Penty of suggestion
Posted: Fri Dec 08, 2023 1:11 pm
I will try to be concise as there are plenty of elements that I think could be improved. I have been playing this game for quite awhile now and I think that while some elements work well and it is unique in combining 4x and war gaming elements, other aspects are strange or subtract from the experience.
General elements:
- There should be a toggle able option for a guarantee metal deposit near (<6 hexes away) the capital. Period. Unless metal become somehow much less important, lacking access to it early game is absolutely crippling and it doesn't make sense that interesting maps are wasted because there not at least one source of metal (and in slower speeds it is even more noticeable).
- Diplomacy with AI is horrible. While I get that the focus is much more in war-gaming ( which honestly shouldn't be the case ) diplomacy being controlled by stratagems is both too inflexible and too random. I imagine it will be look upon next DLC, but I think having something akin to a more classical 4x game diplo would do wonders while keeping the different personalities flavours for the AI. For instance ending war though concessions should actually something that can happen.
- Having a simple tooltip appear when hovering with the mouse the nation credit showing total income and spending would save time rather than checking the reports tab for this vital info.
- Allow governments to go into limited debt, so that a sudden downturn in credits doesn't automatically lead to unhappiness (it could also help in other regards and allow a bit more financial play).
- Allow to set priorities for government buildings in regards to how they need to be filled. This could be specially useful when building up new zones, conquering zones (ie:fill first the logistic stations) or when workers randomly die. Manually closing and mothballing can achieve the same, but I think having this option as well will be very handy specially in allowing to set it up and not having to constantly monitor it.
- Governor repeatable events need to be accessible by a single window. Also they should be more thoroughly balanced: talking to AI should be a single event rather than repeatable as it allows discovering a lot of free tech, slaver shouldn't be able to spam 2000 pops out of thin air etc.
- Non town minors should not empty free people from the area. This is specially relevant for slavers and nomads, if a player needs to fight then as they would do against hunters, raiders or farmers, there should be some pop to be assimilated as well.
- I will write further down about postures, but if keep in game they should be removed after X turns , for instance 3. Postures are too inflexible and the Ai using then is a never ending contest of shooting itself on the foot.
- Airbases should not be taken into account for administrative penalties, as they are just a drop point for supplies for aircraft and the minimal infrastructure needed to run then.
- Positive relation bonus should be axed/greatly reduced. The advantage of high relation should be that the leader isn't causing trouble/planning revolts/leaving with good stats. I think relation bonus pile up with the big effect off some bonuses facilitating snowballing. On that maybe squaring or some similar formula leading to decreasing returns could be implemented to all bonuses so stacking isn't as desirable.
Profile balance:
- Autocracy still feels very weak compare to his peers, more so when it mostly excels at killing your own pops which isn't ideal. I would suggest moving the political power bonus from democracy over to autocracy as it makes sense that an authoritarian ruler have much more flexibility to operate rather than in a system where power lies with the voters. Additionally it would be good to have some kind of other small bonuses beyond making fear irrelevant, as well as some form of powerful bonus as an ending. Maybe an interesting option would be reduced QoL/food/water needs for the population.
-For democracy, I think the main selling point is being able to buy out unrest events. If however the political bonus is moved, I think the best substitute would be the happiness bonus from commerce to be moved here, to represent population being happy for having representation.
- Enforcement currently seems weaker than his peers, as extra service tax isn't that significant and extra recruits is usually a non issue. Being one of the themes efficiency however, I think it could make sense if the recruitment bonuses are replaced with bonuses on mining, oil and energy production, to represent less wasteful approaches on this regards.
- On commerce, I think an efficiency bonus on private assets would make a lot of sense. Private econ is already less manpower efficient than state run enterprises, but commerce should probably be closing the gap quite a bit.
- For fist, I think the recruitment bonus would be more fitting than cas tolerance, as the combat bonus would in the first place reduce the casualties the nation take. Instead, I think that heart, the weakest of the three, should get increasing tolerance to casualties with each level, being able to adsorb casualties more efficiently- Additionally if Heart needs an extra buff which I think it does, maybe some form of pop growth/extra additional forms of manpower stratagems could be use, as it could be interesting to have a more quantitive approach for combat compare to mind and fist more qualitative approaches.
- While both government and mind focus makes sense thematically, they should be weaker as they clearly seem as the most dominant positions.
