Logo Platform
logo amplifiers simplified

G2G Balance Mod Feedback

Reply
Copied to clipboard!
7 years ago
Aug 22, 2017, 1:16:25 PM

How about a mixed approch? Buying heroes with dust on the market place stays as is (though I always find them quite cheap there), but once you have built the Academy Embassy, you can buy heroes with influence (seperate market?). Thus, the UE ability of using inluence on heroes at the market place gets not obliterated.


In addition, luxury resources could be used to lower the hiring price for a hero (think about it like a gift). This would give those resources some more purpose in the game - a good thing imho.

0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 22, 2017, 1:22:46 PM
BarbeQ wrote:

How about a mixed approch? Buying heroes with dust on the market place stays as is (though I always find them quite cheap there), but once you have built the Academy Embassy, you can buy heroes with influence (seperate market?). Thus, the UE ability of using inluence on heroes at the market place gets not obliterated.


In addition, luxury resources could be used to lower the hiring price for a hero (think about it like a gift). This would give those resources some more purpose in the game - a good thing imho.

That could also work.

Currently resources are very nice to increase production by enhancing population for 10 turns.

Not it not only increases the chances of getting that population type but also doubles their bonuses.

I noticed that by accident as I have missed it in the long list of changes in the patch.


So now you are rare to overflow with luxury resources and the increase in resource cost for colony development makes you trade more to sell things you don't need and buy what you need.

0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 22, 2017, 7:32:01 PM
jhell wrote:

@CyRob: as usual you go very in-depth and I'm impressed with your understanding of the game. I wish I had the time to give you a more detailed answer (come to the next Beer2Gether :)). To keep it short, we draw the same conclusions as you in regards to trade and it's with this paradigm in mind that we tried to nerf them. We didn't go the relative route but it's a nice idea to try out if our current balance doesn't work out.

I'm glad that my oversized posts are appreciated,

I do wish that I could make it to the Beer2Gether but it's a bit far away from me unfortunately (I think it’s just under 8 hours by car or train)

Hopefully I will be able to go sometime when it's closer.


I'm pleased to hear that a relative route has been taken note of, 

And I will look forward to when the next mod version comes out.

Then I'll be able to give my thoughts on the route that was taken.


The big advantage with the relative route is it removes many factors from consideration 

(for example; you don't have to do anything to it for both tiny & exceptional maps it just self balances)

which also makes it rather hard to game if at all possible. 

I hope that your method does something similar to this,

As the main issue with it currently is that it does not account for certain factors (such as galaxy size) and is very easy to game.


I will have more to say once I've seen the solution in place.


For Custom Factions sadly we are constrained to have increments of 5 in the costs for readability reasons; having more granularity makes it more difficult to parse in general.

It's a shame that your limited to 5 point increments, it will be incredibly difficult if not impossible to balance faction traits with that in place (unless you plan on chancing the traits effects)


Hero XP is also going to follow your conclusions; we're going to try a passive gain both for admirals and governors based on the values from where they're assigned. They will also keep their active gains.

If governors get passive gains you will probably need to reduce the active gain from building improvements.

The current amount of xp they get is on the upper limit of being balanced, so making the total (of passive + active) be a little less would be fine but having the total be more would be unbalanced and make heroes too powerful. 


I'll see what @frogsquadron thinks of making a new thread, but it's convenient (for us) to have everything in one place.

I'm happy with keeping to one thread but you guys may want to make a DevBlog/Announcement that the next version is out for testing (When it does come out)


I'm running your suggestion to buy heroes with influence on the market (it makes sense thematically) with the other GDs; always worth it to make it an Idea regardless. What could be problematic is that Dust is the market currency, and bringing in Influence would downplay that and also make the UE a bit less unique.

I myself am not sure about this idea, as heroes are a large part of the game and influence tends to be much more fluctuating than the other fids in the amounts you end up producing (at least it is before the mid-late game) Maybe you could keep the dust cost but add an additional influence cost to purchase them?

0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 22, 2017, 8:16:59 PM
CyRob wrote:

If governors get passive gains you will probably need to reduce the active gain from building improvements.

The current amount of xp they get is on the upper limit of being balanced, so making the total (of passive + active) be a little less would be fine but having the total be more would be unbalanced and make heroes too powerful. 

