One of the "nay Sayers" Shared why he didn't like it yesterday. He said it was because he could beat the AI on hard using Sowers, but that doesn't really make them a valid AI opponent, which is the reason that I want them powered up.



@Vicarious



Interesting, I will try it. Me and Sovereign are concocting an official proposal over my spring break, and we will include the community suggestions so keep it coming!





And everyone invite your friends to sign the petition! We nee more signatures!

This is getting ver Prominent



I see a lot of suggestions regarding making Tolerant cheaper. While I agree that the cost/use ratio is bad, I'd rather add a general approval normalization to the trait(1/2 = 0/0/-5/-10/-15 ; 2/2 = 0/0/0/-5/-10) to make it worth the 30? points.

Additionally Boost the Affinity to 1:1 conversion , I understand the idea of giving them focus at the cost of "speed", however their Focus is on a resource that is harder to improve than the other one so (as already said) even a 1:1 conversion here is a malus of sorts. - compared to the Imperial affinity which is a bonus without any drawback*.

To round this off the "free" 5 points can be filled with

- a trait that improves industry (like cloning)

- a further level to Dust recylers

- one level less to space Cadets



*or anyone save the Cravers. but their affinity goes well with their traits(Militarists, big fleets, ethernal war), while the sowers traits don't work towards their affinity**



**imho Builders even works against it in a way.

Ca_Putt wrote:


- one level less to space Cadets

Personally I would like to this trait eradicated entirely.



No research = less ower: and everything else.



Without research capability an Empire will be overrun (Unless they have Hissho traits, in which case they can hold their own in a fight despite the lack of science)





This weekend I will be coming out with my own suggestion, which would combine allot of already said ideas.

i wanna again u to encourage to make mods so we can get a direct look and can test also your suggestion.

i will sume up all the made suggestion here (with or without mode) and will list them in a seperated thread on Sunday night GMT where the suggestion can easly overlooked and by intrest also rated. (and of course u can still post new suggestion all suggestion posted midweek are will be noted)

So they devs can get a good overlook for all the suggestion we pack in the attachment of the letter.





BTW: traits(exept tolerant) are not that important at least they start wih a tundra planet and could build the 40+ Science Building faster

problem is affinity and buildings imo.





Maybe i will seperate the suggestion targeting the default race from the other in my summ up cause this are 2 different pairs of shoes.

Let´s save the SOWERS !

Space cadets sure is a pretty shitty trait, much shittier than many other traits infact. Everybody hates it when the enemies simply have better weapons, Bigger/more ships are a challenge, better weapons are just depressing . but I don't think it's one of the Problems the Sowers are currently facing, at least not one of those that should be fixed. Their Problem is that they don't get enough grouth, and not really more of anything to balance it out.

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?bq9o8yo3363lwmf



For those not seen, my mod with changes to the sowers that should make them adequate again!

To follow on LordBayushi's lead, the fact that they start on Tundra is really a huge penatly, plus it would fit the sower's ideal of replenishing the flora that they started on a jungle. The benefits of the food and industry boost would help evening it out

the simple lack of is enough for them to be under powered

N-Blackmore wrote:
To follow on LordBayushi's lead, the fact that they start on Tundra is really a huge penatly, plus it would fit the sower's ideal of replenishing the flora that they started on a jungle. The benefits of the food and industry boost would help evening it out

For Sure!





70,000 G2G on the petition!

OK. I agree that Sowers as a default race are terrible. But it seems the majority of posters in this thread mistakenly believe that the fault lies with the affinity. I think you're wrong.



Why?

Because my custom Sowers are currently tearing up Endless difficulty, being in FIDS lead for the entire game versus eight opponents (twin elliptical galaxy, other settings default). I did not expand beyond my starting area until late in the game or get good luxuries early, actually I got neither administrator or corporate on any of my starting heroes.



My sowers:



+20 approval

+10 dust on start (allows hero turn 1)

+20% Science

+Mineral rich (+3 prod on home planet)

+Start with tech for Isotope refineries

+Start with tech for Geo-Industrial Plants



-100% extra dust cost on hero abilities





Strategy:

First get some exploration tech (+2 ship speed, maybe wormhole jumping) then rush for the +40 science building. Don't over expand, keep your systems in ecstatic and empire on fervent even if you lose dust, you can get some extra with ind->dust conversion instead. Also grab the +20% production building early. Since most of your early/mid science comes from the +40 building you don't need large systems to keep up with science, and you will produce enough to afford some ind-dust conversion as well as build everything you want.



Get +25 approval buildings to allow continued expansion/new planets and then get Planetary institute (+6 all FIDS) and Elegant networks (+30 approval, ecstatic bonuses). Now your systems will grow at a decent pace while letting you build whatever you want easily. It should be easy from here, just don't over expand and keep your approval high (ecstatic bonuses>new planets/systems).







Three reasons the Affinity is strong:



1/

The food from production affinity allows you to ignore food in your systems and go for the FIDS that help you win directly instead, while still growing. You can build the extremely powerful +40 science building and military even in size 3-4 systems because you don't need to focus on food early in systems to grow them.



2/

One of your FIDS is actually worth 40% more than usual. Since you can get away with basically ignoring food and instead focus on production, this gives a huge FIDS boost overall.



3/

Early production buildings are much stronger than early food buildings.

Isotope refineries boost planets AND give +10 prod. Comparable food boost is only +1 per planet.

