vahouth wrote:

1) Colonize only a single planet when the Ark is anchored, not all available at once. This combined with Alms for dust is HUGE!

Alms for dust is actually something you have to use when you cannot leech, and it´s not huge at all. It is indeed very very slow and painful.

vahouth wrote:

2) Leechers that are engaged in space combat, should not be able to continue leeching that turn.

That would not have any big impact whatsoever. Besides if they were engaged by a competent fleet they will either die or retreat. So I don´t see much of a point in this restriction.

vahouth wrote:

3) Arks should move at half the speed of every other ship.

Sorry but no, they are already really slow. As speed shares a slot with their eco modules, you always put the eco modules. I think this would only work as balance on smaller maps. As maps get bigger you would have Arks stuck in space forever.

vahouth wrote:

4) I'm not sure yet about this, but I think that the anchoring of an Ark should take more than one turn. Like creating an outpost but at twice the speed.

Instant Actions on the Ark are fine. If it were like creating an outpost the Vodyani would not be viable. Also considering all current factors - it would just take a few enemy ships to kill the Vodyani in this case.

I understand that I sound very negative, I just do not agree with your points. I think there are a few very valid suggestions in this thread. Now if those were to be implemented - after such implementation has happened and the faction is still too strong compared to the others then your list would be something to look at - except for the second point. So I think there might be some potential just not at this stage.

vahouth wrote:

Sorry I made a mistake. I meant the improvement Holy Proliferation, not Alms for Dust. Oops!

I've already had an Ark anchor itself on a 5 planet system where I could colonize 4 at once. 1 turn later that system had 8 pop thanks to Holy Proliferation!

Why isn't this huge? I haven't seen any other race expand that quickly.

Right at the start? I´ve never seen that - getting all those early colonization planets in one place you must have been extremely lucky.

I don´t think Holy Proliferation is worth it until a lot later in the game. Early you need every resource you can get to get your next Ark out. As with any 4x game you need to get the snowball rolling. Most of the FIDS come from improvements to a system, which take time to build. So the earlier you can pump out that second Ark the better. Sure in the short-term you will have a couple more fids if you boost your pop instead of breaking out another Ark - but in the longterm you will lose out big time.

It´s the exact same phenomenon in the Civ series for example. While it may seem like you are winning the game for a very long time when you are pumping out all those wonders in 1 big city - you will eventually lose, because your enemies are making more cities, and they do not pay off until much much later in the game. Exception if you are getting military rush and that extra production pays off right away - I meant in terms of Science production in particular, and other related things.

After the clarifications here and in our PM exchange, I would like to say publicly that I feel like many of these issues may actually not be working as designed.

Sir-Rogers wrote:

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

Suggestion #1

As far as arks are concerned: Disabling their ability to attack would be a solution,  but may be a little to drastic. If blockades work like they did in ES1, without any requirement for fleet power, a single scout could blockade a whole ark ship. I think it would be better to simply reduce their ability to actually deal damage to enemy fleets. Floating around with 6000 hitpoints would matter a lot less if they didn't have the guns to kill anything other than a lone scout. Reducing the number of weapon slots to, say, one twin broadside mount for kinetics, could actually open up additional design space: Granting arks more module slots by upgrading their system level, granting them more slots and access to weapon types through a "combat ark" research in era 3, etc.

The hitpoints do not matter that much if they face a fleet with enough damage potential. Of course I cannot make two humans fleets and test-face them as you can only play on side in Early Access - but I do believe that a full Cravers fleet at the start of the game will defeat your initial Ark. Which is not hard for the Cravers to produce, so you might get wiped before being able to push out a second Ark - thus already nerfing the current version I think is not a great idea for this reason. They need to be strong to protect you from defeat, but they should just do that - protect, not be on the offensive. Unless of course there could be a later Era tech that would allow them to do so. Though at this stage other options are preferable. Such as an actual fleet.

