ENDLESS™ Space 2 is turn-based 4X space-strategy that launches players into the space colonization age of different civilizations within the ENDLESS™ Universe. Your Vision. Their Future.
I didn't mean for it to be a Unique improvement, rather a building priced as one. That's the balancing factor for the fact that this building would be part of the Cultural Hegemony tech, is that if you're running an empire incapable of indefinite horizontal growth, it must be given a method of indefinite vertical growth in order to keep up. I think it's reasonable that said improvement ought to be quite expensive, considering it's being built in an empire that already was focused on maximizing a few planets outputs.
It might actually make sense to make it one. Making it unique focuses exclusively on vertical growth instead of being about to multiply to benefits through horizontal growth. To allow the benefits to still be accrued by all systems instead of just one, it could come bundled with an infinite production improvement that allows industry and/or excess food production in that system to be zeroed out and divided between all other systems (possibly with some loss depending on the number of systems, making the impact more significant if the player has a small number of systems).
As for what to call the improvement, Centralized Administration would be fitting, or maybe Integrated Administration if it's kept non-unique.
It might also make sense to have another tall-empire tech (not quite sure what yet though, maybe a pop slot improvement) mutually exclusive with Pooster Program. However, that's currently unlocked by HyperPACs along with Colonize Toxic, so things might have to be moved around a bit to facilitate that. Maybe move Pooster Program to Inter-Species HR and Culture Center to HyperPACs.
Aitarus wrote:
I am concerned about tall empires having competitive access to late luxury/strategic resources without being able to seamlessly expand via Autonomous Administration, so a contingency to deal with that would be nice. Like paying a signficant amount of production for a small infusion, or to generate a low-yield artificial node?
I feel like this would be a bit less of an issue if buying resources through the market was a more viable option. Increasing their availability (and other general market improvements) would probably be a good start.
A tall-focused alternative to Trading Companies could help tall empires have the dust available to buy the resources they need as well. Maybe something like allowing you to invest in other player's trading companies in exchange for a share of the profits? That's probably beyond the scope of this mod though.
The ability to mine resouces from a planet without colonizing it may also be a potential solution as well.
CyRob wrote:
Decrease Military party support from building ships (Since I keep seeing it being asked for everywhere) -
(Many are annoyed by the large amount of support the military party gets from build even a defensive force, this might please them)
To balance this change out other sources could be increased in strength or duration.
Would it be possible to make support variable? So building a defensive force wouldn't have a noticible impact, but a large or rapid military bulidup would start generating significant Militarist support.
[Consumption Code] Changed Consumption to 10 Food Per Pop Enabled Gene Hunter Consumption(It's Broken in vanilla) OverPopulation Consumption added: 2% Food Production Per OverPopulation Wasted Food added: 1% Food Production Per Pop [Improvements] Ultra GreenHouses, Organic Purity, Epigenetic Crop Seeding Decreased to +2 RawFood Evolved Soils Now Unlocked By "Rare Earth Forms" -20% Wasteful Portions/System Level effect added to Intensive Cultivation [Factions] Unfallen Pop Trait changed from "Bounteous Gardeners" to "Prolific Farmers" [Localization] Gene Hunter upkeep cost renamed to Gene Splice Cravings Changed Consumption Title to Sustenance [Tech Tree] Two Blank Techs Added
The Current Build is V 1.0.0 And is for ES2 Build V 1.0.53
First things first, it occurs to me that if the Military quadrant was cleaned up (particularly by making all Basic modules unlocked by Stage unlocks, a la Endless Legend basic arms and trinkets, cause seriously who wants to invest science into basic modules?), then Hulls could be moved over into it. Changing Hulls and Fighters/Bombers to have a separate upgrade investment screen like Troops would also clear up space.
Then the Empire Development quadrant (home of Food) could be cleaned up and organized a bit better to clearly divide between its three areas of focus, Approval, Influence, and Food, instead of having the inherently-military Hulls taking up space because reasons.
Aside from that I know that the Kaizen Workflows mod has a +1% FIDSI per turn improvement. Take the effect, slap it onto a Wonder priced building exclusive with Autonomous Administration, cap the effect at something like 75% or something. Boom, additional Tall growth that should be able to keep pace with Autonomous Administration.
Love that you've decided to take this up, all hail Tall empires!
My suggestion for an addition: technology, or custom faction trait, that allows for complete freedom in terraforming (call it the Sower's Heritage if you like, off the top of my head). If it's a tech, make it a third tech after the first two Terra-techs. If it's a trait, then my suggestion would be making the first terraform tech be "terraform to fertile" and the other be "terraform to sterile". Since it'd make sense that someone with advanced terraforming knowledge would first learn how to "improve" or "lush-up" the worlds, and then later learn how to give the worlds time to be "fallow".
You could even work this into the food ideas you have if you wanted by adding in craver mechanics to the trait. Namely, your world itself gives 150% fidsi, because of your amazing, over the top terraforming, but no planet can sustain that level of perfection and slowly builds up depletion points (exactly the same ones cravers have, for mod compatibility with other mods like Kaizen's infinite depletion repair). Then it would be up to the player to either step the planet back from say Ocean to Boreal, or Atoll to Jungle to let the planet rest at the "not totally most optimal version". Or, separately, create new planet types and link a "perfect" form of that type. Same graphic for the planet, it'd just be called "Ideal Jungle" and get the fidsi bonus + depletion.
That would force the player to have to pay industry up front to create this "ideal" planet, and with freeform terraforming they would have the exact planet they want to idealize, with the knowledge that doing so would mean the planet would be depleted. Very micromanagement. Such choice.
Imagine a Craver custom faction with the trait. They'd have 300% fids with an ideal world, but a base planetary depletion rate + pop depletion. Maybe they'd only make ideal worlds for the non-craver slaves! Maybe they'd burn through planets as if they were the obnoxious grandchildren of the rich Sower heritage blowing through lifetimes of wealth in a couple decades.
Of course this last example isn't a tall one, but make it anyone but Cravers, and I'm sure you can see the awesome coolness.
Or just send me a PM on how to make terraforming go up and down, because I can't for the life of me make any sense of the "example" mods or explantations.
This looks awesome beyond belief. Thanks so much for setting up such an ambitious project. This could lead to great things. First some feedback on current suggestions. I've no idea how hard these are to implement but here goes.
CyRob wrote:
Reduce food output on some planet types & up other FIDS -
(Expect it will be good at reducing mid-game Food Production & helps Tall Empires be a thing.)
Many planets product a lot of food which should be changes, food should be like industry &
science were the specialized planets are great for it. Consumption could be reduced if this is done.
And we can consider increasing the bonus food provided by home planets to compensate for any starting food loses.
Maybe a new planet type just for food could be added as well (Agri(-)world anyone?)
Good idea. Food loses it's benefits after planets grow high enough. Suggestions concerning food output:
Add higher bonuses to fertile planets and reduce all others so that trait would be the focus of powerful food planets.
Additionally I would like to see overflow food (planets with max pop, food affecting only military capacity) to affect other elements. Full worlds could get Dust/Industry/Approval boost from excess food? You can sell/trade food afterall, people work more efficiently and are more content with a full belly.
Lastly, ability to transfer food directly to other worlds. Edit via spaceport system? Might add too much micro but on the plus side would give more depth to the system.
These changes would make food a highly desired resource instead of the typical run-of-the-mill basic stat booster.
CyRob wrote:
Make first four luxuries in system development more specialized -
(Could have interesting effects makes the choice effect game plan more.)
Currently the first four luxuries give +4 of a FIDS per pop we could have it be +2 of a FIDS & +3 of a FIDS on X Planet type
Planet types being; Food on Fertile, Industry on Hot, Dust on Sterile & Science on Cold.
Indifferent about this. It could add some depth but since system improvements are empire-wide it's easy to get a few good systems and weak ones elsewhere. If community supports such, why not but I don't see this as a big improvement. Current system level improvement is fine in my eyes.
