Any idea when the next set of Balance Mod changes will be added?

Probably a few weeks off.

Ah OK, thanks for the reply!

Any comments on when you are going to overhaul political system balance in general? Finally you decided to implement our suggestion to make propaganda a law slot. But in its current iteration its obviously never going to get used over an actual law because dictatorship and autocracy have too few law slots. 

I will keep asking these questions till they get answered: 

Why do dicatorship and autocracy never gain any law slots?

Why isn't republic nerfed yet? The law effects make it by far the strongest, in addition to being a better dictatorship with a small cost of dust every 20 turns? (I know you guys like the I am the Senate meme, but come on...)

The stronger laws would be more suited to dictatorship anyway since you are forcing to do citizens what you want. In turn you get fewer law slots. Republic gets more law slots but its a mild dictatorship with the option to bribe each election. Sounds a lot more balanced to me. 

When is federation getting adressed? The +1 to colony limit is not that helpful to justify the few amount of lawslots. The more colonizes you get and the higher your limit grows, that +1 to colonization limit is obviously less useful. Something like a % reduction to approval penalty for overcolonization would be better (aswell as combo very well with the UE) and give a reason to use this political system. 

Played a game with the mod, another multiplayer game.  This one with full 6 players large spiral galaxy, great fun!

But I have some news to report.

Missles, are too easily aviodable/counterable and are immensly easy to kill.  

Kinetics are also easily aviodable/counterable.

They counter each other, which is actually a problem.  

Lets run a scenario, you want to research your Titanium based weapon, so you pick kinetics and missles blue.  You load your ship up with both, you have your own counter.  To maximize damage of one of your types IE missle, you need to use a long range card or barrage ect, to max your damage with flak, you need to use turtle or get lucky or any other short range card.  You therefore, can never use a battlecard that is in sync with BOTH of your weapons.  This is a major disadvantage to lasers.  Any battle card played can have a strong positive effect on your laser or beam.

A battle card played on your kinetic/missle ship will have a positive impact on one of your guns and a negative impact on the other.  This is not a good scneario.  

Also, fighters are still not enough of a threat or cause enough damage to incapacitate bombers.  Kinetics however, do enough to counter bombers.   

Another item learned,  the best fleet is still the one that destroys your opponent first, and through testing, there seems to be a error present in one of the battle cards.

Prudent positions offers 3 long range lanes, and -25% damage on all weapons.  Does this - damage apply to fighters/bombers?  Because in game, it does not.  It also reduces damage much more drastically than what it is stated.

The use of prudent positions, with all your ships in the top or bottom flottilla, loaded with bombers, survives encounters and ships that should be utterly recking/destroying your fleet.

Example would be a sophon carriar x2, loaded with x4 bombers a peice, destroys a x4 antimatter end game carriars (both tier 1, not upgraded version, and each side using a seeker hero with appriopriate skillset, ie pirate lady for sophon, or the sophon seeker, vs the vodyani seeker.

I would encourage examining prudent positions to make sure its working as intended, as right now a side loaded flottilla and using bombers and repair protectors to keep your carriars alive seems to be not counterable.   If your enemy goes full kinetics to counter this setup, no side takes any damage.  Its a weird situation, if they counter, its  a stale mate, if they don't fully counter this setup, your fleet will slowly grind down your opponents bit by bit.  And by stale mate, i literally mean, neither fleet taking damage.  This I believe has to do with some kind of short range error prudent position has, as it seemed like the kinetics on the enemy vessels even when in the same lanes never got to fire for a battle cycle.  Hence why I think this is a error/bug in the mechanics of the card?

And really look closely at how ranges and battle cards are intuitive and how they function with the current weapons in the mod.  On one side, the battle cards and weapons work well together, on the kinetic/missle side, the battle card counters the strategy of one of those weapons vs the other.   Which would you chose if you wanted the most 'bang for your buck' for your ability cards?

Also played another game on endless with all victory conditions enabled, hit econimic victory as voydyani, didn't think that was possible, turn 242, exceptional galaxy 12 opponents.  The victory conditions seemed about right, and timed right, I don't know what else to say, it felt somewhat balanced.  I spent the game trying to maximize trade routes and make them as long as possible for the high risk/reward scenario.

This really isn't a complaint, or a request for a change, its just a comment on the state.  The rework is better than it was for sure, but now with weapons it seems a new problem is arrising.  Not sure what the fix is, but hopefully I've made the point clear enough.  It is much much better, you do have to use multiple ship types to get maximum action and the correct strategy/flotilla lane choice to win, but its also very difficult to understand.  There is next to no ingame explanation of ranges/flotillas how one cannot shoot the other ect, we/I only know this from combing through the patch notes, rewatching battles over and over, ect.  

