Nerf Egassem a bit

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Oberlus
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Nerf Egassem a bit

#1 Post by Oberlus »

From this first time experience with Egassem
MatGB wrote:one of my early projects for the 0.4.8 cycle is to nerf them a bit
Suggestions on this line:

Troops modifiers affects production (offensive affects yours, defensive affects enemy's). Having a +300% industry, Egassem have to spent really little into invasion, so they can conquer natives and unprepared species really fast. A 50% offensive for Egaseem would make sense in that they are huge (so not very mobile) and climatic intolerant (right now I assume they use incredibly huge and nasty land machines for invasion purposes). However, currently they are the only species with a bonus to offensive troops, it feels wrong to not have anyone with it and there's no intention to tweak all the other species.
As they have narrow planet tolerance and population malus, there little else to do there (could be too much of a hinder for early colonisation, that is already the worst among all the species).

So I end up with just this two alternatives as plausible:

a) 200% industry (down from 300%), they would still have the best industry rate (no one else have more than 150%) and a very good chances of early native invasion (since they have the 200% offensive troops trait),

b) Bad pilots (-1): As a huge and slow-moving species, they might have a bad time targeting those tiny flies around them. This way their massive fleets are not that overwhelming, although that won't stop them from being the best conquerors during early, mid and late game.

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MatGB
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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#2 Post by MatGB »

This has been discussed elsewhere a bit but that's fine, to reiterate from that, Egassem were designed specifically to have Ultimate Industry, that's their Thing, so they're keeping that, even though I have toned it down as a specific (it was 400%, ouch) after I made it work properly.

I do plan to both reduce their ground troop attack bonus a bit, give some other species a bonus there, and change the numbers so that it's not as overpowering: basically, the basic troop pod either gets 3 normally or there's a simple tech that grants +1, then Bad is only a 1/3rd malus rather than the current overpowered 1/2, and Good/Great can keep the same numeric bonus without being as powerful. The current good/bad troops effects weren't really assigned in a balanced way and sorting it has been a low priority for ages but needs to go up now.

Bad Pilots, however, is possibly a good idea, perhaps if we split fighter piloting and gunnery targeting up they could get bad for one of the two (fighters, probably, they'd be autonomous drones instead and not as reliable).
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L29Ah
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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#3 Post by L29Ah »

We've nerfed them to 200% industry and it looks good so far. OTOH, they become much too heavily dependent on the native occurrence.
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EricF
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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#4 Post by EricF »

I just lost my third game in a row playing Egassem.
Low Planets with medium Natives.
That Narrow planet tolerance and bad Pop is a killer.
They're great if you're playing low number of systems
and many AI players, else not so much...

And yea, you HAVE to have those growth techs, but bad
Tech makes that a bitch.

Off Topic; I've found that if you want a challenging game go with
at least 100 systems per AI player. Gives them a chance to expand.
Else they will just sit around their home systems and turtle.
The more AI players the easier the game.

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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#5 Post by Oberlus »

EricF wrote:I just lost my third game in a row playing Egassem.
Low Planets with medium Natives.
That Narrow planet tolerance and bad Pop is a killer.
They're great if you're playing low number of systems
and many AI players, else not so much...
What was your strategy in the three games. It's interesting to know.

From my perspective:
Everything that makes early pacific expansion easier (many planets to colonise before you have to battle for them), which implies harder violent expansion (enemies far away at the start), does not make for the best Egassem scenario.
In such situation, appart from the starting mandatory artificial brain (+5 RP for Egassem is aprox. doubling their RPs), I go straight for Exobots. Getting or not the first growth techs depends on the context: if I can colonise at least two poor planets and I have no enemy to harass (no natives, no empires), then I go for those techs and then I also add in Alg. Eleg. and Nascent AI for the +6 or more RPs I'll be getting from my colonies.
EricF wrote:Off Topic; I've found that if you want a challenging game go with
at least 100 systems per AI player. Gives them a chance to expand.
Else they will just sit around their home systems and turtle.
The more AI players the easier the game.
Not my experience, but I didn't try that since at least 4 months ago, so AIs may have improved. With older versions, I got that AI gets a bit slow-thinking and lack of innitiative from turn 200 or so, even if they are not under strong pressure, so my production and research graphs are always like 4x the best AI (even if there is only one that I have not met yet; AI has nothing to do against me when it comes to a long run expansion race, no matter the species).

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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#6 Post by MatGB »

"Nerf" ususally means reduce in power, if you want them nerfed it's because you think they're overpowered.

But the post seems to indicate you think they're underpowered.

We put in a small tweak to reduce their power a couple months back pending a proper go over, but I still think they're near the top of the power curve in most circumstances.

Yes, in some specific map layouts their main strengths can't help them, but all species get that to some extent or another, and they are meant to be an extreme example of a min/max species that needs careful strategising to do well on in an extreme example.

