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

[PvK]

On this thread (http://www.shrapnelgames.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=23;t=007677), I said I'd make a racial point balance mod for the basic (otherwise unmodded) game.

Post here if you have any strong opinions about what things should cost. I have a pretty good idea of what to do, but you probably have good ideas too, so if so, post away.

PvK

[ February 26, 2004, 06:08: Message edited by: PvK ]

[geoschmo]

You should definetly add SJ's maintenance modification.

Geoschmo

[Fyron]

Aggressiveness and Defensiveness need to be very expensive. Make the minimums of them be 90%. Religious races dont need to be able to lower Aggressiveness to 75% to get half the points back for taking Talismans. Remove Environmental Resistance by making min 100 and max 100. It is a pointless trait that only serves as a loophole to get free points.

[PvK]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
You should definetly add SJ's maintenance modification.

Geoschmo<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I would, but this would require modding the vehicles.txt file, so that would be sort of beyond the scope of the mod, and it would lose compatibility with other mods that otherwise would be able to work with it.

PvK

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by PvK:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by geoschmo:
You should definetly add SJ's maintenance modification.

Geoschmo<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I would, but this would require modding the vehicles.txt file, so that would be sort of beyond the scope of the mod, and it would lose compatibility with other mods that otherwise would be able to work with it.

PvK</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ok then, well make it real expensive then, and top it out at 10% period.

Geoschmo

[PvK]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
Aggressiveness and Defensiveness need to be very expensive. Make the minimums of them be 90%. Religious races dont need to be able to lower Aggressiveness to 75% to get half the points back for taking Talismans. Remove Environmental Resistance by making min 100 and max 100. It is a pointless trait that only serves as a loophole to get free points.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There are two brackets for both reduction and improvement, and I'd rather not remove those options entirely, as again that would make the scope of the mod more than just a balance correction. What I will do though is make nearly-pointless sacrifices earn extremely few points.

Aggressiveness 75% is still a disadvantage for a Religious race, because not all their units will have talismans. Very low aggressiveness is a signifigant disadvantage even to races that plan to avoid using it, because cementing yourself into a strategy that avoids hitting with non-talisman direct-fire weapons, is limiting your flexibility.

Environmental resistance is greatly overvalued, but also is not without consequence - it cuts down planet reproduction significantly, which does have an effect even in the unmodded game. Also, it's more interesting if players have to pay at least a bit of attention to planet Conditions, so it should be worth at least a few points.

PvK

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by PvK:
Environmental resistance is greatly overvalued, but also is not without consequence - it cuts down planet reproduction significantly, which does have an effect even in the unmodded game. Also, it's more interesting if players have to pay at least a bit of attention to planet Conditions, so it should be worth at least a few points.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Fyron said tolerance is pointless, when he should have said it's redundant. The conditions of the planet have no effect. I thought they did too, but I was wrong. Tolerance is just another linear modification to reproduction rate. You lose one point of repro and about for every five points of tolerance. It may also affect happiness, but that appears to be linear as well. Conditions have no effect on this beyond the effect conditions already have on reproduction.

Geoschmo

[ December 22, 2002, 23:16: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Fyron]

I ran a test on Environmental Resistance. I set up 1 system with 16 planets, ranging from a conditions value of 0.0 to 1.5. I colonized all planets on the same turn. Here are the results:

Totally standard, average race:

All planets are Happy

0.0 is Deadly and gets 0% reproduction
0.3 is Harsh, and gets 7%
0.5 is unpleasant and gets 10%
1.0 is mild and gets 12%
1.3 is good and gets 14%
1.5 is optimal and gets 17%

The planets stayed Happy after a number of turns.

The second test had a race with 120 Environmental Resistance trait:

0.0 is Deadly and gets 0% reproduction
0.3 is Harsh, and gets 11%
0.5 is unpleasant and gets 14%
1.0 is mild and gets 16%
1.3 is good and gets 18%
1.5 is optimal and gets 21%

All planets became Jubilant after 1 extra turn.

Conclusion:
ER is linear in effect in regards to Reproduction Rate on all planets, regardless of conditions. Harsh planets are affected the same that Optimal and Mild planets are.

50 points gets 1% Repro and 1% happiness.
125 points gets 5% ER, which has the same effect as the above.
Therein lies the free points exploit associated with ER.

Proposed plan:
To eliminate the free points loop-hole, change ER to cost as much to lower by 5% as it costs to raise Repro and Happiness by 1%. Make ER cost 10 points per percent to lower. But, leave its cost to raise alone. It costs fewer points to raise ER to 105 (125 points) than it does to raise Repro from 110 to 111 (200 points), so ER can serve a good purpose when trying to get really high reproduction.

[ December 22, 2002, 23:38: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[PvK]

Thanks Fryon!

[spoon]

Just some ideas - not really tested...

Double point costs for research, construction, and minerals.
Increase Maint Reduction to 200 per point.
Halve point costs for ground combat.

Let repair range from 50% to 200% - cost maybe 5 points per point of repair, with no increase in cost. (so 200% repair would cost you 500 pts, dropping to 50 would save you 250 pts) (it could probably cost less than that, but 5 is such a nice even number...)

Suggest maxing Defensiveness at 110%, allow aggressiveness to go to 120%.

Eliminate Bezerker, or give it more penalties (less consruction seems good). Ditto with Merchant (suggest more ship combat penalties)

Good luck!

[Krsqk]

Mentioned this in another thread, but changing racial costs will make AIs and EMP files obsolete. Are you (or someone else) going to provide AI_General.txt files with this as well, or will this just be for new empires?

[PvK]

Thanks Spoon.

Krsqk, that's a good point. I'll just do the mod for new empires first, and then hope some brilliant and eager people mod all the AI's. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Mainly because it's a lot of time-consuming work to do it.

PvK

[geoschmo]

After thinking about this some more, what Fyron said about the tolerance could almost be applied to everything. The problem most people have with the characteristics isn't so much that they are too cheap or too expensive when raising them, it's that you get too many points back when reducing them and don't hurt your race enough to account for it. I think most of your changes could be made on the minus side of the charatcteristics.

And doing this would have the side effect of making your work in revising the AI easier, as few of the stock AI anyway have much in the way of reductions IIRC.

Geoschmo

[PvK]

Both are good ideas, Geo, although the AIs often are set to pick the undervalued attributes, and the total point levels can't be changed, so I can't really change the scale without increasing the power level, which isn't the goal of the mod. (Probably not clear there. I mean, if I wanted to not break AI setups by keeping positive costs almost all the same, I think it would probably end up devaluing everything but the undervalued ones, which would probably end up making 2000-point empires as potent as pre-mod 5000-point empires, and since I can't change the starting point bracket values from 0/2000/3000/5000, that's probably not desired. Agree?)

So I think some of the popular ones are probably under-valued on the positive side:

maintenance reduction (maybe 200/point to +5, then 300/point to +20)

combat bonuses (maybe 100/point to +5, then 200/point to +25)

intelligence (maybe 75/point to +10, then 150/point to +25)

political savvy (perhaps twice as valuable as the production aptitudes)

and perhaps construction.

PvK

[oleg]

Emotionless is obviously way too expensive.
Organics may become overprized after 1.82 OA fix.

[Phoenix-D]

"Emotionless is obviously way too expensive"

Subtract 800 from the cost for Emotionless, since it lets you drop Happyness to 50%.

Phoenix-D

[spoon]

Originally posted by oleg:
Emotionless is obviously way too expensive.
Organics may become overprized after 1.82 OA fix.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">If you reduce the cost of Farming, this will essentially make Organic cheaper, and also give less points back to everyone else, who can safely drop it to 50%.

[geoschmo]

Not too mention making farming cheaper than mining or refining just makes sense. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif Of course making sense isn't always the same thing as game playability. But in this case maybe it is. Good suggestion Spoon.

Geoschmo

[dumbluck]

PVK is not the only modder who is watching this thread closely. Thanx for all of your help with the AoW mod!

[PvK]

I've done some work on this, and it's getting there. Here are my current notes, for your comments.

Traits:
=======

* Advanced Power Conservation cost lowered from 1000 to 500.

This trait was rarely used, and while helpful, was not nearly as useful as other 1000-point traits.

* Mechanoids cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

This trait was probably never used by a skilled player in a competitive game. I have played many unmodded games, and have never been attacked by a plague bomb, and the few natural and espionage plagues have been easily cured for little cost and little effect. Moreover, empires with this advantage are immediately identified as such, so only an unobservant player would ever try to use a plague attack on a Mechanoid player. 250 points seems about right for this minor advantage, and removes the "balance penalty" for roleplaying mechanoid races.

* Lucky cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

The practical value of this varies depending on the game settings for random events. In many games, it will not be worth very much. In games with catastrophic events, at 250 points it simply becomes a dare to risk not taking it. Since the effects vary, and if multiple empires take it, they counteract each other, and since frequently this has little effect, it seemed to make sense to reduce it to a minor cost, which removes the amount of "wasted points" for empires which take Lucky in games where it won't have much or any effect.

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

These all seem of roughly equivalent value to me. Ancient Race can be abused in some gamey ways, but gives no advantage beyond knowledge, so opponents can get more permanent advantages. Hardy Industrialists may be somehwat less efficient compared to construction aptitude, but it can be combined with it to reach the highest levels of construction rate, which some players use in their grand strategies.

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

This one was pretty much universally accepted as the best 1000-point unmodded advantage, for its many effects and side-effects on facilities, starting strength, population, and cargo space. 2000 points seems about right to me compared to the other adjusted values.

* All racial techs remain at 1500 points.

After the many discussions over the years, it seems to me that these are all fairly well balanced and rated at 1500 points. They can all seem too powerful or too expensive if one doesn't appreciate all of their abilities and counter-tactics.

* Emotionless cost reduced from 3000 to 1800 (net 2200 to net 1000 when minimizing Happiness).

This is a very useful ability for lazy or new players, as well as for large empires that suffer damage that would otherwise make the entire empire riot and fall. Almost no competitive players were thinking twice about paying 2200 points for it, however. At 1000 net points, I'd say it's a good deal, and a valid choice for roleplayers.

Physical Strength:
==================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 3.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Positive threshold cost lowered from 100 to 5.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 3.

Minimizing troop strength to 50 now only provides 150 points.
Maximizing troop strength to 150 now only costs 230 points.

Intelligence:
=============
* Basic cost increased from 25 to 50.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* 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 1500 points, and +50 would cost 4500.
Playing a "dumb" race is now more viable - a 90% race gets 500 points, while a 50% race gets 2100.

PvK

[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. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">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]

Originally posted by TerranC:
[QUOTE]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.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

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.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">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%. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ 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.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">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. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Imperator Fyron:
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%.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Not exactly true. The troops don't get bobarded unless you also have waepons platforms on the planet. It's just that for some wierd reason the troops take damage form orbital bombarment before the weapons platforms do. But if you only have troops and no WP's, then you will have a troop to troop combat and could have problems conquering those planets if you take your 50% to physical strength. That being said, people very rarely keep that many troops garrisoned, or they can't on most small or domed worlds, or they do go ahead and build weapons platforms, or they have taken a reduction to physical strength themselves, so it rarely becomes an issue. Not never, but rarely. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Regarding the merchant trait, I can confirm 100% that Fyron is correct here. Blockading the space port has no effect on the other planets in the system. It only shuts off the resources coming from the planet being blockaded. Destroying or capturing the planet however does knock out the production from the entire system. This greatly increases the value of that particular planet to your empire. In the middle of a war is not when you want to be spending time and resources rebuilding your space port, and losing whole systems worth of resources at a time can hurt even a large empire.

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.

Geoschmo

[ January 06, 2003, 12:21: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Taera]

hello all, this is a thread i will be visiting a lot as i have many complaints and ideas about SE4G's balance.

lets start with this - scattering and stealth armor. for one, they shouldnt be stackable (maybe set them to 1-per-ship with same family).
Another thing, scattering shouldnt have the block LRS's because it makes jammer obsolete.

i'll be back with more later.

[Fyron]

I think this mod was just for racial traits, actually. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[PvK]

Yeah, I'm only changing the point values for race setup, not the way things work, in this mod. To see how I think things should work, see Proportions mod. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif But, thanks for the input. Proportions 2.5.1 does some interesting things with armor. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

[PvK]

Ok... weird problem here. So far I've only modded the intended files:

Cultures, Racial Traits, Settings

When I run the mod and try to create a new game, I get complaints about QuadrantTypes, which I haven't modded.

Anyone run into this before?

PvK

[PvK]

Hmm, seems like QuadrantTypes is being REQUIRED to be modded. Then I go to create a new race, and it complains about not finding modded Versions of RepairPriorities and Demeanors...

Has this been discussed before? Seems like either I'm confused and doing something wrong, or this is a bit lame - I shouldn't need to mod those files - it should use the ones in /Data if I don't provided modded Versions.

PvK

[Captain Kwok]

Even if you have only edited a single file, in order to have a new mod, you must have the ALL the files from /data in the mod/data folder as well!

[PvK]

Ditto for StellarAbilityTypes, SystemNames, and something else during quadrant creation... sigh.

[PvK]

Argh, that's dumb. Ok, thanks Captain Kwok!

PvK

[Fyron]

Well... all but Abilities.txt, which is just a reference file. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[PvK]

Ok, here's the latest. Please comment. Notice I got to the combat bonuses, and because of what I did there, I increased the price of Religious to 2000 - see explanation below.