The state is defienetly much improved, can't wait to see what new changes are in store.  

What do you guys think about the missles and kinetics issue with battle cards?  

Frogsquadron wrote:

Probably a few weeks off.

That would be for the next big focus. In the meantime we're going to push an iteration of the current changes this week.

Any comments on when you are going to overhaul political system balance in general?

It could be one of the focus of the next balance pass indeed.

But in its current iteration its obviously never going to get used over an actual law because dictatorship and autocracy have too few law slots. 

The idea would be to indeed have a dedicated law slot, but we can't make this in a mod (it requires code changes). It seems the idea is well received though so we'll check with our Creative Director if we can go ahead on it for the next patch.

Why do dicatorship and autocracy never gain any law slots?

Since you can choose exactly what party you want we felt a limitation was in order, but it's clear from the feedback that at least 1 law should be added and unlockable via research.

Why isn't republic nerfed yet?

This isn't a very common feedback; it's true that laws are better, but the government has no other effects. Do the rest of you share this opinion?

When is federation getting adressed?

It's true the increase to the limit is less useful since the addition of "autonomous administration", but it can definitely be an advantage for a rapid expansionist empire. Your suggestion is interesting though and we could definitely try it in a balance mod iteration?

If anything, the Wonder victory feels more difficult;

Thanks for confirming. We're going to push some tweaks on it this week.

@plutar: I'll let Kynrael answer you as soon he is available.

This isn't a very common feedback; it's true that laws are better,  but the government has no other effects. Do the rest of you share this  opinion?

Republic is my favorite politic but i don't know if it's the strongest. It fit very well with some laws, and sometime it's worth to get a republic only for the combo with one law. For example, if you have a religious republic, and use "Saints and Sinners Bills", you can have an unlimited happy empire, with every system taking advantage of the bonus of happiness. This is basicly what i try to do when i get the Optic research labs with Vodyanis (+25% science on happy). This 3 things combined are just insanely strong in order to power up science production.

Demcracy is also a big deal : having 5 law slot may be stronger, than few stronger laws. It's really depend of the situation. The extra represented party is also a very good make heroes really really cost effective. 

I feel that Dictatorship and federation are really weaker. I always change my governement types when i begin the game with one of this two. I tought it was intended. I tought that start the game with federation or dictatorship is a malus, and you need to chnage it when you can. 

Federation colonization bonus is really weak. It don't surpass so much the democraty happiness bonus, or any republic law increasing happiness. The elections influence actions  are fine, but as republic are, so republic is always a better choice globally. 

Dictatorship really need extra laws slot, for sure. It's a good point.

Thanks for the added feedback. I forgot to ask you:

Did you use the test improvements to accelerate manpower changes? Should we keep them in, or they feel superfluous to you?

I suggest that a federation goverment have more than two rulling parties, three at least.

Agreed with everyone else about government types and especially the lackluster Dictatorship and Federation. 

For the former the ability to always choose your preferred party doesn't outweight the massive disadvantages it's currently shoveled with, especially since you still need to actually level up other parties which is literally impossible to do as Dictatorship due to only one party being allowed. Choosing your current politics and switching preferred party on the fly is actually discouraged since it forces you restart from zero party experience progress. 

Federation's miniscule increase in over-expansion limit is negligible at best even before you unlock Lvl4 systems and Autonomous Administration improvement. It's just a non-scaling one time happiness bonus. Democracy gets much higher base happiness, more happiness from represented parties not to mention more law slots to increase it even further with (free) laws if you want, while Republic gets the same amount of law slots as Federation but is also better at managing happiness due to laws' increased effects. Both are much better at filling Federation's sole shtick as the expansionist focused government type and get other big bonuses to top it off. If you'd prefer to keep and buff Federation's current ability rather than rework the government type altogether, I'd suggest it should at least get its expansion limit increased alongside tech era advancements, in the same way that tech era advancements currently unlock additional law slots to actually make it the best government type for expansion focused playstyle. Or as suggested, make it a percentage based bonus that notably reduces over-expansion disapproval across the board.

Like HundredBears said the government types need not be equally good at everything, but I think ideally they all need their own best shtick to make them stand out and a viable choice depending on your playstyle. Rather than being something like "I'm playing faction X, therefore I'm gonna pick Y government in all my games" it should be "I'm playing faction X and my current situation / playstyle warrants using government Y since it provides the best bonuses for this specific situation / playstyle". Like the Federation actually becoming the intended expansion focused government type if it ends up getting a buff; useless if you're boxed in or slowly expanding and don't need the additional approval to combat over-expansion penalty, but a very lucrative choice if you're expanding wide and fast.