+1 this. Governor hero EXP gains as of now don't really need an additional buff, on the contrary I think they should be nerfed since already it's very easy to get fully leveled heroes on multiple high production systems, often to the point that you run out of governor skills to level up and end up taking admiral skills that don't have any use for governors. This is especially apparent with systems buffed by Riftborn singularities and I've gotten governor heroes' every single skill (both governor and admiral) fully leveled up in normal speed default setting games and been left with unused skill points to top it off. 

0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 22, 2017, 8:41:34 PM
CyRob wrote:


The big advantage with the relative route is it removes many factors from consideration 

(for example; you don't have to do anything to it for both tiny & exceptional maps it just self balances)

which also makes it rather hard to game if at all possible. 

I hope that your method does something similar to this,

As the main issue with it currently is that it does not account for certain factors (such as galaxy size) and is very easy to game.

I think the main downside is that the (already very cryptic) trade rules become even more obtuse, not to mention counter-intuitive.


Really like the rest of your points, btw.


Updated 7 years ago.
0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 23, 2017, 7:55:44 PM

Heroes for Influence: To respond to CyRob, I often find myself either producing too much Influence I don't need, or just about enough Influence because I didn't invest in it very heavily. A lot of Influence features are very, very conservative about what they provide because there are no Influence sinks to let us benefit from a surplus; if you aren't the UE you have no good use for Influence, even if you're a merchant in a politically volatile galaxy. I see two possibilities for my suggestion:


 - Buyout: The Embassy lets you buyout the remaining points to unlock using Influence, growing more expensive with each Hero unlock.

 - Rogues vs. Knights: Heroes from the G-Services Exhange still cost Dust and are underleveled; the Embassy unlocks the same screen, but instead unlocks Heroes that cost lots of Influence and come already leveled to whatever the Academy is offering. Now UE can buy "rogues" for cheap or save up for "knights" using the same resource.


We don't need to ditch the Marketplace, but to tie the Embassy mechanics to Influence would make a reasonable connection for Influence, Religious politics, and the Academy. Factions geared for Influence and Heroes, like Vodyani and Horatio, would work a lot better and be able to actively invest in Heroes as a long term strategy. Add the ability to buy XP boosts with Influence and we're in business.


Trade Routes: I find them already quite cryptic Dragar. Unfortunately I'm not sure that it can be helped due to the complexity of turn speeds and map settings; however, I do believe that turn counts need to be implemented in a lot more mechanics. We have a perfectly serviceable number from 150-600 that can help control a lot of the mathematics in the game to help them scale to game speed.


Resources: The new system of Luxury boosts for Populations has made the game infinitely more fun for me, as I can finally find my niche as a purveyor of Luxury resources and quality goods and services on the market. Strategic resources are still problematic though: the Marketplace never has them, the AI will never trade them away, Expeditions aren't reliable and never obtain quite enough of a given resource to be useful, and the technology to mine anything beyond Titanium and Quadrinix is locked very deep in the Economy quadrant. As a result, pretty much any strategy that involves hitting Stage 5 techs is going to have to hit Stage 5 of the Economy quadrant first. We also have to spend a lot of tech choices on Strategics, which for me has turned the Economy quadrant into a boring checklist where any interesting choices are squashed by the hunger for the resources those options demand.


I think it would open up the game a lot if Strategic resources were moved to the Stage Unlocks for the Economy quadrant, with their current spaces being filled by more interesting and varied improvements. For example, there are no early to mid game Luxury mining improvements to contrast Strategic mining improvements, there are no Dust improvements in Stage 1, there are no Industry, Science, or Defense early Unique improvements, etc.


Marketplace: The marketplace is currently a bit useless. It doesn't produce it's own resources, or if it does it's at a pitiful rate, and as a result nobody can get anything from it except for Superspuds and Tier 1 Strategics, because nobody wants them. I propose a system where each resource starts with X stocks, and gains an additional y based on game speed.

- Tier 1: Starts at 100 stocks, increases by .5-2 each turn based on game speed (400 total)

- Tier 2: Starts at 50 stocks, increases by .5-2 each second turn (200 total)

- Tier 3: Starts at 0 stocks, increases by .5-2 every third turn (100 total)


In addition, whatever happened to half the features of the Marketplace? We had an Advertising section at one point in EA that seems to have since been removed, there are no longer Market Events to refill popular stocks or buyout cheap ones or mess with prices... those mechanics were good. Migration also seems to have vanished from the games mechanics, which makes Horatio a sad man.

