Devouring Swarms Rework Pitch

One issue I have with Stellaris is the way that all empires feel the same, and a big part of that is way that they all exploit resources and fight wars with a single, one-size-all set of mechanics. As an example of what more diverse and inventive mechanics might look like, here are some ideas for Devouring Swarms that would make them feel more distinctive to play:Devouring Swarms use food in place of both minerals and energy - the whole playstyle is based around balancing your food consumption and keeping your ever-depleting larder filled.Swarms cannot build farms or other food-producing buildings, but start with a small population of pre-sentients on their homeworld as an early game food source. Swarms do not do "sustainable" food sources. They can harvest food directly from food tiles, but this has a chance of eventually exhausting the tile and removing the bonus. To avoid starvation, the Swarm can cannibalize itself by toggling individual pops to "Livestock" status, though doing so will slow its research and unity income, which is what most Swarm pops exist to collect. An unfed Swarm must choose between falling behind other empires or starving to death, while a well-fed Swarm can rapidly grow in strength and punch well above its weight.Devouring Swarms are not beholden to peace treaties at the ends of wars. Zerg don't sign treaties. Instead, at the end of a war their war exhaustion translates into a proportional "nursing wounds" modifier that lowers their combat strength across the board for a period of time. Over time, the Swarm's strength ticks back to full. Swarms are incentivized to pick weak prey and be extra aware of opportunists that might attack them while they recuperate. (Another possible variant of this would be doing away with war mechanics entirely and making swarms permanently hostile to all other empires, with a sliding "healthy/wounded" meter to throttle aggression.)