Who voted for bluecap mold? Definitelly not Nakalim! =D

Jadonyx is obviously a king, its power comes from 2 things: an immediate value and its independence from starting conditions. Others are situational, but there are some good once out there. I play mostly democracy (Sophons, Unfallen, smt customs) and therefore I like eden incense. Pushing 3 laws early is good and piling up some influence to use later is solid. For Unfallen this is not the case though, they have enough just from guardians. Redsang is a good investment early-to-mid game, but food is worse in ES2 compared for example to EL, because the number of pop doesn't give you much flexibility, you can't control your FIDSI by redistributing people. Still an ok investment especially for good pops that give nice per pop bonuses like Lumeris for example. Those combined with planet yields can give you smth like ~6-7 FIDS every ~4 turns on average. And you can skip food techs while not crippling your growth. And it helps to grow outposts. And it helps to stack a bit of extra manpower. Look all those little thingies when come together make it an ok choice at least. But then you look at Jadonyx and cry in despair. I think it should give 30 industry instead of 60, like they did with eden incense. It would still be good, but not dominant.

Nah, down to 30 would be utter trash :-( i mean almost all starter planets + xeno indy = 30 indy

what if we made no one get jadonyx and no one get dark glitter?
You know, cut off the extremes to obtain better average value...

For me, Eden Incense is the one I've come to really like. Partly United Empire bias(since they can use Influence for more than just Laws/Treaties) but it fuels early game laws while allowing one to offensively use it later on in the game as your influence bubble envelops opposing factions that settle too close. The other luxury I've come to like is Redsang for the boost it gives to young systems and most notably to the hungry Vodyani faction. I mean sure Jadonyx is an alluring choice, but by the time I get around to using it, I have accelerated production to buy-out cheap Industry improvements which makes the +60 Industry boost not as impactful. Transvine has been nerfed to +15 and while its still nice, I prefer its Tier 2 variant for +2 per population. This combined with Senator Bob Act Law virtually makes anything but Lava/Toxic Planets Escatic(from which a Governor can mitigate that even further).

If I roll Jadonyx, I stop playing because I've already won.

Well I d vote to have the 'weaker' ressources near starting locations and create a king of the hill situation by locating the best luxuries in areas you ll have ti find first. I m not sure though if the map Editor supports this.

Jadonyx: Industry rises so buildings get done quicker, including food specific ones. Not to mention ships if required.

It's really hard to justify the presence of some luxuries when jadonyx exists.  +60 industry on a T1 resource, for a system development that takes a turn to finish and can be built on a newly colonized system, is insane.  Even when compared JUST to other T1 resources it creates an absolutely overwhelming accelerant.  Even some T2 resources aren't as valuable, at least until you have a highly popluated system.  If you don't have at least, say, a four planet system, some of those resources are STILL not as good as jadonyx in most situations.  Even if I'm playing some custom faction for which my industry is furthest from my priorities I STILL won't hesitate to take jadonyx over most T1 luxuries because of how cheap and effective it is as a kickstarter.

Part of the problem is that the general T1 resources were all built with a flat +60 in mind.  Industry, obviously, does NOT have the same value as the other basic FIDSI, thus jadonyx is overpowered from sheer laziness.  That it's remained so powerful to this day makes me wonder who's even been paying attention to playtesting at all.  Even just a cut to, say, +45 industry or so would do wonders to level the field and diversify luxury demand a bit.  +30 would probably put it behind other resources so I'm not sure if that's actually warranted, but who knows what the game would look like if it were?

While other factions may desire specific luxuries for their own strategies, as above, the fact remains that EVERYONE wants jadonyx, no questions asked.  That signals a problem to me.  On the other end, dark glitter (and it's higher cousins) are so niche I wonder why they exist.  Would you rather make your system last longer under invasion or get literally any type of resource which actually gets your empire moving to actually do something about it?  Not a hard choice.

Daynen wrote:

Part of the problem is that the general T1 resources were all built with a flat +60 in mind.  Industry, obviously, does NOT have the same value as the other basic FIDSI, thus jadonyx is overpowered from sheer laziness.  That it's remained so powerful to this day makes me wonder who's even been paying attention to playtesting at all.  Even just a cut to, say, +45 industry or so would do wonders to level the field and diversify luxury demand a bit.  +30 would probably put it behind other resources so I'm not sure if that's actually warranted, but who knows what the game would look like if it were?

Well, we are getting a new patch (patches?) soon. I don't want to get my hopes up too much, I'll be happy if they fix the bugs, but I would hate it if I would have to resort to mods to sort some of these basic balance issues out. I really really REALLY hope things such as this get addressed before the focus is completely shifted away to other projects, Amplitude.

I say this every opportunity I get. ES2 is by far my most played game ever, despite its flaws it is a very loveable game. Please give it the care it deserves. The flaws are fixable.

Jadonyx is simply too good, and not a single person would be upset if it were toned down. Not to the point of being useless of course, but maybe only +40?

I said Eden Incense awhile back but I wouldnt mind Dark Glitter either. The boost to manpower and system capacity can not be understated. Furthermore its unique 75 enrollment basically allows you to recruit/draft 75 manpower out of thin air should your system be invaded. This combined with Draft can prolong an invasion if you got adequate defensive improvements in place. Got a Citadel(which protects Manpower) and your system will be virtually impregnable to all but the largest invasion forces.