Some Quick Fixes to Improve Game Balance

[Icemania]

In a couple of threads I've raised the topic of empire homeworld troop strength as a relatively simple change which would help make the game more balanced.

In my last few games on Extreme Difficulty in the early game I've focused on building sufficient troops to invade the nearest couple of homeworlds as quickly as practically possible. No military ships are needed beyond fast troop transports.

Those homeworlds provide many benefits. Apart from massively increasing population and industrial capability, they also provide empire benefits (e.g. conquering the Teekans provides income/mining boosts) and colonisation benefits (as I can now colonise worlds native to the conquered homeworld before having the technology researched).

They can be used to fund a huge exploration and construction fleet in parallel with a massive military, crashing all research, building every wonder, a colonisation program, a population growth program, and still have funds left over. This approach can also be used with a Harsh home system start when all other Empires are Excellent (even if you have to go cashflow negative to fund it).

While this megalomania is fun I would argue that on Extreme this should simply not be possible. Compromises should always be necessary i.e. forcing choices between military, research and colonisation rather than being able to do them all in parallel.

Now obviously I can simply implement a house rule to stop myself from invading homeworlds in the early game. I see this sort of retort a fair bit on this forum. This is not what a Strategy game is about, if it's in the game I should be able to use it, and if it's unbalanced it should be fixed.

The troop strength of the first three enemy homeworlds conquered early game with 1.9.0.10 was 250k, 450k, 1000k. Let's say that was increased by 3-5 on Extreme ... a really simple change to make. With the increased homeworld troop strength, it now would not be practically possible to invade homeworlds until later in the game, and I would be forced to make those choices.

There is a similar argument with Technology Selling. Like many I follow a house rule to avoid selling technology as it is so easily exploited. With Technology Selling I can literally spend the entire early game with 0% taxation to optimise population growth and still fund almost everything else. The imbalance can be improved fairly easily by reducing the prices significantly, I would say by a factor of 10. I would then be quite comfortable using technology selling in the game, as I can use it to top-up available funds only and would need to think more carefully about how much technology I really want to trade.

I'm interested in your thoughts and any other suggestions that could be easily implemented, keep in mind the size of the development team, anything difficult will probably have to wait for DW2. I'm also aware these ideas are not new, plenty of posts around the forum on all this, so as someone who is late to the party and only really getting into it for Shadows, I'm a little confused as to why they haven't already been implemented.

[VorteeX]

eXtra bonus to defend homeworlds, like 100%, other worlds after 10 year = +10% so after 100 years of colony present will be 100% same as homeworld. Becose population have more desire to defend own land and after evry another generation settlers fell more devoted to planet where they live.

Or even bigger bonus, this also in later games force players to make serious planet bombardment before invasion.

[Canute0]

Ohhhh Someone saw a very nice and sweet fruit at the neightbours garden and can't pick it ! )

I don't see a reason to change anything. Yes a Homeworld is a valueable resources, the planet and the population.
You still can bomb the planet populations down to a amount you can conquer it with the troops you can affort.

But until you got the defence of the planet down, you realy have time, a few ships are enough to keep the planet from building new defence/ships. This give you time to recruit troops and build troop carrier.

If you like to get this nice fruits, play a Pirate ! Then you don't need to conquer the planet to get the income.

And honnestly i never got any trouble with cash, except at the beginning when i need to pay some pirates for protection.

[Icemania]

Canute, LOL, you need to read my post again! What I'm suggesting is the complete opposite i.e. those early game homeworld fruits are far too easy to pick.

As for the approach you suggest ... why build military ships, or bomb the population, that spoil some of those fruits, when I just need some fast troop transports?

[Yarasala]

About tech trading: I don't find techs too expensive and generally am content with the current system with the exception that foreign empires give away their techs too easily. But apart from that in my games the other empires don't have enough money to pay for techs most of the time, tech trading is mostly exchanging techs.

About home world troop strength: I agree that it should not be possible to invade a planet (not only home world) with a single troop transport. But instead of increasing defending troop strenght (that costs a lot of maintenance) force troop transports (and other ships that have troop compartments) to lower their shields for a significant time before ejecting troop pods so it would be very risky to attack defended (by ships or star bases) planets in this way. Additionally change the priority of defense forces so, that troop transports are always attacked first.

[Strat_84]

ORIGINAL: Yarasala
Additionally change the priority of defense forces so, that troop transports are always attacked first.

