The planetary changes are a huge buff to the sowers, lower tiers planets (the ones you're most likely to use tolerant to colonizer e.g. lava) have a large bonus to their specialized FIDS. Now colonizing a lava (for the sowers) is almost as good as colonizing a T2 planet for anyone else, though you will hurt a bit in approval.



However the main issue with the sowers is still here, and its not an issue with their affinity.



Tolerant is still considered 30 points worth of traits. It is at best a 20 point trait. Additionally due to slow movers (and a lack of research speed overall) sowers still aren't geared for their intuitive play pattern of expansion and terraformation.



So a few things that could be done to offset that



1) Remove tundra terraform strategic resource requirement for the sowers. This will allow the sowers to get their "T1" planet more quickly.

2) Reduce cost of Tolerant. This allows for some additional upsides to the faction.

3) Sowers need N-Way Fusion Plants tech, give it to them!



Those three changes will help highlight the power provided by the sower affinity (ability to heavily specialize in industry without sacrificing food output).

Autocthon wrote:
The planetary changes are a huge buff to the sowers, lower tiers planets (the ones you're most likely to use tolerant to colonizer e.g. lava) have a large bonus to their specialized FIDS. Now colonizing a lava (for the sowers) is almost as good as colonizing a T2 planet for anyone else, though you will hurt a bit in approval.



However the main issue with the sowers is still here, and its not an issue with their affinity.



Tolerant is still considered 30 points worth of traits. It is at best a 20 point trait. Additionally due to slow movers (and a lack of research speed overall) sowers still aren't geared for their intuitive play pattern of expansion and terraformation.



So a few things that could be done to offset that



1) Remove tundra terraform strategic resource requirement for the sowers. This will allow the sowers to get their "T1" planet more quickly.

2) Reduce cost of Tolerant. This allows for some additional upsides to the faction.

3) Sowers need N-Way Fusion Plants tech, give it to them!



Those three changes will help highlight the power provided by the sower affinity (ability to heavily specialize in industry without sacrificing food output).

Certainly Tolerant is over-priced: at 30 points it's a massive risk. The main problem stems from the singular nature of the new planetary FIDS values. If you take Tolerant as Sowers, unless you get a collection of Lavas and Methanes, it's essentially points wasted. Yes you can colonise the odd desert, artic, barren or gas giant, but it will hurt your happiness so badly and your population will grow so slowly that there's barely any reason to do so. In fact, desert and arctic techs (hell, even lava) are early enough in the tech tree that there's barely any point taking tolerant at all unless you have those late-tier production planets. Coupled this with the fact that it's only ever advantageous early-game, before you could have researched the techs yourself and it's really, really not worth 30 points.



As it stands, tolerant just isn't worth the risk for its cost. Under some situations, it might be extremely potent (methane gas giant in your home system, for example), but most of the time it simply doesn't pay off. You're better off saving those points for other things.

I have been using tolerant to allow me to focus on the other 3 tech trees for the first half of the game.



By rushing to like....adamantium I think? I could then go down the expansion tree and quickly sand tundra terraforminjg and the sower tundra improvement tech.



It was magical.



I feel like tolerant is great for the sowers, but for custom races?....I dunno.

Shyrka wrote:
Certainly Tolerant is over-priced: at 30 points it's a massive risk. The main problem stems from the singular nature of the new planetary FIDS values. If you take Tolerant as Sowers, unless you get a collection of Lavas and Methanes, it's essentially points wasted. Yes you can colonise the odd desert, artic, barren or gas giant, but it will hurt your happiness so badly and your population will grow so slowly that there's barely any reason to do so. In fact, desert and arctic techs (hell, even lava) are early enough in the tech tree that there's barely any point taking tolerant at all unless you have those late-tier production planets. Coupled this with the fact that it's only ever advantageous early-game, before you could have researched the techs yourself and it's really, really not worth 30 points.



