retribution

In steam library hover over the game, hover over properties. Hover over dlc click, and uncheck the dlc. If you want it back you can always recheck the dlc. 

will it fix the almost nothing pop growth and major negative money problem

I don't understand why some people are always so negative. Pop growth can be mitigated by researching certains techs, and money is no issue if you play the game in the right way (e. g. adjusting tax level, building special wealtch buildings in a cluster on the homeworld, training citizens as entrepreneurs and assigng them to the home world or other high income worlds, researching tourism quickly, sending ships on Treasure Hunts, using your trade routes as fast as possible).

If pop growth is still too low it can be modded (although I'm not sure where the values resides, but if you insist I will find out) if you are inclined to use mods.

To a certain extent the negativity is predictable. People do not generally like change... especially change that can be perceived as "subtracting" rather than additive.

Retribution mostly "adds" by first subtracting. In order to "add" cargo ships that would make sense and be useful and further justify HyperGates as a early-game tech/etc. they needed to "Subtract" production. They chose to do so by subtracting the population growth that created that production.

Many buildings and features also became "subtracted" such as the limiting of the "Aid Technology" ability to only the tech capital, or the training of legions. Ultimately, in today's audience, re-balancing in this manner is poorly received. Add to this, that unlike a competitive multiplayer game, where the quest for "balance" is always regarded as "good" or necessary... that is much less present in a single player game in my experience.

The tech tree is another example, you can find many complaints that simply state "the tech tree is smaller". There is a bias for "more" even when more is not necessarily better.

And GC3 has a pretty terrible history of repeatedly subtracting. All of it IS creating a more coherent design (which even if I'm not the biggest fan of, I approve of coherency). Removing the so-called Economic Wheel, removing the continual projects, removing the many different buildings and replacing them with "one off" buildings/versions, removing civ specific tech trees (and moving some of their unique techs into various abilities).... all BUT removing Minor Races.

Fair or not... it leaves a lot of players with a bad taste. Their mentally exhausted with keeping up with the changes and rehashing of the game. Then on top of that, the design direction is definitely no longer "typical" of what fans of classic 4X would look for. More and more the game is pushing for "distinct choice" and for limitations.

That means the game relies on Mercenaries, Citizens, Government rewarded ships, etc., Unique buildings, to meet the needs of the game/player/winning... instead of on more scalable, less specific/discreet items.

Prior to Legions, one only needed transports and population for armies... then we limited it to legions... which you COULD manufacture, but you mostly needed Generals to spawn them, then with this last update, your limited to producing legions from a single planet, further forcing you to make your citizen choices be generals/difficult choices.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I'm just trying to showcase, that it isn't typical and it's a change. If all the changes were simply layering on top of the existing game and not rebalancing, you wouldn't have nearly so much push-back.

As an aside... for my own opinion, the feeling of everything being "one off", "special", or "instant" is starting to grate. Civilizations don't spawn armies out of thin air because they get a good general... certainly not modern-day civilizations. We manufacture tanks, planes, guns, etc. and that all needs planning and money to sustain.

No amount of "commanding" doubles the maximum movement of a space ship.

Empire's are not stopped from Declaring War because of some ideology my people happen to believe in.

The game has continually pulled away from representing "governing a society" to a feeling of managing randomness. My whole empire is ruled not by the means and resources at our disposal... but by a 10 turn counter that arbitrarily awards me "power" in the next citizen.

I don't know whether that is now a post in favor or against the Retribution changes

But overall I can understand some people's bad feelings. Perhaps I was just lucky until now because I can cope with the changes because they are not critical for me and just need another playstyle. If SD would e. g. remove the largest galaxy sizes then I think I might be pissed off myself ...

I agree, but for me a game doesn't have to be necessarily "realistic" to be fun. Of your points above the legion generating mechnic bothers be the most because you are cippled in your ability to lead a fast war. The other other two points are minor nuisances for me or not even that. But that's just me.

Edit: I have the feeling the game is mostly tested and optimized for smaller maps. Since I play only the largest map size problems like citizens taking an eternity to reach other planets than the homeworld, mercenaries spawning only at the homeworld and legions needing endless time to reach the front line are more pronounced than in games on smaller maps.

Quoting lyssailcor, reply 6

I don't know whether that is now a post in favor or against the Retribution changes

End of lyssailcor's quote

It's both. Retribution was in my opinion a good balance change overall... but it's a balance correction that shouldn't have been necessary in the first place, and we are paying a high premium for it. In my opinion it definitely feels over-priced. I really don't like that this expansion came with no new ship parts.

I guess limiting buildings to one per player is alright as long as I can still fill my planets with something.

Here's the problem with a smaller tech tree no one wants to be playing a game, and run out of tech.

I'm playing aliens I like them to be as different from each other as possible. Removing that doesn't help. Ie. Different tech trees.