WeLoveYou wrote:

'Militarist super-law now doesn't grant an approval bonus for wars with Minor Empires '

This is a huge and to my mind, unwarranted, nerf for Cravers.

I don't think so, speaking as an experienced Craver player. The Militarist party already grants a massive amount of Approval for the Cravers, and in my opinion the old iteration of the law was way overboard. There are three sources of Approval from the Militarist party for Cravers:

• Approval from leading party and political opinion
• Approval from the main law.
• Approval from the homesystem law, unlocked on Turn 30 on Fast

Then there are two more Approval sources from neutral laws:

• The Dictatorship-exclusive law which grants +25 Approval on system if an allied orbiting fleet is present (Turn 50 on fast)
• The basic +20 Approval -10% Industry law.

I don't play Militarist Cravers, preferring Scientist or Industrialist, and have no problem managing my approval as long as I don't mass enslave my minor populations. It ends up coming down to micromanaging populations, which is an unavoidable component of playing Cravers.

I have several observations about combat, some mod-related and some not.

• Change to Battle Cards

I really like these changes, except for making the Penetration Tactics a base unlock. As IceGremlin said, they negate the impact of defense too much, especially as Penetration cannot be built against. Then again, that's an inherent problem with Penetration.

Apart from this, I had a really positive experience with the new cards. Take Trophy really helped combat Fleet upkeep and made battles more rewarding, though the effects may be a bit too high. Having Unlucky Arms (no Critical Hits during battles) unlocked on Era 3 was also amazing, as it helped counter the Get Lucky (+70% damage to Critical Hits) tactics which reigned supreme damage wise. The buffs to Squadron related tactics is nice too, though these tactics remained a bit situational in my games.

I love that Prudent Positions now grants -50% damage to all weapon modules, this tactic really made battles last longer than a single phase. It also indirectly made Bombers much more impactful, as well as turning Boarding-related fleets very strong against unprepared fleets.

Other nice changes were the ones to the repair tactics, increased survivability in enemy territory is always welcome. Also Evasive Maneuvers not being curiosity-locked is really nice for Short-range oriented fleets, though Long range is still the incontestable winner due to the way Accuracy is adjusted with each missed hit.

Overall, I appreciate the direction of the changes for the battle cards. Apart from the penetration cards, hehe.

• Cravers Fleet Enhancer and Riftborn Quantum Shield (unlocked with Juggernaut tech)
  

I had to talk about these two modules.

The first one grants a fleet-wide +10% Damage, Critical Chance, Hull and Shield Capacity at the cost of -2 Movement. This module is amazing, and really fits the theme of the Cravers. 

There is one massive problem though, this module is stackable, and the movement malus is easily countered by Fleet Accelerators (especially the Quadrinix one). And as this module doesn't cost any strategics, it is not hard to mass produce Carriers outfitted with such a module, leading to unstoppable fleets of Carriers boasting bonuses hovering around +100% Damage, Critical Chance, Hull and Shield Capacity.

Without the mod, this stacking is amusingly countered by the Hyperium Shield, as ending with 100% Critical Chance makes your hits useless against two Hyperium Shields. But in the G2G Balance Mod, this issue can be negated by using the Unlucky Arms battle card.

Anyway, the main issue here is that the Fleet Enhancer is stackable, and maybe a bit too strong. 

> Just as Kinetic Enhancers and Energy Intensifiers are not stackable, could the same be done to the Fleet Enhancer?

Now for the Riftborns. The Quantum Shield grants a 15% chance to negate damage, by destroying a salvo. It just so happens this module is stackable and the Riftborn Carrier can equip up to 5 Defense modules. Stacking them leads to a 75% chance to negate damage, which is massive. It means a 75% increased total health on paper, leading to the tankiest non-Juggernaut ship in existence.

Of course, that's an awesome module thematically, as the Riftborns can manipulate spacetime and all. It feels amazing to have a flagship using quantum shenanigans to become unkillable, though it does feel a bit unfair too. Same for Cravers, an invincible fleet is amazing, but not fun for the opponent.

Touko wrote:

This gave me an idea: how about making fleet accelerators give extra movement speed only to the slowest ships in the fleet? That way stacking fleet accelerators wouldn't make the whole fleet insanely fast, while allowing slower ships to move at a reasonable pace.