Updated 7 years ago.
0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 23, 2017, 10:06:14 PM
IceGremlin wrote:

We don't need to ditch the Marketplace, but to tie the Embassy mechanics to Influence would make a reasonable connection for Influence, Religious politics, and the Academy. Factions geared for Influence and Heroes, like Vodyani and Horatio, would work a lot better and be able to actively invest in Heroes as a long term strategy. Add the ability to buy XP boosts with Influence and we're in business.

I really like this idea or something like it, especially if it would also create new gameplay actions that tie into boosting religious politics since apart from Vodyani it's currently rather absurdly difficult to play religious heavy game with any other major faction unless you have Dictatorship and force it. In addition to only Vodyani starting with religious main species pops, currently there's nearly not enough religious in-game actions to boost religious party popularity. 


All the other parties have loads of different constructions and other easily accessible actions (war for militarists, Dust focus and diplomacy interactions for pacifists, science and especially extensive exploration to grow scientist popularity etc.) making their parties easier to keep popular even without dictatorship or election shenanigans depending on your general playstyle, whereas apart from influence constructions the only real in-game action increasing religious popularity is influence conversion of enemy systems, which is both unlocked very late and limited in use unless you have extremely big influence bubble through other non-guaranteed bonuses such as luxury resources. Add the fact that apart from law upkeep or buyout in case of UE, only real early game influence sinks usually are major and minor faction interactions that actively help pacifist rather than religious popularity.


Various issues:


  • Sophons do start with religious Pilgrims, but the faction's own gameplay doesn't really lend itself into keeping up religious popularity and as far I recall none of their faction quest's options have a religious path, not to mention Sophons themselves have the anti-religious trait. After the law changes the first unlocked religious law Species Stability also makes only anti-religious Sophons able to grow. All these combined with Sophons starting with democracy they have no hope of nurturing the religious party.


  • On the other hand you'd think that the United Empire were perfect for religious focused game due to their natural influence generation and other boosts to it (they even get a religious hero in UE path), but none of the starting UE pops themselves have inherent bonuses to religious party popularity and their main quest actively discourages straying away from Military / Industry / Science focus in early game due to your chosen path requiring you to pass laws from those parties. The UE industrialist path that retains the pops' influence boost is also actually harder than the other two and has even less room for early game religious election actions due to the Industrialist path requiring you to apply one additional law to balance the Industrialist party being their native one, thus forcing you to change to democracy for more law slows at the cost of control over senate and thus the religious party. Even in early game if you want to keep religious party in power as secondary party you're forced to spend all your influence on election actions rather than more useful buyouts or minor faction actions, and even then it's not guaranteed.


  • Horatio, while they have religious options in their quest and get influence boosting stuff from it, start with dictatorship (only one party allowed) and have two new unique Ecologist laws that both unlock last, not to mention their one species focus of ecologist-inclined pops pigeonhole them even more into staying fully Ecologist for as long as they're shouldered with dictatorship. Their own pops don't have any religious popularity increasing traits either, though they do have anti-scientific trait, but it's not really enough to prevent scientist popularity growing much higher than the religious party's due to lack of religious actions.


The biggest problem these facts pose for non-Vodyani religious gameplay, even if you end up raising their popularity much later through election actions and finally unlocking influence conversion, is that you'll never get to use the last tier religious laws, especially the one that makes influence conversion of systems more powerful. Anyways the point of this rant being that the hero / influence centric ideas suggested here or other gameplay additions benefitting religious party popularity could really be welcome considering the party's current extreme niche status.

Updated 7 years ago.
0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 24, 2017, 4:31:44 PM

Hello, apparently the balancem od has been uodated recently. I would liek to test it, but where can i find information about the change into the mod ?


(Or am I too impatient ?)


edit : nvm found it. Directly on the mod page of steam. My bad


edit II the return : thanks :)


(dang the porr trade routes, is that black thursday of the future ?)