Traits:
=======

* Advanced Power Conservation cost lowered from 1000 to 500.

This trait was rarely used, and while helpful, was not nearly as useful as other 1000-point traits.

* Mechanoids cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

This trait was probably never used by a skilled player in a competitive game. I have played many unmodded games, and have never been attacked by a plague bomb, and the few natural and espionage plagues have been easily cured for little cost and little effect. Moreover, empires with this advantage are immediately identified as such, so only an unobservant player would ever try to use a plague attack on a Mechanoid player. 250 points seems about right for this minor advantage, and removes the "balance penalty" for roleplaying mechanoid races.

* Lucky cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

The practical value of this varies depending on the game settings for random events. In many games, it will not be worth very much. In games with catastrophic events, at 250 points it simply becomes a dare to risk not taking it. Since the effects vary, and if multiple empires take it, they counteract each other, and since frequently this has little effect, it seemed to make sense to reduce it to a minor cost, which removes the amount of "wasted points" for empires which take Lucky in games where it won't have much or any effect.

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

These all seem of roughly equivalent value to me. Ancient Race can be abused in some gamey ways, but gives no advantage beyond knowledge, so opponents can get more permanent advantages. Hardy Industrialists may be somehwat less efficient compared to construction aptitude, but it can be combined with it to reach the highest levels of construction rate, which some players use in their grand strategies.

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

This one was pretty much universally accepted as the best 1000-point unmodded advantage, for its many effects and side-effects on facilities, starting strength, population, and cargo space. 2000 points seems about right to me compared to the other adjusted values.

* Most racial techs remain at 1500 points.

After the many discussions over the years, it seems to me that these are all fairly well balanced and rated at 1500 points. They can all seem too powerful or too expensive if one doesn't appreciate all of their abilities and counter-tactics.

* Deeply Religious increased to 2000 points.
This is because the compensation for reducing Aggressiveness by a small amount has been greatly increased. Essentially, an average Religious player is expected to take a -5 in Aggressiveness, for a net cost of 1500 points.

* Emotionless cost reduced from 3000 to 1750 (net 2200 to net 1000 when minimizing Happiness).

This is a very useful ability for lazy or new players, as well as for large empires that suffer damage that would otherwise make the entire empire riot and fall. Almost no competitive players were thinking twice about paying 2200 points for it, however. At 1000 net points, I'd say it's a good deal, and a valid choice for roleplayers.

Physical Strength:
==================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 3.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 5.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 3.

Minimizing troop strength to 50 now only provides 150 points.
Maximizing troop strength to 150 now only costs 230 points.

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.

Environmental Resistance:
=========================
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 0.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 12.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 18.

This follows Imperator Fyron's information that 5% in this is like 1% in Happiness and 1% in Reproduction. Threshold reduced to zero since this effect is divided by 5 so the actual range is -10 to +10, and zero threshold allows different rates for low-level increases versus decreases, which need to be balanced differently to avoid "free points" schemes with offsetting choices for Reproduction or Happiness. Since it requires raising both at once and thus offers less flexibility, I devalued it 2 per point (almost insignifigant).

Reproduction:
=============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 50.

Basic cost is raised because although population isn't a huge factor in unmodded games, a 1% change is about a 10% change relative to the base rate, and low rates can cut reproduction to 0% or a few % under bad circumstances, which becomes a relevant effect. The minimum setting will only earn 450 points, and is a meaningful disadvantage.

Happiness:
==========
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 0.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 40.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 15.

Threshold lowered to zero in order to reduce reward for lowering happiness a small amount, since in the unmodded game a little unhappiness is easy to counter with troops. A lot of unhappiness can be a problem however, so the Negative Threshold cost was increased. Positive Threshold can be low, because for the most part, a high value gives diminishing benefits which can be accomplished by others using troops. Minimum setting of -50 gives 750 points (and would be hard to survive long enough to develop troops before riots took over). Maximum setting of +50 costs 2000 points.

Aggressiveness:
===============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 200.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 50.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs 4500 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25% gains 1500 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this seems to me a fairly accurate valuation.

Defensiveness:
===============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 200.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 50.

The same value as Aggressiveness.

PvK

Edit: Corrected Emotionless cost for new Happiness price, and fixed the stupid line breaks inserted by either IE or the forum software when I pasted that in the first time.

[ January 09, 2003, 03:23: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Captain Kwok]

Overall, I like the changes and might even steal some. I'd be more specific but I'm really quite tired and can't focus on anything... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[Quikngruvn]

Very nice, PvK. I doubt seriously that I could improve on it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

Quikngruvn

[geoschmo]

Well Pvk, for all the discussion, I think the end result was very well done. Good job.

EDIT: BTW, how did you get through working on the proportions mod all this time and never notice that you have to have the complete /data folder when you mdo any data files? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Geoschmo

[ January 09, 2003, 14:09: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[spoon]

The numbers seem good to me. Only thing I would consider doing differently is maybe making aggressiveness cheaper than defensiveness (by giving it a higher threshold, perhaps), and/or lower the maximum possible for Defensiveness to 120% (lowered from 125%).

My thinking is that survivability seems to be(slightly) more important than lethality...

[PvK]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Well Pvk, for all the discussion, I think the end result was very well done. Good job.

EDIT: BTW, how did you get through working on the proportions mod all this time and never notice that you have to have the complete /data folder when you mdo any data files? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

Geoschmo<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks.

I remember now running into the /data thing before, and even sending suggestions to MM, but I'd forgotten about it.

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by spoon:
The numbers seem good to me. Only thing I would consider doing differently is maybe making aggressiveness cheaper than defensiveness (by giving it a higher threshold, perhaps), and/or lower the maximum possible for Defensiveness to 120% (lowered from 125%).

My thinking is that survivability seems to be(slightly) more important than lethality...<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Thanks.

Yes, as a player, I tend to think of defensiveness as slightly more valuable than aggressiveness, for the same reason you mention. If you dodge for a turn, you get a chance to try to hit again. However, on the other hand, if you nail your opponent first, you might not have to worry about him hitting you the next turn. Also, if defensiveness cost more, you could counter your [i]opponent's[\i] defensiveness more cheaply by with your own aggressiveness. Similarly, aggressiveness might seem worth less to reduce since it could be made up for eventually by a talisman or seekers/ramming/boarding/intel, but from the opponent's perspective, all of those things ignore defensiveness as well.

All told, I think they're more or less the same value - different depending on the specific situation and enemy choices. But I'd be interested to hear more ideas about it.

PvK

[spoon]

The main reason I buy Aggressiveness at all is to counter the (kind of cheesy) tactic of maxing out Defensiveness + Bezerker. Against most players, I don't think it comes in as being critically important. You might want to view it as a "counter" to defensiveness, and should therefore cost less (the only other viable counter being the Talisman - but I don't like to consider racial traits as counters, since you can't adopt them after-the-fact).

On the other hand, I've maxed out defense and have been untouchable. Maxing out offensiveness doesn't help you as much. I think.

-spoon

[PvK]

That's an interesting argument, which makes some sense. Perhaps defensiveness is inherently slightly better than aggressiveness - any other thoughts?

PvK

[Fyron]

Any recent work on this?

[Fyron]

Threshhold of 0 makes the cost to lower and raise equal to the base cost (Pct Cost). 0 seems to tell SE4 that there is no threshhold lowering or raising.

[PvK]

Oh really? Ok. I'll see if I can wrap this up and post it this week. It's mostly done now, I think.

PvK

[dumbluck]

So, you don't mind if I steal most your hard work for the Art of War mod, do you? (credit will be given, of coarse...)

[spoon]

Originally posted by PvK:
That's an interesting argument, which makes some sense. Perhaps defensiveness is inherently slightly better than aggressiveness - any other thoughts?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Here is another way to look at the value offensiveness vs. defensiveness. Compare the amount of damage you would do against a ship with no bonuses in either characteristic, and divide that by the amount you would take from that same ship. In most cases, it is better to have taken a bonus in defensiveness than in agressiveness. So as long as you can avoid going lower than a base 5% to hit, defensiveness wins out. Here are the numbers...

Player A has taken +25% to defensiveness
Player B has taken +25% to aggressiveness
Player C has taken +0% in both.
"base to hit" is the chance to hit before aggressiveness or defensiveness is applied
Assume average of 100 damage (you could use any amount, this is just so we have numbers to look at)

Format is: (player) (amount of damage he deals) (amount of damage he takes) (damage dealt / damage taken)

Base to hit: 100% (point blank range, no other bonuses)
- Player A vs Player C 100 75 1.33
- Player B vs Player C 100 100 1.00

Base to hit: 75% (point blank range, ecm3, sensors3, stealth and scattering armor)
- Player A vs Player C 75 50 1.50
- Player B vs Player C 100 75 1.33

Base to hit 50%
-Player A vs Player C 50 25 2.00
-Player B vs Player C 75 50 1.5

Base to hit 25%
- Player A vs Player C 25 1 25.0
- Player B vs Player C 50 25 2.0

Base to hit 0%
- Player A vs Player C 1 1 1.0
- Player B vs Player C 25 1 25.0

-spoon

[ January 22, 2003, 00:57: Message edited by: spoon ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by dumbluck:
So, you don't mind if I steal most your hard work for the Art of War mod, do you? (credit will be given, of coarse...)<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Of course not! Please do! Of course, your mod may also change the value of some of the things.

PvK

[Phoenix-D]

"Base to hit: 100% (point blank range, no other bonuses)
- Player A 100 75 1.33
- Player B 100 100 1.00"

I'm not sure where you're getting this. Player B's Aggressiveness bonus would cancel out Player A's Defensiveness bonus. The result is no advantage either way.

Phoenix-D

[spoon]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
I'm not sure where you're getting this. Player B's Aggressiveness bonus would cancel out Player A's Defensiveness bonus. The result is no advantage either way.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Right, against each other they cancel out. This comparison was against ships with NO bonuses in either aggressiveness or defensiveness. Lets call him Ship C. All the comparisons are either:
- Ship A vs Ship C
- Ship B vs Ship C

I've edited the original post to clear up the confusion...

[ January 22, 2003, 00:58: Message edited by: spoon ]

[PvK]

Bumping this, since we're discussing balance mods these days, and I may make time to finish this.

Spoon's analysis looked at the value of maxing one of the combat traits against an enemy with lower combat ability. What happens if we do the same sort of analysis against a superior enemy?

Player A has taken +25% to defensiveness
Player B has taken +25% to aggressiveness
Player C has taken +25% in both. (***CHANGE***)
"base to hit" is the chance to hit before aggressiveness or defensiveness is
applied.

Assume average of 100 damage (you could use any amount, this is just so we have numbers to look at)

Format is: (player) (amount of damage he deals) (amount of damage he takes)

(damage dealt / damage taken)

Base to hit: 100% (point blank range, no other bonuses)
- Player A vs Player C 75 100 0.75
- Player B vs Player C 100 100 1.00

Base to hit: 75% (point blank range, ecm3, sensors3, stealth and scattering armor)
- Player A vs Player C 50 75 0.67
- Player B vs Player C 75 100 0.75

Base to hit 50%
- Player A vs Player C 25 50 0.50
- Player B vs Player C 50 75 0.67

Base to hit 25%
- Player A vs Player C 1 25 0.04
- Player B vs Player C 25 50 0.50

Base to hit 0%
- Player A vs Player C 1 1 1.00
- Player B vs Player C 1 25 0.04

So although Spoon showed Defensiveness is usually more valuable against inferior opponents, this converse shows that Aggressiveness is more valuable against superior opponents. It might be argued that it is more important to have better abilities against more dangerous opponents than against less dangerous ones, although with the balance mod in place, an opponent inferior in combat ability may be more threatening in other ways.

Other considerations include the min and max cases, and the ability to compensate with technology.

For example, racial tech offers the Talisman, which is slightly offset by the chance a human player will come kill a min-Aggressive Religious player before they can develop it. Other racial techs also offer to-hit bonuses in the +15 to +30 range, but these require expenses, and use of facilities or racial weapons which aren't as damaging as others. I don't think there are any racial defensive to-hit techs in the unmodded game (the system combat bonus mod only helps aggression).

There are many min and max cases to consider. For example, max Def is almost always useful, while max Agg is only useful if you have a hard
target. Min Agg can make direct-fire weapons almost useless against hard targets unless you have racial tech, while min Def can at least
be endured using shields, armor, and killing your opponents.

So, I think all told, since Def seems slightly better against inferiors,
and Agg seems slightly better against superiors, I'm thinking the
threshold costs might be tweaked as follows:

Aggressiveness:
===============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 175.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 50.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs 4000 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25% gains 1500 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this seems to me a fairly accurate valuation. I would increase the Negative Threshold value a bit, except that Racial techologies such as Talisman or Event Predictor can compensate for minimized Aggressiveness.

Defensiveness:
===============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 225.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 40.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs 5000 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25% gains 1300 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this seems to me a fairly accurate valuation. Defensiveness is of slightly more value than Aggressiveness at the high end (because enemies start to become nearly incapable of hitting), and less valuable at the low end (because enemies start to always hit, and shields and armor can also protect).

[Suicide Junkie]

The Last entry regarding Maintenance Reduction implies that you're not using the corrective settings so that 1% maintenance reduction means you pay 1% less for ships.