This also gave me an idea ^^: how about making fleet accelerator give a "minimum speed" instead of a speed boost to all ships ? Something like "gives 7 movements speed to ships who have a lower value than 7". That could hep using mercs fleet. But I guess you could abuse it by not giving engine modules to 90% of your fleet, and just use 1-2 accelerator ships... :(

The way you phrased your idea you could have a fleet of only fast ships, and it would still gives movement speed ?

Craverbro wrote:

WeLoveYou wrote:

'Militarist super-law now doesn't grant an approval bonus for wars with Minor Empires '

This is a huge and to my mind, unwarranted, nerf for Cravers.

I don't think so, speaking as an experienced Craver player. The Militarist party already grants a massive amount of Approval for the Cravers, and in my opinion the old iteration of the law was way overboard. There are three sources of Approval from the Militarist party for Cravers:

• Approval from leading party and political opinion
• Approval from the main law.
• Approval from the homesystem law, unlocked on Turn 30 on Fast

Then there are two more Approval sources from neutral laws:

• The Dictatorship-exclusive law which grants +25 Approval on system if an allied orbiting fleet is present (Turn 50 on fast)
• The basic +20 Approval -10% Industry law.

I don't play Militarist Cravers, preferring Scientist or Industrialist, and have no problem managing my approval as long as I don't mass enslave my minor populations. It ends up coming down to micromanaging populations, which is an unavoidable component of playing Cravers.

Speaking as another experienced Craver player, I don' agree and I think you nixed your argument by saying at the end you don't play as militarist Cravers.

The approval bonus from political parties in senate is so small its barely worth talking about. It's more likely you're taking an approval malus from non-representation.
The approval bonus from the main militarist law is the very thing that's been nerfed.
The approval bonus from Us vs Them is a mid game approval boost for when minor factions have all been absorbed and/or your slave drivers disapproval is starting to sky rocket. My complaint is about the nerf to their early game.
I don't play on fast, but even if I did, the influence upkeep to run Us vs Them on turn 30 would be fairly extreme. It's pretty difficult to run it on normal speed when it becomes available on turn 60.

Safe skies is, again, a late game law. The problem here is the early game nerf.
Saying 'You can just run Toys for Boys' is another way of saying 'You can only play these guys if you have a permanent -10% industry malus' - so, in other words, a nerf.

I'm well aware of how Craver population micromanagement works. The massive disapproval, as I said in my first post, is unavoidable unless you want to lay waste to your empire before you're at a point where you can conceivably win the game. This is on Endless Difficulty for everything, and normal speed, where playing military Cravers is a must, not some fun experimental 'science Cravers'.

You've also not addressed the central point that this is a nerf pretty much exclusively to Cravers which, to my mind, didn't need a nerf.

hera35 wrote:

WeLoveYou wrote:

'Militarist super-law now doesn't grant an approval bonus for wars with Minor Empires '

This is a huge and to my mind, unwarranted, nerf for Cravers.

It totally is warranted, for the reasons I laid out in my earlier post. 

I'm not sure about multiplayer but in single player against Endless difficulty AIs the minor factions get snapped up quite slowly, assuming you're not the one doing it yourself. It's not rare to see a handful of yet to be assimilated minor factions even by endgame. If Cravers do suffer too much from the law nerf (personally I think they don't and they're still one of the most powerful factions) I think it should warrant a buff for the faction's approval mechanics, not the law itself considering how ridiculously powerful it is regardless of the faction you're playing. Cravers are not the only warmongers benefitting from the exploit.

Or if we really need to, alternatively revert the change and keep the old approval bonus from minor faction wars, but have it be a smaller and temporary buff that you get from succeeding in an invasion against a minor faction system. That means the warmonger law actually incentivises active warmongering rather than declaring war on every minor faction on the other side of the galaxy and not following it up. In war against major factions you're always opening yourself up for retaliation which is why I think the current approval bonus that only triggers with other major factions is fine as is, but passive wars with minor factions have no negative effect whatsoever on the "attacking" empire, it's just exploiting the mechanic.

All your previous posts says is 'this is an exploit'. It's been part of the game for a long time, whether intended or not, and it's one of the main things that keeps Cravers competitive. Declaring war on minors immediately is a trade off, not just some free bit of approval for nothing. Minors give massive, for the early game, science and dust bonuses if you pay the influence and make friends. By warring with them, you are losing those bonuses for an approval boost.