Ooohhh no, that one is a very bad idea. It might help with planet defence but it would surely mess up the space battles.[:-]

[jomarmont]

About tech trading: maybe the problem is that we get single offers and the economy should be more dynamic. As far as I see it when any given empire offers tech for sale (or any other commodity as a matter of fact) it should get low prices as offers if any at all (there should be a "system" controlling interest in any given tech by any given race). When any given empire wants to buy tech it should get expensive offers as the transaction happened as an initiative of the buyer. It is as simple as that: if I shout out loud that I am buying others should try to get as much money from me as possible and if I shout out loud that I am selling then others try to pay as little as possible.

About troop transports: maybe it could be a selectable option whether planetary defence forces in space(fleets and spaceports) should target troop transports first (you know...as a stance). Then of course you may establish an exploit where you start an attack with empty troop transports as bait to keep local defence busy...that is why it should be selectable.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Yarasala
About tech trading: I don't find techs too expensive and generally am content with the current system with the exception that foreign empires give away their techs too easily. But apart from that in my games the other empires don't have enough money to pay for techs most of the time, tech trading is mostly exchanging techs.

I certainly agree that technologies are available for trade too readily. I thought the past suggestion below from Shark was so good it was worth repeating ...

ORIGINAL: Shark7
One suggestion I might make is that the only way you can trade techs, bases, planets, etc is if you have an MDP with the empire you are wanting to trade with. This I think would curb a lot of the problems. Trading your technology should be something you do with only the most trusted of allies.

In fact, here is exactly how I would do it:

Tech trading criteria:

* must have MDP agreement
* for techs 2 levels or lower than current, relations at +75 or higher
* for techs 1 level less than current, relations at +90 or higher
* for equal level or advanced techs, relations at +100 or higher
* for special techs, relations at +125 or higher

With trade values, after getting familiar with Distant Worlds I now always play Extreme, and other Empires have plenty of money for trading. Before banning technology selling I've played a number games where I've set tax to 0% until maximum population and simply funded my empire with technology. This clearly requires some balancing. When selling, consider the cost of the technology to develop it (research base maintenance costs are minimal) ...

ORIGINAL: Yarasala
About home world troop strength: I agree that it should not be possible to invade a planet (not only home world) with a single troop transport. But instead of increasing defending troop strenght (that costs a lot of maintenance) force troop transports (and other ships that have troop compartments) to lower their shields for a significant time before ejecting troop pods so it would be very risky to attack defended (by ships or star bases) planets in this way.

The delay time idea would probably work early game when the troops transports are weak. That said, it seems a bit artificial, why should there be a delay? On Extreme the other empires should be able to easily fund the maintenance costs.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: jomarmont
About tech trading: maybe the problem is that we get single offers and the economy should be more dynamic. As far as I see it when any given empire offers tech for sale (or any other commodity as a matter of fact) it should get low prices as offers if any at all (there should be a "system" controlling interest in any given tech by any given race). When any given empire wants to buy tech it should get expensive offers as the transaction happened as an initiative of the buyer. It is as simple as that: if I shout out loud that I am buying others should try to get as much money from me as possible and if I shout out loud that I am selling then others try to pay as little as possible.

Good idea. Implementation would probably need some thought by the developer, not sure if it's the sort of thing they could do via a patch. Either way, the technology sale prices are completely disproportionate to the cost of developing those technologies.

ORIGINAL: jomarmont
About troop transports: maybe it could be a selectable option whether planetary defence forces in space(fleets and spaceports) should target troop transports first (you know...as a stance). Then of course you may establish an exploit where you start an attack with empty troop transports as bait to keep local defence busy...that is why it should be selectable.

It won't work. I attack with troops transports only and the first the enemy empire knows about my treachery is when the troops have already landed. If they then destroy my tin foil early transports, fine, I'll just build more for the next empire to conquer.

[Jeeves]

I think that people who try to make the normal game harder to win are missing the point. For a strategy game to be salable, it MUST be winnable on normal setting, providing a challenge to experienced players when they select increased difficulty. To make it harder to win would reduce the customer base once the game is finally noticed. I play the game on normal settings even though I know that I am going to win, usually in 12 years at victory 95% of 95/95/95. I do this because in every game I experiment with different strategies. In my current game in the middle of the ninth year, I am just now getting around to my first war, where I previously started warring in years 5-6. I suggest that if you want a challenging game, try NEVER invading a homeworld for those victory conditions...

