Hive/Machine Worlds in 2.2 seem a bit...underwhelming

[FiddleSticks96]

Although I have not yet played 2.2 for obvious reasons, I have been keeping a close eye of the various youtubers who have been showcasing their early access gameplay. One thing I have been curious about in particular was how Ecumonopolis/Hive/Machine Worlds would function in 2.2. For those of you who don't know yet, the bonuses of these various specialized planets boils down to how they handle districts and resource production.

Ecumonopolis are hyper-specialized worlds that can't produce certain kinds of resources in any meaningful amount, such as food, but make up for it by being really good at producing more specialized resources and getting access to four special Arcology Districts that provide lots of housing, which in turn allows you to support all those extra jobs your densely populated city-planet will have.

Hive/Machine worlds on the other hand ignore the normal limit of how many energy/mining/agriculture districts you can normally build on any given planet, allowing you to build as many of a particular district that you want so long as you have enough district slots available. They also get a +10% bonus to resource production (Machine Worlds no longer get +20% resource production) while Machine Worlds cannot produce food at all (although a Machine Empire is unlikely to care about that) and its pops use 10% less housing. They both also remove all special planetary modifiers that provide special resources, so you don't want to make just any planet into a Hive/Machine World.

I'm not saying that Hive/Machine Worlds are bad, but I was expecting them to be a bit more unique. Perhaps a special district that can only be built on said worlds in the same way the Ecumonopolis does? They can still be hyper-specialized to produce vast amounts of a single resource, but energy/mineral/food worlds are already doable in the game as is, these worlds are just a bit better at it and you don't really have to do that anyway. You can just always use the +10% resource bonus as is. I don't know if Gaia Worlds still give a +10% resource bonus in 2.2, but if they do then that makes Hive/Machine worlds even less special.

I don't think that the bonuses themselves are bad or sub-par, its just that these rare and special planets just don't feel, well, all that special or unique. Even the flavor description of Hive Worlds even says that "Any beings not part of the Hive that set foot here will be attacked by the very terrain itself." That sounds like a great opportunity to add some sort of defense bonus to Hive Worlds, such as +50% Defense Army Damage, but no, that doesn't appear to ever come up again. Maybe I'll be surprised this Thursday.

There is no greater purpose to this thread. I'm just venting some mild frustration and wondering if anyone else thinks Hive/Machine Worlds don't feel as special and unique as Ecumonopolis Worlds.

 

[Hyomoto]

I don't know, your description makes them sound pretty unique. I'm imagining a world of industry without the need for nature, and how alien and wierd that is compared to my planets of farms and science. I mean, NO district limit is an interesting proposition. My only thought is the housing bonus seems weak. It reminds me of Futurama where Fry moves in with Bender and its a tiny little closet-sized space because robots don't need that much room. Only 10% less housing? Maybe balance is important but I'm like let's see a 50% bonus.

 

[pryr]

More serious cut on housing needs will make it much better. And maybe on amenities too.

 

[Methone]

I don't know, your description makes them sound pretty unique. I'm imagining a world of industry without the need for nature, and how alien and wierd that is compared to my planets of farms and science. I mean, NO district limit is an interesting proposition. My only thought is the housing bonus seems weak. It reminds me of Futurama where Fry moves in with Bender and its a tiny little closet-sized space because robots don't need that much room. Only 10% less housing? Maybe balance is important but I'm like let's see a 50% bonus.

Well I mean, I imagine drones already use less housing than normal. The housing bonus is probably like "We can provide power to recharging drones faster, so recharge stations take up less space a bit."

 

[FiddleSticks96]

I don't know, your description makes them sound pretty unique. I'm imagining a world of industry without the need for nature, and how alien and wierd that is compared to my planets of farms and science. I mean, NO district limit is an interesting proposition. My only thought is the housing bonus seems weak. It reminds me of Futurama where Fry moves in with Bender and its a tiny little closet-sized space because robots don't need that much room. Only 10% less housing? Maybe balance is important but I'm like let's see a 50% bonus.

More serious cut on housing needs will make it much better. And maybe on amenities too.

As I understand, Gestalt empires already use 50% less housing than normal empires, so they should already be more densely populated as is. The no district limit is still restricted by planet size, just in case you misunderstood that. I do see what you're saying, but a Ecumonopolis gets FOUR unique districts that can only be built on a Ecumonopolis where as Hive/Machine worlds don't get anything beyond a small resource buff and more freedom in how many of a certain kind of plain old boring district they can build.

