I think if Federations get also a more systems before overcolonization from the techs and other things  that increase that nummer, and maybe Federations are better at assimilating minor faction systems like cheaper actions, more approvel, earlier to be able to assimilate them etc.
that might be already enough.

IceGremlin wrote:

BarbeQ wrote:

...Maybe a scalable bonus, which takes the galaxy size into account would solve the issue? Or a base cap bonus plus a bonus which costs influence. So the more you go over your limits, the more influence you have to pay for it (instead of disapproval)?

Which sounds like what I suggested above, about tying additional colony cap increases to active laws, which is I think a bit more thematic.

And in regards to switching away from Federation when you get Autonomous Administration, I don't think an improved Federation providing a better Colony cap bonus (even a large one, like say +4 or +6) would be dropped late game, even with Autonomous Administration. You and your opponent may be increasing your caps every couple of turns with Autonomous Administration, but if Federation was giving you +4 to the cap, you'd still always be 4 systems ahead in the meantime.

In this case, see me as a supporter for your ideas :)

No argument from me about the measly Federation overcolonization bonus. ^^

@ KnightOfPhoenix, @Kray and @WeLoveYou: I am too fully convinced that Federation is currently underpowered compared to other govs. Especially the measly +1 col. cap. I just wanted to point that IMHO late-game overcolonization can be compensated with other options the game already has.

Maybe a scalable bonus, which takes the galaxy size into account would solve the issue? Or a base cap bonus plus a bonus which costs influence. So the more you go over your limits, the more influence you have to pay for it (instead of disapproval)?

BarbeQ wrote:

But overcolonization isn't such a big issue in the lategame anymore, since we have the auton. admin thingy. I see the federation here more potent in the earlier stage of the game, where a higher limit of colonies supports quicker expansation.

Depends on the situation. If you went hard on conquest, you might not have the tech and luxuries to get up auto admin by the time the approval sting starts to come in. You can also get spectacularly unlucky when it comes to luxuries. A federation government in the way I've suggested would be a means of staving off the approval malus until you can get up auto admin in a couple of systems. Then feel free to switch to something else. It's true that approval is not difficult to manage in the late game anymore, but the idea of the changes I've suggested is not necessarily that all governments should be equally viable at all points and all situations. Republic or democracy would still probably be better to run in the late game if you have a well developed empire.

The problem with Federation currently, is that effectively it's a single +10 happiness building that kicks in once you are over the normal system limit. That's it. It doesn't have any scaling benefits at all, unlike republic and democracy (let's just ignore the state of dictatorship right now), and you get that equivalent benefit (or better) from both of those other two. Just to really hammer it home - the benefit of federation compared to democracy runs out once you have 10 population on each of your systems. That's a tiny window of benefit, and barely exists when we add in how growth and colonisation happens over time. It's true that we could just add in more systems before approval malus is applied, and that would increase the window, but Fed still wouldn't scale, and wouldn't better after a relatively short amount of time. At least with a percentage, rather than static change, to overcolonisation approval, there is a good reason to keep it running for longer, even if eventually, when approval is no longer an issue, there is good reason to switch out.

BarbeQ wrote:

But overcolonization isn't such a big issue in the lategame anymore, since we have the auton. admin thingy. I see the federation here more potent in the earlier stage of the game, where a higher limit of colonies supports quicker expansation.

Agreed.

Unless you messed up the luxury requirements for system level 4 and so can't get the auto-admin, over-expansion won't be much of a problem.  Doubly so if you have approval boosting laws.

Star Federation's overcolonization bonus should be an early game advantage (which is why I think only one extra system is too low; 2 would be a more potent early game boost), plus an additional bonus that stays viable until late game such as reduced influence upkeep for example. 

But overcolonization isn't such a big issue in the lategame anymore, since we have the auton. admin thingy. I see the federation here more potent in the earlier stage of the game, where a higher limit of colonies supports quicker expansation.

WeLoveYou wrote:

Just to chime in, I strongly agree with everything here.