CyRob wrote:
Nerf Some Food Improvements and/or make them hard to build (expensive/more requirements) -
(the effects depend on what changes we make.)
While this has already been somewhat done if you think any more changes could be good do say.
Good idea. As per earlier food pointer this fits in. If food gets a more specialized focus in the mod project this would be a natural good addition. If the food edits gain support I might take a round to consider where to place food improvements in the tech tree and so forth but for now, I'll just say +1 on this as I've not put much thought on such.
CyRob wrote:
Look into changes to Pop slot Improvements - (some changes could allow for tall empires to work, it's something to look into more.)
The maximum population you can get in one system is 70 but to reach that is near impossible
To improve tall play we may make it to be attainable thought lots of work, New expensive Pop Slot Improvements could be added etc.
Or maybe even a new planet type Ecumenopolis (planet-wide city) that have more Pop slots than the current top tier.
Good idea. Generally speaking both tall and wide should be viable playstyles. As it stands, it's best to go as wide as Approval allows due to increased empire-wide FIDSI. Suggestions:
Add tech(s) that'll give pop slot buildings. Empire Management seems a fitting tree. Different planets might give better slot bonuses which would add emphasis on colonizing the best worlds if going for tall empire. A couple of name suggestions for flavor's sake.
Self-sustainable Starbases. (any planet)
Governmental Living Quarters. (any planet)
Underground Suburbs. (any large planet)
Inverted Skyscrapers (any large planet)
Moon Hotels. (moon anomaly)
Floating Gardens. (watery worlds)
Geothermal Energy Domes (hot worlds)
Stuff to similar like these might be in the game, like Ultra-Deep Habitats. Not 100% adept in every tech and lore description. But you get the idea.
CyRob wrote:
Unfallen vine food pool system - (Just an idea so far, want your thoughts on it, would be a pain to code but will try if its wanted.)
An interesting (but hard to code idea) that has the vine system change their food dynamic.
The unfallen could have a food pool system implemented (as the food travels in the vines spreading itself out across systems)
So all the food that is produced in their empire is pooled together, But they also have the vines consume some of the food,
So X food goes in then -Y*vined systems is removed then its divvied up relative to the Population in the system.
This balances the unfallen a bit stopping some of the vine spam in the late game,
But giving them a unique benefit/disadvantage of high food systems helping low food systems.
Good idea. Very interesting and flavorful addition. Then again, the Unfallen are already quite unique so if this is too painful to implement, no problem. It'd be an interesting edit however especially if food gets bigger tweaking in the project.
CyRob wrote:
New Tech Mutually exclusive with Cultural Invertics (unlocks: Autonomous Administration) which is all about boosting tall empires -
(This would be an easy way to helping tall empires work and give plays an interesting choice.)
This new tech (that there is a place holder for currently implemented)
would unlock a powerful system improvement that really strengthens tall systems.
What do you think this bonus should be, something like the Riftborn tower?
Good idea. If the plan is to give tall playstyle a bit more room this simply makes sense. However, I've seen that a lot of people complain more about not being able to expand into 300 star systems and keep the Approval rate up. In any case, this looks good to me. Suggestion:
Add mutually exclusive tech Cultural Hegemony against Cultural Invertics.
Cultural Hegemony increases empire-wide FIDSI by 50% divided by owned systems.
Cultural Hegemony unlocks exclusive building Centralized Community Camps. CCC adds (minor) Approval? Military capacity strength? Strong Influence boost?
If possible, this could be made a bit more flavorful if it's possible to mod in.
Cultural Hegemony / Centralized Community Camps will unlock a new law: The Master Race.
The Master Race increases diplomatic pressure against other empires by 1.25(?)
Or, The Master Race increases diplomatic pressure against other empires by 0.1 per Centralized Community Camps.
Or, The Master Race sets empire approval to Loyal at minimum.
Or, The Master Race adds +10% empire-wide FIDSI.
Point being, as you go tall you'll get more unanimous empire. This should be reflected as high efficiency and motivated diplomats.
Names and numbers are naturally simple placeholders. This might be crazy OP but I trust people get the general idea.
CyRob wrote:
Splitting up the consumption under different names - (purely for immersion but could be nice)
The Current increases of consumption mean that you get a very large malus to system food income.
And since its under one name it feels much worse (and more emersion breaking to me at least)
than if it was split up under different names,
This also means that buildings that decrease consumption (when they are added)
will feel more powerful, it's -5% wasted food vs -50% logistics inefficiency.
So no balance change here just localization (kinda)
Indifferent about this one. Why not, though personally I don't see a big impact with this. However, depends how other edits/enhancements/tweaks form up, this might very well be a worthwhile addition. Something to keep in mind but not high priority in my eyes.
CyRob wrote:
Increase Overpopulation Consumption But have it reduce with system level -
(This would increase the importance of planet size and biome along with system development)
Overpopulation consumption could be set to 2.5% of food production per population in the overpopulation red zone (or whatever you call it)
Then for each level of system development you get, it decreases by 0.5% (so at max level it would be 1% per OP)
Other buildings could be made to reduce it further.
Good idea. Simple and logical edit. As systems get more robst infrastructure it makes sense that less food is wasted. You'll get better logistics, recycling, storage capabilites etc. Sure, this sounds good. I'd keep it purely with system development level though. To me it seems logical that large, populated planets require strong infrastructure to stay efficient.
CyRob wrote:
Decrease Military party support from building ships (Since I keep seeing it being asked for everywhere) -
(Many are annoyed by the large amount of support the military party gets from build even a defensive force, this might please them)
To balance this change out other sources could be increased in strength or duration.
Good idea. In a way it makes sense that building ships increases Military approval but gameplaywise it is a real pain if you want to go a more pacifist route. Various mutually exclusive suggestions:
Scrap the political impact on ships completely. (having a weapon is different from using it)
Change the military impact to industry. (well, you're building stuff)
Let top political party get boost from ships. (ruling party gets the praise for keeping the empire safe)
Just reduce the political impact to neligible amounts so it can be ignored. (simple, if crude solution)
IceGremlin wrote:
Glad to see this up. Very glad.
First things first, it occurs to me that if the Military quadrant was cleaned up (particularly by making all Basic modules unlocked by Stage unlocks, a la Endless Legend basic arms and trinkets, cause seriously who wants to invest science into basic modules?), then Hulls could be moved over into it. Changing Hulls and Fighters/Bombers to have a separate upgrade investment screen like Troops would also clear up space.
Good idea. Basic modules should be as the name implies, basic upgrades. Like mentioned Endless Legend had a good system, copy the concept. I also like the idea of moving new hulls into military tree, it simply makes sense. Especially if Empire Development tech tree gets tweaked a lot as tall playstyle/food systems get changed this would free up space and keep the tech quardrants somewhat balanced in amounts of techs.
IceGremlin wrote:
Then the Empire Development quadrant (home of Food) could be cleaned up and organized a bit better to clearly divide between its three areas of focus, Approval, Influence, and Food, instead of having the inherently-military Hulls taking up space because reasons.
As above, agreed.
IceGremlin wrote:
Aside from that I know that the Kaizen Workflows mod has a +1% FIDSI per turn improvement. Take the effect, slap it onto a Wonder priced building exclusive with Autonomous Administration, cap the effect at something like 75% or something. Boom, additional Tall growth that should be able to keep pace with Autonomous Administration.
Good idea. A clean, simple solution. Although I'd like to see more distinct kinds of solutions. Granted, my earlier suggestion about tall-empire equivalent for Cultural Invertics (Cultural Hegemony) isn't any better but just something that popped to mind. Basically what I'm saying is that if we go with "new building A and B that give +x% boost" it'll get stale in the long run.
Question is, how complicated things are possible to mod in? As it currently stands, the basic idea is sound though. Strong slow-to-build improvement that'll give high bonuses is the bread and butter of tall empires. Just need to watch out for balance issues and possible abuse of wide empires using these.
cyrusmagnus wrote:
Love that you've decided to take this up, all hail Tall empires!
