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Thecarlocarlone

Second Lieutenant
49 Badges
Apr 6, 2020
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Some origins get choosen only for RP reasons, while others can get picked with a strategy in mind (AND for RP reasons).
In my opinion, ALL origins should have both great RP potential and great strategy potential for the long run, either through long lasting bonuses or through a short and beneficial buff that puts you ahead of others.

1) Galactic Doorstep: Basically useless. Even the RP potential is weak. If this origins will let you unlock a discount for building new "portals". Imagine an empire that uses these "doorsteps" consistently.

2) Prosperous Unification: Weak RP potential but good bonus that will let you have a good accelleration in the early game. I'm happy that the bonus will expire, since it was really powerfull, I would prefer a longer expiration date. Maybe to counterbalance its expiration, the bonus will carry on other planets after colonization (and still expire with the main buff)?

3) Lost Colony: Great RP potential. The bonus is weak but long lasting. I feel like it needs some changes but I don't think it is necessary

4) Calamitous Birth: Not my personal favorite, but I think it's a pretty good origin for both RP and strategy. Could be better? maybe. It is necessary? maybe not.

5) Mechanist: Good RP potential. The long lasting bonus is irrelevant. Robots will get unlocked by other empires in no time, so you don't even get any acceleration in your development. Your civilization was using robots since the steam age! can't you get something more? Solution in my opinion: make the robots customizable since the start like it happens with syncretic evolution or necrophage. The tech for robomodding would get unlocked later by other empires, making the difference between who chose this origin and who didn't.

6) Syncretic Evolution: Specialized pops since the start? where do I sign? The only problem is the impossibility for your "secondary" species to work all jobs, making it a risk if they "owerbred" your main species. The origin is fine, I would still change so that your secondary species CAN work some (not all) specialist jobs. I mean, if droids can do it, they should be able to do it.

7) Tree of Life: OMG, where do I sign? the only bad thing is that this is for hivemind only. Actually I would make a change: an icon that shows form the outliner if a planet doesn't have a three of life. Actually I would also like an outliner that shows if the main planetary building can be upgraded, but we can only desire.

8) Resource Consolidation: good

9) Life-Seeded: I have literally no idea why this is supposed to be powerfull or if there are startegies that go well with it AND can be supported by RP. I is good because you can have early access to advanced resources, however you should occupy 3 building slots on your main capital for this, and seeing how building slots got reduced and how your "main capital" will remain your only planet for long, I don't think it's a straight bonus.

10) Post-Apocalyptic: Riduculus. Yeah you could RP a civilization that got nuked into oblivion, but you could do somehting similar with remnants. Tomb worlds also got a huge nerf now that planetary capacity is a thing. How can we make it better? make it so your main species can get more traits than other species, both in "more trait points" and in "more traits at the same time". After all, radiations will make you evolve faster.

11) Remnants: good.

12) Common Ground: where do I start? you have your starting habitable planets occupied, you have to "fight" for early expansion, and you get stuck in a useless federation which will only drag you down. Losing your garanteed habitable planets? fine. Fighting for early expansion is a big nono. Even if I "win" the competition, it would mean that my allies will be weaker. Also the Galactic Union federation is really bad: I know it's supposed to be the vanilla one, but there is absolutely no reason why you should ever form this kind of federation. Change how gaalctic union works, then this origin could maybe be worth something.

13) Hegemon: all the problems from common ground, with the exeption that an Hegemony is a better federation type. Also you can exploit this by kicking a federation member and conquering it, giving you a big jump start. I don't like exploit, but this one could also be RP so I'm good (faking friend to conquer once you have the technology).

14) Doomsday: challenging origin is challenging. Also it could be exploited hard if you are a good player.

15) On the Shoulders of Giants: RP potential on the roof. you basically have a "personalized" story about you. the bonuses you get are fine, so let's leave it like it is. Maybe adding some variation to the "story" like it happens with the L-gate, but that's all I have to say about it

16) Scion: who plays this? you know what? keep it. New player do need an easy mod to learn.

17) Shattered Ring: Equally powerfull and challenging (not as much as doomsday though). All the downside of playing life-seeded and way more pros, even for the late game.

