I'm a big fan of Maser's proposed idea to tweak Vodyani starts (force it to have 2 pop by default).  Their point about Minor Faction systems in relation to the Vodyani home system is also correct.  My Vodyani games have been very inconsistent with regard to their starts, and oftentimes if I don't start with a Minor Faction close by I find that I have difficulty getting Arks and stay behind the whole game.  However, I am not sure how to rectify this particular problem without forcing Vodyani starts near a Minor Faction, which strikes me as too advantageous.

Hi All,

Thought I'd chime in with some of my thoughts on the laws and balance. For context, I've played two games with the mod so far, both as Horatio.

Non-Political Law Balance:

I really love the changes to the non-political laws. As Macsen said, some of them were simply stronger that the political laws. I'd often find myself sitting on Toys for Boys for a considerable amount of time just because of the +20 was so good. Now I only use it in an emergency. I would actually like it to be nerfed a little more to 15% industry loss just to really deincentivise it. The nerf to Super Tax Act is also excellent although -20 happiness is a hell of a lot. I'm thinking for newer players that find themselves in dust troubles in the early game, might find it a little too unforgiving, but if others disagree I'm happy to keep it where it is. Overall, savvy political play should be rewarded so the more buffs to political laws and the more nerfs to non-political laws, the better, so I'm loving this.

Ecologist Laws:

As I've only played as Horatio so far, the only comment on the other laws I will make is thank goodness for the pacificst force law change. Again, as Macsen said, the final two ecologist laws don't really make sense due to Horatio wanting less rather than more diversity. 5% industry per planet, and 5% science per planet would be much more appropriate I think. The first ecologist law, green fertility bill, is too map dependent. Start with 3 anomalies on your home system and you're laughing, start with none or all negative anomalies, the law feels pointless. So here's my suggestion for a change (with a name change):

Diverse Fertility Bill: Your starting population cannot grow. 2% FIDS per pop on planets (not influence as you'd be paying influence for influence).

This has several benefits for Horatio. The first is that by preventing your own population from growing, you can quickly grow minor populations for gene splicing. The second is that it addresses some of the industry and science problems Horatio has early game. You'll still have to use it judiciously early on so not to kill your growth. Furthermore, as Horatio gain population really fast, the law would make you far more competitive in the mid game as there is nothing stopping you from filling your planets with Horatios first then enacting the law. It also keeps the theme of ecologists preferring tall, tightly managed empires, rather than wide empires. In terms of use by other races - Riftborn don't grow anyway, so could be strong, but they are also anti-ecologist so it would take some work to get. Could also be good for Unfallen later on, but as you don't start with a minor faction you wouldn't want to use it early.

Dictatorship: There is still absolutely no reason to be a dictatorship. It is especially puzzling (IIRC) that it is the most expensive government to switch to (next section). One law slot is painful in the mid-late game, and the rebellion mechanics have reared their head again due to the (welcome) changes making approval more difficult. I have two suggestions: The first is to make dictatorship have a lower threshold for all happiness buffs by 10%. For example, ecstatic kicks in at 75%, rather than 85%, and unhappy kicks in at 20%, rather than 30% (I think those are the numbers anyway). This makes it a genuinely viable option for aggressively expansive empires later on in the game. It also means that Horatio starts off happy, again helping out with some of their early game woes. Rebellions can still kick in, but only if somewhere is seriously unhappy. Federation is still good for early expansionists and aggressors for the extra laws and extra systems without disapproval (which is now way more powerful given the changes), and autocracy has 2 law slots, and no rebellion, so I don't think this change would make dictatoship better than either of those two in all situations, it just makes it a viable option in some situations.

Government Switching: I think it would be better to make the government switching costs dependent on 'how similar' your current government is to the one you are switching to. Currently the order is Dictatorship>Federation>Republic>Democracy.  It's kind of strange that I can more easily switch from a Dictatorship to a Democracy, than from a Dictatorship to Federation. I also think the turn time should reflect this. Something like (on normal) 3 turns for the next government type, 5 for the one after, and 7 for the one after that. That encourages proper government transitions for immersion sake, and for gameplay it encourages proper planning, and allows for more government changes. Currently I might switch government once per game, as if I had to spend more than 5 turns in anarchy, it wouldn't be worth it. But with a lower turn amount I might be encouraged to make more switches depending on the state of the empire.