Well, I was exaggerating a bit for effect here. Of course, an arc needs to be able to defend itself against more than just a scout, but I don't think it should be able to wipe out a full fleet. Survive against it for several turns, but not easily wipe it out.

In any case, the whole issue of the ark being able to defend itself is moot when said craver fleet can just hit "ground invasion" the instant it enters the system, and wipe out your ark that way. That actually happened to me live on camera during my release day stream, and I was less than pleased that this was a viable action.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

Suggestion #2

I completely agree. While the ark's space combat abilities are overpowering in the early eras, their defensive ground combat abilities are a joke. I do not see how a few transports ships can invade an ark that could wipe down an entire combat fleet. Similarly, starting a ground invasion is completely pointless as the Vodyani.

Yes as I said one should not be able to ground invade them. On the offensive though Ark make for great invaders - due to their size they reduce enemy manpower by an alarm rate per turn. So it´s actually a fabulous idea to start a ground invasion as the Vodyani ... once the enemy manpower has been reduced to nothing. Which on normal speed takes 2-3 turns.

I certainly didn't mean that it isn't feasible to invade as Vodyani. They can be quite good at it with the strategy you describe. But they do not gain anything out of it. The only time they benefit more from invading than from leeching is when there is no better system to attach an ark to.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

Suggestion #3

I'm not sure this is a problem that needs to be fixed on the Vodyani side.

Suggestion #4

See the beginning of my post.

Yes after some careful consideration I´m not so sure about #4 ... however the approval does feel too strong for the Voldyani. At a certain point I always have all my systems guaranteed on Ecstatic unless there are some really bad anomalies on them. That just as a gut feeling feels to strong as you can expand endlessly. Especially if we determine the size of the game universe to be big and not small. Beyond your starting area of maybe 3-5 decent systems expanding without penalties becomes too strong. As every other faction is limited as this point. As you mentioned there are only limited ways to deal with approval, but that really hits the other factions hard and not the Vodyani at all.

As I mentioned in the PM to you, I am not sure this is working as intended. Perhaps I am overlooking something, but I can not find anything in any of the Vodyani descriptions or traits that indicates they should be immune to Overpopulation Malus and Over Colonization Malus to Approval. This may very well be a weird bug caused by their Ark Ships not being exactly the same as Colonies. I'll try to find time to look into the xml files to see if this is intentional.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

Suggestion #5

Another issue where I think the fix should be in larger gameplay than specifically for the Vodyani. If both diversity or uniformity in political ideologies and population types offered different advantages, then the other empires would not be inherently disadvantaged by the Vodyani tendency to be ruled by a powerful religious party.

It´s not the fact that they do not become diverse. I think there is an issue with Pacifists at this stage which I have not posted about yet as it requires more careful examination and testing - Midgame I always have the pacifists take over after having defeated a number of enemies. Now I do not know whether this is due to forced truces, finished conquests ( resulting in peace - ironically, since the oponent has been wiped out ) or the massively increased dust production. Nevertheless having a majority of your population root for pacifism after you just caused a few massive genocides does not seem right.

My point was that ... no matter what political faction they are taken over does not affect them at all. The Religious party has the weakest bonus in the game ... you want the militarists to take over as soon as possible, to get you into full ecstatic. Now by the time the Pacifists get to take over - you have all the buildings to keep you at ecstatic without the need for laws, and then the pacifists laws will boost the eco bonus you get even more. It´s like each new party just helps the snowballing. The political system works 300% in the Vodyani´s favour. Let´s put this in perspective:

Sophons

In most games in the first election the Pacifists take over and you lose your really precious tech-ahead ability. This ability is crucial to keep the Sophons competitive with the other races. I´m not sure I have actually ever managed to not have Pacifists take over? My memory is not the best so I´m not sure here. But this hurts them really badly.

Cravers

Elections... that time of the year when your approval hits bottom line. Elections hurt the Cravers the most of all, resulting in huge approval penalties. This is their weakspot, and this approval penalty can really kill your empire with the current consequences for your populace being unhappy and/or in a rebellion against you.