18) Void Dwellers: I think this origin is good. All the problem you could have with it are strictly correlated with the habitats changes in 3.0. I would change how habitat works, this origin per se is fine.

19) Necrophage: really powefull if you play it well. Also really good for RP. I have nothing to say about it
 
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18) Void Dwellers: I think this origin is good. All the problem you could have with it are strictly correlated with the habitats changes in 3.0. I would change how habitat works, this origin per se is fine.

They did absolutely gut it with the new system though, and Lithoid Voidborn get a robot tech (powered exo-skeletons). I'd buff it slightly with perhaps +1 max districts only on the capital station.
 
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10) Post-Apocalyptic: Riduculus. Yeah you could RP a civilization that got nuked into oblivion, but you could do somehting similar with remnants. Tomb worlds also got a huge nerf now that planetary capacity is a thing. How can we make it better? make it so your main species can get more traits than other species, both in "more trait points" and in "more traits at the same time". After all, radiations will make you evolve faster.
Perhaps if you got Tomb World Habitability -- which gave you decent access to almost all worlds -- that might be sufficient to make up for your homeworld being junk.

A free bonus trait ("Survivor") which gave leaders +10 years to live and immunity to a few bad traits (Irradiated? Paranoid?) might be enough.
 
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9) Life-Seeded: I have literally no idea why this is supposed to be powerfull or if there are startegies that go well with it AND can be supported by RP. I is good because you can have early access to advanced resources, however you should occupy 3 building slots on your main capital for this, and seeing how building slots got reduced and how your "main capital" will remain your only planet for long, I don't think it's a straight bonus.
Could be good with something like Free Haven Civic, and a few Migration treaties with the goal of pulling in pops from other species that can colonize all the other planets in territory. See if you can get a Resort World to boost the immigration even more. Eventually go for Gene Modding so you can knock off that Gaia World preference.
 
18) Void Dwellers: I think this origin is good. All the problem you could have with it are strictly correlated with the habitats changes in 3.0. I would change how habitat works, this origin per se is fine.
I'm currently playing Void Dwellers for a first time in a while, and I've noticed some areas where they could be improved beyond general improvements to habitats.

  • They could probably lose their innate growth malus. The low carrying capacity on habitats is already hindering them.
  • The Trans-Stellar Corporations Tradition should add its extra job to Trade Districts instead of City Districts.
    • Of course, this is the direct translation of the current Tradition; we all know Clerks are meh. But at least now it'll do something for your habitats.
  • Techs that increase Housing from City Districts should instead increase Housing in Residential Districts.
    • This could potentially lock Void Dwellers out of getting Arcology Project.
  • Colonial Centralization should allow for Tier 3 capitals, since the pop requirement for Planetary Capitals is being reduced.
    • This would allow Void Dwellers to build things that otherwise require "Planetary Capital" and make more use of Techs that improve production at the cost of upkeep through the Capital buildings.
    • This could just be a general change to how Habitats work as well.
  • General Habitat Improvement: Give them the ability to designate Hydroponic Station, for increased food production.

I'm sure I'll think of more as my game goes on. I'm trying to do a pure Habitat run on this. No planets, but I might build some Ringworlds later. Unfortunately, the game is tempting me with the Boal and there instant Gaia worlds. For now, though, I'll just use that Relic for its extra pop growth speed.
 
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I'm currently playing Void Dwellers for a first time in a while, and I've noticed some areas where they could be improved beyond general improvements to habitats.

  • They could probably lose their innate growth malus. The low carrying capacity on habitats is already hindering them.
  • The Trans-Stellar Corporations Tradition should add its extra job to Trade Districts instead of City Districts.
    • Of course, this is the direct translation of the current Tradition; we all know Clerks are meh. But at least now it'll do something for your habitats.
  • Techs that increase Housing from City Districts should instead increase Housing in Residential Districts.
    • This could potentially lock Void Dwellers out of getting Arcology Project.
  • Colonial Centralization should allow for Tier 3 capitals, since the pop requirement for Planetary Capitals is being reduced.
    • This would allow Void Dwellers to build things that otherwise require "Planetary Capital" and make more use of Techs that improve production at the cost of upkeep through the Capital buildings.
    • This could just be a general change to how Habitats work as well.
  • General Habitat Improvement: Give them the ability to designate Hydroponic Station, for increased food production.

