The Kaek's special abilities are very flavorful and cool powers. They are also far and away the strongest abilities in the game, especially when combined together. Here is just one example of how you can milk the benefits. 1) Use the Tech Accelerator on Propulsion to back up the Galactic Knowledge Exchange. 2) Use the construction blitz to then immediately build the wonder. So a handful of turns into the game I have a wonder that no one else could build for like another 40-50 turns...if even that, since production in the early game is so vital to ensure you have enough defense very few people get wonders until the later part of the game. So now my tech is taking off like a shot, as my enemies start to feed me science. And I'm just getting started. 1) The next round of tech advancement I go weapons...making my way to phasors as my construction blitz comes online. 2) I now rush build a 6 phasor Battleship with 3 structure. So around turn 100, when most players are happy to have a decent cruiser going around shooting fusion beams....I have a 6 phasor battleship that is unbeatable. Now in theory you get this sometimes with the ruin superships….ships that are far beyond their pay grade at a certain time in the game. This is often countered by the sabotage ability, as even basic saboteurs can take out frigates and destroyers. However....not battleships....it takes a pro saboteur to take them out. So you have this large window of time where you absolutely invincible + I'm teching at 2-3 times the rate of anyone else due to my wonder, I have an invincible ship, and in the unlikely event you actually do take out my BS....I still have phasor tech far quicker than anyone else, so even a fleet of small ships with these weapons will take out everyone else. In summary, these abilities are just far too good. A few suggestions on how to tweak. 1) Obsessed Builders: Make it pay for 75-80% of the cost instead of 100%. That way building a ridiculously full armed battleship is still too expensive to pull off early. 2) Collective Transcendence: Either give it a free tech and nothing else, or give it the percentage research abilities without the free tech. Together they are just far too strong.
With all due respect to the OP, I would like to offer a different perspective. IS:G is a single player game, there is no multiplayer. As such, it may actually be more attractive if the races aren’t balanced in relation to one-another, they certainly weren’t in MoO2. When played by the AI I do not see the Kaek as over powered, usually they are easy pickings. Giving the races some unbalanced abilities that can present more of a challenge to the player on occasion is a good thing. The issue mostly arises when a human player controls this race, but therein lies the essence of the matter. A player can choose to create a custom race and optimize it to perfection, and in doing so experience a game session that seems too easy. In this instance, it is the player that is responsible for the consequence. Similarly, a player can select the Kaek race and leverage their special abilities to the maximum, also resulting in a cake walk. Any attempt to try and balance the races, (so that one is not much more powerful than the other), could actually lead to a blander experience, not a better one. My own sessions feature a custom race with some advantages and some huge disadvantages. I do this to get the maximum challenge from the stock races, and the Kaek have never been much of a problem. My own opinion then is to leave this be. A player can select the Kaek or design a very powerful custom race, but doing so has consequences. If a player wishes, he/she can create a custom race based on the Kaek and balance them to personal taste, this offers the choice to play with the race if desired, (for role play purposes), but eliminate any traits that may make the experience too easy.
Balance doesn't need to be mathematical or incremental. Personally I hate that kind of balance. You can still have very powerful and varied abilities with different races. What matters is that these abilities can be countered so that one can find a way to adapt. In my own play through I saw what that ability does and just laughed because I knew it would allow me to far outstrip the AI's ability to effectively counter it. It's probably true it's far more dangerous with a human player because we can more easily identify the perfect synergy for using such an ability than an AI does. The inability of the AI to use it effectively doesn't negate the imbalance of the ability nor does imbalanced races necessarily lead to a better experience. I would posit that the goal would be varied races that provide differing challenges while having equal viability.
Fine point and I agree, however no AI race can counter a veteran player, even on the hardest difficulties and the player having lousy worlds near by. This isn't a lack of talent from the devs, but rather how complex and full of synergies the game is. A player can narrowly focus in one or two areas, fall dramatically behind in others, and still win. Again correct, The AI needs to be given a different template to follow on the harder levels and the ability to hurt a player no matter what the player does. If the AI cannot make the player react to it, little will help. And I would back you up, but it is easier said than done. Races in MoO2 were not equally viable, and this is not restricted to that tittle only
Forgive me as I had to step away before I could finish. Your original post centered on attributes you found OP with the Kaek. My position distilled in as few words as possible is that it is OP only in the hands of a human player, otherwise not so much so and it does lend variety and distinction to the races. Furthermore, many things are OP in the hands of a player, ISG is not unique in this. What I want to see avoided is the "nerfing" of these things, rather I prefer that the AI also uses them well. Failing that, then I would like to see, (on the harder difficulties), the AI take an approach that will be a genuine threat regardless of how the player reacts or exploits the game.
