You're gonna need to provide some concrete examples to back your points up because I do not understand how you got to several of these conclusions.
- Tall empires can assign a governor to all their major planets, and a scientist to all their major research planets, simply because they have fewer planets.
- The exploration phase goes on longer because there are fewer scientists surveying and exploring hyperlanes, from all sides.
This doesn't seem at all optimal to me. If anything this seems like purposefully tanking your empire's unity economy. Having an overwhelming amount of level 1-3 governors with basic traits (the traits get more powerful the higher leveled the leader becomes, veteran traits are introduced at 4, destiny traits are at level 8) doesn't seem very advantageous. If you have 50 planets, it's better to have a few high level governors on your most productive planets to maximize their output with governor traits and let the other planets of the sector benefit from the skill level bonuses (2% resources per jobs, -2% empire size from pops, -3 crime per skill level). If you put governors on all the planets of those sectors, those governors override the sector governor's skill levels (but it allows you to have traits. More beneficial for smaller empires). For example, if you have a sector with 3 planets, and the capital has a level 10 governor, and the two other planets have level 1 governors, those 2 planets are missing out on 18% resources per job, -18% empire size from their pops and -27 crime.
My last 3.7 save had around 15 sectors, 100 colonies, around 20 fleets, and around 1700 empire size after aggressive compression, removal of all districts that weren't relevant, consolidation into ringworlds, selection of traditions/perks that decreased sprawl at the cost of other things, etc. I'm spending around 20k unity per month on edicts (just running every ambition), but generating 60k unity, so it's fine. I've ascended 3 ecumenopoleis and 6 ringworld segments (so far, IIRC).
If I had redone that in 3.8, I would instead have better tradition picks, 20% more pops (because I can spread all my pops around and use regular research labs instead of cramming everything into ringworlds for 4.5 growth on every planet), double the research (because every planet is ascended, so metallurgists will have 90% upkeep reduction, every researcher will need only .5 CG, etc.). And I can directly integrate all my vassals because their crappy sprawl inefficient planets don't matter. And triple that research again, because I'm no longer paying 3x research costs due to 1700 empire size and megacorp (1+1.6*1.25).
Hiring 50 governors could cost me another 3k unity per month, maybe. I'd have to spam Leadership Conditioning a few times to get there, otherwise it's around 1500. But doing so would reduce my unity spent on edicts from 20k to 3k.
Or, I could stay within the leader cap and get a few destiny traits that give me +35 research each (compared to my 100k+ research, which would go to the equivalent of 600k if I hired 50 governors instead). If I'm clever about the early game, I may be able to get destiny traits on my leaders anyway before going all the way to zero empire size (and zero leader XP). If I'm
very clever, I may be able to get Gray Eminence councilors, and not have to even hire 50 govenors: 4 Gray Eminence councilors and 6 other governors also gives -100% empire size, while staying within the cap.
The numbers are all huge because this is me facing down the third 25x crisis (the save I have on hand), but the math is the same if you have 600 empire size and are making 10k research. 35 research of each type vs. tripling your 3x research. Going to 0% empire size is always optimal; paragons can't compete.
While this is a very optimal method of handling scientists, I would argue that the scientist spam in early-game we had before wasn't very fun either. I think having more options and decisions to make in a strategy-based game is essential to what makes strategy games fun. If there's only 1 really viable way to go about early-game, that's not very strategic. I still think having 2-3 scientists for exploration is probably a decent starting amount and the cap just prevents the spam and keeps it at that more reasonable number.
Sure. The scientist spam wasn't super fun. But this is so much worse
Which custom art for event generals were deleted? Generals are much more useful than they were before because for several reasons.
1. Generals focus on more than just army now. They can get traits related to starbase defense now. For example, there is a veteran trait that gives extra defense platforms and a 15% bonus to defense platform hull strengths. Or a destiny trait that makes researchers on a planet produce 10% more (along with giving army health). Or council veteran traits that improve spying and vassal loyalty. They are much more versatile than before.
2. Generals have traits that make army invasions much more appealing. From pilfering resources to stealing tech.
3. Several council seats can be filled by both admirals and generals, so if you don't want to/don't need another admiral, you can use generals and have them for planet defense/production or other uses. Alternatively, some seats can only be filled by generals so the same as above.
This update made generals near worthless, if you play the game as intended (staying within the cap). You have only 12 leaders. Will you spend one on a general that does nothing 90% of the game, but save you around 300 minerals in armies every time you invade (to total maybe 60k minerals throughout the entire game), or will you choose a scientist to assist research who cranks out an extra 300 research every month for the entire game?
I'm saying they
effectively removed generals from the game, except for roleplay. In the same update that they added custom art for renowned general leaders, and added a bunch of new traits.
