# Classifying species levels
**URL:** https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167
**Category:** Future Game
**Created:** [October 4, 2019, 12:08am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167 "2019-10-04T00:08:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@CalvinTheThriveling4](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/CalvinTheThriveling4)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2019, 12:08am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/1 "2019-10-04T00:08:21Z")
Obviously, we’ll have species from all the stages. We’ll need a way to classify them in-game. I know what you would think, but the Kardashev Scale it too focused on Space stage civilizations. This is a game about chemical, biological, cultural and technological evolution. We should have classes based on the stages or the universal requirements for ascension (motile body, engines, etc.). Each species or their home planet will have detail in their database that tells what class they are in the evolutionary chart. I have a simple class chart for this that might need some improvements:
0 = Abiotic class (chemical life)
I = Microbe Class
II = Multicellular Class
III = Aware Class
IV = Awakening Class
V = Society Class
VI = Industrial Class
VII = Space Class
VIII = Ascended Class
We should improve on this chart based on said restrictions to ascendence. If you have suggestions or your own approach, just let me know on this thread.
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### Author:  [@blackjacksike](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/blackjacksike)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/2 "2019-10-04T00:21:37Z")
I wouldn’t classify them with post-biological stages. It’d need to be purely biological classification, since it’s about species…
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### Author:  [@Zahyyy](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/Zahyyy)
#### Post date: [October 4, 2019, 7:45pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/3 "2019-10-04T19:45:27Z")
Perhaps not this exact system, but I think that a system on a similar basis might work. Upon opening the _Thrivonomicon_, the species could have a series of classifications that would tell you everything you need to know without actually having to use text. I imagine there would be things like what element are they based on, the complexity of the organism, the level of sentience, the level of sapience, the level of technology and so on. I will try to put together at least a few criteria upon which the classification would depend.
> **Base**
>
> Determines the chemical composition of the organism
> **Template** – Base-# (where # is the element they are composed of)
> **Example** – Base-C (basically all the life we know), Base-Si (one of the non-LAWK options)
> Note: All LAWK organisms would probalby be Base-C
> **Complexity**
>
> Determines the biological complexity of the organism (Abiotic-Aware)
> **Tempalte** – Class-# (classes for # below)
> 0 – Abiotic
> I – Microbial
> II – Multicellular
> III – “Aware” (the stage would correspond to aware, but the organism doesn’t have to really be aware, just with a similar complexity, for example a tree)
> **Example** – Base-C Class-III (that’s for example you, me, your doggo, your tree)
> **Sapience**
>
> Determines the cognitive capabilities
> 0 – No sapience, sentience or reactions to stimuli
> 1 – Reactions to basic stimuli
> 2 – Low cognitive functions (insects)
> 3 – Basic cognitive functions (most animals)
> 4 – Higher cognitive functions (dolphins, octopi)
> 5 – Basic sapience (us?)
> 6 – ? …
> **Technology**
>
> Determines the level of technology (Awakening - Ascension)
> A – No use of tools or technology
> B – Basic use of tools (magpies, ravens, octopi)
> C – Basic crafting of tools (chimps?, prehistorical humans)
> D – Agriculture?
> E – Metalurgy?
> F – Partial automation (circa industrial revolution)
> G – Electricity
> H – G.R.AI.N.?
> I – ? …
You get the point. If you select a species in the _Thrivonomicon_, along the stats and so on you get something like this:
- Base-C; Class-III; Neuro-5; Stage-G (that’s us humans)
or something like
- Base-Si; Class-III; Neuro-7; Stage-O (for some sort of ascended god-like civ)
or perhaps something like
- Base-C; Class-III; Neuro-4; Stage-B
This is just a very basic proof of concept, but I think this might be fleshed out and used to communicate information effectively. I would definitely change the words used for the classification (neuro sounds really weird), but I had no idea what to name them. Feel free to improve this system!
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### Author:  [@blackjacksike](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/blackjacksike)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2019, 12:56am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/4 "2019-10-05T00:56:24Z")
It could be used inside the Thrive Universe!
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### Author:  [@DPHkraken](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/DPHkraken)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2019, 1:36am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/5 "2019-10-05T01:36:44Z")
> [@Zahyyy](#):
>
> Upon opening the _Thrivonomicon_ , the species could have a series of classifications that would tell you everything you need to know without actually having to use text. I imagine there would be things like what element are they based on, the complexity of the organism, the level of sentience, the level of sapience, the level of technology and so on.
More criteria species could be sorted on could be physical statistics (weight [kg], size [m to some power], top or avg. speed [m/s], max power [N\*m], potentially an abstract “combat stat” used for auto-evo determinations), or abilities (diet, movement, chemical or other outputs)
Civilizations could be classified based on primary power source, which would be slightly more specific than the current stage boundaries, and not mutually exclusive - hunter-gatherer, agricultural, environmental/green energy, fossil fuels such as coal/peat/oil, steam engines, electricity, nuclear fission reactors, nuclear fusion (currently unattainable), or something beyond fusion that is mere speculation.