Updated 7 years ago.
0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 24, 2017, 4:36:05 PM

You can find the change log on it's Steam workshop page http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/changelog/1077924717


I'll put it here till they add it:


Release Notes: 


Version 2.0


Custom Factions
Factions Traits
- “Pathfinder” cost reduced from 40 to 25
- “Skillful Traders” effect changed from +20% Star System Trade Value on Systems to +15% Star System Trade Value on Systems
- “Perfect Genes I” cost reduced from 15 to 10
- “Perfect Genes II” cost reduced from 30 to 20
- “Guardians” cost increased from 25 to 40
- “Crowded Planets I” and “Crowded Planets II” disabled for Ship Bound factions
- “Social Chameleons” cost reduced from 20 to 15
- Added a new Faction Trait “Extended Consortium” adding 1 maximum Trading Company which costs 15
- “Mutual Understanding I” cost increased from 5 to 10
- “Mutual Understanding II” cost increased from 10 to 15

Population Traits
- “Adept Workers” cost increased from 20 to 25

Planets
- Atoll Planet cost increased from 10 to 15
- Ocean Planet cost increased from 10 to 15
- Added the “Fertile” attribute to Mediterranean Planet Type
- Added the “Fertile” attribute to Monsoon Planet Type

Governments
- Democracy Government cost increased from 5 to 10
- Republic Government cost increased from 5 to 10

Trading Companies
- Reduced the maximum numbers of Trading Companies per Empire from 5 to 3 (4 for Lumeris)
- Reduced the impact of Trading Company Level on Trading Company gains
- Reduced the impact of System Level on Trading Company gains
- Reduced the impact of System Population on Trading Company gains
- Reduced the impact of Luxury Freighters on Trading Company Luxury gains
- Reduced the impact of Dust Freighters on Trading Company Dust gains
- Reduced Trading Company XP needed to level up, to adapt the pacing to the gain reductions
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Trade Clearing Bureau” (Wonder) from +200% to +100%
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Solar Security Operations Base” (Star System Improvement) from +50% to +25%
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Xhiyun’s Cartel” (Star System Improvement) from +50% to +25%
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Borer’s Guild Bourse” (Star System Improvement) from +50% to +25%
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Lucky Windfall” (Lumeris Senator Skill) from +50% to +25%
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Drift Buds” (Luxury Resource for System Development Projects) from +50% to +25%

Heroes
- Lowered hero skill threshold unlock to 4/8/12 spent skill points
- Lowered from 8% to 4% the XP gained from completed system improvements for governors (with a minimum gain of 5 XP)
- Increased x10 XP gained from battles for admirals
- Increased XP required to level up for hero ships
- Added passive XP gains for heroes:
+ Admirals: based on ships in fleet and ship quality
+ Governors: based on system population and level

Other
- Reduced Transvine deposits Approval bonus from +4 per Population to +3 per Population
- Reduced the amount of Tier 1 Luxury Resources necessary to build a Star System Development Project
- Increased the amount of Tier 3 Luxury Resources necessary to build a Star System Development Project
- Increased Overcolonization thresholds on all galaxy sizes:
+ Tiny from 2 to 4
+ Small from 3 to 4
+ Medium from 4 to 5
+ Large from 5 to 6
+ Huge from 6 to 7
+ Colossal from 7 to 8
+ Exceptional from 8 to 9
- Reduced Overcolonization Approval malus from -15 per System over the threshold to -10 per System over the threshold

0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 24, 2017, 4:36:35 PM

Let me put it here, I'll chastise Dagart for not updating this in Meedoc's absence, tomorrow!


Edit: cross-post!

Updated 7 years ago.
0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 24, 2017, 5:19:23 PM

Planets: Adding Fertile to those types will make life a lot easier, though I still believe that the Stage 1 basic improvements should stop caring about planet types, I think our starting pops and planets are already sufficient to differentiate faction starts. In the meantime Horatio Prime will be a more suitable homeworld for Horatio, and maybe we can look forward to a new civ from a Monsoon world, eh?


Trading Companies: These changes should make things a bit less ridiculous, I hope. However, I worry that fewer companies with higher XP gains could result in players hitting their maximum potential a bit too early on. I like it in theory though.


Heroes: Again, I like the changes, but I worry that Heroes won't be "deep" enough. That is, I'm worried we'll max out a given Heroes potential too quickly; I also don't look forward to the inevitable point where a Heroes skills runneth over and are assigned just to get the notifications to go away. Could we get a level cap of some sort? It would also prevent leveling skills from getting out of control.


Overcolonization: I appreciate these changes greatly. The Overcolonization malus hurt really badly, such that I had some spotty coverage even as glorious and psychologically fulfilled and giddy Horatio.


On the note of Horatio, what're the chances we could get an alternate quest reward tossed in? Seems a missed chance that a free Assimilation effect isn't a quest reward, especially cause Horatio needs some more "inherent" stats for their luxury boost to be worthwhile; their Luxury bonuses are kind of off the mark since we're deliberately destroying the pops that use them.