I'm sure I'll think of more as my game goes on. I'm trying to do a pure Habitat run on this. No planets, but I might build some Ringworlds later. Unfortunately, the game is tempting me with the Boal and there instant Gaia worlds. For now, though, I'll just use that Relic for its extra pop growth speed.
the pop stuff was balanced around the old building slot system. Honestly, before this update I would have rated them one of the two highest potential origins along with shattered ring. Regarding your colonial centralization comment, the tier 2 habitat control already does this. I would like to point out that last I checked the voidborne ascension perk was broken and did not allow for advanced housing buildings... and what's more- building slots now come at a super high premium for habitats because their housing districts don't get them more, voidborne doesn't currently add building slots like it's supposed to, which effectively hard caps habitat building slots at like 6 or 8. Advanced housing buildings, also, should be rebalanced around the new building slot economy, and so should be doubled or tripled in effect to be worth taking in any but the rarest situations or resort world
 
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the pop stuff was balanced around the old building slot system. Honestly, before this update I would have rated them one of the two highest potential origins along with shattered ring. Regarding your colonial centralization comment, the tier 2 habitat control already does this. I would like to point out that last I checked the voidborne ascension perk was broken and did not allow for advanced housing buildings... and what's more- building slots now come at a super high premium for habitats because their housing districts don't get them more, voidborne doesn't currently add building slots like it's supposed to, which effectively hard caps habitat building slots at like 6 or 8. Advanced housing buildings, also, should be rebalanced around the new building slot economy, and so should be doubled or tripled in effect to be worth taking in any but the rarest situations or resort world
Void Dwellers was one of my favorite Origins when they first came out. This is the first time I've played them since their non-Capital habitats got downgraded.

Good to know that the Tier 2 capital should allow me to build the appropriate buildings. Maybe something else is blocking me from doing so. Probably lacking the rare resources or something at the moment.

I can also confirm that on 3.0.3 at least Voidborne is unlocking the additional building slots now - or was of as last night. I started this game a few hours before the new beta update went through this morning. Hopefully that didn't screw anything up. I haven't built any housing buildings yet so I'll have to report on whether that got fixed later.
 
Some origins get choosen only for RP reasons, while others can get picked with a strategy in mind (AND for RP reasons).
In my opinion, ALL origins should have both great RP potential and great strategy potential for the long run, either through long lasting bonuses or through a short and beneficial buff that puts you ahead of others.

I agree! To me, less is more. Instead of buffing weaker origins, I think nerfing the others to an even playing field gives more options to play how you want rather than a set meta. My goal would be to have everything C-tier. I don't want super powered origins because then your start is ascribed rather than achieved. For me the benchmark would be Prosperous Unification.

1) Galactic Doorstep: Basically useless. Even the RP potential is weak. If this origins will let you unlock a discount for building new "portals". Imagine an empire that uses these "doorsteps" consistently.

Currently, F-tier. Discounted portals would be good or even faster build times. Perhaps that could be part of the dig site. Discover the tech as an option with like 10-15% of it already researched. Maybe have the trade empires use said portal for more trade deals/etc. Ideally this should be activated/utilized within the first 10 years before the galaxy is already fully taken/discovered by the other empires.


2) Prosperous Unification: Weak RP potential but good bonus that will let you have a good accelleration in the early game. I'm happy that the bonus will expire, since it was really powerfull, I would prefer a longer expiration date. Maybe to counterbalance its expiration, the bonus will carry on other planets after colonization (and still expire with the main buff)?

High C-tier. This is one of the top choices most rush down builds use. 20 years at increased production, higher pop etc. is crazy. Though this should get more because of the exploit with hegemon start. And the planet shouldn't be 16-20, it should be at least an 18. The bonus should only apply to the home planet as that's where the unification started. Easily unemploy the USELESS clerks to have them resettle for free to new colonized planets.

3) Lost Colony: Great RP potential. The bonus is weak but long lasting. I feel like it needs some changes but I don't think it is necessary

C-tier. Colonial Spirit is quite strong. Late game strong. There should be modifiers in the Advanced AI of the same species' opinion. Higher difficulties the group that left you behind will not like you. Leave as is.

