This is a good summary of the current major balance/bugs. I'm pretty sure the devs are aware of all of these, but another "these are the top issues" thread helps highlight that fact. Those two techs aren't the only ones that are broken, whether you traded for them or researched them. There are some techs that state you get X building after researching but it never shows.
... I have to ask, is this Crusade? I know this was an issue in the base game but I've not seen it since Crusade. If Crusade, that's gotta get a fix.
[quote who="tetleytea" reply="11" id="3684417"] My trade ship strategy doesn't work so much vs. the Drengin. Drengin care about military might, and that's it. [/quote] Interesting. I started a new game over the weekend and had perhaps the best start ever. I started on the edge of the map and have 20 colonies in a concentrated area. I didn't run into any races before turn 50. Of the two I've seen, one liked me immediately (despite 0 military) and one hated... Unti
Agreed, the game has come a LONG way and is a whole lot more fun in Crusade. I'm eagerly awaiting lots more fixes and polish. On trading, I agree completely. In today's world, even if you absolutely hate someone, you wouldn't charge them 3000% and expect them to actually pay. The AI trades are more like 1000000%. Another item that bugs me is when the AI offers a "deal" and if you edit it even slightly, they turn up their noses. It's not a negotiation if I can't reasonably counte
The Starbase range is shown as a reddish hex around the constructor. It's something like a 6 hex "radius". You can research techs and take ideology picks later that increase Starbase range.
[quote who="zuPloed" reply="8" id="3684242"] When going xeno, you should definitely take the militant +2 trait, too. 70% is a lot more than 50% ship production. What ideology are you playing with? Try malevolent production, intimidation centers are useless, but the two follow ups solve your ship production by making your homeworld ridiculous. Talking about ships, if you want to go max abuse, don't fool around with defenses, get evasion+repair. It stacks a lot better th
leiavoia: Yep to synthetic, shoulda said that in the original post. Synthetic xeno/slavers that focus on ship abilities and a few others. I forget exactly. With how ugly the trinity of morale/pop/food is in Crusade, I feel like synthetics are king. And asteroids are my fav for sure! I've taken single resource spots with 6 asteroids near a new colony just for production boost. I'll probably boost my custom race's diplo skills in the next game to try my hand at Machiavelli tacti
[quote who="Franco fx" reply="14" id="3684183"] I hate Iceland and I don't want to trade with them or have diplomatic relations. I wish we would send the Mississippi National Guard and a flat bed truck to invade Iceland. [/quote] Agreed. They are a minor civ and shouldn't be allowed to join the United Nations. ;-) Seriously though, I'm glad they changed minor civ. It was way too easy to exploit them. I'd be fine with an option...or not. Os2wiz, please rethink how you
In my last game, the AI attacked from 3 directions. It certainly looked like it was specifically flanking me to get around my main fleets (and eat my asteroid bases). I've not used military bases before because a ) I haven't needed to and b ) their description is vague. Do they add their weapon and defense values to ships in their zoc? Also Admin points are precious on large maps... But no use when I'm dead. I'll try the freighter strategy. I've had a trading AI declare
I'm looking for suggestions on how to play vs Godlike AIs. I tend towards large maps with many opponents and prefer conquest victories. I don't get to play often so starting a new game is rare. Ive played vs one difficulty higher than normal without a problem and am looking for a challenge... Found it. My last game I was playing a custom xeno/slaver race - the social/research bonuses plus Slave Master citizens is crazy good! However I did choose one level of negative diplomacy t
[quote who="a0152570" reply="6" id="3683854"] excess production and research is carried forward so you are not losing points [/quote] Yes, they are, but those points aren't helping you get ahead on the current turn: the early colony ship, research tech, or wonder. Like most (it seems) here, I'm playing stock and hope Stardock implements a balance change in a future update. [e digicons]:-"[/e]
[quote who="a0152570" reply="4" id="3683849"] There is a mod in the forums that changes the exponent on pop from .5 to .75 which gives a big bump to production [/quote] The problem with that is the game needs to be rebalanced for the increased exponent. Among many issues, a straight raw production increase makes more buildings/tiles/research complete in one turn, reducing your effective production per turn. As a rough example: if my planets have 60 social construction and my
You aren't wrong - for most races, spending the tiles to increase population is the wrong strategy. The only way I've seen it be even slightly efficient is combining some form of integer morale building with a large % increase. The easiest I know of is entertainment centers + intimidation centers (malevolent). The ICs give 20% morale + 50% per bonus level. One or two adjacent ECs or planetary tile bonuses will allow populations above 30. That said, the population still probably isn't
I like some of this except for the morale penalty for unemployment. Morale is already expensive to maintain and creating a penalty like this could make certain planets, like farm focused, tough to use or balance. For the rest, I think the current secondary building % system is fine (too many integer buildings make for less interesting choices). I like the linear building effectiveness reduction based on available pop. It makes dumping your home world population int
I prefer very large maps with lots of planets as well. However, I've found that taking the first 2-3 picks (scientist/worker) and plopping them on your first major science/prod planet greatly helps your expansion rate. Yes, those picks can never be leaders, but later I'll do a quick math calc to determine when I can move the citizens off planet to gain the empire wide bonus. The early game gains, IMO, far outweigh the slightly lesser bonus later.
