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President Jyrgunkarrd

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It's been a while since I last played with Xenoplague, so I gave it a go the other day.

The rework for how plague units evolve is horrible. It absolutely sucks; not only do you have to go wiki-hunting to even understand how the mechanic works, it is ridiculously underpowered. Xeno now now only lacks any T4 unit, making it scale poorly against other tech options, but they can't get access to their T3 unit until the game is pretty much over due to the way the hidden plague evolution mechanic works. You're stuck with pustules and destroyers for all of the game time that actually matters; Promethean players can have armies stuffed full of Phoenix Walkers by the time you get even one single Plague Lord.

The old mechanics were vastly superior and didn't require a wiki dive. Why on Earth were they changed?
 
What are you talking about? Xeno was buffed, not nerfed. Do you really have multiple phoenix walkers by turn 25? Phoenix walkers require 3400 research points, plague lords require 1820 research points.
 
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What are you talking about? Xeno was buffed, not nerfed. Do you really have multiple phoenix walkers by turn 25? Phoenix walkers require 3400 research points, plague lords require 1820 research points.
You can sink production into creating Walkers after you unlock them; Plague Lords have to be evolved using hidden plague evolution points that will be eaten-up by Pustule or Destroyer creation.


To get consistent Plague Lord production you have to track the hidden evolution points manually and then play tactical battles in a very gamey fashion to avoid creating Pustules / Destroyers.

Care to actually explain with numbers how this is a 'buff' to Xenoplague?


EDIT: I mean, if nothing else, things used to be simple and transparent: rank up Pustules to Prime to get Destroyers, rank up Destroyers to Prime to get Plague Lords.

Why was this changed? What was wrong with it?
 
All I can say - topicstarter is horribly bad Xenoplague player.
Turn 30 in multiplayer game
unknown-2.png
 
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You can sink production into creating Walkers after you unlock them; Plague Lords have to be evolved using hidden plague evolution points that will be eaten-up by Pustule or Destroyer creation.


To get consistent Plague Lord production you have to track the hidden evolution points manually and then play tactical battles in a very gamey fashion to avoid creating Pustules / Destroyers.

Care to actually explain with numbers how this is a 'buff' to Xenoplague?


EDIT: I mean, if nothing else, things used to be simple and transparent: rank up Pustules to Prime to get Destroyers, rank up Destroyers to Prime to get Plague Lords.

Why was this changed? What was wrong with it?
Zaskow provided you a screenshot of MP game.
I am SP, but here are my answers.
1. When playing normal Xeno games (diplomacy is enabled, AI is not modded) I have so many units that I barely build any units, the upkeep becomes huge quite fast. It is not rare for me to have negative income despite killing first AI around turn 20.
2. No. The points are distributed automatically and having pustules/destroyer does not hurt, those are amazing units too.
3. It is a buff because now:
a) you start with pustule
b) you don't need to research tech for pustules
Probably you are missing something, but core mechanic hasn't changed, pustules are still upgraded to destroyers, destroyers are still upgraded to plague lords. I even had some fun fights where I got a destroyer directly, the obtained pustule was upgraded instantly.
 
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I do not recall the mechanics ever being changed, nor have I ever had trouble getting Plague Lords. And I am not some PvP monster...

I feel like someone saw a guide telling them they needed to micromanage evolution points and didn't realise that it was BS.
 
I do not recall the mechanics ever being changed, nor have I ever had trouble getting Plague Lords. And I am not some PvP monster...

I feel like someone saw a guide telling them they needed to micromanage evolution points and didn't realise that it was BS.
But you do have to micro-manage them.

The game tracks points in the background; every 10 points you get a pustule, every 14 you get a Destroyer evolution and every 18 you get a Plague Lord evolution.


The game checks after combat if it can trigger any of the effects, from most expensive to least expensive, and then cashes-out the points.

This makes it ludicrously hard to actually trigger a Plague Lord evolution, in my experience. Obviously there's some extra trick I don't know about and/or Zaskow is posting fake screenshots.
 
The game tracks points in the background; every 10 points you get a pustule, every 14 you get a Destroyer evolution and every 18 you get a Plague Lord evolution.
This was the old way. It has been buffed since then so that spawns/evolutions require the same points and evolution is prioritized. Wherever you're getting your information from is out of date.

Literally straight from the game's resource editor, where you can edit the points required for spawns/evolves:
1615955696079.png
 
that's what the system has always been to my knowledge, as sins says the "rework" was shifting things so it's more favorable towards getting higher evolutions. so i'd be fascinated to hear what OP thinks the "old" system was and why they think it used to work like that
 
that's what the system has always been to my knowledge, as sins says the "rework" was shifting things so it's more favorable towards getting higher evolutions. so i'd be fascinated to hear what OP thinks the "old" system was and why they think it used to work like that
EDIT: I mean, if nothing else, things used to be simple and transparent: rank up Pustules to Prime to get Destroyers, rank up Destroyers to Prime to get Plague Lords.

Why was this changed? What was wrong with it?
 
I am not sure if Zaskow replies, but here is a short version of strategy to have so many plague lords: infect every unit (Amazon are the best for that), rush plague lords tech, use hero-related Xeno doctrine.
 
Agreed. Xenoplague is one of the most snowbally factions, but important is how you manage it.
- research the plague Lord tree as the very first tree. At most get the Xenografted Muscles, because these spike your infection when used on Pustules/Destroyer
- research the doctrine that increases the points gain while you have heroes. Put a few heroes together with only Xenoplague units.
- preferably attack biological units. Try to focus things you can actually infect instead of waging war against Autonom.
- wile fighting, you may need to manually fight to infect as many opposing units as possible.
- it helps extremly if you starting hero has the 'Xeno melee pack'. Once you have Plague Lords tech, you also get 'Malady' weapon unlocked. Thats a very powerful sniper weapon.

Thats my rundown. Though truth to be told, the beginning can feel tedious. I often need to manually fight in order to preserve my pustule, since AI likes to charge into the enemies and kill it off. Research is actually the most important for Xenoplague, you don't need as much production because you don't need to build any units (ideally), and not as much Energy at the beginning either (since again, you don't build units).
DISCLAIMER: I am not an expert. Its just how I play this faction, and I had good experience playing this way.
 
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Xeno muscles mod is a big deal if you are a melee faction. It gives infection chance to melee attacks (and a level of stagger, suck it Celestians). Its trivially easy to build up an army of plague monsters as Assembly, Kir'ko or Oathbound.
 
Xeno muscles mod is a big deal if you are a melee faction. It gives infection chance to melee attacks (and a level of stagger, suck it Celestians). Its trivially easy to build up an army of plague monsters as Assembly, Kir'ko or Oathbound.
I used to think this way, but then changed my mind. Xenoplague parasite + plague pods is a real game-breaker (faction does not matter, it works even as Vanguard). It is AoE healing on cooldown and AoE infection with stagger and respectable damage, you are always at max HP and you infect everyone from range 4. I put the combo on all non Xeno units (Xeno units are equipped with just plague pods because they are already Xeno).