Combat balance:
I think one fundamental element to handle is the current ultra exponential growth of unit stats and tech, which currently leads to excessively tech focus problem solving. Now, while technology advancements should be important for being more efficient, having techs adding +50% SA or linear techs allowing climbing stats incredibly fast is complete non sense, more so when the shiny development of the already fielded unit allow to massacre enemies left and right. It is also one of the reasons why tech bonus and generation bonuses are so powerful, bc thanks to then one can field equipment which utterly dominates the opposition. I would suggest the following changes:
- Firepower increases should have significant decreasing returns after a certain point including bonuses. Currently there are small decreasing returns with guns (although practically speaking having the 300 being close to double the effectiveness of the 150 mm makes little sense) but one bonuses from both tech specific bonuses and linear techs are applied values increase significantly. If instead decreasing returns were more powerful ( or tech bonuses much more modest), tech would still be a very good focus as it would allow to create more efficient units for equal cost without necessarily leading to a dominant strat.
- If firepower gets more controlled, bigger calibres could be relegated to actual real life usages of more anti fortification focus. So for instance big artillery calibres would have similar or slightly better attack rates compare to medium calibres, being therefore much less cost effective. However, in turn they could get bonuses in specifically damaging fortifications and entrenchment, making then more niche units for breaking though fortified lines.
- Similarly to firepower, Hp increases from armour should be much smaller from tech and choices, increasing the hp of an infantry model by three times just because it carries an enviro suit is not something I think is good design as it makes "naked" infantry completely irrelevant which is a pity as unique planet conditions are made much less relevant. From a logical point it also doesn't make much sense that for instance a thicker steel plate would made a tank more able to survive hits irrespective of the penetration capacities of the weapon that it faces. In this regard it is also interesting that the weapon matrix damage reduction would already make a big incentive for the armour/at race, as the damage reduction it can provide would already make a strong incentive to up armoured units though the game.
- In summary , I think that in general it would be positive if attack and hp score increases though a game were more moderate, as it would also help in keeping militias and non major units more relevant for longer while also lowering the relative value of tech rushing.
- On a similar note, positive multiplicative modifiers in combat can jump out of control in some hilarious but game breaking ways, the most obvious being the sometimes insanely high HQ roll. Here my suggestion would be once again some form of decreasing returns so that while a +100% may be common, some of the most extreme values like above 400 would be hard/impossible to reach.
- Aircraft range could probably be buffed a bit. I think this also matter towards why thopters are so good, as planes with 1000 km range which for ww2 would be quite good in regards to range can barely reach outside their city area. I don't see a powerful reason as to not assume planes need to physically travel 200km per hex when it is already abstracted for ground units anyways.
- Regarding tanks, I think it would make sense for then to not get a penalty reduction on the defence for their firepower values , instead being somewhat more vulnerable in defence due to lacking hide points as well as lacking entrenchment capacities . As an additional element, and to better represent combined arms, I think armoured units should get a HP debuff if lacking infantry support ( represented as a ratio) to represent the difficulties afv face when going in the attack alone.
- In regards to priest unit attachments, it would be nice to have the option for attachment in whole formations level as the task of attaching then individually to each unit is very tiresome.
Staff council:
- I think the game sorely needs both the ability to craft formations as well as a more detailed OOB. On the first regard, having already the option for custom formations was already a great addition, but I think going even further would be great as it would allow much greater flexibility as to how the player approach the game, by for example reducing the number of soldiers per battalion to cover greater area or making full artillery divisions. Similarly a more detailed OOB would greatly enhanced immersion while also adding an extra layer for both strategic and character management.
- Regarding the first point, I would suggest making the staff council have two different tasks for BP spending: TOE organization and Formation creation. The first would focus on the creation of battalions while the second would use the battalions available to create regiments/brigades/divisions with multiple battalions. So the player will use the TOE organization task to create the building blocks upon which then different formations are created. Same as equipment, it would be nice to have arrangement options so that battalions are shown as obsolete/only in formation/ only independent etc.
- On regards to battalion creation, it could allow not only for mixing units in way the player see fit but also a way to feature unit feats in an organic way that cost resources. Some limitations could also be in place, both in hard limits (no battalion less than 500 men in size) or by tech (although combined arms would probably be known in a post apoc scenario, the current need to research formations could be still in place like no mixing tanks and inf before a certain tech). Another element that could be interesting to introduce could be purely support units like supply wagons. One element that could be crucially different between planets with live and those without is the possible existence of pack animals, as without then the amount of supply carried by a unit would be greatly limited to what a person can carry or motorization.
