I've been playing the game a lot. I've got a good feel for it.
This will be my first post. A long one, I like to write, be
warned.
Now its a post about the problems with the game. I do really love
the game, but it is not perfect. Read this in the spirit of
improving an already-fantastic game. I could easily write ten
times as much about all the things the game got right.
Before I start, let me rant: I *HATE* the bug in which clicking
to select a ship doesn't unselect the previous ship. I'm so tired
of having my ships be sent across the galaxy when I wanted a
different ship to go. I've gotten to always selecting a planet
before a ship to ensure the old one is unselected. But then I
forget and practice my swearing. Did I mention how much I *HATE*
this bug?
Anyway, onto the game inbalances. I'm not saying these are the
only imbalances, if they are fixed maybe there are others. But
these are what I see from my play style. And I've been playing on
Obscene difficulty, with the occassional Suicidal game. Well,
when the difficulty is set properly. If you change the number of
races and forget to reselect your difficulty, the races don't
properly inherit the correct intelligence, and you can play a
game that said it was Obscene only to find out it was really just
Normal because the new races you added all were added at the
easiest difficulty setting.
The first problem is Xeno Ethics. The computer just will not
research it, ever. And I'll never trade it, even though the
computer constantly asks for it. Its so powerful that getting it
is why playing on Obscene or even Suicidal difficulty is easy; if
you live to get it and the tech it unlocks, before the computer
can wipe you out with its huge bonuses, you win.
The weapon techs it unlocks are too good. They make conventional
research, and armor research, pointless. The Psionic Missile tech
is actually well-balanced; its better for its era, but regular
research beats it not too far down the tech tree. And it costs a
lot of production for the damage it does. The next step up, the
two mass drivers techs, are too good, about 2-3 points of damage
too high each. I'd say the earlier tech one should do 5, compared
to the missile's 6 damage, and the later tech 7. Finally, the
beam weapon, Psyonic Beam, its simply broken. 9 hull space (for
tiny, a bit more for bigger ships) for 12 damage. That's 1.33
damage per hull in an era when conventional weapons are 0.33 to
0.44 damage per hull. It takes to the very end of any of the
weapons trees to get better, and its not even that expensive for
the damage it does (150 cost for 12 damage.) Further weapon
research is unnecessary because ships equipped with that weapon
will dominate the whole game. Defense tech is likewise useless,
even building an anti-beam ship it'd take to the late-game just
to get say 24-30 beam defense, and 36-48 attack psi beam ships
will still shred them (and they get just sick with militaristic
picks and resources). Those ships that are 3 or 4 years old will
still beat top-of-the-line ships using only conventional tech.
If one side has the tech and the other doesn't, the side with it
wins. Otherwise, whoever attacks wins. I'm guessing the good side
gets similar defensive techs, being an evil conqueror I'd not
know. See below why defense isn't nearly as good, though perhaps
Xeno defense is. Even if it is, it still renders the normal tech
tree irrelevent and that's a real shame because conventional tech
is well done.
Xeno Ethics also leads to Concepts of Malice in which you get the
Mind Control Center. 100% economics boost empire-wide. Is it
supposed to do that? It reads like it should do something else
entirely, and the bonus itself feels like it is supposed to be
just on the one planet (only the planet it is on lists the
bonus). Anyway, it currently gives 100% to every planet, the one
build completely overhauling any economic problems. Artificial
Slaves are nearly as powerful, especially combined with the MCC
to pay for that extra production. That sort of empire-wide bonus
is just too much. Since only one player can make them, in an even
matchup (say human-vs-human if we were to get multiplayer which I
personally couldn't care less about but I understand some people
do), whoever gets it is probably going to win. Against the
computer, both togethor basically offset the computer's huge
production advantages at the high levels. These are why
obscene/suicidal difficulty really isn't, it's just about living
long enough to get to them. With ships sporting Psyonic Beams and
the wonders to pay for and build them faster, the computer has no
prayer. Simply making the AI prioritize these techs and buildings
would make the difficulties properly, um, difficult. Heck, just
making it research it ever, at all. If the computer prioritized
it, with its incredible bonuses, its going to get the MCC and AS
first, its million ships will all be sporting flashy new psyonic
beams, and the player (and non militaristic AI players) will all
be dead meat. But then again, the high difficulties should be
harder and harder to win. Suicidal difficulty, it sounds like it
should be almost impossible to win.
