I have some suggestions concerning the number of colonies maintenance and the overcrowding penalty. Right now, I think both of these are a bit too heavy. There should be no maintenance for number of colonies, but instead add a maintenance for colonies based on distance from homeworld/capital. This will be similar to the morale boosting perk so should be fairly easy to implement as the code already exists. Also can add a number of systems maintenance that hits the capital to support all the systems. Even include systems with only outposts (maybe with a smaller maintenance cost). Distance Maintenance: -0.5BC per Parsec OR Something that scales: -0.25BC per (Parsec * Parsec) Colonies in a system 2 parsecs away will have -1BC for maintenance. 3 parsecs = -2.25BC, 4 = -4BC, 5 = -6.25BC, 6 = -9BC, 8 = -16BC, 10 = -25BC, 15 = -56.25BC, 30 = -225BC. This will prevent players from trying to expand too far too fast. Number of Systems Maintenance: -2BC per System in capital only. For the overcrowding, instead of having this affect morale, have it affect production directly so that players still gain the research and culture benefits from having more populated planets. As of now, it is possible to have a planet with a max population of up to 42 (Huge + Caverns special + Subterranean + Vaults) and, at full population, this generates -112% morale. With the double ecology bonus this would be possible to negate, but that has been lowered. Just my thoughts on the matter as I am the type of player who tends to focus on growth and building colony ships as often as possible.
That would almost be gamey and an exploit if a player picked subterranean and fast growth as a custom race... add in some cloning and you breeze through both culture and the tech tree. Yes... but there are so many steps you can take to increase colony morale that it will be mitigated to a substantial degree. Remove the morale penalty, then take those steps, and a colony with 42 max pop would be way o.p. There are others that think the same, to me it it would not be that desirable for multiple reasons. First, I could game this fairly easy by expanding tall rather than wide. I could keep most of my colonies close in, (the core), and only settle strategic systems as forward bases to strike from. The current system doesn't give me the ability to do that, or rather doesn't give me any advantages for doing so. The other issue I would have with this is the player. I would prefer that the calculations the player has to make are more streamlined. So unless we introduced a method that let a player know 'if you colonize here your maintenance will increase by X", I wouldn't find it too friendly. Right now it's far easier to calculate, just some basic multiplication No, not really, they can still expand fast, especially in favorable circumstances (not Emperor setting for the player), it only makes expanding wide difficult P.S. Shoot, where are my manners? Welcome aboard to the forums @Slashin8r
Thanks for the welcome. In 1.0, using the strategy you suggest was already allowing players to breeze through the culture and tech trees. I, personally, got a bit comfortable with this and then suddenly had a door slammed in my face with the recent balancing patches. I do agree that high population does allow for quick tech and culture gains, but it take time and dedicated production to get there. This advantage is why it is a strategy I used. I'm not looking to exploit, my go-to strategy just happened to work very well and now suddenly is near the bottom of strategies to choose from. That was the purpose of this particular suggestion. With growth and expansion strategies, a player could cut off enemy growth simply by colonizing systems surrounding them. This would help prevent this or force the player to pay a high price to do this. Also, you couldn't just instantly grow tall. You would have to research those techs to settle those planets (unless you got extremely lucky, I've had a game where 75%+ of the surrounding planets were swamp so only needed to research one tech to get a jumpstart) and then dedicate production to grow in population. This tactic is risky since any warmongering race, that put any effort into ground combat, could easily wipe you out while you are trying to grow (this is also another issue of its own entirely as I have had multiple starts where I was able to destroy one or two nearby races within the first 20 turns). In all honesty, my suggestions would actually make my play style more difficult in the early game and then easier in the end game. Which generally is how every 4X game is setup. By the time you own 50% of all colonies it should only get easier for you to put that final nail in the coffin. Instead, the current system penalizes you for occupying the enemy colonies (I have never once razed a city or colony in any 4X game I have played and it makes no sense to force a player into doing so just to bypass some penalty which realistically makes no sense) and/or building too many colony ships. The overcrowding penalty essentially forces the player into the same issue. The penalty creates a bell curve of productivity by population for every planet. A planet should be most productive when it reaches max population and since this is not the case, we need to at least be given an option to halt the growth of a planet. Another option would be to make the threshold based on a percentage of the max population instead of hard-coding it to any population beyond 14. It makes no sense that a Tiny planet will never have the chance of incurring this penalty even though, realistically, a tiny planet is more likely to suffer from overcrowding compared to a huge planet.