Approval: I really like the approval and system number changes as it encourages proper population management on planets, and prevents the early 'grab everything and anything before the AI does' in the early game. It slows the game down to a reasonable degree, which is welcome as snowballing hard early on can make things less fun overall as later decision become less and less relevant. I also like that approval is harder to come by. I've never had trouble with happiness since release, but now I actually need to think about whether I really should assimilate that ball of minor faction systems and take the approval hits. My only request is that the system stages are gradiated in terms of expansion approval. So the first upgrade reduces it by 25%, the second by 50%, and the final one by 100%. That at least means that if you want to get aggressive earlier in the game, you're not going to get completely crushed by approval hits.

Final note: I LOVE the idea of having luxury resource upkeep for system levels. Economic warfare is a huge missed opportunity with the market. I think losing your bonuses (including expansion approval bonuses) if you cant keep up with the upkeep would be awesome. It also means that otherwise uninviting systems could become of huge strategic importance to your empire. It would also encourage building luxury enhancer buildings (like Slag and Sludge), as well as getting resource generation hero skills. The idea of crippling someone because I am siegeing their key trade routes and bought up all the resources in the market just sounds wonderful, and makes fleet positioning vital.

That's my lot! Best devs in all the land. <3

Just one balance request for the Unfallen: Remove Cultural Flexability. The are immune to it, they should not be able to use it. It makes them the worst allies ever.

McGruffs wrote:

Just one balance request for the Unfallen: Remove Cultural Flexability. The are immune to it, they should not be able to use it. It makes them the worst allies ever.

Except they give you amazing food and speed buffs. You can just declare war on them if they start to convert your systems.

WeLoveYou wrote:

McGruffs wrote:

Just one balance request for the Unfallen: Remove Cultural Flexability. The are immune to it, they should not be able to use it. It makes them the worst allies ever.

Except they give you amazing food and speed buffs. You can just declare war on them if they start to convert your systems.

These are offset by the Dust/Sci/Inf penalty for being within another empire's area of influence.  Even at peace, letting unfallen vine your systems is awful.

aramul wrote:

WeLoveYou wrote:

McGruffs wrote:

Just one balance request for the Unfallen: Remove Cultural Flexability. The are immune to it, they should not be able to use it. It makes them the worst allies ever.

Except they give you amazing food and speed buffs. You can just declare war on them if they start to convert your systems.

These are offset by the Dust/Sci/Inf penalty for being within another empire's area of influence.  Even at peace, letting unfallen vine your systems is awful.

Does that happen? If so, wow. That needs a change. I'm pretty sure it doesn't though. Will test later.

Sorry I couldn't answer every message, but they have been  considered and you will see that thanks to the release note at the  bottom of this post :) (we also updated the first release note). The mod  will be updated soon on Steam!

Cheers,

One  Thing you can quickly change, maybe, is the Reward for Quests. I get a  Quest at Turn 100 with a Reward of 80 Influence.... thats no Fun. Please  make the Reward more depending on the Turn you reached Ingame.

It's part of our balancing pass but I don't think we will go through this mod to deliver the changes!

Another question about vodyani laws:

Laws  that give "+X per pop" works on systems, so one shipbound population  that works on two planets counts as 2 population. However, the influence  upkeep is only for individual population, so a system with 1 population  that works on two planets still only counts as one population when it  comes to upkeep. This means that vodyani has a much easier time  sustaining powerful laws than any other race. I kinda like it as a  shipbound-specific thing, but with powerful early laws like the new  species stability I have a feeling it might be too strong.

Is this intended behaviour?

Yes that's intended!

Version 1.1

            Laws

            - Fixed upkeep issues

            - Inverted unlock pace of Cnam Exam Act and Larger Hosts Bill

            - Super Tax Act: changed approval penalty from -30 to -20

            - Senator Bob Bill: penalty lowered from -4 Dust to -2 Dust

             - Trusted Broker: now the bonus increases each turn (by 2% up  to 30%) giving incentive to keep the law active for a long time

            - Green Fertility Bill: added +2 Food per pop on planets with Anomaly

             - Power to the People Act & All Hands Dictum: now have an  Horatio variant which counts assimilated population instead of  population types

            - Racial Purity Act: added a flat Essence gain for Vodyani (+15 per System)

            - Us or Them Decree changes to +20 Approval per Home System on all the systems

            Approval:

            - Transvine now provide +2 Approval per pop when used for Leveling system

            - Removed the increase of Overcolonization threshold when reaching the Max level

             - Added a new improvement (temp name: Autonomous  Administration) which increases the Overcolonization threshold by 1 in  stage 4 of Empire Development

            - Costs 2240 Industry and 10000 Influence and only available on level 4 systems

            - Leveling Arks will provide a default +1 Approval per population (not properly shown in the mod)