0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 24, 2017, 5:28:01 PM

Well need to check for luxury income to be sure but... Looks like the trade routes snowball power will still be able to exist but it will be way longer (more than a long game i would say) to reach an insane/unbalanced state from it. Seems good !

Updated 7 years ago.
0Send private message
0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 24, 2017, 6:53:52 PM

- Added the “Fertile” attribute to Mediterranean Planet Type

- Added the “Fertile” attribute to Monsoon Planet Type

I have 2 points of feed back on this. 

1) If you look at the terraforming chart (link), monsoon and mediterranean are on the same level as tundra. If these two planets are changed, then tundra should be too. 

2) Mediterranean terraforms to jungle, but when you do that you actually lose fids output (6/6/3/0 to 6/5/3/0) and only gain a bit of happiness. Before, the fertile keyword would be a reason to terraform into forest, but with this change that is gone too. So with this change, why would I ever terraform to jungle? Maybe that terraforming path should be cheaper? 


On heroes, can we get exact XP sources and amounts? That would help me a bunch with giving proper feedback. Otherwise I will have to research it myself which is very tedious and I'd just rather not.

0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 24, 2017, 8:06:34 PM

I think the 'fertile' change is a certainly a step back in terms of easy understanding and in terms of balance between planet types.

0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 24, 2017, 11:32:47 PM

I don't remember the exact pop count, but terraforming has been in general to decrease/flatten out general FIDS production in favour of a larger pop count. if jungle has 1 more pop slot than mediterranian, then the extra pop more than makes up for the loss of one point. you can also "upgrade" it into an atoll, though as I've stated on my idea over here, it's not really an upgrade since it loses the hot modifier. if the idea were to be implimented, there would be your reason for terraforming to jungle, since atoll has a higher FIDS output than jungles.


I'm not sure what the point of upping the price on atoll/ocean planets is, though. they're inherently inferior to jungles and boreal planets. aside from lore, I don't even know why anyone would pick those as a starting planet, anyway. they're good planets, sure, but they're temperate, which provides no bonus to anything, and which is weaker than hot/cold in system improvement stats. if I'm wanting a temperate planet, then, sure, they're on the same level as terran and forest planets, but again, I'm not sure why one would want a temperate planet as a starting planet when boreal/jungle are pretty balanced themselves

Updated 7 years ago.
0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 25, 2017, 12:15:07 AM

I've had a look at the changelog and the mod files and played one game with the mod so far.

It's looks like a lot of what I said in my earlier mega post has made it into this version (although that could have just been me thinking on the same wavelength as the Dev's)

CyRob wrote: (feels a bit odd replying to myself)

Custom Factions
Factions Traits
- “Pathfinder” cost reduced from 40 to 25
- “Skillful Traders” effect changed from +20% Star System Trade Value on Systems to +15% Star System Trade Value on Systems
- “Perfect Genes I” cost reduced from 15 to 10
- “Perfect Genes II” cost reduced from 30 to 20
- “Guardians” cost increased from 25 to 40
- “Crowded Planets I” and “Crowded Planets II” disabled for Ship Bound factions
- “Social Chameleons” cost reduced from 20 to 15
- Added a new Faction Trait “Extended Consortium” adding 1 maximum Trading Company which costs 15
- “Mutual Understanding I” cost increased from 5 to 10
- “Mutual Understanding II” cost increased from 10 to 15
Planets
- Atoll Planet cost increased from 10 to 15
- Ocean Planet cost increased from 10 to 15
Governments
- Democracy Government cost increased from 5 to 10
- Republic Government cost increased from 5 to 10

I Like all of these changes; The Pathfinder trait has desperately needed a cost reduction and Guardians a cost increase. All the other faction trait changes look good.


The Planet & Government Cost changes are like what I suggested so I'm happy with them.


I'm still disappointed that the costs have to stick to 5-point increments but I can see why.


Population Traits
- “Adept Workers” cost increased from 20 to 25

While this sounds good to me (as it is the most powerful population trait), as far as I can tell this change is not in effect in-game. "Adept Workers" Still Costs 20.

I've checked the mod files in case it was forgotten about or something but It is set in the files and the file is set to be put in the right database. 