Next, the AI. Ok, I know, there is only so much you can do. But
still. Here's just a few small tweaks that shouldn't be that
difficult to code. Have the AI build sentry ships, tiny/small
with a single weapon (to kill transports), several engines, and
sensors and spread them around the empire. No sneaking up. Next,
make the AI see the value in multiple-engine ships for high
mobility. Finally have the AI actively seek out and attack fleets
it has the advantage against. I've seen it leave a transport
alone and often it won't engage a fleet when it is of comparable
strength, giving me the first shot and the win. The AI also does
not build enough transports and sends them piecemeal during a war
rather than building up several, and escorting them to a planet
in one big stack (fleeting the transports right before the
invasion). It instead adds a couple tiny ships to a fleet with
one transport and calls that an 'escort'. It should be keeping
the transports unfleeted (so if attacked, only one dies at a
time) and stacked with its main battle fleets, escorting them
right up to the target planet. I also say the AI vastly
overvalues Orbital Fleet Managers, but I understand simply
building them and stacking ships on a planet is a lot easier than
an AI that aggressively protects its planets and territories as a
player does. Still, it cripples small planets with only a few
tiles by using one for this.
The AI also builds up its planets poorly. I put one or two farms
on every planet (except the size 4-5 ones). Take advantage of the
empire-wide morale boosts as you tech, plus use an entertainment
module or two on the bigger planets. This lets you pump the tax
rate way up. I am at 49% in the early game, 59% midgame, and 69%
by late game. Of course with its huge bonuses, money isn't really
an issue to the AI, it probably can run its production slider at
100% the whole game. It could run enough of a surplus to start
rush buying things. For a human player, rush buying is terrible
except to start the game, just too expensive. Its way better to
make sure you have the infrastructure to be able to spend
whatever money you make each turn. Spend zip on social when you
aren't running extra cash, as all it does is increase production
capability you can't pay for anyway. Use social specialize for
planets that need to build up (i.e. ones building something other
than factories/labs) and pump up social spending only in the
early game, when mass producing new teched buildings, rushing for
a key wonder you think the AI might get first, or when you just
completed that MCC and suddenly have a huge income surplus. But
even beyond the money concerns, population equals invasion
resistance. An AI with top-notch soldiering, like Drengins, with
a big planet can be a tough nut to crack. 5K planets are just so
vulnerable. Finally, the AI doesn't understand tiles and tries to
specialize its planets. Which is bad. It shouldn't be, but the
game mechanics make it so. That leads to my next topic.
Planet development. So why isn't specializing good? It has to do
with the tile system and the relative value of them. Only huge
planets have the spare tiles to specialize. Planets are gimped if
they don't have 3-4 factories, a star port, 1-2 farms, 1-2 morale
buildings, and a lab or two. You need the factories to build
anything and upgrade them. Even if you wanted, let's say, an
all-lab planet, you still need plenty of factories to build those
labs, especially as the game progresses and labs become
expensive. Money is always good, you need to take advantage of
population via the farms for taxation and turning up the tax rate
needs the morale buildings (and its just too good to not do it.)
What good is filling up your planets with labs and factories (or
waste money on social spending to upgrade them) if you can't pay
to run your existing ones at full steam (i.e. 100% production
slider)? And both culture centers and trade centers are weak, as
I'll discuss, for particular reasons. Specializing doesn't kill
the AI because its massive production bonuses hide the issue. For
a human player, not having heavy production capability on a world
kills that world. Once you put all the basics in play, the planet
is 'balanced' not specialized and most planets have all their
tiles used up. Don't forget all the wonders taking tiles, there
just isn't any room to specialize.
Factories versus labs is important to analyze. Labs are simply
less useful than factories. Not useless, you want some, just not
too many. Why? The first reason is the slider system. A factory
gives its benefits to two of the three areas while a lab gives
its benefit to only one. Since they give the same production
points for equal tech, factories are simply better. If you ran
33% each slider (generally a poor idea), you'd get 66%
utilization of the factories and 33% of the labs. Labs simply
don't pull their weight compared to factories. But that alone
doesn't make them less useful. The second mechanic is that you
need factories to build anything, including those labs. The final
factor, and the biggest, is that clicking specialize research
lets you turn a lot of that factory production into research. You
do need a few labs, I guess your overall research capacity
figures into how much production gets transferred over. More than
one lab per factory even on your science world is a bad idea.