Lumeris

Alright the Lumeris have no real issue with politics, they work well for the Lumeris just as it does for the Vodyani. However it is my personal opinion that with the current game mechanics in place they are by far the weakest faction - so they kind of need it. But that´s something for another topic. Once the marketplace gets in the game this will change I guess.

You seem to be playing the political game very well.

Regarding the Sophons: I agree that the "Research an era ahead" bonus is vital to them. In fact, I think it should be part of their affinity, not a law that anybody can get access to if they get enough scientist support.

Regarding the Cravers: I am not entirely sure if Dictatorships work as intended right now. The approval penalty I get after "elections" often seems quite arbitrary. Not to mention that, in my opinion, the entire game is missing abilities to influence your population by force and propaganda, which would go a long way to offsetting the approval penalty for dissent in dictatorships.

Regarding both Lumeris and Vodyani: I need to do further testing, since the current feedback during elections makes it difficult to judge, but I do not know whether or not Federation and Republic elections work the way they are supposed to. If they do, that may explain why the Vodyani do so well at getting the right parties in power, given that the Federation claims to have "powerful actions to influence elections" in its description.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:

Suggestion #6

I can agree to this. All the FIDSI modules are really powerful. I would prefer versions that start weaker than now, and improve as you level up your Ark. Furthermore, each new ark starting out empty, and then being -individually- outfitted with modules would help this, as you wouldn't immediately start with a bunch of FIDSI modules on a new ark (and it would also make each Ark a unique and worthy asset, instead of just a copy-pasted large ship with the ability to generate FIDSI)

That is a VERY interesting suggestion. Having each Ark be individual, and unlock more modules as they level up. In which case you need at a bare minimum two modules to start with, though I would suggest making it atleast three so that customizationi is still possible. The module slots could have different effectiveness. I think 50% for the 2-3 base slots is necessary, but the bonus slots could have a reduced effectivenesss - like let´s say 25%. I´m sorry I cannot offer a better opinion on this - as it is a complete gamechanger, and to propose proper numbers the idea would have to be tested.

I agree that starting with full 4 modules is powerful, but I do not think it is unbalanced. I still believe that the core issue lies at the exponential growth rate of your Arks.

Since the Arks get more expensive every time, the growth rate should not be exponential. If I understand correctly, though, it was for you because you used your arks to help with leeching, so that you could leech more and more systems at the same time.

Sir-Rogers wrote:

vahouth wrote:

Sorry I made a mistake. I meant the improvement Holy Proliferation, not Alms for Dust. Oops!

I've already had an Ark anchor itself on a 5 planet system where I could colonize 4 at once. 1 turn later that system had 8 pop thanks to Holy Proliferation!

Why isn't this huge? I haven't seen any other race expand that quickly.

Right at the start? I´ve never seen that - getting all those early colonization planets in one place you must have been extremely lucky.

I don´t think Holy Proliferation is worth it until a lot later in the game. Early you need every resource you can get to get your next Ark out. As with any 4x game you need to get the snowball rolling. Most of the FIDS come from improvements to a system, which take time to build. So the earlier you can pump out that second Ark the better. Sure in the short-term you will have a couple more fids if you boost your pop instead of breaking out another Ark - but in the longterm you will lose out big time.

It´s the exact same phenomenon in the Civ series for example. While it may seem like you are winning the game for a very long time when you are pumping out all those wonders in 1 big city - you will eventually lose, because your enemies are making more cities, and they do not pay off until much much later in the game. Exception if you are getting military rush and that extra production pays off right away - I meant in terms of Science production in particular, and other related things.

Yes, right at the start! That system had 2 tundras and 2 tropicals and an Ash. It doesn't seem as a rare combination of planets, but maybe you're right, I felt lucky.

Now if Holy Proliferation is worth it or not, in that particular case, it was a mere 2 turns delay for my next Ark since it costs 250 Essence to get one more pop and I was making 180 a turn, so it didn't feel as much of a setback. 

