them exactly in a human-like arrangement is not appreciated, and human-shaped lips or dog-shaped noses are trashed automatically, even on non-terrestrial looking designs. Having three noses or six eyes is no excuse.

This is bad news for almost all remaining humanoids, and for many reptilians and necroids too. A positive example is humanoid_hp_07. While it has a head and a mouth on it, the mouth is not human-shaped; also, no pointy ears or human-like eyes. Negative example: humanoid_hp_06. While almost manages to avoid terrestrial-looking organs despite a humanoid arrangement, it finally stumbles on its lips.

4. Anything with feathers, leafs or octopus tentacles is a huge red flag.

Even if they survived Point 1, these organs are only tolerated if the rest of the design has considerable merits.

This is especially bad news for many avians that have creative faces but too many stupid bird feathers.*

A quick note: @SimKonig pointed out that feathery features have actually evolved on animals quite distant from birds, such as insects. That's a fair point. In the light of this, feather-like features are now tolerated on more Avian portraits as long as they don't look too shamelessly bird-like.

5. Anything inspired by pop culture is a huge red flag.

If they just barely got away with previous points, they have to go now. They have to be truely good, truely alien designs to survive. Good example: Babylon 5 Shadows in the arthropoid group. Bad example: Cthulhu in the molluscoid group.*

* +1. Okay... so, I still like large maps with many civilizations.

For that reason, I was a bit more lenient with plantoids, fungoids, molluscoids and arthropoids than with some other groups. If there's any demand for a stricter version, drop a message here and I may upload a new mod.


Mods changing the existing species classes aren't likely to work.

• ZT's Earth 21
  
• ZT's Earth 21 Addendum
  
• ZT's Small Settlements
  
• ZT's Better Sol & Neighbourhood