Settings.txt:
Base maintenance := 100

vehiclesize.txt:
All ship get maintenance reduction of 75% (instead of 0%)
All bases get maintenance reduction of 88% (instead of 50%)

[spoon]

Originally posted by PvK:
So although Spoon showed Defensiveness is usually more valuable against inferior opponents, this converse shows that Aggressiveness is more valuable against superior opponents. It might be argued that it is more important to have better abilities against more dangerous opponents than against less dangerous ones, although with the balance mod in place, an opponent inferior in combat ability may be more threatening in other ways.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Great analysis - I didn't even think to compare against someone maxed out.

Since it seems crazy to spend 4500 on defensiveness, maybe you should lower the cap to 115%, or something. I dunno.

[PvK]

What value would lowering the max have?

I think it's neat to be able to theoretically spend 9500 points on combat abilities. More importantly, having a very high maximum expenditure gives more room for trade-offs in empire design, and less incentive to "go for the max".

Moreover, the design goal for the mod was to correct balance simply by changing empire point costs, without changing what the things actually do.

PvK

[PvK]

True. Again, although that's a great method for making maintenance more understandable, the idea of the mod was just to change the costs, not the effects.

Suddenly I'd have to mod vehiclesize.txt, which would mean it couldn't work seamlessly with (on top of) other mods.

I guess there could be a variant though that would be for mods which use your maintenance correction - is there a set of mods that all use the same values? (Proportions uses this, but it already has the empire costs balanced, and I assume P&N does too).

PvK

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
The Last entry regarding Maintenance Reduction implies that you're not using the corrective settings so that 1% maintenance reduction means you pay 1% less for ships.

Settings.txt:
Base maintenance := 100

vehiclesize.txt:
All ship get maintenance reduction of 75% (instead of 0%)
All bases get maintenance reduction of 88% (instead of 50%)<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

[PvK]

Ok, I've done practically everything except for the Cultures, which need to be based on final values for everything else, so it's time for feedback! Object to values now, or be grumbled at in future! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

New to this Version are values for Political Savvy, and the Resource, Construction, Repair, and Maintenance aptitudes.

Traits:
=======

Advanced Power Conservation:
============================
* Cost lowered from 1000 to 500.

This trait was rarely used, and while helpful, was not nearly as useful as other 1000-point traits.

Mechanoids:
===========
* Cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

This trait was probably never used by a skilled player in a competitive game. I have played many unmodded games, and have never been attacked by a plague bomb, and the few natural and espionage plagues have been easily cured for little cost and little effect. Moreover, empires with this advantage are immediately identified as such, so only an unobservant player would ever try to use a plague attack on a Mechanoid player. 250 points seems about right for this minor advantage, and removes the "balance penalty" for roleplaying mechanoid races.

Lucky:
======
* Cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

The practical value of this varies depending on the game settings for random events. In many games, it will not be worth very much. In games with catastrophic events, at 250 points it becomes a kind of dare to risk not taking it. Since the effects vary, and if multiple empires take it, they counteract each other, and since frequently this has little effect, it seemed to make sense to reduce it to a minor cost, which removes the amount of "wasted points" for empires which take Lucky in games where it won't have much or any effect.

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

These all seem of roughly equivalent value to me. Ancient Race can be abused in some gamey ways, but gives no advantage beyond knowledge, so opponents can get more permanent advantages. Hardy Industrialists may be more or less efficient compared to construction aptitude, depending on how it's used, but it can be combined with it to reach the highest levels of construction rate, which some players use in their grand strategies.

Advanced Storage Techniques:
============================
* Cost increased from 1000 to 2000 points.

This one was pretty much universally accepted as the best 1000-point unmodded advantage, for its many effects and side-effects on facilities, starting strength, population, and cargo space. 2000 points seems about right to me compared to the other adjusted values.

Emotionless:
============
* Cost reduced from 3000 to 1750 (net 2200 to net 1000 when minimizing Happiness).

This is a very useful ability for lazy or new players, as well as for large empires that suffer damage that would otherwise make the entire empire riot and fall. Almost no competitive players were thinking twice about paying 2200 points for it, however. At 1000 net points, I'd say it's a good deal, and a valid choice for roleplayers.

Racial Technologies:
====================
* Most remain at 1500 points.

After the many discussions over the years, it seems to me that these are all fairly well balanced and rated at 1500 points. They can all seem too powerful or too expensive if one doesn't appreciate all of their abilities and counter-tactics.

Deeply Religious:
=================
* Cost increased to 2000 points.

This is because the compensation for reducing Aggressiveness by a small amount has been greatly increased. Essentially, an average Religious player is expected to take a -5 in Aggressiveness, for a net cost of 1500 points.

Attributes:
===========

Physical Strength:
==================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 3.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 5.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 3.

Minimizing troop strength to 50 now only provides 150 points.
Maximizing troop strength to 150 now only costs 230 points.

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.

Environmental Resistance:
=========================
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 0.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 12.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 18.

This follows Imperator Fyron's information that 5% in this is like 1% in Happiness and 1% in Reproduction. Threshold reduced to zero since this effect is divided by 5 so the actual range is -10 to +10, and zero threshold allows different rates for low-level increases versus decreases, which need to be balanced differently to avoid "free points" schemes with offsetting choices for Reproduction or Happiness. Since it requires raising both at once and thus offers less flexibility, I devalued it 2 per point (almost insignifigant).

Reproduction:
=============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 50.

Basic cost is raised because although population isn't a huge factor in unmodded games, a 1% change is about a 10% change relative to the base rate, and low rates can cut reproduction to 0% or a few % under bad circumstances, which becomes a relevant effect. The minimum setting will only earn 450 points, and is a meaningful disadvantage.

Happiness:
==========
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 0.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 40.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 15.

Threshold lowered to zero in order to reduce reward for lowering happiness a small amount, since in the unmodded game a little unhappiness is easy to counter with troops. A lot of unhappiness can be a problem however, so the Negative Threshold cost was increased. Positive Threshold can be low, because for the most part, a high value gives diminishing benefits which can be accomplished by others using troops. Minimum setting of -50 gives 750 points (and would be hard to survive long enough to develop troops before riots took over). Maximum setting of +50 costs 2000 points.

Aggressiveness:
===============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 175.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 50.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs 4000 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25% gains 1500 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this seems to me a fairly accurate valuation. I would increase the Negative Threshold value a bit, except that Racial techologies such as Talisman or Event Predictor can compensate for minimized Aggressiveness.

Defensiveness:
==============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 225.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 40.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs 5000 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25% gains 1300 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this seems to me a fairly accurate valuation. Defensiveness is of slightly more value than Aggressiveness at the high end (because enemies start to become nearly incapable of hitting), and less valuable at the low end (because enemies start to always hit, and shields and armor can also protect).

Political Savvy:
================
* Basic cost increased from 25 to 50.
* Threshold unchanged at 20.
* Positive Threshold cost unchanged at 100.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 20.

This attribute's value depends on the number of trade partners, their Savvy, the player's goals, and game circumstances such as they player's relative size, and intelligence attacks which disrupt trade. One benchmark and not uncommon example is five established trade partners of equal size. In this case the player with average Savvy will double his income in resources, likely research, and potentially, intelligence. On the other hand, the player also gives the same to his trade partners (many or all of who may be eventual opponents), and without trade partners, this attribute has no value at all. An interesting side-effect is that an informed player may prefer low-Savvy trade partners to high-Savvy trade partners. The value thus cannot be absolutely evaluated, but is somewhere between the value of increasing all of the resource aptitudes and intelligence and cunning, and zero.

I first estimated it by adding the values for Mining Aptitude to the values for Intelligence. Then I noticed the large values this generated, and considered that warlike races who don't plan to trade much, probably should not get much more than 1500 points. I also considered that powerful empires may choose not to trade in order to avoid sharing their success, so devaluing Savvy may tend to slightly reduce the runaway success of large empires. In almost any game however, it still seems more valuable than simple Mining Aptitude, so I compromised at double the value of Mining Aptitude.

Lowering to 80% gains 1000 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 1600 points. Raising to 120% costs 1000 points and maximizing to 150 costs 4000 points.

Mining Aptitude:
================
* Basic cost unchanged at 25.
* Threshold unchanged at 20.
* Positive Threshold cost reduced from 100 to 50.
* Negative Threshold cost unchanged at 10.

Everyone needs minerals. This seemed like a good baseline ability to remain unchanged, but the cost of maximizing seemed too high (3500 points for 150% minerals seemed excessive). Dropping to 80% gains 500 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 800 points. Raising to 120% costs 500 points and maximizing to 150 costs 2000 points.

Farming Aptitude:
=================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 22.
* Threshold unchanged at 20.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 45.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 8.

Even Organic races need fewer organic resources than minerals, so these values are slightly less than Mining Aptitude. Dropping to 80% gains 440 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 680 points. Raising to 120% costs 440 points and maximizing to 150 costs 1790 points.

Refining Aptitude:
==================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 22.
* Threshold unchanged at 20.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 45.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 8.

Radioactives are about as needed as organics in the unmodded game, taking racial and high-tech costs into account. Organic races will naturally prefer Farming Aptitude to Refining Aptitude, and Crystalline races the opposite, which is natural and not really a balance issue. Costs are identical.

Construction Aptitude:
======================
* Basic cost increased from 25 to 50.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Positive Threshold cost unchanged at 100.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 40.

Construction rate is one of the more important attributes. One can compare to the Hardy Industrialists trait, which gives +25% to planetary spaceyards only, for 1000 points. The limitation to planetary yards is important, because many more shipyards can be built in space. Realize too that the two can be combined for cumulative effect. Reducing to half would be quite a significant disadvantage. Dropping to 90% gains 500 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 2100 points. Raising to 110% costs 500 points and maximizing to 150 costs 4500 points.

Repair Aptitude:
================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 10.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 1.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 10.
* Negative Threshold cost unchanged at 10.

Repair aptitude is slightly odd because it works on round numbers. A one-percent reduction will reduce rates by an entire component per turn, while a one-percent increase won't do anything until repair capacity reaches 100 components/sector/turn. It can also be combined with Cultural modifiers. I leave it as exercise for players to experiment and see where the specific relevant numbers are. Some players consider this attribute's value low because repair components are cheap, so just build more. That makes some sense, although there are some counter-arguments. Dropping to 1% reduces all sector rates by 1 component/turn and gains 10 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 500 points. Raising to 1% does about nothing but costs 10 points. Maximizing to 150% costs 500 points.

Maintenance Aptitude:
=====================
* Basic cost increased from 50 to 150.
* Threshold lowered from 10 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 200 to 300.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 5 to 100.

The counterintuitive way this works has not been changed, to maintain compatibility with the unmodded game, and with many mods. It is a very important attribute, paticularly at high levels. Lowering it was undervalued. No change ("100") gives maintenance costs of 25% of build cost per ship per turn. Dropping to "95" results in 30% maintenance costs and gains 750 points. Minimizing to "80" results in 45% maintenance costs and gains 2250 points. Raising to "105" results in 20% maintenance costs and costs 750 points. Maximizing to "120" results in 5% maintenance costs and costs 5250 points.

PvK

[Cirvol]

very interesting thread...

have you played any pbw games with this yet?
how have players reacted?
so far, i think you're fairly reasonable about balancing things, good work http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[PvK]

Not yet with these specific numbers. Once there are no objections I'll do the Cultures and post the files, and we can see if there are changes wanted to the system as a whole.

Proportions has similar balances to starting costs, though not quite the same. Of course, the whole rest of the mod emphasizes different styles of play and people tend to be trying it out more than minimaxing anyway. However, the empires I've seen tend to be much more diverse, with far fewer players using the standard exploits such as maxing combat abilities. There are some who do, or who max out other things like maintenance reduction, or get religious and lower Aggressiveness (but in Proportions PBW that's not a great idea since you will probably never achieve the ultimate Talisman).

Anyway I think the result is much more use of the abilities which are uncommon in unmodded play, and players who try to max out the usual suspects find they have to pick and choose, and need to sacrifice a lot in other areas.

PvK

[spoon]

Originally posted by PvK:
Racial Technologies:
====================
* Most remain at 1500 points.

After the many discussions over the years, it seems to me that these are all fairly well balanced and rated at 1500 points. They can all seem too powerful or too expensive if one doesn't appreciate all of their abilities and counter-tactics.
PvK<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I was thinking you might want to lower the costs of all the racial traits, and maybe just all traits globally. Since it will be much harder to scrape up "free" points by lowering the unimportant stats, you will effectively have less points to spend. Since you have less points, this means that trait costs will take up a bigger proportion of your available points.

For example, in the standard game, by lowering stuff like Strength, Farming, Repair you could generally eek out another 3000 points with little effect on your empire. So in a 2000 point game, you in effect have 5000 points to spend on stuff, and taking a 1500 point Racial Trait is very doable. However, if you take away those 3000 freebies, the relative costs of many of the Traits might be too high.

Just a thought...

[Loser]

I think PvK intended to make it more difficult, spoon.

[spoon]

Originally posted by PvK:
Repair Aptitude:
================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 10.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 1.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 10.
* Negative Threshold cost unchanged at 10.

Repair aptitude is slightly odd because it works on round numbers. A one-percent reduction will reduce rates by an entire component per turn, while a one-percent increase won't do anything until repair capacity reaches 100 components/sector/turn. It can also be combined with Cultural modifiers. I leave it as exercise for players to experiment and see where the specific relevant numbers are. Some players consider this attribute's value low because repair components are cheap, so just build more. That makes some sense, although there are some counter-arguments. Dropping to 1% reduces all sector rates by 1 component/turn and gains 10 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 500 points. Raising to 1% does about nothing but costs 10 points. Maximizing to 150% costs 500 points.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Much like Strength and Farming, Repair is a prime candidate for dropping to 50% when designing a race.

