What do you think of these changes?

[GAGA Extrem]

Maybe I would. I was actually thinking of moving the CG to materialism and give egalitarians either some leader perks or citizen pop happiness. Whatcha think of this?

No, it fits Egalitarian quite well. Just reduce the Influence gain and it will be fine.
Materialist is already one of the best ethics, no need to buff it even more.

Whatcha think of a simple ±10/20% happiness to xeno pops as the xenophile bonus?

"Meh"
Also exploitive since you can work towards replacing your original species in that case.

Not really. Hardcounter to unrest is armies. This makes it a viable alternative.

Armies cannot pacify large planets full of angry conquered pops.
Chemical Bliss can.

Ringworlds are rather weak and if a player wants to waste his resources building 'em by 2270, he should be able too. Compare this to habitats and its really no contest: cheaper, quicker, less unlocks, huge benefits.

I have played dozens of tall peaceful games, so trust me: Ringworld are *really* good, and the earlier you can get them the more powerful they become, because they provide snowballing M yields.

It's also not like they compete with Habitats, since your limiting factor at that stage is Influence, not M cost - and Ringworlds are very Influence efficient.

The real issue here is the -50% building construction speed, which is very powerful. Yet this is one of the most expansive techs in game, so there is that.

Building speed doesn't really matter all that much. Usually your growth ratio can't keep up with that anyway.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Armies cannot pacify large planets full of angry conquered pops.
Chemical Bliss can.

They kinda can, because even if they can't produce enough -unrest they'll make sure any revolts fail and they're cheap to build and trivial to upkeep.

I have played dozens of tall peaceful games, so trust me: Ringworld are *really* good, and the earlier you can get them the more powerful they become, because they provide snowballing M yields.

Yeah, but in order to be good you have to play under those imposed limits (tall and peaceful). Otherwise, well, there's always more planets out there and they'll produce decent minerals too, but much faster because you don't have to build them and they're already full of pops that just don't know they want to be salt miners yet.

 

[ExNihil]

I tested the tradition cost from xenos / pops modifiers.

The xeno pop modifier can be quite good, although it is less impactful than I initially thought it would be.

Before:

After application of -60% tradition cost from xeno pops:

BUT!

When I tested out the pops modifier instead of the xeno modifier I discovered it is actually bugged out and that there is no changed here.


Before:

Application:

After:

 

[Jorrhast]

Otherwise, well, there's always more planets out there and they'll produce decent minerals too, but much faster because you don't have to build them and they're already full of pops that just don't know they want to be salt miners yet.

Unless you play on 0.5-0.25 habitables. Then RWs are a godsend.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Unless you play on 0.5-0.25 habitables. Then RWs are a godsend.

I do play on 0.5 habitables.

It's still better to conquer or colonise a planet that's already there than to build a ringworld and colonise that.

 

[ExNihil]

IMO RW arent so powerful. At best they make tall play competative, IF and only IF some conditions are met, like being able to unlock mega engineering in time, or if the player manages to get a large mineral surplus and is not forced to build a proper Navy. By 2270, I usually build 20K of Navy, by 2080 its already at 40-50K and by 2090 I'm coming close to 100K and am taking planets from FEs including RWs. At this point I must continue to build navies to have enough power to stomp AEs. I put all extra minerals into habitats.

Sure, I can build RW instead of navies/habitats potentially, but that seems like a losing strategy. Also, simply conquering planets/colonizing is much easier and cheaper, as @GloatingSwine wrote above, I get those surprised salt miners as well.

At present the only really significant advantage of RWs is respective of the core planet cap.

Finally, you cam often get broken RWs with ease. Best I got was 5 RWs- 3 from FE, 1 from cybex, 1 abandoned.

 

[ExNihil]

World Shaper:
Does still seem like a very weak pick.

It does? Well, I dunno what else I can do to make it better really, maybe also add Atmospheric Restoration as a research option. Aside from that I will have to try and balance the terraforming system somehow to make to overall better. One idea I have been advocating in the forum is that terraforming also makes planets larger by a few tiles - not because the planet is larger but because there is more usable landmass available. Sorta problematic conceptually, but it will improve the system, so maybe I'll implement this in an addon mod.

Regarding the Polytechnic complex, you wrote:

Probably overpowered. Yield total is very high when all adjacencies are used and it can be unlocked very early as well.

I'll restrict it by making capital 2/habitat admn. buildings as a prereq. currently its set to capital 1 buildings. would it be more balanced?

Plurality Forum:
Probabily overpowered. Feels like too many good yields AND modiifers in one package.

I'll remove the xeno pop happiness and make it an ethic perk instead of the xeno tradition cost modifier, since it has less impact than I thought. Other than that I have little ideas how to improve xenophiles, and I really want to. Anyone has a suggestion for a better ethic perk?

