If the Hissho can be bullies in the early game to a weak opponent they can get out of control very quickly. With just 2 system captures under their belt they are better than everyone at pretty much everything (except sophon at research) and it just gets more ridiculous as they get more stacks beyond that. They really seem like a snowball race, if you cant be bullies they only do so-so, but as you get those Bushido stacks going (both for battles and invasions) they get pretty OP quickly. This is obviously very apparent in SP right now since all AI are weak opponents due to their inability to build a decent fleet, but in MP it may be less of an issue. It does of course open up to pretty serious exploiting among co-operating players in MP, but even just sharing techs does that.

Igncom1 wrote:
I literally cannot believe this finally happened, people have finally declared that all of the factions are OP!



And in regards to laser weapons, the fact that they are sill partially effective in long and medium ranges, as well as being very accurate to begin with make them seem like the most powerful, it has been put onto a chart and show that energy weapons do the least damage compared to kinetics and missiles, but the inaccuracy of kinetics in everything but short range and the way missiles act make them seem to act worse.

I'd love to see this chart. Got a link?

Igncom1 wrote:
I literally cannot believe this finally happened, people have finally declared that all of the factions are OP!

You know what they say grass is always greener on the other side

I don´t really think that any of the races are ultimately op they just need some more balancing

I literally cannot believe this finally happened, people have finally declared that all of the factions are OP!



And in regards to laser weapons, the fact that they are sill partially effective in long and medium ranges, as well as being very accurate to begin with make them seem like the most powerful, it has been put onto a chart and show that energy weapons do the least damage compared to kinetics and missiles, but the inaccuracy of kinetics in everything but short range and the way missiles act make them seem to act worse.

Kinetics are too inaccurate in the long and medium range bands. I find that most battles end in the long range phase, with a rare few making it to medium. Therefore a player should never build a ship using kinetic weapons unless he simply cannot build a laser or missile ship due to resource restrictions. The AI often builds kinetic ships even when it has the option not to.



Missiles are supposed to rule the long-range phase but don't really. The problem is that the missiles take so long to reach their target (3 rounds of shooting). This means that an enemy that your missiles WILL destroy gets three rounds of shooting to damage you. It also means that you can't even scratch a retreating enemy. Therefore a player should never use missiles unless they can't use lasers. The AI often builds missile ships even when it has the option not to.



Lasers are the kings of combat. If you can build a laser ship, you should. The AI doesn't really do this.



So I see that the real problem is that the weapon categories are unbalanced, not necessarily that the AI is bad. From what I can see it just picks at random from its templates, which would be fine if all weapon types were equally good, but they're not. I don't know if there's something more complex going on with the AI, or if it analyses past combats or what ships the player has.



If the AI is really just picking random templates, it may as well forget about all modules except weapons and weapon damage increasers, because you're better off with a weapon that WILL affect the battle than a defense module that has a one-in-three chance of being the right kind.

Gort wrote:
I don't think anecdotal evidence versus the AI is worth very much, as the AI doesn't build ships properly (IE, doesn't exploit the imbalances in the ship-building system) and therefore loses battles it should be winning easily.

I am interested in collecting more information about things the AI does wrong, since I play only SP and I want the AI to be more challenging. Based on your MP experience, what are the things the AI fails to exploit? Frequent lack of shields seems to be one thing. That and other things are mentioned in this thread:

/#/endless-space/forum/27-general/thread/8862-evidence-requested-poor-ai-ship-design

If you have any additional observations about AI shipbuilding mistakes, please let us know.

Must say, I played a bunch of multiplayer games this weekend versus a very aggressive Hissho player, and I didn't find him to be all that good. His tech was inferior to mine (I was a Craver) and our fleet battles would often be extremely bloody with lots of losses on both sides. The problem was that as a Craver I was already getting about 25% more industry than him, my ships cost 30% less than his, my fleets could be larger and every time he lost a ship I gained 50 research points. I was able to just grind him down with large numbers of superior ships.