Heavy factory worlds with just a couple labs produce, with
research specialization, nearly as much tech as a full-blown tech
world with nearly all labs. Plus the all-lab world is going to be
way behind because it can't build or upgrade its buildings, and
as you tech up those just get replaced in the queue with more
expensive versions that take even longer so hardly anything gets
built. In other words, the factory world will do a better job,
even at research, than will a research world, and it also
produces ships and wonders! Labs need a big boost to be
competitive, and much lower cost. A player who thinks focusing on
labs should actually produce the best tech empire ought to be
correct. Currently, he is not.
Next, cultural buildings are terrible. Spend the tiles on more
factories, churn out constructors, and build influence starbases
for many times the benefit. On the other hand, trade buildings
are great in principle but are simply broken by cost. The first
few buildings, up until banks, are great investments. All the
structures get huge increases in cost, but factories and labs
come late enough in tech that your fledling empire isn't unable
to build them. For markets, the huge jump comes very early in a
normal tech progression, way before you can even think of paying
the now enormous costs. But you don't want to put off the techs,
they give empire-wide economy boosts. If you research the wrong
tech and don't adjust your planets' queues, your infrastructure
building simply grinds to a halt with banks then stock exchanges
filling up your queues. Top that off with stock exchanges
actually being a downgrade (their extras don't compensate for
less income, which is the real benefit of these things) and
markets are broken. Too bad, they are really darn useful when
they are cheap enough to actually build.
Let's talk about weapons, conventional weapons. Fixing the evil
Xeno weapons would make pursuing those trees useful. If all Xeno
techs had roughly the power of the Xeno missile, good but going
to get outdated, then the trees become useful again. The thing is
that beam trumps all. On an even tech comparison, missiles are
actually a little better than beams, more damage per hull space.
They are offset by bigger space so you often can't fit that last
one in, letting beams catch up. Except, beams cost so much less
to research that they will be several generations ahead, pulling
away the deeper in the game you go, making them far more
effective to research. And of course, beams get the godly psyonic
beam, so you'd be a fool to pursue any other line if you are just
trying to win. Mass drivers? They are just a joke. Not only do
they cost nearly as much to research as missiles, but they are
noticeably weaker than beams/missiles on an even tech basis. And
they are much weaker later in the tech tree. Make beams and
missiles cost the same to research and give a discount to mass
drivers, maybe 10-15% per tech to offset their weaker stats. Any
of the three weapon lines should be a viable strategy. Currently,
beams are just better.
On the subject of defense, the comments from the developers show
they greatly overvalue it. Defense only works at its full impact
against one of three weapon types. Moreover, it costs about twice
as much per point of defense to equip your ships. This isn't
trivial. If I build a conventional, late-game ship with 30
firepower that will cost me 210-250 or so production. To give the
ship 30 defense, we are looking at 500-600 production. So the
offensive player will have a lot more ships. And of course, Xeno
weaponry makes conventional defense research a big waste of time.
All of these factor togethor to make defense decent in the early
game and then a complete waste of time from about the mid-game
on. Once Xeno weapons appear, you are just wasting your time on
defense. Its unfortunate, because high defense has the potential
to be very powerful, in fact too powerful which is probably why
all the drawbacks. I'm not sure how to fix defense without
overpowering it. Maybe just drastically reducing its cost would
be enough. Or maybe more. But it needs something.
Finally, I want to address the scoring method. I can't keep up on
the multiverse, which I'd like to, because the scoring favors
artificial methods of boosting score which I won't do - they are
just lame. I see players with games on huge maps where a player
takes 30 years to win, researching everything and building a huge
population I suppose, just endlessly clicking 'end turn' to amass
an enormous score. And difficulty appears to make no difference,
they get these scores on Beginner. They'll get 100-150k a game. I
play on Obscene difficulty and win in 5 years and get 20-40k a
game depending on map size. Winning quickly shows more skill, it
should be rewarded not penalized. Population and Tech should not
be how score is calculated, it should be number of turns taken
for the map size and method multiplied by a big modified based on
difficulty. Tech victory should give the highest base score to
compensate for how long it takes. Alliance? Ask someone else, I'm
a warmonger. Conquest victory should be next, as it takes a while
to scour the map. The easiest is influence victory. In fact, a
conquest can always be done quicker as an influence. Once you
have 75% of the map influenced, make peace and click end turn 10
times and you win.
Well that's it. For now. I have to get back to kicking some alien
butt. Because despite these flaws, its still a fantastic game. I
especially love designing ships, telling a story through their
descriptions, its got me hooked. Time to return to Terra Prime,
the Terran Empire needs my direction!
