Autocratic government "once per ruler" special units/buildings are hilariously bad, made me laugh

[Yenzen]

Inherent bonuses of all governments are about the same power wise.

Democracies have mandates, plutocracies have agendas, both useful for the empire entire. Plutocracies get to pick which bonuses will apply to the side for 40 years at a time. Meanwhile democracies and autocracies will even out by random chance, in fact I would argue that the democracies are better off as they can pick leaders will good traits that will have a chance of being elected.

Skill level doesn't matter for the ruler, so there's no boost of the long rulership either.

The very specific power of autocracies have nothing to do because it'll affect at most one planet.

 

[TallTroll]

Oversized ships are useful in the early game. +happiness is *always* a good thing, even if it just stops you having problems on a given planet. Oversized stations could be situationally useful, letting you more strongly fortify a border you know is likely to be stable for a long time, like with your best ally, or a Fallen Empire. And you could always select the "Fleeting" trait for a race designed to churn leaders, and squeeze as much value as possible from the bonuses

 

[AG_Wittmann]

For the military special units.

Flagship should provide damage bonus to the assigned fleet like 15% more damage, but increase the maintenance of this fleet by 10%, because, the fleet need more security around the flagship. And only one flagship per fleet is allowed.

Oversized military station could provide 15% border extrusion for the system, but will then cost like 20 energy and 10 minerals to compensate this. Only one station per system.

Special army unit, hmm, maybe use it like a guard of honour, it give all deployed armies on this planet 5% more damage in attack and defence and 10% more morale. Only one unit per planet allowed.

 

[Poekel]

Democracies have mandates, plutocracies have agendas, both useful for the empire entire. Plutocracies get to pick which bonuses will apply to the side for 40 years at a time. Meanwhile democracies and autocracies will even out by random chance, in fact I would argue that the democracies are better off as they can pick leaders will good traits that will have a chance of being elected.

I'd say that the special effects of governments are mainly balanced. The special buildings are more of a mid/late game advantage. Democracies do have an advantage in colonization expansion but this comes at the cost of less production early and mid game (can't just build stations everywhere) and in the late game the mining/science mandates often can't be used at all.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Oversized ships are useful in the early game. +happiness is *always* a good thing, even if it just stops you having problems on a given planet.

+happiness is actually only a good thing if you don't have to spend a tile to get it.

The only tile based building that's worth building is the paradise dome because you can usually replace a farm with it so you were going to have so spend that tile anyway.

Anything else, you will always get more of whatever resource you wanted by building that type of building.

It's hard to make them even give a net resource increase to the planet as a whole, because you're paying 2-6 energy to get a 6% increase. They're basically always going to give you less energy than you started with and quite unlikely to give their energy cost in other resources back either.

The Monument to Purity is OK because it has no upkeep, but if you want a particular resource you'll still get more of it by buiilding that building type instead.

+happiness buildings are a crisis management tool, not a planet optimisation tool.

TBH they could all do with changing.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

+happiness buildings are a crisis management tool, not a planet optimisation tool.

I do my best to frontstock on happiness whenever possible- I don't use it as a productivity booster, I use it as a means of delaying and preventing ethics divergence and factions. Losing a sphere of influence and the multiple systems it contains is a much bigger price to pay than losing a tile or two.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I do my best to frontstock on happiness whenever possible- I don't use it as a productivity booster, I use it as a means of delaying and preventing ethics divergence and factions.

That's what I mean by crisis management.

Pops only need to be over about 35% happiness to reliably not join factions, if a happiness building will do that, then build one.

If it won't, build the resource you want most of instead.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

That's what I mean by crisis management.

Pops only need to be over about 35% happiness to reliably not join factions, if a happiness building will do that, then build one.

If it won't, build the resource you want most of instead.

Or, you know, build it beforehand so you're already prepared in case something happens...? Frontstocking, remember.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Or, you know, build it beforehand so you're already prepared in case something happens...? Frontstocking, remember.

You don't need to though? These are predictable events like "I just conquered this planet, it is unhappy now". You don't need to build happiness in case people become critically unhappy in the future, because you can predict how and when that's going to happen.

