Oh my bad, I did not actually understand your first post .

You're right about this, they should change the modifier accordingly. You will still benefit from the full omniscience modifier after a while, but it definitely does not feel right and will hurt the early game.

It would be nice if you could add an idea about this in the idea section, I'll definitely support you (even if I will not bring much points ).

By "worse in a big system", you mean the more players there is, the worse they are ?

I'm first at any score (in a 6 player game, normal everything).

I think for 6 players, Sophons are OP. Not "a little OP..." but completly OP. I will wait 8 players games to be sure though.

Their only problem is production and dust, but it's easy to completly canonstart and make those both things exactly your strong points :

New game, then program your science with this :

- Xenolinguistic (Econ & Trade quadrant, era 1)

- Plasma metallurgy (Econ & Trade, era 1)

- Multitrade management (E&T, era 2)

- Galactic commodities (E&T, era 2)

- Pev-scale accelerator (Science & Explo, era 2)

Then your choosing, I go personnaly for

- Botanical scanning (Empire & Dev era 2)

- Baryonic shielding (Science & Explo, era 2) --> this will help to get Compact warp methods later, which is nice because sophon ships will be superfast. Plus this is one dust (meager) / industry (hot) planet that you may need once you find the specs.

- Any planet spec I can grab.

Produce one probe ship then drone networks and assign your governor to your planet. Go to turn 2.

Your first mission is to go probe the closest system susterrean anomalies only on planets you can colonize.

Then if you find Titanium and / or Hyperium, colonize that planet. During the time you are colonizing, you are gaining those titanium / hyperium (not sure if that's a bug ???).

Choose military at Sophon Quest.

At turn 6-7, you can sell any Titanium / Hyperium / Whatever stuff you probe, go for that.

Use your probe ships to probe & sell anything they find.

When you find Pev-scale, buyout drone network and queue the science planet spec, moneyclick the colony, pass a turn.

The hero should level up, go for optimal operation expert (+1 / +2 per dude on the planet). This would be turn 9, you're free to pick a tech then construct cerebral reality & pass a turn...

A few moments later, you've got a second planet, go for a second cerebral reality there (buyout if you can). The hero should level at some point, go for the dust.

Now, you have a somehow good base for industry & dust to help to construct anything you have before the others, having dust-payed specs each planet you settle which get you a clear advantage in early FIDS over anyone that will find those at turn 20-25-30, and not being very agile with those before turns 40-45-50.

I like the comparison with Stargate's Asgard, but I even prefer seeing them as the premise of Iain Banks' Culture (after all they are creating the first AI and can "contact" other civilizations).

The funny point during my playing session was that I actually got cravers as close neighboors, I really flipped out as I discovered that , it was the last thing I wanted. But in the end, I was lucky, they went the opposite direction to colonize their first world and were facing the united empire instead. Also, I was playing two-arms spiral galaxy and was the closest to the central systems, which made me able to colonize the key system linking the arm to the centre, they would not have liked me to close my borders. 

Funnily, they were not aggressive at all with me, I wonder whether this is because of the fact I could indeed deny them access to the centre of the galaxy, does anyone know wether the AI is taking this into account?

For Dust production, if you are lucky enough to begin with the pilgrims as second race on your own planet, the first law you pass should be the one raising Dust production (religious): this is definitely solving the problem.

But how do you explain that from turn 5 to 67 actually I'm #1 in all scores but one (which is dust, I forgot the religious law) ?

In any of my games ?

If they were the second worst people, I should have difficulties in one or another area, no ? Even with 6 guys ? Maybe be #2 at least somewhere ?

I end fighting factions that have specialties, but I'm better than them, each time : I think you don't know how to use science to cure all the problems you think they have, did you win some games with them ?

Try the first 20 turns with what I said, it should take you half an hour of your time, you will basically steamroll anyone (I think). At turn 20 I've got 3 planets, and from there, this is basically gameover for the AI (they will never rejoice).

At turn 67, I'm basically era 4 everywhere and constructing my first all era 4 weapons medium missile attack boats, which are 1 or 2 shoting anything due to the missiles' actual balance.

I was still only with 2 arks at turn 30 something even with a lumeris colonized planet next to me, which I could leech at will (all you can eat buffet), so I definitely think Vodyani will not be my favorite choice, although they are definitely interesting.

So far, Lumeris seem to stand out: I have not tried them yet, but their Dust bonus (one of the most important ressource early on as discussed earlier) and their +20 happiness bonus (my personal favorite parameter) look quite interesting! Also, based on the AI performance, they seem to be good during the exploration phase.

Frogsquadron wrote:

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:

Frogsquadron wrote:

Please note that science costs have been increased (and as a result, science progress has been slowed down) in last week's update. Have you played with the Sophons since?