As it stands, tolerant just isn't worth the risk for its cost. Under some situations, it might be extremely potent (methane gas giant in your home system, for example), but most of the time it simply doesn't pay off. You're better off saving those points for other things.

reduce trait points costs for tolerant trait for the Sowers to



(my suggestion) 10/20



or to 15/25 (but then give the Sowers for the sake of god 65 race trait points like all the other OP races have!!! man why!!!! have they only 60! thats just ridiculous!



it would be also lore true



they are machines in the end and should have a natural synergy with the tolerant trait.

OK I've been looking at the current traits available and the Sower's intuitive playstyle and flavor (expand and terraform, stay out of fights until you've reached "critical mass" and its time to finish terraforming the galaxy). So this is what I came up with for changes to the Sowers, changes in italic;







Sower Affinity

-50% Food Production on Planets

+30% Industry Added as Food Production

12% Reduced Expansion Disapproval and 40% reduced Outpost Upgrade time



Reasoning: this allows sowers to becomes "immune" to expansion disapproval and allows them to more rapidly upgrade their outposts to part of their empire, this plays into their expansionist nature and makes them mildly more efficient early game when expanding.



Exotic Thermodynamics

Combine with Low Temp Hydration (stays at T5 tech)

Change Adamantian Terraforming requirement to Siderite



Reasoning: This change allows the Sowers to Terraform earlier and more efficiently.



Persistent Bodies

AI Labor applies to Terraforming actions for Sowers

AI Labor Construction Cost reduced to 1000 (from 1250) for Sowers

AI Labor now provides +10 Happiness on system for Sowers



Reasoning: Rather than provide the tech even earlier it is more pertinent to make it more effective for the Sowers. This gives the Sowers a larger increase to their expansionist aims. With this change AI labor will expedite Sower goals.



Faction Traits (Point Cost)

Xenobotany (4)

N-Way Fusion Plants (4)

Tolerant II (20)

Headhunter - Administrator (5)

Optimistic II (25)

Builders II (16)

Slow Travelers I (-3)

Space Cadets II (-10)

Micromanagers (-5)

(Dust Recylers Removed)



Total Cost: 60



Reasoning: These traits spotlight the Sowers' personality and goals. Reducing Tolerant cost makes it less of a burden (it's bad for non-Sower factions for precisely the reason it's a gamble for the Sowers) and makes it more of a positive thing. This frees up ten points to be put into other traits. Removing Dust Recyclers is a nerf to early aggressive Sowers strategies, but the Sowers are portrayed as a primarily neutral faction, only going to war when their expansion is prevented. Adding N-Way Fusion Plants is a strong early game boost to the faction, as it simultaneously increases Industry and Food production, Headhunter aids Sower expansionism by heavily weighting heroes toward Administrator positions, helping to further consolidate the Sower expansion sequence. Micromanagers helps to offset the power of reliable Administrators. Increasing Optimistic to II massively reduces the Happiness penalty of Tolerant expansion, effectively increasing the "effective" T-level of T4's from the current T3 to a T2 equivalence.



Overall: This incarnation of the sowers is an expansionist empire heavily invested in snapping up "bad" early game planets to rapidly terraform. By weighting Sower heroes toward Administrators they get fewer "offensive" focused heroes preventing them from going on an early conquering spree, as they have no special weapons techs and no offensively focused ship designs. Overall these sowers will excel at rapidly terraforming their empire into the best planet type for them (Tundra) at the cost of research speed and military power.

Autocthon wrote:


AI Labor applies to Terraforming actions for Sowers

AFAIK, at the moment AI Labor applies to terraforming actions for every faction. Do you mean that only the Sowers should receive the industry bonus from AI labor when terraforming?

Vicarious wrote:
AFAIK, at the moment AI Labor applies to terraforming actions for every faction. Do you mean that only the Sowers should receive the industry bonus from AI labor when terraforming?

Is Terraforming considered a system improvement? It's never been clear on that. Point being that the Sowers should receive additional terraforming bonuses in keeping with tehir lore and encouraged playstyle.



No other comments?