Personally I'd use these numbers:

* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 5.
* Threshold Stays at 20.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 5.
* Negative Threshold lowered to 1.
* Maximum value raised from 150 to 200

You'd see less 50%'s and maybe even some people who would put points into Repair (though not me - even if cost was lowered to 1 point, I would still drop it to 50%, as it just doesn't seem to have much impact on my play style).

[PvK]

One of the main goals of the mod is to make it so that there are no obvious choices. If there are "freebies" that give more points than they are worth, then that is exactly the kind of imbalance this mod corrects.

There are still thousands of points available by reducing attributes - but now, to get a lot of points back, you actually have to incur a meaningful disadvantage.

Even in a 5000-point game, you shouldn't be able to "get all the good stuff" without taking some major disadvantages that can be exploited somehow. Otherwise, empire setup is unbalanced and limited to the "best" choices. The theory behind this mod is that by giving the "best" and "worst" empire traits balanced costs, most empire setups will be fairly even if played in a way that uses their advantages against enemy weaknesses.

PvK

[Fyron]

Note that Adamant Mod uses most of the ideas from this, so they have been implemented somewhere. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[PvK]

Originally posted by spoon:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by PvK:
Repair Aptitude:
================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 10.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 1.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 10.
* Negative Threshold cost unchanged at 10.

Repair aptitude is slightly odd because it works on round numbers. A one-percent reduction will reduce rates by an entire component per turn, while a one-percent increase won't do anything until repair capacity reaches 100 components/sector/turn. It can also be combined with Cultural modifiers. I leave it as exercise for players to experiment and see where the specific relevant numbers are. Some players consider this attribute's value low because repair components are cheap, so just build more. That makes some sense, although there are some counter-arguments. Dropping to 1% reduces all sector rates by 1 component/turn and gains 10 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 500 points. Raising to 1% does about nothing but costs 10 points. Maximizing to 150% costs 500 points.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Much like Strength and Farming, Repair is a prime candidate for dropping to 50% when designing a race.

Personally I'd use these numbers:

* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 5.
* Threshold Stays at 20.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 5.
* Negative Threshold lowered to 1.
* Maximum value raised from 150 to 200

You'd see less 50%'s and maybe even some people who would put points into Repair (though not me - even if cost was lowered to 1 point, I would still drop it to 50%, as it just doesn't seem to have much impact on my play style).</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">That would give:
Repair 80% gives 100 points (mine was 200).
Repair 50% gives 130 points (mine was 500).
Repair 120% costs 100 points (mine was 200).
Repair 150% costs 250 points (mine was 500).
Repair 200% costs 500 points (mine didn't allow it, but would cost 1000 points).

I like the idea of increasing maximum to 200%, but it is a feature change, not just a cost change.

I think you're right that it may still be slightly overvalued as I posted, reviewing all the other balanced costs once more. However I think you undervalue it a bit yourself, as it's not your style. I think it is worthwhile to not reduce it. A lot can be done with planetary shipyards' "free" repair ability, but when this is minimized, this becomes much harder to do, requiring shipyard time and resources to build and maintain repair ships, and more of them.

Perhaps the right value is about half-way in-between. Any other opinions on this?

PvK

[Fyron]

Here is what Repair is like in Adamant:

Characteristic Repair Aptitude Max Pct := 200
Characteristic Repair Aptitude Min Pct := 50
Characteristic Repair Aptitude Pct Cost := 25
Characteristic Repair Aptitude Threshold := 1
Characteristic Repair Aptitude Threshhold Pct Cost Pos := 25
Characteristic Repair Aptitude Threshhold Pct Cost Neg := 10<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">

[ July 29, 2003, 20:08: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[spoon]

Originally posted by PvK:
One of the main goals of the mod is to make it so that there are no obvious choices. If there are "freebies" that give more points than they are worth, then that is exactly the kind of imbalance this mod corrects.

There are still thousands of points available by reducing attributes - but now, to get a lot of points back, you actually have to incur a meaningful disadvantage.<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Right, I understand and agree with your approach. What I am saying is that you might want to balance the costs of the more expensive traits (such as Racial) with an eye on relative costs.

For example, in Standard with a 2000 point start, I really have 5000 points to spend. Taking Temporal Race, for example, would take up about 30% of my points available. With this mod, if I were to take the same characteristic reductions (and I see no reason why I wouldn't), I would have about 3500 points. Taking Temporal Tech now takes up about 42% of my points, and so is now much less tempting (or viable in some cases).

To the point of "freebies", I think their is still a bounty to be had in Strength, Farming, and Repair reduction...

[PvK]

So Fryon, you have the same negative value I suggested for repair, but you have positive cost 2.5 times higher. 150% repair rate costs 1250 points, and 200% repair rate costs 2500.

Do you think it's worth that much?

PvK

[Fyron]

My goal was just to reduce the free points from dropping repair to 50. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I personally do not think that 200% repair is worth 500 points, but that doesn't mean I am going to make it that cheap. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Phoenix-D]

Then why increase the cost of the -positive- value? Why not just drop the cost of the negative value?

[PvK]

Originally posted by spoon:
...
Right, I understand and agree with your approach. What I am saying is that you might want to balance the costs of the more expensive traits (such as Racial) with an eye on relative costs.

For example, in Standard with a 2000 point start, I really have 5000 points to spend. Taking Temporal Race, for example, would take up about 30% of my points available. With this mod, if I were to take the same characteristic reductions (and I see no reason why I wouldn't), I would have about 3500 points. Taking Temporal Tech now takes up about 42% of my points, and so is now much less tempting (or viable in some cases).

To the point of "freebies", I think their is still a bounty to be had in Strength, Farming, and Repair reduction...<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Since this mod only changes costs and not abilities available, I think in order to balance the choices that the number of the best things that can be chosen does need to be reduced. There are only so many really powerful things, so with a low number of points, players shouldn't be able to choose most of them and not sacrifice something really important, such as a low combat, construction, and/or maintenance ability.

It's a good observation that the racial techs now take up more of the available points you have before taking serious disadvantages. However I don't think this is a case for reducing the costs of racial traits. If anything, they seem to be worth more.

For example, the Temporal Event Predictor III gives a +30 to-hit modifier in systems where it is present (the defensive to-hit implications of "system combat bonus" don't actually work) - with the balanced point costs, that +30 to-hit would cost 4875 points if it could be used anywhere without researching and building an expensive facility. 1500 points starts to look like a real steal to me. Not to mention the Temporal Space Yards and all the rest.

Seems to me the "freebies" you mention are addressed:

Minimized Strength, Farming, and Repair all have a negative effect - not a real big one, but they no longer give a real big number of points, either.

150 points back for 50% strength - with the latest patch, defending troops aren't just shot off a planet, so having 50% strength will be an inconvenience. If you always glass alien planets, then go ahead an collect 150 points, but never capturing planets is worth more.

680 points for 50% farming may seem like a good deal for non-organic players, but colonizers and high-tech facs and componenets do require orgs, and later in the game, you can convert orgs to other resource types efficiently, so your high-value org planets and monolith collections will be penalized. 680 points seems tempting enough for the perceived early-game advantages, but I think 50% orgs will probably do at least that much harm in later stages of play.

Repair at 50% causes some inconvenience and inefficiency, especially if you like to retrofit a lot, or your ships are expensive due to low resource aptitude or high maintenance costs (which will be more common with the Balance mod costs). Per my previous message I think the value may be somewhere between my 500 points and your 180 points.

Yes you can do some good other things with the points if you minimize them. Seems to me like they're now about the right number of points so either choice is valid. I don't want to discourage any choice so much that players find their personal play styles aren't worth the points, unless the reason it was their style before was because it was such a great (unbalanced) bargain.

PvK

[Fyron]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Then why increase the cost of the -positive- value? Why not just drop the cost of the negative value?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">The only way to get different positive and negative costs for the whole range is to drop the threshhold to 1 (0 means there is no threshhold, so it is always the cheap cost). Although, I just made this change:

Characteristic Repair Aptitude Threshhold Pct Cost Pos := 15

Too much of a change? just right?

[ July 29, 2003, 21:16: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[PvK]

Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Then why increase the cost of the -positive- value? Why not just drop the cost of the negative value?<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Fryon didn't increase the positive cost. He actually reduced it, just not as much as I did. The unmodded cost is 25/level up to 20, and 100/level up to 50. 150% repair in unmodded costs 3500 points!

PvK

[spoon]

I guess it just comes from difference in experience - I always drop Str, Farm, and Repair to 50%, and have never suffered much from it as far as I can tell. But then, there were better bargains to be had during point-buy, too.

I guess the only way to be sure about the pricing on Racial techs is to design a few empires and play a few games and see what the impact is. Going with your gut at this point is as good a plan as any.

Originally posted by PvK:

I don't want to discourage any choice so much that players find their personal play styles aren't worth the points, unless the reason it was their style before was because it was such a great (unbalanced) bargain.
PvK<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Eek, my min-maxing days are numbered...heh

[deccan]

Hurry up and release this already so that I can use it for my next KOTH game! I hate KOTH clones. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[PvK]

I decided to stick with my Last values for Repair Aptitude, adding a bit of reasoning to the text. Values may change once I get feedback after people try designing empires using the values.

Repair Aptitude:
================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 10.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 1.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 10.
* Negative Threshold cost unchanged at 10.

Repair aptitude is slightly odd because it works on round numbers. A one-percent reduction will reduce rates by an entire component per turn, while a one-percent increase won't do anything until repair capacity reaches 100 components/sector/turn. It can also be combined with Cultural modifiers. I leave it as exercise for players to experiment and see where the specific relevant numbers are. Some players consider this attribute's value low because repair components are cheap, so just build more. That makes some sense, although there are some counter-arguments. Some players may still choose to minimize it, but I don't want to lower its value any more, partly because gameplay is more interesting if players are using more repair ships and battle damage Lasts longer. Dropping to 1% reduces all sector rates by 1 component/turn and gains 10 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 500 points. Raising to 1% does about nothing but costs 10 points. Maximizing to 150% costs 500 points.

PvK

[ August 06, 2003, 19:07: Message edited by: PvK ]

[PvK]

Ok, I finally did the Culture values. There were some harder decisions than I anticipated, because there are many ways to "use" a culture, depending on which values are at positive or negative threshold, etc.

See below (the cultures are at the bottom) and make comments, if any.

(Yes, I will make it into an actual set of files shortly, but in case anyone has some good points about the cultures, I'd like to get those in before I do so.)

=======
Traits:
=======

Advanced Power Conservation:
============================
* Cost lowered from 1000 to 500.

This trait was rarely used, and while helpful, was not nearly as useful as other 1000-point traits.

Mechanoids:
===========
* Cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

This trait was probably never used by a skilled player in a competitive game. I have played many unmodded games, and have never been attacked by a plague bomb, and the few natural and espionage plagues have been easily cured for little cost and little effect. Moreover, empires with this advantage are immediately identified as such, so only an unobservant player would ever try to use a plague attack on a Mechanoid player. 250 points seems about right for this minor advantage, and removes the "balance penalty" for roleplaying mechanoid races.

Lucky:
======
* Cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

The practical value of this varies depending on the game settings for random events. In many games, it will not be worth very much. In games with catastrophic events, at 250 points it becomes a kind of dare to risk not taking it. Since the effects vary, and if multiple empires take it, they counteract each other, and since frequently this has little effect, it seemed to make sense to reduce it to a minor cost, which removes the amount of "wasted points" for empires which take Lucky in games where it won't have much or any effect.

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

These all seem of roughly equivalent value to me. Ancient Race can be abused in some gamey ways, but gives no advantage beyond knowledge, so opponents can get more permanent advantages. Hardy Industrialists may be more or less efficient compared to construction aptitude, depending on how it's used, but it can be combined with it to reach the highest levels of construction rate, which some players use in their grand strategies.

Advanced Storage Techniques:
============================
* Cost increased from 1000 to 2000 points.

This one was pretty much universally accepted as the best 1000-point unmodded advantage, for its many effects and side-effects on facilities, starting strength, population, and cargo space. 2000 points seems about right to me compared to the other adjusted values.

Emotionless:
============
* Cost reduced from 3000 to 1750 (net 2200 to net 1000 when minimizing Happiness).

This is a very useful ability for lazy or new players, as well as for large empires that suffer damage that would otherwise make the entire empire riot and fall. Almost no competitive players were thinking twice about paying 2200 points for it, however. At 1000 net points, I'd say it's a good deal, and a valid choice for roleplayers.

Racial Technologies:
====================
* Most remain at 1500 points.

After the many discussions over the years, it seems to me that these are all fairly well balanced and rated at 1500 points. They can all seem too powerful or too expensive if one doesn't appreciate all of their abilities and counter-tactics.

Deeply Religious:
=================
* Cost increased to 2000 points.

This is because the compensation for reducing Aggressiveness by a small amount has been greatly increased. Essentially, an average Religious player is expected to take a -5 in Aggressiveness, for a net cost of 1500 points.

===========
Attributes:
===========

Physical Strength:
==================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 3.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 5.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 3.

Minimizing troop strength to 50 now only provides 150 points.
Maximizing troop strength to 150 now only costs 230 points.

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.

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.

Environmental Resistance:
=========================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 12.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 1.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 12.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 18.