I was imagining a Hive World building some bio-themed districts, like some massive burrow complex replacing the city district, and Machine Worlds building some truly strange districts, kind of like the Geth server-cities in Mass Effect.

 

[Hyomoto]

Th

As I understand, Gestalt empires already use 50% less housing than normal empires, so they should already be more densely populated as is. The no district limit is still restricted by planet size, just in case you misunderstood that. I do see what you're saying, but a Ecumonopolis gets FOUR unique districts that can only be built on a Ecumonopolis where as Hive/Machine worlds don't get anything beyond a small resource buff and more freedom in how many of a certain kind of plain old boring district they can build.

I was imagining a Hive World building some bio-themed districts, like some massive burrow complex replacing the city district, and Machine Worlds building some truly strange districts, kind of like the Geth server-cities in Mass Effect.

That makes sense then. Honestly, machine worlds sound pretty cool. Not to try to detail concerns, just from my perspective the only thing that would irritate me is they didn't have unique art.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

I just hope that Machine Worlds at least have sound now and that the annoying bug that causes their city portrait to move half-way off the diplomacy screen is fixed.

 

[fishworshipper]

As I understand, Gestalt empires already use 50% less housing than normal empires, so they should already be more densely populated as is. The no district limit is still restricted by planet size, just in case you misunderstood that. I do see what you're saying, but a Ecumonopolis gets FOUR unique districts that can only be built on a Ecumonopolis where as Hive/Machine worlds don't get anything beyond a small resource buff and more freedom in how many of a certain kind of plain old boring district they can build.

I was imagining a Hive World building some bio-themed districts, like some massive burrow complex replacing the city district, and Machine Worlds building some truly strange districts, kind of like the Geth server-cities in Mass Effect.

It could be that what your looking for is given to the Machine/Hive empires from the start for use on all planets rather than just on machine/hive worlds. I don’t recall seeing anyone play a gestalt intelligence/hive mind empire in 2.2 yet.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

It could be that what your looking for is given to the Machine/Hive empires from the start for use on all planets rather than just on machine/hive worlds. I don’t recall seeing anyone play a gestalt intelligence/hive mind empire in 2.2 yet.

I haven't seen anyone play as them either; however, Aspec released a video showcasing Hive/Machine worlds and the districts were identical to a regular empire's districts save for the fact that they provided 50% more housing than normal. Hive Empires also appear to have a "Hive District" that provides +9 housing instead of a City District (I don't know how much housing a City District provides off the top of my head). These districts were not different after terraforming. To be fair, Hive Empires appear to get a special building called a "Hive Warren" which provides +12 housing once upgraded if I remember correctly. Still, there doesn't appear to be anything unique or special about Hive/Machine Worlds beyond the +10% resource bonus. I do hope to be surprised, but the point isn't that these planets aren't good, they are, they just aren't special.

EDIT: I went back and looked at the videos and it looks like the Hive resource districts provide +2 housing and +3 jobs, both before and after terraforming, and Machine resource districts provide +2 housing/jobs, the same as a regular empire. I won't speculate too far as to how housing is handled by gestalt empires, but I think then it is each pop only takes 0.5 housing. I'll know in 2 days, but it looks like there really is nothing interesting or even different about their districts.

 

[I_am_Nemo]

The real strength of machine/hive worlds comes when you look at building a tall empire. You can offsource your energy production (to some extent) to habs, and both energy and food can be moved to ringworlds. At that point, minerals become your true limiting factor. Normal empires will be limited by the number of mining districts allowed per planet, meaning that if you have a fairly limited number of planets, you could easily find yourself unable to scale up your mineral production long term in in order to match your space-based food/energy production. This goes double if your planets were lacking in potential mining districts in the first place.

Machine/hive worlds, on the other hand, can completely ignore this limitation and turn all their planets into 100% mining districts as they eventually move all their energy/food production into habs/rw. That's pretty powerful, and the flavor of basically turning a planet into a giant strip-mining operation is fairly unique in itself -- essentially the inverse of the Ecumenopolis -- and fits robots/hive minds quite well.