Republic: Keep the buffs to laws, and the election action power, but increase the law upkeep by 1.5. That's not going to prevent anyone using republic, but it will require some extra influence investment.

Federation: Ditch the extra system before approval. Make it decrease the approval loss from overexpansion by 50%. That makes it a viable option for expansionist empires. The effect is the same once you go two systems over, and it's a pretty nice buff once you go over that. This will mean that UE get a 75% decrease in approval loss, but as they are supposed to be hardcore expansionists, I don't think this will be too much of an issue. It's not like UE are already super strong right now.

Dictatorship: Keep the single law slot, but open up all the laws for that political party. Remove the extra approval loss from no representatives in the senate, and keep the number of representatives per system at 4, ignoring system level. This makes dictatorships worth switching to later in the game when you'd like to run a law from a political party that has no senate power (I'm looking at you, Religious Laws), and it means it won't murder your approval when you do. This isn't a huge buff - the only starting dictatorship (Horatio) won't benefit too much from it in the early game, but I can see reasons why other factions might want to swing for some of those other late game laws from parties they don't easily have access too. I can imagine some pretty fun strategies with this - for example switching to dictatorship early as Unfallen or Lumeris, to access that amazing final pacifist law way before turn 100 (assuming you have the influence to run it). It would also let people roleplay a little more.

Great suggestions over all! This makes governments more situtational. I like that. Federation could be too strong now, though. Overcolonization got untightened quite a bit already. This bonus would make Federation an insta-pick for me in the late game. Perhaps I'd use Republic bonuses to get there and would change to something else later when I hit overcolonization thresholds and wouldn't want to deal with them. 

Difficult to say. What I like about your suggestions is that Governments could be used as stepping stones and could be viable in different phases of a game.

I think the problem with this is that it can make progression linear, meaning you often have one and only one thing to aim towards (or two as we have now). It doesn't make for very interesting gameplay. 

It could be better. But plenty of things in the upgrade are linear progressions. That's okay. It's still an interesting choice as to how and when to approach that progression. And with less control on what parties are in power, Dictatorships and Federations might see more use for those reasons. 

nuclearrussian74 wrote:

BarbeQ wrote:

That just brings up an idea and a question. Would it be interesting to be best buddy with a minor faction and thus receive the best support from them, but never have the intention to actually assimilate that faction? While at the same time make sure that no other empire snatches your best buddy by assimilation. Some form of alliance with the minor, that cannot be broken by others. And would this be an interesting thing for Federations? Ok, more than one question.

Minor faction vassal?

Mechanic-wise yes. But in a Federation the term vassal sounds a bit off, doesn't it?

BarbeQ wrote:

That just brings up an idea and a question. Would it be interesting to be best buddy with a minor faction and thus receive the best support from them, but never have the intention to actually assimilate that faction? While at the same time make sure that no other empire snatches your best buddy by assimilation. Some form of alliance with the minor, that cannot be broken by others. And would this be an interesting thing for Federations? Ok, more than one question.

Minor faction vassal?

That just brings up an idea and a question. Would it be interesting to be best buddy with a minor faction and thus receive the best support from them, but never have the intention to actually assimilate that faction? While at the same time make sure that no other empire snatches your best buddy by assimilation. Some form of alliance with the minor, that cannot be broken by others. And would this be an interesting thing for Federations? Ok, more than one question.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:

WeLoveYou wrote:

2) Can we lower the time of the switch to encourage more political changes? 5 turns on normal is fine if you only want to switch once, but if you want to really mess around with the politics, then spending any more time than that in anarchy is a real hindrance. I think I've said this elsewhere, but if the game allows it, scaling the amount of time between switches depending on 'how far' the government change is would be just fine. For example, we could say (on normal) 7 turns between a dictatorship and democracy (the longest distance), 3 turns between the others.

I am not sure I agree with that point.  Switching governments should not be too driven by min-maxing, i.e. being allowed to siwtch back and forth to react to specific situations more optimally.

