Forty percent is ridiculous. Especially in areas of military power. Combined with the fixed number of SEVEN regardless of galaxy size it just gets worse. Perhaps a better term than monopoly should be used to state that a player has a sufficient amount by which they get special benefits. Regardless, forty percent is just wrong. Ten to fifteen percent would be sufficient.

This also ties in with your other thread, in the sense that the luxury resources are supposed to be wanted by every player. There is supposed to be a rush to get them, so that everyone has some and no one is able to get that 40% bonus. And if someone does get a monopoly and that bonus, they deserve it. Either the other players were careless enough to let them amass that much, or the player with the monopoly traded/fought for them.

They do not need to have a 1.56x total effect to be worth fighting over. Especially attack and defense resources, which would still be coveted and strong at 1.35x total.



Giving individual resources a slightly greater share of the resulting bonus would also help soften the blow of having access to no monopolies (something that happens very often if you have a game with multiple Craver empires), without making the monopoly less desirable. The fact that many monopolies more than triple the effect when going from three to four of a resource is poor balance. For example, about half of the current luxuries give 4% per resource and 40% at monopoly. This means you jump from 1.12x to 1.56x when going from 3 to 4, which is simply ludicrous.



Using the trade luxury as an example, going to 8% per resource plus 18% on monopoly would give someone who holds 3 a 1.24x bonus, which is quite respectable, but still only half of the 1.5x you would get from a monopoly. Likewise with defense and attack, something like 5% per resource and 15% on monopoly, for 1.35x total. Holding three becomes comparatively more meaningful (1.15x, or 42% of the monopoly bonus, vs the previous 1.12x-- only 21% of the monopoly bonus), but the monopoly still roughly doubles the amount and remains highly desirable.



Right now, holding three of a resource is essentially meaningless if the rest are held by an uncooperative or eternal-war empire that you cannot defeat outright.

I'd like to add that one would need to control 8 or more of a resource before it's a monopoly.

FinalStrigon wrote:
This also ties in with your other thread, in the sense that the luxury resources are supposed to be wanted by every player. There is supposed to be a rush to get them, so that everyone has some and no one is able to get that 40% bonus. And if someone does get a monopoly and that bonus, they deserve it. Either the other players were careless enough to let them amass that much, or the player with the monopoly traded/fought for them.

The issue at hand is that once one player obtains one or more of the combat oriented in monopoly status it usually is game over. Hell against the AI the game becomes a snore fest.

Nasarog wrote:
I'd like to add that one would need to control 8 or more of a resource before it's a monopoly.

There's only 7 in the entire galaxy.



*Pokerface*

Draco18s wrote:
There's only 7 in the entire galaxy.



*Pokerface*

Well, in that case I guess you need to look for other galaxies to settle.

I like how luzury resources are so valuable, it gives a reason to colonize systems containing them even when otherwise inopportune.

Harel55 wrote:
I like how luzury resources are so valuable, it gives a reason to colonize systems containing them even when otherwise inopportune.

There is a difference between valuable and ludicrous. They are in the later currently.

Shivetya wrote:
The issue at hand is that once one player obtains one or more of the combat oriented in monopoly status it usually is game over. Hell against the AI the game becomes a snore fest.

And this is because the AI right now isn't quite as good or optimized as it could be, and I certainly haven't seen it to be the case in my games. I can't remember if this issue has come up before, but have you tried putting the resource amount to low?