Most experienced players I meet in multiplayer, those who play Hissho and not, agree Hissho are seriously overpowered. Lose one scout to a Hissho player (or try to retreat it even if you don't lose the scout per se), and you've given all of their fleets a boost to attack and defense that will overcome other fleets with higher tech. Lose one just-established frontier outpost to a Hissho fleet, and their entire empire gets a boost to food, industry, dust and science. If the Hissho let you retake that world, and they take it back again instantly, it stacks and suddenly they out-science Sophons, out-grow everyone, out-industry everyone, out-dust everyone. They get no downside, unlike, say, the Cravers whose worlds rot into penalties after awhile, it doesn't matter how many worlds they themselves lose nor how many fleets they lose, so long as they have one victory at least every fifteen turns if not more frequently, their timer resets and the buffs stack.



In fact, its advantageous to a Hissho to let their worlds get conquered, for they can then instantly re-conquer (since defenses don't repair in one turn) and they get another boost.



They need serious nerfing, even Hissho players agree.



My first proposal for nerfing, on which I have gotten agreement from several players, is that Hissho should only get bushido bonus from conquering a star system once. That is, if they conquer a star system, the star system gets conquered back from them, and they then re-take it again, they should not get a double bushido bonus. They should also not get bushido from retaking their own worlds. They should only get a bushido FIDS for taking fresh worlds they had not already conquered.



My second proposal is losing a battle or losing a system should either reduce the buff, or at the very least shorten the timer. This would force Hissho to care a lot more about defense.



My third proposal is the bushido bonus (both FIDS for taking planets, and fleet attack/defense for winning battles) should vary based on the toughness of the target; Hissho should not get the same boost to fleet attack and defense for defeating against a measly scout or colony ship than they do for defeating a flotilla of warships. Likewise, they should savor the feast of taking a well developed colony world more than a just-established outpost. There's no game balance nor realistic sense here.



My most-likely-to-be-seriously-considered proposal would be limiting the bushido colony-conquer bonus to perhaps food and industry, maybe dust, but not science. They shouldn't dwarf Sophons for science AND have insane boosts to food, industry and dust simultaneously.



Another possible consideration is reducing the length to 10 turns instead of 15 for the bushido to expire.

A few of these things should be easy to mod. The 15 turn counter can be changed to any number. The +20% bonus to each of F,I,D,S can be changed. In my community mod, I have changed it to eliminate the science bonus. This fits better with the -20% "Space Cadets" penalty, and it should keep them from getting ahead in science. Do you think that is enough? I'd be interested in specific feedback on this. I can easily change it, or tell you the specific place you can change to try an experiment.



I am also working on a "racial diversity" mod with changes for each race. My plan is to remove their access to missiles, and give them extra battle cards which reduce enemy fleet accuracy. Probably I will have a version ready tomorrow; please take a look here for details:



/#/endless-space/forum/37-modding/thread/15865-released-racial-diversity-mod

Interesting



Will it be multiplayer compatible? If all players have the mod, will they be able to play it?

Yes, as long as all players have the same version of the same mod, everything will work fine. In MP, the game now checks to make sure of this.

Curious davea, can you also mod in a delay? One problem I have with Bushido is that it is instant. Say if it were to run on a five turn counter, in that if a Hissho player conquers a system they most hold that system for five turns before the bonus kicks in. This obviously would give a larger window of opportunity to deny the Bushido bonus. This in combination with linking the busido bonus to the system would be very helpful in my opinion.



Also, I agree with the fleet weapon bonuses scaling with command points, as opposed to fleets. Say for every command point worth of kills, you get a 0.5% bonus on all fleet weapons. Killing 10 CP worth of fleet will net a 1.0511 multiplier to all fleet weapons. Obviously the percentage bonus can be changed, but you get the idea. You could also scale the bushido bonus based on the population of the system in similar fashion, but I still think the bonus should effect all FIDS, not just certain ones.

We are kind of limited by what the xml offers. The rest of the logic is hard-coded in the game, and the dev team would need to (a) philosophically agree, and then (b) decide to spend the time on it. In the xml, we have:

[code]



[/code]

So we can modify the duration and the number of stacks. Also,

[code]



































[/code]

So we can change the 5% and 20% values. Unfortunately I can't see any way to put a "must be held for N turns" or "can only apply to the same planet once", both of which would help reduce abuses.

Wow thanks davea! Unfortunate that we can't change how the mechanic actually works. Obviously reducing the bonus and duration would help a bit, but I'd imagine the mechanic changing balances would be more helpful.

Is there a way to apply a drop off rate for the bonus? so it can start high but quickly drops down to nothing?

Chibiabos wrote:


My third proposal is the bushido bonus (both FIDS for taking planets, and fleet attack/defense for winning battles) should vary based on the toughness of the target; Hissho should not get the same boost to fleet attack and defense for defeating against a measly scout or colony ship than they do for defeating a flotilla of warships. Likewise, they should savor the feast of taking a well developed colony world more than a just-established outpost. There's no game balance nor realistic sense here.



My most-likely-to-be-seriously-considered proposal would be limiting the bushido colony-conquer bonus to perhaps food and industry, maybe dust, but not science. They shouldn't dwarf Sophons for science AND have insane boosts to food, industry and dust simultaneously.

The two proposals I agree with.



I don't consider Hissho to be really overpowered (there're so many people whining and requesting to rule out other playstyles on this forum :roll but these changes would make games with Hissho much more natural. At the moment Hissho players are always trying to take out scouts, and manipulating the pirates and outposts to maximize their bonus with very little effort.



And associating a bunch of brutes who get their kick by destroying and subjugating with scientific progress and superiority towards scientifically-inclined factions (by getting the maximum science bonus Sophons can get when they sacrifice all their taxation, and almost three times the maximum +30% other affinities can get) isn't very natural either, it'd be nice if ES didn't hail war as the best thing ever.

I'm not sure if it is "easily possible" within the existing code for modding, but should be trivial if added to the core game: Make the bonus kick in on taking OWNERSHIP not control. It can still take place "immediately" but have the actual bonus FIDS awarded in proportion to the ownership % of the conquered systems - thus if you are running the 80% bonus normally, but the average ownership value of the systems which you have conquered is only at 50%, your actual bonus would only be a 40% net bonus from bushido. Alternatively, if that ends up being still too complicated, you can still tie it into ownership with the "single trigger" method for conquering now, whereby you get your first bonus after the first time you reach 100% ownership, and then again every time you get 100% ownership - this would still result in the ability to go "back and forth" once you've gotten at least one system to 100%, but should slow down the initial boost, as well as force the Hissho player to defend their new territory actively rather than just swap systems around.

Lose the bonus completely for losing any space battle where any ships involved have other than support only modules. This will allow them to retreat scouts/colony ships. In turn, no battle where the enemy only has support module ships should grant the bonus. As for the planet rule, I would give them the bonus on any planet they have not conquered in thirty turns

Hissho evasion mod released:

/#/endless-space/forum/37-modding/thread/15796-released-hissho-evasion

Changes bushido bonus to +10% on FID (no science), adds evasion battle cards

What if the damage increase also came with a defenses decrease? This would simulate diverting power from defenses to weapons. Along the lines of adding "Offense First" when Bushido is in effect.

+ 5% Weapon Damage on all fleets for each space battle won (for 15 turns).

- 5% Laser Damage Absorbed on all fleets for each space battle won (for 15 turns).

- 5% Kinetics Projectiles deflected on all fleets for each space battle won (for 15 turns).

- 5% Missile Interception Accuracy on all fleets for each space battle won (for 15 turns).