Edit: Playing on normal with a jury-rigged version of my Sowers pitch. completely overreached myself and got smacked with double war declarations (from sheredyn and harmony) with my economy in the middle of gearing up for critical mass. There goes 90 turns

Autocthon wrote:
OK I've been looking at the current traits available and the Sower's intuitive playstyle and flavor (expand and terraform, stay out of fights until you've reached "critical mass" and its time to finish terraforming the galaxy). So this is what I came up with for changes to the Sowers, changes in italic;







Sower Affinity

-50% Food Production on Planets

+30% Industry Added as Food Production

12% Reduced Expansion Disapproval and 40% reduced Outpost Upgrade time



Reasoning: this allows sowers to becomes "immune" to expansion disapproval and allows them to more rapidly upgrade their outposts to part of their empire, this plays into their expansionist nature and makes them mildly more efficient early game when expanding.



Exotic Thermodynamics

Combine with Low Temp Hydration (stays at T5 tech)

Change Adamantian Terraforming requirement to Siderite



Reasoning: This change allows the Sowers to Terraform earlier and more efficiently.



Persistent Bodies

AI Labor applies to Terraforming actions for Sowers

AI Labor Construction Cost reduced to 1000 (from 1250) for Sowers

AI Labor now provides +10 Happiness on system for Sowers



Reasoning: Rather than provide the tech even earlier it is more pertinent to make it more effective for the Sowers. This gives the Sowers a larger increase to their expansionist aims. With this change AI labor will expedite Sower goals.



Faction Traits (Point Cost)

Xenobotany (4)

N-Way Fusion Plants (4)

Tolerant II (20)

Headhunter - Administrator (5)

Optimistic II (25)

Builders II (16)

Slow Travelers I (-3)

Space Cadets II (-10)

Micromanagers (-5)

(Dust Recylers Removed)



Total Cost: 60



Reasoning: These traits spotlight the Sowers' personality and goals. Reducing Tolerant cost makes it less of a burden (it's bad for non-Sower factions for precisely the reason it's a gamble for the Sowers) and makes it more of a positive thing. This frees up ten points to be put into other traits. Removing Dust Recyclers is a nerf to early aggressive Sowers strategies, but the Sowers are portrayed as a primarily neutral faction, only going to war when their expansion is prevented. Adding N-Way Fusion Plants is a strong early game boost to the faction, as it simultaneously increases Industry and Food production, Headhunter aids Sower expansionism by heavily weighting heroes toward Administrator positions, helping to further consolidate the Sower expansion sequence. Micromanagers helps to offset the power of reliable Administrators. Increasing Optimistic to II massively reduces the Happiness penalty of Tolerant expansion, effectively increasing the "effective" T-level of T4's from the current T3 to a T2 equivalence.



Overall: This incarnation of the sowers is an expansionist empire heavily invested in snapping up "bad" early game planets to rapidly terraform. By weighting Sower heroes toward Administrators they get fewer "offensive" focused heroes preventing them from going on an early conquering spree, as they have no special weapons techs and no offensively focused ship designs. Overall these sowers will excel at rapidly terraforming their empire into the best planet type for them (Tundra) at the cost of research speed and military power.

This suggestions are just brilliant and good elaborated something like this would bring the Sowers finally their salvation.

Autocthon wrote:
Is Terraforming considered a system improvement? It's never been clear on that.

I assume it is. AI Labor also provides -20% industry cost bonus for the following actions:

in-system colonization

moon survey

removing negative anomaly effects

restoring endless wonders

Vicarious wrote:
I assume it is. AI Labor also provides -20% industry cost bonus for the following actions:

in-system colonization

moon survey

removing negative anomaly effects

restoring endless wonders

Well I'll have to double check that then. I could have sworn I checked it a month or two ago and it didn't appear to apply. In that case, the bonus should double on planetary improvents for sowers. That is what they exist to do you know.



Edit: Yep applies. Coulda sworn it didn't used to anyway, then apply a double bonus to planetary improvements for the sowers.

Im actually finding sowers rather viable as a custom race, even with tolerance.

Scrangos wrote:
Im actually finding sowers rather viable as a custom race, even with tolerance.

There are far better things to put on a Sowers Custom than Tolerant. Bonus Dust + Legendary Hero +HH-Admin for instance.

