I'm sure there's another thread about this somewhere, but It's Monday, and I'm tired so oh well. Anywayyy, I just noticed this and I'm not sure if it's always been like that, or it was in an update or what. But if you do a custom race and have either Sower or Amoeba affinity, you only get 60 starting points instead of 65. Whats up with that?

The racial triats are stronger then the others so the devs took 5 pts away?

Unless I'm missing something, the Sower affinity trait is nothing special? The Sophon science bonus is 10x better.

Good question. I wish I knew. It's always been like that. The devs seem to think sowers are better than cravers, despite a huge community outcry that sowers suck planetary ass.



There is no reason they have 60 points, it just hasn't ever been changed.

Considering the Amoeba racial trait can be hilariously powerful, I assumed the same was also considered to be true by the developers in regards to the Sowers. Thus, both have a 5 point malus to balance them out.



It should be considered that while the Sowers affinity may be generally suck as far as the Sowers go, the devs might believe we could abuse the knickers out of it in race creation by...I dunno...making an optimistic race of industry pumped nutters who turn everything into a methane gas giant and surf across the galaxy on a tidal wave of ships and industry converted dust.



I'm not suggesting it as a strategy, but you have to think more about what they think we'll do with a trait instead of looking at it in isolation, and the Sowers trait looks like a ticket to forgetting about traditional food production entirely in favour of trying to poop out a psychotic level of industry that'll deal with that whole issue for you.

The point is, they made the wrong races 60 points.



Sophons, cravers, hissho...were always more powerful than the other factions, yet they were never changed to 60 points.



With the expansion, the faction balance is much more in tune. There is still no reason why sowers OR amoeba should have 60 points. It's been ignored. Unfortunately with all the hubbub with disharmony I doubt we'll see it looked at again for a long time, if ever.

The Sower faction affinity is the most powerful affinity in game. Sowers can (and do) stack production as a primarey resource, and through production are capable of multiplying their expansion and research speeds exponentially.



If you don't understand how powerful the affinity is you're most definitely doing something wrong.

I would direct you to the large number of people who disagree with you.



/#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11507-are-the-sowers-under-powered-aka-save-the-sowers



If you perform better with sowers than with other factions, you're most definitely doing something wrong.

Yes, the sowers themselves are poorly designed, primarily due to a lack of throughput. However their affinity is the most powerful affinity in the game. Which is why they have a minor point malus for the affinity.



You underestimate what being able to effectively ignore a resource can do for a player. Getting what is effectively double duty from industry is huge. Just because the devs very poorly balanced the base trait combination does not make the affinity bad; look at those maluses, reduced speed, reduced research, and while tolerant is highly underrated especially with the planet resource changes from disharmony it definitely isn't as good as its point value.



Sower Affinity...



1) Allows a player to focus entirely on industry.

2) Makes normally poor "growth" planets powerful (Lava etc)

3) Provides useful faction techs for lategame (tundra specialization is ridiculous)

4) Has an amazing endgame combo (convert food to industry)



As far as raw power goes UE and Sophon are the only ones to compare endgame. So I'll repeat this



The Sower faction is very poorly designed. It is not good at what the Sowers' play pattern encourages (rapid expansion) and Tolerant in particular is attributed far more power in traits than it actually provides. The affinity however can be seriously abused in custom factions, perhaps far more powerfully than other affinities, which is why the conversion was nerfed.



Devs, please look at sower traits again. They're incohesive.

After the patch, and Disharmony, I have to say Sowers are a fairly strong race. Not as strong as expertly planned customs, but they can be played well with a decent start, especially with the improved specialist worlds and tolerant running, and god help everyone in your way once you get your industrial juggernaut going (holy crap Sower faction dreadnought bonus WTF)

Just fyi for this discussion: in beta and early es version Sowers were the best race. This resulted in a series of nerfs that went over the top.

Personally, I find that the Sower DN needs a nerf, while the Sowers as a whole could use some early game optimizations.



Do you know how disgusting HP stacking gets when you mass produce level 4 DNs from a system with Endless Sensor Sat wonder? Although, the 10% hp bonus from the wonder seems to be non-functional as of latest patch; or perhaps it buffs ships across empire with %hp, in which case the descriptor text is incorrect.