Autocthon wrote:
They have no traits to reduce weapon weight o nships, and they have a combination of reduced research rate and no specialized weapons tech that makes them pretty weak militarily.

That's only a problem when the AI doesn't realize that fact, and goes in guns blazing only to find a mob of hungry cravers that get pissed off because they can't eat machinery.



IO the race is average militarily. However the AI seems to think they are the Hissho or the Cravers. At least that's how I see it, and I see militarily weak being a tag that should be applied to races such as the Horatio, who have negative military affects (Price of Beauty, etc.)

Autocthon wrote:


God the Automatons are ridiculous.

Depends on the player. As always.

Stealth_Hawk wrote:
That's only a problem when the AI doesn't realize that fact, and goes in guns blazing only to find a mob of hungry cravers that get pissed off because they can't eat machinery.



IO the race is average militarily. However the AI seems to think they are the Hissho or the Cravers. At least that's how I see it, and I see militarily weak being a tag that should be applied to races such as the Horatio, who have negative military affects (Price of Beauty, etc.)

I suppose it depends on how you factor the whole kit. The Horatio for instance have Hero Cloning and some of the fastest expansion possible. Nevermind the fact that their heroes have a hefty early game bonus (oh and crowed planets, people understimate how much a difference that can make for your resources). While it's true the Horatio have a ship-cost malus, they'll have better Tech than an equivalent sower empire (and considerably larger population base).



True the Sowers aren't as bad militarily as the Sophon or Amoeba, but they're relatively weak in an offensive engagement and they have difficulty teching up early game.

Depends on the player. As always.

A micro-managed Automaton empire has 20-75% more industry to work with than other empires. Plus instant improvement application is ridiculous. They're just so GOOD.



Thankfully tehy have to get expansion improvements to counter those terrible downsides XD



I personally play almost exclusively sowers, so going form vanilla sowers to Automaton is a massive upswing in effective power. Though this Sower mod is actually pretty good IMO, feels much better to play them but not crushingly powerful.

I agree with that I guess. But its their affinity that makes it happen, not the rest of the race. Plus they have the best faction specific techs, too...

I don't know about Sophons having outright weak military. They're worse at defending planets during a siege and don't get any production or cash generation bonuses nor any direct ship bonuses like the Hissho do, that's true, but they get faster access the new tech and once their cruisers are fixed the ships should at least be decent. A destroyer with a 25% tonnage discount to weapons isn't something every faction gets. Sophon ships are also faster than others and have a 50% industry discount on all special modules. Cheaper and faster seed ships helps with getting new systems earlier which can be used to keep up the research advantage.



Maybe they aren't mighty but I'd say they're at least baseline. The Horatio seem harder to evaluate properly but I'd assume that hero cloning and their large populations regardless of planet size keeps them more or less neutral. Their ship bonuses don't do it, though.

drang wrote:
I don't know about Sophons having outright weak military. They're worse at defending planets during a siege and don't get any production or cash generation bonuses nor any direct ship bonuses like the Hissho do, that's true, but they get faster access the new tech and once their cruisers are fixed the ships should at least be decent. A destroyer with a 25% tonnage discount to weapons isn't something every faction gets. Sophon ships are also faster than others and have a 50% industry discount on all special modules. Cheaper and faster seed ships helps with getting new systems earlier which can be used to keep up the research advantage.



Maybe they aren't mighty but I'd say they're at least baseline. The Horatio seem harder to evaluate properly but I'd assume that hero cloning and their large populations regardless of planet size keeps them more or less neutral. Their ship bonuses don't do it, though.

Large science = Better military



truth displayed throughout history.

Can I sign the petition? Cuz I'd like to sign the petition. I think?

Sorry I ddnt see your first post lol

I always see the Sowers AI do poorly in games.



I'm not sure if this has changed any in the expansion pack though.

I also forgot to do this



Though I've been thinking about overall balancing decisions and I've got a few ideas I'm working on that I'll post in here later in case any avid modders (or devs) are interested.

Aye Signed.

I hope that if they buff the sowers early game, they nerf their lategame. Because IF you manage to get through the early game stage and start terraforming everything the ammount of industry you can achieve is ridiculous. I just played a game with a friend and he had like 3 systems with over 5000 industry or so. He beat me in Dust, Science, Military, EVERYTHING.



Or maybe they should finally remove the industry conversions because they don't make sense in the first place.

raubtier86 wrote:
I hope that if they buff the sowers early game, they nerf their lategame. Because IF you manage to get through the early game stage and start terraforming everything the ammount of industry you can achieve is ridiculous. I just played a game with a friend and he had like 3 systems with over 5000 industry or so. He beat me in Dust, Science, Military, EVERYTHING.