1. The traits focused on starbase defense would be really cool if they didn't use a leader slot. But giving up 1 of your slots for +1 DP cap and 25% hull in a single system is not a good trait, by several orders of magnitude. You could just buy a few extra destroyers and park them in the system every time the DPs get wiped out and achieve the same thing. So maybe 300 alloys every time the starbase gets annihilated in a war. This is, of course, assuming your general ever gets high enough level to get those traits in the first place.
2. That would be very hand if you were constantly invading and re-invading planets. Assuming, of course, your general lives to get high enough level to get such things.
3. In what world would you ever both be constantly going to war (and therefore have the general be useful), but not need another admiral? Those council seats that are taken by generals only
are a legitimate use of generals, yes. But it's effectively a tax.
This seems like unjustified dev bashing when you say pettiness but don't clarify how it's petty.
I said that because the first 3 bullet points are completely game breaking issues that remove huge swathes of other game systems just by existing, were extremely obvious to anyone who thought about the math of the new features for about 20 seconds, and yet made it to live anyway. They're major issues. The latter are not major issues, hence "increasing pettiness".
How/what traits are doing -100% empire size?
How/what is doing -90% ship build cost in relation to habitats?
50 governors and the Aptitude tradition tree or 5 Grey Eminence governors (or any linear combination thereof).
Governors get traits which reduce ship build cost. 3 planets in a system and an easily available agenda is enough to get to -90% ship build cost in the first decade. So Void Dwellers/systems like Trappist get it for free, as does anyone who builds two habitats in their capital (or one, in a system with 2 planets). Councilors get similar traits, so eventually you can do this in multiple systems throughout your empire (though it takes a bit longer).
Fairly certain this is incorrect as it is a starting ruler trait in the script files which means only the ruler should be able to get it. In fairness to you, the latest patch might have fixed that so that probably was unintended behavior which means that this was an actual issue and has since been resolved.
No. It's available to any councilor.
While you can micro that, I think you're exaggerating how big of an issue this actually is. Blockers are generally cleared only once per planet which means if you've cleared all the blockers on your planets this is a non-issue. It also doesn't require that many clicks compared to everything else you're clicking in the game.
Sure. This is a petty complaint, especially compared to the above.
I'm not sure which civic you're talking about but if you're talking about Vaults of Knowledge your statement ignores several benefits.
1. It gives +1 leader starting level and +1 effective councilor level so your councilors start as if they're treated as level 3.
2. You've ignored the fact that nearly every spot a leader can fill, they have a bonus that scales by their skill level. The extra level means they do more than just the trait by itself.
Also, it's not clear how an extra leader level is related to going above the cap and how that is an issue. If you're trying to say that the cap is preventing the leaders from being fully taken advantage of with all the bonuses, civics and traditions, then I reiterate my point from the first post I made.
"Otherwise without leader cap, Unity spam could overtake research rushing as having as much Unity as possible and a governor on every planet and a scientist assisting research on every planet and an admiral for every fleet accelerates wide empires without restraint."
Again in fairness, the cap might be too stringent and I would suggest that it would be considered that some mid/late-game ways of acquiring some more leaders be implemented. It looks like 11 is the maximum leaders you can have by late-game (including traditions and oppressive autocracy civic), and I think a number closer to 12-14 maximum (with all bonuses) would probably be better.
I'm not ignoring them. I'm just pointing out an easy to spot, contradictory bit of design in the newly released content. Being able to pick traits is a core feature of the expansion. The new civic which is meant to lean into that doesn't let you pick your traits. Note that I'm not complaining about Heroic Past (which just gives you a free trait, but doesn't cost you the opportunity to pick one later).
+1 level is good. Obviously it's immediately useful. But the fact that they don't let you pick the level 2 trait means you're actually getting worse leaders in the long run because of both the missed opportunity to pick a better trait and the way that undesirable trait picks lock you out of others. Granted, it only applies to basic traits. But considering that that includes things like Spark of Genius, Meticulous, or Logistic Understanding, that matters.
It relates to going above the leader cap because +1 level (with a bad trait) is an unambiguously good thing if the leader was never going to get to level 2 anyway (or, rather, would take forever to go up each level because you're reliant on Leader Conditioning). That's an exception to the rule.
I will state I do think salvager's effects have been on the weak side since they were introduced. I think there are some more non-warfare effects that could be used to improve it. (The Scrapper leader trait that grants alloys might be a good jumping point to build on).
They are significantly weaker now that you have only a finite number of scientists, and sparing one (especially a high level one) to go scan random debris in the middle of a war zone is probably a very bad idea, even with the civic.