To borrow your expression, we precisely shouldn't be allowed to 'mess around' with politics without serious obstacles.  I think the 5 turn limit is a serious enough obstacle that it forces us to think about when to switch governments and if it's worth it or not at the very moment.  It also creates an interesting window of opportunity for aggressive neighbors to take advantage of.

Incidentally, does the AI ever change governments?  I haven't seen them do it yet.     

This is fair enough. I still think the influence cost to change should remain the same for all government types (or change depending on 'distance' as BarbeQ suggests), but you're right that perhaps lots of government switching is something to be discouraged.

I'll just quickly add that the static cost should still vary according to number of systems i.e. higher cost for more systems. I just mean that the influence cost shouldn't vary from types of government given that the ideal is that all types of government should be equally viable depending on the situation. I only mention this because it wasn't very clear my first post.

I have no idea if the AI intentionally changes government. As fair as I know, there isn't any way to tell from any of the screens, but I'm happy to be corrected. The AI used to be forced to change governments because it occasionally had rebellion problems (back in the beta mind), but at Endless difficulty at least, this never seems to happen anymore, which is a good thing.

I like WeLoveYous ideas about the different gov types. Especially the one for Federations.

Not a fan of a nearly cost free gov change just for min-maxing reasons though. But I like the idea of a static value for changing the government, including the idea of a different period length of anarchy depending on 'how far' the gov types are away from each other. Suggestion: keep the current 5 turns as a minimum and make a change from one extreme to the other (i.e. dictatorship to democracy) take longer. In addition, one could spent influence to reduce this time of anarchy - something around 300 per -1 turn (or any value that fits the balance).

WeLoveYou wrote:

2) Can we lower the time of the switch to encourage more political changes? 5 turns on normal is fine if you only want to switch once, but if you want to really mess around with the politics, then spending any more time than that in anarchy is a real hindrance. I think I've said this elsewhere, but if the game allows it, scaling the amount of time between switches depending on 'how far' the government change is would be just fine. For example, we could say (on normal) 7 turns between a dictatorship and democracy (the longest distance), 3 turns between the others.

I am not sure I agree with that point.  Switching governments should not be too driven by min-maxing, i.e. being allowed to siwtch back and forth to react to specific situations more optimally.

To borrow your expression, we precisely shouldn't be allowed to 'mess around' with politics without serious obstacles.  I think the 5 turn limit is a serious enough obstacle that it forces us to think about when to switch governments and if it's worth it or not at the very moment.  It also creates an interesting window of opportunity for aggressive neighbors to take advantage of.

Incidentally, does the AI ever change governments?  I haven't seen them do it yet.     

Dragar wrote:

The best way to improve Dictatorship and Federation would be to reduce the power the Republic and Democracy have to influence elections. Those governemnts are supposed to be powerful at the cost of control over what political parties are in charge.

I don't think merely changing the amount of election control is nearly enough. While I only mentioned Horatio, there's also other major factions that are more or less pigeonholed into staying as their starting party, because their starting party often boosts their main gameplay shtick further (and the gameplay shtick itself often boosting party popularity, f.ex. Vodyani leeching), due to how party EXP works and because the said party often doesn't even need  to be helped through election control due to the main population already giving support to that party. Even if they lose their starting party as the main party it's not likely they're going to lose the party altogether.

The main problem with Republic and Democracy are their other massive bonuses, not merely the amount of election control: former's powered up laws are a huge boon in comparison to Federation despite both being situated in the same "tier" and even if Republic's control over elections was nerfed it would still be objectively better in pretty much all situations. Democracy on the other hand provides most approval, most parties for largest selection of laws (covering half the parties in the game), most senator skills and most law slots. Point is the amount of political control Dictatorship and Federation provide are never going to outdo bonuses that directly improve your empire all the time.

If some governemnt types are upgrades for some empires (like Horatio always wants to move to a republic or democracy)  - that's okay. Plenty of things in the game are upgrades over other things. 

I think the problem with this is that it can make progression linear, meaning you often have one and only one thing to aim towards (or two as we have now). It doesn't make for very interesting gameplay. Hell, there's even the Lumeris quest reward that reduces anarchy time but it's completely useless, because hopping between government types isn't worthwhile due to them already starting with the best government type.