---

And oh yeah, while somewhat tangential I also have to chime in on United Empire's faction quest. To be specific: Chapter 2. Looking to the Future, Excavating the Past - Part 2.

It's a bit weird that UE has to change to democracy to complete their UE Industrialist quest path or wait very late until unlocking one additional law slot from the final tech tier. I think gameplay wise it's supposed to balance the fact that UE already starts as Industrialists and as such they're required to activate one additional law compared to Militarist and Scientist paths of the same quest (that require 3 instead of 4 laws), otherwise the Industrialist path would be a complete non-brainer. 

However lore wise it's still a bit silly that the pretty stratified and dystopic society like United Empire with paranoid power-hungry Zelevas at its helm supposedly goes through a massive reform and turns into a democracy and it's not reflected in the story in the slightest. Though this is really more of a bigger gameplay and story clashing issue with other factions reforming their governments as well, IIRC Horatio also need to reform to other government type in order to get more law slots for their faction quest's Ecologist path and I'm not sure boss-man Horatio himself would really approve of democracy. Though perhaps instead of gameplay changes, some flavor text describing the government types for different factions (f.ex. Democratic Horatio or UE) is in order?

hera35 wrote:

It's a bit weird that UE has to change to democracy to complete their UE Industrialist quest path or wait very late until unlocking one additional law slot from the final tech tier. I think gameplay wise it's supposed to balance the fact that UE already starts as Industrialists and as such they're required to activate one additional law compared to Militarist and Scientist paths of the same quest (that require 3 instead of 4 laws), otherwise the Industrialist path would be a complete non-brainer. 

Thanks for pointing out that the Industrialist path is the only one on which this issue crops up. The Industrialist choice on part one of that chapter has been so much of a no-brainer for me that I'm not sure if I've even seen part two for the other parties. The difference in laws required opens up the possibility of getting to chapter 3 and turning into the Sheredyn/Mezari very early, possibly right after the second election without even switching government types. I'll have to try that. We're agreed that it's no less weird for only happening on that one path, though. If anything, it's especially odd that it's the UE-style Industrialist path that has the UE diverge the most from the way that it's portrayed in the lore and flavor text.

HundredBears wrote:

hera35 wrote:

It's a bit weird that UE has to change to democracy to complete their UE Industrialist quest path or wait very late until unlocking one additional law slot from the final tech tier. I think gameplay wise it's supposed to balance the fact that UE already starts as Industrialists and as such they're required to activate one additional law compared to Militarist and Scientist paths of the same quest (that require 3 instead of 4 laws), otherwise the Industrialist path would be a complete non-brainer. 

Thanks for pointing out that the Industrialist path is the only one on which this issue crops up. The Industrialist choice on part one of that chapter has been so much of a no-brainer for me that I'm not sure if I've even seen part two for the other parties. The difference in laws required opens up the possibility of getting to chapter 3 and turning into the Sheredyn/Mezari very early, possibly right after the second election without even switching government types. I'll have to try that. We're agreed that it's no less weird for only happening on that one path, though. If anything, it's especially odd that it's the UE-style Industrialist path that has the UE diverge the most from the way that it's portrayed in the lore and flavor text.

I tried all routes with UE and Mezari seemed to be the best choice. You gain an additional 10% bonus to science and then some % bonuses through quests later on. Also switching to mezary is the easiest to do, you will most likely complete it instantly. It only takes you 200 science production per turn to become mezari (for the record, to unlock the science hero at the start it took me like 206 science production per turn).

sheredynplayer wrote:

HundredBears wrote:

hera35 wrote:

It's a bit weird that UE has to change to democracy to complete their UE Industrialist quest path or wait very late until unlocking one additional law slot from the final tech tier. I think gameplay wise it's supposed to balance the fact that UE already starts as Industrialists and as such they're required to activate one additional law compared to Militarist and Scientist paths of the same quest (that require 3 instead of 4 laws), otherwise the Industrialist path would be a complete non-brainer. 

Thanks for pointing out that the Industrialist path is the only one on which this issue crops up. The Industrialist choice on part one of that chapter has been so much of a no-brainer for me that I'm not sure if I've even seen part two for the other parties. The difference in laws required opens up the possibility of getting to chapter 3 and turning into the Sheredyn/Mezari very early, possibly right after the second election without even switching government types. I'll have to try that. We're agreed that it's no less weird for only happening on that one path, though. If anything, it's especially odd that it's the UE-style Industrialist path that has the UE diverge the most from the way that it's portrayed in the lore and flavor text.