This does still look terrible.

It does? Hmm... Perhaps I need to rework traits more thoroughly in this case. Any suggestions anyone?

One idea is to change the Strong/Very Strong traits to give: +2.5%/5% minerals / +2.5%/5% food / +5%/10% building speed, removing the army damage modifier since we are talking about hi-tech sci-fi armies. The weak trait will be the opposite OFC.

I will also need to rebalance ethic attraction and remove the strong/very strong militarist attraction, instead introducing a Predator or Hunter trait, that gives a large offensive military oriented bonus, or simply move it to resilient and rebalance that trait.

Tile Blocker Techs + Ecological Optimization:
Ecological Optimization seems pretty worthless. I would rather nerf MoN.
Wouldn't make the blocker techs cheaper. Makes colony spam even stronger.

Ideally I would change tile blockers completely, so you could clear them even without the pertinent tech but with substantial penalties. Barring such a rework, I think MoN is very much a "must have" ascension perk ATM, since it gives absolutely OP benefits. Although I advocated for a MoN nerf, I will not nerf it before 1.8 since I don't want to alienate players who like it as it is. Saying that, even with a nerf it will remain a must have due to the opportunity cost. I'm trying to reduce this factor, while allowing players who min/max to get decent tile blocker clearing cost reductions even without this perk - this helps early game even for tall empires.

 

[beckermt]

+Happiness for xeno pops is silly. That implies that all aliens would be happier in a xenophile empire than in their own.

Why would the primary species not get this bonus? Isn't the happiness bonus already basically incldued, because you'll have a ton of xenophile faction members and thereby high base happiness?

Conceptually it just doesn't work for me. I think the tradition reduction is good, but aside from the calculation being bad, you're not reducing it enough.

Check it: If I have 5 Primary Pops and 5 Alien Pops, the calculation (ignoring Trads) is this:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Alien Pops cost: 10
Total cost: 30

Reducing alien pop cost by 60% means the total reduction is piddly, because it becomes:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Alien Pops cost: 4
Total cost: 24

Add to that the flat modifiers for Traditions already purchased and this becomes less and less relevant. Oh and don't forget that xeno slaves get hit with what is it... triple unity cost? once for slaves, once for xenos, and once for xeno slaves, PLUS they're in the total pop count. So 4x cost. THIS is the reason your impact is minimal.

Check it:
If I have 5 Primary Pops and 5 Alien Pops, and 3 of the Primaries and 3 of the Xenos are slaves, the calculation (ignoring Trads) is this:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Xeno Pops cost: 10
6 Slave Pops cost: 6
3 Xeno Slave Pops cost: 3
Total cost: 39

And now with 60% reduction:
Total Cost: 33
So, a reduction of 15% with no other flat costs.

Versus a mono-culture of the same distribution:
10 Pops cost: 20
Total cost: 20

Or with slaves
10 Pops cost: 20
6 slaves: 6
Total cost: 26

OUCH. Xenophiles getting annihilated. SO, what you need to do is add -100% Xeno Pop Trad Cost Red AND -100% Xeno Slave Trad Cost Red.

Here's what Fan Xenophiles should look like:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Xeno Pops cost: 0
6 Slave Pops cost: 6
3 Xeno Slave Pops cost: 0
Total cost: 26

You STILL GET the basic slavery penalty, but now it doesn't matter if they're xenos or not. EXACTLY what you want from xenophiles. And of course, flat tradition costs will rapidly overwhelm any pop costs, but hey, that's life.

 

[beckermt]

Regarding Master of Nature:
Change all tile blockers to starting techs, increase cost of tile blocker clearing by factor 2. New Techs reduce each cost ofspecific blocker by 50% and Master of Nature of ALL blockers by another 25%?

Now it's GOOD, but without the tech, you're still looking at a pricey removal. Or maybe even 50% for MoN, since it's no longer removing those "bad techs" from the deck.

 

[ExNihil]

+Happiness for xeno pops is silly. That implies that all aliens would be happier in a xenophile empire than in their own.

Why would the primary species not get this bonus? Isn't the happiness bonus already basically incldued, because you'll have a ton of xenophile faction members and thereby high base happiness?

Conceptually it just doesn't work for me. I think the tradition reduction is good, but aside from the calculation being bad, you're not reducing it enough.

Check it: If I have 5 Primary Pops and 5 Alien Pops, the calculation (ignoring Trads) is this:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Alien Pops cost: 10
Total cost: 30

Reducing alien pop cost by 60% means the total reduction is piddly, because it becomes:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Alien Pops cost: 4
Total cost: 24

Add to that the flat modifiers for Traditions already purchased and this becomes less and less relevant. Oh and don't forget that xeno slaves get hit with what is it... triple unity cost? once for slaves, once for xenos, and once for xeno slaves, PLUS they're in the total pop count. So 4x cost. THIS is the reason your impact is minimal.