My suggestion for an addition: technology, or custom faction trait, that allows for complete freedom in terraforming (call it the Sower's Heritage if you like, off the top of my head). If it's a tech, make it a third tech after the first two Terra-techs. If it's a trait, then my suggestion would be making the first terraform tech be "terraform to fertile" and the other be "terraform to sterile". Since it'd make sense that someone with advanced terraforming knowledge would first learn how to "improve" or "lush-up" the worlds, and then later learn how to give the worlds time to be "fallow".
You could even work this into the food ideas you have if you wanted by adding in craver mechanics to the trait. Namely, your world itself gives 150% fidsi, because of your amazing, over the top terraforming, but no planet can sustain that level of perfection and slowly builds up depletion points (exactly the same ones cravers have, for mod compatibility with other mods like Kaizen's infinite depletion repair). Then it would be up to the player to either step the planet back from say Ocean to Boreal, or Atoll to Jungle to l
IceGremlin wrote: First things first, it occurs to me that if the Military quadrant was cleaned up (particularly by making all Basic modules unlocked by Stage unlocks), then Hulls could be moved over into it. Changing Hulls and Fighters/Bombers to have a separate upgrade investment screen like Troops would also clear up space.
Then the Empire Development quadrant (home of Food) could be cleaned up and organized a bit better to clearly divide between its three areas of focus, Approval, Influence, and Food, instead of having the inherently-military Hulls taking up space because reasons.
Aside from that I know that the Kaizen Workflows mod has a +1% FIDSI per turn improvement. Take the effect, slap it onto a Wonder priced building exclusive with Autonomous Administration, cap the effect at something like 75% or something. Boom, additional Tall growth that should be able to keep pace with Autonomous Administration.
(By that I mean I’ve been answering their modding questions, If anyone else has any you can ask me them on the Community Discord in #mods),
and we will be implementing the changes in this Mod.
Which gives a good opportunity to also shuffle around the unlocking of modules,
What we are thinking currently is to like you suggest move the basic modules into era unlocks but then have the modules that are normally unlocked by curiosities replace them.
There may still be space to have Hulls moved into the Military quadrant (where I think most would agree is where they belong)
But we will see, changes can always be made later on if not.
I think Changing Hulls and Fighters/Bombers to have a separate upgrade investment screen like Troops is beyond the current modding capability.
(It might not be, but just don't get your hopes for it, it's a cool idea thought)
If Hulls are moved we will have a lot of empty space in Empire Development, should we move techs from other quadrants or make new ones?
The +1% FIDSI per turn up to 75% sounds good but quite rightly needs a high cost to build.
I would also adjust the +1% depending on game speed.
cyrusmagnus wrote: My suggestion for an addition: technology, or custom faction trait, that allows for complete freedom in terraforming (call it the Sower's Heritage if you like, off the top of my head). If it's a tech, make it a third tech after the first two Terra-techs. If it's a trait, then my suggestion would be making the first terraform tech be "terraform to fertile" and the other be "terraform to sterile". Since it'd make sense that someone with advanced terraforming knowledge would first learn how to "improve" or "lush-up" the worlds, and then later learn how to give the worlds time to be "fallow".
You could even work this into the food ideas you have if you wanted by adding in craver mechanics to the trait. Namely, your world itself gives 150% fidsi, because of your amazing, over the top terraforming, but no planet can sustain that level of perfection and slowly builds up depletion points (exactly the same ones cravers have, for mod compatibility with other mods like Kaizen's infinite depletion repair). Then it would be up to the player to either step the planet back from say Ocean to Boreal, or Atoll to Jungle to let the planet rest at the "not totally most optimal version". Or, separately, create new planet types and link a "perfect" form of that type. Same graphic for the planet, it'd just be called "Ideal Jungle" and get the fidsi bonus + depletion.
That would force the player to have to pay industry up front to create this "ideal" planet, and with freeform terraforming they would have the exact planet they want to idealize, with the knowledge that doing so would mean the planet would be depleted. Very micromanagement. Such choice.
I think we will not add custom faction traits just yet, but keep the idea in mind as we will probably come back to it at some point.
But new terraformations could be added (unlocked by a third tech like you suggested)
And adding special planet types could be possible (I have not tried it but I think it can be done)
If you want to have a go yourself,
The Terraformation’s are all set in \Public\Simulation\ ConstructibleElement_Industry[Terraformation].xml
If you have any questions you could PM me or ask me them on the Community Discord in #mods.
Starbound wrote:
This looks awesome beyond belief. Thanks so much for setting up such an ambitious project. This could lead to great things. First some feedback on current suggestions. I've no idea how hard these are to implement but here goes.
Reduce food output on some planet types & up other FIDS
Good idea. Food loses it's benefits after planets grow high enough. Suggestions concerning food output:
Add higher bonuses to fertile planets and reduce all others so that trait would be the focus of powerful food planets.
Additionally I would like to see overflow food (planets with max pop, food affecting only military capacity) to affect other elements. Full worlds could get Dust/Industry/Approval boost from excess food? You can sell/trade food afterall, people work more efficiently and are more content with a full belly.
Lastly, ability to transfer food directly to other worlds. Edit via spaceport system? Might add too much micro but on the plus side would give more depth to the system.
These changes would make food a highly desired resource instead of the typical run-of-the-mill basic stat booster.
Make first four luxuries in system development more specialized
Indifferent about this. It could add some depth but since system improvements are empire-wide it's easy to get a few good systems and weak ones elsewhere. If community supports such, why not but I don't see this as a big improvement. Current system level improvement is fine in my eyes.
Nerf Some Food Improvements and/or make them hard to build
Good idea. As per earlier food pointer this fits in. If food gets a more specialized focus in the mod project this would be a natural good addition. If the food edits gain support I might take a round to consider where to place food improvements in the tech tree and so forth but for now, I'll just say +1 on this as I've not put much thought on such.
Look into changes to Pop slot Improvements
Good idea. Generally speaking both tall and wide should be viable playstyles. As it stands, it's best to go as wide as Approval allows due to increased empire-wide FIDSI. Suggestions:
Add tech(s) that'll give pop slot buildings. Empire Management seems a fitting tree. Different planets might give better slot bonuses which would add emphasis on colonizing the best worlds if going for tall empire. A couple of name suggestions for flavor's sake.
Self-sustainable Starbases. (any planet)
Governmental Living Quarters. (any planet)
Underground Suburbs. (any large planet)
Inverted Skyscrapers (any large planet)
Moon Hotels. (moon anomaly)
Floating Gardens. (watery worlds)
Geothermal Energy Domes (hot worlds)
Stuff to similar like these might be in the game, like Ultra-Deep Habitats. Not 100% adept in every tech and lore description. But you get the idea.
Unfallen vine food pool system
Good idea. Very interesting and flavorful addition. Then again, the Unfallen are already quite unique so if this is too painful to implement, no problem. It'd be an interesting edit however especially if food gets bigger tweaking in the project.
New Tech Mutually exclusive with Cultural Invertics (unlocks: Autonomous Administration) which is all about boosting tall empires
Good idea. If the plan is to give tall playstyle a bit more room this simply makes sense. However, I've seen that a lot of people complain more about not being able to expand into 300 star systems and keep the Approval rate up. In any case, this looks good to me. Suggestion:
Add mutually exclusive tech Cultural Hegemony against Cultural Invertics.
Cultural Hegemony increases empire-wide FIDSI by 50% divided by owned systems.
Cultural Hegemony unlocks exclusive building Centralized Community Camps. CCC adds (minor) Approval? Military capacity strength? Strong Influence boost?
If possible, this could be made a bit more flavorful if it's possible to mod in.
Cultural Hegemony / Centralized Community Camps will unlock a new law: The Master Race.
The Master Race increases diplomatic pressure against other empires by 1.25(?)
Or, The Master Race increases diplomatic pressure against other empires by 0.1 per Centralized Community Camps.
