Krynn Are Now Completely Out Of Control

I saw that in a game I started earlier but got distracted before I made it to the forums.  Started a soak and thought my custom faction was doing well, about turn 200 I noticed my faction had encountered the Krynn and Drengin so I checked out the power ratings.  My custom race had a bit over 300, the Drengin were a bit under and the Krynn had over 1200.  

I stopped the soak, dropped the fow and started looking for a why.  The Krynn still had pirate bases in their zoc and near their homeworld but they had taken most of the middle of the map.  I didn't see anything obvious that would explain why they were so overpowered.

I don't know why either. I've run about 10 games on 6.2 and in every game, the Krynn are obscene.

In my gameplay I do find the Krynn very strong.

They have greater custom techs, good growth and morale, prolific is just badass when you expand fast. They don't really have any big weaknesses.

I'm guessing prolific + Bonus growth rate from difficulty level + "cheaty" bonus to getting colony's fast = killer Krynn

Not to mention Approval penalty Trait X Ai bonuses = even more dangerous

They can expand so fast with high pop and the AI bonuses are extremely cumulative with things like research and manufacturing when you have more planets.

Im really just guessing here tho, i haven't noticed it yet but it does sound like it

They also have Patriotic, which is a very good trait for large empires, and probably a fairly reasonable one even for small empires.

I have a suspicion that the computer either slows or stops expansion when its morale penalties get too large, but the Krynn don't need to concern themselves with this issue. Might be worth making a test game where a few custom factions which are almost identical to standard factions except for the substitution of Patriotic for one of their traits to see if the Patriotic trait really is a prime suspect for the cause of the power differential.

I'm playing on normal and its still crazy tough.  I'm running a new soak with a custom race with prolific and patriotic, it might be an issue of the AI not expanding due to morale issues.

At the risk of repeating myself or sounding like a broken record the Krynn and the Thalen used to play like this in GC2 that's why I hardly ever played with them on because they were and looks like they still are over powered.

I posted about this before.

Krynn Prolific ability - I think this ability is too powerful, especially combine with the + 25% growth race trait the Krynn already gets. In most of my games on large maps, on turn 50-75 colony phase just ended. The Krynn have about 110 population, everyone else has around 25, second place in population is the Yor who have about 35. This ability reminds me of the "Super Breeder" super ability the Torians had in GC2 which always made them super strong.

Purpose changes to Prolific ability - "Planets start with 50% more population than is brought on the Colony ship"

I imagine this isn't much of an issue on smaller maps, just the bigger ones. Tho I'm hesitate to Nerf the trait, is my fav one for the yor

I don't mind one trait being stronger an all the others.. Maybe its just me

Maybe just keep it as it is but make it only work for the first 10 planets, then have it scale up on the bigger maps.

Indeed, Prolific should be modified as you suggest. It is far too powerfup right now and (ironically) has allowed me to come ahead of the Krynn Consulate as the Terrans with little effort. The Patriotic trait ought to merely halve rather than eliminate the large empire penalty, which should itself be calculated based on ln(number of planets) rather than number of planets to better scale with map size.

So their race trait is making them go bananas? Because now they are extremely excessive while AI are being limited to expansion, malevolent AIs seem to adjust fine due to their moral bonus through ideology. 

Just ran another soak, only 190 turns this time and the Krynn are in the top 2 but my custom race with prolific and colonizers on top but my custom patriotic and prolific race didn't break the top 3.  I got Solarian Republic(custom prolific and colonizers) 269, Krynn 241, Drengin 224, Human Republic(custom patriotic and prolific) 184, Terran 162, Altarian 143 and everyone else under 100 with Thalian lowest at 33.  I think this is more an issue of starting positions ranging from really good to really bad.

It's interesting that we can make custom factions and actually play test them like this by having them play each other.

So the Krynn are now the dominant race. That's interesting. 

I cloned the Krynn and removed their major OP large empire immunity and they dropped back into line with everyone else, so it is this trait screwing it up 

Prolific should not remove the approval penalty from expansion... just make the race being Prolific get HALF the penalty. This is still very strong but in no way OP.

The Krynn are dominant in my game too. Although manageably so. They outclass me in pop quite a bit, but I have a big tech lead and better core production.

That said, I actually find the "ancient" trait to be more overpowered. My race holds 5 relics and 3 crystals right now, and it makes me a complete tech powerhouse even on planets with no research buildings!

I'll add one more to this thread.  Turn 150, insane map, Challenging.  I had to retire (first time ever).  I had 56 colonies and 45 ships.  Krynn had 121 colonies and 583 ships.  It's not just the expansion.  By itself, I could probably handle that.  It's the malevolent perk where every planet gets an overload class ship.  I had three AIs, all having taken that perk, declare war on me (I was basically surrounded).  Just one of their fleets more than tripled mine.  All three was just too much (even though my ships were better individually).  Because Malevolent races like to declare war on "weak" opponents, it almost forces a player to follow the Malevolent track, at least until getting that perk. It also forces pursuing military tech.  I'm not sure how someone truly follows a Benevolent path as the game plays right now.

I play on medium or large maps with planet settings set to occasional, and the Krynn are always in the middle of the pack or slightly above average

They need a lot of colonizable planets to be OP

Yeah the balance is broken on much higher map types, I just cloned them and replaced Patriotic with another attribute, it stopped them from going crazy and brought them back into line with everyone else.  

Which trait is that?

ah Patrioc. I'll take a look at that trait.

   While I agree patriotic is OP (half as much penalty should work better), I also feel that the large empire penalty is an overnerf on larger maps, and irrelevant on smaller ones.

To be honest I'm actually fine with the notion that having a large number of planets on bigger maps will get very hard after a while. If we might get to have 100-200 planets but more is impossible I'm fine with that. I see no reason why populating half or more of an insane map should be needed.

In smaller maps the penalty should perhaps be increased a bit to balance it.

*cough*

Conquest victory. 

*cough*

Influence victory.

*cough*

--

Sorry, had something in my throat there.

(Mind, as it currently stands, Aggression II (Eager) is going to be invaluable when it comes to Conquest games on v large maps now that LEP is flat)

Both of those victory conditions should still possible. Conquest are certainly possible and influence will require some serious effort into approval to pull off.