BTW on another note...

What are your thoughts about the Vodyani being immune to overpopulation but suffer greater penalties for overextension?

I kind of view them as the opposite of the Cravers in this regard.

I just did some testing, and I am not convinced that Federation elections do not work the way they are supposed to. According to the Federation description, systems with higher levels should get more representatives, but all my systems, ranging from level 1 to level 3, received the same number of representatives.

Something in the political system is clearly not working as intended. I have no idea how deep the rabbit hole of this particular bug might go.

As another example: I played a Sophon game on fast speed earlier today. During the first elections, I had accidentally left the Pacifists selected with Official Support enabled. Even though they only had a 15%-20% support in my empire at that point, the supposedly small boost from Official Support catapulted them all the way up to above 60% in the senate. That does not strike me as what should be happening, either. And it was no fluke, as after that, I experimented, and I as long as I had only those two parties around, I could basically swing the election massively in either direction. At that point, I started feeling like "official support" amounted to what the nazis did for the elections from 1933 to 1938: Use ballots that only have a "yes" option.

I'll see about starting a bug report and moving the pictures there, and then just linking it from this thread.

I don't quite agree it is entirely off topic, though, since broken elections may be part of the reason why the political gameplay works out the way it does with the Vodyani.

Regarding the Cravers: I am not entirely sure if Dictatorships work as intended right now. The approval penalty I get after "elections" often seems quite arbitrary. Not to mention that, in my opinion, the entire game is missing abilities to influence your population by force and propaganda, which would go a long way to offsetting the approval penalty for dissent in dictatorships.

You can also go Religious and get the Content law. I'm fairly certain that it scales with systems/non-Cravers.

It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't have Forced Truce in the game, then it'd be easier to just wipe out a race. 

Honestly, I would rather it not be fixed so that you can have a big Empire. Thematically, they are supposed to be destroying worlds not colonizing them. Mechanically, it would also be nice to have them be more divergent. Maybe just have a few systems, but a massive fleet. 

Change the Trait to

• Eternal War
  • Increase your happiness by X times (# of Fleets - # of Systems; if there are more Systems than Fleets Decrease your happiness by this amount).
  • Cannot bypass System occupied by an opponent that you are at war with. 

The cannot bypass is just a random idea. But thought it was cool encouraging the opponents to over-expand to create a buffer zone to deal with them which then gives them more systems which then takes a hit on their happiness.)

vahouth wrote:

ironBlue wrote:

• The Vod get their free minimum pop for each colonized world, but each pop increase only gives you one more pop just like other civs.  Now you can significantly lower the essence cost for Proliferation, giving Vod players more control over their pop growth while slowing down the snowballing issue. 

Proliferation's cost should not decrease IMO. Depending on the system you use it, you can gain from 1 to 5 pop for a mere 250 essence! It is already too good right now.

Yeah, I think each pop increase applying for free to every colonized planet is the crazy part for sure.  I was proposing that we do away with that.

ironBlue wrote:

vahouth wrote:

ironBlue wrote:

• The Vod get their free minimum pop for each colonized world, but each pop increase only gives you one more pop just like other civs.  Now you can significantly lower the essence cost for Proliferation, giving Vod players more control over their pop growth while slowing down the snowballing issue. 

Proliferation's cost should not decrease IMO. Depending on the system you use it, you can gain from 1 to 5 pop for a mere 250 essence! It is already too good right now.

Yeah, I think each pop increase applying for free to every colonized planet is the crazy part for sure.  I was proposing that we do away with that.

Oh, I see. 

At least it is a good thing that its cost scales according to the population count.

Question to everone regarding the Ark template, as we're currently limited to only one.

I'd prefer being able to have multiple Ark templates, to better control what each is focused on.

Ark 1 might focus on science.

Ark 2 would focus on dust production.

etc..

Right now all Arks share the same template, which makes it slightly annoying to keep track of who's doing what, particularly if you'd switch often.

