Hi guys. After my first 4 or 5 hours, I wrote this. A lot of you seemed to disagree with my first impression, and that's okay. I now disagree with my first impression. I'm back to say that upon more play time, I've really enjoyed myself. I'd like to comment on what Utopia gets right and some of its lingering flaws.
Keep in mind: the Good things Utopia adds are really good. The "Bad" isn't even so bad. They're just lingering shortcomings -- failures to achieve excellence rather than actual truly time-consuming problems.
TL;DR: I really like Utopia, and it's a massive step up from 1.4.
---
The Good: (just to name a menagerie)
* Expanded Civilian Rights is great.
* Auto-slavery for caste systems saves *so* much micro time by doing what good players already were doing. So much time.
* If you work towards it, you can now have tons of leaders: 18+ at the moment. Feels good to have a governor on every planet.
* Missiles are at least very viable against AI. I'll be running tests soon enough to see what's the deal with them in optimal setups.
* The new ethics system is very streamlined -- it gives you some guidance, but you don't by any means need to hard focus on it.
* Taking alien planets in war is so much more manageable (ethics wise) now. This pretty much negates any criticism I'd have of the new ethics system.
* Ascension perks are very cool, impactful, and fun.
* Taking planets (and the outcomes of wars in general) is so much more manageable thanks to the new techs and traditions.
* The new civics system feels great.
* Unrest mechanics give a great reason to always have a fair number of defensive armies stationed.
* Putting Gene Warriors behind the Evolution Ascension path opens up many army types.
---
The "Bad:" (really just things that could use a little tweaking)
(Traditions)
* Traditions need to take more unity to earn.
* There simply need to be more tradition trees, and more traditions within each tree. -- Key tradition decisions feel too streamlined to count as unique decisions.
> The general problem here is the entire Tradition system feeling like every empire -- no matter what it is -- has all the same features. You don't feel like you're specializing, you feel like you're raw upgrading -- just like the tech tree. While the tech tree is supposed to work that way, traditions clearly aren't supposed to be like that. Giving players fewer, and having far more options should clean this up.
(Mega Structures)
* As features only available well into the late game, they just feel like a waste -- it doesn't even matter how good they are -- they simply come too late. My suggestion is to make them require fewer Ascension Perks, and maybe increase their actual cost proportional to the number of systems you have. I'd love for them to be a tall empire tool.
(Federations)
* The AI in my games seem to be having troubles forming Federations. It's currently 2325 and there's not a single federation in the game. And it's not like there aren't teams. There are two distinct "teams" with large numbers of defense pacts on either side. I'm not sure if this is because of the new traditions system, but the AI should more actively pursue federations after 80 or 90 years.
(Factions)
* I actually like the "hands-off" approach to factions, but they seem almost completely ignorable -- once you've satisfied the popular factions to your contentment. There needs to be more faction events. This would also give the game much more flavor.
(Unrest)
* I've seen unrest at max (100) several times for up to a year without any major events popping up. Just like factions -- I'd just like to see more separatist movements arise, and more events pop up relating to high unrest.
(Synthetic Evolution)
* As many people have said, the final stage in the Synthetic Evolution is quite underwhelming -- especially compared to the Shroud and Genetic Evolution stages. The Cybernetic mid-stage given by "The Flesh is Weak" is fantastic, but the final stage lacks interesting depth. I think some ability to specialize your ascended Synths (by picking a few Synth traits or something) could make the final stage feel more impactful, unique, and interesting.
(Extremely Strong Early-Game AI)
* Early-Game AI continues to be extremely strong. By no means do I want to roll them over, but they seem practically impossible to defeat at Hard+ difficulties. This largely has to do with how simple and direct early-wars are: who has the bigger fleet?
It really cuts into the ability to enjoy Imperialist / Authoritarian / Hive Mind plays. I would personally suggest decreasing the AI's ability to field ships by 10-20% in the early years, and in order to make up for this loss, buff them 20% in mid and late-game.
(Purge Mechanics)
* Am I doing something wrong, or can non-XPhobe Authoritarians not purge? It seems very strange that Authoritarians themselves can't purge.
* Purging entire species (rather than a planet or two) seems excessive. With regard to this very important game mechanic, I would prefer -- at bare minimum -- the ability to purge just a single planet of some species instead of purging them everywhere.
(Edicts)
* You used to be able to carefully boost food on a single planet by focusing food buildings and using "Farm Subsidies" to "kickstart" it very quickly. This was fun and felt very impactful to some playstyles. I would like the devs to add an Edict which boosts the growth on a single planet (rather than boost the food), in order to enable this kind of playstyle.