Ideally in my opinion government types should provide mutually exclusive bonuses that serve different gameplay situations, incentivizing changing your party depending on how you're doing. F.ex. if Federation actually did its intended job as the expansionist government type combating disapproval it should be the best at it (both Republic and Democracy do it better due to former's laws and latter's inherent approval bonus + law slots), meaning you pick it up if you're a big blob with many systems. Some government type on the other hand could favor taller gameplay with less systems but other bonuses to compensate, and so on.

The best way to improve dictatorships would be to give them the pros and cons that are similar to real world dictatorships today. Moderns day dictatorships extract heavy tolls on the populace to make the dictator happy. This could be demonstrated by giving dictatorships a bonus to industry, manpower and science while resluting in maluses to ship stats/morale bonuses and ground troop performance to represent the fake happiness that the population is often forced to display (troops more liklely to lose morale and defect).

In essence, leave the limited laws in place but make the goverment more reflective of what a dictatorship is really all about. 

Dictatorship is definitely the worst of the bunch, even worse than Federation. Being able to choose your party isn't a very good main ability since Federation and Republic already get something similar through rigged elections (albeit with Influence or Dust cost and less certain), and more importantly how party EXP gain works actually discourages a Dictatorship from changing their starting party. Other government types can simultaneously level up multiple parties, whereas Dictatorship only levels up their main party, meaning that if you change it you're essentially starting from scratch with only first tier laws unlocked. 

Add the very limited number of law slots, lowest number of laws to choose from, lowest approval due to lack of represented parties, lowest number of senator abilities and the fact that for some reason Dictatorship costs the most Influence to reform into I can't really think of any situation where picking the government type would ever be warranted. There were few rare exceptions in previous versions where some faction quests required increasing certain party popularity in several systems (through propaganda or natural means) but as far as I'm aware they all got changed. 

Also to add insult to injury the only faction to start with Dictatorship are Horatio, but their own playstyle already makes Dictatorship redundant. Since you remove other pops by splicing them you're left with one race empire with all pops already having Ecologist leaning sentiment. Secondly Horatio are kind of pigeonholed into staying Ecologist due to importance of growing new pops and the fact they get two unique laws from the party, so they don't really have a reason for switching to some other party and lose Ecologists altogether. Even if you pick another government type much later on and somehow lose Ecologists as your main party, it's not likely you're going to lose them altogether from your senate (due to all your pops favoring Ecologists) and by that point in the game the usefulness of the sticky law has greatly diminished.

If Dictatorship and other government types are going to get balance changes, I think it's also very important to note what kind of empires start with the said government types and whether their unique powers benefit the faction in any way.

2) I completely agree with you here. I think, the unique feature of the Federation (+1 to your colonization limit) is too weak.

jhell wrote:

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, 1 and 2 are definitely issues we'd like to tackle through the balance mod at some point. 3 we will have to investigate, but I love your idea of bidding marks up, I don't know if we'll be able to do it but we'll assess the cost and see if it can fit in our schedule.

About Vodyani AI, it seems indeed to be less reliable than other AIs. We have some tweaks planned for Vodyani and we'll have to see how the AI plays after these. In any case, improving the AI is always on our to-do list!

Best,

Thank you for the reply, and apologies for some egregious spelling and grammar in parts of my post (made some edits). Just got out of an obnoxious heatwave down in here in Aus, and I haven't slept.

Looking forward to future updates!

As another note in this thread, it is my wish that we learn more/see the lost ;) I just think the Academy Quest finishes on too much of a cliff-hanger, but that may just be me...

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback, 1 and 2 are definitely issues we'd like to tackle through the balance mod at some point. 3 we will have to investigate, but I love your idea of bidding marks up, I don't know if we'll be able to do it but we'll assess the cost and see if it can fit in our schedule.

About Vodyani AI, it seems indeed to be less reliable than other AIs. We have some tweaks planned for Vodyani and we'll have to see how the AI plays after these. In any case, improving the AI is always on our to-do list!

Best,