So I'm not sure what is going on. (I did try adding population traits in a mod a little while back (1.0.36 release) and had issues with them not appearing in the menu so maybe something is up with the modding system in regards to this, or we have both missed something)


Planets

- Added the “Fertile” attribute to Mediterranean Planet Type
- Added the “Fertile” attribute to Monsoon Planet Type

For this I would agree with Maser & Dragar:


Maser wrote:

1) If you look at the terraforming chart (link), monsoon and mediterranean are on the same level as tundra. If these two planets are changed, then tundra should be too. 

2) Mediterranean terraforms to jungle, but when you do that you actually lose fids output (6/6/3/0 to 6/5/3/0) and only gain a bit of happiness. Before, the fertile keyword would be a reason to terraform into forest, but with this change that is gone too. So with this change, why would I ever terraform to jungle? Maybe that terraforming path should be cheaper? 

Dragar wrote:

I think the 'fertile' change is a certainly a step back in terms of easy understanding and in terms of balance between planet types.

That tundra should also be made fertile, if you look at my own Terraforming Chart you can see these changes leave Tundra as the only 6 Raw Food non-Fertile Planet type.

(also this makes the chart asymmetrical which I would very much like to avoid)


As for your second point Maser, I would Terraform Mediterraneans to jungles so that I can terraform them into Atolls (which is my favourite planet type) which give you more FIDS in the end (6/6/3/0 to 8/6/4/2)

Atoll is the only High Industry (>4) Top Tier planet type and there are not many opportunities to gain one so it very much worth it.

Heroes
- Lowered hero skill threshold unlock to 4/8/12 spent skill points
- Lowered from 8% to 4% the XP gained from completed system improvements for governors (with a minimum gain of 5 XP)
- Increased x10 XP gained from battles for admirals
- Increased XP required to level up for hero ships
- Added passive XP gains for heroes:
+ Admirals: based on ships in fleet and ship quality
+ Governors: based on system population and level

The Labels for the new hero skill unlock thresholds seem misaligned with the labels "Used Skill Points 0" at the 4 point boundary, "Used Skill Points 4" at the 8 point boundary & "Used Skill Points 8" at the 12 point boundary.

But otherwise the Threshold reduction works quite well with the slower level up (I'm used to heroes levelling up rather fast with the use of very high production systems)


Maser wrote: On heroes, can we get exact XP sources and amounts? That would help me a bunch with giving proper feedback. Otherwise I will have to research it myself which is very tedious and I'd just rather not.

Here is what I could Find:


Active XP:

On Construction Complete: Production Cost * 0.04, Minimum 5XP

On Node Discovered: 4XP

On Battle Fought: Not sure 


Passive XP (Per Turn): (Modified by the game speed modifier)

Being Assigned: +1 XP

Admirals: Fleet CP * (1 + Number of Strategic Modules / 10 )

Governors: Can't find in files so not sure



Other
- Reduced Transvine deposits Approval bonus from +4 per Population to +3 per Population
- Reduced the amount of Tier 1 Luxury Resources necessary to build a Star System Development Project
- Increased the amount of Tier 3 Luxury Resources necessary to build a Star System Development Project
- Increased Overcolonization thresholds on all galaxy sizes:
+ Tiny from 2 to 4
+ Small from 3 to 4
+ Medium from 4 to 5
+ Large from 5 to 6
+ Huge from 6 to 7
+ Colossal from 7 to 8
+ Exceptional from 8 to 9
- Reduced Overcolonization Approval malus from -15 per System over the threshold to -10 per System over the threshold

The Transvine change was added in the last (admittedly rather recent) patch so why is it in the mod?


The Star System Development Project changes look good 

Level 2: Common Luxury Cost is 40->25 Uncommon is still 20 & Rare is 5->10

Level 3: Common Luxury Cost is 120->75 Uncommon is still 40 & Rare is 10->20

Level 4: Common Luxury Cost is 200->125 Uncommon is still 60 & Rare is 20->30


What I would say is the Common & Uncommon costs are now very close on level 2 which feels odd somehow, but I'm not sure on what to suggest.


