Ethics isn't managed from the species screen, though? Except in so much that living standards apply?
Ethic managmenet is far more about faction, ascension, or starbase management, not individual pops. In other words- macro strategy, not micro.
Tech rushes are so good because
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Ethic managmenet is far more about faction, ascension, or starbase management, not individual pops. In other words- macro strategy, not micro.
One problem with a blanket reduction of research output would be the big leaps at certain techs like cruisers or kinetic artillery/neutron launchers which would put that empire(most likely the player) farther ahead of their competition for longer. There is a massive fleet power boost with cruisers and then battleship tech where you rise in power by a multiplicative factor. This is already present when increasing tech/tradition scaling. I think these tech plateaus would need to be addressed before the default scale is adjusted.
That said, I have hated how much 2.2s economy changes ballooned planet resource output compared to space based income. Should a size 12 planet really be able to output more science than a dedicated megastructure when that planet only costs minerals(and pops) and also adds to empire pop growth?
That said, I have hated how much 2.2s economy changes ballooned planet resource output compared to space based income. Should a size 12 planet really be able to output more science than a dedicated megastructure when that planet only costs minerals(and pops) and also adds to empire pop growth?
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Cruisers is an easy fix, since the power of cruisers is dependent on the power of strike craft, and strike craft were once upon a time quite bad, and could be again.
Battleships is a better case, but it's also much, much further in the game, and so can be pre-empted with early-aggression builds.
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I honestly think that ship and weapon types are on the list of things to give a rework pass on.
On the side note, all these space games use early 20th century naval designations (destroyers, cruisers, battleships etc) but none actually adhere to the doctrinal niches these ships had, which is sad. Like cruiser is a raider and workhorse of a navy, and should never ever face a battleship in combat, battleship is prohibitely expensive to build and maintain and does exist only for that one battle that will decide the whole campaign, destroyer is a support vessel for scouting and escorting etc.
On the side note, all these space games use early 20th century naval designations (destroyers, cruisers, battleships etc) but none actually adhere to the doctrinal niches these ships had, which is sad. Like cruiser is a raider and workhorse of a navy, and should never ever face a battleship in combat, battleship is prohibitely expensive to build and maintain and does exist only for that one battle that will decide the whole campaign, destroyer is a support vessel for scouting and escorting etc.
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Synths have a +20% unity species trait. Psionic governors increase all unity generated in their sectors.
I definitely agree with the OP. IMO, tech production is too superior for its manteniance costs and gives too many boons which cannot be paired with civics or Traditions.
Here I leave a list of revised boons provided by techs for balance purpose.
Half down all those +20% production bonus techs for Workers and Researchers. Same for Artisans/Metallurgists ones in order to put them more in line with production bonus from +x Stability from Traditions. For great production boons Edicts already exist. For a balance purpose, I would normalize base production by workers in a 5 EC/5 Minerals/5 Food model rather than the current model of 6/4/6.
Half down all four Habitability techs (currently +5%) to be in pair with that +10% Habitability from Adaptability trad. Tree.
Reduce Naval Capacity from techs from +30 to +20 and from +20 (repeatables) to +10 and increase value of Gal. Force Projection AP.
Half down those techs which reduce War Exhaustion and Claim Cost (currently -10%/-10%) to put them more in line with Nationalistic Zeal Civic. Spending an entire civic slot for a bonus that is equal to that you gain from tech is simply not rewarding.
Half down Research speed bonus and pop growth techs. These ones are powerful and its not fair that Research is a major provider of them.
Beside of these changes (and other ones), I would even reduce base Researcher output to 3/3/3 instead of 4/4/4.
Technology, in general already provides us with a plentiful of unique features (Genemodding, robots, greater ship hulls, starbase upgrades, Habitats, terraforming, production edicts, Megastructures and so on) and for me, its fair that at least the basic +x% something boons are balanced and more in line with Traditions and Civics.
Here I leave a list of revised boons provided by techs for balance purpose.