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Plant]

Isn't the problem is that you are just technologically advanced in the early part of the game due to a combination of only having high tech labs and expensive research? Expensive research increases the time difference to warp technology. I remember you commenting in you AAR that the first homeworld you conquered haven't even have hypersapce technology. Also is excerbated by trying having tax rates as low as possible for greatest future potential on an excellent homeworld, which actually gives you an economic start which is about 20 years ahead of normal. So the best fix would be to change how technology research is conducted, perhaps to that the technology cap for each technology type to be independent of the other.

In the end the problem is that the AI isn't developed to follow human attempts to win; they are totally constrained by attempting to provide an interesting backdrop.
Also some wierd game mechanics such as diplomacy and technology.

I suppose it is failry wierd though that the AI doesn't seem to bother spending money. It seems obvious that if an AI have money, they should spend it automatically on anything they would think militarily useful, be it more ships, or troop upkeep.

[Icemania]

Jeeves, there is much that could be readily done to help new players with the early learning curve which would help awareness being better converted to sales e.g. more advanced tutorial videos showing people what experienced players do, providing more information on game mechanics in Galactopedia, a Master Guide summarising the best of the forum such as many of your posts etc.

The game is extremely winnable for new players on normal settings. It doesn't need an in-built exploit like the current technology prices to be very winnable. But fine, let's leave normal alone. As you said, it must provide a challenge to experienced players when they select increased difficulty.

So I'm going to say it ... winning on Extreme is an absolute cakewalk. Even though I don't sell technology and the biases file has been changed so most races hate me and as a result technology trading is limited, in every game, I'm ahead in every measure as soon as I invade the first homeworld, and before long the gap is massive. All we seem to have is yet more player driven handicaps e.g. don't invade homeworlds with a victory condition well past the point of galactic domination etc.

I'd like to explore ... and have others propose ... a few quick fixes to make the game harder on the more difficult settings particularly Extreme. I know I'm going to win but at least it might not be a cakewalk. On Extreme I should not be able to fund my Empire with technology selling alone, I should not be able to easily invade homeworlds at low cost in the early game.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Plant
Isn't the problem is that you are just technologically advanced in the early part of the game due to a combination of only having high tech labs and expensive research? Expensive research increases the time difference to warp technology. I remember you commenting in you AAR that the first homeworld you conquered haven't even have hypersapce technology. Also is excerbated by trying having tax rates as low as possible for greatest future potential on an excellent homeworld, which actually gives you an economic start which is about 20 years ahead of normal. So the best fix would be to change how technology research is conducted, perhaps to that the technology cap for each technology type to be independent of the other.

In the end the problem is that the AI isn't developed to follow human attempts to win; they are totally constrained by attempting to provide an interesting backdrop.
Also some wierd game mechanics such as diplomacy and technology.

I suppose it is failry wierd though that the AI doesn't seem to bother spending money. It seems obvious that if an AI have money, they should spend it automatically on anything they would think militarily useful, be it more ships, or troop upkeep.

Plant yes the settings on my "fun" games like the AAR include an equal start. It is true that even without invading anyone else it's possible to get way ahead of the AI's technologically and economically on Extreme. So let's talk about starting disadvantages.

Firstly, starting with a Harsh homeworld when all other Empires have an Excellent homeworld, a huge economic disadvantage when the game starts. Same strategy works, build troops and fast troop transports, and when big enough, invade a homeworld. Change Capital, now I have an Excellent homeworld, disadvantage nullified. Now consider increasing the troops on those homeworlds by 3-5 on Extreme, as you said they can fund it. Funding an invasion of a homeworld when my homeworld is Harsh is likely now not realistic and with limited funds the game instantly goes from cakewalk to interesting.

Secondly, let's add to Extreme and Harsh Homeworld and now add all other empires starting Tech Level 5 and Mature (and any permutation in between) while I'm starting Prewarp. In some games you'll die in 5 minutes, but if you get past that, it's game over. How? Invading isn't practical, obviously. So keep a low profile and beeline research for the Racial Technologies, or anything Tech Level 6 that they are unlikely to research. Since they are valued so highly and even on Chaos there are normally a bunch of empires prepared to trade technology if you give them rights and gifts, you can literally trade to catch up completely to Tech Level 5. Disadvantage nullified. Now implement what Shark suggested where technology trading requires an MDP and the game instantly goes from cakewalk to interesting.