I like to play tall so the previous overcolonization changes did not hit me as much but I'm sure many people will be happy with this change


Trading Companies
- Reduced the maximum numbers of Trading Companies per Empire from 5 to 3 (4 for Lumeris)
- Reduced the impact of Trading Company Level on Trading Company gains
- Reduced the impact of System Level on Trading Company gains
- Reduced the impact of System Population on Trading Company gains
- Reduced the impact of Luxury Freighters on Trading Company Luxury gains
- Reduced the impact of Dust Freighters on Trading Company Dust gains
- Reduced Trading Company XP needed to level up, to adapt the pacing to the gain reductions
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Trade Clearing Bureau” (Wonder) from +200% to +100%
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Solar Security Operations Base” (Star System Improvement) from +50% to +25%
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Xhiyun’s Cartel” (Star System Improvement) from +50% to +25%
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Borer’s Guild Bourse” (Star System Improvement) from +50% to +25%
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Lucky Windfall” (Lumeris Senator Skill) from +50% to +25%
- Reduced bonus to Trade Value on Star System granted by “Drift Buds” (Luxury Resource for System Development Projects) from +50% to +25%

The Big Change here is the Trading Company Income Multiplier Formula Has changed from "0.75+((Trading Company Level/5)^0.75)" to "0.75+((Trading Company Level/35)^0.75)"

Here is A Graph Comparing the difference It is much more nerfed now

(table data is rounded to the closest percent, also take note that they need much less XP to level up now)

Trading Company Level
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Income Modifier (Vanilla)
105%
125%
143%
160%
175%
190%
204%
217%
230%
243%
256%
268%
280%
291%
303%
314%
325%
336%
347%
358%
Income Modifier (G2GMod)
82%
87%
91%
95%
98%
102%
105%
108%
111%
114%
117%
120%
123%
125%
128%
131%
133%
136%
138%
141%


I do like the malus that you get for the first five levels of the trading company and the much slower increase in the modifier means that the trade company’s level should never cause super crazy levels of Dust, Science & Luxuries. The Reduction in the trade value bonuses also helps in this regard as they do tend to all quickly stack.


The Freighters Modifier reduction is also nice

For Comparison:

Money =  From

0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 25, 2017, 12:44:59 AM

cyrob, can you tell me why atoll is your favourite planet type? you say it's the only top-tier planet with high industry, but I can get more industry out of a jungle due to the hot modifier, while still being quite balenced in the other stats (and what I lose from not having the temperate modifier in the other values [which isn't much] I gain again in spades from the hot modifier). while it certainly does have higher FIDS output on its own, the only specialization worth doing on it is food specialization for fertile, raising its already high food stat, which is only good once you can convert food to industry, but it's based on food production, not industry, so it's reliant on food bonuses and suffers from food maluses, instead of industry bonuses and maluses, which, depending on your civ, is undesirable. considering you can already do this on jungles and, now, mediterranian planets, that's not a bonus atoll planets get to enjoy over the lower-tier planets. Then there's the matter of structures that depend on modifiers, and temperate is by far the weakest modifier of the bunch. for one thing, I lose AI labour completely, since it's dependant on hot and sterile alone, which is 4 industry per pop, and there are several science and food structures that provide boons to hot worlds yet either don't provide any for temperate, or provide a smaller amount (like the early greenhouses improvement, which gains bonuses from hot and cold, but not temperate). no matter how I look at it, atoll planets actually lose out on FIDS production when compared to jungles even though it has a higher base FIDS production, all because it has temperate instead of hot.


using the FIDSI numbers you've listed (6/6/3/0 to 8/6/4/2), the overall bonus looks like atoll gets a net gain of 5 FIDSI. however, once you factor in AI labour (4 industry), that drops to a gain of 1, and factoring in specializations (while ignoring food specialization because both planets now get to enjoy the benefits of the specialization), you actually see a net loss of 2. of course, this is in industry, which is arguably not as important as dust and science, which in particular atoll planets produce 3 more of, but industry can be converted, albeit inefficiently, into the last 2 resource types, and considering overall industry structures benefit hot more than temperate, the 50%/25% loss in dust/science are overwhelmed by the industry lead mediterranian has over atoll, meaning these planets can actually produce more of these resources than atoll planets as well.

Updated 7 years ago.
0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 25, 2017, 1:24:22 AM

Finished my first game with this iteration of the mod, as Cravers since I wanted to try a fighting heavy game for gauging admiral heroes. Didn't run into any bugs while playing.


Hero EXP:

Fantastic improvements all around. I was worried that the changes would push admiral vs. governor EXP gain to one extreme, but playing as Cravers all my heroes leveled up pretty equally. My starting hero Kren who did nothing but govern systems ended the game at lvl 14, whereas my second hero Reyaryn who did nothing but lead fleets ended the game at lvl 15, both unlocking their last tier abilities by endgame so you seem to have gotten rid of the issue with heroes leveling up too high in general. 