            Others:

            - Drone Networks now gives +10 Food / Industry

            - Cerebral Reality now gives + 20 Dust / Science

            - Increased Dust given by Galactic HQ from 25 to 40

            - Added +25 Dust on The Cathedral of the All Worldly Affairs

            - Replaced the default Dust module on Mothership with an Essence module

            - Moved the unlock of level 4 curiosity to stage 4

            - Alms for Essence now converts 50% of Dust and provides 25% of Dust into Essence

IceGremlin wrote:

(..) Right now ES2 needs a Civilization style system for population growth, where there is a theoretical ceiling that takes great effort for us to hit, and which we can keep expanding upwards for a very long time before we hit the absolute limit of upward growth. I would love to see Growth changed to increase with Population (So 300 for the first, and an increase for each Population on the system; personally I would add Population², which puts the Growth requirement to increment another Pop at 2800 for going from 50 to 51 population, which is in line with a very well developed Food system).

Until Food and population growth become difficult enough to justify investing in them for their own sake (instead of investing in them just to boost Manpower and Food-Industry conversion),

I am of the same opinion and was already thinking about posting a similar idea. With the current growth system it is quite easy for a system to reach 300+ food production, producing a pop every turn. This causes different problems:

1) Food improvements are quite useless for a long period of the game (from the point systems generate 300 food until food-to-industry conversion is available). Surely food still generates manpower, but there are more efficient ways for this (e.g. Chaingang Program) and if you arent at war currently, you might have no use for manpower anyway.

2) As developed systems are quickly fully populated, you want to migrate population to less populated systems, so the developed system can continue producing pops. This can cause a lot of micro-management effort (I had periods I needed to manage the population of 10 or more systems every turn) needing a lot of time, which is not that fun at all. I think population management should be more about strategic decisions then pushing away redundant population.

3) If you want to make use of the rapid growth, you need to expand very fast (at the long run its impossible) to gain more place for the population. So the growth urges you to expand, while at the same time you will suffer massive overcolonization penalties for too wide expansion. These mechanics seem to be working contrary.


I think the proposed increase of growth costs can solve most of the problems. Surely the exact numbers might be changed (IceGremlins proposal would have 400 growth costs at 10 population and 700 at 20, which is still to low in my opionion. Maybe the increase should be more linear.) and some new issues might be caused (possibly with migration). But everything at all I think the idea would be a great improvement.

lightblade wrote: Link (it's 2 posts up)

IceGremlin wrote:

(..) Right now ES2 needs a Civilization style system for population growth, where there is a theoretical ceiling that takes great effort for us to hit, and which we can keep expanding upwards for a very long time before we hit the absolute limit of upward growth. I would love to see Growth changed to increase with Population (So 300 for the first, and an increase for each Population on the system; personally I would add Population², (...)

(...) I think the proposed increase of growth costs can solve most of the problems. Surely the exact numbers might be changed (IceGremlins proposal would have 400 growth costs at 10 population and 700 at 20, which is still to low in my opionion. Maybe the increase should be more linear.) and some new issues might be caused (possibly with migration). But everything at all I think the idea would be a great improvement.

I'm just going to extent on your point "some new issues might be caused (possibly with migration)" I think that this will cause issues (but not necessarily new ones) currently the Riftborn and their Machine Embodiment (how they make a Pop) uses a system like the one your proposing (but with production)

Their Pops Production Cost is "50 + (Riftborn in system* 100)" (Chassis Optimization changes the 100 to 50, Integrated Shells changes it to 75)

This leads to making population farm systems, normally situated in minor faction systems, (as those pop do not count towards the cost) that system is continually set to make Riftborn which are then migrated to where they are wanted.

While your suggested system eliminates the aspect of any pops not raising the limit, it will still cause Pop farm systems to become optimal strategy.

It could also lead to population shuffling, where you take a high food system you want to fill with pop and start by sending the right amount of pop to other systems to decrease the next pop cost but without decreasing food output too much, to greatly reduce the time till next pop, then once a few pops have grown you move the other pops back.

One way to remove this issue is to have it calculated at a higher level, with pops in empire increasing the amount of growth required in all systems. But this has its own set of issues. 

Your home system will still fill up easily, the micromanaging will not go away, as only the big systems can reach the large growth requirement, they will need to propagate pops. 

New issues would be that pop “injections” would become more powerful, I’m referring to minor faction diplomacy asking for a pop (which can be quite cheap) and assimilating minor faction its especially powerful with Horatio’s gene editing tech (convert other pop to major pop) allowing for growth bursts when it all slows down in the mid and late game.

