@Fresh_Undies:

At what difficulty-level do you play? Seeing the Cravers do good and the Sowers do okay, indicate to me you play on something higher than normal, where the Bankrupcy/Rebellion-issue should happen way less frequently if at all.



My observations might be pretty contamined by the Bankrupcy/Rebellion-Issue which to some races just seems to happen all the time.

I hate when pirates camp a nice systems with huge battlepower early on . Especially in MP it can set you back heavily.

I already said it, but IMHO the Sowers are more new player friendly than most other races.



Ok, maybe there could be an interesting game mechanic made considering negative dust (but I'm not sure it's worth it at the current stage).



As for "realism", since dust is a physical resource, you can't have a negative amount of it (especially in the early game, when the player empire is still alone, and no entity like an interstellar bank exists), or you would have to model in a system of dust "IOU"'s with all the complex repercussion this entails.



It's only since the last patch that we now have more than 8 factions (sheredyn are just another UE. btw automatons still don't have their own art yet)



In my current game on a large 8-spiral I'm 3 systems away from the closest empire, so I'd expect to be quite farther away on a huge one. Then if you want to add in really big galaxies, you'd have to think about it entails for game balancing, the wonder and scientific victories should be harder to attain for instance.



Yeah, it would be great if it would be harder to get rid from pirates.

Anybody have any thoughts on letting systems that are rioting (Red level approval) start spawning pirates as the stand in for a local rebellion?

BlueTemplar keep in mind that good game design = all elements of a game being accessible for new players with greater difficulty being an option and/or more advanced concepts being accessible later on within a game. Sowers may have awesome industry but they start with negative growth, crap food and much more limited dust accumulation, they can imho be tweaked just a bit so that everybody can enjoy that faction. In regards to Pilgrims I understand that they must not be made suck at expansion since the core of the game is to expand and grow however all I am stating is that given the lore regarding that faction they have a faction trait similar to what the Horatio ("anti expansionists", ie: expansion disapproval) had originally way back in the Alpha/Beta.



Pirates have a chance at spawning at any uncolonised system & allowing the player's dust balance to dip below 0 would allow for greater role play. Eg: running a bankrupt/crumbling empire, ie: it's not that big of an ask and it is actually more realistic as many real world political entities run their economies into negative growth/massive debt.



Imho the galaxy should be much larger, think about it with 8 factions on huge your starting position is only 2 to 4 systems away from another faction so it is actually at the moment a bit to small. Consider also that there is also talk and official talk of introducing minor factions into the game. I only want and I suspect many others would like the same thing a galaxy big enough to host all current in game factions which means more then 8 empires & in turn requires a bigger galaxy imo.

Factions :



1)

as the Sowers are not new player friendly and all factions should be new player friendly.

Why should all factions be new player friendly? And BTW the Sowers make it easier for a newbie as of what choices to make : full industry! (Of course he could then fall into the trap of colonizing too many aproval-killing planets, but well, that's how you learn the game!)



2) Since expansion is at the core of 4X games, you can't really make the Pilgrims bad at expansion without making them suck at the whole game.



3) Weren't the Hissho nerfed in the last patch? Have you tried them since?



4) You can disable Pirates completely. IMHO it's to easy to get rid of them, since they don't seem to appear anymore if you have visual of all systems.



Game Mechanics :



1)

Please reintroduce the ability for an empire to dip below 0 dust and into the negative

And how would this enhance the gameplay?



2.

This game needs a much larger galaxy then the "huge" galaxy currently in the game since it still feels "small" and an additional size category would allow for additional factions (I dream of a day when ALL stock races/factions are on the 1 map duking it out).

I don't know what you're talking about, a Large galaxy is already quite big, with enough space for all 8 stock factions... while a Huge galaxy might be too big even.

It would be nice if you had the option of 12-16 starting factions though...



n18991c, maybe you played games with those Sowers in them before they were severely nerfed?



Sowers DO get quicker access to terraforming : Tundra terraforming is a quite cheap tech for them (though it still requires Adamantium).

With the latest patch it has become pointless for me to play seriously that is until they figure out what is bringing my game (and others who are experiencing this bug) to a screeching halt at around the 300 turn mark.