This follows Imperator Fyron's information that 5% in this is like 1% in Happiness and 1% in Reproduction. Threshold reduced to one since this effect is divided by 5 so the actual range is -10 to +10, and minimal threshold allows different rates for low-level increases versus decreases, which need to be balanced differently to avoid "free points" schemes with offsetting choices for Reproduction or Happiness. Since it requires raising both at once and thus offers less flexibility, I devalued it 2 per point (almost insignifigant).

Reproduction:
=============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 50.

Basic cost is raised because although population isn't a huge factor in unmodded games, a 1% change is about a 10% change relative to the base rate, and low rates can cut reproduction to 0% or a few % under bad circumstances, which becomes a relevant effect. The minimum setting will only earn 450 points, and is a meaningful disadvantage.

Happiness:
==========
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 15.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 1.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 40.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 15.

Threshold lowered to one in order to reduce reward for lowering happiness a small amount, since in the unmodded game a little unhappiness is easy to counter with troops. A lot of unhappiness can be a problem however, so the Negative Threshold cost was increased. Positive Threshold can be low, because for the most part, a high value gives diminishing benefits which can be accomplished by others using troops. Minimum setting of -50 gives 750 points (and would be hard to survive long enough to develop troops before riots took over). Maximum setting of +50 costs 1975 points.

Aggressiveness:
===============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 175.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 50.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs 4000 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25% gains 1500 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this seems to me a fairly accurate valuation. I would increase the Negative Threshold value a bit, except that Racial techologies such as Talisman or Event Predictor can compensate for minimized Aggressiveness.

Defensiveness:
==============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 225.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 40.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs 5000 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25% gains 1300 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this seems to me a fairly accurate valuation. Defensiveness is of slightly more value than Aggressiveness at the high end (because enemies start to become nearly incapable of hitting), and less valuable at the low end (because enemies start to always hit, and shields and armor can also protect).

Political Savvy:
================
* Basic cost increased from 25 to 50.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 20.

This attribute's value depends on the number of trade partners, their Savvy, the player's goals, and game circumstances such as they player's relative size, and intelligence attacks which disrupt trade. One benchmark and not uncommon example is five established trade partners of equal size. In this case the player with average Savvy will double his income in resources, likely research, and potentially, intelligence. On the other hand, the player also gives the same to his trade partners (many or all of who may be eventual opponents), and without trade partners, this attribute has no value at all. An interesting side-effect is that an informed player may prefer low-Savvy trade partners to high-Savvy trade partners. The value thus cannot be absolutely evaluated, but is somewhere between the value of increasing all of the resource aptitudes and intelligence and cunning, and zero.

I first estimated it by adding the values for Mining Aptitude to the values for Intelligence. Then I noticed the large values this generated, and considered that warlike races who don't plan to trade much, probably should not get much more than 1500 points. I also considered that powerful empires may choose not to trade in order to avoid sharing their success, so devaluing Savvy may tend to slightly reduce the runaway success of large empires. In almost any game however, it still seems more valuable than simple Mining Aptitude, so I compromised at double the value of Mining Aptitude.

Lowering to 80% gains 1000 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 1600 points. Raising to 120% costs 1000 points and maximizing to 150 costs 4000 points.

Mining Aptitude:
================
* Positive Threshold cost reduced from 100 to 50.

Everyone needs minerals. This seemed like a good baseline ability to remain unchanged, but the cost of maximizing seemed too high (3500 points for 150% minerals seemed excessive). Dropping to 80% gains 500 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 800 points. Raising to 120% costs 500 points and maximizing to 150 costs 2000 points.

Farming Aptitude:
=================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 22.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 45.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 8.

Even Organic races need fewer organic resources than minerals, so these values are slightly less than Mining Aptitude. Dropping to 80% gains 440 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 680 points. Raising to 120% costs 440 points and maximizing to 150 costs 1790 points.

Refining Aptitude:
==================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 22.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 45.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 8.

Radioactives are about as needed as organics in the unmodded game, taking racial and high-tech costs into account. Organic races will naturally prefer Farming Aptitude to Refining Aptitude, and Crystalline races the opposite, which is natural and not really a balance issue. Costs are identical.

Construction Aptitude:
======================
* Basic cost increased from 25 to 50.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 40.

Construction rate is one of the more important attributes. One can compare to the Hardy Industrialists trait, which gives +25% to planetary spaceyards only, for 1000 points. The limitation to planetary yards is important, because many more shipyards can be built in space. Realize too that the two can be combined for cumulative effect. Reducing to half would be quite a significant disadvantage. Dropping to 90% gains 500 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 2100 points. Raising to 110% costs 500 points and maximizing to 150 costs 4500 points.

Repair Aptitude:
================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 10.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 1.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 10.

Repair aptitude is slightly odd because it works on round numbers. A one-percent reduction will reduce rates by an entire component per turn, while a one-percent increase won't do anything until repair capacity reaches 100 components/sector/turn. It can also be combined with Cultural modifiers. I leave it as exercise for players to experiment and see where the specific relevant numbers are. Some players consider this attribute's value low because repair components are cheap, so just build more. That makes some sense, although there are some counter-arguments. Some players may still choose to minimize it, but I don't want to lower its value any more, partly because gameplay is more interesting if players are using more repair ships and battle damage Lasts longer. Dropping to 1% reduces all sector rates by 1 component/turn and gains 10 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 500 points. Raising to 1% does about nothing but costs 10 points. Maximizing to 150% costs 500 points.

Maintenance Aptitude:
=====================
* Basic cost increased from 50 to 150.
* Threshold lowered from 10 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 200 to 300.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 5 to 100.

The counterintuitive way this works has not been changed, to maintain compatibility with the unmodded game, and with many mods. It is a very important attribute, paticularly at high levels. Lowering it was undervalued. No change ("100") gives maintenance costs of 25% of build cost per ship per turn. Dropping to "95" results in 30% maintenance costs and gains 750 points. Minimizing to "80" results in 45% maintenance costs and gains 2250 points. Raising to "105" results in 20% maintenance costs and costs 750 points. Maximizing to "120" results in 5% maintenance costs and costs 5250 points.

=========
Cultures:
=========

The Culture choices have all been balanced to be worth approximately net zero points. This is because the program never charges points for them, and one option is Neutral Culture, which has no effect. The primary positive effect of each culture has been left unmodified, and the negative effects adjusted to compensate for their value under the new system. In some cases the positive effects may be deemed to be worth more or less than they would cost as traits, because they may be used to increase the maximum possible value in a particular area where that is important (e.g. Berzerker), or because they limit the empire's options in important abilities.

Neutral Culture:
================
No change.

Berzerkers Culture:
===================
Advantages unchanged.
Disadvantages changed from -5 to -20 and from -2 to -10.

Space and ground combat remain at +10, which would cost 3030 points as traits. Happiness remains at +5 for 200 points. Unmodded disadvantages would be worth 1090 points, so this would have been worth 1940 points, or 2940 if Aggressiveness and Defensiveness are +5 or higher. Since this Culture offers the highest possible space combat bonuses, it should be charged at the threshold rate. Essentially, the disadvantages should be quadrupled. Changing the -5's to -20's and the -2's to -10's EXACTLY comes to 0 points, so that seems perfect.

Warriors Culture:
=================
Advantages unchanged.
Disadvantages changed from -2 to -10.
-5 disadvatages added in Trade, SY Rate, and Maintenance.

Space and ground combat remain at +5, which would cost 1015 points as traits, or 2025 at threshold levels. The unmodded disadvantages are only worth 150 points. Rather than raise the two disadvantages to -20 to -30 each, making them more severe than for Berserkers, I increased them by the same proportion (-2 becoming -10), and then added some different disadvantages at -5 to make up the remaining points, creating a different sort of trade-off compared to Berserkers. It seems fitting that Warriors would take longer to build their ships, and that they would be more expensive to maintain, because they spare no expense to improve combat abilities. This results in a net worth of 15-30 points, assuming Aggressiveness and Defensiveness are at +5 or more.

Traders Culture:
================
Advantage unchanged.
Disadvantages added -1 to Space Combat and -5 to Ground Combat.

Trade remains at +5, which would cost 250 points, or 500 at threshold levels. Since the goal of a trader culture is to maximize its wealth and other trade values, I decided not to reduce Production, Research, Intelligence, or Maintenance. It also seems a natural choice for an empire with high Political Savvy, and it offers no bonuses to the most-desired areas of combat, maintenance, and construction, so it makes sense to balance against it at the non-threshold rate. Combat, particularly ground conquest, seemed appropriate weak areas for a Trader culture, so I gave it a -1 to Space combat (-200 points), and a -5 to ground combat (-15 points), for a net worth of 15 points (or 265 if Political Savvy is at threshold levels), but slightly limits the choice of maximizing combat abilities.

Politicians Culture:
====================
Advantage unchanged.
Disadvantage increased from -5 to -16 Production.

Trade and Happiness remain at +5, and Space Combat at +2, which would cost 825 points, or 1500 at threshold levels. Of these, only Space Combat should be balanced at threshold levels, for a needed balance of about 1225. The unmodded Production -5 is worth 345 points. I increased this to -16 for 1200 points. This allows a number of interesting trade-offs for net savings, depending on the empire's other values. In general this culture is worth 25 points, but limits the choice of maximizing Production.

Artisans Culture:
=================
Advantage unchanged.
Disadvantage added -7 to SY Rate.

Happiness remains at +10, which would cost 375 points, or 400 at threshold levels. Maximizing Happiness is not a particularly great advantage, so this is balanced at slightly below non-threshold value. Reducing SY Rate seems appropriate; the artisans take longer to build things, because they take the time to apply the artful touches (or engage in their other "leisure and cultural pursuits" that keep them happy. So I added a -7 to SY Rate, which is worth 350 points. In general this culture is worth net 25 points, but limits the choice of maximizing SY Rate.

Scientists Culture:
===================
Advantage unchanged.
Disadvantage added -4 to Production.

Research remains at +5, which would cost 250 points, or 375 at threshold levels. It seems to me the most natural disadvantage would be Production, and that it should be balanced between but closer to the non-threshold value. Production -4 is generally worth 276 points (less if a resource aptitude is at negative threshold), giving this culture a net -26 point value for an average empire, but allowing high-Intelligence empires, and those who reduce resource aptitudes, to gain 99 or more net points.

Workers Culture:
================
Advantage unchanged.
Disadvantages added -1 to Research, Intelligence, Trade and Combat.

Production remains at +5, which would cost 345 points, or 700 if all three resource aptitudes are at threshold levels. Since "industry is given precedence above all other tasks", it seems appropriate to reduce the unrelated values of Research, Intelligence, Trade and Combat by a small amount, to balance the non-threshold value. At -1 to each of these areas is worth 328 points, for a net 17 point value.

Schemers Culture:
=================
Advantage unchanged.
Disadvantages added -2 to Trade and Happiness.

Intelligence remains at +5, which would cost 125 points, or 200 at threshold levels. Slightly reduced trade and happiness seem appropriate for a suspicious and scheming culture, and a -2 to each balances to a net -5 point value, but with +70 or more savings for empires which concentrate in Cunning or reduce trade to threshold levels.

Zealots Culture:
================
Advantages unchanged.
Disadvantages changed from -5 to -20 and from -2 to -11.

Space Combat remains at +5, and Ground Combat at +10, which would cost 1030 points, or 2050 at threshold levels. The unmodded disadvantages to Production, Research and Intelligence are generally worth 513 points. The Space Combat bonus should be balanced as for Warriors and Berzerkers, increasing the disadvantage value to 2009 points. This results in a net worth of 21-41 points, assuming Aggressiveness and Defensiveness are at +5 or more.

Engineers Culture:
==================
Advantages unchanged.
Trade and Space Combat reduced from -5 to -3.
Other disadvantages unchanged.

Maintenance remains at +2, and SY Rate and Repair remain at +5, which would cost 600 points, or 1150 at threshold levels. The unmodded disadvantages would generally give 1315 points, or at least 570. Reducing the penalties to Trade and Space Combat from -5 to -3 reduces their value to 815, which seems about right. Essentially, it saves points for empires which are at positive threshold in Maintenance, or certain other combinations, and increases the maximum possible values for Construction and Repair, while lowering the maximum possible values for the disadvantages. The net value for an average empire is -215, but it is possible to save up to 845 points and reach the maximum construction rate of 180%.

Merchants Culture:
==================
Advantages unchanged.
Research and Intelligence disadvantages increased from -2 to -8.
Other disadvantages unchanged.

Trade and Maintenance remain at +5, which would cost 1000 points, or 2000 at threshold levels. The unmodded disadvantages would generally give 565 points. Increasing Research and Intelligence reductions from -2 to -8 brings the net value to -15 points for an average empire. This culture allows savings for empires wishing to increase Maintenance and Trade abilities at the cost of more expense and reduced maximums in combat, Research and Intelligence.

Renegades Culture:
==================
Advantages and disadvantages unchanged.

Trade and Happiness remain at +5, and Space Combat and Repair remain at +2, which would cost 845 points, or 1520 at threshold levels, 1250 if only Combat is at threshold. The unmodded disadvantages would generally give 1038 points, or 1788 with maintenance at positive threshold. This seems like a good candidate for leaving alone. The value to an average empire would be 193 points, but only if it accepts a relatively low Maintenance Aptitude.

Xenophobes Culture:
===================
Advantage unchanged.
Happiness disadvantage removed.

