I think that adjusting the approval on this race or making diapproval not affect fids as much as it does with other factions might help make their affinity more appealing

Korke wrote:
I think that adjusting the approval on this race or making diapproval not affect fids as much as it does with other factions might help make their affinity more appealing

Thanks for your input Korke. I generally feel they should have some kind of propaganda bonus to offset high taxes, and they need to fix the businessmen trait, it flat out sucks.The problem with the UE is a problem with the tax system, FIDS, approval, expansion disapproval, and their affinity and traits. Its not going to be an easy fix but its one that needs to addressed.



Basically as the taxes currently are the population is too difficult to please. For the UE to function you want your colonists to feel like this...





They should feel like that because of propaganda. Every sidewalk should have a poster of a Craver eating someone's baby with the phrase "Don't let it happen here, buy war bonds." They should also feel like that because everyone is a company man, everyone works for a corporation and is indebted to those corporations. Everyone toils for the Empire, everyone loves the Empire, because its their only hope for survival.

Someone said it before, and I'll say it again. Give the UE +5 empire wide for every strategic resource monopoly.



That would work thematically with their expansionist/economic playstyle and would mesh well with their system upgrade that increases strategic resource deposit size by 1. If they can achieve a monopoly for all 8 strategic resources, that would grant them +40 empire wide and would allow them to raise taxes to high heaven.



Expand, acquire monopolies, capitalize on those monopolies and produce gratuitous amounts of

GeneralArmchair wrote:
Someone said it before, and I'll say it again. Give the UE +5 empire wide for every strategic resource monopoly.



That would work thematically with their expansionist/economic playstyle and would mesh well with their system upgrade that increases strategic resource deposit size by 1. If they can achieve a monopoly for all 8 strategic resources, that would grant them +40 empire wide and would allow them to raise taxes to high heaven.



Expand, acquire monopolies, capitalize on those monopolies and produce gratuitous amounts of

Thats what is commonly called a house build on sand.



Having a so called bonus that is dependend on other players enabling you is a load of dried horse excrements.

Every faction should have its bonus working regardless of how the other factions act.



Picture this:



You are on a huge random disk, with 8 players. Now, you cannot make proper use of your bonus unless you get proper monopoly over ressources. The other players know that, naturally they will strive to deny you this.



And here comes the crux:



Their racial bonus is not dependant on what you do. You are irrelevant in that equation.

Sophons get their research no matter what.

Sowers will eco boom.

Cravers will crave your land because that is what they do. right? Oh and they will shit all over the place they currently hold to get the craver baby monsters motivated proper. right? They be coming for your place to shit all over it. And they do not need you enabling them (unless you count dieing horribly as enabling them).

Pilgrims will wring trade out of anyone under any circumstances (and using corporate heroes this does get deliciously profitable as early as their meeting some poor schmuck who will now feed pilgrim babys no matter his opinion on that matter.) and get a flat 30 happy-hippy bonus (and your ressoruce and player dependant boost will give... 40.. uh huh...).

Horatio will Horatio around doing Horatio.

Amoeba will have full view on where those ressoruces you need to make your bonus work are located. Becaue they have universe wide supervision no matter what other people think about THAT. The alliance based boons are cherrys on top with no immediate or long time NEED to be used. Their schtick is the extreme voyeurism.



But here are you, required to pick up stuff from all over the place hoping you lucked out on some ressources..... in order to get your so called comapny based empire towards being able to produce money. An empire that by lore should actually know better than to rely on John Murphy, Hank "Human" Player and Consuela El Luck for business.







uh huh.



Now excuse me for saying this but this monopoly bound bonus thing does not appear to have been thought through properly.

LordReynolds wrote:
Thats what is commonly called a house build on sand.



Having a so called bonus that is dependend on other players enabling you is a load of dried horse excrements.

Every faction should have its bonus working regardless of how the other factions act.



Picture this:



You are on a huge random disk, with 8 players. Now, you cannot make proper use of your bonus unless you get proper monopoly over ressources. The other players know that, naturally they will strive to deny you this.



And here comes the crux:



Their racial bonus is not dependant on what you do. You are irrelevant in that equation.

Sophons get their research no matter what.

Sowers will eco boom.

Cravers will crave your land because that is what they do. right? Oh and they will shit all over the place they currently hold to get the craver baby monsters motivated proper. right? They be coming for your place to shit all over it. And they do not need you enabling them (unless you count dieing horribly as enabling them).

Pilgrims will wring trade out of anyone under any circumstances (and using corporate heroes this does get deliciously profitable as early as their meeting some poor schmuck who will now feed pilgrim babys no matter his opinion on that matter.) and get a flat 30 happy-hippy bonus (and your ressoruce and player dependant boost will give... 40.. uh huh...).

Horatio will Horatio around doing Horatio.

Amoeba will have full view on where those ressoruces you need to make your bonus work are located. Becaue they have universe wide supervision no matter what other people think about THAT. The alliance based boons are cherrys on top with no immediate or long time NEED to be used. Their schtick is the extreme voyeurism.