Or, The Master Race sets empire approval to Loyal at minimum.
Or, The Master Race adds +10% empire-wide FIDSI.
Point being, as you go tall you'll get more unanimous empire. This should be reflected as high efficiency and motivated diplomats.
Names and numbers are naturally simple placeholders. This might be crazy OP but I trust people get the general idea.
[+]Good idea. A clean, simple solution. Although I'd like to see more distinct kinds of solutions. Granted, my earlier suggestion about tall-empire equivalent for Cultural Invertics (Cultural Hegemony) isn't any better but just something that popped to mind. Basically what I'm saying is that if we go with "new building A and B that give +x% boost" it'll get stale in the long run.
Question is, how complicated things are possible to mod in? As it currently stands, the basic idea is sound though. Strong slow-to-build improvement that'll give high bonuses is the bread and butter of tall empires. Just need to watch out for balance issues and possible abuse of wide empires using these.
Splitting up the consumption under different names
Indifferent about this one. Why not, though personally I don't see a big impact with this. However, depends how other edits/enhancements/tweaks form up, this might very well be a worthwhile addition. Something to keep in mind but not high priority in my eyes.
Increase Overpopulation Consumption But have it reduce with system level
Good idea. Simple and logical edit. As systems get more robst infrastructure it makes sense that less food is wasted. You'll get better logistics, recycling, storage capabilites etc. Sure, this sounds good. I'd keep it purely with system development level though. To me it seems logical that large, populated planets require strong infrastructure to stay efficient.
Decrease Military party support from building ships
Good idea. In a way it makes sense that building ships increases Military approval but gameplaywise it is a real pain if you want to go a more pacifist route. Various mutually exclusive suggestions:
Scrap the political impact on ships completely. (having a weapon is different from using it)
Change the military impact to industry. (well, you're building stuff)
Let top political party get boost from ships. (ruling party gets the praise for keeping the empire safe)
Just reduce the political impact to neligible amounts so it can be ignored. (simple, if crude solution)
Terraforming
In star system screen, terraforming could bring a whole new screen that would show the terraforming tree. It's a pain to recall what planet changes to what and if you want to plan your endgame it'd be very nice to see what terraforming path to take in the first place.
Inspired by the "ideal planet" concept:
Add tech to Empire Development / Science & Exploration - Short-Term Extreme Exploitation.
Short-Term Extreme Exploitation could be applied as one time(?) improvement on certain planet types to give FIDS boost.
For example, STEE can be only applied to Fertile world to give 10-15 turns +x% FIDS boost. After this, Fertile status is lost.
Might be interesting with the possible changes to how food works as talked in the beginning of this post.
Mod Name
Well, that's all for now. Interesting ideas floating around.
Oh yeah, the most important thing! NAME. Community Mod Project is probably accurate and descriptive but something more appealing would definitely be needed. If this'll become an infinity project that'd turn out to be something akin a community-based expansion (kinda sorta) it definitely needs a cool, defining name. Some thoughts:
Voice of the Virtuals (as we're all just digital forum folks here)
The Endless Enhancements (long-term modding to make a great game even greater)
Or possibly something more in line with the theme of the game. Inspired by the law descriptions, it could be something like:
Mutually Agreed Expansive Enhancements
Asset Refinement Act
Code and Balance Efficiency Program
Well, I don't know. But a nice name would be.. well, nice to have.
Now I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of one of these mega posts
(Don’t get me wrong, I do very much like that made this)
I will say with each I need if it isn’t feasible or if it is hard to implement,
but even if they are its good for the ideas to be discussed as they evolve into easy to implement ideas.
On Reduce food output on some planet types & up other FIDS
I have possible yields planned I would like to hear what you think of them when they are implemented (as nothing can be perfect first try) It’s mostly about reducing food output on other planets which works to buff the fertile planets.
We currently have the end-game improvement that converts food into industry when at max pop.
But I may be able to add an approval boost for having overflow and an end-game improvement that turns food into dust (or maybe a mix of dust and industry?)
I think having food transfer to other system is possible but it would have to be done in the production queue. E.G. An improvement that takes x amount of food and a improvement that receives x amount of food. But I should be able to code it to make sure food is not lost or gained but transferred.
Look into changes to Pop slot Improvements
I like the suggested improvement names, These would be good to have under new techs in Empire Development
Unfallen vine food pool system
I do not know for sure how difficult to code this would be or if it is possible,
If I put thought into it I may be able to think of an easier way to code it,
But it is something I would like to add at some point when I have the time to look into it.
Add tech(s) that'll give pop slot buildings. Empire Management seems a fitting tree. Different planets might give better slot bonuses which would add emphasis on colonizing the best worlds if going for tall empire. A couple of name suggestions for flavor's sake.
Self-sustainable Starbases. (any planet)
Governmental Living Quarters. (any planet)
Underground Suburbs. (any large planet)
Inverted Skyscrapers (any large planet)
Moon Hotels. (moon anomaly)
Floating Gardens. (watery worlds)
Geothermal Energy Domes (hot worlds)
Stuff to similar like these might be in the game, like Ultra-Deep Habitats. Not 100% adept in every tech and lore description. But you get the idea.
Suggestions:
great Idea. I posted a similar sugestion on the Idea page.
The balance reductions in Dust income from the Target locked update has made it increasingly diffucult to build and maintain a fleet as well as to build system improvments. So dust income needs to increase. At the very least the dust income from "Pulvis Production" should increase from 2 per population to at least 5 for example.
Look into changes to Pop slot Improvements - (some changes could allow for tall empires to work, it's something to look into more.)
The maximum population you can get in one system is 70 but to reach that is near impossible
To improve tall play we may make it to be attainable thought lots of work, New expensive Pop Slot Improvements could be added etc.
Or maybe even a new planet type Ecumenopolis (planet-wide city) that have more Pop slots than the current top tier.
This is a good initiative. I like the idea of terraforming to an Ecumenopolis as a late game tall option.
CyRob wrote:
Unfallen vine food pool system - (Just an idea so far, want your thoughts on it, would be a pain to code but will try if its wanted.)
An interesting (but hard to code idea) that has the vine system change their food dynamic.
The unfallen could have a food pool system implemented (as the food travels in the vines spreading itself out across systems)
So all the food that is produced in their empire is pooled together, But they also have the vines consume some of the food,
So X food goes in then -Y*vined systems is removed then its divvied up relative to the Population in the system.
This balances the unfallen a bit stopping some of the vine spam in the late game,
But giving them a unique benefit/disadvantage of high food systems helping low food systems.
+1
Starbound wrote:
CyRob wrote:
New Tech Mutually exclusive with Cultural Invertics (unlocks: Autonomous Administration) which is all about boosting tall empires -
(This would be an easy way to helping tall empires work and give plays an interesting choice.)
This new tech (that there is a place holder for currently implemented)
would unlock a powerful system improvement that really strengthens tall systems.
What do you think this bonus should be, something like the Riftborn tower?
Good idea. If the plan is to give tall playstyle a bit more room this simply makes sense. However, I've seen that a lot of people complain more about not being able to expand into 300 star systems and keep the Approval rate up. In any case, this looks good to me. Suggestion:
Add mutually exclusive tech Cultural Hegemony against Cultural Invertics.
Cultural Hegemony increases empire-wide FIDSI by 50% divided by owned systems.
Cultural Hegemony unlocks exclusive building Centralized Community Camps. CCC adds (minor) Approval? Military capacity strength? Strong Influence boost?
If possible, this could be made a bit more flavorful if it's possible to mod in.
Cultural Hegemony / Centralized Community Camps will unlock a new law: The Master Race.
The Master Race increases diplomatic pressure against other empires by 1.25(?)
Or, The Master Race increases diplomatic pressure against other empires by 0.1 per Centralized Community Camps.
Or, The Master Race sets empire approval to Loyal at minimum.
Or, The Master Race adds +10% empire-wide FIDSI.