Check it:
If I have 5 Primary Pops and 5 Alien Pops, and 3 of the Primaries and 3 of the Xenos are slaves, the calculation (ignoring Trads) is this:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Xeno Pops cost: 10
6 Slave Pops cost: 6
3 Xeno Slave Pops cost: 3
Total cost: 39

And now with 60% reduction:
Total Cost: 33
So, a reduction of 15% with no other flat costs.

Versus a mono-culture of the same distribution:
10 Pops cost: 20
Total cost: 20

Or with slaves
10 Pops cost: 20
6 slaves: 6
Total cost: 26

OUCH. Xenophiles getting annihilated. SO, what you need to do is add -100% Xeno Pop Trad Cost Red AND -100% Xeno Slave Trad Cost Red.

Here's what Fan Xenophiles should look like:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Xeno Pops cost: 0
6 Slave Pops cost: 6
3 Xeno Slave Pops cost: 0
Total cost: 26

You STILL GET the basic slavery penalty, but now it doesn't matter if they're xenos or not. EXACTLY what you want from xenophiles. And of course, flat tradition costs will rapidly overwhelm any pop costs, but hey, that's life.

Thats a good suggestion, but the question then is what do non fanatic xenophiles get .

EDIT: Fanatic Xenophile is forced to give xenos citizen rights (never played fan. xenophile myself, so this is based on wiki). So no slavery there. If you play fanatic xenophile you are going to have only xeno pops in the tradition calculation. Problem is OFC xenophile, which doesn't have this restriction. This is very difficult to balance. I might need to remove the fanatix xenophile restriction to make this work, but it will be very problematic.

Regarding Master of Nature:
Change all tile blockers to starting techs, increase cost of tile blocker clearing by factor 2. New Techs reduce each cost ofspecific blocker by 50% and Master of Nature of ALL blockers by another 25%?

Now it's GOOD, but without the tech, you're still looking at a pricey removal. Or maybe even 50% for MoN, since it's no longer removing those "bad techs" from the deck.

Yes, as I wrote above that is a solution I was/am considering. Its viable and I would like to see this in vanilla. I'm a bit apprehensive about how players will react to this- but perhaps I don't need to worry so much about my mod being liked.....

EDIT: I think I'm going to implement this in some way, probably along the lines of your suggestion with some changes. I will post an update once I get this working and see how it functions.

 

[ExNihil]

+Happiness for xeno pops is silly. That implies that all aliens would be happier in a xenophile empire than in their own.

Why would the primary species not get this bonus? Isn't the happiness bonus already basically incldued, because you'll have a ton of xenophile faction members and thereby high base happiness?

Conceptually it just doesn't work for me. I think the tradition reduction is good, but aside from the calculation being bad, you're not reducing it enough.

Check it: If I have 5 Primary Pops and 5 Alien Pops, the calculation (ignoring Trads) is this:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Alien Pops cost: 10
Total cost: 30

Reducing alien pop cost by 60% means the total reduction is piddly, because it becomes:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Alien Pops cost: 4
Total cost: 24

Add to that the flat modifiers for Traditions already purchased and this becomes less and less relevant. Oh and don't forget that xeno slaves get hit with what is it... triple unity cost? once for slaves, once for xenos, and once for xeno slaves, PLUS they're in the total pop count. So 4x cost. THIS is the reason your impact is minimal.

Check it:
If I have 5 Primary Pops and 5 Alien Pops, and 3 of the Primaries and 3 of the Xenos are slaves, the calculation (ignoring Trads) is this:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Xeno Pops cost: 10
6 Slave Pops cost: 6
3 Xeno Slave Pops cost: 3
Total cost: 39

And now with 60% reduction:
Total Cost: 33
So, a reduction of 15% with no other flat costs.

Versus a mono-culture of the same distribution:
10 Pops cost: 20
Total cost: 20

Or with slaves
10 Pops cost: 20
6 slaves: 6
Total cost: 26

OUCH. Xenophiles getting annihilated. SO, what you need to do is add -100% Xeno Pop Trad Cost Red AND -100% Xeno Slave Trad Cost Red.

Here's what Fan Xenophiles should look like:
10 Pops cost: 20
5 Xeno Pops cost: 0
6 Slave Pops cost: 6
3 Xeno Slave Pops cost: 0
Total cost: 26

You STILL GET the basic slavery penalty, but now it doesn't matter if they're xenos or not. EXACTLY what you want from xenophiles. And of course, flat tradition costs will rapidly overwhelm any pop costs, but hey, that's life.

