Fallen empires are too weak.

[Colonizor48]

Seriously these dues have been implied to have existed for thousands if not milions of years. Yet they have no traditions and no tech better then what you can get in 2300 with a tech rush besides there automation and ships. These guys should be scary. Legit scray. Having godlike abilities if they awaken as any civilization millions of yearts old would have. Like megastrcutures orders of magnitude bigger then what you would have, ringworlds, eucemenopoli, eucemenopoli ringworlds, tones of megastrucutres in general.

My ideas: Tones of damaged and partially working megastrucutres throughout FE space, repairing them would be there first priority whne awakening, including some megastrucutres that the player can only get via reverse engineering or via minor artifacts, but that would be made harder due to
:FEs now have enigmatic engineering, their tech cannot be reverse engineered normally unless you sink alot of research points into it or discover it independently via minor artifacts. To account for the fact that these buildings would be resources form nothing they would have 2 modes, 1 mode where they would add jobs and give you a metric tone of resources but take actual upkeep, and one where they give the same amount of resources as an FE with no jobs. Using automation excesivly may cause your empire to start to collapse due to decidence and eventually turn you into a younger fallen empire that is weaker then the actual fallen empires. Also they would take dark matter as upkeep. Also the fallen empires wont like that the younger races are using their tech and may take out some of their long forgotten, top secerate tech that you dont have to wipe the floor with you and if you are not careful you may destroy yourself with normal FE tech it(accidents and stuff)
FEs now have other cool ships besides their nomral ones with different roles, such as carriers, artillery, escorts, etc along with new dark amtter bsed weapons that could not be reverse enginnered except via event with a huge research cost and/or minor artifacts.
FEs now continue to research tech at a slowed pace due to decidence(they would have a modifier that granted -25% ship weapons damage, -75% resources from jobs, and -75% monthly resources, and -80% research speed before awkanening, yet they would still be able to soundly beat most early and midgame empires with these modifiers and even in endgame would probably require a coalition agianst them. They would start with ~ 1m fleet power each on normal settings). They also start with all traditions unlocked(beyond normal slot limit) several unique ascension perks

Xenophobic FEs, upon awakening can become the crisis via an event and have a chance of becoming fanatic purifiers via that same event(they wouldnt have menicing ships but stronger verisons of FE ships which would take a mix of minerals and alloys) If this happens every other fallen empire will quickly awaken, putting aside ancient rivalries and try to rally the galaxy around defeating the xenophobic FE. The xenophobic Fe in term will bring out some of that afformentioned long lost tech and will actively research new exclusive techs just for it and get several bonuses. If the xenophobic fe gets too strong after that the non xenophobic FEs will try to create a coalition of every non genocidal empire in the galaxy to defeat it. Keep in mind other crises and other crisis empires can happen alongside this and if a war in heaver starts before this they empires during the war will not try to beat the xenophobe FE and focus on eachother until they take over enough of the galaxy at which point a temporary truce will be signed and they will cooperate agianst them

FEs in general would have more unique character depending on ethics rather then feeling the exact same with different buildings and stuff.


Feel free to psot your own ideas int he comments.

 

[ASGeek2012]

The problem with beefing up the strength of FEs is that, sure, they'd give an experienced player a run for their money, but anyone else would be steamrolled.

I mean, you have some valid points that perhaps their tech should be a little more exotic, and the idea of having ruined megastructures that they need to repair is not a bad idea. I also take issue with the idea that the only way the normal players can gain their tech is through reverse engineering, Perhaps it should be a combination of that plus having completed so many levels of repeatables. That would make it some effort on the player's part to achieve the tech but preserve the original idea of being able to use the FE's own tech against them.

I would also welcome a greater variety of FE personalities. Maybe drop the whole idea of them having just one fanatic ethic in favor of something more nuanced, perhaps similar to other AI players but they have access to ethics that the other players do not.

 

[Bezborg]

I agree with you.

To the "FE will steamroll a casual player"... losing a war and becoming a vassal is not the end of the world. You live under their boot and wait for an opportunity. Life goes on. All part of the show.

 

[Ayetach]

I agree with you.

To the "FE will steamroll a casual player"... losing a war and becoming a vassal is not the end of the world. You live under their boot and wait for an opportunity. Life goes on. All part of the show.