The second production building give planet bonuses AND +20% production overall. Comparable food boost is only +planet bonuses.





Why the default sowers are bad

1/

"Tolerant" does almost nothing. Sometimes being able to grab resources early is useful, but it's mostly not worth using.



2/

"Builders" does very little. You are already stacking production so you will run out of improvements to build very quickly. Just the base amount of production sowers get is enough to build all improvements you need easily.



3/

"Space cadets" is crippling. It prevents you from researching new improvements and other things to build which is kind of a deal breaker.





In summary

Sower affinity is good, but the default sowers are weak because ALL their other traits are weak and/or have anti-synergy with the affinity.

Well i cant agree with that just cause i didnt see the AI realy as a worthy opponent even on Endless.



and if you would have made a custom race with another affinity which grants real benefits u would have achieved a much higher score.



1.Cause the benefit of the earlier +40 Building is only in early game noticable but there u still got the lack of Pops so this advantages is no real advantage.



2. If the other races got their full populated Systems they just change the Planetary Explotation and now get the same industrie as the Sowers...Automatons,UE, Hissho(bushido), get even way much more. And of course the refineries gives +10 Industrie but 10 Industrie is nothing beyond very early game and +10 Food in addition would be a little to good for the first Food Improvment.

Look at the Tree of Worlds one of the best wonders imo just with +20 Food on System cause u cannot compare Industrie and Food that way.



3. +20% Food would be way mutch more powerfull then 20% Industrie not to compare.(a improvment which besides every race builds)



also the affinity forces you to pick exactly this traits you mentioned they are crucial and bigger variations are impossible.



a good sniper can kill somone on long range with a WWII K98 Rifle(Sowers) sure.

but its probably easier for him to do this with an AS50 sniper/anti-materiel rifle (Sophons,Hissho,Cravers,etc)

We also need balancing that helps the AI too.

Meedoc wrote:
Great stuff guys! We love the spirit We're currently testing some tweaks to boost those machines!

That's amazing! Thank you for that!



I don't know about others who signed the petition, but I have the feeling of accomplishment right now ^_^

Not sure if already did, so



And for the 7 people who said they aren't. WHY U TROLL

I like the idea of making Sowers build Sowers, but I dislike having no value for food whatsoever (what happened to biofuel, mind you? XD) and think that this idea might introduce lots of micromanaging.

Towards just changing the additional traits: I consider that to be a step in the right direction, but not sufficient.



The summary of what you all wrote is basically:

[LIST=1]

Sowers need an early game buff

Something to remedy the repercussions of actually using the tolerant trait

Some endgame mechanic related to terraforming, because of the lore

[/LIST]





My suggestion would be to remove all approval maluses on planet for sowers as part of their affinity, which would go a long way to fix #1 and #2, change a few of the traits as suggested by you people for balancing the rest of #2 and finally adding a mechanic to buff the Sower endgame:

Each terraforming one tier up adds +(4-target Tier number)*2.5% industry on system, each terraforming down substracts (4-start Tier number)*2.5% industry on system (to prevent disabuse), so Sowers profit extraordinarily from terraforming to tier 1. This would be an interesting way to fix #3, in my opinion.

This would mean that terraforming the tiers to tier 1 ends up in:

T4 to T1 -> 15 % industry on system total

T3 to T1 -> 12.5 % industry on system total

T2 to T1 -> 7.5 % industry on system total



Lore motivation could be that the sowers optimize planets beyond simple terraforming due to hardcoding left by the virtual endless.

This would make even tall late game systems viable, but the numbers might have to be tweaked, not to make the Sowers an invincible unbalanced powerhouse in endgame.

What i dislike about the sower affinity is that all food improvements are half as effective: you can't boost your population growth much with improvements. Researching food improvements is mostly useless for the sowers.

Igncom1 wrote:
say a system has 100 food production and 100 industry production as a base.

The -50% turns the system to 50 food production.

But then the 40% added to it leaves the system as:

90 food production, 100 industry production.

Food improvements all receive the -50%, but industry is copied onto food in the end, so industry improvements stack to double as food improvements.

Is my thinking on this correct?

Take the same 200 output above, which was split 100/100 and instead, split it 50 food/150 production

The 50 food gets reduced to 25, then 40% of 150 production (60) gets added to food, giving a total output of 85 food(25+60)/150 production which gives 235 total output, a "gain" of 35 over the original 200.

However, how long it takes to get that 25%/75% slant towards production to get into the "in profit" area is open to debate given that straight food improvements and bonuses early dont do alot.



Overall, I *LIKE* the idea of the Sowers, and food/production conversions. I find it gives the faction unique character.

What really puts me off is the Tolerant Colonies "penalty". When playing a custom Sower race, I try to make it as close to the original as possible, but instead of taking Tolerant, I take the Colonise Tundra (4) Colonise Arid (4) and Colonise Arctic (8). It seems to make more sense to give them the ability to colonise all the tier 2 planets instead especially as you have to go through those to get to Casimir Effect early(ish) anyway. It also makes Tolerant pretty much obsolete by turn 30-40 anyway.

Just thought of something: If the sowers main purpose was to create paradisaical worlds for the endless, shouldn't their population get a bonus when they terraform to a jungle/ocean/terran?



Not that usually matters at that stage of the game, anyway.

Well technically they do, but simply removing the negative approval.