Feywynter wrote:

Right now all Arks share the same template, which makes it slightly annoying to keep track of who's doing what, particularly if you'd switch often.

I´m pretty sure that it´s just an EA oversight. The Ark should probably be a hull type.

I haven't yet started a game with the Vodyani but I'm hearing they have a very low growth rate?

What's your take on that?

Sir-Rogers wrote:

Balance Suggestion #1 - Do not allow Arks to initiate battles

The biggest strength of the Vodyani are their Arks. They are simply overpowered in their current form. Once you get to pump out your second Ark, which you can retrofit properly - you can decimate any enemy fleet short of a size 6 Craver fleet. A simple way to fix this is to not allow them to iniate battles, I mean they are a big giant floating fortress, any fleet should be able to dodge an Ark.

Balance Suggestion #2 - No Approval Problems

The Vodyani have no approval problems. They do not get the overcolonization or overpopulation modifier. That´s something that should be fixed.

I know this probably did not come up during testing because they can only make so many arks ... but when you have 7 arks by midgame where others have only 3-4 systems, and you do not have to deal with approval issues ... it becomes a big balance issue

Balance Suggestion #3 - Re-examine Leeching

Yes I know there is a cap in place somewhere, but you can leech too much for way too long before it takes effect. There has to be a harsher limit on how much you can leech away enemy population.

I think all of these issues are symptoms of the same problem: Arks are supposed to be Vodyani versions of colonies but they are too easy to spam compared to colonies. If Ark costs were balanced, I think allowing Arks to initiate battles would be balanced because you are giving up the production of an entire system for the turns the Ark is being moved. If the costs of Arks 3-7 were significantly cranked up I don't think any of those problems would be problems anymore.

vahouth wrote:

I haven't yet started a game with the Vodyani but I'm hearing they have a very low growth rate?

What's your take on that?

They do. The growth rate seems to be well balanced, I have nothing to add on that end, as it is offset by the economic growth you get from colonizing new systems.

firefoxed wrote:

I think all of these issues are symptoms of the same problem: Arks are supposed to be Vodyani versions of colonies but they are too easy to spam compared to colonies. If Ark costs were balanced, I think allowing Arks to initiate battles would be balanced because you are giving up the production of an entire system for the turns the Ark is being moved. If the costs of Arks 3-7 were significantly cranked up I don't think any of those problems would be problems anymore.

If costs were jacked up that high, sure the problems wouldn´t exist because the faction would not be playable. The problem is not in the cost. The cost as well as its increase is fine. As soon as your population resources that you leech on run out you are in trouble. The cost as well as the increase in cost seem to be okay. So is the time it takes for you to get your first 1-2 arks out. The problem comes after when you can spam leechers to get an exponential growth.

Your first Ark takes 20 turns of full leeching to get. It´s a little slow and seems balanced. If the cost were. Increasing the cost by a minimum of 3x and up to 7x would mean that the first Ark could only be built by turn 80 (give or take) - by which you will have probably lost the game before ever getting to build that Ark.

How are you guys getting them started. My first game my scouts hit pirates and I could never find leech targets and would up with 1 arc still on t50. 

I'd like to test them but id like to know how you're getting these starts in the first place(tech/builds/arc weapons)

Eji1700 wrote:

How are you guys getting them started. My first game my scouts hit pirates and I could never find leech targets and would up with 1 arc still on t50. 

I'd like to test them but id like to know how you're getting these starts in the first place(tech/builds/arc weapons)

The odds are confusing. It shows you at 33% but you will actually win the fight. The 2nd fight you will kill the pirate. 1on1 with your leecher. You need to chose close combat since they are equipped with kinetics.

Yeah, the odds are screwy atm. You can definitely beat one pirate with a Leecher. 

You need to find a minor faction, or even another player, ASAP, to get that second ark. Also any of the aggressive minors pump out pirates after the first 1/5th or so, which I found was relatively easy to answer with a couple close-range military ships equipped with a leecher tech to add to your oms.

