Decided to break a bit from how I normally play and essentially role a build that used Post-Apocalyptic origin, that was a plantoid species with budding and radiotrophic. I called this empire the Ashleaf Initiative and it's denizens the Radioactive Saplings. Would have gone with memorialist but with current mechanics, it's just not that appealing (maybe unity and sprawl rework will make it more attractive) because that's pops for stuff that I don't really want. I mean, was going for non-meta, but it was too hard to justify. So civics ended up being master crafters and functional architecture.
Anyways, after playing through. It got me to think about the under powered origins and what could be done to make them better without ruining the flavor. For instance, I love the idea behind Post-Apocalyptic and it makes me sad that it's so far behind other origins; especially, given that it has a portrait locked species trait that has synergy, radiotrophic, and three mutually exclusive civics that have potential synergy with it: Memorialist, Devouring Swarm and Fanatical Purifier. Also gives you species one extra world type to colonize. The leader lifespan is whatever. Despite all of that, it's at the bottom.
I know the biggest issue is that the one thing that should be it's strongest asset, tomb worlds being an option for colonization from the get go falls flat because tomb worlds are relatively rare. This kind of has a knock on effect with radiotrophic because that isn't going to see much use. I've already covered memorialist, but again that civic falls flat for just being too pricy for what you get. IMO to get the synergy that you'd want with this origin and the two genocidal civics, you'd have to play in a way that isn't really optimal because it seems like want to purge pops, not wipe them out from orbit because that gives you less. Also, have to point out that's it's really world that this origin doesn't get the Tomb World habitability tech already researched. It's a species that lives on a tomb world without actually tomb world habitability, clearly they figured something out.
The increased leader lifespan is very meh. IMO the devs seem to overvalue leader lifespan, it's not particularly great and the usefulness of it is limited given how the leader system works. I'm hoping the custodian team will revisit the whole leader system because it's really lackluster and is to blame for a number of things being under powered.
To get into the weaknesses of this trait outside of Tomb Worlds being rare and leader lifespan bonus being dubious. You're capital can't benefit from migration unless you terraform it or find another species that doesn't mind living on a radioactive rock. There is also the whole thing of not really having much in the way of bonuses. Not going to have many times where you happen to have a tomb world spawn near your start point that it gets you an early colony.
As for fixes. I'm not a fan of giving the origin Tomb World habitability. One if you play with guaranteed habitability worlds, that would result in a nerf to you since those would go from 80% habitability to 60%. I mean, with slider on habitability worlds high enough, it could be a wash. Two, I feel it's cheapens Tomb World habitability, I like that to continue being a rare goodie you can stumble upon instead of forcing with empire generation.
Rather, I think the devs should buff the survivor trait. I could see two ways of doing this. One would be to give a +20% habitability buff (either peg that as +20% habitability to all worlds that aren't tomb worlds or drop tomb world habitability down to 50% and then take on that +20% habitability). This would mean that players with this origin could colonize more worlds earlier and it would make sense, if you can be fairly comfortable in a wasteland, other places shouldn't be that bad either. Other option would be to say expand planet preference types. Currently we don't have Cold, Wet or Dry planet preferences in a broad sense, cold is either Arctic, Alpine or Tundra. So post apocalyptic could replace normal planet types for a cold, wet or dry preference based on what world type the player picks. This would be similar in some ways to boosting habitability by 20%, but also slightly different. I think just giving increase habitability with origin would go a decent way to improving things, again the species survived on a radioactive rock.
On the off chance that upping habitability, isn't enough. Another area that the devs should consider and it's a bit of missed opportunity. Would be to have clearing either the settled ruins or radiation zone create an arcology site called the time capsule. This could result in the player getting some minor artifacts and IMO the devs could give the players a very weak relic. Could do something fun where the player gets a choice at the end of the project and that determines the bonuses of the relic (not it has to be weak because this would essentially be a guaranteed relic and the idea is to make the origin better, not make it OP meta).
