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THE loving MOON posted:I was a little shocked at how bad habitats were in my last couple of games. I remember them being good enough to almost justify abandoning planets for altogether like a year ago, and now I just kind of don't want to take voidborne at all and try to get to megastructures some other way. I'd like to see another tier of habitats between the current ones and ringworlds. Like a culture orbital I guess. Also I'd like to see ringworlds expandable to 8 segments cuz you know... they're loving mindbendingly gigantic. Like maybe you can build a ringworld with galactic wonders, but you can't build past 4 segments without master builders. Ringworlds are for normal empires that need to more raw resources to fuel eucons. Habs are for gestalts who need building slots to convert raw resources into stuff. First league chain is stupidly strong. The other precursors are pretty terrible compared to it, they'd need to give you megastructures that you could repair right away (just needing the resources) to be comparable.
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Mar 23, 2019 03:48
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OwlFancier posted:Much like stellaris, then. No, not even close. Singleplayer Stellaris still has credible threats. Singleplayer Dominions you might as well be playing Solitaire. The AI barely even exists. It doesn't use half of the systems in the game.
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Mar 23, 2019 04:35
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ulmont posted:I really love gateways but yeah they are too late. Way too late. The transition to gateways makes such a profound effect it's a huge shame they come so late. Gateway activation should come slightly earlier, and there should be something else that comes earlier, like wormhole generators on starbases or something.
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Mar 23, 2019 04:50
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Jabarto posted:I feel like there are two correlated arguments going on here, one about ecumenopolises specifically and one about Paradox putting too many gates on fun stuff. I do agree with the latter, it's been an issue for a long time (hello EU4 client states!), but that's not the issue that ecumenopolises have. The problem with those is that they completely obviate huge chunks of the game.
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Mar 23, 2019 04:50
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OwlFancier posted:Much like stellaris, then. Don’t....don’t you go there bro.
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Mar 23, 2019 04:58
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Flippantly I am suggesting that what you presently have is a game that puts a lot of effort into being balanced but isn't, and subsequently avoids doing anything radically different between different empire builds, while also being badly handled by the AI. If it achieved any of the three options of having good AI, broken but interesting systems, or a wide variety of poorly balanced ones, that would be an improvement. You can sort of mod at least two of those in but the stock game's design direction is very limited. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 05:07 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 05:05
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I've tried getting back into this game since the 2.2 changes and I need advice. Do you guys stick to the administrative limit? How far should I go over the limit? The only penalty I'm worried about is the research penalty, since I've found that research is much harder for me to get going with these new changes (it always seems like I need to be using building slots for alloy refineries/consumer goods/amenity factories.
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Mar 23, 2019 05:12
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BigRoman posted:I've tried getting back into this game since the 2.2 changes and I need advice. Do you guys stick to the administrative limit? How far should I go over the limit? The only penalty I'm worried about is the research penalty, since I've found that research is much harder for me to get going with these new changes (it always seems like I need to be using building slots for alloy refineries/consumer goods/amenity factories. My limit in my current game is 150 or so. Im at 1200 in use. Go crazy.
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Mar 23, 2019 05:20
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OwlFancier posted:Much like stellaris, then. It's not even in the same state, much less the same ballpark. Dominions is stupidly more complex / has an incredibly deeper end game than Stellaris.
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Mar 23, 2019 07:43
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BigRoman posted:I've tried getting back into this game since the 2.2 changes and I need advice. Do you guys stick to the administrative limit? How far should I go over the limit? The only penalty I'm worried about is the research penalty, since I've found that research is much harder for me to get going with these new changes (it always seems like I need to be using building slots for alloy refineries/consumer goods/amenity factories. When it comes to available planets and star systems, I don't care about going over the limit But I do try to pick up administrative efficiency bonuses wherever I can And when it comes to conquest I try to do a mix of outright taking planets + vassalization, since vassals don't count toward your administrative capacity. So that I'm able to unlock traditions faster in the early-mid game, when that matters, but later in the game I can just integrate those dudes and it's all good
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Mar 23, 2019 07:52
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BigRoman posted:I've tried getting back into this game since the 2.2 changes and I need advice. Do you guys stick to the administrative limit? How far should I go over the limit? The only penalty I'm worried about is the research penalty, since I've found that research is much harder for me to get going with these new changes (it always seems like I need to be using building slots for alloy refineries/consumer goods/amenity factories.