If you think Cravers needed the nerf, then that's fine and make the argument. But it is a very big early game nerf. There is very little way of managing your approval early game as Cravers without using feeding pits or separating your populations - both of which will completely destroy your planets very quickly to depletion.

What about a law that increase happiness for each CP destroyed ? Still could be OP, especially if you win the war, but you cannot setup an insane economy by using it.

Hey, I thought again about the "Perfect Genes" trait for Horatio that never does anything because if a hero is injured, you just pay a small dust cost and the hero is available again.    

So what if buying out hurt heroes was removed from the game and they would instead get injured for x turns? In that case the trait would actually be useful. If I remember correctly, the Vodyani have the same bonus that never comes into play.     

Heroes becoming injured happens rarely, if an entire fleet with them gets destroyed, or a system with a governor gets invaded. Not allowing heroes to be healed instantly with dust would make protecting them more important.    

Also we could have more interesting diplomatic options, or espionage options if heroes who get injured wouldn't be able to get healed right away! 

Or if dust had more utility. Restoring heroes is one of the better uses for it, and the opportunity costs are minimal.

WeLoveYou wrote:

Speaking as another experienced Craver player, I don' agree and I think you nixed your argument by saying at the end you don't play as militarist Cravers.

The approval bonus from political parties in senate is so small its barely worth talking about. It's more likely you're taking an approval malus from non-representation.
The approval bonus from the main militarist law is the very thing that's been nerfed.
The approval bonus from Us vs Them is a mid game approval boost for when minor factions have all been absorbed and/or your slave drivers disapproval is starting to sky rocket. My complaint is about the nerf to their early game.
I don't play on fast, but even if I did, the influence upkeep to run Us vs Them on turn 30 would be fairly extreme. It's pretty difficult to run it on normal speed when it becomes available on turn 60.

Safe skies is, again, a late game law. The problem here is the early game nerf.
Saying 'You can just run Toys for Boys' is another way of saying 'You can only play these guys if you have a permanent -10% industry malus' - so, in other words, a nerf.

I'm well aware of how Craver population micromanagement works. The massive disapproval, as I said in my first post, is unavoidable unless you want to lay waste to your empire before you're at a point where you can conceivably win the game. This is on Endless Difficulty for everything, and normal speed, where playing military Cravers is a must, not some fun experimental 'science Cravers'.

You've also not addressed the central point that this is a nerf pretty much exclusively to Cravers which, to my mind, didn't need a nerf.

Well, of course it is a nerf. But in my opinion it is deserved as the old effect was too strong. 

And I wasn't joking about the non-Militarist party Craver playstyle, I seriously play Industrialist/Scientist Cravers on Endless AI settings and multiplayer. I heard my playstyle is unusual, but it is far from weak, on the contrary. Scientist for example, have incredibly powerful laws, namely the -20% industry cost reduction one and the main super law, which grants -10% tech cost and +1 Science per pop in addition to being able to research next stage techs.

Rushing colonization and exploration techs allow to unlock some minors through quests and curiosities, while expanding to help control the growing Craver population. The snowballing nature of the Cravers allow you to quickly set up systems, and then leave the half-depleted planets to be exploited by Minor Populations, keeping a Craver or two as overseers. A dump system for Cravers is inevitable at some point, as to avoid depleting your main systems planets. In case of an aggressive neighbor, you can simply rush Medium hulls and be safe before the second election even hits, and for the late game, you still have the +33% Weapon modules damage law from the Scientist party. 

And as Gzat said, you can still scout on Majors to earn that approval from war for the early game, except if you are playing on some humongous galaxy.

And I wasn't joking about the non-Militarist party Craver playstyle, I seriously play Industrialist/Scientist Cravers on Endless AI settings and multiplayer. I heard my playstyle is unusual, but it is far from weak, on the contrary. Scientist for example, have incredibly powerful laws, namely the -20% industry cost reduction one and the main super law, which grants -10% tech cost and +1 Science per pop in addition to being able to research next stage techs.

Rushing colonization and exploration techs allow to unlock some minors through quests and curiosities, while expanding to help control the growing Craver population. The snowballing nature of the Cravers allow you to quickly set up systems, and then leave the half-depleted planets to be exploited by Minor Populations, keeping a Craver or two as overseers. A dump system for Cravers is inevitable at some point, as to avoid depleting your main systems planets. In case of an aggressive neighbor, you can simply rush Medium hulls and be safe before the second election even hits, and for the late game, you still have the +33% Weapon modules damage law from the Scientist party. 