I dunno man, just finished a multiplayer game prematurely after a FE rolled me and another friend that had formed a federation in a total war wipe out. We had just recovered from a khan that spawned between us and a serious shake up with power vacuums in our corner of the galaxy. RNG can be a big factor.

 

[Bezborg]

I dunno man, just finished a multiplayer game prematurely after a FE rolled me and another friend that had formed a federation in a total war wipe out. We had just recovered from a khan that spawned between us and a serious shake up with power vacuums in our corner of the galaxy. RNG can be a big factor.

A lost game is still a game

 

[Arrnea]

I agree with you.

To the "FE will steamroll a casual player"... losing a war and becoming a vassal is not the end of the world. You live under their boot and wait for an opportunity. Life goes on. All part of the show.

Except for genocidals, where they can't become vassals. They just get deleted.

 

[sillyrobot]

I agree with you.

To the "FE will steamroll a casual player"... losing a war and becoming a vassal is not the end of the world. You live under their boot and wait for an opportunity. Life goes on. All part of the show.

Awakened make vassals. Straight FE humiliate. I, for one, wouldn't want to under a state of perpetual humiliation losing my best admiral every 10 years starting around 2300. That's the typical date the Spiritualist declares war on me fairly consistently and once they start the war cycle it only ends with their destruction. They keep declaring war until I manage to start one before them.

If you make the FE too tough, a player will simply not engage. There's no point. There's barely a point to engage with them now. I typically engage with 2: the Spiritualist since they declare war on me and the Xenophobe if the demilitarized zone contains assets worth claiming like a special anomaly, a ruined megastructure, or the like.

The Xenophiles and Materialists get completely ignored unless they ask for something.

 

[hart30]

If fe and afe would be linked to the crisis strength slider, their starter fleets would be way bigger. Currently once an fe awakenes it needs a lot of time to build the missing ships, as it depends in the ai difficulty and therefore has a bigger capacity for ships the higher the difficulty while the awakening fleets always have the same size.

 

[Aepdneds]

If fe and afe would be linked to the crisis strength slider, their starter fleets would be way bigger. Currently once an fe awakenes it needs a lot of time to build the missing ships, as it depends in the ai difficulty and therefore has a bigger capacity for ships the higher the difficulty while the awakening fleets always have the same size.

I would prefer a separate slider.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

I agree with you.

To the "FE will steamroll a casual player"... losing a war and becoming a vassal is not the end of the world. You live under their boot and wait for an opportunity. Life goes on. All part of the show.

Except that I have never seen surrender and then vassalage as the wargoal. It was always total war. Not sure if this is a bug or intentional.

I do agree that FE are pushovers and need a buff / Change. Preferably also a slider for their strength to not take advantage of new / less min-maxing Players.

 

[Calvax]

Seriously these dues have been implied to have existed for thousands if not milions of years. Yet they have no traditions and no tech better then what you can get in 2300 with a tech rush besides there automation and ships. These guys should be scary. Legit scray. Having godlike abilities if they awaken as any civilization millions of yearts old would have. Like megastrcutures orders of magnitude bigger then what you would have, ringworlds, eucemenopoli, eucemenopoli ringworlds, tones of megastrucutres in general.

I'm not against the idea of FEs having things like unique megastructures, or ship types, the same way as they have unique buildings. But something important to consider is that Fallen Empires are *Fallen*. They're not at the height of their technology anymore, their populations are ignorant and exist in highly ritualised, tradition worshiping cultures. They don't know how a lot of their machinery works, it just does. And if any of it breaks after a thousand years of continual operation they can't replace it. There's even some flavour text for this if you take the psionic path and get the event to probe the mind of an FE citizen.

Any improvements to them I hope keep that theme in mind. They're meant to represent the scifi trope of a formerly powerful culture that is now rotten from the inside.

 

[Troyen]

Except that I have never seen surrender and then vassalage as the wargoal. It was always total war. Not sure if this is a bug or intentional.

I've had the Xenophobe FE try to humiliate me (well, my idiot AI federation leader who provoked them) in Lem and that was not a total war, so it is possible. I've also seen some AEs vassalize neighboring AI empires under Lem.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

I've had the Xenophobe FE try to humiliate me (well, my idiot AI federation leader who provoked them) in Lem and that was not a total war, so it is possible. I've also seen some AEs vassalize neighboring AI empires under Lem.