The +5 Intelligence advantage is worth 125 to 375 points, and increases the maximum possible value. The unmodded disadvantages would generally be worth 425 points. However, one disadvantage is their -5 to Trade, which if they are roleplaying properly, they shouldn't be using much. The Happiness penalty seems inappropriate to me, and contributes to the happiness problems of roleplayers using the appropriate "Neutral" happiness type. Removing the Happiness penalty makes this Culture's value 125 points to a player who roleplays by not trading (which has its own disadvantages), and -125 or more points to a player who chooses to be a trading xenophobe in order to get the Intelligence bonus.

PvK

[JLS]

PVK excellent work, this Balance mod is awesome and data is well thought thru, I definitely plan to incorporate much of this into AI Campaigns next release, and as with all other files in AIC ((( PVK ))) will be stamped at the top.

Thank you for making this available. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

EDIT:
I also copied your Last post and will package it as a text file so Players will receive YOUR notes and remarks for the most logical choices and options.

[ September 03, 2003, 00:48: Message edited by: JLS ]

[Grand Lord Vito]

This DATA is close to what you have already in AIC, then again it would not hurt lowering AST in AIC a bit. If you make changes then you will have to redo all the AI General files http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/shock.gif
When do you plan on completing the next Version of AIC JLS 2004 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[spoon]

Originally posted by PvK:
Ok, I finally did the Culture values. There were some harder decisions than I anticipated, because there are many ways to "use" a culture, depending on which values are at positive or negative threshold, etc. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">They look balanced to me. Can't see an obvious powerhouses (like merchant and bezerker used to be). Engineers look much more tempting now. Neutral might even be the best choice from time to time, which is good.

Only criticism I have is that Schemers and Xenophobes are almost identical (though this is true in the stock game as well).

[JLS]

Pete, we are considering adding Minesweeper support for the Human Player and you are the man to see when it comes to your Proportions Plate Armor

What are your thoughts, is it possible to attach Minesweeping abilities to Plate Armor, so as the mounts displacement scale increases so will the ships MS Ability?

If so what would the best way to address this?

Thanks, John

[ September 06, 2003, 18:16: Message edited by: JLS ]

[Fyron]

Mounts can not affect the number of mines swept by a component. As scale mounts make a comp larger, it effectively sweeps fewer mines (sweeping per KT goes down).

[PvK]

Let's start a new thread for that question, rather than diverting this one.

Sorry I haven't posted the actual mod yet. I'll give the similar cultures another think, and then try to get it finalized.

PvK

[Makinus]

any idea when you will post the files?

thanks

[PvK]

Sorry guys - I've been working about 65 hours a week on other stuff, making it hard to remember to organize some time to do this. I'll make an effort to do it soon.

PvK

[PvK]

Ok, I'm going to try to get this posted tonight. I figure if I say so now, I'll be more motivated to actually do so. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by spoon:
...
Only criticism I have is that Schemers and Xenophobes are almost identical (though this is true in the stock game as well).<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Yeah, they were rather unbalanced in the stock game. "Hmm, I can be a Schemer and get +5 intel with no disadvantages at all. Or, I could be a schemer and get the same +5, but have some disadvantages."

Seems like it'd make sense and be more interesting if Schemers had at least a slightly higher intel bonus than Xenophobes, but with correspondingly more disadvantage. I'll make the Schemers +7 Intel, -2 Trade, -5 Happiness.

PvK

[PvK]

Ok, it's posted at this site (http://www.latibulum.com/pvk/pvkbalance).

================
Mod Description:
================

PvK Balance mod changes the point costs when an empire is created, to be
more fairly balanced between the available choices. It makes no other
changes to the basic game.

The effect on empire design, and on the competitiveness of newly-designed
empires, should be fairly large, however. Choices which were considered
"the best" or "not worth the points" should now be more or less at the
right value. This should mean that many more empire designs will be
competitve with others, assuming their strengths are played well against
opponents' weaknesses.

The specific cost changes, and their reasoning, is described in detail
below. Please let me know if you feel anything is overvalued or undervalued.

=======
Traits:
=======

Advanced Power Conservation:
============================
* Cost lowered from 1000 to 500.

This trait was rarely used, and while helpful, was not nearly as useful
as other 1000-point traits.

Mechanoids:
===========
* Cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

This trait was probably never used by a skilled player in a competitive
game. I have played many unmodded games, and have never been attacked by
a plague bomb, and the few natural and espionage plagues have been easily
cured for little cost and little effect. Moreover, empires with this
advantage are immediately identified as such, so only an unobservant
player would ever try to use a plague attack on a Mechanoid player.
250 points seems about right for this minor advantage, and removes the
"balance penalty" for roleplaying mechanoid races.

Lucky:
======
* Cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

The practical value of this varies depending on the game settings for
random events. In many games, it will not be worth very much. In games
with catastrophic events, at 250 points it becomes a kind of dare to risk
not taking it. Since the effects vary, and if multiple empires take it,
they counteract each other, and since frequently this has little effect,
it seemed to make sense to reduce it to a minor cost, which removes the
amount of "wasted points" for empires which take Lucky in games where it
won't have much or any effect.

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

These all seem of roughly equivalent value to me. Ancient Race can be
abused in some gamey ways, but gives no advantage beyond knowledge, so
opponents can get more permanent advantages. Hardy Industrialists may be
more or less efficient compared to construction aptitude, depending on
how it's used, but it can be combined with it to reach the highest levels
of construction rate, which some players use in their grand strategies.

Advanced Storage Techniques:
============================
* Cost increased from 1000 to 2000 points.

This one was pretty much universally accepted as the best 1000-point
unmodded advantage, for its many effects and side-effects on facilities,
starting strength, population, and cargo space. 2000 points seems about
right to me compared to the other adjusted values.

Emotionless:
============
* Cost reduced from 3000 to 1750 (net 2200 to net 1000 when minimizing Happiness).

This is a very useful ability for lazy or new players, as well as for
large empires that suffer damage that would otherwise make the entire
empire riot and fall. Almost no competitive players were thinking twice
about paying 2200 points for it, however. At 1000 net points, I'd say
it's a good deal, and a valid choice for roleplayers.

Racial Technologies:
====================
* Most remain at 1500 points.

After the many discussions over the years, it seems to me that these are
all fairly well balanced and rated at 1500 points. They can all seem too
powerful or too expensive if one doesn't appreciate all of their abilities
and counter-tactics.

Deeply Religious:
=================
* Cost increased to 2000 points.

This is because the compensation for reducing Aggressiveness by a small
amount has been greatly increased. Essentially, an average Religious
player is expected to take a -5 in Aggressiveness, for a net cost of 1500
points.

===========
Attributes:
===========

Physical Strength:
==================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 3.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 5.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 3.

Minimizing troop strength to 50 now only provides 150 points.
Maximizing troop strength to 150 now only costs 230 points.

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.

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.

Environmental Resistance:
=========================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 12.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 1.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 12.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 18.

This follows Imperator Fyron's information that 5% in this is like 1% in
Happiness and 1% in Reproduction. Threshold reduced to one since this
effect is divided by 5 so the actual range is -10 to +10, and minimal
threshold allows different rates for low-level increases versus decreases,
which need to be balanced differently to avoid "free points" schemes with
offsetting choices for Reproduction or Happiness. Since it requires
raising both at once and thus offers less flexibility, I devalued it 2
per point (almost insignifigant).

Reproduction:
=============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 50.

Basic cost is raised because although population isn't a huge factor in
unmodded games, a 1% change is about a 10% change relative to the base
rate, and low rates can cut reproduction to 0% or a few % under bad
circumstances, which becomes a relevant effect. The minimum setting will
only earn 450 points, and is a meaningful disadvantage.

Happiness:
==========
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 15.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 1.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 40.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 15.

Threshold lowered to one in order to reduce reward for lowering happiness
a small amount, since in the unmodded game a little unhappiness is easy
to counter with troops. A lot of unhappiness can be a problem however, so
the Negative Threshold cost was increased. Positive Threshold can be low,
because for the most part, a high value gives diminishing benefits which
can be accomplished by others using troops. Minimum setting of -50 gives
750 points (and would be hard to survive long enough to develop troops
before riots took over). Maximum setting of +50 costs 1975 points.

Aggressiveness:
===============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 175.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 50.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs
4000 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25%
gains 1500 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this
seems to me a fairly accurate valuation. I would increase the Negative
Threshold value a bit, except that Racial techologies such as Talisman or
Event Predictor can compensate for minimized Aggressiveness.

Defensiveness:
==============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 225.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 40.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs
5000 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25%
gains 1300 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this
seems to me a fairly accurate valuation. Defensiveness is of slightly
more value than Aggressiveness at the high end (because enemies start to
become nearly incapable of hitting), and less valuable at the low end
(because enemies start to always hit, and shields and armor can also
protect).

Political Savvy:
================
* Basic cost increased from 25 to 50.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 20.

This attribute's value depends on the number of trade partners, their
Savvy, the player's goals, and game circumstances such as they player's
relative size, and intelligence attacks which disrupt trade. One benchmark
and not uncommon example is five established trade partners of equal size.
In this case the player with average Savvy will double his income in
resources, likely research, and potentially, intelligence. On the other
hand, the player also gives the same to his trade partners (many or all
of who may be eventual opponents), and without trade partners, this
attribute has no value at all. An interesting side-effect is that an
informed player may prefer low-Savvy trade partners to high-Savvy trade
partners. The value thus cannot be absolutely evaluated, but is somewhere
between the value of increasing all of the resource aptitudes and
intelligence and cunning, and zero.

I first estimated it by adding the values for Mining Aptitude to the
values for Intelligence. Then I noticed the large values this generated,
and considered that warlike races who don't plan to trade much, probably
should not get much more than 1500 points. I also considered that powerful
empires may choose not to trade in order to avoid sharing their success,
so devaluing Savvy may tend to slightly reduce the runaway success of
large empires. In almost any game however, it still seems more valuable
than simple Mining Aptitude, so I compromised at double the value of
Mining Aptitude.

Lowering to 80% gains 1000 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 1600 points.
Raising to 120% costs 1000 points and maximizing to 150 costs 4000 points.

Mining Aptitude:
================
* Positive Threshold cost reduced from 100 to 50.

Everyone needs minerals. This seemed like a good baseline ability to
remain unchanged, but the cost of maximizing seemed too high (3500 points
for 150% minerals seemed excessive). Dropping to 80% gains 500 points.
Minimizing to 50% gains 800 points. Raising to 120% costs 500 points and
maximizing to 150 costs 2000 points.

Farming Aptitude:
=================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 22.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 45.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 8.

Even Organic races need fewer organic resources than minerals, so these
values are slightly less than Mining Aptitude. Dropping to 80% gains 440
points. Minimizing to 50% gains 680 points. Raising to 120% costs 440
points and maximizing to 150 costs 1790 points.

Refining Aptitude:
==================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 22.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 45.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 8.

Radioactives are about as needed as organics in the unmodded game, taking
racial and high-tech costs into account. Organic races will naturally
prefer Farming Aptitude to Refining Aptitude, and Crystalline races the
opposite, which is natural and not really a balance issue. Costs are identical.

Construction Aptitude:
======================
* Basic cost increased from 25 to 50.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 40.

Construction rate is one of the more important attributes. One can compare
to the Hardy Industrialists trait, which gives +25% to planetary spaceyards
only, for 1000 points. The limitation to planetary yards is important,
because many more shipyards can be built in space. Realize too that the
two can be combined for cumulative effect. Reducing to half would be quite
a significant disadvantage. Dropping to 90% gains 500 points. Minimizing
to 50% gains 2100 points. Raising to 110% costs 500 points and maximizing
to 150 costs 4500 points.

Repair Aptitude:
================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 10.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 1.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 10.

Repair aptitude is slightly odd because it works on round numbers. A one-
percent reduction will reduce rates by an entire component per turn, while
a one-percent increase won't do anything until repair capacity reaches
100 components/sector/turn. It can also be combined with Cultural modifiers.
I leave it as exercise for players to experiment and see where the specific
relevant numbers are. Some players consider this attribute's value low
because repair components are cheap, so just build more. That makes some
sense, although there are some counter-arguments. Some players may still
choose to minimize it, but I don't want to lower its value any more, partly
because gameplay is more interesting if players are using more repair ships
and battle damage Lasts longer. Dropping by 1% reduces all sector rates by
1 component/turn and gains 10 points. Minimizing to 50% gains 500 points.
Raising to 1% does about nothing but costs 10 points. Maximizing to 150%
costs 500 points.

Maintenance Aptitude:
=====================
* Basic cost increased from 50 to 150.
* Threshold lowered from 10 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 200 to 300.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 5 to 100.

The counterintuitive way this works has not been changed, to maintain
compatibility with the unmodded game, and with many mods. It is a very
important attribute, paticularly at high levels. Lowering it was undervalued.
No change ("100") gives maintenance costs of 25% of build cost per ship
per turn.
Dropping to "95" results in 30% maintenance costs and gains 750 points.
Minimizing to "80" results in 45% maintenance costs and gains 2250 points.
Raising to "105" results in 20% maintenance costs and costs 750 points.
Maximizing to "120" results in 5% maintenance costs and costs 5250 points.

=========
Cultures:
=========

The Culture choices have all been balanced to be worth approximately net
zero points. This is because the program never charges points for them,
and one option is Neutral Culture, which has no effect. The primary positive
effect of each culture has been left unmodified, and the negative effects
adjusted to compensate for their value under the new system. In some cases
the positive effects may be deemed to be worth more or less than they would
cost as traits, because they may be used to increase the maximum possible
value in a particular area where that is important (e.g. Berzerker), or
because they limit the empire's options in important abilities.