@Sir-Rogers

#1I found that attacking with arks, provided you aren't fighting something so weak it can't shoot you, wasn't too problematic early-midgame because you'd have to be concerned with your health (something you don't have to worry about as much on defence with the long-range option), so I avoided too much fighting, and mainly only used them as invaders because of their power there, thoughts? Late game they were pretty strong, but I felt mitigated by traveling needs during which they aren't doing anything else, but then I didn't equip better engines on them.

#2 I mainly agree here, but with a caveat, that I think only one modifier should apply to them: overcolonization. My logic is that lorewise their population seems very controlled, but also that it seems like overpopulation would be trickier to manage with the mechanics in place (population applies to all planets in a system), and it seems reasonable for them to get something to offset the fact that various arks can be in transit and not producing at any point in time. Either that, or actually start them out with lower approval than regular factions (minutely), and have approval bonuses affect them only by half.

#3 I'll agree with this, since I never hit a cap, although I tended to move on as I pushed and took planets, I'd rather encourage that kind of behaviour than allow a good minor faction placement to allow you a constant supply uncontested for 50+ turns.

#4 An easyish potential fix is making leeching require war without their base law, so that you're encouraged to either keep religious up to max, or to be at war, to feed your essence needs. Not 100% sure it'd be enough to exactly equal the other factions dilemmas, but it seems okay.

#5 I did find the leech module expensive. I felt the industry booster was, more than anything, to counteract the fact Vodyani have much slower accumulation and value out of +x/pop researches, but it could probably be scaled down a bit. Or they could gate those modules per their strength using a strategic resource pre-requisite.

UnderDarkLord wrote:

#1I found that attacking with arks, provided you aren't fighting something so weak it can't shoot you, wasn't too problematic early-midgame because you'd have to be concerned with your health (something you don't have to worry about as much on defence with the long-range option), so I avoided too much fighting, and mainly only used them as invaders because of their power there, thoughts? Late game they were pretty strong, but I felt mitigated by traveling needs during which they aren't doing anything else, but then I didn't equip better engines on them.

The actual opposite is true. They are strongest early game when they can fight uncontested and are better equipped than everything else. Now I cannot comment the the super lategame when the fleetsize allows you to add other ships to them due to turn limit. If you´re worried about their health you did not have shields equipped on them. Also there is the titanium module to regenerate after the fight. Try equipping them with lasers and shields and tell me if you are getting different results from before. If you aren´t then I don´t know what else you would be doing wrong.

UnderDarkLord wrote:

#2 I mainly agree here, but with a caveat, that I think only one modifier should apply to them: overcolonization. My logic is that lorewise their population seems very controlled, but also that it seems like overpopulation would be trickier to manage with the mechanics in place (population applies to all planets in a system), and it seems reasonable for them to get something to offset the fact that various arks can be in transit and not producing at any point in time. Either that, or actually start them out with lower approval than regular factions (minutely), and have approval bonuses affect them only by half.

I´m perfectly happy with only over-colonization applying as long as something hits them. I mean I do not want them to be completely nerfed, this step might not be necessary at all if the Ark production becomes more controllable.

UnderDarkLord wrote:

#4 An easyish potential fix is making leeching require war without their base law, so that you're encouraged to either keep religious up to max, or to be at war, to feed your essence needs. Not 100% sure it'd be enough to exactly equal the other factions dilemmas, but it seems okay.

I fail to see your point - how this would change anything. There is zero downside to being at war, and it would not fit lorewise. The few political power you have to spend to be at war would not balance things. Besides it might screw up the game for most players as they wouldn´t be able to push out an Ark until forever. Because gainining the political power to declare war to get your first Ark simply takes too much time. The current timing as to when you can push out your first Ark is well balanced. The same for the second one. After that you can exponentially steamroll - which has to be fixed.