I am currently not in favour of this being a change due to its based on the Civilization model where it does work well but Civilization does not have migration, this does and so it does not work so well here.

It might be possible to change it in a way that makes it work but currently what it would reduce is; Situational lack of usefulness of food improvements during the mid-late game, the rate at which systems grow, and one aspect of micromanagement (but not really). It does also reduce the need to expand but it’s a 4X game.

And it does this at the cost of adding the same aspect of micromanagement it “removes” but now makes it so it is always required for optimal play (pop farms & shuffling).

I can’t see a good way to make this system work myself, but that is not to say that there is not one, I’m sure someone will be able to think of a way this system or a new one could work that satisfies your wishes without adding more issues. And I hope that they do and share it here as the game will be better for it.

4xAlchemist wrote: (It's the post above)

(...) is this the extent of the changes that you guys are considering for the next patch? 

I ask this because there are some glaringly obvious problems with the game that none of these changes address

(...)I'd like to know what your plans are for balancing the Horatio and Unfallen factions and perhaps a major rework of the fundamental Vodyani mechanics

(...) I find the faction customization feature to be completely unnecessary to the core appeal of the game.

I believe that they are focusing on a few certain areas at a time, so that they can have that area all balanced together (which is the only decent way to balance stuff), focusing on particular areas also allows for more efficiency, as a lot more of the community contribution is focused on the areas they set, if they didn’t set any focuses then the community would talk about all aspects of the game that they think should have changes, the Devs would be overwhelmed and not even have a semblance of a consensus from the community on any area as we the community would be too busy talking about the bit we want to focus on to make any.

(Admittedly, it is quite a small current focus but this might be as it is the first focus and this was testing the water, they would not want to dive into the deep end after all)

Just because the current focus is Laws & Approval it does not mean that is all they are focusing on before the next patch (it might be but I do not expect it will) Once they feel likes that have done this area justice I believe they will move on to the next focuses (take with a grain of salt as there is not official confirmation of this) they may also push the changes made to the vanilla game. I do not see that as a bad thing (the game becomes more balanced even if only in a few aspects) they might not (I myself do not mind either way)

As you have pointed out there are many glaringly obvious problems yet to be addressed. I do think that their current slow and steady approach is for the best (due to the reasons explained earlier) Of course I much like everybody else would prefer that the area I want to have focus on has the focus (admittedly the areas I want to focus on are on the list to be next). But saying all this, maybe they should go trying to douse all the fires first. I just think that it will lead to more, that in the rush to get the biggest issues patched it would be sloppy work that will need to be redone at a later date. They current slow methodical approach means that while changes to most areas come slower, they are ultimately better when they do come.

(But I would agree if you wanted to have a list of what will be the focus when, instead of X is the focus now, YZ is the next focus, everything else is sometime later)

In regard to asking them about their plans, this is a community effort, I expect much of their plans here is to let the community bounce ideas off each other and then the devs run with what works, If a detailed plan of changes to rework the Vodyani mechanics is presented and the community likes it (and have suggested possible changes to the plan) the devs will take note they will probably run with it and apply a few changes of their own of course before putting it in the mod.  

The custom faction mechanic is not for everyone, different people like different aspects of it; you said that you like its ability to shake up the game a little with new ways to play, power games like being able to make an optimal build, some like to make something that’s theirs, something that has their name on and let their creativity flow. I like it to make faction play in a way that I like to play / make the game more enjoyable to me.

Hope that covers everything, My suggestion is to work on a detailed post on what you want to have changed, why it should be changed, possible ways in which it could be changed and what the pros and cons of those changes are.

4xAlchemist wrote:

I'd like to know what your plans are for balancing the Horatio and Unfallen factions and perhaps a major rework of the fundamental Vodyani mechanics in order to make them viable for multiplayer play (Unfallen is unviable because it is so much stronger). There is a ton of great content in this game and I've had a ton of fun playing it, but it feels awful to have almost half of the factions needing to be banned from multiplay games due to balance issues.

This is in line with what I was saying earlier. Faction balance should be a priority. I've been spending much of the day screwing around with the Vodyani, and the changes make them feel much better when they get a bad start. Arks need some modification though, because when they do get a good start, I think they will pressure better than the UE in the early game. I think the number of modules that arks get should be dependant on the system level of the ark. Would allow for a lategame buff to the arks, making sure that they don't get outscaled, and are always scary, but also throttle the Ark's early game dominance. 