Half down all those +20% production bonus techs for Workers and Researchers. Same for Artisans/Metallurgists ones in order to put them more in line with production bonus from +x Stability from Traditions. For great production boons Edicts already exist. For a balance purpose, I would normalize base production by workers in a 5 EC/5 Minerals/5 Food model rather than the current model of 6/4/6.
Half down all four Habitability techs (currently +5%) to be in pair with that +10% Habitability from Adaptability trad. Tree.
Reduce Naval Capacity from techs from +30 to +20 and from +20 (repeatables) to +10 and increase value of Gal. Force Projection AP.
Half down those techs which reduce War Exhaustion and Claim Cost (currently -10%/-10%) to put them more in line with Nationalistic Zeal Civic. Spending an entire civic slot for a bonus that is equal to that you gain from tech is simply not rewarding.
Half down Research speed bonus and pop growth techs. These ones are powerful and its not fair that Research is a major provider of them.
Beside of these changes (and other ones), I would even reduce base Researcher output to 3/3/3 instead of 4/4/4.
Technology, in general already provides us with a plentiful of unique features (Genemodding, robots, greater ship hulls, starbase upgrades, Habitats, terraforming, production edicts, Megastructures and so on) and for me, its fair that at least the basic +x% something boons are balanced and more in line with Traditions and Civics.
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Well first, it's 15%.
Second, it's only for robots, so Machine empires don't have it.
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I think you're focusing on the wrong thing. Researchers could output 100 science each with research speed bonuses hitting +1,000%, and it wouldn't matter so long as the costs are balanced appropriately. I have toyed with a personal mod that reduced the output of researchers to +3/3/3 and added a bit to the base research so early game wasn't quite so painful. It's an improvement, but a small one and it's not the key issue.
The problem with tech rushing is how enormous the benefits you get are compared to traditions and the fact that many of these bonuses are completely free. In all of the tradition trees, you can get maybe 10% increase to pop output. Prosperity has +5% specialist output, Domination has +5% worker output, Synchronicity/Harmony has +5 stability which I translates roughly to +2.5% I think, and there's probably one or two I'm missing, but it's not much larger than that.
Meanwhile, a single technology can add +20% to a certain resource, and you can get them multiple times, usually stacking up to +60% for many of them. Even alloys and consumer goods get +20% spread across two techs. There's also little to no opportunity cost here, since technologies aren't mutually exclusive while traditions are (even if you can generally get every tree you really care about eventually).
I think the key thing that needs to happen is the removal of all of these free +X% to job output technologies and instead, roll some (but not all) of that bonus into the resource buffing buildings. So you don't get a building line that gives you +15/25% to energy and an additional +60% for free from technologies. Instead, you get a building that offers +20%/40% to energy.
This has a multitude of benefits. It reduces the power of technology because the improvements you get are smaller and you don't get them for free (you have to build the building first and for the second tier, pay a strategic resource). It reduces the number of additive bonuses in the game, meaning the bonuses that are left are more meaningful. It eliminates an issue with the game where your ratio of rural to urban worlds needs to be a certain ratio in the early game and then it totally shifts once you get into mid and late game, meaning you have to totally rework several of your worlds or end up with excessive amounts of extra basic resources floating around.
A year or so back, I created a personal mod that did this, and it was a huge improvement. Tech speed wasn't the out of control rate we've seen in 3.2, balancing my economy wasn't trivialized by 100 years into the game, the tech tree didn't feel quite so bloated, and I noticed the effects of things like pop traits and traditions a whole lot more. One of the first things I plan to do after updating the machine empire improvements I've thrown together is re-implementing that system, since that plus the new sprawl and unity/influence reworks would make for a fantastic game.
The problem with tech rushing is how enormous the benefits you get are compared to traditions and the fact that many of these bonuses are completely free. In all of the tradition trees, you can get maybe 10% increase to pop output. Prosperity has +5% specialist output, Domination has +5% worker output, Synchronicity/Harmony has +5 stability which I translates roughly to +2.5% I think, and there's probably one or two I'm missing, but it's not much larger than that.
Meanwhile, a single technology can add +20% to a certain resource, and you can get them multiple times, usually stacking up to +60% for many of them. Even alloys and consumer goods get +20% spread across two techs. There's also little to no opportunity cost here, since technologies aren't mutually exclusive while traditions are (even if you can generally get every tree you really care about eventually).