All Era 5 @turn 40-something in a friday evening game :D

It's normal that with the new tree you'll reach later eras in single specific quadrants faster, the question behind this being "will doing this be a sustainable pursuit for the growth or your empire, or will it be hamper your development"?

We're yet to increase the cost of scientific victory, which should be a factor 5 up from normal costs.

I'd be curious if your feeling is similar if you try to progress your empire in a more balanced way, and not just jumping down the rabbit hole in one quadrant?

My bad, it was each quadrant Era 4. I got confused with the scientific mandatory law.

I did not rushed to Era 4, I may have been science-focused, but not terribly optimized. My progression felt "natural", but for the left quadrant (which contains late game stuff, for Sophons)

I remember I generated ~3k science at that moment, and the science victory items were around 6 turns f research: raising that by 5 would make them 30 turn each, I'm not sure about the 5. x2 for a start, maybe ?

I don't know if Sophon "have a problem", they are with the most easy factions to win a game :/

Cravers & Horatios have a problem. Particulary Cravers. Not only because of their approval btw. Mainly because of their production.

uriak wrote:

"I've got science covered, let's try to fix everything else". I've actually avoided settling into artic/snow and building the T2-T3 science upgrades because I was in dire need of industry, influence, dust... In the mean time I've found myself with plenty of T2-T3 modules that I could not afford.

So when playing Sophon, the logical way to play, is to ditch science focus and try to raise your other outputs, because, unlocking unnafordable techs is not useful on itself, this is what I call the anti pattern.

NB : I know currently science is accelerated, and this could change if all tech costs are significantly increased...

QUickly compare this to Lumeris/Horatio/UE : they can focus on their favorite resource, because dust can help them settle/buyout, influence gives powerful empire bonus and buyout for UE, and Horatio can quickly outgrow opponents. In all cases, they are encouraged to settle on planets that are already the most productive at the beginning.

Compared to Cravers, Sophons have no problems :)

I had the same Sophon problems though, and got through that hill, still focusing on science / exploration.

You can really rocket-start with them, if the first things you research are both T1 ressource extraction and if you can find quickly a planet for your people.

They comes with very handy small Production buildings. Then food T1. Then market and sell ressources to the market. Then dust paying, then the compagny HQ and makes dust with this, only starting to build ships there. Then science science science.

From there, you can start building wonders.

In my current game, if I remember well, I'm leading the scores on 5 / 6 in a normal game. The 6th score, I'm #2. Turn number is around 62.

I think they only need two-three things :

- one more exploration ship at the begining (they need those probes, I think they should be on-par with the Cravers that have those 2 exploration ships in the begining, for the probe deed).

- a tech of transforming science into production (like a planet spec).

- full tech tree spying, or stuff like that. They should have more information about the inventions : "they know something we don't know". The number of Empire that found a tech is nice, but I'd like to know each tech tree (that could be a special tech maybe ?)

Another tip: if you had the "loose the science party, my tech tree is broken" bug, save and reload, it should fix the tree.

The tech organisation is something to be changed : it is not normal that 1080 production buildings are in T1 or T2. I think things are not final here, there is a lot of balancing work left.

A possibility is going the way of the lumeris : have them output some industry from cold worlds, thus making early cold colonization interesting, and keeping a focus on science. You can indeed try to find a productive planet ASAP, but somehow, you'll agree that means playing sophon is about focusing on being efficient beside science and it goes against their description and core values.

This is because science on itself is only an enabling resource, and doesn't bear the multiplacative effect of others. 

Another thing I noticed is in one recent game (hard difficulty) My very first outpost was sieged by a lumeris explorer. My own explorer was weaker and it was impossible to build another ship in time to save the outpost.. GG. I've already reported that I found military ships cost a tad too high to my taste, (and with early T2-T

available, they become downright unaffordable) But with their starting ouput it's even worse for them. As a player I'm uncomfortable with small sized ships being costlier than most early game system upgrades... 

PS : not really tested the cravers so far ^^ Of the 6 available factions, 3 are dictator ships bent to replace people by themselves, one is an imperialist empire, I wanna play less war focused factions and that leaves only the Lums and the poor Sophons

Frogsquadron wrote:

Please note that science costs have been increased (and as a result, science progress has been slowed down) in last week's update. Have you played with the Sophons since?