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Mar 23, 2019 08:32
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Bringing up Dominions and Stellaris is making me think of some of Dominion's crazy-rear end awesome background lore, and the possibility of further increasing the differences between civics to absurd degrees. Also, the different units that you'd get with all the different portraits. In Illwinter's Conquest of Elysium 4, there's pretty much hobbits that have some decent crossbows and magic access in the form of a necromancer subclass. Slow, agrarian, and potentially terrifying? Sounds like the Snalien...
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Mar 23, 2019 09:20
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Basically, there's an empire-size-based tax on things like research and tradition costs, and your "admin cap" is a deduction on that tax. If you're not at or over your admin cap, you're not making the most of that deduction.
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Mar 23, 2019 09:20
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BigRoman posted:I've tried getting back into this game since the 2.2 changes and I need advice. Do you guys stick to the administrative limit? How far should I go over the limit? The only penalty I'm worried about is the research penalty, since I've found that research is much harder for me to get going with these new changes (it always seems like I need to be using building slots for alloy refineries/consumer goods/amenity factories. Splicer posted:Ignore the admin cap, it's a progressive tax system not a metric.
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Mar 23, 2019 09:25
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Empire sprawl is just the old penalties for expansion rolled into one thing and stuck where you can easily see it. Admin cap is basically a bonus that you didn't used to get at all. In terms of benefits, increasing admin cap (assuming that you're at least that much over your current cap) tends to be on par or better than other increases for research/unity, but effects both of those. You also get a small economic boost through lesser leader/campaign costs (not huge but adds up). Just like in the past, penalties to being big are there to even the playing field a bit, but being bigger is still better than being smaller. There is some space to explore "tall" builds that aim to not go drastically over cap (through aggressively chasing cap sources and also stuff like federations/vassals). When I say tall I sort of envision an area of around 6 jumps from your homeworld (so eventually all trade is collectable by your homeworld), which is often something around 20-30 systems (every 10 is another starbase). Then you'll need to leverage federations/vassals/ideology wars in order to grow your overall power in ways outside of straight conquest. Habs are fairly good because you'll probably have spare influence and can afford to spend to increase the value of your space.
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Mar 23, 2019 12:42
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I decided to nut up and play at Grand Admiral because Admiral wasn't providing any challenge. My federation was successfully prosecuting wars to ideologically expand, and we'd just taken a chunk out of the last of the competition, leaving a hive mind and a 2nd smaller but non-hostile federation left. Then the War in Heaven event triggered (FINALLY!). Spiritualist vs Materialist. Despite losing one of my federation members right off the bat to the spiritualists, I made the mistake of trying to go for the NAL on my first try with this end-game crisis. This was a bad choice, as right now I'm getting pincered on two fronts by both sides, and I really wasn't ready for this, technologically or logistically speaking. This game is kinda RIP now, unless I can get lucky with some truce timers. I wish i could cry uncle and switch over to the Materialist side but that doesn't seem possible.
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Mar 23, 2019 15:19
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Xerxes17 posted:I decided to nut up and play at Grand Admiral because Admiral wasn't providing any challenge. My federation was successfully prosecuting wars to ideologically expand, and we'd just taken a chunk out of the last of the competition, leaving a hive mind and a 2nd smaller but non-hostile federation left.
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Mar 23, 2019 15:33
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Lum_ posted:There's a bug right now where once you form the federation you lose your trade routes which is probably the cause (normally the federation just explodes once formed and becomes unstoppable) why the hell does the federation even have an economy
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Mar 23, 2019 15:35
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Jabarto posted:Yeah everyone says this whenever nerfs are discussed but it's a terrible idea if you actually think about it for a second.
