PvK Balance Mod Version 1.1 posted (for SE4 Gold Version 1.91 - Patch 4)

[spoon]

I agree with everything you posted, though wonder about these two:

Originally posted by PvK:

* Natural Merchants, Propulsion Experts, Ancient Race and Hardy Industrialists left at 1000 points.

I still have a hard time seeing why Natural Merchants are worth so much - their biggest benifit (not having to worry about a spaceport getting wiped out) can be more or less achieved normally by putting 2-3 more spaceports in each system. My gut says it's worth maybe 500, but since so many say otherwise, I'd say maybe give it 750.

* Advanced Storage Techniques cost increased from 1000 to 2000 points.

Seems too high. I think at 1500 I'd still always take it. At 2000, I'm not sure. Maybe that is right and just seems high because it's such a large jump...

[TerranC]

Originally posted by spoon:
I still have a hard time seeing why Natural Merchants are worth so much - their biggest benifit (not having to worry about a spaceport getting wiped out) can be more or less achieved normally by putting 2-3 more spaceports in each system. My gut says it's worth maybe 500, but since so many say otherwise, I'd say maybe give it 750.

Natural Merchants allow four advantages:
*it allows you to set up resources producing colonies quicker than others
*1 more facility space (or in your case, 3 more spaces)
*Hard to blockade
*Allows other facilities to be built in the time it would normally take a space port to build.

IMHO, those advantages should cost about 1250 racial points.

[spoon]

[quote]Originally posted by TerranC:

Natural Merchants allow four advantages:
*it allows you to set up resources producing colonies quicker than others
*1 more facility space (or in your case, 3 more spaces)
*Hard to blockade
*Allows other facilities to be built in the time it would normally take a space port to build.

IMHO, those advantages should cost about 1250 racial points.

I'm still not buying it. While your points are valid, they seem like small potatoes.

[Fyron]

*Hard to blockade

I don't think Natural merchants affects blockading at all.

[PvK]

I think the idea is if you blockaded the only Space Port planet in a system of a non-Natural-Merchant player, it would blockade the whole system's production/research/intel. I'm not sure if that's true. It is true though that if a non-Natural-Merchant player only builds one spaceport per system, then destroying or capturing that spaceport will remove the system's production/research/intel benefit to the empire.

It's also helpful if you're capturing enemy planets with troops, and you get a good one with lots of facilities but no spaceport. If you are a Natural Merchant, you can reap the rewards right away. And so on. It seems quite helpful, but not everyone's style, and it also seems to me it should be something special, and not something people take because it's cheap and clearly worth the cost, also because having it removes an interesting element from play. So, 1000 points seems good because it is worth it to players who appreciate it and will play to take advantage of it, but not worth it for every race design.

Similar logic with Advanced Storage Techniques at 2000. The cost is high to make it purchased by people willing to make the investment in something special, and play to take advantage of it. So, it should cost a little more than you might think it'd be "worth". Because if it only costs what it's worth, you might get it all the time just because it seems like a value. Rule of thumb is if anything seems like a good deal for the price, it should probably cost a little more. I think at 1500, people would still be considering it as a standard thing to buy. At 2000, hopefully players will then see it as something that is worth it if you're going to use all the advantages involved, such as stuffing the cargo space with units, and not just "because it's like +20% to all production, and costs less". If it does more, it shouldn't cost less.

Nothing's set in stone though - I'm just trying to explain my ideas about this stuff.

PvK

[dumbluck]

I am curious why you made physical strength (the ground combat bonus stat) so minor. Maybe I'm just inexperienced, but I would have thought capturing planets to be of pivotal importance, and thus the costs to increase and decrease should have been higher.

[Fyron]

No, I don't think blockading the spaceport (or any other system-wide facility) does anything to affect other planets in the system. I remember a discussion about this before, and someone tested it.

Originally posted by dumbluck:
I am curious why you made physical strength (the ground combat bonus stat) so minor. Maybe I'm just inexperienced, but I would have thought capturing planets to be of pivotal importance, and thus the costs to increase and decrease should have been higher.