Maybe you should try to play games that are going to end way before that mark?



Cravers aren't supposed to do well in the late game when the ressource depletion starts to kick in if they haven't managed a carve a huge empire by then.

n18991c wrote:
I always play on standard resource setting, hence I cannot quite fathom why the difference in terms of Sower expansion from one game to the next could be so massive...

At low resource setting FIDS especially if a faction trait gives a negative to one or more of the FIDS values it can make some factions such as the Sowers come to a crawl since in this set up:



1. Improvements are required to get a positive FIDS value.

2. Improvements cost dust this often means raising the tax.

3. Increased tax brings down the global happiness factor.

4. Decline in happiness affects FIDS values.

5. Goto point 1.



It is in fact a vicious cycle and requires delicate balancing between improvements, tax rate & to a smaller degree trade.



The Cravers suffer big time at low resource as well since once they consume a planet their population can drop big time (when a planet has like 1 for each of the FIDS values) needing some delicate balancing between improvements and the tax rate.

n18991c wrote:
Hm, I find the Sowers rather puzzling: I've played games in which they never expanded beyond a handful of systems, and then other games where they did rather well (particularly one game springs to mind where Sophons, Sowers and me [playingasUE] ended up being the only factions left and the Sowers had large fleets and 20+ systems!). So I cannot really judge in that regard I feel...

Fresh_Undies wrote:
What was the resource setting for the map? Low resources makes the Sowers crawl while standard & > resources makes them mostly expand at the normal rate other AI factions do.

I always play on standard resource setting, hence I cannot quite fathom why the difference in terms of Sower expansion from one game to the next could be so massive...

Ail wrote:
I was only interested about the games after the last patch because the bugs before 1.0.25 made it pretty pointless to judge the AI as it hardly could do anything other than getting an Economic-Victory due to it's boni.



I still find it interesting, that the Craver-AI is doing well for you. But maybe my game-sample-size is just to small and maybe my behavior-changing-mod also played a role in making them look bad.

With the latest patch it has become pointless for me to play seriously that is until they figure out what is bringing my game (and others who are experiencing this bug) to a screeching halt at around the 300 turn mark. For more info please visit this thread http://forums.amplitude-studios.com/showthread.php?10344-hang-upon-loading-save-game-(reproduced)&p=99857#post99857

I was only interested about the games after the last patch because the bugs before 1.0.25 made it pretty pointless to judge the AI as it hardly could do anything other than getting an Economic-Victory due to it's boni.



I still find it interesting, that the Craver-AI is doing well for you. But maybe my game-sample-size is just to small and maybe my behavior-changing-mod also played a role in making them look bad.

Ail wrote:
@Fresh_Undies:

At what difficulty-level do you play? Seeing the Cravers do good and the Sowers do okay, indicate to me you play on something higher than normal, where the Bankrupcy/Rebellion-issue should happen way less frequently if at all.



My observations might be pretty contamined by the Bankrupcy/Rebellion-Issue which to some races just seems to happen all the time.

I tried a few games higher then "normal" difficulty especially when I first purchased ES however these days especially with the bug that has been killing all my games at the 300 turn+ count I cannot be bothered to play any other difficulty then noob since no need for me to go serious if the game is gonna break anyway however ALL of my games are:



1. Huge galaxy with high density.

2. Low resources.

3. Pirates on normal, never off.



Regardless of difficulty Sowers always end up being the weakest among the AI controlled factions.

Factions:



1. It seems that at low resources and even at newbie difficulty the Sowers are "intensive" to play with as the penalty on food and dust can cause severe periods of economic depression and snail like production speed while other stock races even at newbie+slow production settings blaze past.



I understand there is a penalty on food and dust and serious mod on production given the lore but a minor readjustment is seriously required as the Sowers are not new player friendly and all factions should be new player friendly.



2.Pilgrims under the control of the AI expand too rapidly when if I understand the lore correctly they are a more nomadic/peaceful group who only want to be left alone and worship their Sophon masters? If so they need a larger penalty to expansion like how the Horatio are "anti-expansionist".



3.Under AI control the Hissho always from the games I have so far played end up overpowering other AI factions due to the fact that their ships are more powerful, the game becomes predictable if the Hissho are included as a faction in a single player game.