Point being, as you go tall you'll get more unanimous empire. This should be reflected as high efficiency and motivated diplomats.
Names and numbers are naturally simple placeholders. This might be crazy OP but I trust people get the general idea.
Cultural Hegemony is an apropos name, I concur on this.
I'm on board with opening one or two new law options perhaps as well, depending on how the other % FIDSI boosts were scaled and panned out. I am concerned about tall empires having competitive access to late luxury/strategic resources without being able to seamlessly expand via Autonomous Administration, so a contingency to deal with that would be nice. Like paying a signficant amount of production for a small infusion, or to generate a low-yield artificial node?
Starbound wrote:
CyRob wrote:
Decrease Military party support from building ships (Since I keep seeing it being asked for everywhere) -
(Many are annoyed by the large amount of support the military party gets from build even a defensive force, this might please them)
To balance this change out other sources could be increased in strength or duration.
Good idea. In a way it makes sense that building ships increases Military approval but gameplaywise it is a real pain if you want to go a more pacifist route. Various mutually exclusive suggestions:
Scrap the political impact on ships completely. (having a weapon is different from using it)
Change the military impact to industry. (well, you're building stuff)
Let top political party get boost from ships. (ruling party gets the praise for keeping the empire safe)
Just reduce the political impact to neligible amounts so it can be ignored. (simple, if crude solution)
I'm in favour of the current leading political party receiving the boost from ship production - if that can be done. Not industry for sure, or you'll get that party simply replacing the overpowering militarists now. Failing this, remove impact altogether.
Starbound wrote:
IceGremlin wrote:
Glad to see this up. Very glad.
First things first, it occurs to me that if the Military quadrant was cleaned up (particularly by making all Basic modules unlocked by Stage unlocks, a la Endless Legend basic arms and trinkets, cause seriously who wants to invest science into basic modules?), then Hulls could be moved over into it. Changing Hulls and Fighters/Bombers to have a separate upgrade investment screen like Troops would also clear up space.
Good idea. Basic modules should be as the name implies, basic upgrades. Like mentioned Endless Legend had a good system, copy the concept. I also like the idea of moving new hulls into military tree, it simply makes sense. Especially if Empire Development tech tree gets tweaked a lot as tall playstyle/food systems get changed this would free up space and keep the tech quardrants somewhat balanced in amounts of techs.
As Cyrob knows I am broadly in favour of this. I in particular have been concerned about basic components being locked behind curiosities, which should be for special 'nice to have' but not game-changing necessary in terms of rewards.
Starbound wrote:
IceGremlin wrote:
Aside from that I know that the Kaizen Workflows mod has a +1% FIDSI per turn improvement. Take the effect, slap it onto a Wonder priced building exclusive with Autonomous Administration, cap the effect at something like 75% or something. Boom, additional Tall growth that should be able to keep pace with Autonomous Administration.
Good idea. A clean, simple solution. Although I'd like to see more distinct kinds of solutions. Granted, my earlier suggestion about tall-empire equivalent for Cultural Invertics (Cultural Hegemony) isn't any better but just something that popped to mind. Basically what I'm saying is that if we go with "new building A and B that give +x% boost" it'll get stale in the long run.
Question is, how complicated things are possible to mod in? As it currently stands, the basic idea is sound though. Strong slow-to-build improvement that'll give high bonuses is the bread and butter of tall empires. Just need to watch out for balance issues and possible abuse of wide empires using these.
I'd approve of a new unique system improvement, or perhaps a wonder depending again on how the numbers looked for the new tall improvements.
Starbound wrote:
Well, that's all for now. Interesting ideas floating around.
Oh yeah, the most important thing! NAME. Community Mod Project is probably accurate and descriptive but something more appealing would definitely be needed. If this'll become an infinity project that'd turn out to be something akin a community-based expansion (kinda sorta) it definitely needs a cool, defining name. Some thoughts:
Voice of the Virtuals (as we're all just digital forum folks here)
The Endless Enhancements (long-term modding to make a great game even greater)
Or possibly something more in line with the theme of the game. Inspired by the law descriptions, it could be something like:
Mutually Agreed Expansive Enhancements
Asset Refinement Act
Code and Balance Efficiency Program
Well, I don't know. But a nice name would be.. well, nice to have.
I love the law-themed concepts. Will try to come up with some myself, although I am happy with the current name.
I didn't mean for it to be a Unique improvement, rather a building priced as one. That's the balancing factor for the fact that this building would be part of the Cultural Hegemony tech, is that if you're running an empire incapable of indefinite horizontal growth, it must be given a method of indefinite vertical growth in order to keep up. I think it's reasonable that said improvement ought to be quite expensive, considering it's being built in an empire that already was focused on maximizing a few planets outputs.
On a side note, a mechanic which recently occurred to me from playing Stellaris (really just trying it out; sadly, it failed my two-hour hook requirement, and so is destined for the refund pile), is that we could add in a Life Expectancy mechanic, where system populations die off at a certain rate regardless of other factors, with Food being used to try and outpace the losses. So empires must eventually reckon with the mortality of their population to both hit their Population cap and stay there, or else they will periodically have to recover their lost growth.
That's just me throwing something at the wall to see if it sticks, though.
As to the problem of what would replace Hulls if they were moved to the Military quadrant, I am of the opinion that all of the Planetary Specializations could make sense as being centralized in Empire Development, on the basis that they all work off of population and some harsh planet types, and Empire Development is the quadrant you go for growing a larger population on harsher planet types, as opposed to terraforming them away. They fit in with the overall "Generalist" theme of Empire Development, since both Food and Influence are kind of the generalist resources and generalist effects seem tied to Ecologist politics, which are also centralized mostly in Empire Development.
PS: Food Unique still references Wasteful Portions instead of just Wasted Food. It also might not be working correctly, since my capitol grew very quickly with it as Sophons.
This thread is for anyone & everyone to make suggestions, comment & discuss possible changes for this project.
If you would like to help out with developing the project feel free to PM me,
You don’t have to be an experienced modder, you just have to be willing to learn.
The Community Mod Project is similar to the G2G Balance mod but the main goal of this project is to make changes / add features to make the game more fun & Interesting,
keeping everything balanced is a secondary goal.
Much like the G2G Balance mod this project has phases in which there is a focus on particular areas.
This focus dictates what we are mainly working on / Discussing but you are free to make suggestions regarding any area.
Changes are implemented on the basis of;
How easy they are to do,
How well they fit into the current focus &
The community support for them.
So easy changes that most people want will happen regardless of if the fit in the focus, etc.
Also nothing in this mod is final (I even will happy to change the name if someone comes up with a better one)
So if you think a current feature should be changed do make a post and say why it should be changed.
Guidelines for this thread:
Firstly you are free to make suggestions in any area but I recommend having them in the focus area as they will have more attention, (feel free to make suggestions about what the next focus area should be, but be aware it may not arrive for quite some time)
Generally the more depth and explaining you going into with your idea the better, I will be sure to read all of it but you may want add a TL;DR so it’s not skipped over by some.
When making suggestions don’t just link to a separate thread about it, instead bring that content from beyond the link to the thread as well.
Don’t be worried if you’re not an experience player, It’s always good to have more voices in the discussion, where everyone can provide a unique view point.
Final thing to note is that this thread is not just to dump your ideas into,
it’s a discussion so read others ideas (maybe they will have similar thoughts to you)
and comment on they what you think is good, what is bad, what you think works,
what doesn’t and most importantly explain your train of thought,
why you have come to that conclusion.
As having idea’s flaws & strengths be discussed help make them become better ideas.
Links:
Development Thread [Modding Forum] - Where development progress is logged
A tall-focused alternative to Trading Companies could help tall empires have the dust available to buy the resources they need as well. Maybe something like allowing you to invest in other player's trading companies in exchange for a share of the profits? That's probably beyond the scope of this mod though.
I was actually playing with a write-up on a revamped economic victory that had to do with controlling the most shares in all Trade Companies on the map, no idea how complex that'd be. The concept was that each company would have stocks that could be bid on/bought out by any empire, introducing a sort of economic warfare and a unique mechanic for the economic victory.