So thoughts on other under performing origins and what you might like to see to make them better and I guess areas where the setup doesn't make sense (think like the lack of tomb world habitability not being already researched for post-apocalyptic).
Anyways, after playing through. It got me to think about the under powered origins and what could be done to make them better without ruining the flavor. For instance, I love the idea behind Post-Apocalyptic and it makes me sad that it's so far behind other origins; especially, given that it has a portrait locked species trait that has synergy, radiotrophic, and three mutually exclusive civics that have potential synergy with it: Memorialist, Devouring Swarm and Fanatical Purifier. Also gives you species one extra world type to colonize. The leader lifespan is whatever. Despite all of that, it's at the bottom.
I know the biggest issue is that the one thing that should be it's strongest asset, tomb worlds being an option for colonization from the get go falls flat because tomb worlds are relatively rare. This kind of has a knock on effect with radiotrophic because that isn't going to see much use. I've already covered memorialist, but again that civic falls flat for just being too pricy for what you get. IMO to get the synergy that you'd want with this origin and the two genocidal civics, you'd have to play in a way that isn't really optimal because it seems like want to purge pops, not wipe them out from orbit because that gives you less. Also, have to point out that's it's really world that this origin doesn't get the Tomb World habitability tech already researched. It's a species that lives on a tomb world without actually tomb world habitability, clearly they figured something out.
The increased leader lifespan is very meh. IMO the devs seem to overvalue leader lifespan, it's not particularly great and the usefulness of it is limited given how the leader system works. I'm hoping the custodian team will revisit the whole leader system because it's really lackluster and is to blame for a number of things being under powered.
To get into the weaknesses of this trait outside of Tomb Worlds being rare and leader lifespan bonus being dubious. You're capital can't benefit from migration unless you terraform it or find another species that doesn't mind living on a radioactive rock. There is also the whole thing of not really having much in the way of bonuses. Not going to have many times where you happen to have a tomb world spawn near your start point that it gets you an early colony.
As for fixes. I'm not a fan of giving the origin Tomb World habitability. One if you play with guaranteed habitability worlds, that would result in a nerf to you since those would go from 80% habitability to 60%. I mean, with slider on habitability worlds high enough, it could be a wash. Two, I feel it's cheapens Tomb World habitability, I like that to continue being a rare goodie you can stumble upon instead of forcing with empire generation.
Rather, I think the devs should buff the survivor trait. I could see two ways of doing this. One would be to give a +20% habitability buff (either peg that as +20% habitability to all worlds that aren't tomb worlds or drop tomb world habitability down to 50% and then take on that +20% habitability). This would mean that players with this origin could colonize more worlds earlier and it would make sense, if you can be fairly comfortable in a wasteland, other places shouldn't be that bad either. Other option would be to say expand planet preference types. Currently we don't have Cold, Wet or Dry planet preferences in a broad sense, cold is either Arctic, Alpine or Tundra. So post apocalyptic could replace normal planet types for a cold, wet or dry preference based on what world type the player picks. This would be similar in some ways to boosting habitability by 20%, but also slightly different. I think just giving increase habitability with origin would go a decent way to improving things, again the species survived on a radioactive rock.
On the off chance that upping habitability, isn't enough. Another area that the devs should consider and it's a bit of missed opportunity. Would be to have clearing either the settled ruins or radiation zone create an arcology site called the time capsule. This could result in the player getting some minor artifacts and IMO the devs could give the players a very weak relic. Could do something fun where the player gets a choice at the end of the project and that determines the bonuses of the relic (not it has to be weak because this would essentially be a guaranteed relic and the idea is to make the origin better, not make it OP meta).
So thoughts on other under performing origins and what you might like to see to make them better and I guess areas where the setup doesn't make sense (think like the lack of tomb world habitability not being already researched for post-apocalyptic).
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