Neutral Culture:
================
No change.

Berzerkers Culture:
===================
Advantages unchanged.
Disadvantages changed from -5 to -20 and from -2 to -10.

Space and ground combat remain at +10, which would cost 3030 points as
traits. Happiness remains at +5 for 200 points. Unmodded disadvantages
would be worth 1090 points, so this would have been worth 1940 points,
or 2940 if Aggressiveness and Defensiveness are +5 or higher. Since this
Culture offers the highest possible space combat bonuses, it should be
charged at the threshold rate. Essentially, the disadvantages should be
quadrupled. Changing the -5's to -20's and the -2's to -10's EXACTLY comes
to 0 points, so that seems perfect.

Warriors Culture:
=================
Advantages unchanged.
Disadvantages changed from -2 to -10.
-5 disadvatages added in Trade, SY Rate, and Maintenance.

Space and ground combat remain at +5, which would cost 1015 points as
traits, or 2025 at threshold levels. The unmodded disadvantages are only
worth 150 points. Rather than raise the two disadvantages to -20 to -30
each, making them more severe than for Berserkers, I increased them by the
same proportion (-2 becoming -10), and then added some different disadvantages
at -5 to make up the remaining points, creating a different sort of trade-
off compared to Berserkers. It seems fitting that Warriors would take longer
to build their ships, and that they would be more expensive to maintain,
because they spare no expense to improve combat abilities. This results in
a net worth of 15-30 points, assuming Aggressiveness and Defensiveness are
at +5 or more.

Traders Culture:
================
Advantage unchanged.
Disadvantages added -1 to Space Combat and -5 to Ground Combat.

Trade remains at +5, which would cost 250 points, or 500 at threshold
levels. Since the goal of a trader culture is to maximize its wealth and
other trade values, I decided not to reduce Production, Research,
Intelligence, or Maintenance. It also seems a natural choice for an empire
with high Political Savvy, and it offers no bonuses to the most-desired
areas of combat, maintenance, and construction, so it makes sense to
balance against it at the non-threshold rate. Combat, particularly ground
conquest, seemed appropriate weak areas for a Trader culture, so I gave
it a -1 to Space combat (-200 points), and a -5 to ground combat (-15
points), for a net worth of 15 points (or 265 if Political Savvy is at
threshold levels), but slightly limits the choice of maximizing combat
abilities.

Politicians Culture:
====================
Advantage unchanged.
Disadvantage increased from -5 to -16 Production.

Trade and Happiness remain at +5, and Space Combat at +2, which would cost
825 points, or 1500 at threshold levels. Of these, only Space Combat should
be balanced at threshold levels, for a needed balance of about 1225. The
unmodded Production -5 is worth 345 points. I increased this to -16 for
1200 points. This allows a number of interesting trade-offs for net savings,
depending on the empire's other values. In general this culture is worth
25 points, but limits the choice of maximizing Production.

Artisans Culture:
=================
Advantage unchanged.
Disadvantage added -7 to SY Rate.

Happiness remains at +10, which would cost 375 points, or 400 at threshold
levels. Maximizing Happiness is not a particularly great advantage, so this
is balanced at slightly below non-threshold value. Reducing SY Rate seems
appropriate; the artisans take longer to build things, because they take
the time to apply the artful touches (or engage in their other "leisure and
cultural pursuits" that keep them happy. So I added a -7 to SY Rate, which
is worth 350 points. In general this culture is worth net 25 points, but
limits the choice of maximizing SY Rate.

Scientists Culture:
===================
Advantage unchanged.
Disadvantage added -4 to Production.

Research remains at +5, which would cost 250 points, or 375 at threshold
levels. It seems to me the most natural disadvantage would be Production,
and that it should be balanced between but closer to the non-threshold value.
Production -4 is generally worth 276 points (less if a resource aptitude
is at negative threshold), giving this culture a net -26 point value for
an average empire, but allowing high-Intelligence empires, and those who
reduce resource aptitudes, to gain 99 or more net points.

Workers Culture:
================
Advantage unchanged.
Disadvantages added -1 to Research, Intelligence, Trade and Combat.

Production remains at +5, which would cost 345 points, or 700 if all three
resource aptitudes are at threshold levels. Since "industry is given
precedence above all other tasks", it seems appropriate to reduce the
unrelated values of Research, Intelligence, Trade and Combat by a small
amount, to balance the non-threshold value. At -1 to each of these areas
is worth 328 points, for a net 17 point value.

Schemers Culture:
=================
Advantage increased from Intel +5 to Intel +7.
Disadvantages added -2 to Trade and -5 to Happiness.

Originally I left the advantage at +5, but spoon pointed out it was very
similar to Xenophobes, so:
Intelligence increases to +7, which would cost 175 points, or 280 at
threshold levels. Slightly reduced trade and happiness seem appropriate
for a suspicious and scheming culture, and -2/-5 balances to a net 0 point
value, but with +105 or more savings for empires which concentrate in
Cunning or reduce trade to threshold levels.

Zealots Culture:
================
Advantages unchanged.
Disadvantages changed from -5 to -20 and from -2 to -11.

Space Combat remains at +5, and Ground Combat at +10, which would cost 1030
points, or 2050 at threshold levels. The unmodded disadvantages to Production,
Research and Intelligence are generally worth 513 points. The Space Combat
bonus should be balanced as for Warriors and Berzerkers, increasing the
disadvantage value to 2009 points. This results in a net worth of 21-41
points, assuming Aggressiveness and Defensiveness are at +5 or more.

Engineers Culture:
==================
Advantages unchanged.
Trade and Space Combat reduced from -5 to -3.
Other disadvantages unchanged.

Maintenance remains at +2, and SY Rate and Repair remain at +5, which would
cost 600 points, or 1150 at threshold levels. The unmodded disadvantages
would generally give 1315 points, or at least 570. Reducing the penalties
to Trade and Space Combat from -5 to -3 reduces their value to 815, which
seems about right. Essentially, it saves points for empires which are at
positive threshold in Maintenance, or certain other combinations, and
increases the maximum possible values for Construction and Repair, while
lowering the maximum possible values for the disadvantages. The net value
for an average empire is -215, but it is possible to save up to 845 points
and reach the maximum construction rate of 180%.

Merchants Culture:
==================
Advantages unchanged.
Research and Intelligence disadvantages increased from -2 to -8.
Other disadvantages unchanged.

Trade and Maintenance remain at +5, which would cost 1000 points, or 2000
at threshold levels. The unmodded disadvantages would generally give 565
points. Increasing Research and Intelligence reductions from -2 to -8 brings
the net value to -15 points for an average empire. This culture allows
savings for empires wishing to increase Maintenance and Trade abilities
at the cost of more expense and reduced maximums in combat, Research and
Intelligence.

Renegades Culture:
==================
Advantages and disadvantages unchanged.

Trade and Happiness remain at +5, and Space Combat and Repair remain at
+2, which would cost 845 points, or 1520 at threshold levels, 1250 if only
Combat is at threshold. The unmodded disadvantages would generally give
1038 points, or 1788 with maintenance at positive threshold. This seems
like a good candidate for leaving alone. The value to an average empire
would be 193 points, but only if it accepts a relatively low Maintenance
Aptitude.

Xenophobes Culture:
===================
Advantage unchanged.
Happiness disadvantage removed.

The +5 Intelligence advantage is worth 125 to 375 points, and increases
the maximum possible value. The unmodded disadvantages would generally be
worth 425 points. However, one disadvantage is their -5 to Trade, which
if they are roleplaying properly, they shouldn't be using much. The
Happiness penalty seems inappropriate to me, and contributes to the
happiness problems of roleplayers using the appropriate "Neutral" happiness
type. Removing the Happiness penalty makes this Culture's value 125 points
to a player who roleplays by not trading (which has its own disadvantages),
and -125 or more points to a player who chooses to be a trading xenophobe
in order to get the Intelligence bonus.

============
Changes Log:
============

Version 1.0: This is the first released Version.

=======================
Applying To Other Mods:
=======================

To apply these balance changes to other mods, you should take the other
mod as the foundation, and then apply the changes from this mod to the
other mod's files. If the other mod makes important changes to the files
this mod changes, then you'll need to cut and paste and maybe make some
judgement calls.

The files which this mod changes are as follows. (The other files included
in this mod are just the stock 1.84 files, which are necessary for the mod
to load properly.)

* Settings.txt - only the section from "Characteristic Physical Strength
Max Pct" to "Characteristic Maintenance Aptitude Threshhold Pct Cost Neg"
is changed.
* Cultures.txt - most of file changed.
* RacialTraits.txt - most costs changed.

The following mods are known to already incorporate some or all of this
mod's changes, or to have made similar balance adjustments already, and
so it would generally be redundant to apply this mod to them:

Proportions
AI Campaign
Adamant
Pirates and Nomads

No doubt there are several others which also have balanced their starting
costs. Also, in some mods, the modded abilities will affect the usefulness
of various abilities. In general, check with the other mod's author for
advice about combining mods.

- PvK

[Fyron]

Keep in mind that many of these ideas have been in use for months in Adamant. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Great to see them finally solidified into actual data files! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

[Grand Lord Vito]

Outstanding PVK.
Knowing that we can’t overwrite data files on AIC and most other MODs with out errors and destroying that mod.
This is great for se4 gold and I plan playing with the new data this weekend. I like the high maintenance costs and this should keep down the work by reducing the total ships
JLS you are going to incorporate PVKs balance mod into AIC v4.0?

PVK you should include all the original data file as well so people can revert to the default se4 gold if they want to http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[ September 17, 2003, 13:38: Message edited by: Grand Lord Vito ]

[PvK]

GLV, the mod instructions are to install like any other mod, rather than stomping your default DATA directory. I believe there is a NULL mod posted somewhere with all the default data files.

I think that like Fryon, JLS was already considering these things for his most recent AIC work. However unless I'm mistaken, I think AIC already considered costs based on Proportions, which already did this sort of consideration (though a bit less thoroughly).

And yes Fryon, we'll all be keeping in mind that you integrated much of this into Adamant Mod months ago. I'm sure it will give us all a warm feeling inside. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

PvK

[JLS]

Originally posted by PvK:
I think that like Fryon, JLS was already considering these things for his most recent AIC work. However unless I'm mistaken, I think AIC already considered costs based on Proportions, <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Absolutely, this is premier to se4 and is excellent work that will be intergraded with AIC v4.0.

Thanks PvK
Great stuff
http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[ September 18, 2003, 03:54: Message edited by: JLS ]

[Fyron]

And yes Fryon, we'll all be keeping in mind that you integrated much of this into Adamant Mod months ago. I'm sure it will give us all a warm feeling inside. <font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Well I should hope so! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif I was just pointing it out because people could quite easily have copied the characteristics costs from Adamant and had a much more balanced system than stock (though the changes to Maintenance characteristic require the changes to default maint levels and maint redux on vehicle sizes, as they are part of making the maint redux affect maintenance paid, instead of base maint rate (yes, there is a huge difference)).

[ September 18, 2003, 06:08: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Ran-Taro]

This is excellent work, and exactly what I needed. Thank you very much.

[deccan]

You know what would make this even better? Modify the AI files so that they create empires taking into account the adjusted costs.

[PvK]

Thanks Ran-Taro!

Yes Deccan, that would be good. Anyone feel like doing the work? It's a fairly time-consuming project which I won't have time for until maybe February of next year, so if anyone wants to supply the AI files, I'll include them in a patch to the mod once they're ready.

PvK

[PvK]

Actually, what would be even better would be to do this for the TDM modpack Version AI's...

PvK

[primitive]

PBW Anyone http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Ran-Taro]

Originally posted by PvK:
Actually, what would be even better would be to do this for the TDM modpack Version AI's...

PvK<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">Wouldn't the re-balancing of relative values mean the whole AI's would need to be remade, not just the general files?

I guess just the general files would do in a pinch, but I'm guessing this mod would make for a greater variety of effective AI tactics in research etc...

[PvK]

Hmm, a difficult question. You'd of course want to be sure to keep any racial tech areas. I don't think you'd want to change the research order, or the ship designs. Offhand I'd think the main issue outside the AI_General file would be the design construction AI file, which determines how many of a ship to build, because if the AI has lower resource or maintenance reduction values, it may not be able to afford as many as it could before. I'd only expect that to be an issue for TDM modpack races which were highly tweaked in that regard, and/or that took heavy advantage of the cheap maintenance reduction in the unmodded game.

I'd actually think the unmodded AI's would tend to be better off in Balance mod than the TDM ones, inasmuch as the unmodded ones weren't very well optimized, so they'll benefit from the Balance mod giving them balanced value for points. I expect the existing TDM races take a lot of advantage of the unbalanced unmodded empire costs, so they'll be in worse shape, relatively speaking. All the more reason to work with those files if one were to make custom AI's for the balance mod.

PvK

[clark]

Sorry for this slightly (well, okay, really really really...) offtopic idea, but I lacked a suitable place to bring this up, and seeing as this mod is about "balance", I had an idea that might bring some more balance to the game, or at the very least, open up new strategies.

Before I get to the meat of it though, what strikes me most about SEIV is that there isn't just ONE set strategy for weapons and ships and what not. You have options. You have counter measures upon counter measures upon counter measures. That's fun becuase you have to keep being flexible. Every game can be slightly different.