But here are you, required to pick up stuff from all over the place hoping you lucked out on some ressources..... in order to get your so called comapny based empire towards being able to produce money. An empire that by lore should actually know better than to rely on John Murphy, Hank "Human" Player and Consuela El Luck for business.







uh huh.



Now excuse me for saying this but this monopoly bound bonus thing does not appear to have been thought through properly.

This^ a thousand times this.

You don't think the + would not benefit the UE? Do you know how easy it is to achieve strat monopoplies as the UE? They can achieve a monopoly by holding a single world. Back when strat monopolies mattered, the UE would generate ludicrous amounts of dust from their easy access to strat monopolies.



It does a hell of a lot more than their current affinity that only does anything if they can kick their tax rate above 50%.

GeneralArmchair wrote:
You don't think the + would not benefit the UE? Do you know how easy it is to achieve strat monopoplies as the UE? They can achieve a monopoly by holding a single world. Back when strat monopolies mattered, the UE would generate ludicrous amounts of dust from their easy access to strat monopolies.



It does a hell of a lot more than their current affinity that only does anything if they can kick their tax rate above 50%.

I think they need a +, but I don't want it to depend on a randomly generated resource as no other faction's traits rely on random chance.

GeneralArmchair wrote:
You don't think the + would not benefit the UE? Do you know how easy it is to achieve strat monopoplies as the UE? They can achieve a monopoly by holding a single world. Back when strat monopolies mattered, the UE would generate ludicrous amounts of dust from their easy access to strat monopolies.



It does a hell of a lot more than their current affinity that only does anything if they can kick their tax rate above 50%.

Yes and under ceretain cirumstances pigs can fly, right onto a butchery, slice themselves into nice pieces then those pieces will perhaps fly into a fry pan for a quick roast and then land on my dish, all while making a stop at the pepper and salt to get dressed properly.



And naturally i rather do not want to have to rely on that happening when i want to eat some pork.





So i totally do not see how anything you said makes any sense.











Looking at aA Faction that is lauded as being the Money-pinatas i would expect a bonus geared towards enabling them to do that one thing: make money.







So how about this:



The UE affinity now is that Industrial, Food and science output generates approval. Why does it do that? Because building some stuff means money gets made for someone somewhere and that dude is going to be happy camper. Said happy camper will approve of you. Becuase food is bought up by someone and generally is a needed product: so again we have happy campers on all sides. Science means R&D, means people ca nexpect future profits and benefits. meaning said people will be happy. Since you made that possible for them, they approve of you. even if you strangle them economically. because they still get ahead.



The effects numbers need someone good at math to hash out but since it is a self compunding effect it will be useful from the start, through out the game right to the end. As FIS increase, so does aproval from that, accordingly you can jack up the tax rate.



You can jack up the tax rate earlier, counter act expansion disaproval, and generally double dip into things you already do anyway.







Numbers need people more capable at coming up with the right equations than me, but the basic principle is -i think- not only sound but also in lore with the whole corporate run empire thing. Not to mention its not random and does not rely on other players enabling you.







have fun with that.

Theodemir wrote:
What economy did you have for your empire to support your fleet? I seriously can't get out of using the Ind->dust and be competitive in UE games.

It takes time that systems get full of population (for major systems I need 100-150 turns). WIth full population and right research you can get a lot of dust from industry. 7-8 systems convert industry to dust giving 1000-1500 dust per turn. Others build ships.

Happiness is very important for UE, so you need time and slow advance that everything works OK. My tax rate is 35%.

It is hard to play with UE, but possible. It depends on few things (atleast from my point of view):

1. Quality of near systems (I had to restart 10 times until I get satisfied with my neighbourhood)

2. 1-2 possible lines of attack so you can have easy way of defending your systems.

3. Start colonization slowly

4. Block expansion of another race to your systems of interest

Draco18s wrote:
...I've won the game by turn 200 on a Large map as the UE.

...with a science victory...

I am playing only with diplomatic and expansion victory without pirates.

I notice that if you play UE and set taxes to 100 the resulting -approval means nothing gets produced... except for industry. you still get to build stuff half as fast and get massive amounts of money. it just destroys food and science income. (dust income isn't effected by low approval)

I'm thinking setting taxes to 100 once every few turns might be close to an option, as opposed to setting everything on dust conversion every other few turns. it feels weird, sure. but it might actually work. I think if the affinity was changed to include +50% science and +50% food at 100% tax it'd actually be useful and interesting. you'll just go fuck approval, papa needs his sugar.

Moved this to the design discussion, slightly renamed the title, removed the duplicate discussion.

UE is imo one of the best factions. Massive economic bonus and great ship bonuses.. what more would you want?

I just won a game with UE on Impossible (conquered 75% of the galaxy). I never had the chance to make use of their unique affinity. There just wasn't enough happiness around with constant warmongering and expansion and for this reason my tax rate was around 25% for most of the game. I'm now convinced that UE affinity needs to be changed.



PS: Impossible isn't too hard at the moment due to the incompetent AI, so the win doesn't mean UE is on the same level as the other factions.