Add efficiency techs with buildings at higher levels of R and D. The current exploding maintenance expense that will still restrict early rushing but allow later growth if the necessary research and construction are done.
Glad to have you here! First, I think overcrowding penalty is a misnomer, It would be more accurate to describe it as a bureaucratic penalty, hence a tiny world with its small pop doesn't get affected. I don't understand, the population penalty was already there in 1.00, it was introduced in a pre-alpha release to address an o.p. strategy/preference. The main difference now is the colony maintenance penalty which did not exist prior to 1.04. I would think that your strategy can still be executed. I've recently Joined Quantomas in playing a mirror game where he set a subterranean custom race, it is still viable, and even easier than my own personal preferences. I admit it's random, but it is easy to do, colonization techs are not that hard, especially for tolerable worlds. I'm very interested about this. Though we are taking measures to increase the lethality of the AI, (and their ships) in the next patch, can you tell me more, how did you manage to do this in 20 turns?
Sorry, I was speaking of high population in general, not just a single colony. This moves a lot slower in 1.0.4 with the 2 pop for new colonies being moved away from perks and into the tech tree. 20 turns may be a bit of an exaggeration on my part, but it sure felt that way. I found the Kaek by turn 2 and the Moltar by turn 4. With 2 races so close, I decided to go right for a garrison to build assault ships. My custom race has Warlord, so this went faster than usual. Before my first assault ship finished building, I already found 2 ruins (Misty was found at the first ruins, which I noticed patch 1.0.4 fixed) and data core at the other (I forget which one). I went for the Kaek first since they didn't expand beyond 1 star yet (I had one of my free frigates blockade the system almost since the meeting of them (Later on, after scouting out more local stars, I did the same to the Moltar). 2 assault ships built and I went over to the Kaek and took their homeworld first (No defenses, of course). Lost 1 assault ship and sent the other to the Moltar home system while the 3rd assault was just about finishing. 3rd assault ship was also sent to Moltar home system and then their homeworld was taken. By this time, I considered them both wiped out since they both had a single colony left, with the exception of the Moltar having an outpost, and my frigates had them blockaded. Edit: I attached my custom race file as well.
I too have hated how in other games it was too easy and rewarding to invade early in the game. The result was as if you'd set the game with one fewer rival and a second capitol/homeworld bonus for yourself. I'd vote for changes or options to make early game invasions harder or much more of an investment (success leaves you not significantly better off than if you'd used your resources peacefully).
I agree, but I prefer that it be addressed more via military solutions. It's a HomeWorld, and it needs to be much tougher to take one that early.
Can possibly even be something simple, like +X% ground combat when defending on a homeworld. If there is any worry to that becoming a problem late-game, then it can be made so the bonus is not cumulative and gets overridden by a future building/technology. Edit: Maybe should be when "defending your own homeworld" instead. Then possibly a bonus to your assault party ground combat when trying to reclaim your stolen homeworld.
That's one way to go, a base flat bonus defending the HW... but that early an extra assault ship would make it meaningless. I tend to play on severe and impossible, there the AI starting Frigates are more advanced than what I get, sometimes equipping missiles and shields while I still have none. On those settings it is harder to take the AI HW that early. I was thinking more of a Starbase to start on all HWs , like it was in MoO2. Edit, Of course an SB at start...would have consequences elsewhere.
I wasn't suggesting anything specifically other than military solutions. A homeworld defense bonus might do the trick, making it a major investment in resources to create the military force needed to take a homeworld. Ideally an early invasion would still be a sensible strategy depending on the map. For example, if you had neighbouring races you predict will be warmongers, and you chose traits suitable for a war-loving race yourself, the extra military investment early on might be the best option. I just have too many memories of games spoiled by 'easy pickings' early in the game. When I start a 4X game, I imagine a late game battle where my (insert powerful unit) faces an enemy unit of roughly similar strength, with my honorably damaged/wounded unit finally finishing off the enemy. I'm almost always disappointed when that event turns out to be my battleship facing a trireme, or tanks vs chariots. Finding a rival close by and taking it over with ease in the first few turns of a game just makes the disappointing reality more likely. Whatever method used to make early invasions less automatically attractive can certainly have limitation by time, or growth or some such factor, so that it doesn't cause problems late game.
Hey now, a trireme pushed the technology of the day to the limit... but I understand what you are saying and agree with you. This issue and others, will be addressed, possibly in stages, but the devs are aware of the shortcomings as regards both an early rush and the fact that AI units need to inflict more pain in battle.