Note: Fan. Spiritualists get "Spiritual Unity" giving -20% Pop Growth time. I would like to see a generic -15% version available to all empires.
Keep in mind: the Good things Utopia adds are really good. The "Bad" isn't even so bad. They're just lingering shortcomings -- failures to achieve excellence rather than actual truly time-consuming problems.
TL;DR: I really like Utopia, and it's a massive step up from 1.4.
---
The Good: (just to name a menagerie)
* Expanded Civilian Rights is great.
* Auto-slavery for caste systems saves *so* much micro time by doing what good players already were doing. So much time.
* If you work towards it, you can now have tons of leaders: 18+ at the moment. Feels good to have a governor on every planet.
* Missiles are at least very viable against AI. I'll be running tests soon enough to see what's the deal with them in optimal setups.
* The new ethics system is very streamlined -- it gives you some guidance, but you don't by any means need to hard focus on it.
* Taking alien planets in war is so much more manageable (ethics wise) now. This pretty much negates any criticism I'd have of the new ethics system.
* Ascension perks are very cool, impactful, and fun.
* Taking planets (and the outcomes of wars in general) is so much more manageable thanks to the new techs and traditions.
* The new civics system feels great.
* Unrest mechanics give a great reason to always have a fair number of defensive armies stationed.
* Putting Gene Warriors behind the Evolution Ascension path opens up many army types.
---
The "Bad:" (really just things that could use a little tweaking)
(Traditions)
* Traditions need to take more unity to earn.
* There simply need to be more tradition trees, and more traditions within each tree. -- Key tradition decisions feel too streamlined to count as unique decisions.
> The general problem here is the entire Tradition system feeling like every empire -- no matter what it is -- has all the same features. You don't feel like you're specializing, you feel like you're raw upgrading -- just like the tech tree. While the tech tree is supposed to work that way, traditions clearly aren't supposed to be like that. Giving players fewer, and having far more options should clean this up.
(Mega Structures)
* As features only available well into the late game, they just feel like a waste -- it doesn't even matter how good they are -- they simply come too late. My suggestion is to make them require fewer Ascension Perks, and maybe increase their actual cost proportional to the number of systems you have. I'd love for them to be a tall empire tool.
(Federations)
* The AI in my games seem to be having troubles forming Federations. It's currently 2325 and there's not a single federation in the game. And it's not like there aren't teams. There are two distinct "teams" with large numbers of defense pacts on either side. I'm not sure if this is because of the new traditions system, but the AI should more actively pursue federations after 80 or 90 years.
(Factions)
* I actually like the "hands-off" approach to factions, but they seem almost completely ignorable -- once you've satisfied the popular factions to your contentment. There needs to be more faction events. This would also give the game much more flavor.
(Unrest)
* I've seen unrest at max (100) several times for up to a year without any major events popping up. Just like factions -- I'd just like to see more separatist movements arise, and more events pop up relating to high unrest.
(Synthetic Evolution)
* As many people have said, the final stage in the Synthetic Evolution is quite underwhelming -- especially compared to the Shroud and Genetic Evolution stages. The Cybernetic mid-stage given by "The Flesh is Weak" is fantastic, but the final stage lacks interesting depth. I think some ability to specialize your ascended Synths (by picking a few Synth traits or something) could make the final stage feel more impactful, unique, and interesting.
(Extremely Strong Early-Game AI)
* Early-Game AI continues to be extremely strong. By no means do I want to roll them over, but they seem practically impossible to defeat at Hard+ difficulties. This largely has to do with how simple and direct early-wars are: who has the bigger fleet?
It really cuts into the ability to enjoy Imperialist / Authoritarian / Hive Mind plays. I would personally suggest decreasing the AI's ability to field ships by 10-20% in the early years, and in order to make up for this loss, buff them 20% in mid and late-game.
(Purge Mechanics)
* Am I doing something wrong, or can non-XPhobe Authoritarians not purge? It seems very strange that Authoritarians themselves can't purge.
* Purging entire species (rather than a planet or two) seems excessive. With regard to this very important game mechanic, I would prefer -- at bare minimum -- the ability to purge just a single planet of some species instead of purging them everywhere.
(Edicts)
* You used to be able to carefully boost food on a single planet by focusing food buildings and using "Farm Subsidies" to "kickstart" it very quickly. This was fun and felt very impactful to some playstyles. I would like the devs to add an Edict which boosts the growth on a single planet (rather than boost the food), in order to enable this kind of playstyle.
Note: Fan. Spiritualists get "Spiritual Unity" giving -20% Pop Growth time. I would like to see a generic -15% version available to all empires.
Last edited:
