G2G balance mode Riftborn faction Feedback

I have been playing Riftborn faction from the release of the game and I tried G2G balanced mod trying to see what changes have been made.

Here's my feed back.

1. Basic Riftborn pop production cost change

50+100 *N (the number of Riftborn pop current system) 

->

50+50*N

(based on normal speed)

This is an enourmous buff for Riftborn. I think this is to reduce the impact of the changes which I will describe below.

2. Riftborn pop production cost increase when the number of Riftborn pop in the entire empire increases.

This is the main point of the changes for Riftborn .

Well, I agree that Riftborn is quite over balaced and trying to nerf Riftborn for more balanced game is desirable.

1) The problem is that it is too harsh.

For example, When the number of total Riftborn pop is 10 in the empire, Riftborn pop production cost was about 400 industry for newly founded star system.

This means it requires more than 10 turns to produce one pop. This is too cruel for new system. 

If the home system produces the Riftborn pop continuously, production cost for new system increase as well, which makes is more cruel and critical.

 The problem goes on. 

2) Industry cost for Riftborn pop production increases immidiately.

Let me explain previous statement with an example.

Turn 1

System A, Industy 100, Riftborn pop production cost 200

System B, Industy 100, Riftborn pop production cost 200

When turn 3 comes, Riftborn pop must be produced for each system A and B, right?.... But, G2G Balance mod says no.

Since Riftborn pop increased in System A, the production cost for System B increased immidiately! ex) 200 -> 243 (The number is not accurate)

So, only System A successfully produced Riftborn pop but System B did not.

More critical problem comes next

3) Discardment of Industy leftover after Riftborn pop production occurs before the Riftborn pop cost increment.

It is well-known that the Industy leftover after Riftborn pop production is discarded.

here is another example.

Turn 20

Home system, Industy 1000, Riftborn pop production cost 500

System C, Industy 300, Riftborn pop production cost 100

What would be the result when Turn 21 comes?

Home system successfully produced Riftborn pop.

System C, 200 industy leftover is discarded. Only 100 Industy is contributed for production, but the cost increased. (from 100 -> 143 whatever...)

Production in system C failed because only partial production gauge was made (100 out of 143).

This is very critical problem, because it means that only a single Riftborn pop in the entire empire can be produced each turn.

If home system produces Riftborn pop, other systems will never produces...

I don't believe that such change was intended by dev.

Conclusion

1. is enormous buff.

2. is harsh nerf and contains very critical problem as previously explained.

The changed of Riftborn in G2G balance mod must be retrieved or modifed considerably.

Balancing the game by nerfing Riftborn is desirable and necessary, but it must be done with totally different way.

Please notice this feedback and consider.

how hard would it be to have riftborn pop be scaled on a per system basis? 

so no matter how many riftborn you have sent too or away from the system the cost of the next riftborn is linear on that system. So if its only produced two, the next would cost X industry then the next would be X+1. 

This would negate the issue of shipping riftborn away from a system so you can always build one at a timd which is the point of the nerf. 

So the question is is could it be done on a per system basis where each riftborn built costs X industry based on whether its the first or the or the tenth built regardless of how many riftborn are actually in the system?

If something like this with the costs in line would be a great solution.

 IMO of course

SamWAR wrote:

plutar wrote:

how hard would it be to have riftborn pop be scaled on a per system basis? 

 I absolutely agree with this. It's pretty much the basis for vodyani pops, and it works fine for them. Riftborn are strong, sure, but by punishing new systems this much we are basically breaking their ability to play wide. 

Vodyanis cannot send population to other systems. Riftborns already have a scaling cost, it just gets reduced if you send the pops away to another system, and this can cause abuse.

plutar wrote:

how hard would it be to have riftborn pop be scaled on a per system basis? 

so no matter how many riftborn you have sent too or away from the system the cost of the next riftborn is linear on that system. So if its only produced two, the next would cost X industry then the next would be X+1. 

This would negate the issue of shipping riftborn away from a system so you can always build one at a timd which is the point of the nerf. 

So the question is is could it be done on a per system basis where each riftborn built costs X industry based on whether its the first or the or the tenth built regardless of how many riftborn are actually in the system?

If something like this with the costs in line would be a great solution.

 IMO of course

Doable and already done in my balance mod, you'll have to add a cap to the maximum of industry though, as losing pops through invasions or obliteration could lead to the cost increasing ad infinitum.

I know while it isn't under the looking glass of current balance changes, I went over Religious politics and laws again and they're completely bonkers.

General issue (non-Vodyani): Impossible to increase party popularity

- The party popularity is nearly impossible to increase due to lack of gameplay actions influencing the party's popularity. Apart from the generic party related actions that every party has access to (create relevant building, recruit hero, assign hero, quest choices) the only unique action available to non-Vodyani is pacifist conversion of systems that only happens in late game and even then it doesn't hold up party popularity on its own.

Specific Laws:

Sticky: Righteous Fury - This is essentially a worse version of Militarist sticky law

Effect: Can attack in enemy territory during Cold War and ignore Closed Borders

- On the defense it's castrated by Pacifist sticky law enforcing peace. However Pacifist sticky law can't hard counter the much better Militarist sticky law due to only applying against Cold War.

- On the offense it's also directly countered by Militarist sticky law. The main bonus of Righteous Fury is being able to attack in enemy territory without them being able to do it back without paying Influence for war declaration, but Militarists can just skip that entirely. If Religious factions are attacking you, might as well declare a free war for free approval.

- Righteous Fury gives no bonuses for wars or cold wars, unlike Militarist sticky that gives free approval.

- SUGGESTION: If you want to keep the base effect intact instead of overhauling the law completely, give Righteous Fury immunity to Militarist (free war declaration) and Pacifist (forced Cold War to Peace) sticky laws and in general greatly increase the Influence cost all opponents have to pay to be able to declare war on a faction that has the law active so it actually serves its intended purpose in gameplay. This could perhaps even be expanded to include all negative Influence consuming declarations and actions towards a Religious empire.

Tier 1: Species Stability (non-Vodyani version) - Directly conflicts with increasing Religious party popularity as non-Vodyani

Effect: +5 Dust / starting pop, only starting pops can grow

- None of the major faction species apart from Vodyani are Religious leaning. Thus using this law as non-Vodyani makes only non-Religious major pops grow on the expense of actually Religious minor pops. It directly conflicts with increasing Religious party popularity. This is really a bummer due to Religious party already being the hardest party to keep in power because of lack of relevant gameplay actions as non-Vodyani, since you're essentially forced into ignoring the first law you unlock completely.

- This is very noticable with Sophons who start out with Religious Pilgrims as a minor faction, but the first Religious law they have directly hinders Religious popularity, especially since Sophons themselves are also anti-Religious! Why even have Religious as the secondary starting party at all?

- SUGGESTION: I can't think of anything concrete, but this law needs to go if Religious party popularity is ever going to be made manageable.

Tier 1: Species Stability (Vodyani version) - Uninteresting crutch law that's not a gameplay decision

Effect: +15 Essence / system, +2 Essence / pop

- The Vodyani version is also kind of silly due to law costs for them being so cheap in general to the point of never becoming an issue, and it's a law that will always and forever occupy one slot due to giving them free valuable Essence that scales with their empire size. It's a crutch law like Sophons' industry cost law. It does nothing interesting but occupy a law slot for the duration of the entire game. 

- SUGGESTION: It feels like the effects of this law could easily be streamlined into normal Vodyani faction traits while changing the law to something else. After all the very reason the law was made this way was to help uneven Vodyani early game Essence gain.

Tier 3: Saint & Sinners Bill - Wrong tier

Effect: Sets approval to Content in all systems

- This is easily the strongest law in the party since it lets you ignore all approval related issues altogether, and becomes even more powerful in combo with Republic government for permament Happy empire approval.

- SUGGESTION: Move the law to T4 of the Religious party, since it's the strongest law.

Tier 4: Peace and Prayer Act (non-Vodyani version) - Weak and useless law

Effect: Influence conversion will be applied automatically at 100%, +20% Influence conversion rate

- This one is plain useless, yet it's the highest tier law in the Religious party. By the time you unlock it your empire level Influence output will be so high that the small cost reduction from faster automatic conversion won't matter, it's much faster to directly buyout a system the moment it gets under influence. That's IF you ever get systems under influence.

- As a more general issue with pacifist conversion mechanic the maps simply aren't cramped enough to ever make it in any way a common occurence, so you don't have many chances to convert enemy systems in the first place and the cost reduction isn't necessary.

- Actually is it even a cost reduction? I haven't done the math but it's clearly just replacing one direct Influence cost with another over time Influence cost?

- Because it's the highest tier law and Religious party popularity is the most difficult party to get in power, non-Vodyani factions that would actually benefit from this law like United Empire, Horatio or even Hissho with high Influence generation never get to use it. Nothing in their kit helps Religious party popularity.

- SUGGESTION: Make the law increase systems' Influence bubble growth speed instead. This would actually make the law help you do its intended effect, i.e. convert enemy systems. It could also neatly tie together with diplomatic pressure effects and Influence related mechanics!