- In regards to Formation, they would use battalions as building blocks , limited by command and control , a new type of national level, measuring the capacity of the nation formations to effectively control sub units, starting low meaning formations can at most have a small number of battalions but increasing though the game allowing bigger formations. Limits could also be put in place as suggested above in regards to what battalion can be mixed, ie different tank and infantry ration, attaching air formations etc.
- Regarding OOB, I think the main thing to be represented is the ability of a single individual to handle a number of different formations. So at the start with just a few brigades SHQ can handle to manage then all, but once the number get bigger there is a need to create intermediate command levels such as corps, armies, front etc to handle the different units. Continuing with the example, a competent SHQ may be able to handle 4 different brigades, but if the need arise to create more formations it will be wise to create a corps handle by a single character to handle the four brigades.
- Here what I would suggest is to introduce a new variable called coordination to represent the ability to effectively mix different formations. Coordination would mainly be a modifier to OHQ rolls (and maybe a debuff if too low ?) and be rolled by the common head of the fighting elements involve. Battalions of the same formation will always assume to be coordinated, while if fighting with different formations a coordination roll by the immediate superior will be done to determined if there is any penalty. For instance two battalions of different divisions organized under the same corp would have the roll be done by the corps commander. In another example, if three battalions are attacking, two under the same corps and the third only sharing the same SHQ, two rolls be done, one by the SHQ to determine the coordination of the third battalion with the other two and a second by the corps commander to determine the coordination of the elements under his corp.
- As for a formula, I would suggest: (1d100+High command skill)*Hq distance-25. As for how it would affect OHQ, a simple OHQroll -MAX(0,100- Coordination roll). If multiple rolls are made, the average could be taken to determine the coordination skill. Hq distance modifying could also incentive creating sub levels in the military hierarchy to effectively handle the units , distance which should also be modified by the communications tech. As this would allow OHQ to be under 0, I would suggest making it a possible debuff if roll <-50, linear as in the positive case.
- Regarding OOB, beyond corps, armies etc having physical movable HQ, they should also have the option to have a greater share of independent units attached than the lower basic formations. Independent units at a corp level will for example represent centralization of artillery assets under a single command.
- For militia units, it could be interesting if certain regime feats allowed to attach then to unit formations, for example in case of fist.
General elements:
- There should be a toggle able option for a guarantee metal deposit near (<6 hexes away) the capital. Period. Unless metal become somehow much less important, lacking access to it early game is absolutely crippling and it doesn't make sense that interesting maps are wasted because there not at least one source of metal (and in slower speeds it is even more noticeable).
- Diplomacy with AI is horrible. While I get that the focus is much more in war-gaming ( which honestly shouldn't be the case ) diplomacy being controlled by stratagems is both too inflexible and too random. I imagine it will be look upon next DLC, but I think having something akin to a more classical 4x game diplo would do wonders while keeping the different personalities flavours for the AI. For instance ending war though concessions should actually something that can happen.
- Having a simple tooltip appear when hovering with the mouse the nation credit showing total income and spending would save time rather than checking the reports tab for this vital info.
- Allow governments to go into limited debt, so that a sudden downturn in credits doesn't automatically lead to unhappiness (it could also help in other regards and allow a bit more financial play).
- Allow to set priorities for government buildings in regards to how they need to be filled. This could be specially useful when building up new zones, conquering zones (ie:fill first the logistic stations) or when workers randomly die. Manually closing and mothballing can achieve the same, but I think having this option as well will be very handy specially in allowing to set it up and not having to constantly monitor it.
- Governor repeatable events need to be accessible by a single window. Also they should be more thoroughly balanced: talking to AI should be a single event rather than repeatable as it allows discovering a lot of free tech, slaver shouldn't be able to spam 2000 pops out of thin air etc.
- Non town minors should not empty free people from the area. This is specially relevant for slavers and nomads, if a player needs to fight then as they would do against hunters, raiders or farmers, there should be some pop to be assimilated as well.
- I will write further down about postures, but if keep in game they should be removed after X turns , for instance 3. Postures are too inflexible and the Ai using then is a never ending contest of shooting itself on the foot.
- Airbases should not be taken into account for administrative penalties, as they are just a drop point for supplies for aircraft and the minimal infrastructure needed to run then.