Or maybe they should finally remove the industry conversions because they don't make sense in the first place.

I've had Harmony lategame with 10k Industry on systems. Hell all other factiojs can terraform to meet roughly those 5k industry values. Nevermind that other races can potentially have ridiculously huge Dust/Science bonuses that easily replace industry. Ever seen a lategame amoeba? I was up to 40k Dust/Turn and around 30k Science/Turn. Try to get that as a Sower (you won't).



And how does a machine race "eating" industry fail to make sense? It's a flavorful and interesting affinity.

I thought I'd do a quick breakdown of how each of the factions starts off in Disharmony. I wanted to show the FIDS that each gets at normal, happiness, and ecstatic approval, as well as the number of turns for their first population growth on normal game speeds.







I know this is far from the whole story, as those factions with high dust incomes can buyout and hire heroes earlier, and you can always start with early strategic or luxury resources on your home planet that can make a big difference. But as far as early growth and development potential, I feel this shows that Sowers aren't too far off the mark, and they have much higher industry. I also found it amusing that the cravers, the 'swarm' race, has some of the slowest first few turns and population growth. As for the harmony....



Anyway, just thought it was an interesting comparison.

Initial resources aren't the primary factor in early game power. The Sowers for instance literally can't exploit for food. So not only does their first pop come 50% later but all the pop after that comes an increasingly larger time period later.. It builds up exponentially too.



On the other hand... If you want to be lazy with the harmony you can set the slider to +100% food and skip exploiting your planet for the first 8 turns or so and turn on science conversion to have better overall stats than other races. Which is hilarious and something I am going to totally check next time I play Harmony to see if putting off exploitation is worth it while you try to tech up.



Also: Don't the Cravers start on an Arid planet? That explains everything XD



Interesting table, ends up being pretty bad at comparison with the sowers because of the affinity.

I would point out that it's not as though the sowers get 0 bonus from food improvements on their systems, yes they may be 50% less effective, but things like sustainable farms and epigenetic crop seeding do help, and owing to their higher industry and their 'builders' trait discounting improvements, they can quickly construct these food improvements (though I realise the dust cost can be problematic). Not to mention, if you have high level farms on a terran/ocean/jungle planet the amount of food is so large that even 50% is still a sizeable amount.



The core issue that I have with the sowers, is that they're supposed to be enhancing the worlds to be better for the Endless, but more often than not this involves terraforming to whole systems of methane/lava etc. Is this what the Endless would have wanted?



I don't think it's necessarily a problem for a faction to have slow population growth as a core element to its playstyle. But at the moment that's too crippling, when combined with the sower science penalty, and low early dust income too. If a sower player tactically grabs an arctic/barren/helium planet early in the game they are already going to only get a fraction of the science (because of distance on empire), giving them a further 20% penalty on science is a step too far.



Maybe replacing the 'space cadets' trait with the 'micromanagers' trait (though maybe just 1 rank, instead of 2?) would be a more appropriate trait? After all the higher industry means that the sowers will be able to construct more on systems, boosting the hero exp gain anyway.

Autocthon wrote:
I've had Harmony lategame with 10k Industry on systems. Hell all other factiojs can terraform to meet roughly those 5k industry values. Nevermind that other races can potentially have ridiculously huge Dust/Science bonuses that easily replace industry. Ever seen a lategame amoeba? I was up to 40k Dust/Turn and around 30k Science/Turn. Try to get that as a Sower (you won't).



And how does a machine race "eating" industry fail to make sense? It's a flavorful and interesting affinity.

My highest ammount with pilgrims on industry was around 2k after terraforming to a helium/lava mix and a level 25 admin/corporate hero.

And it totally does not make sense that you can "build" science or dust nanites with machines on every race.



I am not saying the sowers shouldn't have a high industry, but since you can turn industry to dust and science and ships it is stupidly overpowered. That is exactly why everyone is going for heavy industry.



The sowers are sad because they get destroyed very fast. But their lategame industry dominance is broken as hell, especially because industry is overpowered. That is my opinion.

Since Disharmony, I've been back and forth on the "are the Sowers underpowered?" question. They're definitely stronger since the changes, but I think the question comes down to two points:



"Are the default Sowers underpowered?" - Yes. Not massively so, but they're definitely weaker than the average and tweaking their faction traits to give them a boost seems like a sensible plan.