Well, one thing I have noticed, and one thing I have seen repeated is the short half-life of fighters in the game. Yeah, you can make them still work in late game, but really, you're just building fleets to get chewed up by those pesky Point Defense weapons.

So i ask you, what is the counter measure to overcome point defense?

Beam weapons.

But the answer is the problem. Beam weapons are your only real long term solution. So much so, people tend to neglect the Torpedo and Seeker techs. It's a dead end, right? So everyone is running around with beam weapons, not much variety there.

So here is what i was thinking, a new component.

Call it the "Shotgun whatever".

The idea behind this component would be that it shoots out a bunch of cheap seekers to overwhelm the enemies Point Defense, thereby allowing your fighters and more powerful torpedos to get through.

Now, in order to simulate the "overwhelming shotgun" effect of these, the size of the component should be small- maybe 1 - 5 Kt. So you could put dozens on a ship. Now the damage caused by these seekers would be negligible because they are little more than 'dumb rocks'. So maybe 1-3 points of damage, if any at all.

What this does is provide an enffective means to COUNTER point defense. (One need look at the Missle Defense argument to see what I am getting at).

Sorry for the intrusion. I will delete this post if any feel it neccessary. But it would be nice to get some feedback on this.

Does anyone think the AI coulb be modified to implement something like this?

Cheers.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

*sees no reason why it wouldn't work. good idea.*

on the other hand, what i know about ai modding could be fit on one page.

[ October 15, 2003, 20:41: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[PvK]

If you have the peace time and spare resources, drones can provide the shotgun. PD has problems with shielded ECM drones. Combine with fighters and/or seekers, and some nasty no-maintenance stuff will get through the PD. Drones which launch their own seekers are also good for generating a large swarm. However, PD is still very powerful and cost-effective in the unmodded game.

PvK

[PvK]

I just made a new Version 1.1 of PvK Balance Mod, for seamless use with SE4 Gold Version 1.91 (Gold Patch 4) which was just released.

There are no changes except to make it so no 1.91 changes will be undone by applying the Balance Mod.

See the link below my signature.

PvK

[Alneyan]

I happen to have a question about your mod PvK: why lowering Happiness give many points? According to the general consensus, lowering Happiness hardly hurts the Empire. (That is, according to many players in KOTH and the Newbie FAQ)

Unless the patch altered something, lowering Happiness shouldn't make your Empire more prone to suffer from riots. I played with average Happiness and with 50% happiness and my planets were rioting as fast in both cases, only troops and UPC would prevent these riots.

Beyond this small question, great work! I will have a closer look at your mod once I start a solitaire game, so that the enemy Empires will be both varied and still effective. (Playing against 19 Clones isn't exactly appealing, nor is playing against much weaker Empires)

[ February 29, 2004, 16:34: Message edited by: Alneyan ]

[PvK]

It's only easy to counter if you lower it moderately, and I this mod only returns a fair number of points if you reduce it a lot, at which point it does become a disadvantage. As I write in the readme & web page:

PvK wrote:
Threshold lowered to one in order to reduce reward for lowering happiness
a small amount, since in the unmodded game a little unhappiness is easy
to counter with troops. A lot of unhappiness can be a problem however, so
the Negative Threshold cost was increased. Positive Threshold can be low,
because for the most part, a high value gives diminishing benefits which
can be accomplished by others using troops. Minimum setting of -50 gives
750 points (and would be hard to survive long enough to develop troops
before riots took over). <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">So I don't think you can abuse it as you can in the unmodded game. I'd say it's worth 750 points to have to endure the effects of -50 Happiness.

One can counter the effects of unhappiness when one has the technology and resources available, mainly using troops, but this requires the player to focus on this immediately, and throughout the game. The effect is worse for a typical low-tech single-planet start, than for high-tech start where you can deploy troops on turn one, but it will still waste your time and resources and lower your research and intel by at least a bit throughout the game. I'd say this is probably well worth 750 points for -50, even if you become expert at dealing with it. It might be a somewhat over-valued, or not - I'd be interested to hear more discussion.

At -50 happiness, for example:

* By turn 2, the homeworld happiness will drop from Happy to Indifferent (loss of 10% production bonus, or 20% compared to someone else's Jubilant planet).
* Usually, two turns after a planet is colonized, it drops from Happy to Indifferent.
* An average-research low-tech empire suffering from -50 happiness will take about 10 turns to get to Construction 1, and another 10-15 to get to Troops 1, even if those are the first techs they go for, which in itself is a disadvantage, since they will probably want to delay useful early-game research to do that first. If they get attacked while they don't have anything useful researched, it could be game over. If they do research other things, they're going to suffer a lot of unhappiness effects.
* Alternatively, a player can build some cheap ships and leave them in orbit to keep happiness up, but that too is a waste of time and resources.
* Even in a high-tech game or late-game, the need to worry about happiness on every new planet is a distraction and an expense.
* During major wars with large empires, a major setback (large fleet and/or planet loss) can cause many planets throughout a large empire to riot. The rate at which they recover gets multiplied by the number of planets they have, as does the cost of building even more troops for all of them.

(Note too that if you read this thread's history, we discussed this and most of the other values, and pretty much everyone agreed [or some slightly thought something should be higher, where others slightly thought it should be lower] on most of this. There may still be some things that can be abused here or there though, so do let me know if you have any other ideas.)

PvK

[Alneyan]

I might be a bit stubborn and what not, but do you have any formula highlighting how 50% happiness affect the happiness level on a given planet? Or rather, how does reducing the characteristic alter the happiness level? I had a look at the happiness.txt file, but saw nothing regarding this. (I am not speaking about increasing happiness, as this effect is known)

Here is the quote from the Newbie FAQ I was referring to:
1.2.4 Happiness: Every five percentage points you increase your happiness makes 0,1% people happier every turn. For example if you increase happiness 10% it's the same effect if you have one troop on your every planet. If you drop your happiness to 50%, it makes 1% of your population angry each turn. Natural decrease is 2% (neutral 5%). The result is 1% happy people each turn. (Asmala) <font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">According to this calculation, it means natural decrease (or increase here) is higher than increasing happiness (or raising it here), and the only side effect would be if you were experiencing battle losses and other harmful events. There you would only gain a +10 each turn instead of +20 to help offsetting the happiness decrease due to these events. Or am I missing something obvious here? It is also possible the patch introduced a few changes to how happiness was handled, as I admit I am not yet familiar with the changes.

I read the whole thread before replying to check if the negative effects of lowering too much happiness have been discussed before, and it looks like it wasn't, unless I missed a page of course, as it wouldn't be unusual given my natural silliness.(Environmental Resistance was discussed, however.) My other questions were answered by reading the previous Posts, so I will not bug you about how to tweak AI files and the consequences of it or something along these lines. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[PvK]

Originally posted by Alneyan:
... According to this calculation, it means natural decrease (or increase here) is higher than increasing happiness (or raising it here), and the only side effect would be if you were experiencing battle losses and other harmful events.<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">I expect they add together, so you go from natural -2% per turn, to natural -3% per turn. Assuming the FAQ is correct - I noticed a couple of errors in the FAQ just while searching for this.

I ran a test just now in 1.91 and the effect isn't as strong as I expected, so you may well be right that it isn't worth as much as I thought.

What's the common wisdom on number of troops to offset a -1%/turn happiness? 10? Let's see... 5? Geez. (I remember I had good reasons for removing that factor from Proportions mod - I didn't remember them being that good.)

Let's see. The top brackets are 15% apart, while the lower ones are 25% apart. So all else being equal, assuming the FAQ is correct, a planet would drop 10% production in 5-9 turns, instead of 7-13 turns. Of course, in practice, events tend to dictate happiness level.

Overall, looking at the supposedly-correct FAQ numbers, I'm tending to think you're right. Happiness itself is a big factor, but the Happiness attribute looks extremely minescule in effect, if the FAQ is right. Maybe I need to run my test game longer, and/or do another test. (Except I have no free time to do that.)

Any other opinions or sources of info on this?

PvK

[Alneyan]

It looks like the natural decrease is actually a variation back to Indifferent level. Jubilant Empires tend to go back to Indifferent if there are no troops or an UPC on the planet, and Angry worlds can go back to Indifferent level as well. (I have never seen a rioting world going back to another level on its own though)

I ran a test with two Empires, one with 100% happiness and the other one with a mere 40% happiness. (50% Environmental Resistance and 50% happiness) Here are the results:
- Both Empires go back to indifferent level in the first few turns. (On turn 2 for 40% happiness, on turn 3 for 100% happiness) I will assume it would be the same if you raise happiness, unless you do go overboard on this characteristic to offset natural decrease.
- After many turns, both Empires remain at indifferent level, thanks to this natural decrease. If there were no natural decrease, the worlds of the 40% happiness would slowly go down in happiness. (With 1,2% more angry people every turn, your Empire would collapse easily I guess) Then troops would obviously be a priority, and lowering Happiness to 50% would be very risky to say the least.
- However, my 40% happiness didn't seem to be able to overcome the effects of losing several planets (including the homeworld) and battles, as all the worlds were on angry. On the other hand, the 100% happiness Empire eventually recovered from these effects, although the process needed about 15 turns to go back to Indifferent level. Please note that in a regular game, other attacks would have been likely, thus offseting this natural increase if no troops/UPC are present.

So, it seems like the only disavantage when lowering happiness is that you are a bit more vulnerable to happiness loss than before. But you will still have +1% happiness per turn, so it should be enough to deal with minor events such as the loss of a few ships here and there. If the situation is much worse, such as the destruction of several planets each turn, I would believe there isn't much left to do and +2% happiness will not help as losing a planet means -5% happiness. In both cases troops seem the only proper solution along with the UPC, and you would need 10 troops per planet to offset the 50% happiness disadvantage. (Or you could rely on the UPC with its +6% happiness per turn at level III)

[PvK]

Thanks Alneyan!

I'm convinced. My values were based on the assumption that lowering Happiness to 50% would be more like -5% or -10% per turn, and would keep going all the way to rioting. Your tests show that the effect is minescule in the extreme - essentially a non-factor (sigh). Therefore it's only worth perhaps 1/5 to 1/10 as much as I had it (and just plain ridiculously less than the unmodded value).

If you have time, I'd be interested to know if raising Happiness to the maximum has any worthwhile effect, or if it just delays the drop to indifferent by a couple of turns.

PvK

[primitive]

Don't forget this line from happiness.txt (Peacefull)

Any Planet Colonized := -10

This is more than enough to keep a 50% empire jubilant for a while in most games. The problem is to remember to have your troops and UPC's ready before you run out of colonizable planets http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[Alneyan]

I ran a test in the early game, and here are the results:

- For 150 happiness: the homeworld remains happy for 6 turns, is Indifferent the next turn, then becomes Happy against, and so on. (I checked for 120 turns)
- For 170 happiness (150 Environmental Resistance, the Artisans Culture, and 150 happiness): the homeworld stays Happy for 100 turns, and so it seems the value needed to fully offset natural decrease. (But you will not go to Jubilant)

These results are a bit better than what I expected, and it seems that +5% happiness does slightly more than increasing the happy people by +0,1% a turn. (+2% per turn is needed to offset natural decrease) But the effect isn't impressive, as other events would likely alter happiness. Thanks for mentioning this bonus about colonizing planets Primitive, I now understand why I am always at Jubilant, even with 50% happiness. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif (bar such trivial events involving enemy fleets, troops and the Primitive one)

So raising happiness would give a small boost to your Empire by helping a bit to reach Jubilant status (other events or troops/UPCs are needed though), and would help to reduce the happiness loss when harmful events happen. However, once again, if these events are truly nasty, 150% happiness will not help much and you *will* be in trouble if you don't have many troops and UPCs able to keep your subjects peaceful as an armada is heading their way.

[PvK]

Yeah. There are also bonuses for building ships, and for having ships (or, say, construction bases) in orbit over a planet.

Happiness rating... another non-factor - sigh.

PvK

[Fyron]

You could always raies the max to 200, min to 0, and halve all of the costs associated with it. Make it possible to actually get a bonus or penalty. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif

[PvK]

That had occurred to me, but it's against the design of this particular mod, which is to "leave in all the lame unmodded crud in, but just price it fairly."

Is the minimum setting for race values zero? Of course, having to click 100 times to get a minor advantage is a penalty in itself. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif Love this game in general, but some aspects are ... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif .

PvK

[PvK]

Ok, how does this adjustment to Happiness look to everyone?

Happiness:
==========
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 1.
* Threshold unchanged at 20.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 2.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 1.

Thanks to Alneyan for bringing my attention to the practical irrelevance
of this attribute. His test results show that it does extremely little
to the happiness level of planets, even at extreme values, and even when
not using anything (like troops or UPC's) to boost happiness. Therefore
I reduced the basic and negative threshold value to 1, and the positive
threshold value to 2. Minimum setting of -50 gives 50 points. Maximum
setting of +50 costs 80 points.

[PvK]

Any opinions on that Last change idea?

PvK

[narf poit chez BOOM]

about right.

[Alneyan]

Not that the world is waiting on my comment, but it seems pretty good for me, and I would even consider raising Happiness to 150 to use it as a safety net. (You can never be *too* cautious after all.)

Lowering it to 50 will not earn you many points, so this choice could be reconsidered, and would make Happiness more likely to be raised. (Or kept at 100)

[ March 06, 2004, 11:17: Message edited by: Alneyan ]

[PvK]

Thanks Alneyan and Narf.