You can certainly field more than 5 if you're a heavy-science based empire. That being said, I won't deny that scientists have an insane number of roles to fill and that's something that might be worth consideration in future balancing and tuning. The devs have previously stated their intention to do so even before the release of the DLC so I think the pettyness comment you've made above seems out-of-touch.
Ok. 6, or 8. Or as many as you like, if you go over the cap and cease to care about the budget at all (though your scientists will be crappy and low level, and therefore mostly useless for assisting detection, in that case). But if you play within the cap, you have a very small number of scientists, and all of them are precious, which was my point.
The devs have not stated their intention to increase the cap. In fact, they have explicitly stated that they have no intention to increase the cap, because they know better than us what's good for the game, and we're just complaining because it's a big change. I suspect they'll walk that back at some point, but as far as I know, the most recent communication is "we're not increasing it, this design is better".
Edit: they did, in fact, walk it back, and sooner than I thought.
I would be pleased if they reworked several systems to require less direct scientist intervention. That would be wonderful. But "don't criticize the way the game currently is because it might possibly be fixed (though they haven't said so) at some point in the future" is nonsense. We raise complaints about things that are broken
so that they will be fixed. I expect a large number of these complaints to be alleviated, eventually. But they haven't been yet.
I don't understand what your complaint here is. The Discovery tree got rebalanced because there isn't as many leaders (and thus scientists now). Science and tech production is still insanely powerful in general. In the theoretical 100 planet example, you would naturally have more tech worlds which the tree now improves all of them. If anything, I'd say Discovery is more powerful than it used to be because of this fact. Tech rushing is still powerful, and the DLC hasn't changed that and if anything, has enabled more efficient ways of pulling that off. This is why the leader cap is so valuable and requires a lot of attention.
I'm referring to the scientist assist research specialist class. It's great once you get ringworlds. But before that (or if you play now-optimally, totally ignoring sprawl), it's useful only for small empires or the start of the game.
This is, indeed, the least major issue. I can see how someone could disagree that this is an issue at all, even in the current build.
It does need revisions and the devs have already stated that they will do so. And whenever a DLC is released, there's always patches dedicated to getting it closer to a comfort zone for most of the players as well as resolving bugs.
I hope it gets major revisions. But some of these revisions seem like they will require rewriting entire systems whose very basis was flawed.
And, again, "you shouldn't criticize it in the present because it might be fixed in the future" is nonsense.
None of the points that you mentioned above have clarified why you believe it doesn't make individual leaders matter.
Leaders are much more powerful now. Leaders are much more limited now and stand out more. Leaders have backstory attached to them. Leaders have events tied to them now. Leaders have their own UI for the events tied to them now so you can clearly see the leader in question. Leader classes have been rebalanced and do much more than they used to (generals are especially relevant now).
Leaders are much more individually powerful if you play as intended. Leader are 10x more powerful than that, though individually meaningless stat sticks, if you completely ignore the cap and leave all your leaders as faceless level 1 mooks for the entire game.
The best way to use leaders now is the "hire to 50 governors, ignore leaders for the rest of the game" strategy. Under this strategy, leaders do not matter.
This strategy/exploit/whatever you want to call it was obvious the instant they showed it a 2 second flash of the Aptitude tree in the livesteam, and was repeatedly pointed out when they did the dev diary. They have made vague rumblings that that particular issue is being addressed, but I have a sneaking suspicion (based on their previous "fixes") that that means they're going to slap a 90% cap on it, as if making it
only reduce your 2000 size empire to 200 is really going to fix the problem.
And the 90% reduction in ship build cost makes that pale in comparison.
The cap is a soft cap, it's okay to go over it a bit just like it can be okay to go over 100 empire size or over your naval cap or even over your starbase cap. The benefit of a soft cap is that it requires players to make a decision on 1) Is it worth it? and 2) How far over do they want to commit?
There is no decision, beyond roleplay. "Do I want a pretty picture next to my ruler's stat bar because they're level 8, or do I want my empire to produce 10x as many alloys and as much research?"
The intention of the soft cap is to give players some latitude on weighing the disadvantages with the advantages. Eventually the disadvantages scale to where it outweighs the advantages. That's the point. You've made no clarification on why players are supposed to ignore the content of the DLC. Traits are still amazing, and leaders are much more powerful.
The intention failed. The advantages only stop outweighing the negatives when you literally run out of sprawl to remove.
I hope it's fixed. I love the idea, and I was optimistic basically right up until release because the issues were
so obvious that I assumed they had workarounds in place, but they just weren't mentioned in tooltips. What you're seeing here is frustration, because I really, really wanted this to be good.
Before the release, after their livestream, I said something along the lines of "I'm very confused. The systems they're building seem so cool, but the things they're doing with them are so wildly unbalanced". Currently, I'm still in the "wait and see" phase.
.png){kind=avatar}