A fundamental change to the AI is going to have to wait for DW2, and I don't want to be critical of the AI as this is a complex game and a small team. In the meantime, there are a couple of pretty easy changes that can be made, so experienced players can find Extreme interesting.

[Fenrisfil]

In my opinion the trouble with tech selling is that there are no restrictions on your ability to do this except those you impose yourself. Nothings to stop you selling tech for 0 credits to your worst enemy, not that you would do that, but it shows the problem.

The design seems to be based entirely on the point of view that tech trading is supposed to be used for purchasing technology and not selling it. As a result it is expensive so you can't just leap up the tech trees without investment and you have to be on good terms with a race for them to offer you their tech. What needs to change is that your ability to sell tech needs to be restricted as if you were an AI race, this would be controlled by your factions general opinion of the faction you wish to trade with.

That change would be so much better than the current on/off setting which only offers a solution to exploitation by forcing a nerf on diplomatic playstyles.

A second if more difficult to implement change would be to make factions less likely to accept a trade for technology that they have little/no interest in. For example at moment I can sell generic engines to one of the races that have access to unique engine modules, they won't be researching them so they make an easy target for abuse. Perhaps the game could just check what the next 5 items to be researched are likely to be in each sub-section for a faction and only purchase those technologies along with any unique tech offered.

As for the homeworld invasion, well to be honest launching attacks at close neighbours in the early game is always going to be a valid tactic, especially in a (galactic) pre-warp start scenario. With troops being more expensive to maintain these days perhaps the strength added by populations should be increased and the zero troop=instant win rule should be removed. That would go some way to balancing things, but it won't eliminate the problem.

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: Fenrisfil
In my opinion the trouble with tech selling is that there are no restrictions on your ability to do this except those you impose yourself. Nothings to stop you selling tech for 0 credits to your worst enemy, not that you would do that, but it shows the problem.

The design seems to be based entirely on the point of view that tech trading is supposed to be used for purchasing technology and not selling it. As a result it is expensive so you can't just leap up the tech trees without investment and you have to be on good terms with a race for them to offer you their tech. What needs to change is that your ability to sell tech needs to be restricted as if you were an AI race, this would be controlled by your factions general opinion of the faction you wish to trade with.

That change would be so much better than the current on/off setting which only offers a solution to exploitation by forcing a nerf on diplomatic playstyles.

A second if more difficult to implement change would be to make factions less likely to accept a trade for technology that they have little/no interest in. For example at moment I can sell generic engines to one of the races that have access to unique engine modules, they won't be researching them so they make an easy target for abuse. Perhaps the game could just check what the next 5 items to be researched are likely to be in each sub-section for a faction and only purchase those technologies along with any unique tech offered.

Some interesting ideas here Fenrisfil. What if selling technology was limited as per Shark's suggestion for trading?

ORIGINAL: Fenrisfil
As for the homeworld invasion, well to be honest launching attacks at close neighbours in the early game is always going to be a valid tactic, especially in a (galactic) pre-warp start scenario. With troops being more expensive to maintain these days perhaps the strength added by populations should be increased and the zero troop=instant win rule should be removed. That would go some way to balancing things, but it won't eliminate the problem.

Yes I agree it should be a valid tactic but at the moment it's way too easy and should cost a great deal more to pull off. Adding more strength by population is a great idea Fenrisfil so long as it's significant, and the idea makes sense ... given the history of warfare just imagine how many troops you would need to conquer 28B and keep them in line!

[Icemania]

ORIGINAL: VorteeX

eXtra bonus to defend homeworlds, like 100%, other worlds after 10 year = +10% so after 100 years of colony present will be 100% same as homeworld. Becose population have more desire to defend own land and after evry another generation settlers fell more devoted to planet where they live.

Or even bigger bonus, this also in later games force players to make serious planet bombardment before invasion.

You could probably tie this together with Fenrisfil's suggestion. Extra strength from both population and time held. In my view the total increase has to be more like a factor of 3-5 (a homeworld with only 250k strength on Extreme when invaded is ridiculously weak).

[Jeeves]

I agree that the troop contribution from population should be much higher, making homeworld conquests much harder without adding the expense of extra troops. Good suggestion. But the population should surrender when the last troop is dead, just be very angry at being conquered the way it is now, forcing you to leave troops there until the population accepts the situation.

Lonnie Courtney Clay

[Fenrisfil]

ORIGINAL: Icemania

Some interesting ideas here Fenrisfil. What if selling technology was limited as per Shark's suggestion for trading?

