I didn’t know whether it should’ve been in Space stage or Industrial, but I’ll give it a try.
In Spore, before going to Space Stage, the player has to unify his world, which is based upon a theory stating that a civilization cannot progress without being unified first.
In our reality (meaning Earth, humans, and all), we’ve already started going to space, yet we are still not unified. Thus, maybe it’s not required to be unified to go to Space stage; however it would be very difficult to keep humanity’s governments stable by being separated into a shitload of nations.
So my question is this: In Thrive, will it be required to unify the whole species/civilization before going to Space stage?
I mean having 100 different countries on a planet, each with space age technology, there would be a problem. There just wouldn’t be enough real estate for that many countries to stake claims and progress forward. On the other hand if there was only a few, say 2-4, countries with space age technology it might work.
I see it going as not having to unify to progress onward, but giving a detriment (based on how many other countries with space age technology there are) to players if they decide to not unify.
I don’t necessarily see it as a problem in the early space stage. But the internal conflicts could really make it difficult for you to progress to a galactic empire stage. Though I suppose even then the different factions from your starting planet could claim their own solar systems, so you could keep playing against them and competing. But maybe there could be some harsh penalties to encourage players to unite their planets. For example your rival factions could get a huge boost for researching tech you have, so it would be way more difficult than normal to ascend first.
The improvements in technology may make continuing to have a large empire easy (the far away provinces not rebelling) and small states may be gobbled up by a few large ones. The improvements in mass media and things like the schengen area may make different cultures assimilate each other. The borders of old may end up being a mere formality and eventually be scrapped altogether. Alternatively the game may not simulate small states outside of their planets (like island nations in the Pacific which only influence UN resolutions)
The species may unite, and then fracture again. This is what happened in All Tomorrows between those who remained on Earth and those who colonised Mars (and what will happen to us if Elon Musk’s proposals are accepted). Different political formations of the same species may exist exactly like that of different species or the same species may have a positive relations affect on each other (+25 you are our kinsmen)
I think it would be easiest for the developers’ sake to start out the game’s progression requiring unification to become spacefaring. However, after more development in other areas, spacefaring as an unified species could certainly be something fun and interesting to add in an update.