The thing is, you can get 800 points from lowering the trait to 50%, and still be able to easily conquer planets. Militia are too weak to offer siginificant resistance in almost all cases. Defensive ground troops get bombarded before you drop your troops (in strategic combat). So, there is really no penalty to lowering the trait to 50%.

[ December 28, 2002, 19:04: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
I am curious why you made physical strength (the ground combat bonus stat) so minor. Maybe I'm just inexperienced, but I would have thought capturing planets to be of pivotal importance, and thus the costs to increase and decrease should have been higher.

What Fryon said, more or less. Militia are easily overwhelmed even with a small force and minimum Physical Strength. Even in those situations where defensive troops manage to fight, it is easy to compensate for low Physical Strength with more troops, and there is so little information presented about troops and troop combat, and it happens so quickly, that the physical strength of ground troops turns out to be a very minor factor (in the few actual troop combats that ever occur, it's almost always an overwhelming odds ratio for one side or the other). So, in the unmodded game, I think Physical Strength is sometimes a minor advantage, but never more important than the Advanced Traits I rated at 250 points. So, with these settings, the maximums (which aren't really very extreme - 50 to 150%) are in the neighborhood of 250 points either way.

(BTW, I feel it is possible to _mod_ troops so strength becomes more important (e.g. Proportions), but this is just a balance mod for the otherwise-unmodded game.)

PvK

[PvK]

Been distracted lately. Adjusted Intelligence value, and added Cunning.

Intelligence:
=============
* Basic cost increased from 25 to 50.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Positive threshold cost lowered from 100 to 75.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 40.

This means "the cheap bonus" is +10 for 500 points, instead of +20 for 500 points.
+20 costs 1250 points, and +50 would cost 3500.
Playing a "dumb" race is now more viable - a 90% race gets 500 points, while a 50% race gets 2100.

Cunning:
========
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Positive threshold cost lowered from 100 to 40.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10

This means less can be gained by lowering cunning, and raising it is more expensive between 110% and 122%, but less expensive for a heavy spymaster race over 122%. Maximum 150% Cunning costs 1850 points. Minimum 50% gains 650 points.
Part of the reason for the overall reduction is that defensive intelligence projects have multipliers to their effectiveness, so even a 50% Cunning empire can build up fairly effective defenses against a single antagonist without a lot of effort. The other reason is that concentrating in intelligence seemed very expensive for the amount of advantage gained. 150% Cunning in the unmodded game costs 3500 points, which is way more than it was worth compared to other advantages.

[PvK]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Regarding the Advanced Storage. Maybe I misunderstood PvK, but it seems as if you are giving the ADV Storage some subjective value. I thought the point of the balance mod was to eliminate this kind of stuff and make the different costs all be on the same scale? I am not saying that 2000 points is too much or too little for the trait cause I haven't tried to figure it out, but it ought to be easily enough to calculate the comparative worth of adv storage versus a 20% boost in all the production facilities plus the average loss of production per planet for enough cargo faciliites to store 20% more units.

It may turn out it's still cheap at 2000 points, or that may be too expensive for what you get in return. But trying to factor in some subjective "rareness" value seems counter to what you said the mod was for.

Good point. I don't mean to increase prices based only on rarity of use. However some advantages can't be valued completely objectively, because there aren't completely equal alternatives to measure against, so I think historical usage can offer at least a little input. I'm trying to be as objective as possible, and also to give some cost for unique abilities.

AST is almost like 20% in Intelligence, Minerals/Orgs/Rads, and Cunning, but it's a bit better because of the 20% extra cargo, and like all traits, it can be combined with aptitudes, and it also allows adding more facilities which don't have equivalent effects in the attribute modifiers. OTOH, you also have to build more facilities and units in order to take advantage of the bonus potential from AST, and there may be some rounding effects. Skillful players will be able to take more advantage than others of complex trait effects. It gets complex.

PvK