The Kardashev scale is another classic way to classify civs, this time in a space-empire context. Since it’s very much an orders-of-magnitude scale (each level is using 100% of a cosmic system from planet, solar system, to galaxy and hopefully not beyond), it can’t be used for fine comparisons, but it’s a nice thing to have around.
> [@Zahyyy](#):
>
> Base-Si (one of the non-LAWK options)
The thing about silicon-based organisms is that they have not been proven to exist, and can’t be studied. Any potential biomechanics or chemistry would be just idle speculation without a couple of relevant Ph.D.s on hand. In the context of Thrive, that means that these would not be an official option, because you can’t balance a whole new set of game elements grounded in realism and fun, meaningful choices when the real part _doesn’t even exist._ I hate to be overly cynical about this, but the general consensus is that making two completely separate sets (carbon and silicon organelles can’t work together) of game rules and assets for something that won’t fulfill the game’s mission statement (balance realism and fun) is not something that people want to do. The other non-LAWK elements are individual parts (most prominently wheels and thermosynthesis) that aren’t real but could be an interesting choice to enable _in addition_ to the rest of the game’s parts.
It’s totally mod stuff - you don’t have to follow the game’s rules when it’s not officially sanctioned. Maybe you could make an alternatively balanced game, perhaps revolving around a different energy source. Maybe instead of hexes there’s some other tesselating shape.
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### Author:  [@Zahyyy](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/Zahyyy)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2019, 1:59am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/6 "2019-10-05T01:59:10Z")
> [@DPHkraken](#):
>
> More criteria species could be sorted on could be physical statistics
Definitely! Though, for that maybe the exact number (average value of the species, not all crocodiles are exactly 4,2m) would be more appropriate than a class.
> [@DPHkraken](#):
>
> The thing about silicon-based organisms […]
I guess that’s true. I just got _mildly_ carried away. So perhaps we should ditch the “base” thing. But I really like the criteria you proposed for the civilization classes, sounds exciting! As mentioned before, this post served just as a proof of concept for someone to perhaps handle it better, as I was currently gathering information for [this](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/how-to-approach-procedural-planets/2133/22) behemoth of a post.
I’d really love to see someone come up with a fleshed out system for organic/technological/sociological and-so-on classification, I think it would be really great to have something like that in the game.
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### Author:  [@Omicron](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/Omicron)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2019, 1:02pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/7 "2019-10-05T13:02:22Z")
> [@Zahyyy](#):
>
> neuro sounds really weird
Why not just call it something like ‘awareness’ or ‘intelligence’?
> [@DPHkraken](#):
>
> The thing about silicon-based organisms is that they have not been proven to exist, and can’t be studied
Wasn’t there a bacterium discovered a while back that has a silicon-based membrane or something? This is of course not an entire base, but it does show that the idea is more probable. (Not saying of course that silicon-based organisms should be added, more an offhand remark)
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### Author:  [@blackjacksike](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/blackjacksike)
#### Post date: [October 5, 2019, 2:38pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/8 "2019-10-05T14:38:13Z")
I think these are called “diatoms”.
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### Author:  [@Gotor](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/Gotor)
#### Post date: [October 6, 2019, 4:50pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/9 "2019-10-06T16:50:03Z")
One question. If you will be creature, “transitional link”(like mudskippers) or very simple, to be in that class, where it is, how the classification show that. Can the class getting lower?
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### Author:  [@Vanishing](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/Vanishing)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2022, 11:36pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/10 "2022-08-02T23:36:25Z")
I would just wish to point out in regards to civilization classification, what about development on planets or regions which may have more or less availability for given fuels? Even on earth, some regions (such as the island of Japan) are lacking in oil, and admittedly I don’t know off the top of my hand whether the conditions necessary for the formation of petroleum could be avoided in their entirety, could someone not have a civilization skip many of your proposed stages entirely?
First of all, a civilization of intelligent flora would not potentially not need to hunt, making it so they would never exist in a hunter gatherer civilization. An equivalent motus operandi for technological development here is fairly simple to imagine, that being a civilization developing from the necessity of coming up with defensive measures against fauna as opposed to means of finding one’s next meal, but the point remains: Intelligent flora, should it be possible, would not have to hunt, and thus could not truly be hunter-gatherers so much as gatherer-defender/builders, and would lack any incentive for nomadic behavior beyond perhaps resource availability or regional variation in what regions of their home planet can be inhabited.