Having said that, if you want to post the generation settings it's always fun to play a game through and report back. I don't think, in general, that they're currently underpowered. I think the good/bad attack troops stats need a serious balance pass as they're too big a bonus/disadvantage.

(all this assumes you're playing the current Test version, if you're playing the Release version they're almost certainly overpowered)
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EricF
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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#7 Post by EricF »

MatGB wrote:"Nerf" ususally means reduce in power, if you want them nerfed it's because you think they're overpowered.
Actually I don't think they are underpowered or overpowered.
Depending on the map settings they can be either
virtually impossible to win with or an unbeatable juggernaut.

Here's my setup.
I'm not saying it was un-winnable, but I would be interested
to see what the person who did win it did.
egassem.jpg
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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#8 Post by Oberlus »

Challenge accepted!

Edit 1: OMG! 2 ancient ruins at 5 hops from homeworld!!!
That will give a big boost on techs and maybe give a good species.

Edit 2: Tae Gyrus homeworld at 5 hops from our homeworld. There are a few swamps, toxic and ocean planets around our homeworld and not a single inferno planet, so Tae will be our main colonizers. Their 125% pop, 150% prod and 100% research... looks like this is going to be a Tae Gyrus empire in fact.

Edit 3: turn 101, I was wrong, gonna be a George empire (got a system of four planets from my neighbours, and there are many tundra , barren and desert planet for them to colonise). I have more planets and PPs than anyone else, but my RPs are the worse of the four Empires. I've got Exobots but didn't build any of them since I got George. I'm still at mass drivers, got robos a few turns ago and nothing else appart from many Growth techs. This is not won yet but does not look bad.

Edit 4: turn 139, I've just got multispectral shield from one of the ancient ruins and death reays plus Misiorla from the other. I'm still focused on expansion (this map is huge for just 4 empires) and not conquering, and already got a fair amount of RoboKamis (all weapons, no armor) with laser and def. grid. that are fencing off my two closer neighbours (in fact I could beat one or the other but there is much map to discover and colonise yet so I just maintain the status quo). I have same RPs than my neighbours, half what the third unseen AI has, and same PPs than that unseen AI. Once I get Self-Grav. and DR 2 or 3 I'll start my conquering rampage on my neighbours and prepare for the battle against the unseen. Right now I think this is an easy victory.

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EricF
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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#9 Post by EricF »

Good luck. You're gonna need it.

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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#10 Post by Oberlus »

Turn 170ish. The unseen AI is Scylor with Hhohh as main pilots. I have 133% PPs compared to it. We have not met yet officially, but won't be nice. The other two are rather annoying, attacking from different sides. Not that easy, certainly.

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alleryn
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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#11 Post by alleryn »

Just started this one (turn 25) but one thing i'm noticing with Egassem in this style of map is that Scouts are very strong. You have the industry to produce them without it slowing you down much, your bonus supply allows you a wide range to scout, and identifying the few colonisable/capturable planets is a high priority early (helps in pumping out outpost/war/troop ships in the right order for efficient expansion).
Last edited by alleryn on Sat Dec 16, 2017 5:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#12 Post by Oberlus »

Turn 211, things are getting boring. Dunno why green can't keep up with me. My number of colonies is rocketing in comparison. Its army was way better than mine but once I began building nice stuff I was able to catch up and overpass it in less not much turns. We haven't clash yet, but it will be easy peasy with my Misiorla piloting high-end Titanic hulls with 6 fighters each. So the rest of the game will be a wack-a-mole until everything is red. Not inclined to do it.
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alleryn
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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#13 Post by alleryn »

Yeah, this one isn't feeling too difficult to me. The Kobuntura are an extremely good minor faction. (I'm preferring colonising desert worlds with Kobuntura (poor) over George (adequate) [EDIT: lol, the Kobuntura have the same pop, at least at this tech, even on Tundra worlds.. and better industry], and George is possibly the strongest major faction in the game right now, probably second to Trith with Egassem also stronger depending on the map specs -- imho).

Getting telepathic made things pretty easy. Distributed thought computing on turn 85ish and industry focus on all these George/Tae Ghirus/Kobuntura/Egassem worlds... i have that one Volp-Uglush on research duty.

Green must have had a nice start, looks like they got a second colony on turn 2 and a third not long after, but once i hit Adaptive i've been outscaling their production hard.

I screwed up and purple got one of the artifact worlds (i didn't notice it... guess i gotta turn specials column on in Filters), but all he got was a Dragon Tooth (for a minute i thought it gave him the design, but it seems to be just one ship).

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alleryn
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Re: Nerf Egassem a bit

#14 Post by alleryn »

Oberlus wrote:Dunno why green can't keep up with me.
Maybe this has something to do with it... :p
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