4) Calamitous Birth: Not my personal favorite, but I think it's a pretty good origin for both RP and strategy. Could be better? maybe. It is necessary? maybe not.

C-tier. Pop growth evens out. All those mineral districts! colony meteorite. I think it could use a slight buff. Maybe with the -50% habitability have it also give more mineral districts.

5) Mechanist: Good RP potential. The long lasting bonus is irrelevant. Robots will get unlocked by other empires in no time, so you don't even get any acceleration in your development. Your civilization was using robots since the steam age! can't you get something more? Solution in my opinion: make the robots customizable since the start like it happens with syncretic evolution or necrophage. The tech for robomodding would get unlocked later by other empires, making the difference between who chose this origin and who didn't.

High C-tier. If you can get to droids quickly this gives perfect habitability colonization. Also, you're starting with organic and mechanical pops growing right away. Sure others can research into robots within several years with perfect rolls. I've done it in 2 research branches. But mechanists START there. Plus, there's a 2x weight modifier for Droids to be in the research options. If Materialist that's another x2. Droids can work any specialist job.


6) Syncretic Evolution: Specialized pops since the start? where do I sign? The only problem is the impossibility for your "secondary" species to work all jobs, making it a risk if they "owerbred" your main species. The origin is fine, I would still change so that your secondary species CAN work some (not all) specialist jobs. I mean, if droids can do it, they should be able to do it.

B-tier. You can choose which pop is growing in the Population page. Click the picture and lock the primary species. This origin you can make the same structure on all planets with high resource output from the servitude/slaves for basic jobs and specialized resource output from primary species. Great RP potential. I have the humans as Seville to a more advanced alien race. Rapid breeders and adaptable for serville and have them the ones growing pops with a few overseers of primary species on other planets. Or have them be the basic resource king. Even more insane, just make them slaves. Servile + slave + traits could be +35% resource output.

7) Tree of Life: OMG, where do I sign? the only bad thing is that this is for hivemind only. Actually I would make a change: an icon that shows form the outliner if a planet doesn't have a three of life. Actually I would also like an outliner that shows if the main planetary building can be upgraded, but we can only desire.

A-tier. Makes sense that it's hive-mind only. Machine empire would be beyond S-tier with this. No thanks. No CG needed. Easy to produce/trade for food. Hmmm. To make C-tier I'd lower starting pop amount to maybe 30. Possibly increase colony ship build time and also increase the cost to 1200. Normal it's 200, 200, 200.

8) Resource Consolidation: good

A-tier. Lower Capital Star energy output from 10! 10! Yes, that's 10. Make it 4. maybe 5. It's called resource consolidation, so maybe have a smaller starting planet. And I don't think all the building slots should auto be unlocked. Maybe less than 28 starting pops as opposed to the current 29.

9) Life-Seeded: I have literally no idea why this is supposed to be powerfull or if there are startegies that go well with it AND can be supported by RP. I is good because you can have early access to advanced resources, however you should occupy 3 building slots on your main capital for this, and seeing how building slots got reduced and how your "main capital" will remain your only planet for long, I don't think it's a straight bonus.

Low C-tier. Immediate access to 3 strategic resources. Size 25. Number of available districts. With a place like that of course it makes sense you would only have habitability preference for a Gaia planet. Migration treaty/robots. and colonization is far easier. Colonization should be challenging for a species leaving such a nice planet. I do think it could use some minor work. Perhaps a stability/happiness increase. Most home planets/capitals are a filler planet rather than a specialized planet. Maybe one or two more building slots. Or something like Colonial Spirit.

10) Post-Apocalyptic: Riduculus. Yeah you could RP a civilization that got nuked into oblivion, but you could do somehting similar with remnants. Tomb worlds also got a huge nerf now that planetary capacity is a thing. How can we make it better? make it so your main species can get more traits than other species, both in "more trait points" and in "more traits at the same time". After all, radiations will make you evolve faster.