I've been testing this out. Seems the modifier for xeno slave tradition costs is also somewhat bugged out. What I can do is something like this:
Xenophile: -50% extra cost for xeno pops + no extra costs for xeno slaves (xeno slaves cost like regular slave pops) OR xenophiles pay the regular penalties for xeno slave pops.

Fanatic Xenophiles: -100 extra costs from xenos and no extra costs from xeno slaves (same as above.)

Also, I checked it out and fanatic xenophile means you can't do residence as a species right, but can do caste system.

 

[BrokenSky]

I wrote some stuff previously in one of your other threads on expanded faction stuff, but on balance I think happiness needs a bit of a rework (including faction happiness).

Bearing in mind this is rough ideas wise and the numbers and perhaps some of the concept needs tweaking,
IMO slight unhappiness (40% - 50%) should be the norm, rather than the (80% - 100%) I tend to see in my empires. To that end, the main sources of happiness should be addressed:
* Factions: should be harder to please and easier to meaningfully upset, but as is seem like they'd be ok?
* Living standards should not, in general, give happiness bonuses; They should increase the impact of unhappiness on unrest and give other bonuses (mainly to pop unity and science generation?) with the exception of chemical bliss. Dunno whether low QoL (living standard / quality of life) should give unhappiness, but maybe. (Having low living standard give unhappiness, but high living standards giving +science, and very high giving +science and +unity, but having high and very high increase the unrest impact of pops similar to how slavery reduces it would be my first guess at the best balance, but playtesting is better than a guess)
* Buildings: probably ok as is, given the tile cost, dunno. Maybe some buildings need a nerf?
* Traditions: the happiness bonus change (to growth) was probably a good idea.
* Overcrowding: don't know how easy this would be to mod, but having an "overcrowding" penalty to happiness in planets based on how close to full they were (maybe a triggered planet modifier?) would be pretty cool. I think I mentioned this idea somewhere else, alongside a suggestion relating to the addition of ethics for collectivist (reduced penalties from overcrowding) and individualist (higher migration speed and improved colonial growth speed? / reduced cost? etc). But I don't know if this would be harder to mod or not. Perhaps the collectivist ethic as suggested here would (at empire level) result in a different planet modifier with the same name and art but reduced effect being applied to the planet?

 

[ExNihil]

* Overcrowding: don't know how easy this would be to mod, but having an "overcrowding" penalty to happiness in planets based on how close to full they were (maybe a triggered planet modifier?) would be pretty cool. I think I mentioned this idea somewhere else, alongside a suggestion relating to the addition of ethics for collectivist (reduced penalties from overcrowding) and individualist (higher migration speed and improved colonial growth speed? / reduced cost? etc). But I don't know if this would be harder to mod or not. Perhaps the collectivist ethic as suggested here would (at empire level) result in a different planet modifier with the same name and art but reduced effect being applied to the planet?

The code for this already exists in Vanilla, but is apparently deactivated.

 

[ExNihil]

I implemented some changes following the discussion here:

1. Added +15% militarist ethic attraction following @Milten's suggestion.

2. Increased xenophile tradition cost from xeno pops perk to 100%/50%, following @beckermt's suggestion.

3. I will include a special modifier for xenophile+authoritarian synergy that removes the extra tradition cost of xeno slaves. Xeno slaves will be thus counted as normal slaves only. Haven't decided yet if I'll do this with a special tech, invisible event or civic. Again, following @beckermt's suggestion.

4. I'm creating an addon mod that revampsa terraforming to make world it, and the perk world shaper more attractive. I'm also fixing some planets. I'll update once this is finished.

5. Reduced the egalitarian influence from factions bonus to +20/40% following @GAGA Extrem and @GloatingSwine's input.

6. Reduced the hyperstorage 3 consumer goods bonus to -10%, following Gaga's input. Also checked that you can't stack 100% or more of this bonus. Maximum is: -40% fanatic egalitarian + -20% enviornmentalist + - 15% the tradition Trans-Stellar shipping = -75% global CG cost reduction. On top of thid you cam have the -10% CG on planet from hyperstorage 3, for -85% CG on planet total.

7. I will add a special robot oriented civic that reduced robot main. costs and increases build speed. Or I will split the edict Share the Burden into two edicts, one for xenophobes/authoritarians, one for robot users, and add it there.

8. Rebalanced the AP One Vision:
-reduced the governing ethics attraction to +15% (was +30%).
-replaced the +10% per tile unity production bonus with +15% global unity production bonus.
-added -15% number of owned colonies tradition cost increase.

9. Changed the xenophile specific civic Diplomatic Corps bonus from trade attractiveness to +35 extra trust cap, following @Gaga's suggestions.

10. Increased the authoritarian influence bonus to 15/30%.

Added you guys to the special thanks section .

Any input?

P.S. @BrokenSky. I will not add mew ethics in this mod, but I will do this in addon. I'll update you when I do.