carolean7 wrote:

Cool stuff! And looks like you have this one in the bag. Huge congrats. And I like the recent changes you've made to their gameplay (pending balancing). I do have couple questions though:

• You say in the lore that they have a "shared consciousness", do you mean they are all telepathically connected? If so, I feel this isn't really necessary. It doesn't come into play anywhere else in their description and gameplay. Indeed this could be dropped and they would play exactly the same. Actually better in my opinion, because it drops the whole "hive-mind" pretext. I feel lore-wise they would be more exciting and relatable as a species of individuals like any other race, filled with unique personalities, heroes, villains, geniuses, artists, oddballs, etc... and the shared-consciousness doesn't really allow for that to happen. That's just my 2 cents.
• This is totally my opinion, and could be wrong, but my feeling is that a diplomatic faction should strongly focus on the Influence  resource. This resource is used to alter diplomacy in the game, make diplomatic demands, declare peace, form alliances, make trade agreements, win via a Diplomatic victory, etc... And so far the Unfallen don't interact with Influence in any special way at all. This is the most important resource in diplomacy, but their gameplay has no connection to it. Of course I'm taking the Drakken from EL as the model here. Anyway, I feel some bonus to Influence production is necessary to really push players to use diplomacy as their main form of conflict resolution between empires. This would also strengthen their politics/senate/laws gameplay, which as I understand it, is largely dependent on Influence.

That's just my 2 cents anyway. Great stuff. Looking forward to my space Ents.

Well, the shared consciousness stuff does come in to play regarding the minor details of other faction's planets, but I see your point. I'll have to consider that for a bit. Good feedback!

I agree with the concern over Influence. If I win, I'll get with Amplitude to determine the best way to incorporate that and figure out how to make them more diplomatically oriented. 

Thanks, Carolean!

Cool stuff! And looks like you have this one in the bag. Huge congrats. And I like the recent changes you've made to their gameplay (pending balancing). I do have couple questions though:

• You say in the lore that they have a "shared consciousness", do you mean they are all telepathically connected? If so, I feel this isn't really necessary. It doesn't come into play anywhere else in their description and gameplay. Indeed this could be dropped and they would play exactly the same. Actually better in my opinion, because it drops the whole "hive-mind" pretext. I feel lore-wise they would be more exciting and relatable as a species of individuals like any other race, filled with unique personalities, heroes, villains, geniuses, artists, oddballs, etc... and the shared-consciousness doesn't really allow for that to happen. That's just my 2 cents.
• This is totally my opinion, and could be wrong, but my feeling is that a diplomatic faction should strongly focus on the Influence  resource. This resource is used to alter diplomacy in the game, make diplomatic demands, declare peace, form alliances, make trade agreements, win via a Diplomatic victory, etc... And so far the Unfallen don't interact with Influence in any special way at all. This is the most important resource in diplomacy, but their gameplay has no connection to it. Of course I'm taking the Drakken from EL as the model here. Anyway, I feel some bonus to Influence production is necessary to really push players to use diplomacy as their main form of conflict resolution between empires. This would also strengthen their politics/senate/laws gameplay, which as I understand it, is largely dependent on Influence.

That's just my 2 cents anyway. Great stuff. Looking forward to my space Ents.

My bad, I guess I took him seriously.  I honestly thought he was mad at someone for voting against him.

EndlessCrashes wrote:

A special message from DevilDog (RobtheBobby) if you didnt vote for him, from his steam forum promotional post:

What a class act!

Bro, I've known Mansen for two years now and we're actually really good friends. So now you're trying to attack my character with this sort of stuff? 

Wow. 

Cool idea :)

A special message from DevilDog (RobtheBobby) if you didnt vote for him, from his steam forum promotional post:

What a class act!

Hobbesian wrote:

Hm. Studied, now you've created a new set of problems, namely that the trees are extremely overpowered.

Forcing peace for the cost of -one- pop? Early game that's expensive, yes, but consider that mid or late game. That's absolutely minimal, you can replace that in a turn or two (if Endless Space or Endless Legend is anything to go by), worse, you've now allowed the option that the trees CAN go to war whilst the pacifists are not in power AND can force peace whenever they want for the cost of ONE pop.

I'll give you an example of something that is a lot closer to the intended power curve :

Unfallen Affinity : Can force peace at the cost of 1 pop per planet the attacker controls, forcing a peace treaty for a duration of 2x the planets the player controls, pops are taken from your most inhabited planets first. 80 turn cooldown.