G-garbage tier. Survivor tier.. +10 years and 70% habitability on tomb worlds. Woo...hooo. Garbage. Carrying capacity and tomb world districts. To fix this, they should get adaptive free, they survived an apocalypse. It thematically makes sense. They get one planet preference, that WAS their starting planet. Then the +10% habitability would make this better. Perhaps increase spawn of tomb worlds around the galaxy. Unlock some Expansion or Adaptation Tradition tree. Give higher modifiers for terraforming.

11) Remnants: good.

Low C-tier. So many blocked districts that the carrying capacity brings pop growth to a crawl. Once, and that's once, you get 1 ascension perk + domination unlocked + governor with that trait, you can clear blockers for next to nothing. That takes a while though. So my strat has been to colonize early and unemploy most the homeworld pops. I like all this. It makes it challenging yet rewarding. However, there should be a discount to time and cost for restoring ecu. Also should be more modifiers to the weight for research of anti grav and weather control like how mechanists get more modifiers for droids etc.

12) Common Ground: where do I start? you have your starting habitable planets occupied, you have to "fight" for early expansion, and you get stuck in a useless federation which will only drag you down. Losing your garanteed habitable planets? fine. Fighting for early expansion is a big nono. Even if I "win" the competition, it would mean that my allies will be weaker. Also the Galactic Union federation is really bad: I know it's supposed to be the vanilla one, but there is absolutely no reason why you should ever form this kind of federation. Change how gaalctic union works, then this origin could maybe be worth something.

G-garbage tier. A shame, as I'd enjoy trying a Star Trek playthrough. To make this less of a dumpster allies should start further apart so all can expand in their own direction. Losing habitable planets still. But the expansion limitation and territory limitation is quite significant. Perhaps have it where there's more hyperlanes from the federation systems if not have them further apart from each other. Do either and this becomes C-tier so that my allies aren't weaklings. I do think there should be SOME limit on expansion for choosing this, but not what it currently is.

13) Hegemon: all the problems from common ground, with the exeption that an Hegemony is a better federation type. Also you can exploit this by kicking a federation member and conquering it, giving you a big jump start. I don't like exploit, but this one could also be RP so I'm good (faking friend to conquer once you have the technology).

A or S in tier. Federation fleet. Federation bonuses. Option to swallow one empire and double pop with 2 big planets. You go one direction your other federation member goes another. Migration treaty for better habitability options. If you don't go the eating one empire strat, yeah, this is really weak. RP-wise it totally makes sense though.

14) Doomsday: challenging origin is challenging. Also it could be exploited hard if you are a good player.

F-tier. The malus from habitability/stability/amenities outweigh the % bonus to jobs, etc. Especially if a normal empire. And with the changes to limit on alloy buildings, can't rush a fleet to take/defend new territory. There shouldn't be a habitability malus of the % bonus should be greatly increased. building/district build speed should be greatly increased perhaps. It logically makes sense. The planet is doomed so people are motivated to form a colony ship faster, to get resources faster, etc. So this isn't exploited the bonus should depend on what type of empire (machine/hive/normal).

15) On the Shoulders of Giants: RP potential on the roof. you basically have a "personalized" story about you. the bonuses you get are fine, so let's leave it like it is. Maybe adding some variation to the "story" like it happens with the L-gate, but that's all I have to say about it

A-tier. All the sites. Easy to just sell the minor artifacts to supplement economy. The empire-wide modifier then the improved one. Free technology. To make C-tier, don't allow the empire to be evil with the end of the story, period. They get the boosted empire-wide modifier. That still makes this a C-tier. Otherwise, it's an A-tier. The snowball is insane.


16) Scion: who plays this? you know what? keep it. New player do need an easy mod to learn.

Sugar Daddy Tier. Keep for singleplayer sandbox mode. Make sure you change origin though if making custom empires to play against. I had a sandbox empire spawn in a game and after declaring war remembered they were scions...sucked. Loved that start.

17) Shattered Ring: Equally powerfull and challenging (not as much as doomsday though). All the downside of playing life-seeded and way more pros, even for the late game.

C-tier. Ringworld habitability (makes sense) with NO mineral production seems harsh. I do like that they are changing, but after a few transactions of selling food for energy for minerals the prices sky rocket. Still decent with migration/robots. There should be limitations for other empires otherwise this gives an unfair advantage. Hives and Machine Empires need limitations with this origin though. Machine empire it's an S-tier hands down.

