Pi2r wrote:


I quite agree. It is sad that in the current state of affairs the rational thing to do is to sell all the freespawning units and build large armies of Nameless with faction trinkets instead. It is a very powerful strategy to do so, but it does seem contrary to the intention behind the faction.

Yeah, I'd argue the Cultists especially should be more about varied armies instead of spamming their most powerful regular unit. Thats part of the point of assimilating minor factions after all.

Pi2r wrote:
With some 3-4 cities

That is the problem right there. that is way too few cities.

Nirual wrote:
Being unable to retrofit the free unit really sucks too. I suppose it kinda makes sense when you don't have access to the unit normally, but if its one of the factions you've assimilated, you can't do it either. At least these units should automatically come with current-era normal tier equipment so the new recruits can keep up with the game progress (kind of like how Harmony in ES can't retrofit their ships, but at least build new ones with better stuff).

New units in villages always spawn with the current era tech. that is, iron T1-T3 followed by dust T1-T3.

When you see a unit in a village with ancient era gear, it just means it is an ancient unit that spawned in an older era. That being said, not having their equipment upgrade while parked in the village is rather silly. Its bad enough that their level is lower (since your era also determines their initial spawn level, 1 through 6)

taltamir wrote:
New units in villages always spawn with the current era tech. that is, iron T1-T3 followed by dust T1-T3.

When you see a unit in a village with ancient era gear, it just means it is an ancient unit that spawned in an older era. That being said, not having their equipment upgrade while parked in the village is rather silly. Its bad enough that their level is lower (since your era also determines their initial spawn level, 1 through 6)

My bad, didn't play long enough to notice (or didn't see it). But I would assume they don't get any accessories since those aren't in the initial loadout for any unit? Not having the movement boost is the most immediately noticeable one...

taltamir wrote:
That is the problem right there. that is way too few cities.

3-4 cities is where the problem of costs compared to luxury income starts to be obvious - when you continue expanding, which you should, the problem grows ever greater. With every region added the costs go up while you will get increased luxury resources for one to three resources per region, none of which are guaranteed to be the city boosters - but we were talking about whether it was possible to keep up most or all of the good city boosting resources, not a few of them.



As a large expander, only when you reach the luxury boosting tech in the endgame will you gain enough resources to be able to keep up the city boosting resources continuously.

That's interesting... luxury resource booster costs as a disincentive for expansion. It seems obvious in retrospect, but I never thought about that.



Obviously it's such a small disincentive, because boosters are not really the status quo, and the benefit of boosters are individually very small. Also, once you get the late-game tech, the scarcity of luxury resources falls. Then there's the abundance of luxury resources in the market of course.



But there's something there. A solution to the inherent preference to expand-at-all-costs. If luxury resource "boosters" were critical to success, and accessible earlier, then due to the scaling costs and inherent scarcity, it would make you think twice about expanding too much, far more than expansion disapproval does.

Tigregalis wrote:
That's interesting... luxury resource booster costs as a disincentive for expansion. It seems obvious in retrospect, but I never thought about that.

I didn't realize that was the case until I played cultists and the cost obviously remained constant with them. Before that I assumed the cost either increased over time or from use. Either way, I don't think its too much of a disincentive, rather the opposite at first since its 10 resources for the first city and 5 for every city after that, plus the benefit from the booster itself obviously also goes up in most cases, since they mostly benefit city output. It works more as a reason to stagger the expansion more (like expansion disapproval does with the techs to reduce it).

I know, but I'm thinking that with the right changes, it could become the basis for an expansion disincentive.



Empire plans could work the same way (because of cost scaling) but they don't really, because all of your cities become influence-producing powerhouses thanks to level 2 districts and several technologies.



Specifically, if you made the effects of luxury resource boosters critical (very effective, very important) then the prohibitive cost (which rises with the number of cities) will serve as a disincentive for taking more cities - because of how important it would then be to maintain luxury resource boosters. But the most important thing here is that you would also have to maintain luxury resources' scarcity - so no fourth/fifth era tech that bumps up per-extractor production from 1 to 5.



For instance, if the first five resources had massive boosts (around 100%) to one of the five resources (FIDSI), these would be boosters you would try to maintain indefinitely. Of course you would rebalance production rates or costs so that with the booster activated, you have the same effective production you would have today, but without the booster activated, you would have half the effective production you would have today.



Of course, taking the right regions with the right resources (of course, you would have to hold those regions too...), or producing enough dust to buy up the resources in the market, would reduce the efficacy of this approach a bit - but not a lot.



I have a number of ideas like this floating around in my head, and I'll probably try modding them in, and seeing how it plays. One of the things that interests me is limiting rapid, aggressive expansion - or rather, making rapid, aggressive expansion a less powerful option relative to slower expansion, so as to make going tall or wide a more meaningful choice. Currently, you'll go as wide as you can, consolidate, build up a force, then start taking enemy cities.

Tigregalis wrote:
I have a number of ideas like this floating around in my head, and I'll probably try modding them in, and seeing how it plays. One of the things that interests me is limiting rapid, aggressive expansion - or rather, making rapid, aggressive expansion a less powerful option relative to slower expansion, so as to make going tall or wide a more meaningful choice. Currently, you'll go as wide as you can, consolidate, build up a force, then start taking enemy cities.