I don't think anecdotal evidence versus the AI is worth very much, as the AI doesn't build ships properly (IE, doesn't exploit the imbalances in the ship-building system) and therefore loses battles it should be winning easily.

Taelon wrote:
I'm stating from previous games where I thought I'd shoot for an economic victory it wasn't possible because I killed off too many opponents, each one at the cost of an additional 40k dust. If we are comparing one victory condition to another, the economic victory is (more) difficult to obtain unless you plan on leaving AI opponents alive. If you systematically eliminate one after the other you simply increase the difficulty of achieving an economic victory, whereas if you were to stop at the last system, and agree to a cease fire it would be substantially less difficult.

I know, I was simply musing out loud about my ignorance of the reduction in economic victory conditions over the course of a game as races get eliminated. I thought the goal was set upon game generation, and remained unchanged.

Taelon wrote:
The fallacy in your logic regarding mutual destruction fleets lies with the attributes to which you say are more conducive to the hissho faction...someone who is intent on mutual destruction isn't going to bother with ANY defenses, which places the hissho faction on the defensive if they want to attempt to survive a battle. Per the current combat system, there is absolutely no way any race can survive in a mutual destruction scenario. To elaborate, if I produce a fleet with no defenses (with the sole intent of destroying your fleet) it is extremely unlikely there is anything you can do to counter it. Additional accuracy and attack damage is not going to prevent you from losing all of your ships in the first round -- I am almost guaranteed to lose all of mine. The most vulnerable attribute in any given fleet appears to be missile interception due to it's 1 missile interception per defense (whereas number of bullet deflected and shields absorb varies on defense attribute of hero). Regardless, I doubt a diversified maximum 1CP/ship (max CP) offensive fleet could ever be countered with similar CP counts. I will admit I've never tested this with another player attempting to push the boundary to the limit, but the theoretical outcome doesn't favor the defender in any scenario.

Here's the crux of what I'm saying: Hissho have the most cost-efficient military, and efficiency is what counts. Regardless of the faction I play, I don't care if all of my ships die, as long as your losses cost you more than mine cost me. At first glance, if you build those glass cannons against a Hissho opponent, they can just build the same ones at roughly 50% cost due to Masters of Destruction. Better yet, due to Snipers and Deadly Weapons, the real cost for the Hissho to accomplish the same goal is roughly 25% of yours.



Check out the strategy guide I linked in my signature. I have done the analysis, at least as of a couple of patches ago, and at the time of the guide's writing, defences were terrible on 1CP ships (and still aren't great). Also, as efficient as 1CP ships can be, Cruisers, Battleships, and Dreadnoughts can be built to beat them, as I prove in the guide (battleship is not exmplicitly analyzed, but they do work). Since then, more experienced players than I have noted either a jump in defence efficacy, or possibly a rebalance of weapon accuracies. Both of those possible changes tip the balance in favour of larger ships, especially with a decent hero. However, such changes have gone unreported in the release notes, much like the revised timing on missile firing (no more load time).

Taelon wrote:
If Bushido was cumulative with no expiration, Hissho would be by far the most overpowered race hands down no contest. Even with it expiring, if you are continuously on the offensive (something their fleets are amazing at due to their faction attributes), the bonuses quickly stack up in Hissho's favor beyond anything any other race can attain. The main issue is how early in the game you start, as the earlier you start the greater the advantage you will have

I didn't say that Bushido shouldn't expire. Rather, I said that the timers on the 15-turn bonuses shouldn't reset (i.e., they expire regardless of subsequent invasions), so I agree with everything in your last paragraph. Remember, the point of this thread was to showcase the power of Hissho Bushido, even against Impossible AI opponents who have huge bonuses to FIDs.

I'm stating from previous games where I thought I'd shoot for an economic victory it wasn't possible because I killed off too many opponents, each one at the cost of an additional 40k dust. If we are comparing one victory condition to another, the economic victory is (more) difficult to obtain unless you plan on leaving AI opponents alive. If you systematically eliminate one after the other you simply increase the difficulty of achieving an economic victory, whereas if you were to stop at the last system, and agree to a cease fire it would be substantially less difficult.