How about "Pay Influence to reject Diplomatic Declarations"? It's an active thing you do, it spends the Religious resource, it neatly accounts for everything it would affect in one sentence. Then have the cost go up each time it's used. Only problem is then Militarists still just declare war for free until you stop rejecting it, but that's a problem of Militarists that also allows them to constantly break truces.

As for your comment mamarider,  it really shouldn't need to be explained why it's a problem for the first Religious law to completely hobble the election chances of the Religious party. As for Federation and Republic, the fact that cheating is so cheap, risk-free and plainly the correct choice is already a problem because it hobbles the election mechanics and makes Dictatorships main schtick rather useless.

So, that said, suggestions

1. Ditch the Dust for Racism law, put the XP law in its place
2. Make the new tier 2 law a boost to Blockade and Sacking income, to synergize with and better justify the Pinned law
3. Take a page from the Spies event, and give cheating in Fed and Rep a chance to fail or get caught or whatever to justify why we should bother with politics instead of just paying a small fee to mostly ignore it.
4. Make Blockading/Sacking and Diplomatic Demands into Religious events, since the former is clearly a major aspect of Religious gameplay (hence why Hissho and Vodyani and Horatio all do it!), while Diplomatic Demands are clearly the current major Influence hog.
5. Allow the Religious mandate to let players reject declarations so that it actually works against humans instead of being another single player-only mechanic. Alternately, add a scaling Influence cost to all opponent declarations.

@Kuma, what happens if Riftorn are killed via bombing or whatever? Does the system 'forget' it built those Riftborn, or does it remember forever?

I think I'd prefer this to a 'per system' scaling too, but I can live with 'per system' scaling, and I suspect given dev time it's what we'll get. 

I'm not so troubled that if you have to manufacture Riftborn for new colonies at your industrial centres... well, that's half the point. (The other half is that one lava world with one population can't keep churning out cheap Riftborn, but both new calculations fix that.). 

Personally, forced to do something simple, I'd drop the per-system scaling; just base production on total number of Riftborn in the Empire seems more sensible. At least then you have a choice over how you distribute your limited number of Riftborn population (wide or tall). And given how FIDSI grows per pop over the tech levels, there should be a good scaling of cost that makes their return on investment sensible throughout the game.

Hey, I'm new here so I'm not sure how to search this particular forum for answers. I'm not sure if this has been asked, but is this only happening to me in the G2G mod? I just downloaded it tonight and I don't see the leech techs is their new tiers. They're still in the old tiers and stacked on top of each other. One last question -- How long does it usually take for the G2G mod changes to reach vanilla? Btw, love the new Vodyani changes.

https://i.imgur.com/FJLqpd5.png

WeLoveYou wrote:

The government switch was in reference to changing to a different party, not changing the type of government. That wasn't very clear on my part, so again, my bad.

Looking back at it, I really should've realised that's what you meant. I mean everything else you said implied it. My bad.

jaypad07 wrote:

I'm not sure if this has been asked, but is this only happening to me in the G2G mod?

Nope, it happened to me too. Good thing you mentioned it.

About the militarist law change:

I played a couple of games as the Cravers (on normal speed). The militarist law change doesn't seem to make Craver early game too weak, though there are two major things I noticed about my games:

First of all, it limited the use of Cram Exam Act (approval to science law) and Super-Tax Act. The rate of expansion slowed down due to less colonization tech.

The other thing I noticed was that early warfare became a lot more attractive option. Even though less science lead to less weapon/ship tech, the approval bonus from wars was more impactful. Especially with the ability to consume colonies for large amounts of dust. The dust was rather handy now that with lower approval and increased ship upkeep there was less of it.

On a side note, the AI wanted to colonize the consumed systems so badly that it built colony ships even under siege. It stopped only when the colony was entirely consumed.

Kuma wrote:
The BIG problem with making it scale on Empire level is that it unjustly nerfs Riftborn which was already one of the hardest faction to play -if and only if you weren't exploiting seeding with empty systems-, the balance between buildings improvements and building pops isn't something easy to find for new players. On top of that, it really limits your choices, instead of being able to either play wide by building a lot of colonizers and having limited population or tall by focusing on buildings pops instead, you'll only be able to play the latter because it'll now take eons to develop new systems because of an arbitrary Empire scaling, and even then, they don't have enough things to compensate for playing tall, so they'll just be bottom tier balance-wise and the AI will probably be even worse at playing RB than it already is, all that to fix an exploit the AI doesn't even use.

Right. I actually think the system scaling probably should be reversed, and Riftborn should be cheaper with more systems, but more expensive with more riftborn. Something like:

Cost proportional to (some power of?)   [(Riftborn in Empire - 4*Systems in Empire)]

Maybe Riftborn are like fermions; they resist being piled up in the same place, but they're okay if there's room to spread out!