4.Pirates need a "newbie/easy" mode as well since pirates at Normal I have found can threaten the existence of the "main" races and can even pose a significant challenge for the player if he is not ready. Eg: Under the super slow Sowers early game my fleet of total MP 300-500 has to fend of usually 2 to 3 fleets of pirates that have a total MP of 700.



5.Please reintroduce the notification when first encountering pirates that has been removed from the current version.



Game Mechanics:



1. Please reintroduce the ability for an empire to dip below 0 dust and into the negative as real life dictates that economic and political entities can and do operate even when net income is in negative levels. This should be similar to how it was in the alpha but additional realism can be added in that production is slowed as negative balance of dust causes such as for example work stoppages.



2. This game needs a much larger galaxy then the "huge" galaxy currently in the game since it still feels "small" and an additional size category would allow for additional factions (I dream of a day when ALL stock races/factions are on the 1 map duking it out).



3. Minor factions/sub races can be introduced as being in control of a limited number of areas in space (max 6-8 sectors on the largest galaxy). Make it so that they cannot take any new territory and are limited to building corvette/destroyer class ships (reason away that minor factions/races do not have resources for the building of larger ships).

Igncom1 wrote:
Possibly, but it has always confused me that the sowers don't start with some terraforming considering their their whole existence.

I agree but terraforming would make the Sowers unbalanced and I think that is why Amplitude gave them the ability to colonize any type of planet early on but with obvious penalties.



IMHO though planetary focus as well as individual improvements are technically terraforming planets anyway. For example: Mass farming = Greens being adapted to a planet, massive industrial capacity = planet/star system becoming more an artificial construct then a natural one etc...

Fresh_Undies wrote:
I'm afraid access for the Sowers to terraforming early on would break the game in terms of play unless of course said early access to terraforming is much more more expensive to the point where it is only feasible for the most wealthy of AI players/ Humaaaan (Quark from DS9 lol) players.

Possibly, but it has always confused me that the sowers don't start with some terraforming considering their their whole existence.

Igncom1 wrote:
I still feel like they should get quicker and cheaper access to terraforming so they can go for tall systems in the early game, allowing them to build a base of strength for the late game.

I'm afraid access for the Sowers to terraforming early on would break the game in terms of play unless of course said early access to terraforming is much more more expensive to the point where it is only feasible for the most wealthy of AI players/ Humaaaan (Quark from DS9 lol) players.

n18991c wrote:
Hm, I find the Sowers rather puzzling: I've played games in which they never expanded beyond a handful of systems, and then other games where they did rather well (particularly one game springs to mind where Sophons, Sowers and me [playingasUE] ended up being the only factions left and the Sowers had large fleets and 20+ systems!). So I cannot really judge in that regard I feel...

What was the resource setting for the map? Low resources makes the Sowers crawl while standard & > resources makes them mostly expand at the normal rate other AI factions do.

Igncom1 wrote:
Personally I would rate the UE as one of the races that does well, at least from my experience.

From all the games I have played the UE has done ok but IMHO either the Hissho or Cravers (provided they are not neighbors of the Hissho to begin with) eventually own the map (falling to me to put them in their place )

Ail wrote:
From the last couple of games I got:



AI-Races that do well:

Hissho

Amoeba



AI-Races that do OK:

Automaton

Horatio

Pilgrims



AI-Races that do subpar:

United Empire

Cravers

Sophon



AI-Race that always fails:

Sowers

Totally agree with the Sowers and I have seen them as fall behind many times. The racial trait impedes them too much IMHO.



Hissho need to be tuned down a bit and cannot say I have had much experience with the bacter.... er I mean Amoeba.



IMHO United Empire does ok and Cravers do ok IF Hissho is not their neighbor LOL

I still feel like they should get quicker and cheaper access to terraforming so they can go for tall systems in the early game, allowing them to build a base of strength for the late game.

Hm, I find the Sowers rather puzzling: I've played games in which they never expanded beyond a handful of systems, and then other games where they did rather well (particularly one game springs to mind where Sophons, Sowers and me [playingasUE] ended up being the only factions left and the Sowers had large fleets and 20+ systems!). So I cannot really judge in that regard I feel...