18) Void Dwellers: I think this origin is good. All the problem you could have with it are strictly correlated with the habitats changes in 3.0. I would change how habitat works, this origin per se is fine.

A-tier, though you need to know how to play it. 3 habitats = 3x pops growing right away. Can easily turtle having entire empire in a small amount of territory with on par power of much larger territory-wise empires. Resource production is insane. Transit hub or democratic = pop movement optimization. to bring to C-tier, lower resource output per district a smidge or less pops.


19) Necrophage: really powefull if you play it well. Also really good for RP. I have nothing to say about it

S-tier. Busted. Like Syncretic, you can specialize the two species. But wait, there's more! Starting with 2. 2! Wait, really? Yes, 2 primitive worlds next to you. They can have super high pop. Even if they don't it's so much easier to conquer than to colonize. Species bonus of lifespan, fair, I say make it immortal. Resource output? Nope, drop that. Starting pop amount. Yep, drop that. Guaranteed primitives? Why? Why do you get that? How is that random? Maybe 1 primitive nearby. Maybe.
 
The origins are not supposed to be balanced. I think it is better that they are not. If you think it will make achievements too easy you can already do things like driven assimilator 5x primitive civs 0 AI empires.
 
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The origins are not supposed to be balanced. I think it is better that they are not. If you think it will make achievements too easy you can already do things like driven assimilator 5x primitive civs 0 AI empires.
Why? Why are they not supposed to be balanced? Just because? Yeah, you're right. Everyone in multiplayer games should just go for one meta build instead of allowing diverse options. That would be more boring.
 
Some origins get choosen only for RP reasons, while others can get picked with a strategy in mind (AND for RP reasons).
In my opinion, ALL origins should have both great RP potential and great strategy potential for the long run, either through long lasting bonuses or through a short and beneficial buff that puts you ahead of others.

1) Galactic Doorstep: Basically useless. Even the RP potential is weak. If this origins will let you unlock a discount for building new "portals". Imagine an empire that uses these "doorsteps" consistently.
In Single Player there's NOTHING wrong with Galactic Doorstep; yes you start with 28 pops, yes it has a different slow burner strategy to military rush empires, but if you are worried about starting from behind, then use scaling difficutly one level lower than you would otherwise.

As for multi-player the correct play should vary on the group you play with, if people are aggressive looking to war, then you need to be prepared for their rushes. OTOH if people want a fun social game, they may gang up on aggro players, it's what happens to pros in many games, they are marked by the general palyers, who team up on them.

GD has :

1) Events around the gateway, some gentle combat

Don't disband your fleet, keep the gateway guarded, be ready to rush forces back. I've also had rebel cultists to fight, but I'm not sure if that's not another event, rather than linked to the origin.

2) Some resources appearing and a dig site; 250 alloys on Admiral

3) BUT the key bonus is guaranteed early access to Gateway Activation and then the Gateway Construction techs.

How to take advantage:

What kind of empire uses diplo early game to stay alive, likes a small compact tall core empire, but builds a strong economy and becomes ultra-wealthy?

Megacorps ... you want gateways, wormholes, L-gates, Leviathans to exploit crises and create trading exclaves, so you are near your customers and can strike beneficial trade deals and build branch offices. Those unwilling to do business, like FE/AE tend to be visited by the Corp's special negotiations department, which can move around the galaxy at lightning speed, because rather than fighting stupid border wars, you built a network which your allies can use, while enemies suffer commercially and suffer poor mobility in comparison the the Corporate Trade League.


Why?

GD is more fun to play than Prosperous Unification, you COULD be steam rollered early on, so you need strategy and seek partners.
It's the opposite to CoM, where you look to fight early, take an alien homeworld, be perceived as galactic enemy #1 and discover everyone hates you.

Finally:

To me, looking for OP origins is self defeating, playing on Grand Admiral has no meaning if your start is cushy or if you are going to re-roll the galaxy until you have 2 easily defensible choke points. I try various origins, but the free Galactic Doorstep is the most fun, because it's NOT giving you a head start over the field.
 
You do understand that most people play single-player right? The game should not be balanced around a minority.

What's your data on that assumption? Also, this is useful for singleplayer. Think of newbie players. Not just yourself.
 