I think the key thing that needs to happen is the removal of all of these free +X% to job output technologies and instead, roll some (but not all) of that bonus into the resource buffing buildings. So you don't get a building line that gives you +15/25% to energy and an additional +60% for free from technologies. Instead, you get a building that offers +20%/40% to energy.
This has a multitude of benefits. It reduces the power of technology because the improvements you get are smaller and you don't get them for free (you have to build the building first and for the second tier, pay a strategic resource). It reduces the number of additive bonuses in the game, meaning the bonuses that are left are more meaningful. It eliminates an issue with the game where your ratio of rural to urban worlds needs to be a certain ratio in the early game and then it totally shifts once you get into mid and late game, meaning you have to totally rework several of your worlds or end up with excessive amounts of extra basic resources floating around.
A year or so back, I created a personal mod that did this, and it was a huge improvement. Tech speed wasn't the out of control rate we've seen in 3.2, balancing my economy wasn't trivialized by 100 years into the game, the tech tree didn't feel quite so bloated, and I noticed the effects of things like pop traits and traditions a whole lot more. One of the first things I plan to do after updating the machine empire improvements I've thrown together is re-implementing that system, since that plus the new sprawl and unity/influence reworks would make for a fantastic game.
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There's no unity trait that boosts all of the following at the same time:
1) The pop
2) The ruler
3) The governor
4) and a leader assigned to produce unity (which also isn't a thing)
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an Idea that spooks through old dev diaries and is mentioned from time to time is something akin to EUs institutions. but it had to be something more and not only a rare tech that blocks you from techs further down the line.
maybe an event system (that even locks you out of some techs and gives you boosts and options in other fields). but something like that is more of a stellaris 2 thing i guess.
maybe an event system (that even locks you out of some techs and gives you boosts and options in other fields). but something like that is more of a stellaris 2 thing i guess.
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Traditions could open up and also block off certain tech paths.
You choose a limited number of them, and IMHO they need a power-up so it's a fine place to add benefits -- and since you choose them non-randomly it's a fine place to add restrictions.
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Actually, this could be really interesting.
If you provide massive weightings to various techs based on which and how many traditions you get, you could... not so much soft-lock, but provide significant gating effects to various high-payoff technologies by adding major modifiers to how far along the tradition tree you are.
Some of these would have natural synergies. You are much less likely to get colonization techs if you go Expansion tree first. Discovery gives you higher priority for science-boosters.
But for major game-busting techs, you could have a modifier based on how many traditions or ascension perks you have period. For example, take Carrier Cruisers. Incredibly strong break-out tech, and it also has some strong modifiers that make it more likely over time. But what if instead of a modifier per decade, you had a modifier per ascension perk? 33% chance if you have 1 ascension perk. 66% chance if you have 2. 100% chance if you have 3. etc.
If you put various techs on priority paths, you'd gradually push many players to prioritize these draws over others to get them out of the way, which lengthens the period of relative tech parity before the breakout techs are reached, except that rather than just techs you can catalyze your draw chances through unity running.
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Why not just cut down every single tech bonus? That seems like a workable solution. Economies are fine at the start of the game, and completely blown up by the end. Why not just do a top down rebalance of every tech?
Off the top of my head, cut the energy/minerals/food techs from +20% to +10%. Cut the research bonuses from +20% to +10%. You can add 2 more techs increasing the number of non repeatable from 3 to 5 and changing the total non repeatable bonus from +60% to +50%, padding out the tech tree and making it harder to techs rush
Then... do this for every tech in the game. Tada. I mean for the love of God, it currently costs 14k research to get +60% mineral production. It costs. 42k research to get +60% production to all basic resources on all planets.. 24k research to get +40% of every research on any planet. Nobody thought that was busted? How much unity do you need to get the fairly decent benefits of say, prosperity as your 4th tree? It's a lot more I'd bet.