This is something I've been looking at for my Battle for Auriga mod. The preferred solution (for my case which is geared toward a quick game) is simply to restrict the region count so that there is less land to grab.



Here's some other ideas I've kicked around that may work better for you:

• Remove Approval techs (Bread and Circuses) so it's more difficult to manage the expansion disapproval.
• Increase the cost of Settlers up so that you need to make a tough choice on whether to build a Settler or continue to grow your city.
• Increase upkeep of the City Hall improvement (built with every city) so that there is more overhead per city
  
  

One mechanic I like is from Sins of a Solar Empire where the further away the system is from your home system, the more disapproval there is. Distance is only measured for Trade Routes in EL through.

I was thinking of a solution to the op's comment. Best I could come up with was watchtowers. So maybe a faction trait that gives you a free watchtower, or lets you build watchtowers in any region that you have pacified all the villages. The lore could be, grateful for salvation, the villagers of the region group together to build you a memorial. This large temple provides an excellent reconnaissance position for you, and also gives the villagers a place to come to report the presence of non-believers, and provides the villagers with medica attention, education and training.



Provides a free watchtower in the region that acts as a temple. Temple provides line of sight, plus sight over the entire region and regeneration for villagers. The training provided by the priests in the temple also gives villagers ?XP per turn.

Tigregalis wrote:
Obviously it's such a small disincentive, because boosters are not really the status quo, and the benefit of boosters are individually very small.

I've taken to starting with Imperial Coinage so that I can take advantage of boosters as early as possible. Titan bone, moonleaf, dust orchid, dustwater-- these all have very large effects that easily justify the cost. An empire mint might take 15 turns to pay for itself, when dustwater can pay for itself in 5.



The fact that I can often reach "fervent" without sewers is an added bonus.



I delay cities for these boosters as freely as I delay them for empire plans. I wouldn't want to see luxuries increased in power. If you haven't focused on boosters yet, I'd recommend trying it out.

Nosferatiel wrote:
Nah, not yet. Let's hope they do, one day. Or in an alternate timeline.



If you pose ES as a sacrosankt truth, then only the vaulters would be allowed to win, ever.

Necrophages win as well. A few minors survive to become major factions..

No one likes the evil robots bent on destruction. I don't understand why they even have the option if creating an alliance or making peace with any other faction. They are the robotic anti-lifers. Who wants friends like that. Since we're on the topic, why aren't Necrophages more aggressive?

Nasarog wrote:
No one likes the evil robots bent on destruction. I don't understand why they even have the option if creating an alliance or making peace with any other faction. They are the robotic anti-lifers. Who wants friends like that. Since we're on the topic, why aren't Necrophages more aggressive?

Right? Two games where I was right next to necrophages ended with another faction murdering them, while they constantly asked for truce with me and were "terrified".



Necrophage a.i should just go nuts on army building. This building gives me more industry? Cool, I'll toss that in after these next two necrodrones, followed by 8 more necrodrones.

Excellent points I hope the dev team take them on board.

Nasarog wrote:
No one likes the evil robots bent on destruction. I don't understand why they even have the option if creating an alliance or making peace with any other faction. They are the robotic anti-lifers. Who wants friends like that. Since we're on the topic, why aren't Necrophages more aggressive?

I made a thread about the lack of aggression of the Necrophages.



It makes no sense for a faction that cannot be at peace to never go to war! The Necrophages should not get any other personality but aggressive and war-minded.



While we are on the subject, random personalities for several of the factions don't make much sense.

Slashman wrote:
I made a thread about the lack of aggression of the Necrophages.



It makes no sense for a faction that cannot be at peace to never go to war! The Necrophages should not get any other personality but aggressive and war-minded.



While we are on the subject, random personalities for several of the factions don't make much sense.

There should be personalities for the necrophages.. 3 or 4.. but they should all have varying degrees of aggression, but not peacenicks...



They do... 3-4 a piece but each faction has a specific victory type or 3 that it likes and these personalities pursue them.

Nasarog wrote:
No one likes the evil robots bent on destruction. I don't understand why they even have the option if creating an alliance or making peace with any other faction. They are the robotic anti-lifers. Who wants friends like that. Since we're on the topic, why aren't Necrophages more aggressive?

Well, originally, there was the design plan of me to yield allies all benefits of converted villages in their regions, basically making factions go alongside cultists become possible.

Sadly, this fell under the table. It also would have been a bit of a grandstand, having growing cultist armies next to your cities, even if you could also interpret that as a good defense mechanism.

Nosferatiel wrote:
Well, originally, there was the design plan of me to yield allies all benefits of converted villages in their regions, basically making factions go alongside cultists become possible.

Sadly, this fell under the table. It also would have been a bit of a grandstand, having growing cultist armies next to your cities, even if you could also interpret that as a good defense mechanism.

Until the "evil" robot suicide pact turns on you?

Nasarog wrote:
Until the "evil" robot suicide pact turns on you?

Why would they? Their natural victory should be the wonder victory, not necessarily supremacy. Their goal is and was to leave the planet. Everything and everyone else is either a tool or a removable distraction/obstruction.