 

[BlackUmbrellas]

You don't need to though? These are predictable events like "I just conquered this planet, it is unhappy now". You don't need to build happiness in case people become critically unhappy in the future, because you can predict how and when that's going to happen.

There's a lot of things that can cause unhappiness and a lot of little things that can build up on each other.

Not everyone minmaxes or games the AI or whatever- setting up happiness stuff beforehand to make sure you've got a buffer (and slightly increase resource output) is sound if you don't want to deal with it later.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Not really. The only thing that can produce critical levels of unhappiness that isn't some event related thing is Xenophobia. Which you'll only get by surprise from ethics divergence, and if you've got a lot of that you're probably individualist anyway so all your policy happiness problems are reduced, and because it's only happening to one or two pops per planet they just generate a weakass faction that won't do anything.

 

[Gwen Blanket Knight]

If each unique building gave 6 of a type of research and maybe also 2 of a resource they would be a bit better without much change.

 

[Yenzen]

I do my best to frontstock on happiness whenever possible- I don't use it as a productivity booster, I use it as a means of delaying and preventing ethics divergence and factions. Losing a sphere of influence and the multiple systems it contains is a much bigger price to pay than losing a tile or two.

Thing is, I agree about using happiness to manage stability, but it's is far more efficiently managed on a systemic level, at least as far as I'm concerned, while the special buildings are not that good.

Communal trait, direct or theocratic democratic forms, even various edicts are better ways for me to handle angry natives than singular buildings.

One of the most OP setups I've tried is a fanatically spiritualist theocratic republic with a charismatic population and active happiness edicts. Even newly conquered natives were "meh" about the new leadership - at worst.

The idea of the buildings isn't bad, but I think 20 years pulses of "grand imperial projects" that have limited uses and with 2-3 randomised options would be better.

Like a ruler could have an option, depending on ethics to in one instance declare one of:

"The frontier is forgetting where they came from!" - opens up 3 x ethics divergence + happiness buildings.

"The state of the navy is unacceptable!" - can build 3 new ships of the greatest size that will have 50% more health and damage output.

"The pathetic Xenos in our empire are not meeting production quotas!": Can build 3 x special 4 mineral + 4 energy work camps only workable for slaves.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Even if they just gave a couple of one resource, like the Paradise Dome, they'd be a useful build in most cases.

A proposal might be:

Each produces +2 of:

Paradise Dome: Food
Hyper Entertainment Forum, Virtual Combat Arena: Energy
Visitor Centre, Symbol of Unity, Monument to Purity: Society

Additionally they give happiness to pops based on pop ethics, ranging from -5 to +15 from fanatic opposite to fanatic same. So eg a Virtual Combat Arena gives a Fantatic Pacifist pop -5 happiness, a pop with no opinion +5, and a Fanatic Militarist pop +15.

 

[Gwen Blanket Knight]

I like your idea.

 

[Madzai]

You don't need to though? These are predictable events like "I just conquered this planet, it is unhappy now". You don't need to build happiness in case people become critically unhappy in the future, because you can predict how and when that's going to happen.

And 10% penalty for war? It's predictable or not?

 

[GloatingSwine]

And 10% penalty for war? It's predictable or not?

Usually pretty predictable because usually you'll be the one declaring it. If you've been fleeting up adequately the AI won't have the guts.

 

[Galverizer]

My first cruiser is always a oversized cruiser with 90% dmg reduction for the armour. When you got like 5k fleet and get that ship that takes up the fire it helps a lot.
Normal 72% armor gives the oversized 90%.

 

[scaper12123]

The concept does need work. Quite honestly the game could completely drop the "once per ruler" thing and get along just as well. It's obviously meant as a counterpart to the influence earnings you can get from having a democratic empire. It would be better if you were given a certain, extensive task that would reward a large resource reward.

 

[panda_Express12]

Autocratic governments are already some of the best governments. The specials are just little added bonuses. They are not supposed to be radically game changing.

I'd argue that the only truly bad special is the Elite Army. The rest are decent or very good depending on your strategy.