"Is the Sowers affinity/custom tech underpowered?" - No. Tinkering around with custom sowers builds, they can easily hold their own against custom Automatons or Sheredyn. They're going to have to work at it to beat the Sheredyn's trivially easy eco victory, but they're definitely in the running.

ImperiumRex wrote:
I would point out that it's not as though the sowers get 0 bonus from food improvements on their systems, yes they may be 50% less effective, but things like sustainable farms and epigenetic crop seeding do help, and owing to their higher industry and their 'builders' trait discounting improvements, they can quickly construct these food improvements (though I realise the dust cost can be problematic). Not to mention, if you have high level farms on a terran/ocean/jungle planet the amount of food is so large that even 50% is still a sizeable amount.

Generally speaking the food return on ANYTHING isn't worth it for sowers. You'll gain more food by pumping industry, and it's not really worth the time investment to after that stack on more food in the midgame. Rather it's more efficient to start your terraforming (which should always be to tundra or methane, though tundra is the better option overall).

The core issue that I have with the sowers, is that they're supposed to be enhancing the worlds to be better for the Endless, but more often than not this involves terraforming to whole systems of methane/lava etc. Is this what the Endless would have wanted?

Tundra>>Lava and Tundra~=Methane due to the Sowers tundra specialization (+2 all FIDS), the endless they're doing the terraforming for are the Virtual so I doubt having a T1 planet was ever much of a requirement. Tundra appears to be flavored specifically for the Sowers now, as a heavy industry near-T1 planet.

I don't think it's necessarily a problem for a faction to have slow population growth as a core element to its playstyle. But at the moment that's too crippling, when combined with the sower science penalty, and low early dust income too. If a sower player tactically grabs an arctic/barren/helium planet early in the game they are already going to only get a fraction of the science (because of distance on empire), giving them a further 20% penalty on science is a step too far.



Maybe replacing the 'space cadets' trait with the 'micromanagers' trait (though maybe just 1 rank, instead of 2?) would be a more appropriate trait? After all the higher industry means that the sowers will be able to construct more on systems, boosting the hero exp gain anyway.

Exactly what I was saying. Though I don't think it's really space Cadets which is the problem (last I checked I->S Ignores empire modifiers). It's more the fact that the Sowers don't have strong options to offset their naturally slow growth. No specialized growth buildings to help them when they're behind as traditional food building won't even come close to clearing the gap due to the exponential nature of system growth.



Overall factions need stronger identities, through tech and basic thing. for instance a potential change would be to make a Sower colonial base +9 Industry with no inherent food. The result is a net loss of 1 Food/Planet but provides much more efficient colonies greatly offsetting the early game penalties. This kind of change would be part of a set of sweeping changes to all factions to more heavily highlight faction identity. I've been spending several days brainstorming and I really should start the thread about it already as such an overhaul (hell it could be a community overhaul) would allow for more grounded factions and better balancing.

raubtier86 wrote:
My highest ammount with pilgrims on industry was around 2k after terraforming to a helium/lava mix and a level 25 admin/corporate hero.

And it totally does not make sense that you can "build" science or dust nanites with machines on every race.



I am not saying the sowers shouldn't have a high industry, but since you can turn industry to dust and science and ships it is stupidly overpowered. That is exactly why everyone is going for heavy industry.



The sowers are sad because they get destroyed very fast. But their lategame industry dominance is broken as hell, especially because industry is overpowered. That is my opinion.

A 6 planet system of jungles with +100% surplus food and Food->Industry can easily crest 3k depending on planet size even as non-industry race. I could crunch the math but it's just going to say that regardless of race you'll be able to crest crazy values of industry with T1 planets and supporting tech.

Autocthon wrote:


A 6 planet system of jungles with +100% surplus food and Food->Industry can easily crest 3k depending on planet size even as non-industry race. I could crunch the math but it's just going to say that regardless of race you'll be able to crest crazy values of industry with T1 planets and supporting tech.

Maybe we have different definitions of "lategame". I never manage to get the food surplus to industry tech as pilgrims, probably because I have other things to tech, too. Like Diplomatics and stuff.

But the point is the Sowers get a huge bonus to Industry off Sowers affinity techs. They will always be better at Industry than anyone. Easily. And since high industry is pretty overpowered - sowers lategame is, too.



At least that is what I think.

I can get the food conversion tech in... Mmmmm 180 turns? with diplomatic techs mixed in. It's about efficiency.



Sowers lategame are going to have a 10-20% lead in industry, at a pointin time where other races are going to have considerably better dust production (which is worth 1:2 I in the later game).