Very similar idea and I'd be happy to at least try that, though flavour-wise it seems less realistic. It does have the advantage that you have more direct control over the pacts than you do over your general populations opinion of another faction. Perhaps a Free Trade Agreement would be a more realistic cut off with Unique (and perhaps high level) techs restricted to MDP. If that was coupled with a reduction in trade costs in general (I've always thought the prices made any trade a sellers market) I think we'd be on to a winner.

Ultimately if it comes to it I would take game balance over realism so I'd vote yes on that if it was the only alternative to the current on/off system.

ORIGINAL: Icemania

Yes I agree it should be a valid tactic but at the moment it's way too easy and should cost a great deal more to pull off. Adding more strength by population is a great idea Fenrisfil so long as it's significant, and the idea makes sense ... given the history of warfare just imagine how many troops you would need to conquer 28B and keep them in line!

I've always thought the game underestimates the capabilities of civilians. I know some don't agree that the population alone should be able to fight, but I feel it's realistic (perhaps with a minimum population level to do that though). Historically a large population has always been more than capable of holding out against a small army and the theme does pop up a lot in science fiction too. You could probably also make an assumption of some kind of military presence such as cadets, territorial army, military pen pushers, police officers, mercenaries or retired soldiers. Chances are in a population of over a billion there would be some ability to create an organised resistance regardless of official troop levels.

Anyway, even if they still can't stand alone, a significant increase in strength from population would certainly make the game more interesting, balanced and realistic. As a side effect it would make independent planets slightly less of a pushover too (at least you may need more than two troop units). Really it's win/win.

[Icemania]

The opinion of each faction to other factions is really built into the starting racial biases settings. If they dislike you it will be a harder to get to an MDP and +75 etc. Personally I would implement Shark's approach or a variation thereof (which I consider very realistic) but combine this with your other idea i.e. make factions less likely to accept a trade for technology that they have little/no interest in. For those with little interest, reduce the values etc. I would also put more variation in the values in the default biases file.

I'm sold on a significant increase in troop strength from population particularly on higher difficulties and look forward to a response from the developers.

Outside of Homeworld Troop Strength and Technology Selling/Trading, what other simple changes could be made to improve balance and difficulty at least on the higher settings?

[Icemania]

Let's talk Ships.

In my current game the Gizurean, due to their natural population growth, have used their spare cash to produce a huge number of ships (~500). It's still fairly early game as they haven't colonised another planet yet (early 2112 in a Prewarp Start Expensive Research like AAR). Technology selling allowed in this game for a laugh.

All of their ships are Escorts and Frigates. I cannot find one ship that is bigger. They have firepower ~ 20 shields ~ 200 Size 159.

A good fraction of their ships have no fuel. With so many ships it looks like there is no hope of them keeping up with fuel demand.

While they've only just finished hyperdrive they have had warp bubble generators for at least six years. Not one ship has warp. Since they are building and retrofitting so many ships it's look like they just can't keep up.

Looking at other empires they all have small ships. Refuelling and retrofit bottlenecks vary depending on the races and the excess funds they have.

In contrast I have 0 escorts and 0 frigates but have 5 fleets of 14 Size 400 ships hunting for Pirates to exterminate and about 50 Size 400 military ships for new colony/base defence. Even a small group of Size 400 firepower ~ 200 shields ~ 1200 can stomp even the largest groups of the AI's small ships.

All the AI's have very few Explorers while I have 79. On Extreme there should be a race to get those goodies first.

All the AI's have very few Construction ships while I have 31. On Extreme there should be a race to repair ships in debris fields etc.

Now I know there are many different play styles but I would suggest:

1. The advantage of Construction research is so large that all AI's should research Construction technology (at least to Size 400) as any early game top priority.

2. Remove the recent changes allowing the AI to build more frigates and escorts when they have spare cash. Balance this by allowing them to build more large ships from cruiser and above. The larger the ship the larger the likelihood should be that spare cash is used by the AI to build them. This would hopefully prevent the AI from building more ships that they can possibly refuel or retrofit efficiently but help make them nastier and nastier as the game progresses. I'd love to see big fleets filled mainly with Capital Ships and Carriers!

3. The AI should build many more Explorers and Construction Ships. The number is of course debatable depending on style ... maybe the AI races should vary similarly.

Supplementary, is it also possible they can't build larger ships because Cruiser and above AI Gizurean templates require Fleet Countermeasures and Fleet Targetting that they don't have researched yet?