 

[FiddleSticks96]

The real strength of machine/hive worlds comes when you look at building a tall empire. You can offsource your energy production (to some extent) to habs, and both energy and food can be moved to ringworlds. At that point, minerals become your true limiting factor. Normal empires will be limited by the number of mining districts allowed per planet, meaning that if you have a fairly limited number of planets, you could easily find yourself unable to scale up your mineral production long term in in order to match your space-based food/energy production. This goes double if your planets were lacking in potential mining districts in the first place.

Machine/hive worlds, on the other hand, can completely ignore this limitation and turn all their planets into 100% mining districts as they eventually move all their energy/food production into habs/rw. That's pretty powerful, and the flavor of basically turning a planet into a giant strip-mining operation is fairly unique in itself -- essentially the inverse of the Ecumenopolis -- and fits robots/hive minds quite well.

My focus isn't so much on the numbers but on the interestingness of these special worlds themselves, which have no real uniqueness like the other special planet types do (unique districts/buildings for Ecumonopolis/Habitats, size 50 worlds for ringworlds, etc...). Also, megastructures are built with alloys now, not minerals. To be fair, more minerals means more alloys, but a Matter Decompresser fixes that with its +1,000 mineral production.

 

[Twogs]

The ignoring of district limiations is something unique. And pretty strong too.

So I don't quite get the problem here

 

[FiddleSticks96]

The ignoring of district limiations is something unique. And pretty strong too.

So I don't quite get the problem here

Because more of the same isn't interesting. It might be powerful, but power isn't the same as "not boring." A little bit of flavor goes a long way.

 

[Tyrannical Prince]

I agree. I think Hive worlds and Machine Worlds aren't interesting. Ecumanopolis is interesting. It removes the 3 base production districts (energy, Minerals, Food) and replaces them with 3 higher production districts (Alloys, Unity/Amenities, Consumer goods). I would like to see Hive and Machine Worlds be distinct like that.

Hive worlds could replace its base production districts too. Perhaps instead of Energy, Minerals and Food, they produce Alloys, Naval Capacity and Society Research. You could also allow hive districts to increase administrative cap by 1(per district).

Machine worlds could be distinct too. Perhaps they could produce Alloys/Engineering Research, Energy/Physics Research and Star base capacity.

There really is just a huge number of possibilities to make these ascended worlds far more interesting

 

[Twogs]

I think you two are underestimating what the hive and machine worlds can do now.

No other world could have 25 mining districts for example. Yes that is a huge advantage with "mining world" modifier and other stuff

 

[FiddleSticks96]

I think you two are underestimating what the hive and machine worlds can do now.

No other world could have 25 mining districts for example. Yes that is a huge advantage with "mining world" modifier and other stuff

I understand that. I recognized how powerful 25 of a single district could be from the get-go. I'm not saying that Hive/Machine worlds should to be more powerful, I'm saying they should to be more interesting, more special. They should have some flavorful interestingness that the other special worlds have. A bonus to ground defenses because "Any beings not part of the Hive that set foot here will be attacked by the very terrain itself." is interesting. Uniquely named districts with their own unique descriptions are interesting. Building more of the same is not interesting.

 

[tobias.mb]

While I understand the demand to make them unique, I'll probably prefer them over ecumenopolis'. Remodeling your empire in the mid-late game to make effective use of ecumenopolis' might become annoying. For hive- / machine- worlds you can without problem simply terraform everything.

 

[Twogs]

I understand that. I recognized how powerful 25 of a single district could be from the get-go. I'm not saying that Hive/Machine worlds should to be more powerful, I'm saying they should to be more interesting, more special. They should have some flavorful interestingness that the other special worlds have. A bonus to ground defenses because "Any beings not part of the Hive that set foot here will be attacked by the very terrain itself." is interesting. Uniquely named districts with their own unique descriptions are interesting. Building more of the same is not interesting.

With that logic ringworlds are not unique.
They can just build a lot of cities, farms and generators.

 

[Tyrannical Prince]

With that logic ringworlds are not unique.
They can just build a lot of cities, farms and generators.

Ring worlds aren't supposed to be unique in terms of districts. They're supposed to be massive which they are (50 districts per section).

 

[FiddleSticks96]

With that logic ringworlds are not unique.
They can just build a lot of cities, farms and generators.

Exactly, but in this case, a ringworld is purposely designed to be a really big but otherwise normal planet, whereas a Hive/Machine world is supposed to be a planet so integrated with the gestalt consciousness that it could be considered a part of it. They are supposed to be alien, different, interesting...