Zentay wrote:
I just won a game with UE on Impossible (conquered 75% of the galaxy). I never had the chance to make use of their unique affinity. There just wasn't enough happiness around with constant warmongering and expansion and for this reason my tax rate was around 25% for most of the game. I'm now convinced that UE affinity needs to be changed.



PS: Impossible isn't too hard at the moment due to the incompetent AI, so the win doesn't mean UE is on the same level as the other factions.

Well, you went in knowing that constant warmongering and expansion would kill your approval, right? If you want to exploit their affinity, you can't expand rapidly like the Cravers or Amoeba. You have to reign in in a little bit and move a bit more slowly to capitalize on the insane amount of Dust that the UE can generate for you.



By the end-game I can have my taxes set to about 60-65% and suffer no real penalties. I could probably afford to go a bit higher, but, I don't like to just outright kill my Science output.

FinalStrigon wrote:
Well, you went in knowing that constant warmongering and expansion would kill your approval, right? If you want to exploit their affinity, you can't expand rapidly like the Cravers or Amoeba. You have to reign in in a little bit and move a bit more slowly to capitalize on the insane amount of Dust that the UE can generate for you.



By the end-game I can have my taxes set to about 60-65% and suffer no real penalties. I could probably afford to go a bit higher, but, I don't like to just outright kill my Science output.

If you actually read the tool tips, setting your tax rate to %50-%60 doesn't boost anything becuase of the tax penalty, you have to set your tax rate to at least %65 to get even a %5 boost to , yet at that tax rate it kills ,, and . Essentialy the UE are a faction without an affinity or even any real traits. The point here isn't "I won a game with UE on impossible" because beating the AI proves nothing, its not even about the UE being able to win at all. Its about the UE being the only faction in the game who has traits and affinity that can never be taken advantage or even used, because the optimal tax rate is %30.



The crux is this, to paraphrase LordReynolds:



Having a so called racial affinity and trait bonuses that are dependent on your ability to make the impossible possible, and get the tax rate to %65 or more, is essentially having no racial traits at all, and if you say it can be done late game, well that's all well and good. So you mean I get to use my racial abilities long after my opponents have been using their own racial traits to conquer the galaxy.



The truth is folks that other races racial bonuses aren't dependent on making an impossible slider slide, they are going to do what they always do, regardless of the current tax system.



Sophons get their research no matter what, Sowers will eco boom. Cravers will crave your land because that is what they do, right? Oh and they will crap all over the place they currently hold to get the craver baby monsters motivated proper.Then they'll be coming for your place to crap all over it. Pilgrims will wring trade out of anyone under any circumstances (and using corporate heroes this does get deliciously profitable as early as their meeting some poor schmuck who will now feed pilgrim babys no matter his opinion on that matter.) and get a flat 30 happy-hippy bonus (and your resource and player dependent boost will give... 40.. uh huh...). Horatio will Horatio around doing Horatio. Amoeba will have full view on where resources and planets they want and need are, and can soon after start trading tech with anyone under the sun. Because they have universe wide supervision no matter what other people think about THAT. The alliance based boons are a cherry on top with no immediate or long time NEED to be used. Their schtick is the extreme voyeurism.



Then here is the UE, they get a dinky +1 dust per pop, and an affinity that they can't even begin to use until super late in the game, that may be all well and good against AI. However people in multiplayer are going to smell the blood in the water, their not going to let your little fledgling empire live to see that day, because that's how multiplayer works. Its a pond, and the UE are little fish in a big pond, someone is going to gobble them up eventually, usually in the first 40-50 turns. So you don't have time to wait until turn 250 to start getting a little bit of your racial bonuses.

I'm just going to withdraw from these discussions. I've said my case, and the UE does work, at least when I play them. I've had no trouble online with them, and I don't see them as the weakest faction at all. If you all think so, that's your opinion. My experiences with them have given me quite a different one.



I simply don't want to waste more time on a debate where neither side is going to be changing their mind.

FinalStrigon wrote:
Well, you went in knowing that constant warmongering and expansion would kill your approval, right? If you want to exploit their affinity, you can't expand rapidly like the Cravers or Amoeba. You have to reign in in a little bit and move a bit more slowly to capitalize on the insane amount of Dust that the UE can generate for you.



By the end-game I can have my taxes set to about 60-65% and suffer no real penalties. I could probably afford to go a bit higher, but, I don't like to just outright kill my Science output.

Sorry but if you don't expand rapidly you can't win on higher difficulties. I'm pretty sure that is true when facing human opponents as well. The benefit of expanding FAR outweigh the small potential benefit of the UE affinity at very high tax rates.



And that you can't get 60-65% tax rate until the endgame is proof that UE essentially does not have an affinity at all for the majority of the game. And what do you get? 5-10% industry bonus...

if that's the case, just change it so that from 50% to 100% you can essentially get back all of the industry your losing from taxes.

Igncom1 wrote:
if that's the case, just change it so that from 50% to 100% you can essentially get back all of the industry your losing from taxes.

No because it would still be useless for the majority of the game. The concept is just bad and needs to be scrapped.