My only concern was where you'd set the victory mark - was considering having it be so you had to control the 'majority' of all 'potential' trade HQs, so you couldn't just win by building the first two if nobody else did.
Issue there is players could choose to disable it by not investing in trade at all, so I was mulling over the idea of a hand-off system: making a timer after each empire is offered their next trade company before other empires can start to steal/build others' companies if the original was slow/declined to build it in time.
In regards to Luxury production I think that striking up friendly trade with opponents (you're not expansionist, after all) is already sufficient for Tall empires, but the larger issue is that the market place can never meet your demand. I've suggested elsewhere that when the price of a resource is in the red (most expensive area) it should increment at the end of the turn, and if it's green it should decrement, to represent natural (if slow) balancing of prices against supply. Unfortunately, a healthy and logical economy just can't operate between only up to 8 economic actors, so the other few thousand needed to justify a market place need to be simulated by the game mechanics. That means buying up too-common resources and selling off too-scarce resources by default, because someone ought to be producing those resources somewhere who isn't paying straight to an empire.
Vendata wrote: The ability to mine resouces from a planet without colonizing it may also be a potential solution as well.
This is an already implemented, but poorly executed and seemingly not intentional, mechanic, in two forms. First, I have found that you can (somewhat awkwardly) use Outposts as mining colonies, as they will collect resources so long as they aren't under siege, despite not being full colonies. This can make for some craziness with Lumeris, snapping up Luxuries with mining outposts in the weirdest places. The only problem is that you can't select "None" for your system benefactor, so whether by ship or native Food, you will eventually have to decolonize.
Second, Curiosities are kind of the descendants of Ruins from Endless Legend, with the differing levels supposedly allowing for players to compete in the long term. Unfortunately, there is no way to influence the Loot from them like there was with Ruins in Endless Legend, so you're all in all more likely to get useless Dust or Influence or Science or Tactics cards you don't want than a usable amount of Luxuries, and will completely run out of explorable Curiosities in pretty short order. In EL, Pearls were meant as a renewable resource for Exploration heavy empires to fight over. They were scarce, but not exactly finite until the last winter. We have no such resource here, leaving the only viable source of Resources as direct production.
There's a lot of discussion about 'tall' empires. I think it's well worth reading Sulla's Civ V review on the topic before proceeding designing around this.
Civ5 suffers here from a mistaken attempt to balance "Tall" empires against "Wide" empires. This is something that the designers mentioned frequently in the buildup to the game's release, and the Civ5 community discusses this all the time as well. It's a baffling concept that makes absolutely no sense when discussing gameplay in the empire-building genre of games. Why in the world would you want to create a game where a "Tall" empire of four cities would be as strong as a "Wide" empire of twenty cities? If that's the case, then what's the point of expanding at all? It's much easier to sit on a handful of cities, after all. An empire-building game where small nations are just as good as large nations is an empire-building game where expansion becomes pointless. This is exactly what Brave New World has done: it has undercut the entire purpose of the genre! ... This mistaken attempt to balance "Wide" and "Tall" strikes a blow at the very heart of why people play the Civilization games in the first place.
Here's the correct way to approach this situation: A BIGGER EMPIRE IS BETTER, BUT IT IS HARD TO GET BIG. Master of Orion does this better than any other strategy game that I've played. The designers of Civ5 would have done well to take some more lessons from that game, or at the very least go back to the far superior city maintenance system used in Civ4. The global happiness thing is a major failure.
I'm actually not sure what this contributes to the discussion? The aim of discussing tall empires is to accommodate a playstyle that some paying customers of a game would like to experience, and to ensure that it is balanced fairly equally against a similar wide empire so that the playstyle is enjoyable.
As the scope of this is to create an optional mod, there is no downside whatsoever to anyone who doesn't wish to opt in.
I don't think anyone here intends to create the tongue in cheek situation where four systems, no matter how tall, can take on a wide empire of twenty. This is an extreme comparison made by someone with what I will attempt to politely call 'close mindedness' with an agenda to unfairly portray his side of the argument.
Addendum: Civ V is a good example of tall being promoted to the detriment of wide, yes, but it is not so far the intent of this thread to follow that model.
I don't think anyone here intends to create the tongue in cheek situation where four systems, no matter how tall, can take on a wide empire of twenty. This is an extreme comparison made by someone with what I will attempt to politely call 'close mindedness' with an agenda to unfairly portray his side of the argument.
I'm not sure if this rather accusatory reponse is addressed at me (which seems very uncharitable, given I have made no such comparison - I was quoting a discussion about game design), or Sulla (in which case I'd encourage you to learn about Civ V, where the dominant tradition strategy really is 4 cities outside of extremely specific circumstances).
I don't think anyone here intends to create the tongue in cheek situation where four systems, no matter how tall, can take on a wide empire of twenty. This is an extreme comparison made by someone with what I will attempt to politely call 'close mindedness' with an agenda to unfairly portray his side of the argument.
I'm not sure if this rather accusatory reponse is addressed at me (which seems very uncharitable, given I have made no such comparison - I was quoting a discussion about game design), or Sulla (in which case I'd encourage you to learn about Civ V, where the dominant tradition strategy really is 4 cities outside of extremely specific circumstances).
My responses are to Sulla's points, but it is you who decided to share what I feel to be a contentious post.
Yes, I have played Civ V and I experienced the brunt of its balance first hand when I assumed it was like Civ IV and had what seemed to be a resoundingly successful early game conquering three neighbouring AIs, only to discover my friend who knew V better was just sat building his four cities.
I would not, as I edited my post to reflect, disagree that Civ V is an example of it being done wrong - if that was your intent to contribute, I respect that - but nothing in this thread so far looks like it's wanting to take inspiration from that model, hence my reticence.
The balance reductions in Dust income from the Target locked update has made it increasingly diffucult to build and maintain a fleet as well as to build system improvments. So dust income needs to increase. At the very least the dust income from "Pulvis Production" should increase from 2 per population to at least 5 for example.
The Idea looks interesting, something like this could be implemented if specific suggestions for the improvements are made.
Also would they be made a planet specializations or system improvements that only affect the associated world type.
I will be doing a change of the base planet FIDS and while food will be reduced,
Dust will be getting a large increase,
further changes may come later if that’s what people want.
Aitarus wrote:
I like the idea of terraforming to an Ecumenopolis as a late game tall option.
Cultural Hegemony is an apropos name, I concur on this.
I'm on board with opening one or two new law options perhaps as well, depending on how the other % FIDSI boosts were scaled and panned out. I am concerned about tall empires having competitive access to late luxury/strategic resources without being able to seamlessly expand via Autonomous Administration, so a contingency to deal with that would be nice. Like paying a signficant amount of production for a small infusion, or to generate a low-yield artificial node?
I'm in favour of the current leading political party receiving the boost from ship production - if that can be done. Not industry for sure, or you'll get that party simply replacing the overpowering militarists now. Failing this, remove impact altogether.
As Cyrob knows I am broadly in favour of [Cleaning up the Military quadrant]. I in particular have been concerned about basic components being locked behind curiosities, which should be for special 'nice to have' but not game-changing necessary in terms of rewards.
I'd approve of a new unique system improvement, or perhaps a wonder depending again on how the numbers looked for the new tall improvements.
I’m still not sure if adding new planet types (with new textures) is possible but I would like to add this add some point, but I expect it won’t be for quite a while yet.
I'm not sure is there is any way to generates deposits during the game but having a repeatable system project that produces some of a strategic resource should be possible.
Unfortunately, all I can do is set is for when a ship is built what party does it support with what strength & for how long. There is no way (that I know of) to have these be modified dependant on the current government or anything else, they are fixed.