- Positive relation bonus should be axed/greatly reduced. The advantage of high relation should be that the leader isn't causing trouble/planning revolts/leaving with good stats. I think relation bonus pile up with the big effect off some bonuses facilitating snowballing. On that maybe squaring or some similar formula leading to decreasing returns could be implemented to all bonuses so stacking isn't as desirable.
Profile balance:
- Autocracy still feels very weak compare to his peers, more so when it mostly excels at killing your own pops which isn't ideal. I would suggest moving the political power bonus from democracy over to autocracy as it makes sense that an authoritarian ruler have much more flexibility to operate rather than in a system where power lies with the voters. Additionally it would be good to have some kind of other small bonuses beyond making fear irrelevant, as well as some form of powerful bonus as an ending. Maybe an interesting option would be reduced QoL/food/water needs for the population.
-For democracy, I think the main selling point is being able to buy out unrest events. If however the political bonus is moved, I think the best substitute would be the happiness bonus from commerce to be moved here, to represent population being happy for having representation.
- Enforcement currently seems weaker than his peers, as extra service tax isn't that significant and extra recruits is usually a non issue. Being one of the themes efficiency however, I think it could make sense if the recruitment bonuses are replaced with bonuses on mining, oil and energy production, to represent less wasteful approaches on this regards.
- On commerce, I think an efficiency bonus on private assets would make a lot of sense. Private econ is already less manpower efficient than state run enterprises, but commerce should probably be closing the gap quite a bit.
- For fist, I think the recruitment bonus would be more fitting than cas tolerance, as the combat bonus would in the first place reduce the casualties the nation take. Instead, I think that heart, the weakest of the three, should get increasing tolerance to casualties with each level, being able to adsorb casualties more efficiently- Additionally if Heart needs an extra buff which I think it does, maybe some form of pop growth/extra additional forms of manpower stratagems could be use, as it could be interesting to have a more quantitive approach for combat compare to mind and fist more qualitative approaches.
- While both government and mind focus makes sense thematically, they should be weaker as they clearly seem as the most dominant positions.
Combat balance:
I think one fundamental element to handle is the current ultra exponential growth of unit stats and tech, which currently leads to excessively tech focus problem solving. Now, while technology advancements should be important for being more efficient, having techs adding +50% SA or linear techs allowing climbing stats incredibly fast is complete non sense, more so when the shiny development of the already fielded unit allow to massacre enemies left and right. It is also one of the reasons why tech bonus and generation bonuses are so powerful, bc thanks to then one can field equipment which utterly dominates the opposition. I would suggest the following changes:
- Firepower increases should have significant decreasing returns after a certain point including bonuses. Currently there are small decreasing returns with guns (although practically speaking having the 300 being close to double the effectiveness of the 150 mm makes little sense) but one bonuses from both tech specific bonuses and linear techs are applied values increase significantly. If instead decreasing returns were more powerful ( or tech bonuses much more modest), tech would still be a very good focus as it would allow to create more efficient units for equal cost without necessarily leading to a dominant strat.
- If firepower gets more controlled, bigger calibres could be relegated to actual real life usages of more anti fortification focus. So for instance big artillery calibres would have similar or slightly better attack rates compare to medium calibres, being therefore much less cost effective. However, in turn they could get bonuses in specifically damaging fortifications and entrenchment, making then more niche units for breaking though fortified lines.
- Similarly to firepower, Hp increases from armour should be much smaller from tech and choices, increasing the hp of an infantry model by three times just because it carries an enviro suit is not something I think is good design as it makes "naked" infantry completely irrelevant which is a pity as unique planet conditions are made much less relevant. From a logical point it also doesn't make much sense that for instance a thicker steel plate would made a tank more able to survive hits irrespective of the penetration capacities of the weapon that it faces. In this regard it is also interesting that the weapon matrix damage reduction would already make a big incentive for the armour/at race, as the damage reduction it can provide would already make a strong incentive to up armoured units though the game.
- In summary , I think that in general it would be positive if attack and hp score increases though a game were more moderate, as it would also help in keeping militias and non major units more relevant for longer while also lowering the relative value of tech rushing.
- On a similar note, positive multiplicative modifiers in combat can jump out of control in some hilarious but game breaking ways, the most obvious being the sometimes insanely high HQ roll. Here my suggestion would be once again some form of decreasing returns so that while a +100% may be common, some of the most extreme values like above 400 would be hard/impossible to reach.