Second is a situation I hinted at earlier, a lack of petroleum. Any civilization, be it based on flora or fauna, could potentially find itself deprived of oil, in which case numerous different options exist for alternatives, however none are purely ideal. Their technology would be heavier due to a lack of plastics, and they additionally would need to rely upon alternative fuels for the internal combustion engine, if they chose to use it at all instead of attempting to devise ever more efficient steam engine models, something which we have not tried doing to this day.
Civilizations could, possibly, be classified by their energy source as you propose, but since technology can deviate onto one of many branching paths based upon the situation surrounding a growing society, it would likely be far more consistent and less prone to inconsistencies if a civilization was instead classified using an adaptation upon the Kardashev scale, preferably one designed for ranking energy consumption on a scale prior to reaching what is traditionally labeled as a Type 1.
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### Author:  [@TheForumGameMaster](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/TheForumGameMaster)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2022, 12:08am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/12 "2022-08-03T00:08:04Z")
welcome to thrive forums
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### Author:  [@hhyyrylainen](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/hhyyrylainen)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2022, 6:41am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/13 "2022-08-03T06:41:49Z")
> [@Vanishing](#):
>
> First of all, a civilization of intelligent flora would not potentially not need to hunt
Please no
> [@Fungoid, Plantoid creatures?](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/fungoid-plantoid-creatures/402):
>
> I’m a big fan of Warhammer 40k, and one of the species in this series are Orkz, which are humanoid and sentient colonies of fungi. I think it would add interesting flavor if we could see mobile and sentient fungoids or plantoids. What is your opinion on this?
> [@An idea worstthan underwater civilization](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/an-idea-worstthan-underwater-civilization/338):
>
> What about plant civilization they could use the sun beam they absorb to smeltal the metal or they have firse resistance to smeltal the metal
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### Author:  [@Vanishing](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/Vanishing)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2022, 11:49am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/14 "2022-08-03T11:49:33Z")
My apologies I was unaware of the existence on threads relating to the subject of intelligent flora.
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### Author:  [@aah31415](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/aah31415)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2025, 9:44pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/16 "2025-05-16T21:44:26Z")
By the way, intelligent flora is deemed impossible if you were thinking of suggesting stuff relating to it.
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### Author:  [@Poodelicus](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/Poodelicus)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2025, 3:07am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/17 "2025-05-17T03:07:38Z")
I think “Base” should be more like: Heterotroph, Phototroph, Chemotroph, Chemolithotroph, Thermotroph, Bitroph, Etc.
Also, while having a Technological level is a good idea, I think that needs some work. Ants have agriculture and no tools. What if a species manages to harness electricity without Automation?
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### Author:  [@MeghalayanAge](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/MeghalayanAge)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2025, 4:19am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/18 "2025-05-17T04:19:36Z")
I just realized, is Thrive going to classify alien life using a similar taxonomic system like we use here on Earth:
1. Life
2. Domain
3. Kingdom
4. Phylum
5. Class
6. Order
7. Family
8. Genus
9. Species
There may also be super and sub taxonomic ranks, depending how each branch of alien life evolves. Of course, this depends on whether or not Thrive plans to include super and sub taxonomic ranks.
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### Author:  [@aah31415](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/aah31415)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2025, 9:31am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/19 "2025-05-17T09:31:05Z")
Not sure we exactly need a “Life” level of categorization since it would add nothing of value due to literally every species having it.
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### Author:  [@MeghalayanAge](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/MeghalayanAge)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2025, 12:55pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/20 "2025-05-17T12:55:39Z")
True. I was just thinking that since Life taxonomic rank is based off life on Earth, rather than life from another planet, perhaps Life could be substituted for the planet name, like in [Alien taxonomy](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/alien-taxonomy/524). Or Maybe instead of Life, we should call it “Carbon-based Life”.
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### Author:  [@aah31415](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/aah31415)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2025, 12:58pm UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/21 "2025-05-17T12:58:21Z")
> [@MeghalayanAge](#):
>
> Or Maybe instead of Life, we should call it “Carbon-based Life”.
Carbon based life is probably the only kind of life around considering silicon is too unstable even despite it being the closest thing to carbon that is not carbon.
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### Author:  [@AnthropocenianAge](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/u/AnthropocenianAge)
#### Post date: [June 26, 2025, 3:30am UTC](https://community.revolutionarygamesstudio.com/t/classifying-species-levels/2167/22 "2025-06-26T03:30:54Z")
I completely forgot about cladistics! 😅 So it should be fairly easy within the game to keep track of clades, which should probably be named using the generated “genera” portion of the named species from which other species descedent/split off. This clade naming scheme could change, of course. Now, I say it should be fairly easy to keep track of, since there will be a lot of nested clades to keep track off; at least 19 nested levels, if we go by when Multicellular should begin at Turn 20. And this is not including potential clade split in further stages of the game!
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