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,