My take on all of this is that the way voiddwellers stands, it is difficult to find a use of space habitats in the new meta. I say, the logistic growth rate is an awesome addition, but space habitats for voidborn should have the old school linear growth rate, or allow this to be unlocked by a tradition. This would include a cost to get the potentially game change linear growth rate for SOME of your planets.
 
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A big change I'd like to see is for "Calamitous Birth" to be enabled for non-Lithoids.
The second I saw it I thought "oh neat, I can make Autons from Doctor Who", but nope. There's so many classic sci-fi stories where an alien lifeform oozed out of a crashed meteorite, but the meteor origin doesn't allow for the vast majority of them, and that feels like a missed opportunity.

Is it a useful origin? No. But it's got great roleplaying potential.
 
1) Galactic Doorstep: Basically useless. Even the RP potential is weak. If this origins will let you unlock a discount for building new "portals". Imagine an empire that uses these "doorsteps" consistently.
I think doorstep should give you a special project to learn how to activate gateways, either giving, or providing access to the technology to reactivate them, and a earlier shot at picking up the technology to build them.
2) Prosperous Unification: Weak RP potential but good bonus that will let you have a good accelleration in the early game. I'm happy that the bonus will expire, since it was really powerfull, I would prefer a longer expiration date. Maybe to counterbalance its expiration, the bonus will carry on other planets after colonization (and still expire with the main buff)?
standard start needs to exist, it shouldn't be the best, I don't think it needs changing
3) Lost Colony: Great RP potential. The bonus is weak but long lasting. I feel like it needs some changes but I don't think it is necessary
The ability to pick an empire to be their advanced would be cool even if it disabled achievements, I recently had a RP game where I force spawned Cerberus from mass effect as lost Colony and instead of using the Systems alliance as its advanced it created the Human Kingdom, which really hurt the RP I was going for
5) Mechanist: Good RP potential. The long lasting bonus is irrelevant. Robots will get unlocked by other empires in no time, so you don't even get any acceleration in your development. Your civilization was using robots since the steam age! can't you get something more? Solution in my opinion: make the robots customizable since the start like it happens with syncretic evolution or necrophage. The tech for robomodding would get unlocked later by other empires, making the difference between who chose this origin and who didn't.
I agree whole heartedly, either this or go full Ghost in the Shell with cyborgs and droids.
6) Syncretic Evolution: Specialized pops since the start? where do I sign? The only problem is the impossibility for your "secondary" species to work all jobs, making it a risk if they "owerbred" your main species. The origin is fine, I would still change so that your secondary species CAN work some (not all) specialist jobs. I mean, if droids can do it, they should be able to do it.
Serviles/proles should be an option for your secondary species and not mandatory. It really messes with my Hanar, Drell roleplay that the Drell are made serviles to live on Khadje and can't be specialists or leaders.
7) Tree of Life: OMG, where do I sign? the only bad thing is that this is for hivemind only. Actually I would make a change: an icon that shows form the outliner if a planet doesn't have a three of life. Actually I would also like an outliner that shows if the main planetary building can be upgraded, but we can only desire.
Tree of Life is cool but I think it should be the society where everything is made by the tree eg use food to make buildings. Bonus points I think the tree should grow and terraforms planets into hive worlds, and you start with a hive world and hive world preference, so your colonizing worlds to grow the tree to make a hive world, and as the tree is growing it allows your pops to live with full habitability but reduced cary capacity until it grows another level and increases it.
8) Resource Consolidation: good
There should be a special project or archeological site where you learn how to make machine worlds
9) Life-Seeded: I have literally no idea why this is supposed to be powerfull or if there are startegies that go well with it AND can be supported by RP. I is good because you can have early access to advanced resources, however you should occupy 3 building slots on your main capital for this, and seeing how building slots got reduced and how your "main capital" will remain your only planet for long, I don't think it's a straight bonus.
It would be cool if you had the Baol precursor, your planet was seeded by the baol, and oh look this relic allows you to make Gaia worlds. At the very least this origin should give you the means to create Gaia worlds without an ascension perk.
10) Post-Apocalyptic: Riduculus. Yeah you could RP a civilization that got nuked into oblivion, but you could do somehting similar with remnants. Tomb worlds also got a huge nerf now that planetary capacity is a thing. How can we make it better? make it so your main species can get more traits than other species, both in "more trait points" and in "more traits at the same time". After all, radiations will make you evolve faster.
it should be innate super-adaptability so you can go live on any planet thus you don't need your homeworld, should get a bonus for moving your capital too, new beginning kind of thing.
12) Common Ground: where do I start? you have your starting habitable planets occupied, you have to "fight" for early expansion, and you get stuck in a useless federation which will only drag you down. Losing your garanteed habitable planets? fine. Fighting for early expansion is a big nono. Even if I "win" the competition, it would mean that my allies will be weaker. Also the Galactic Union federation is really bad: I know it's supposed to be the vanilla one, but there is absolutely no reason why you should ever form this kind of federation. Change how gaalctic union works, then this origin could maybe be worth something.
Origin should increase hyperlane density in your starting region and should push other empire starts away. Bonus points if they guarantee one of the fed partners is a Megacorp if you aren't.
13) Hegemon: all the problems from common ground, with the exeption that an Hegemony is a better federation type. Also you can exploit this by kicking a federation member and conquering it, giving you a big jump start. I don't like exploit, but this one could also be RP so I'm good (faking friend to conquer once you have the technology).
Starting members get a special defense pact that triggers should the president kick one and start a war so if you want to abuse it you have to fight both of them. Also everything from common ground.
14) Doomsday: challenging origin is challenging. Also it could be exploited hard if you are a good player.
It should reduce habitability or stability not both, the planet is blowing up you already want to leave they don't need to penalize our staying longer than that.
17) Shattered Ring: Equally powerfull and challenging (not as much as doomsday though). All the downside of playing life-seeded and way more pros, even for the late game.
This origin should give you a special project that turns your broken ring segments into archeology projects that you can only do one at a time, consumes vast amounts of energy and alloys but ends up repairing the segments without T5 engineering tech. If you complete both then you unlock ring worlds technology and can build them.
18) Void Dwellers: I think this origin is good. All the problem you could have with it are strictly correlated with the habitats changes in 3.0. I would change how habitat works, this origin per se is fine.
Dwellers should allow building focused habitats for Agriculture or bureocratic habitats
19) Necrophage: really powefull if you play it well. Also really good for RP. I have nothing to say about it
Necrophage brain slugs pls, I have a need to be Gould. also don't lock out egalitarians or xenophiles cause Tokra would be awesome too.
 