I'm so glad to see I'm not the only one who thinks scientists are great for Cravers early/mid game, though I don't think it's wise to keep scientists in later stages of the game. I have to say, the scientist forced law on dictatorship combined with easy acces to "dirty hads act" might make scientists too good. Now that the militarist law is no longer stupid powerful, I think it's time to give the dictatorship version of the scientist forced law a nerf to bring it more in line with the other options.

Its quite obvious that the science faction should not have such a powerful law as the first option and only for a small cost of 1 influence per pop. When comparing this to the reduced ship cost law for militarists, its not only 5% better number-wise, but its also super useful for all systems.    

When at war, I usually do not use 100% of my systems to build ships. Its simply not worth it to build ships in newer systems who are still developing. But the science law for reduced construction cost is pretty much always useful. This is why this law is only unlocked later one in the Politics Rework mod - again for balance reasons.    

I suggest implementing a different law as first unlocked, for example the one from the Politics Rework mod that increases probe slots and probe recovery. A nice earlygame boost that is in line with the scientists, who focus on exploration. 

IIRC Scientist party's construction cost reduction law was made a first tier law solely because Sophons dearly needed the extra industry in early game. 

But I agree with all of you since it's so ridiculously powerful if you happen to get scientists in power as any other faction. As sheredynplayer put it: the militarist ship cost reduction law only helps a handful of high industry systems actually building ships, while the scientist improvement cost reduction law is something that's almost always useful for all your systems regardless of your focus yet it's just as cheap and more powerful as well.

Perhaps Sophons just need something else to increase their production capacity in early game? Perhaps nerf the law as it's way too powerful and something every faction has access to, but give Sophons something else in return?

WeLoveYou wrote: 

Declaring war on minors immediately is a trade off, not just some free bit of approval for nothing. Minors give massive, for the early game, science and dust bonuses if you pay the influence and make friends. By warring with them, you are losing those bonuses for an approval boost.

It's not really a trade off at all, considering Cravers with Militarists can't engage in diplomacy in the first place. It's free max approval for zero cost. Population control is part of intended Craver gameplay with various trade-offs: Craver pops get massive FIDS boosts in return for depletion points, slavery also nets you notable FIDS boosts in return for approval, while pop sacrifice nets you a temporary stacking approval and food bonus in return for a non-major pop. And even if you do fall down in approval, Craver systems can't rebel thanks to their unique government type that also supports their playstyle. Issue is the old militarist law is so powerful it lets you ignore all the downsides of their mechanics and normal happiness buildings completely and also be way above over-colonization limit.

Not to mention it applies to other factions with militarist focused senate as well, because getting the positive minor faction diplomatic bonuses you listed requires producing enough Influence to become friends with minor factions in the first place, a resource that is quite hard to produce in early game unless you're playing a faction specifically focused on it. Unlike the pre-nerf Militarist law you're making an actual trade-off. Meaning that while you may have a few friendly non-assimilated minor factions, you're unlikely to have them all and as such you can declare war on the rest and receive free approval.

You're also forgetting that approval is a much more valuable resource than empire level Dust or Science increase, as the former lets you expand very, very wide and secure a very high overall FIDSI output without paying attention to over-colonization, approval buildings or other approval laws that have an actual cost. This is something that affects all factions.

And like I already said: if Cravers do become too weak (they really don't) and need a way to secure extra early game approval like before with the unnerfed version of the law, use my suggestion of making the minor faction war bonus temporary so it helps only early game, is intuitive to use and thematically fits the political party.

Found a bug, playing with the Balance mod, all DLC minus Vaulters, no other mods installed. About 60ish turns into the game, when I hit the end turn button the Hissho just die, all of their ships and system vanish. Here is the save.Hissho Empire Deleted .sav

Groo wrote:

@sheredynplayer

If I think about Sophons... they have so low industry in early game that it would hurt them, in case of unlocking this reducing production cost law at a later point, not? I didn't test that Politics Rework mod, did you try to play Sophons and - if you did - what was your experience? Am I wrong about?

Hey Groo,   

I played many hours with the politics balance mod, later victories and combat rework. But I don't think I ever finished a Sophon game with it. I fully agree that Sophons are lacking in industry and they would need compensation if the law was indeed moved back 1 election.    

