Man, I like this guys...too much actually, after all, what's not to like? Granted, they start out with very low stats, but that is nothing a player can't fix quickly, (especially with ship leaders). They have no cost to buy, a very low maintenance cost, won't acquire negative traits (that's huge), and can't be corrupted, (that too is huge). In other words there is absolutely no down-side to them, no trade off. This kind of makes it an automatic decision when it comes to considering these guys...err creations I mean. So while I'm a big opponent of nerfing things, I think the androids could use a bit of a tweak. I don't know, something simple like increasing their maintenance costs, (spare parts and lubricating oil cost money you know), or perhaps giving them all the un-creative trait as standard. A more sophisticated approach might be a malus to any biological leaders stacked with them or a small base morale penalty if they govern a system. After all, there will always be someone who won't like being told what to do by a machine. Anyway, that's not for me to decide and I suppose they could be left as is. But right now they are just too good to pass up, and once you have them in numbers...things get a lot easier for you as a player. Edit Hmm perhaps even a new espionage mission that would "disable" the androids for X turns...
A "Captain Kirk" perk that allows a spy mission to tell them "this sentence is false" so they self-destruct. (Kidding.)
Artificial Directive is the Tier 1 Evolution perk for the Human Evolution set. It is only available to empires using this Evolution set. This perk provides you with 1 android leader for each space culture level-up (including one when first unlocked). As each progressive space culture level-up takes longer to achieve than the last, this creates a delay in how soon you acquire the next one. It is indeed a strong Tier 1 Evolution perk. As with all the Tier 1 Evolution perks, which are all quite strong, this is by design. All of them provide quite powerful bonuses with some sort of downside, some more significant than others, depending on the power level of the perk. The same is true for all the Tier 3 perks. Tier 2 perks are generally a bit less powerful as they don't come with a drawback. It is certainly possible certain perks will get a balance adjustment at some point. There's a thread going on Steam right now where people are reporting their results with each of the sets. I'm also evaluating data from Discord and our forums here. If any outliers appear as too strong or too weak, we'll certainly consider making an adjustment. Thanks for the feedback!
As much as I'd like to get my butt kicked by @Konstantine, multiplayer leads to an infinite regress of balancing issues and complaints about such that single player doesn't have--if something is too powerful in single player, you can just not use it.
@aReclusiveMind explained this in some greater detail to me, and it really comes down to the player making this (or any other) perk OP or not. If for example I grab artificial directive as quickly as possible, then between naturally appearing leaders and the androids, I will field well over a dozen quickly. I tried it you know, but it wasn't fun and I found my sweet spot. I use my 6th pick now and while I have an abundance of leaders, it's not throwing the game out of whack. I know that for the other races (if controlled by a human), it's quite easy to unbalance the game with the relative evolutions picks, but I will point that that you can unbalance the game in other ways as well. So what are we looking for? Symmetry? All things being equal? Where's the challenge in that? Tread carefully guys, a lot of voices out there right now, If you're going to curtail anything, do it because it is inherently flawed, not because under the right circumstances, (and by deliberate player action), it can be exploited. Yes by all means make adjustments where you must but don't homogenize the evo picks and make them irrelevant. I know it's a bit trickier than it sounds, but I have confidence you will find the "sweet spot" .
@Konstantine Robot leaders are very usefull but I don't consider them OP for the very reason you stated here, as it just isn't a good pick early on. Getting good leaders early on is essential (like a good ruin searcher) and this trait actually interferes with that, by making them more expensive at a time when money matters a lot.
Now that I've gotten more sessions under my belt with this, I agree with you, they aren't OP, (sometimes they're even a nuisance). In the one session where I had 20 total between the biological and android leaders...it was cumbersome. In my current session there are less of them, (and most androids are in space). Here the drawback is that you must really put in an effort into leveling them up. I take this as my 6th pick by the way, it allows somewhat better control of of the situation but at the cost of their development.
Androids are very usefull early on for the fed for several reasons.. Not least of all if you employ ship commanders they will boost your ssp, sending them on mass explore will boost their stats pretty quick, I did this early on in the game whilst also employing governors,but my main problem with regular characters was I did not have the BCs to buy the better ones early on so the anroids were a definate boon and advance quickly if used properly... For me it was the best option! Leaders sample:as you can see from this their capable of supporting a titan I had 10 such androids in the game not including 4 pretty good governors. achieved by multiple androids exploring together plus attacking multiple monsters encountered... Admiral Ironsides
Like many other things in this game, they, (Android leaders), can be exploited to an extreme degree. If you select them as soon as you are able, than what you describe works, if you select them with your 6th-7th pick, they are still an advantage but less so. One thing these leaders have done, regardless of when they are introduced by a player, is further illustrated how annoying the Greedy and Envious traits are. Ship leaders, (biological), in particular will always turn greedy after they've been in combat a while. Play a game when you are constantly at war, and see how much "fun" that is...
Yes thats what I did as soon as possible get the culture perk for androids and it worked well, largely because they earn experience from exploring etc later on this doesn't work anything like as well... If I remember right the leaders I was getting were all like 200-350BCish and at that stage it just wasn't possible to buy them.