Completely agree. Very annoying in the late game when you are managing more spies.
I jumped straight into Crusade after a year break from GC3. The change can be overwhelming but believe me, it's all for the better. Here are a few basic Crusade tips: 1. Adjacency/tile bonuses are now far more important, especially on buildings that give +integer increases instead of +%. 2. Population is no longer king. Early on, higher population requires a large morale tile investment for a small benefit. Often not worth it until much later in the tech tree. Ci
While I understand your point, from a game balance perspective I have to disagree. Citizens are *powerful*. Here are my issues with it: 1. As mentioned above, the win-more factor. Gaining a citizen at 8 turns or even faster would be potentially game breaking. 2. Providing a bonus or penalty to citizen creation is something that a human player could easily plan for strategically. An AI would have a more difficult time. The AI for a 4x game is already complex. Adding citizen gen
1. v2.1: Stealing a specializiation tech that allows you to "skip" a tech seems to mess up future research. It also allows you to finish more than one tech when you try to fix your mistake. For example, I stole Worker Specialization in the Colonization tree. This is supposed to lead to both Advanced Construction and Xeno Resource Mining (XRM). Well, once I stole the tech, I researched Advanced Construction many turns ago...but XRM never showed in my list of available techs to resear
I definitely like the idea of trade-offs for adding multiple types of modules to a universal base. Perhaps allow a primary/secondary type for each base. The secondary type has lesser bonuses and reduces the primary bonuses by 10% or something. I could see mining/economy and mining/influence be quite useful. But maybe I just want to have my cake and eat it too. There's nothing WRONG with the current forced choice, I just choose one type 95% of the time based on m
[quote who="tid242" reply="24" id="3681302"] You know.. I'll just throw out there that I'm probably about the only person in the 4x universe that just never really got into Civ at all. Tried several (including the original) and just never really liked them very much. [/quote] You aren't alone. I've seen some let's plays of the various civ games and I just prefer the space setting.
[quote who="corgatag" reply="7" id="3681309"] I totally agree with OP. As of 2.21, the equation still sits at: Raw production = sqrt(Population) This hits diminishing returns way too fast. Examples: Three frontier colonies of 4 population each will out-produce, out-research, and out-tax a 25-pop core world easily. It only takes five frontier colonies of 4 population each to match a 100
Completely agree on the Starbase types. With limited administrators, you're incentivized to use starbases for mines. In my current game I have maybe 3 economic bases and 50 planets. The only reason I have any economic bases is because I could cover 5-6 planets with the extended range. I don't ever want to go back to the starbase spam days. But now, if I have to choose between a mine and an economic at the same spot, I choose mine every time.
Yep, playing release. Guess I'll hold off on playing synthetic then. Thanks!
So I started a Yor game and like everyone else hit the population wall. I thought to myself "I'll focus on population techs then multiply like rabbits!" Well, not so much. As far as I can tell, the first two Spark of Life techs did absolutely nothing. No reduction in build time or increase in pop built. Also, one of the techs allowed me to construct a building described as allowing the construction of new sparks. But... I already had that option, so why build the improvement? Wh