All my 8 heroes' levels at the end of the match (turn 125, Supremacy victory):

Admirals: 15, 11, 9

Governors: 14, 11, 12, 9, 6


Game settings: 8 competitors, Normal speed, Endless difficulty, Normal minor factions, pirates on, 

Map settings: Ovoid, Medium size, Medium density, normal resources and curosities (additional scouting EXP?)


Trade Routes, Luxury Resources and System Level:

In this Craver match I only researched the basic trade route and subsidiary techs (Commercial Frameworks and Galactic Security Charter), so I'm not sure about the trade routes' full power, however I suppose non-trade heavy opinion could also be useful for you. Trade route gains are now much lower, which is great, however I did run into bit of a problem with leveling up systems. In fact I didn't get any of my systems to Lvl4, and instead relied on Us or Them Decree, Toys For Boys laws, Feeding Pits and regular approval buildings to keep it up. Getting Lvl2 is now much easier, which is great but Lvl3 and Lvl4 are rather difficult.


Seems you now have to properly focus on trade techs in order to be able to level up systems at all due to importance of luxury resources, or rely on other means to deal with approval like I did with Cravers. I'd wager Horatio could also side-step the issue with the 3 Horatio heroes from their faction quest for a total of 4 guaranteed governors that increase luxury resource extraction rate, as could Lumeris with their faction quest increasing all luxury deposit yields (to compensate if for some strange reason you decide to not focus on trade routes with them), Vodyani have the religious law that forces approval to content etc.


On the other hand Cravers are bit of a special case and blob heavy (plus I did go out of my way to hold onto crappy systems instead of evacuating them), plus I'm not sure how much trading with friendly factions (that Cravers can't have by default) would increase the luxury resource yields even if you only research the basic trade HQ and subsidiary techs, as CyRob mentioned lenght still seems to be a big modifier. I'm going to try another game tomorrow, probably with Lumeris or Unfallen to see how they perform.


I'm not sure whether making different factions have to rely on different mechanics to combat over-expansion penalty was the intent of these changes (since being alone with bare basic trade techs doesn't supply enough luxury resources for Lvl 4 systems), however whether or not that is the case I kind of like the idea and it from my experience with this match it seems the player now has to go all in to reap the benefits of trade routes.

Updated 7 years ago.
0Send private message
7 years ago
Aug 25, 2017, 2:07:16 AM

CyRob wrote:


Here is what I could Find:


Active XP:

On Construction Complete: Production Cost * 0.04, Minimum 5XP

On Node Discovered: 4XP

On Battle Fought: Not sure 


Passive XP (Per Turn): (Modified by the game speed modifier)

Being Assigned: +1 XP

Admirals: Fleet CP * (1 + Number of Strategic Modules / 10 )

Governors: Can't find in files so not sure

From quick testing I can assure these values:

Passive XP (Per Turn) for being assigned on normal speed: 3 XP

On curiosity searched on fleet: 6 XP

Turn 1 fleet with hero + one starting exploration ship: 1 XP


Also in 1.0.36 (haven't tested with the mod yet) battles gave 5 xp per destroyed CP to the entire fleet, including the hero. The battle tactic "Post-op Analysis" can increase those XP gains by 25%. This XP gain can be seen in each post-battle window, bottom left.


I'm also pretty sure that wonders gave more XP than regular buildings (0.1*industry instead of 0.08*industry), at least pre-1.0.36. I might be mistaken about that, though, and I probably need to test it again.


Can you elaborate on what is meant by "Number of Strategic Modules"? Does that count all modules modules equipped in all ships? What I think it means/what I think it should mean is that each ship is worth 1 XP + number of equipped modules in that ship / 10, all multiplied with the CP for that ship (so 1 for small, 3 for medium, 6 for large hulls). So, my exploration ship from above should give 1.4 XP per turn to the admiral since it has 4 modules. Upon further testing though, it seems like that it only gives 1 XP per turn, not 1.4.


The 5 XP minimum for finished buildings seems irrelevant to me, since the cheapest buildings (Drone Networks and Cerebral Reality) both cost 160 industry which is 6.4 XP. Even with the scienctist law with 20% reduced cost they cost 128 industry which is 5.12 XP. What is the point of that number?


I'll do some more testing (and wait for dev confirmation maybe), then I'll come back with feedback.

0Send private message
?

Click here to login

Reply
Comment