Humiliation is the only possible wargoal for FE yes.

The original point was vassalage which is only available to AE.
And I'm those it's not possible to surrender since it seems to be a total war and not subjugation. At least that is how it is in my games.

 

[PerishSoftly]

Humiliation is the only possible wargoal for FE yes.

The original point was vassalage which is only available to AE.
And I'm those it's not possible to surrender since it seems to be a total war and not subjugation. At least that is how it is in my games.

IIRC the Awakened Empires have a special Subjugation CB that is combined Total War/Subjugation. If you surrender, you should only be vassalized yeah? Or did that change at some point? It's only if you try to fight back that they start tearing chunks out of your territory.

 

[rubert]

At very least Fallen Empire (and awakened empire) fleets should scale based on the game difficulty and maybe even Crisis difficulty. Even vanilla Grand Admiral AI can usually fight FEs on mostly even ground before reaching default endgame year so they might never have chance to awaken.

 

[Calvax]

At very least Fallen Empire (and awakened empire) fleets should scale based on the game difficulty and maybe even Crisis difficulty. Even vanilla Grand Admiral AI can usually fight FEs on mostly even ground before reaching default endgame year so they might never have chance to awaken.

Yeah thinking about AE power I'm pretty sure they were more of a threat several updates/DLCs ago. As the game has updated they've been left with the same economic and military power.

 

[Lykus Cerebros]

IIRC the Awakened Empires have a special Subjugation CB that is combined Total War/Subjugation. If you surrender, you should only be vassalized yeah? Or did that change at some point? It's only if you try to fight back that they start tearing chunks out of your territory.

You should be, but either that isn't working lately or they have more than one and I have only seen the total war.

 

[FluffyVanguard]

You should be, but either that isn't working lately or they have more than one and I have only seen the total war.

The way I understand it is this: The AE declares war with its special Subjugation CB, which is not a TW CB. So normal non-TW rules should apply. BUT: the defending empire also has to select a CB and the only CB available against an AE is End Threat. This not only turns the war into a TW, last I checked it also prevents the defender from surrendering and accepting subjugation.

It kinda ruins the whole AE subjugates galaxy, grows decadent and is overthrown by its subjects flow that could happen in earlier versions.

 

[Colonizor48]

The problem with beefing up the strength of FEs is that, sure, they'd give an experienced player a run for their money, but anyone else would be steamrolled.

I mean, you have some valid points that perhaps their tech should be a little more exotic, and the idea of having ruined megastructures that they need to repair is not a bad idea. I also take issue with the idea that the only way the normal players can gain their tech is through reverse engineering, Perhaps it should be a combination of that plus having completed so many levels of repeatables. That would make it some effort on the player's part to achieve the tech but preserve the original idea of being able to use the FE's own tech against them.

I would also welcome a greater variety of FE personalities. Maybe drop the whole idea of them having just one fanatic ethic in favor of something more nuanced, perhaps similar to other AI players but they have access to ethics that the other players do not.

ai rework

I'm not against the idea of FEs having things like unique megastructures, or ship types, the same way as they have unique buildings. But something important to consider is that Fallen Empires are *Fallen*. They're not at the height of their technology anymore, their populations are ignorant and exist in highly ritualised, tradition worshiping cultures. They don't know how a lot of their machinery works, it just does. And if any of it breaks after a thousand years of continual operation they can't replace it. There's even some flavour text for this if you take the psionic path and get the event to probe the mind of an FE citizen.

Any improvements to them I hope keep that theme in mind. They're meant to represent the scifi trope of a formerly powerful culture that is now rotten from the inside.

once they awaken that would go away. They would have rediscovered their technology AND have started working on new technology before awakening. Awakening should be a gradual process and you should get indicators that a fallen empire is about to awaken. Maybe seeing some of the ships from the event.

 

[Calvax]

once they awaken that would go away. They would have rediscovered their technology AND have started working on new technology before awakening. Awakening should be a gradual process and you should get indicators that a fallen empire is about to awaken. Maybe seeing some of the ships from the event.

I don't think that's a better situation honestly. I think it's more interesting that the awakening represents the start of their potential return to power, not the end of it. This is why they can expand and build new colonies but still can't replicate their homeworld resource generation buildings. They might have had a cultural shock, and found the "print" button on their autoshipyards, but they're still not near the peak they were.