All Era 5 @turn 40-something in a friday evening game :D

uriak wrote:

PS : not really tested the cravers so far ^^ Of the 6 available factions, 3 are dictator ships bent to replace people by themselves, one is an imperialist empire, I wanna play less war focused factions and that leaves only the Lums and the poor Sophons

UE have the exact opposite of replacing people with their own, they want to include anyone on their planets :)

I've played with them yesterday.. playing with SLOW setting. The rate  of science unlock is still staggering. I mean, it took maybe like 10 turns to build a T2 accelerator in my home system, while this was the time it would took me to unlock a T3 technology without any science upgrade in my systems :) 

I've ended with many upgrades I couldn't afford, but especially ships, even just to fend off those nasty pirates. (sophons explorers are quite weak)

@UE : is not homogenous/genocidal but still rather warfaring, isn't it ? 

I'll do more tests this week there are less... distractions to keep me away from ES2

You have a law to transform science in industry (somewhat).

The issue is that since technology only unlocks things to build or pay for and there are very few passive bonuses accessible with tech, teching faster than you can produce isn't a real advantage. It was kind of already the case with the vaulters in EL, which is why I didn't like playing them.

Look at Civ V/VI: technological development gives you quite a few passive or low-cost bonuses, for instance upgrading buildings or tile yields. Sophons need more of that.

Uriak, I'm amazed at your game design insight.

I've already talked a bit about how gameplay should convey the ideally convey the lore, and by this I mean it should encourage ways of playing that mirrors the universe of the game. In this regards, I'm puzzled by the current state of Sophons.

Lorewise and gameplay wise, they are the über scientists of the endless universe : geared toward progress at all cost. But this is not at all how I've felt playing them. I've read elsewhere that each faction would have a specific technology, but in my opinion, this is not enough in a game that tends to encourage players to expand in similar ways. So what is what I dub the sophon anti pattern ?

Their affinity is allowing them to find faster techs not yet researched, and their population bonus is +1 S/+3 S in cold. On itself it fits their theme, but this doesn't really work.

Sophons start on a industrial poor system, something they had to fix by modifying their boreal homeworld with +2I. But this is only the tip of the iceberg (  )

This affinity means they start out with a serious advantage when finding techs, but soon the player runs into a the proverbial industry wall. The way this game works, you need to increase your overral FIDSI output, and this is done with a blend of system colonization, total population and system upgrades. Simply put, the sophons science outruns by far their ability to upgrade and expand. Cold planets are by nature not very productive both in food and industry, meaning that if you want to actually expand and use your many techs unlocks, the sophons player is actively encouraged to settle in hotter and productive climates. This means that there science affinity roughtly translates into "I've got science covered, let's try to fix everything else". I've actually avoided settling into artic/snow and building the T2-T3 science upgrades because I was in dire need of industry, influence, dust... In the mean time I've found myself with plenty of T2-T3 modules that I could not afford.

So when playing Sophon, the logical way to play, is to ditch science focus and try to raise your other outputs, because, unlocking unnafordable techs is not useful on itself, this is what I call the anti pattern.

NB : I know currently science is accelerated, and this could change if all tech costs are significantly increased...

QUickly compare this to Lumeris/Horatio/UE : they can focus on their favorite resource, because dust can help them settle/buyout, influence gives powerful empire bonus and buyout for UE, and Horatio can quickly outgrow opponents. In all cases, they are encouraged to settle on planets that are already the most productive at the beginning.

Just for information, I found all the things in the science tree at the begining of the turn 154. 6 player game, normal difficulty, normal everything.

Mind you I'm not considering the viability of Sophons (I feel they are too weak especially in early aggressive encounters, but that's not the issue). My observation is more than their affinity currently feels like more "not focusing too much on science, it's taken care off" rather "the mad science powerhouse". This because on itself science doesn't lead to other stats progression, even more science, without the other FIDSI legs, and cold planets are a not too attractive proposition, making Sophon affinity disappointing.

The way I see it you could try at least 3 different kinds of fixes for this situation.

- more "pure science" unlocks, aka things that benefits your empire just by being discovered - or a small fee. Planetary colonization and some movement bonus enter this category but aren't enough

- change their affinity to get others things from science (happiness, industry boon etc) It could be a Lumeris like pop bonus (+ industry from cold planets) or a UE type bonus (% of science translate into industry)

- give them faction specific events/system upgrades/planetary exploitation that showcase their appetance for daring experiments. Like unstable matter replicator, planet cracking mining etc. Stuff that allows them to mirror input from costlier upgrades but with drawbacks attached (negative events? )

The latter is the most time consuming suggestion but would be by far the more distinctive for the faction. I mean, they blew up their moon, didn't they?

Jadonyx is sophons' best friend as a ressource, as it will help them build what they discovered through system improvement even on cold planets. As they are good, fast explorer, the best is to rush to the systems containing some.

Concerning their omniscience bonus, the more turns are over, the more effective it becomes, as they will slowly but surely get a big adavnce to their competitors in that field.

Sophons rule!