I did however play Vaulters with these mods and every game turned out the same. I basically activated the industry reduction cost on turn 1 and kept it going. Its super easy to maintain it because of the golden Age boost to influence and the slow growth rate of the Vaulters. Whenever I research tech I neglect most dust production buildings, because as we all know Dust isn't very useful to stockpile. Income from minors and especially developement grants is enough dust to keep your systems running. When minors start to dissapear from the map, I usually end up with a big dust deficite. But this is easily solved by simply selling ressources on the market. Especially luxuries, because almost all of them are quite useless to the Vaulters unless you are boosting population.    

The Vaulters and The Cravers are a good example of how potent the industry cost reduction law can be, because both factions have phases of incredible FIDSI production, unlike the Sophons.

Gzar wrote:

Crawers were extremely strong and the military law needed a change. You can still get +60-90 approval from scouting quickly and declaring war on all majors.

This is a good way of getting yourself killed early. The AI isn't so bad that it just sits back and does nothing when you declare war on it.

hera35 wrote:

It's not really a trade off at all, considering Cravers with Militarists can't engage in diplomacy in the first place. It's free max approval for zero cost. Population control is part of intended Craver gameplay with various trade-offs: Craver pops get massive FIDS boosts in return for depletion points, slavery also nets you notable FIDS boosts in return for approval, while pop sacrifice nets you a temporary stacking approval and food bonus in return for a non-major pop. And even if you do fall down in approval, Craver systems can't rebel thanks to their unique government type that also supports their playstyle. Issue is the old militarist law is so powerful it lets you ignore all the downsides of their mechanics and normal happiness buildings completely and also be way above over-colonization limit.

Except the effects of being able to declare war on minors maybe last about 40-50 turns on normal speed, as by that point most minor factions get absorbed or conquered. I really think the 'OPness' of the minor faction DoW effect is being overstated. It is an early game approval buff that helps with approval problems experienced by Cravers. I wouldn't mind if the effect was halfed for minor factions - 7.5 rather than the 15. But it is still the case that without some help with approval in the early game, Cravers will almost always deplete worlds too fast unless they get really lucky and have lots of low tier planets to colonise.

I was under the impression that Cravers can still negotiate with minor factions even with militarists in their senate. If I'm misremembering, you can always switch your government type (seems some people here think science cravers is good) and get the bonuses that way. The science and dust bonuses you get from minors is far greater than anything you would get from being on ecstatic. The science boost in particular is worth far more than having a food and influence boost.

The other trade off here that I forgot to mention is that you are actively denying yourself a system for that approval. That includes it's specific population (important for growth mechanic reasons for Cravers), the bonus faction trait, and any resources that system has. Asking yourself whether you'd rather have the system and all it's stuff (and not risk it falling into the hands of an enemy) or whether you want to have an extra +15 approval is a meaningful decision to be made as a Craver player. Removing the approval bonus just means there is little reason not just to immediately conquer ever minor faction (especially if you can't negotiate with them) you stumble across, which is perfectly doable in with the cruiser ship your questline gives you early on.

Not to mention it applies to other factions with militarist focused senate as well, because getting the positive minor faction diplomatic bonuses you listed requires producing enough Influence to become friends with minor factions in the first place, a resource that is quite hard to produce in early game unless you're playing a faction specifically focused on it. Unlike the pre-nerf Militarist law you're making an actual trade-off. Meaning that while you may have a few friendly non-assimilated minor factions, you're unlikely to have them all and as such you can declare war on the rest and receive free approval.

Yes, and I think this is fine for other factions to have. My concern is that this is a heavy nerf to Craver early game. 

You're also forgetting that approval is a much more valuable resource than empire level Dust or Science increase, as the former lets you expand very, very wide and secure a very high overall FIDSI output without paying attention to over-colonization, approval buildings or other approval laws that have an actual cost. This is something that affects all factions.

Not early game it isn't, which is when you access to the bonus because there are still minor factions left on the map. Having loads of approval to allow you to expand doesn't really matter when you've only got 3-4 systems. 

And like I already said: if Cravers do become too weak (they really don't) and need a way to secure extra early game approval like before with the unnerfed version of the law, use my suggestion of making the minor faction war bonus temporary so it helps only early game, is intuitive to use and thematically fits the political party.

I really don't know how you can just state "(they really don't)". Have you played a set of full Craver games on this branch of the mod yet? It's been active for like 2 days? Anyway, as I said before, I'd be fine if the approval bonus was halfed for minor factions.