This is a true point in any SP 4x game, and most arguments on the subject come down to the amount of imbalance. For example, I do not think the racial abilities are balanced beyond the Kaek, I think some races get better abilities than others. However, the degree of imbalance is not as significant, and so I do not comment on them for the reason you mentioned. However, in the Kaek's case, I think the degree of imbalance is so high (and so easy to abuse), that it warrants a look. I think there is a difference between optimized human play and "exploits". With other races I have found combos that are "very strong", with the Kaek the combos are "simply broken".
That’s a very strong statement and I would like to explore it further. When I play, I use a custom race, while the AI is set to maximum development at the start (extra techs, pop, infra, and buildings). I also choose emperor for myself, meaning that most of my games feature only a single productive world in my empire. On top of that, I have a 50% penalty to population growth and I give the AIs basic production and research bonuses. (I'm set at 50% research and 75% production, the AI has 75% research, 100% production) What this means is that the AIs will always grow faster than my own empire and my tech will lag severely. The AIs also field Battleships and Titans while I’m lucky to have a few Cruisers. In this case the AIs are only a threat if I engage them while severely outnumbered, otherwise they do not pose much of one, (this includes the Kaek). Were I to replace my custom race with the Kaek and retain the same parameters, I could see where I would have a moderately easier time due to their unique abilities and the fact that they do not suffer from a 50% penalty to growth. However, I am not sure the word “broken” would apply. As I don’t like to play alien factions, (it’s the immersion thing), could I ask you for some additional information? I’m interested to know your game parameters, what settings are you using under which you have come to the conclusion that they are broken?
I fully agree with Konstantine. I am tired of great game concepts being nerfed because someone finds an exploit that they believe is OP in certain circumstances. Given the analysis given by Konstantine (ie. no multiplayer(yet), no real advantage on super hard difficulty, etc) I would prefer to not see these sorts of things get nerfed. On the other hand, I see no problem with someone modding the game to provide their own rebalanced view point and allow others to voluntarily adopt it. MoO2 was absolutely not balanced, was multiplayer, and was still a lot of fun. IMHO this game is much more balanced and has some nice new features and fresh ideas. Great game all!
Whoops, I realized I never responded to this. So my general parameters are: 1) Medium to Large galaxies 2) 6 total races (the core races, I don't use custom ones). 3) Light to no monsters 4) Either severe or impossible difficulty. I've been shifting to impossible more lately. As for why I think this is broken...I find that the combination produces "invincibility"....literally I am able to field ships that no enemy race can contest with...and I can do it much quicker than with other "strong combos" I've managed with other races. Further, at the same time I am able to field infrastructure with wonders that is simply not possible with any other race....not even close. Its simply a matter of degrees. With other combos I do very against the AIs...with this combo I literally smash them to bits with almost no effort.
Thank you for the additional information, though when you get a chance, let me know your own settings, are you set on Viceroy or Emperor? The latter choice can slow you down even further. This is true regardless. I have well over a 50 to 1 kill ratio in battles, and I always have technologically inferior ships to boot. This issue is more about the way the AI designs ships than anything else. True, in your case where you leverage the Kaek abilities to get ahead faster it will be more pronounced, but it should be dealt with differently and as a separate issue by the devs. I worked in ship building during the cold war,and basically I apply the same fundamentals (though simplified) to ship design as we do in the real world, the AI cannot. Until these fundamentals are understood and instilled into the AI, this will be a huge drawback in and of itself. Yet the AI cannot. leading us to a dilemma. Reduce the Kaek abilities and possibly weaken a weak AI further... or attempt to increase the competence of the AI leaving the abilities as is. Which brings us back to my point that no AI can match a competent player. And by this above, you are at the very least a "competent player"
That's an interesting point of view in these days. I'd rather say that more and more AI cannot be matched by any human player anymore. Just look at what AlphaGo can do for a game that is much more complex than ISG. That doesn't mean developing such an AI is easy though...
Did that wonder change with a patch recently? From my experience it doesn't help much with research in the beginning, because research treaties come relatively late. If at all, especially on impossible where the AI is very aggressive and tends to break treaties quite easily. And even with 8 players, discovering every tech that has been discovered by two other empires in contact usually only gives me outdated technologies throughout the game. I'd say that wonder is more useful when you are behind your competitors on the science race so that you can catch up more easily. The Galactic Relic Collection seems a more suitable wonder to jump-start your research in that manner.
This! ^^ I am still fairly new to ISG, but I've been playing 4X Space games since 1983 (Reach for the Stars) and so have a decent understanding of how/what/where/when. Research Treaties are rare, very rare. More often than not by the time the Knowledge Exchange kicks in, it is pointless. In my current game, it is turn 280ish and I have eaten half the map and have 1, ONE, research treaty. And two nearly deceased enemies.