- Aircraft range could probably be buffed a bit. I think this also matter towards why thopters are so good, as planes with 1000 km range which for ww2 would be quite good in regards to range can barely reach outside their city area. I don't see a powerful reason as to not assume planes need to physically travel 200km per hex when it is already abstracted for ground units anyways.
- Regarding tanks, I think it would make sense for then to not get a penalty reduction on the defence for their firepower values , instead being somewhat more vulnerable in defence due to lacking hide points as well as lacking entrenchment capacities . As an additional element, and to better represent combined arms, I think armoured units should get a HP debuff if lacking infantry support ( represented as a ratio) to represent the difficulties afv face when going in the attack alone.
- In regards to priest unit attachments, it would be nice to have the option for attachment in whole formations level as the task of attaching then individually to each unit is very tiresome.
Staff council:
- I think the game sorely needs both the ability to craft formations as well as a more detailed OOB. On the first regard, having already the option for custom formations was already a great addition, but I think going even further would be great as it would allow much greater flexibility as to how the player approach the game, by for example reducing the number of soldiers per battalion to cover greater area or making full artillery divisions. Similarly a more detailed OOB would greatly enhanced immersion while also adding an extra layer for both strategic and character management.
- Regarding the first point, I would suggest making the staff council have two different tasks for BP spending: TOE organization and Formation creation. The first would focus on the creation of battalions while the second would use the battalions available to create regiments/brigades/divisions with multiple battalions. So the player will use the TOE organization task to create the building blocks upon which then different formations are created. Same as equipment, it would be nice to have arrangement options so that battalions are shown as obsolete/only in formation/ only independent etc.
- On regards to battalion creation, it could allow not only for mixing units in way the player see fit but also a way to feature unit feats in an organic way that cost resources. Some limitations could also be in place, both in hard limits (no battalion less than 500 men in size) or by tech (although combined arms would probably be known in a post apoc scenario, the current need to research formations could be still in place like no mixing tanks and inf before a certain tech). Another element that could be interesting to introduce could be purely support units like supply wagons. One element that could be crucially different between planets with live and those without is the possible existence of pack animals, as without then the amount of supply carried by a unit would be greatly limited to what a person can carry or motorization.
- In regards to Formation, they would use battalions as building blocks , limited by command and control , a new type of national level, measuring the capacity of the nation formations to effectively control sub units, starting low meaning formations can at most have a small number of battalions but increasing though the game allowing bigger formations. Limits could also be put in place as suggested above in regards to what battalion can be mixed, ie different tank and infantry ration, attaching air formations etc.
- Regarding OOB, I think the main thing to be represented is the ability of a single individual to handle a number of different formations. So at the start with just a few brigades SHQ can handle to manage then all, but once the number get bigger there is a need to create intermediate command levels such as corps, armies, front etc to handle the different units. Continuing with the example, a competent SHQ may be able to handle 4 different brigades, but if the need arise to create more formations it will be wise to create a corps handle by a single character to handle the four brigades.
- Here what I would suggest is to introduce a new variable called coordination to represent the ability to effectively mix different formations. Coordination would mainly be a modifier to OHQ rolls (and maybe a debuff if too low ?) and be rolled by the common head of the fighting elements involve. Battalions of the same formation will always assume to be coordinated, while if fighting with different formations a coordination roll by the immediate superior will be done to determined if there is any penalty. For instance two battalions of different divisions organized under the same corp would have the roll be done by the corps commander. In another example, if three battalions are attacking, two under the same corps and the third only sharing the same SHQ, two rolls be done, one by the SHQ to determine the coordination of the third battalion with the other two and a second by the corps commander to determine the coordination of the elements under his corp.
- As for a formula, I would suggest: (1d100+High command skill)*Hq distance-25. As for how it would affect OHQ, a simple OHQroll -MAX(0,100- Coordination roll). If multiple rolls are made, the average could be taken to determine the coordination skill. Hq distance modifying could also incentive creating sub levels in the military hierarchy to effectively handle the units , distance which should also be modified by the communications tech. As this would allow OHQ to be under 0, I would suggest making it a possible debuff if roll <-50, linear as in the positive case.
- Regarding OOB, beyond corps, armies etc having physical movable HQ, they should also have the option to have a greater share of independent units attached than the lower basic formations. Independent units at a corp level will for example represent centralization of artillery assets under a single command.
- For militia units, it could be interesting if certain regime feats allowed to attach then to unit formations, for example in case of fist.