I tried all routes with UE and Mezari seemed to be the best choice. You gain an additional 10% bonus to science and then some % bonuses through quests later on. Also switching to mezary is the easiest to do, you will most likely complete it instantly. It only takes you 200 science production per turn to become mezari (for the record, to unlock the science hero at the start it took me like 206 science production per turn).

No way! Gjallafire is a superb weapon for the time you can get it. IIRC it has more DPS than hyperium lasers, and you can secure it way earlier than that by battling a few pirates. In terms of advancing the questline, getting 3 militarist laws is a lot easier than the others, and the UE questline gives some pretty great rewards and versatility. Sci Fi design school is great, don't get me wrong, but if you want doomfleets early, Gjallafire is the way to go. If you went for the military option (10% dmg) at the start, then your fleets are even more scary. Plus it's called Gjallarfire!

I used to underrate going Sheredyn (admittedly I used to underrate Mezari as well when the UE pop bonuses were slightly different), as the pop bonuses for Mezari and Imperials are both so good, but learned to love the 20% ship bonus (35% running fleet construction laws, 40% running republic with same). Note that this also improves their buyout costs. Your systems also become Unfallen levels of impenetrable with the manpower bonuses. If you want to play UE as a military juggernaut then the military quest options are all more than viable.

I know science and industry are the most important FIDSI in the game in terms of victory, making Mezari and UE options seem like a no brainer, but *taps forehead* they can't have science and industry if all their worlds are flying a Sheredyn banner.

You can get Gjallarfire without becoming Sheredyn, its just a normal quest choice. I agree its super good but it got nerfed in a recent patch. On the same note, why did Hammer of the Heart get buffed to an inside 69 damage? Its a close range laser from Unfallen questline, but lasers got made so overpowered recently and now this stupid quest weapon that doesn't cost any strategics blows everything out of the water. 

I usually go the following quest route: 10 curiosities at round 5, choose petra, Gjallafire or sci fi design school. Don't quite remember how the questline continues after that. 

sheredynplayer wrote:

You can get Gjallarfire without becoming Sheredyn, its just a normal quest choice. I agree its super good but it got nerfed in a recent patch. On the same note, why did Hammer of the Heart get buffed to an inside 69 damage? Its a close range laser from Unfallen questline, but lasers got made so overpowered recently and now this stupid quest weapon that doesn't cost any strategics blows everything out of the water. 

I usually go the following quest route: 10 curiosities at round 5, choose petra, Gjallafire or sci fi design school. Don't quite remember how the questline continues after that. 

Sorry, I should have been clearer that the comments about Gjallarfire was in response to HundredBears always picking the science and industrialist options.

I'm playing on the balance patch, and I can't remember the nerf. In the patch it does 37 DPS with a 15% crit chance, and fires at all ranges, which is unbelievably good for that point in the game.

Questline after that goes - choose Mezari, Sheredyn, or UE. Then it diverges after that depending on your choice. Basically, Mezari get Transparent society (T5 military tech - gives you +Approval for science improvments - it's pretty meh as the approval isn't much) and a +15% to science, UE get Mount of Zelevas, which is an influence wonder, and Cyborg Patriots which is a better version of conscription for invasion defence. Sheredyn get the Emperor module for ships which is a base +10 energy and kinetic defence (which is incredible, but it costs 1000 dust - so 2000 on a cruiser), and Sheredyn slugs which is a battle tactic that improves hull penetration on kinetics (missiles and slugs).

Talking of Sheredyn Slugs, for the devs, it's currently a medium range kinetics based card. As missiles in the balance mod only work at long, and slugs only work at short, it's kind of a useless card, as you'll spend the first round not firing. Could you change the ranges?

WeLoveYou wrote:

Sorry, I should have been clearer that the comments about Gjallarfire was in response to HundredBears always picking the science and industrialist options.

I'm playing on the balance patch, and I can't remember the nerf. In the patch it does 37 DPS with a 15% crit chance, and fires at all ranges, which is unbelievably good for that point in the game.

I think that puts it on par with the unmodded version of the game: both do marginally more damage than hyperium lasers, but lack the accuracy debuff. It's extremely strong, but I've always found that it's easy enough to out-fight the AI with weaker weapons and so would rather have a quest reward that helps with economy. The industrialist improvement gives 40 industry/turn at that stage of the game, which isn't bad for its cost and particularly helpful for getting infrastructure built in less developed systems. Most of the industry improvements after X-II are best in well-developed systems or only situationally good, so it's nice to have a cheap-ish industry improvement that works everywhere when you're getting everything set up.