wobbly wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:09 am
I disagree with this assessment of the situation, it's certainly not what I'm seeing in game. As far as "best IP as early as possible" goes, Influence doesn't start kicking in as a major factor till much later in the game. If you don't have a good influence source by mid game you'll probably suffer, but you do have a fair bit of time to try and do something about it.
Not true - influence pays a huge part early game because thats when you set, swap, change direction, and reinstate different policies, all which cost influence on top of the albeit small cost of colony upkeep at first, which then grows.
* Oberlus had Kobuntura early, Shimmer Silk, Succulent Barnacles, and even even fractural geodes there for a while, allowing him good influnece and therefore he had more planets he could turn to better PP and RP resulting in larger fleets early on.
* I had no specials, and no good influence species unitl I took Detheren at turn 106, and that was on the other side of the galaxy
* Endhu, had no specials and was using Properganda and Moderation to get a small boost in inflluence to support his small pp and rp.
* From what I can see Lienrag had no influence specials either, and apart from 1 happy birthday base, no other good influence species
* o001eg had none either.
I dont know exactly about you Wobbly, but I bet you had access to species with good influence, and maybe some specials - you tell us, did you?
wobbly wrote: ↑Mon Aug 08, 2022 6:09 am
Regarding the stalemate issue, I don't think that's right. Seems to me an old winning method is no longer as effective and people have been a little slow to adjust their strategies to the new balance. It used to be that the easiest way to convert an advantage was to just gobble up every colony near you and snowball. Your PP/RP rises, the enemies PP/RP shrink, you grind out the win. This is no longer as effective. You still chew up their ability to produce so well, but you get bogged down yourself. If you want to win now you have to strike at the enemies core. Bring down their major shipyards, shatter their supply, just plain wreck your opponent. To me that's an improvement, not something that needs to be fixed.
You know, in current MP, maybe about 2 weeks or so ago you had an absolutely won position. At least from my perspective. This is in some ways easier to judge from the defending side. Sometimes as a defender you know you can't hold if the enemy comes forward and puts the boot in. Often on the attacking side you are missing the necessary information to know this and advancing seems risky. When you took down Oberlus's capital you also took down his only shipyard. I ended up lending him an Ugmor shipyard to give him some chance to survive, but in reality he was wrecked, double wrecked and triple wrecked. It seems to me you went with a strategy that would of worked in old versions. Eat all of his colonies. Get fat. Snowball. It gave him the time he needed to get a large shipyard down. It gave me the time I needed to bring a fleet across to help him.
Current mechanics aren't perfect and still need a bunch of balancing to work, however I don't think they are the root problem. I'd suggest trying to change your strategy and finding what works best in the game as is, rather then assuming the game needs to change to match a strategy that no longer works.
Wooh, that ended up being a wall of text. My apologies.
Again not true - I managed one fleet and starlane to take down Oberlus's capital while Endhu distracted him. I did not gobble up any of his territory, and it is only within the last 20 turns I have started to get back the Nit systems he took from me, plus others. He always had that large fleet of organics, and always a larger fleet than mine, and overall my empire because of poor influence was relatively new, and the slow population growth holds you back even more. At 106 I had Detheren, at 120-140 I had two more, but with 40 turns to even get close to a good population means a drawn out influence increase, which is now allowing me to increase my PP
Oberlus was never going to be down for long- because he still had all of his systems and populations, and although a decrease in PP and RP, he still had his high influence, which he used to change his policies to confederation, and climb back, and then still even more influence to again change his polices back to Liberty, etc again.
You say you were worried we were coming for you - We never had the fleet for that.
How can an attacker even come for you?
Never enough fuel to chase you down
Gobble up territory to get close, and you have an influence problem unless blessed with good influence species and specials.
Yes over time it is possible.
All I ask is you look at the facts and numbers. If approximately 50% of your planets output is set to Influence, with the rest of your output spread between PP, RP, etc, to me that is problem. I think 1/3rd is more appropriate.
Wobbly if you took away your good species and specials, what would the percentage of your planets needed to be set to influence to support your PP, etc
Wobbly I will repeat this statement by you -
If you don't have a good influence source by mid game you'll probably suffer, but you do have a fair bit of time to try and do something about it.
What if you don't and can't. I appreciate that in the future there may be some policies designed for your species to help negate that problem, but should the game be determined by specials, and your ability to capture a good influence species.
my wall of text, so my appologies