1. Does not having an admiral for each fleet mean a massive drop in fleet strength in the end game?
The later the game, usually the less vital admirals are. This is due to additive modifiers meaning that the more fire rate modifiers and damage modifiers you collect, the less impactful each modifier is, although fire rate and damage multiply so you want a mix of the two given the choice. When you are researching repeatable weapon techs, admirals will likely start to become un-necessary if you are looking to cut leaders.
2. Can you still hire admirals and generals from the mercenaries?
The leader cap is technically soft, you can always go over it, and yes you can always hire admirals and general from mercs.
3. How many leaders can you expect to have mid/late game?
I went for a max leader test run, and by 70 years into the game I had a limit of 12 leaders. Which for a TALL empire was way too insufficient. Just giving 8 planets a governor each, the RD, and three science ships (two on excavation and one on assist research, all 3 were originally used for surveying) is already at max before discussing admirals or generals.
Side note, Generals were ALREADY useless when they were literally nothing but 2 energy upkeep a month, why in the universe would ANYONE touch a general now with a limit on all leaders and unity upkeep?
4. I usually have 15-20+ sectors... Does this mean that I will not be having a governor in each one?
I hate to break it to you, but governors are no longer sector wide, last I checked. CORRECTION: All "trait" bonuses are no longer sector-wide. The per-level bonus of the governor for the sector capital will apply to all planets in the same sector without a governor. Unfortunately, this largely means we DO want a governor per planet in many situations.
And I have not YET found an infinite supply of leader cap (e.g. repeatable tech), so I regret to inform you that you are @#$%^&.
Just in case anyone WASN'T around for the OLD leader cap, it was removed because literally no one on Earth (other than one-planet challengers) would touch governors or generals if there is a leader limit. This is ALSO why the SOFT cap was removed as well! Getting 2 scientists back from consolidating all research scientists into one is not having an impact when you have 30 habitats. And that was when governors handled an entire sector!
The limit is more what we call a 'guideline' than a hard cap.
This is technically an exotic solution, and potentially very cheesy. The main problem is that leader upkeep is increased for all leaders when you go over the limit, which will scale out of control.
I did notice that there is no upkeep for governors under Feudal Empire, which completely negates the quickly scaling upkeep penalty for going over the leader limit. The other downside is XP gain quickly approaches -100% (though never hits 0%). Of course, get some "starting leader level" modifiers, and even the XP gain reduction is less relevant...
Hmm.....actually this could be seriously unbalanced considering one of the new traditions....give me a second I have some testing to do...
This is honestly the first time I've ever reverted to an older version of the game.
I just modded out the leader limit already, rest of the update is cool. Feels like the old days with the old cap, and I am not amused.
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