For the Horatio I would do two things. First replace the per-splice food penalty for a convertion period. I consume my population that I'm splicing, and then have to manage a timeframe of either flat time, or a FIDSI cost before all my horatio are upgraded. Second, they need their ship's missing modules. Horatio ships have an advantage of being versitile. They also have a cost of being 25% more expensive to build, and then they have an additional cost of having fewer module slots than other ships. Too many costs for not equivilant advantage. Add back some missing modules or upgrade existing modules into heavy variants, to give the output of an extra module without increasing their existing versatility. This may include heavy defense or support modules.

Haven't played around with the unfallen much, so don't know too much about them.

I just finished a playthrough as the vodyani on the new version of the mod, and here are my first thoughts:

* Turn 1 laws are better now, at least for the races that start on a planet with no happiness penalty, since they can choose between all 3 neutral laws. Also for those that don't start on tier 0 planets, Cram Exam Act is a pretty good alternative for the first few turns of the game. Of course, vodyani has a much better alternative in species stability but I like that law so much that I won't complain about lack of choice :)

* I really like all the religious laws for vodyani, and I think the set works out well. I'm not sure how it would be for other races, though. Right now the religious party feels like it's made for vodyani and no one else. I'm not sure that is a problem, though, since the religious party is very hard to support for other races so very few will actually be able use it (unless dictatorship or cravers).

* Happiness is manageable now as vodyani, even without  Saints & Sinners Bill. The +1 happiness / pop / system level helped a  lot, but maxing out with 9 pop on high tier planets is still a  challenge. I think the challenge is just right! Late game I switched to  republic with Saints & Sinners Bill anyway, since that was my only  way to get above content on empire (most of my systems was hovering  around low content at the time). If I had transvine available for system  developments that could have been avoided.

Here's a few bugs I found this time through:

* Default arks still has a dust module instead of a tribute module as stated in the patch notes.
* t1 dust modules says they give +15 dust, but they actually give +10 (visual bug?)
* t1 kinetic weapons display dps 5/26/26 when it should be 5/6/6 (visual bug?)

* some module slots (it seems like it's one for each hull type) doesn't count health bonus for the "Cumulative health bonus" number shown when you look at detailed stats. It seems like a visual bug only, though. The total ship health still counts the modules as intended.

Oh, and since someone mentioned hero exp. I think all that is needed to balance out governors and fleet commanders is a 2exp/turn per CP on fleet bonus to the commander. Governors in your main system will still level faster than an idle commander, but if you explore curiosities or fight battles with him I think it should be pretty equal at most stages of the game.

NagohShan wrote:

Would allow for a lategame buff to the arks, making sure that they don't get outscaled, and are always scary, but also throttle the Ark's early game dominance. 

I've said this before in other contexts, but I don't think that arks should be used for combat at almost any point in the game. Sure, they are strong as carriers from turn 1, but they are also very expensive on tribute, and your only way to get more systems going. By using your ark as a combat ship instead of a new colony, you very quickly fall behind in the macro game.

Another part of this is that vodyani gains almost nothing for destroying enemy systems. Other races can be aggressive early and take a few systems from their neighbours, but the vodyani can't. The only thing they accomplish is to weaken themself while they kill their neighbour. Sure, the vodyani player could probably kill anyone who spawns next to them, but it's not a 2 player game. If you spend your only way to scale your economy to kill one out of 9 opponents in a 10 player game, you WILL be behind after that. So you shouldn't do it.

Arks can be used for defense against offensive races so they don't outright kill you, but they should never be used offensively early.

So really, I don't see the problem with arks being strong ships early. I also don't see the problems with early arks in pvp setting, unless you specifically are 2 players who spawn right next to each other.

(I can also mention this piece of counterplay: if you blockade a vodyani system, they won't be able to detatch the ark to fight you. So you can always go blockade a system without getting killed by that ark)

So really, I don't see the problem with arks being strong ships early. I also don't see the problems with early arks in pvp setting, unless you specifically are 2 players who spawn right next to each other.

My main problem with it is the person it happens to doesn't really get to respond. And if you get one of the Vodyani's good starts, or even partially decent starts, delaying your expansion to eliminate an enemy is more than reasonable and doesn't really set you that far back compared to your expected expansion on a lesser start.

(I can also mention this piece of  counterplay: if you blockade a vodyani system, they won't be able to  detatch the ark to fight you. So you can always go blockade a system  without getting killed by that ark)

That's why I'm not worried as much about buffing the late game threat of the arks. It only benefits them in transit, because currently they get outscaled. They should, but this seems like an opportunity to smooth the curve to make them more ignorable early and less ignoreable later.