Autocthon wrote:


Faction Traits (Point Cost)

Xenobotany (4)

N-Way Fusion Plants (4)

Tolerant II (20)

Headhunter - Administrator (5)

Optimistic II (25)

Builders II (16)

Slow Travelers I (-3)

Space Cadets II (-10)

Micromanagers (-5)

(Dust Recylers Removed)



Total Cost: 60

Only problem is that "Tolerant II" costs 30 points instead of 20. So... We're gonna have to make some changes there



How about something like



Metallic Waters 4

Xenobotany 4

N-way Fusion Plants 4

Headhunter-Administrator 5

Builders 2/3 16

Tolerant 2/2 30

Optimistic 1/2 15

Slow Travelers 1/2 -3

Micromanagers 1/2 -5

Space Cadest 2/3 -10



Total Cost: 60

I wish we could give the sowers a terraforming system similar to the tolerant system, where they have some unlocked at the start, but with large penalty until they research a specific tech.

rockmassif wrote:
Only problem is that "Tolerant II" costs 30 points instead of 20. So... We're gonna have to make some changes there



How about something like



Metallic Waters 4

Xenobotany 4

N-way Fusion Plants 4

Headhunter-Administrator 5

Builders 2/3 16

Tolerant 2/2 30

Optimistic 1/2 15

Slow Travelers 1/2 -3

Micromanagers 1/2 -5

Space Cadest 2/3 -10



Total Cost: 60

You missed the part where I italicized tolerants cost, and said (twice I'm sure) that Tolerant's price should be reduced by 10 points at rank 2. At the moment I'm just using Humane Weapons to offset the points.



So let me say it again: Tolerant is about ten points too expensive. There are two affinities in game that can make use of it to any real extent. And it comes with a heavy penalty anyway.

I just made this small mod based on Autocthon's suggestions just because I wanted to see those changes in action. There is one small change about Exotic Thermodynamics. And though I managed to implement "12% Reduced Expansion Disapproval" successfully, I couldn't find a way to change "outpost to colony" time.
SS.rar

rockmassif wrote:
I just made this small mod based on Autocthon's suggestions just because I wanted to see those changes in action. There is one small change about Exotic Thermodynamics. And though I managed to implement "12% Reduced Expansion Disapproval" successfully, I couldn't find a way to change "outpost to colony" time.

Which exact changes did you include?

Sower Affinity

-50% Food Production on Planets

+30% Industry Added as Food Production

-12% Expansion Disapproval on System (I can confirm that it works fine)



Exotic Thermodynamics

Combined it with Tundra Geomorphology(research cost is now 4000 instead of 1800)(you may not like this tho)

Change Adamantian Terraforming requirement to Siderite (done)



Persistent Bodies

AI Labor applies to Terraforming actions for Sowers (not sure about this)

AI Labor Construction Cost reduced to 1000 (from 1250) for Sowers (done)

AI Labor now provides +10 Happiness on system for Sowers (done)



Faction Traits (Point Cost)

Metallic Waters (4)

Xenobotany (4)

N-way Fusion Plants (4)

Headhunter-Administrator (5 )

Builders 2/3 (16)

Tolerant 2/2 (30)

Optimistic 1/2 (15)

Slow Travelers 1/2 (-3)

Micromanagers 1/2 (-5)

Space Cadest 2/3 (-10)



Total Cost: 60



Pretty much this.

rockmassif wrote:
Sower Affinity

-50% Food Production on Planets

+30% Industry Added as Food Production

-12% Expansion Disapproval on System (I can confirm that it works fine)



Exotic Thermodynamics

Combined it with Tundra Geomorphology(research cost is now 4000 instead of 1800)(you may not like this tho)

Change Adamantian Terraforming requirement to Siderite (done)



Persistent Bodies

AI Labor applies to Terraforming actions for Sowers (not sure about this)

AI Labor Construction Cost reduced to 1000 (from 1250) for Sowers (done)

AI Labor now provides +10 Happiness on system for Sowers (done)



Faction Traits (Point Cost)

Metallic Waters (4)

Xenobotany (4)

N-way Fusion Plants (4)

Headhunter-Administrator (5 )

Builders 2/3 (16)

Tolerant 2/2 (30)

Optimistic 1/2 (15)

Slow Travelers 1/2 (-3)

Micromanagers 1/2 (-5)

Space Cadest 2/3 (-10)



Total Cost: 60



Pretty much this.