UnderDarkLord wrote: 

#5 I did find the leech module expensive. I felt the industry booster was, more than anything, to counteract the fact Vodyani have much slower accumulation and value out of +x/pop researches, but it could probably be scaled down a bit. Or they could gate those modules per their strength using a strategic resource pre-requisite.

The modules are essential to their game-play. You can get unlucky and not have any Strategic Resources in your starting systems. I have had it happen in a number of games. In which case you would sit on a single ship all game as the Vodyani, be very frustrated and lose. You cannot pin a strategic resource cost to core requirements to play a race.

I haven't got overly much to add to this that hasn't been said by someone already, but I've found that the Vodyani are especially vulnerable to poor starts with late tier planets or no other empires in their starting constellation (as unlikely as it can be.) It causes them to be severely underpowered lategame. Furthermore, it seems in ground battles, Vod get utterly destroyed each and everytime regardless of improvements etc. The fact that it destroys Arcs outright is a bit of a design flaw in my opinion. It may be better to have it give the Arc a large debuff which would make it easier to take out in space combat ie. 'Under Crewed due to ground losses - there's simply not enough crewmen to man all the guns and action stations' or something. I'll leave the technical stuff to the professionals. Perhaps a buff to the actual ground fighting forces' capabilities?

It was really wired I had a big fleet Guarding my Ark. An enemy came with just 3 ships they ground attacked my planet before I could do anything and Ruined my Ark. After that I was able to stomp them with my fleet the next turn, but it was a pain to recover the Ark and wait until the dead Hero (assigned to the planet) is healed.

ProTech wrote:

It was really wired I had a big fleet Guarding my Ark. An enemy came with just 3 ships they ground attacked my planet before I could do anything and Ruined my Ark. After that I was able to stomp them with my fleet the next turn, but it was a pain to recover the Ark and wait until the dead Hero (assigned to the planet) is healed.

This should not have happened. If there is a fleet orbiting the planet, you should not invade.

I would think that they should be affected by overexpansion disapproval. 

Also, something to make arks not used offensively would be fine.

They other change that could work would be to add scaling versions of their ark modules. Perhaps all 4 ark support modules start out equipped (instead of only 2 of 4 slots), but each only provides a 25% bonus. This can be upgraded to 50% later (and possibly upgraded again even higher if they need a lategame buff, which they might)

Leeching seems fine - the problem is more then incompetence of the AI / minors than the mechanic.

If arks can't be used offensively the Vodyani are pretty weak vs other races.

The issue is that Ark strength currently isn't very well balanced.   At the same time, since most races can't invade an enemy planet early on yet could destroy a nerfed ark things become tricky.

Ark strength in early game definitely needs tuned.   Maybe an early, race specific tech that limits ark movement until researched?   Said tech could also perhaps unlock some of the ark's era 1 modules.

Verlux wrote:

I haven't got overly much to add to this that hasn't been said by someone already, but I've found that the Vodyani are especially vulnerable to poor starts with late tier planets or no other empires in their starting constellation (as unlikely as it can be.)

You will always have a minor next to you. And as I was replying to your post I though to myself .. challenge accepted. I started a Vodyani game without using leeching at all - so the only way for me to get new Arks was to convert dust to the holy resource. The start was a bit painful and instead of having the second Ark by turn 20 I had it at turn 42, which was still earlier than I expected tbh. After that it was all pretty easy as usual. I would post graphs, but the savegame became corrupted and couldn´t be loaded anymore.

I did it to prove a point that they can actually keep up without leeching - now add leeching to the equation and you´re set. It was exclusively no leeching even when other empires were attacking me etc... I kept it in the "what if they were completely isolated" frame of the game.

turn 42 is way after other races will have expanded, though. i think in that case you are leaning on that the AI doesn't seem to understand how to be decent at combat in era II, and thus can't kill an ark no matter what. i am not sure that says as much about the Vodyani as that the ai is still wip. i've never lost a combat in era II.   i've done one vodyani playthrough so far but i didn't even find the minor in my constellation until turn 15 or so, and it was at least 7 or so turns of travel away from my ark.  There wern't any majors.  Your ability to leech scales enormously with the galaxy settings...   Fundamentally i think the Vodyani need some thought to scaling more linearly in the early game.  Maybe like a basic essence generation that's reduced as you get more arks.

i think the op makes good points in general about the vodyani though.  Arks shouldn't be such enormous power houses. They probably shouldn't screen other fleets, either, even if they cant attack; that way they cant screen leechers.