Work on clearing up the military quadrant are underway but there are major hurdles in the way, firstly with so many modules its’s hard to give them all a proper balanced location in the tech tree, and secondly having some unlock by era is an issue due to faction specific modules will unlock for all that way (unless there is a way of unlock something by era for some factions only)
An empire unique system improvement may be the way to go so that it can be powerful but not abusable.
IceGremlin wrote:
I didn't mean for it to be a Unique improvement, rather a building priced as one. That's the balancing factor for the fact that this building would be part of the Cultural Hegemony tech, is that if you're running an empire incapable of indefinite horizontal growth, it must be given a method of indefinite vertical growth in order to keep up. I think it's reasonable that said improvement ought to be quite expensive, considering it's being built in an empire that already was focused on maximizing a few planets outputs.
On a side note, a mechanic which recently occurred to me from playing Stellaris (really just trying it out; sadly, it failed my two-hour hook requirement, and so is destined for the refund pile), is that we could add in a Life Expectancy mechanic, where system populations die off at a certain rate regardless of other factors, with Food being used to try and outpace the losses. So empires must eventually reckon with the mortality of their population to both hit their Population cap and stay there, or else they will periodically have to recover their lost growth.
That's just me throwing something at the wall to see if it sticks, though.
As to the problem of what would replace Hulls if they were moved to the Military quadrant, I am of the opinion that all of the Planetary Specializations could make sense as being centralized in Empire Development, on the basis that they all work off of population and some harsh planet types, and Empire Development is the quadrant you go for growing a larger population on harsher planet types, as opposed to terraforming them away. They fit in with the overall "Generalist" theme of Empire Development, since both Food and Influence are kind of the generalist resources and generalist effects seem tied to Ecologist politics, which are also centralized mostly in Empire Development.
PS: Food Unique still references Wasteful Portions instead of just Wasted Food. It also might not be working correctly, since my capitol grew very quickly with it as Sophons.
I definitely agree that it should be expensive to build, if it was a unique improvement then it could be made to be very powerful,
(we could have one improvement & a unique improvement unlocked by the tech)
One Idea for the improvement would be “Fully Centralized Industry” (feel free to think of a better name)
Which would give +X% FIDSI on System cost the cost of 1500 + 75X Industry & 200 + 30X Influence to build & 5X Dust to maintain.
Where X is the number of improvements (or population) in the system.
The effect is much much greater the more developed the system is and so is it’s cost.
(this could instead be added in a new tech an era up from the "tall tech")
Honestly, I have no idea how to code the life expectancy mechanic (which is the main barrier to entry for this project) since growth costs increase a bit each time it’s best lore-wise (and for my sanity probably) to assume that increase is to account for the populous dying and needing replacement.
There is plenty of planetary Specializations to move into the tree, I do have some ideas myself as to what could be added to the space, I’ll put it at the end of this post.
I’ll look into the wasteful Portions issue.
Vendata wrote:
IceGremlin wrote:
I didn't mean for it to be a Unique improvement, rather a building priced as one. That's the balancing factor for the fact that this building would be part of the Cultural Hegemony tech, is that if you're running an empire incapable of indefinite horizontal growth, it must be given a method of indefinite vertical growth in order to keep up. I think it's reasonable that said improvement ought to be quite expensive, considering it's being built in an empire that already was focused on maximizing a few planets outputs.
It might actually make sense to make it one. Making it unique focuses exclusively on vertical growth instead of being about to multiply to benefits through horizontal growth. To allow the benefits to still be accrued by all systems instead of just one, it could come bundled with an infinite production improvement that allows industry and/or excess food production in that system to be zeroed out and divided between all other systems (possibly with some loss depending on the number of systems, making the impact more significant if the player has a small number of systems).
As for what to call the improvement, Centralized Administration would be fitting, or maybe Integrated Administration if it's kept non-unique.
It might also make sense to have another tall-empire tech (not quite sure what yet though, maybe a pop slot improvement) mutually exclusive with Pooster Program. However, that's currently unlocked by HyperPACs along with Colonize Toxic, so things might have to be moved around a bit to facilitate that. Maybe move Pooster Program to Inter-Species HR and Culture Center to HyperPACs.
Aitarus wrote:
I am concerned about tall empires having competitive access to late luxury/strategic resources without being able to seamlessly expand via Autonomous Administration, so a contingency to deal with that would be nice. Like paying a signficant amount of production for a small infusion, or to generate a low-yield artificial node?
I feel like this would be a bit less of an issue if buying resources through the market was a more viable option. Increasing their availability (and other general market improvements) would probably be a good start.
A tall-focused alternative to Trading Companies could help tall empires have the dust available to buy the resources they need as well. Maybe something like allowing you to invest in other player's trading companies in exchange for a share of the profits? That's probably beyond the scope of this mod though.
The ability to mine resouces from a planet without colonizing it may also be a potential solution as well.
CyRob wrote:
Decrease Military party support from building ships (Since I keep seeing it being asked for everywhere) -
(Many are annoyed by the large amount of support the military party gets from build even a defensive force, this might please them)
To balance this change out other sources could be increased in strength or duration.
Would it be possible to make support variable? So building a defensive force wouldn't have a noticible impact, but a large or rapid military bulidup would start generating significant Militarist support.
Good names, whether the improvement is unique or not main depends on how powerful it’s effects are, we could have a good improvement & a very strong unique improvement.
I have had an idea for a improvement that allows for food to be transported (it’s at the end of this post), we could add that in the new tech your suggesting, after all Empire development does need new techs.
Not sure exactly what to do regarding late game resources I may leave it till the next update so that there may be more ideas about it (or I figure out the market)
I can drastically reduce the duration of the support so that building in rapid succession will still have impact but building a few ships should not do much after a few turns.
Aitarus wrote:
Vendata wrote:
A tall-focused alternative to Trading Companies could help tall empires have the dust available to buy the resources they need as well. Maybe something like allowing you to invest in other player's trading companies in exchange for a share of the profits? That's probably beyond the scope of this mod though.
I was actually playing with a write-up on a revamped economic victory that had to do with controlling the most shares in all Trade Companies on the map, no idea how complex that'd be. The concept was that each company would have stocks that could be bid on/bought out by any empire, introducing a sort of economic warfare and a unique mechanic for the economic victory.
My only concern was where you'd set the victory mark - was considering having it be so you had to control the 'majority' of all 'potential' trade HQs, so you couldn't just win by building the first two if nobody else did.
Issue there is players could choose to disable it by not investing in trade at all, so I was mulling over the idea of a hand-off system: making a timer after each empire is offered their next trade company before other empires can start to steal/build others' companies if the original was slow/declined to build it in time.
Unfortunately I can’t see any way of being able to implement that, I do like the idea of hostile take overs but I think it could only be added by the devs.
IceGremlin wrote:
In regards to Luxury production I think that striking up friendly trade with opponents (you're not expansionist, after all) is already sufficient for Tall empires, but the larger issue is that the market place can never meet your demand. I've suggested elsewhere that when the price of a resource is in the red (most expensive area) it should increment at the end of the turn, and if it's green it should decrement, to represent natural (if slow) balancing of prices against supply. Unfortunately, a healthy and logical economy just can't operate between only up to 8 economic actors, so the other few thousand needed to justify a market place need to be simulated by the game mechanics. That means buying up too-common resources and selling off too-scarce resources by default, because someone ought to be producing those resources somewhere who isn't paying straight to an empire.
I do want to look into the market, I have entertained the thought of trying to implement my Trade Power idea from the G2G Balance Thread which would solve this issue but also probably be hard if not impossible to implement.
I will at some point look into how the market gets restocked and if I can mod it to be more like you have suggested.
Dragar wrote:
There's a lot of discussion about 'tall' empires. I think it's well worth reading Sulla's Civ V review on the topic before proceeding designing around this.