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Mar 23, 2019 15:36
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Xerxes17 posted:I decided to nut up and play at Grand Admiral because Admiral wasn't providing any challenge. My federation was successfully prosecuting wars to ideologically expand, and we'd just taken a chunk out of the last of the competition, leaving a hive mind and a 2nd smaller but non-hostile federation left. This is how my last game ended, only I was a Hive Mind keeping a local federation uneasily tolerant of my people eating ways while I preyed on the other locals. I thought I could go League of Unaligned Powers and gun up quickly enough when the War in Heaven triggered, but no. Normally I'd side with one or the other because you have to be insanely strong to justify going up against both, but they were close enough together that I thought they'd spend enough time beating on each other so I could research their wrecks and strike back in a little while. They both ended up crisscrossing my territory through gates and wormholes and knocked me out really quickly. I wish you could deactivate gateways once you have the tech to activate them. And yeah, the War in Heaven isn't a crisis. In fact, a crisis can trigger while it's going on.  edit: At least I think it still can. The War in Heaven works a lot more smoothly than it used to, and I'm not sure if that's changed
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Mar 23, 2019 15:44
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Lance of Llanwyln posted:Ecumenopolises definitely need to be limited in some way. Preferably in a way that favors taller empires. I think they've kind of fundamentally missed the mark on everything else that's special. Hive and Machine Worlds are basically Gaia-equivalents that you can't find naturally. Fine, whatever. Habs are too gimped and expensive to make an impact early on and, oh yeah, ecumenopolises exist and become available at basically the same time. And megastructures? They may as well not exist for all the impact they have. Building one rarely serves any purpose except as a victory lap, and only the ring world really feels anything like special. THE loving MOON posted:I was a little shocked at how bad habitats were in my last couple of games. I remember them being good enough to almost justify abandoning planets for altogether like a year ago, and now I just kind of don't want to take voidborne at all and try to get to megastructures some other way. I'd like to see another tier of habitats between the current ones and ringworlds. Like a culture orbital I guess. Also I'd like to see ringworlds expandable to 8 segments cuz you know... they're loving mindbendingly gigantic. Like maybe you can build a ringworld with galactic wonders, but you can't build past 4 segments without master builders. ulmont posted:I really love gateways but yeah they are too late. PittTheElder posted:Way too late. The transition to gateways makes such a profound effect it's a huge shame they come so late. OwlFancier posted:Flippantly I am suggesting that what you presently have is a game that puts a lot of effort into being balanced but isn't, and subsequently avoids doing anything radically different between different empire builds, while also being badly handled by the AI. Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 16:02
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THE loving MOON posted:This is how my last game ended, only I was a Hive Mind keeping a local federation uneasily tolerant of my people eating ways while I preyed on the other locals. I thought I could go League of Unaligned Powers and gun up quickly enough when the War in Heaven triggered, but no. Normally I'd side with one or the other because you have to be insanely strong to justify going up against both, but they were close enough together that I thought they'd spend enough time beating on each other so I could research their wrecks and strike back in a little while. They both ended up crisscrossing my territory through gates and wormholes and knocked me out really quickly. I wish you could deactivate gateways once you have the tech to activate them. At least in 2.2.4 it could. Though the war was "technically" over in the sense that the materialists (my side) had functionally neutered the spiritualists and, since I had asserted my independence, I was the biggest kid on the block. So when the Zerg arrived in the rear of my empire, I locked them in with a choke point and killed them before the main fleet arrived.
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Mar 23, 2019 16:05
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Splicer posted:A thing Wiz said ages ago was that gateways and wormholes are about opening up a "second wave" of exploration. That may be true of wormholes, and possibly abandoned gateways, but it is completely irrelevant for empire-built gateways. Empire-built gateways are just a way for wide empires to deal with exponential expansion problems. If there were techs to (a) massively speed up ship movement inside the empire boundaries and (b) extend trade collection range significantly, I'd probably never bother with gateways.
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Mar 23, 2019 16:09
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ulmont posted:That may be true of wormholes, and possibly abandoned gateways, but it is completely irrelevant for empire-built gateways. e: I mean, you're not wrong, but it's kind of tangential to what I was getting at. Splicer fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 16:11
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Splicer posted:A thing Wiz said ages ago was that gateways and wormholes are about opening up a "second wave" of exploration. I'd love to see this expanded so that megastructures, habitats, and the mineral processing type techs were all components of a structured game feature where previously junk or mid tier systems become prime real estate as different waves of tech and ascensions come online. Black holes are kind of set up like this at the moment; at the very beginning of the game they don't provide a huge amount, but a t3 tech turns them into great starbase locations and if you take megastructures they're a potentially popless production of 1000 minerals. But this is a vestigial nubbin of what should be a major game feature; there's only five system-locked buildings in the game (Black Hole Observatory, Nebula Refinery, Orbital Black Site, and the two Curator buildings), habitats and most megastructures don't care where you build them, and there doesn't seem to be a unified outline for when and where these waves should be coming online. I'd love to have these bones arranged into a proper skeleton and fleshed out into a real thing. It could really open up the early midgame and late midgame if they added two techs to let you scan again. Then you could scan a gas giant and find out that it is made of Exotic Gases and now you have an Exotic Gas Fountain that you can build several layers of extraction bases on it to gradually increase your Exotic Gas output. This makes a previously unremarkable system all of a sudden super valuable, allowing for more emergent gameplay. Now do this for each of the rares and find other interesting things to do and bam now there is more exciting stuff going on in the midgame as people discover this stuff. AAAAA! Real Muenster fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 17:44
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Preston Waters posted:why the hell does the federation even have an economy Abolishing currency doesn't mean you don't have an economy.