Tone down the resources produced from jobs on tier x planets techs. Tone down the alloy/CG techs. Add some trade value and unity techs that honestly aren't very great but are decent enough to make it harder to draw the more desirable techs. Pad the tree out with more non repeatables that do the same thing. Funny enough, not only would this not be any less fun(hoi4 has 5 construction techs for 14 years/105120 ticks of gameplay) but it would also make tech rushing a lot less insane.
Off the top of my head, cut the energy/minerals/food techs from +20% to +10%. Cut the research bonuses from +20% to +10%. You can add 2 more techs increasing the number of non repeatable from 3 to 5 and changing the total non repeatable bonus from +60% to +50%, padding out the tech tree and making it harder to techs rush
Then... do this for every tech in the game. Tada. I mean for the love of God, it currently costs 14k research to get +60% mineral production. It costs. 42k research to get +60% production to all basic resources on all planets.. 24k research to get +40% of every research on any planet. Nobody thought that was busted? How much unity do you need to get the fairly decent benefits of say, prosperity as your 4th tree? It's a lot more I'd bet.
Tone down the resources produced from jobs on tier x planets techs. Tone down the alloy/CG techs. Add some trade value and unity techs that honestly aren't very great but are decent enough to make it harder to draw the more desirable techs. Pad the tree out with more non repeatables that do the same thing. Funny enough, not only would this not be any less fun(hoi4 has 5 construction techs for 14 years/105120 ticks of gameplay) but it would also make tech rushing a lot less insane.
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Just remove all the 20% research bonus techs, and increase the bonuses Traditions give for mining / energy / food.
No need to have +10% research techs at all. Research is rewarding even at base values, and designation (+ascension) bonus to research becomes more relevant when it's not standing next to an empire-wide 60% boost.
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I think the attempt to make throughput modifiers rather than strict output bonuses was a good idea too, if they actually implement it multiplicatively rather than additively. That way a technologically advanced empire can be more efficient per pop without completely skewing the ratio of rural worlds to urban worlds.
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IMO non-event traits need to go back to the drawing board, and be redesigned/balanced around the economy for each resource and planet stat, with a corresponding negative and a double stong positive for bio-ascension. They've mostly been tacked on randomly over the years.
I think some energy weapons would probably fit well in this category. It might be a good way to restore old missile functionality, too.
- "Exotic Weapons Primacy" --
- Disruptors 1-3 and Neutron launchers 1-2 could just be unlocked when you unlock lasers 1-5 and take an "Exotic weaponry" Tradition tree, along with 5 thematic nodes to buff these techs (e.g. getting "disruptor strike-craft" or unlocking AUX mods with increased range on disruptor weapons, but higher power draw, increased damage but reduced fire rate etc)
- "Carrier Primacy" --
- H-slots on destroyers,
- "suicide drone launchers" on corvettes - missiles with strike-craft GFX that benefit from sc modifiers
- more H-slot sections on larger ships...
- maybe titans getting deployable parasite corvette "strike-craft".
- "Guided Weapons Primacy" --
- Bringing back missiles in S-slots
- and some XL-sized swarmer missiles or Titan sections with L-slots swapped for G-slots.
- Special flavours of missiles that deal EMP damage, (bonus vs Gestalt MI or contingency ships) or Acid damage (bonus hull dmg vs Prethoryn and Gestalts)
- "Kinetic Weapons Primacy" --
- Kinetic Artillery 1-2 gated behind this tree.
- Kinetic fire-rate and range buffs
- AUX "munition" mods that rebalance kinetic damage dealt by that ship (to focus more on armor rather than shields)
- Asteroid launcher T-guns and XL-kinetic shotguns that spray cannonballs in an arc at nearby corvettes.
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One thing that might help reign in tech rushing is creating an anti-snowball system for research speed. As you all know, the technology tree is split up into different tiers which get unlocked after researching X number of techs in a specific category (ie: engineering). The game could create an Era system where it looks at all the empires in the galaxy and looks at the average for what tier people are in. If you are researching tech below that average, you get a boost. If you are teching beyond that average you get a malus. The malus and boosts increase the further out from the average you get.