Personally, I like that some origins are stronger than others. A bit of asymmetry can make things more interesting. Giving the different origins more rp flavour events, on the other hand, is always a nice idea.

Multiplayer can be balanced by the players. Perhaps establish ground rules like 'no assimilators, Carl.' People typically know at least some of the people they are playing with, and can tell who tends to do better or worse at the game. So weaker players could take stronger starting positions, or stronger players could give themselves an extra handicap. It's like in EUIV if a newbie is playing as Muscovy while their friend is... Bosnia, or something.

Much easier than trying to balance 'your homeworld will blow up' with 'you're a robot and have spent literally the last century gathering resources from across your solar system.'
 
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Common Ground is mostly for megacorps where you don't actually need a lot of land. It's less good than a trade league federation type in that scenario, but overall it can still make for a powerful build in single player, especially if you start with a merchant guild federation member.
 
The issues with origins seems to be fundamentally down to play balance.
You can use a disadvantaged origin to make the start of the game more challenging, then have it scale up as the game progresses.

But playing with Galactic Doorstep (rated F), with Grand Admiral scaling, my empire dominates so consistently that all challenge has gone by the mid game.

I suggest being able to set Start/Mid/End game year difficulty levels and have scaling between them if they are different. https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...aling-settings-to-adjust-for-origins.1473564/
 
Common Ground is mostly for megacorps where you don't actually need a lot of land. It's less good than a trade league federation type in that scenario, but overall it can still make for a powerful build in single player, especially if you start with a merchant guild federation member.
True but it'd make more sense as a Megacorp/Federations origin where you begin with a trade league and have the empires spread a little more by a few systems, so each can expand in at least one direction (almost always).
 
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