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Mar 23, 2019 17:45
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What if Paradox swapped the tech/perk prerequisites of megastructures and ecumenopolis? It would solve two problems at once — that megastructures come too late and that city worlds are too strong for their timing. Considering the latest patch notes moved ascension paths/gaia worlds earlier I don’t think its out of the question.
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Mar 23, 2019 17:45
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luxury handset posted:determined exterminators hate organics, not all xenos. i was doing a gimmick as a race of isolationist rogue science bots but one of my neighbors was skynet and so i changed plans and we purged the galaxy together. afaik you can't purge other robots so it would be nice to have that option Yeah. Either Machine Integration should let me add trait points, or let me purge them.
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Mar 23, 2019 17:48
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scaterry posted:What if Paradox swapped the tech/perk prerequisites of megastructures and ecumenopolis?
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Mar 23, 2019 17:49
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scaterry posted:What if Paradox swapped the tech/perk prerequisites of megastructures and ecumenopolis? The cool thing about Ecumenopoli is that they actually show up in time to be impactful. Megastructures only show up once the game is basically over anyway.
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Mar 23, 2019 17:53
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I might have made some mistakes along the way... I'm rogue servitors, and crushed both my neighbours in defensive wars, taking no systems on account of my existing problems. Nothing adds up anymore, and I have no idea how to fix this. Probably should have neutered my lovely biologicals a long time ago.
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Mar 23, 2019 18:19
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Nosfereefer posted:I might have made some mistakes along the way... I've got to see the planet overview of your home world - this looks very rough. Are you building districts?
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Mar 23, 2019 18:25
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:This wouldnt fix the fact that an Ecumenopolis's ability to build the specialized districts is super ridiculous compared to needing to mine Minerals => build Consumer Goods => build and staff research labs. Now you just build a district and blammo, there is a ton of science for way less investment. It needs to be adjusted. Splicer fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 18:26
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Dreissi posted:I've got to see the planet overview of your home world - this looks very rough. Are you building districts?  I've overextended my resources, and I had no real idea how to manage my bios as well as running a functional empire. I quit my last game because I was already overwhelming compared to everyone within 50 years as standard Machine Empire, and I just pretty much hosed everything up in this run 
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Mar 23, 2019 18:35
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Maybe if I dump like half of my biotrophies on some moon and make them a vassal? e: It worked! 
Nosfereefer fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 18:37
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Stranding billions of sentient organics that have never experienced want or need on some desert planet does in no way break the prime directive. If anything, we keep that place as an example of the folly of biological sovereignty.
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Mar 23, 2019 19:00
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How and when did the dessanu fall in dev clash?
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Mar 23, 2019 19:04
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ulmont posted:That may be true of wormholes, and possibly abandoned gateways, but it is completely irrelevant for empire-built gateways. I'm not even sure that abandoned gateways can be said to contribute to exploration; you need to own or have open borders with both ends to travel through them, so you're gaining a fast travel option to someplace that you've already been rather than a fast travel option to someplace new. Abandoned gateways do create an incentive for expansion and do build tension, though. They're conflict-brewers rather than exploration-enablers. And trade routes become a bit easier, then much easier once you've able to build your own gateways.
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Mar 23, 2019 19:23
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I think only allowing one ecu power civ is a great idea. Maybe allow you to make a second when you research all the admin cap before repeatables. Also the second scanning idea would be awesome. Allow it to find strategic resources, alloy and trade value.
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Mar 23, 2019 19:46
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Zig-Zag posted:I think only allowing one ecu power civ is a great idea. Maybe allow you to make a second when you research all the admin cap before repeatables. Also the second scanning idea would be awesome. Allow it to find strategic resources, alloy and trade value. My personal idea would be to reduce the habitability (instead of 100% for all species, make it 50% for all or so) and remove the pop growth rate bonus (probably give it to gaia worlds/maybe hive worlds also, so you have some reason to make gaias instead of ecus). That way they'd keep their main role (massive amounts of alloy/consumer good/unity production) but you'd at least have to pay more food and consumer goods to support one, and removing the pop growth bonus would mean they're much more suited as a transformation for already over-populated planets (and make Fen Habbanis less ridiculous). Plus it always seemed weird to me that the city world was apparently a better place for all races than gaia worlds are. Bremen fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Mar 23, 2019 |
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Mar 23, 2019 20:03
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