The fallacy in your logic regarding mutual destruction fleets lies with the attributes to which you say are more conducive to the hissho faction...someone who is intent on mutual destruction isn't going to bother with ANY defenses, which places the hissho faction on the defensive if they want to attempt to survive a battle. Per the current combat system, there is absolutely no way any race can survive in a mutual destruction scenario. To elaborate, if I produce a fleet with no defenses (with the sole intent of destroying your fleet) it is extremely unlikely there is anything you can do to counter it. Additional accuracy and attack damage is not going to prevent you from losing all of your ships in the first round -- I am almost guaranteed to lose all of mine. The most vulnerable attribute in any given fleet appears to be missile interception due to it's 1 missile interception per defense (whereas number of bullet deflected and shields absorb varies on defense attribute of hero). Regardless, I doubt a diversified maximum 1CP/ship (max CP) offensive fleet could ever be countered with similar CP counts. I will admit I've never tested this with another player attempting to push the boundary to the limit, but the theoretical outcome doesn't favor the defender in any scenario.



If Bushido was cumulative with no expiration, Hissho would be by far the most overpowered race hands down no contest. Even with it expiring, if you are continuously on the offensive (something their fleets are amazing at due to their faction attributes), the bonuses quickly stack up in Hissho's favor beyond anything any other race can attain. The main issue is how early in the game you start, as the earlier you start the greater the advantage you will have

Taelon wrote:
I haven't played Hissho since their 100% buff to hissho bushido, but I thought it was fairly powerful at +10% per invasion / 15 turns. I took a look at the save file, which had a current bonus of +80% FIDS; it is hard to compete against that if you keep that bonus active. My play style with them reflects this -- I only colonize 3 systems at the start and start invading from that point forward to roll those bonuses. I'd say it's definitely too powerful against the AI, but against other players it shouldn't be too hard to counter them (build 1 CP max dmg fleets that have the intent of mutual destruction). If they can't get their bonus going relatively early in the game I'd imagine the faction stagnates and flops harder than any other faction.

1CP max damage/mutual destruction fleets aren't a good idea agains the Hissho because Snipers, Deadly Weapons, and Masters of Destruction combine to make such an arms race extremely unfavourable for their opposition in economic terms.

Taelon wrote:
Edit: Economic victory conditions need to be reevaluated. In their current form it is more favorable to create a cease fire when a faction has one system left than it is to kill them off (as it decreases by 40k per faction left standing). I've played games as UE where I wasn't able to attain an economic victory before another type because (in retrospect) killing off factions from the 7 I was playing against was detrimental to achieving victory. It just seems exploitative against the AI to agree to a cease fire only with the intention it allows for an easier economic victory.

Huh, that's silly. In the above game, I killed off the Amoeba and the Cravers before cherry-picking decent systems from the UE and opposing Hissho (just to get monopolies and reset the Bushido timers).



Personally, I think that Bushido should be cumulative for each invaded system, but that the timers should never reset.

I haven't played Hissho since their 100% buff to hissho bushido, but I thought it was fairly powerful at +10% per invasion / 15 turns. I took a look at the save file, which had a current bonus of +80% FIDS; it is hard to compete against that if you keep that bonus active. My play style with them reflects this -- I only colonize 3 systems at the start and start invading from that point forward to roll those bonuses. I'd say it's definitely too powerful against the AI, but against other players it shouldn't be too hard to counter them (build 1 CP max dmg fleets that have the intent of mutual destruction). If they can't get their bonus going relatively early in the game I'd imagine the faction stagnates and flops harder than any other faction.



Edit: Economic victory conditions need to be reevaluated. In their current form it is more favorable to create a cease fire when a faction has one system left than it is to kill them off (as it decreases by 40k per faction left standing). I've played games as UE where I wasn't able to attain an economic victory before another type because (in retrospect) killing off factions from the 7 I was playing against was detrimental to achieving victory. It just seems exploitative against the AI to agree to a cease fire only with the intention it allows for an easier economic victory.