This means now that the ability has a much more direct cost, if you use it to force peace against a very large attacker, it's going to hurt, but at the same time, a large attacker will be prevented from re-issuing a war dec against you for an extended period, offering you a long grace period to rebuild and recover. Against a smaller or equivalent sized attacker, the "cost" will be less, but you won't have quite the same time duration. The cooldown also means you can't spam it.

See my point?

Yes, no doubt. I'd definitely be up for balancing the feature further. It's really just the idea and the balancing comes later. 

But yes, you're right, after further thought, it could use some balancing lol

:)

Hm. Studied, now you've created a new set of problems, namely that the trees are extremely overpowered.

Forcing peace for the cost of -one- pop? Early game that's expensive, yes, but consider that mid or late game. That's absolutely minimal, you can replace that in a turn or two (if Endless Space or Endless Legend is anything to go by), worse, you've now allowed the option that the trees CAN go to war whilst the pacifists are not in power AND can force peace whenever they want for the cost of ONE pop.

I'll give you an example of something that is a lot closer to the intended power curve :

Unfallen Affinity : Can force peace at the cost of 1 pop per planet the attacker controls, forcing a peace treaty for a duration of 2x the planets the player controls, pops are taken from your most inhabited planets first. 80 turn cooldown.

This means now that the ability has a much more direct cost, if you use it to force peace against a very large attacker, it's going to hurt, but at the same time, a large attacker will be prevented from re-issuing a war dec against you for an extended period, offering you a long grace period to rebuild and recover. Against a smaller or equivalent sized attacker, the "cost" will be less, but you won't have quite the same time duration. The cooldown also means you can't spam it.

See my point?

DevildogFF wrote:

I've reworked it all.

Hm. Is it allowed on that stage of contest? For sure, I'm glad to see any improvements, but maybe you should check it with Amplicrew?

Celeir wrote:

It sounds desperately weird to me that pacifists can actually blow the fire of war (by forcing other races to join a fight). And their age... It may be stereotypical, but such long-living creatures could be conservative  , receiving penalties to research speed or upgrading time/cost. Or maybe saplings are progressive majority, 'face of the race'?

I kinda like that idea. Sentient trees usually are portrayed as moving a little slow. Reminds me of how it takes a very, very long time to say anything in Entish.

Hobbesian wrote:

I don't feel being able to force another player into war on your behalf regardless of the design is good gameplay, anything that makes choices for another player needs to be carefully considered. There's a big difference between a wardec (which is where one person declares hostilities upon another) and what you're asking for, which is where you are effectively creating a third player as a proxy defender in place of yourself, even if they may be unwilling or unable to do so at the time.

That part definitely needs revision, the Roving Clans would be the place to look I think.

You're right. I've reworked it all. Please let me know what you think of the changes. 

DevildogFF wrote:

 

They are the natural enemies of the Cravers and after losing many planets to their destructiveness, have developed specific defenses to them. Their long history as one of many of the Cravers' slaves have led them to raze themselves rather than have one of their planets occupied. 

I'm afraid you can't do that, Dave (don't refer to another faction in your bio, otherwise you can't "meet them for the first time" in-game). Submission otherwise fine. :)

Cool idea. If hull points are a thing, maybe they could have regenerate as well? Healing between each "phase" of combat and getting fully restored between turns?

Well, you can still vote for other submissions than yours. In fact, you can vote for as many submissions as strikes your fancy. We need three winners to get into the final vote.

I just added an almost identical proposition to the contest without realizing someone else had had the same idea, I just decided to see which had the most up votes and found this one.

Mine was more focused on terraformation but I'm glad there's another person who thinks along the same lines.

If I hadn't already added a proposition I would so vote for this.

UndeadPuppy wrote:

Frogsquadron wrote:

DevildogFF wrote:

 

They are the natural enemies of the Cravers and after losing many planets to their destructiveness, have developed specific defenses to them. Their long history as one of many of the Cravers' slaves have led them to raze themselves rather than have one of their planets occupied. 

I'm afraid you can't do that, Dave (don't refer to another faction in your bio, otherwise you can't "meet them for the first time" in-game). Submission otherwise fine. :)

Can you mention the Endless though, seeing as they are no a playable faction and have had a role in the development of other playable races?

Absolutely, yes, the Endless are considered a building block of our universe, as opposed to simply one of the factions. They're above it all. (but not everything and everyone has to relate to the Endless. The Sophons, for instance, don't)