Civ5 suffers here from a mistaken attempt to balance "Tall" empires against "Wide" empires. This is something that the designers mentioned frequently in the buildup to the game's release, and the Civ5 community discusses this all the time as well. It's a baffling concept that makes absolutely no sense when discussing gameplay in the empire-building genre of games. Why in the world would you want to create a game where a "Tall" empire of four cities would be as strong as a "Wide" empire of twenty cities? If that's the case, then what's the point of expanding at all? It's much easier to sit on a handful of cities, after all. An empire-building game where small nations are just a
If Hulls are moved we will have a lot of empty space in Empire Development, should we move techs from other quadrants or make new ones?
New ones. I enjoy 4x where it takes time to create, develop and manage an empire. Larger tech tree is one way to make the game last longer. If you complete a game in 4-6h, it kind of takes away the feeling of managing a massive space empire. Click click boom you win y'know. Was that it?
As it stands, the trend seems to be 2-4-6-8-6/9 (there's slight variation between different races - UE have only 4 Science & Exploration end techs whereas Vodyani 6 for example) tech per tier. I wouldn't mind seeing like +1 or +2 per level. Possibly even add a whole new tier? Also as discussed, it'd be good idea to move some mundane and/or practically critical techs to tier unlocks like colonizations and basic ship modules. So:
Add new techs to flesh out the tech tree as ideas pop up.
Increase the amount of facilitating techs to emphasize certain tech paths depending on playstyle/focus.
Add extra tier to each tech quadrant (if deemed necessary).
Move "must-have" techs to tier unlocks rather than separate techs. These could be:
Colonization techs (possibly keep some rough/desired planet types as exclusive techs)
All basic ship modules, let tier 3/4+ unlock them in large amounts. (strategic resource modules are fine to tech up like currently stands)
Marketplace techs (personal preference - IMO marketplace is a core gameplay element that everybody should have access to, regardless of tech choices)
All diplomacy option techs (as above, it just makes sense that you don't need specific techs for higher diplomacy with aliens - Xenolingustics already is a tier 1 tech in Economy & Trade!)
If above fires up, that alone would make a good amount of room which should help to keep the techs somewhat in check so it won't get too bloated either. The mentioned 6 political party techs sound very good addition to fill up the initial void.
CyRob wrote:
Now I know how it feels to be on the receiving end of one of these mega posts
Heh. Feedback was asked so feedback was given. No need to address every point separately, it's enough for me that the ideas are skimmed through, glad if there's anything worthwhile to grab onto. Just tossing my few cents on the table.
To recap about ideas discussed generally:
FOOD:
Distribution Center and Depot sounds good. I'd hope for a system where you could manage food individually to desired systems but this empire-wide system could work as well. While at it, a few thoughs:
Is it possible to add "exclusive" pop slots? There's Unfallen Guardians afterall and Vodyani spread to multiple planets per pop so I'd assume there's something that can be done with planet pop slots.
If so, how about building "agricultural androids" on set exclusive slots? Riftborn build population as well.
Is it possible to edit Trading Companies to generate food?
If so, this food could be used in the empire-wide pool.
Does not exclude the usage of Distribution Centers.
Another name for the Distribution Center could be:
Consumer Goods Collector (send) / Consumer Subsistence Center (receive)
Don't get me wrong, the Distribution Center / Depot is a fine name, just brainstorming. Pick what you like the most. Any of those could also be used for other techs / improvements. Also, since the food is seemingly making a move to an empire-wide system, it'd be good to see the food income sources separately as originally planned. Just a helpful piece of information to manage the colonies.
Finally, I kinda like my own idea of getting Approval from excess food. Not sure if it's really a necessary change or if it'd cause balance issues but to me it makes sense that people are happy if basic necessities are plentiful. Peasants are less likely to revolt if they're content with their life.
FEASIBILITY OF TALL VERSUS WIDE:
Trying to avoid flame war but different people have different tastes. I like wide empires myself but can easily see the appeal of tall. Not everybody likes to que up 15 new projects in your colonies every 3 turns and micro dozens of population to new systems and manage 50 ship fleets while at it.
Civ and ES are both 4x sure, but they're quite different in how they play out. I don't see any harm in making balanced gameplay styles for different types of empires. In Endless Legend you had the Cultists, a really unique faction who had only one supercity. Wouldn't mind seeing something like that in ES2 either though that's quite likely beyond the scope of this project.
TALL EMPIRE TECHS & IMPROVEMENTS:
Seems Cultural Hegemony was well received. I humbly thank you all for support. Alternate name ideas for Fully Centralized Industry that'd be unlocked by Cultural Hegemony could be:
Industry Conglomerate (kind of self-explanatory)
Manufactory Refinery (refine the manufactory itself, crude word play)
Focused Industry Plants (a bit clumsy maybe)
Probated Manufactory Complex (if that's grammatically correct, not 100% sure if probate fits as a defining term here)
Senate Supported Power Plants (tall empire, government gives high focus)
Beyond the name, seems good so far. Let's see how it'll work out in action.
POLITICAL IMPACT OF SHIPS:
Since modding dynamic political impact is beyond scope, I'd suggest to either:
Reduce the political impact drastically. (easy way out)
Or, add political impact to each race separately according to their natural traits. (more work but more flavorful)
UE would get industry/science impact.
Vodyani would get religious/military impact.
Riftborn would get pacifist/ecologist impact.
Etc.
This'd give more emphasis to each faction's preferred political climate. Currently it's quite easy to flip into "wrong" political parties. While it's nice that there's flexibility in the system, I feel it'd make a bit more sense if each race would have more focus on their natural political affinity. Editing each race (visual affinity I guess?) individually would help quite a bit since you will need ships in every game.
TERRAFORMING:
If new types of terraforming are possible to create, exploitable planets could be created after all? Create a path from appropriate planet to exploitable planet and end the terraforming path there or add one more step to stabilize the system. Like:
Add new planet-terraform type "Extreme Exploitation Processing" (or whatever sounds fitting, like previous Short-Term Extreme Exploitation)
EEP would add high amount of industry, food and dust. Minimal science & maybe negative Approval. (to avoid permanent holding of multiple planets at this stage)
EEP could be terraformed only to "Stabilized Barren Planet" (or something)
Stabilized Barren would have weak FIDSI but no special penalties. This would end all terraforming paths.
It's just an idea. I'm not all that hell-bent on seeing extra terraforming but since it's been discussed I was mulling this over. Something to consider, that's all.
STRATEGIC/LUXURY RESOURCE ACQUIREMENT WITH TALL EMPIRE:
This is definitely a sore spot for small but influental empire. Wide naturally has easier time when it comes to resource acquisition. I prefer the usage of Marketplace as primary source to fill in the gaps but if it's possible there could be some changes. Like:
Add new type of currency exclusively for strategic/luxury resources that has no use outside of those.
You could buy/sell with Dust as normal but exclusive currency would give you access to unlimited pool of strat/lux of choice.
Alternatively, you could trade luxury for luxury. Maybe ratio of 2:1 and more for higher tier luxuries. Goodbye 800 Glitterdust, hello 400 Jadonyx.
The idea about star system produced strat/lux is sound (artificial node or simple production line piece), but I'm just a bit worried if the production list would get a bit bloated. I'd assume you'd need to create each resource individually so there'd be like 21 new items to produce. If there's a way to make it clean, sure it sounds good.
Something should be done to help unlucky start with strategics at least since without Titanium or Hyperium at the very least you'll be in quite a trouble come midgame.
Maybe something could be done with the Ship portion of the Marketplace? Does anybody actually use that to buy ships, really? If I've Dust, I'll just buy them out of my production que typically.
If Marketplace is out of question and there'll be produceable strat/lux items, techs/buildable stuff could be called for example:
Quantum Segment Resource Refinement
Multi-Layered Physics Infringment
Quark Rearrangement
Subatomic Matter Recalibration
Dimensional Forcewave Reassessment
Mass Reconfiguration
4D Printing
I guess that covers the latest topics. As for the mod name, I'm not quite happy with the Mutually Agreed Expansive Enhancements. It's on the way, but not quite there.
Multilateral Acceding to Refinement and Development Framework for example feels better already. Well, have to think about it. At least until someone figures an actually good one!
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