Looks decent, the increased research cost isn't a terrible trade off considering siderite is more advantageous to Sowers than adamantian. Repair module affinity on their ships and all that. You can't change tolerant's trait point cost? A second level of Optimist makes a huge difference (seriously, Tolerant II + Optimistic II is the only way to use Tolerant really well). If you can't then just throw in a 10 point malus like I did XD



That said: I've testing the inclusion of Builders III (effectively +14% improvement build rate over "vanilla", it's) in addition to my other changes, the traits look like...



Xenobotany

N-Way Fusion Plants

Metallic Waters

Optimistic II

Tolerant II

Builders III

HH - Administrator

Dust Archeology I

Space Cadets II

Slow Travelers I

Micromanagers I

Humane Weapons II

Spray 'n Pray II



That's a pretty long laundry list (I have some trimming to do obviously to make it more vanilla) but I wanted to test a full suite of Terraforming-centric changes. The result is actually pretty interesting, as I've found I can rapidly "tech up" my planets. The +10 Happiness of optimistic means I can colonize T4/5 planets for "free" in terms of FIDS production. Lava in particular is roughly equivalent to a Tundra in terms of FIDS with similar happiness. A few points...



Slow Travelers is very important to keeping a "check" on the sowers. Reduced movement speed is basically the only reason I'm not stomping the poor AI. If I was faster I would have (very rapidly) consumed almost all the available space. HH - Admin is amazing on sowers, it should definitely be made vanilla. So basically my proposal hasn't changed in terms of what should be included, (third run thru, I usually go about 200 turns each run) in a vanilla rework. I'd really like to see Builders III included in base sowers as well (terraform all the systems!) but it would probably have to be offset with something like +Ship Cost to be fair.



Edit: for perspective I have ALL tundra planets at roughly turn 112, AND +2 all fids on tundra. My planets are all roughly equivalent to a T0 planets (IE better than T1). The only reaosn my socre isn't amazing is because none of my colonies had more than 4 planets, most only had 3.



Edit2: Now if only I could get that mod to load. Doesn't appear in my mods directory in game /sigh



Edit3: Not sowers related but... Why does Horatio have every headhunter tech? WHY?



Edit4: Anyone else notice that the base Sowers faction has the lowest trait points fo any faction? Most of the other factions have 70+ trait points used, with teh exception of Cravers, Horatio (effeticly 65 used) and UE. Ish. Point being SUPER underpowered compared to even CUSTOM races (who can have effectively 65 points in all but two cases). Wow. What's up with that devs?



Edit5: Posted this in the Harmony thread:



Sowers of any vanilla faction have the leats trait points used, half of all factions are using not only more than the 60 points allotted to the sowers but also more than 70 points (beyond trait cap for custom factions).



The Automatons for instance have an astounding 77 trait points used... Out of 65.



And the factions generally considered weak? Harmony use 64. Sowers use 61 (and that's *over* their custom cap).



The complete list looks like this...



Pilgrims: 88

Horatio: 84 (Have all HH traits, effectively 65)

Automatons: 77

Sophons: 77

Hissho: 73

United Empire: 68

Amoeba: 64 (Custom Cap 60)

Cravers: 64

Harmony: 64

Sheredyn 64

Sowers: 61 (Custom Cap 60)



Notice how the strongest vanila factions have 10-20 more trait points than the ones generally considered weak? Now obviously you have to consider internal synergy, but numbers don't lie. Vanilla factions *have* to have better trait points than custom factions because players make laundry list factions (taking the negligible -traits to get free points, for instance eternal war is generally considered negligible), but as far as balance between vanilla factions? This is just absurd.



Also pertinent here.

Are you sure that you extracted the files to the proper folder? It has to work. I'm actually using it on one of my saves.



Does that mean we can use up to 70-75 points for Sowers without the fear of buffing it too much/making it more imbalanced than it is already?