So lets say the average tier for physics is 2. Tier 1 physic techs get a research boost, but tier 3, 4, and 5 physic techs have a research speed malus.
It's either that, or we convince Paradox to take a hatchet to the gazillion modifiers sprinkled around the game. You want to target the Research Speed ones over the job modifiers.
So lets say the average tier for physics is 2. Tier 1 physic techs get a research boost, but tier 3, 4, and 5 physic techs have a research speed malus.
It's either that, or we convince Paradox to take a hatchet to the gazillion modifiers sprinkled around the game. You want to target the Research Speed ones over the job modifiers.
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18 Unity Edicts are unlocked through tech (including Ambitions) and only 5 from Traditions; 12 Ascension Perks are also locked behind tech, including Ascension Paths, Galactic Wonder Megastructures, and the special Terraforming types. There are only about 30 or so Ascension Perks available in a given run, so over 1/3 of all Ascension Perks (including all of the strongest) and 3/4 of all Unity Edicts (again including all of the strongest) actually require a Tech build.
So on top of Traditions being weaker than Tech, Ascension Perks and Edicts are merely an extension of tech. Unity builds don't really work because you just have to admit defeat and go tech instead to achieve whatever cool thing you were trying to do.
The only way to fix this is to add or move a bunch of Edicts to Traditions and Ascension Perks, and to change how Ascension Perks use tech prerequisites - personally, I think they shouldn't be locked if you lack the tech, but instead add some free research so you can immediately get started. This would make Unity the domain of "weird gimmick rushes" like a Ringworld or Ecumenopolis by skipping the tech prerequisites outright compared to your non-Unity-focused opponents.
From a lore standpoint, you've united your society behind a very specific dream, and brute-forced your way to achieving it the hard way, akin to various precursors who brute-forced space travel without prerequisite FTL or went straight from their first planet to a Ringworld through blood, sweat, and tears without going through the whole "interstellar empire" step first.
So on top of Traditions being weaker than Tech, Ascension Perks and Edicts are merely an extension of tech. Unity builds don't really work because you just have to admit defeat and go tech instead to achieve whatever cool thing you were trying to do.
The only way to fix this is to add or move a bunch of Edicts to Traditions and Ascension Perks, and to change how Ascension Perks use tech prerequisites - personally, I think they shouldn't be locked if you lack the tech, but instead add some free research so you can immediately get started. This would make Unity the domain of "weird gimmick rushes" like a Ringworld or Ecumenopolis by skipping the tech prerequisites outright compared to your non-Unity-focused opponents.
From a lore standpoint, you've united your society behind a very specific dream, and brute-forced your way to achieving it the hard way, akin to various precursors who brute-forced space travel without prerequisite FTL or went straight from their first planet to a Ringworld through blood, sweat, and tears without going through the whole "interstellar empire" step first.
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Just as a reference point I'm sure everyone is aware of: Yesterday, in the time it took me to unlock the entire domination tree, where the primary benefit ended up being saving 10% pop empire sprawl, save some alloys per habitat and +.5 influence per month, I also managed to:
Increase my alloy production 20%. Increase base alloy production by +2 (+66% base). Increase *all* jobs 5%. And probably about a dozen more technologies.
If I switch my research and unity 1:1 (which you can't, it's more like 1:0.33) I would still never have been able to double my alloy production and make all my ships almost 50% stronger. Even with planetary ascensions on a capital ecumenopoli I can only increase base production by about 25% iirc - nowhere near doubling, and at a far higher cost and much lower ROI, with only a single planet benefitting.
Increase my alloy production 20%. Increase base alloy production by +2 (+66% base). Increase *all* jobs 5%. And probably about a dozen more technologies.
If I switch my research and unity 1:1 (which you can't, it's more like 1:0.33) I would still never have been able to double my alloy production and make all my ships almost 50% stronger. Even with planetary ascensions on a capital ecumenopoli I can only increase base production by about 25% iirc - nowhere near doubling, and at a far higher cost and much lower ROI, with only a single planet benefitting.
I'm tempted to say that psionic ascension should be pivoted so that the first perk (a) has no tech prereq and (b) is the only way to get any psionic techs at all.
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