I have mixed feelings about the Ark modules.  You get enough slots that there is not really customization(other than 'which module to i leave out?' - always food) and the bonuses are powerful enough that it is physically painful to put a Sainted Speed or something in there.

I feel Ark Modules should probably be their own special module category, and you should probably only get 2 of them or so. That way you can take one that is 'mandatory' to you, such as Industry, and still have on you pick based on circumstance - such as science for peace or dust for war or influence for 'DEAR GOD WHY IS THE INFLUENCE CIRCLE SO BIG'.

Vodyani AI also has a major flaw in that it doesnt refit Arks and the Arks dont seem to start with anything in the side gun slots.  The default design having side guns would help the Vodyani AI significantly.

DA_Corporation wrote:

I think leeching should directly interact with food. The more you leech, the more food get's siphoned from the system. Leech to much and you kill off the population and eventually kill them off entirely. This way you could have 'harvest' systems that you could just have a fleet chilling over. Leech too much, you kill off the population and dry out the entire system.

That is, actually, what should be happening. If it does not then either the system is producing ridiculous amounts of food (Which I found to be surprisingly easy), or this is a bug.

In theory, wiping out your source along with military resistance should limit your leeching potential. In practice, that falls apart with how abundant food can be, and once you hit the point where you can just park an overpoweringly large fleet or an ark in orbit for protection.

Now, let me look at each suggestions in turn:

Suggestion #1

As far as arks are concerned: Disabling their ability to attack would be a solution,  but may be a little to drastic. If blockades work like they did in ES1, without any requirement for fleet power, a single scout could blockade a whole ark ship. I think it would be better to simply reduce their ability to actually deal damage to enemy fleets. Floating around with 6000 hitpoints would matter a lot less if they didn't have the guns to kill anything other than a lone scout. Reducing the number of weapon slots to, say, one twin broadside mount for kinetics, could actually open up additional design space: Granting arks more module slots by upgrading their system level, granting them more slots and access to weapon types through a "combat ark" research in era 3, etc.

Suggestion #2

I completely agree. While the ark's space combat abilities are overpowering in the early eras, their defensive ground combat abilities are a joke. I do not see how a few transports ships can invade an ark that could wipe down an entire combat fleet. Similarly, starting a ground invasion is completely pointless as the Vodyani.

Suggestion #3

I'm not sure this is a problem that needs to be fixed on the Vodyani side. I personally find that there are precious few ways to manage approval. Infinite Supermarkets and Colonial Rights, and a few technologies that reduce Overpopulation and Overcolonization, Kalgeros if you are lucky, and a few laws. I'd like to see more ways to interact with approval, so that the other factions can better benefit from high approval to compensate for the Vodyani not worrying about it.

Suggestion #4

See the beginning of my post.

Suggestion #5

Another issue where I think the fix should be in larger gameplay than specifically for the Vodyani. If both diversity or uniformity in political ideologies and population types offered different advantages, then the other empires would not be inherently disadvantaged by the Vodyani tendency to be ruled by a powerful religious party.

Suggestion #6

I can agree to this. All the FIDSI modules are really powerful. I would prefer versions that start weaker than now, and improve as you level up your Ark. Furthermore, each new ark starting out empty, and then being -individually- outfitted with modules would help this, as you wouldn't immediately start with a bunch of FIDSI modules on a new ark (and it would also make each Ark a unique and worthy asset, instead of just a copy-pasted large ship with the ability to generate FIDSI)