Ravenwick

Join Date 09/2006

Race customization menu is bugged

No mods, no file editting, abnormal behavior out of the box

Ok, I just got the game yesterday, first thing that hit me is the race 'customization menu' (right after the race selection menu). There are a number of bugs & balance issues with this.

1st, let touch on balance just briefly. Start a new game and select the "Yor Collective" as a race. By default, you have 7 items in your Race Abilities pannel, fine. Go into the abilities tab and manually remove all allocated points (or click reset). Here is what left (these are like the race 'inherent and fixed' bonuses that you get in addition to whatever you buy with your 10 ability allocation points).

"Yor Collective" :
Loyalty +100%
Logistic +8%
Miniaturization +25%
+10 pts to buy abilities

Same thing with "Iconian Refugee", you get :
Logistic +7%
+10 pts to buy abilities

Somehow, I kinda see one being just plain better (not just different) than the other.
Now maybe some people are going to tell me that's because the starting tech are different but come on... look into it to me, Yor's "Ion Drive + Warfare" is totally equivalent to "Starship Defence + Armor Theory", and that's the only difference between the 2 races on a tech level. So therefore, stardock, anyone, game balance?

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Now on to a nice bug. Start with the "Yor Collective", unallocate all abilities as described above and you should get the above setup. Now, in the abilities panel, allocate and desalocate a point in the 'loyalty' ability. Go back to the summary page. Your race just lost it's +100 loyalty bonus... just like that without any counterbalancing points nor any way to get it back (short of going back to race selection).

And sure, I'll agree with you that having the +100 inherent bonus stack with the 'loyalty' ability would maybe unbalance the game and show not be allowed. But then, the correct way to do it is to disable the loyalty ability in the abilities panel for this race. Or, if you go with the getto fix of "if you select loyaly ability, your +100 disapear", at the very least, it should reappear if you deselect the loyalty ability.

Anyhow, nice to see we're not the only one releasing buggy stuff now and then

And I just love the game btw, great stuff. Long live PC gaming, you don't get that depth and strategy anywhere else.

Olivier Rouleau, Lead Programmer, Ubisoft

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Anyhow, nice to see we're not the only one releasing buggy stuff now and then

Glad yr enjoying the game. It's excellent.

Sorry to disappoint u Oliver but those r not bugs, they r working exactly as designed.

The Yor and Iconian Refuge r balanced, by the fact the Yor r evil and the Iconian's r good. Evil needs stronger bonuses because they often act alone to dominate the galaxy, well the Iconians will ally and build an alliance to destroy the Yor. The Yor will be disliked more by neutral, good races and can not expect any real help from other evil races.

Now on to a nice bug. Start with the "Yor Collective", unallocate all abilities as described above and you should get the above setup. Now, in the abilities panel, allocate and desalocate a point in the 'loyalty' ability. Go back to the summary page. Your race just lost it's +100 loyalty bonus... just like that without any counterbalancing points nor any way to get it back (short of going back to race selection).

U only get the free bonus if u do not try to add to it. The developers decieded it would be too poowerful to make those free bonuses any bigger. It's to stop cheese tactics.

Hope those answer yr questions.

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I've noticed that if the 'hard-coded' (they're not really - I can easily mess with these stats) race attributes are different from the options, they do not count at all towards or against the available points. And, as soon as you do try to allocate points to it, it does undo the inherent bonus. I've just gotten the idea that I shouldn't mess with abilities with 'inherent' bonuses, and only work with ones that actually match up with the option values.

But it would be nice to be able to stack these 'inherent bonuses' with the optional ability boosts, or if they made it impossible to adjust those particular abilities for each race.

I've actually messed with a Custom Race's saved configuration in such a way as to have ridiculously high statistics that do not count towards the allocated Ability points - essentially giving them a maddeningly powerful 'inherent bonus' in most areas. This throws much out of whack and makes things far too easy. However, I also gave them a few more 'starting techs' than should be allowed, and now, if I check that tab of the customization screen, there is a negative number for technology allocation points.

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With a good trade stratagem or enough 'good' moral choices, I don't think the Yor starting out as evil particularly balances out anything. It could be reversed, and meanwhile the Iconian Refuge could easily push themselves into evil by making a few 'evil' choices.

Also it really depends on the galaxy, the Yor would not be alone in their evilness if the Korx and Drengin are in the neighborhood.. just so long as the Yor manage to have an equal or greater military and set up proper trading ties. Alliances should be quite within reach so long as they don't appear to be an easy target.

I second the original poster, just on the principle that the various species should be equal. I've seen the Iconians marginalized in most games I've played, though occasionally quite powerful if they get some lucky breaks.. their research bonus is powerful and good but if it's merely purchased with 'bonus points' then there's nothing stopping any other race the player could choose from getting the same exact bonus.

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The Yor and Iconian Refuge r balanced, by the fact the Yor r evil and the Iconian's r good.

Yeah ok, I don't have enough game experience to judge if starting 'evil' is worth Loyalty +100%, Logistic +1% and Miniaturization +25% so i'll take your word for it. Interesting info.

U only get the free bonus if u do not try to add to it. The developers decieded it would be too poowerful to make those free bonuses any bigger. It's to stop cheese tactics.

I completly agree, but then, as stated in my original post, when you remove the points you put in 'loyalty', you should get your 'hard coded / inherent' bonus back.

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With respect to ethical choices during the game, Good choices often give severe penalties (like diminished growth or planet quality for allowing a pre-existing society to live as they wish), while Evil choices get all sorts of benefits (enslave populations for improved production, gladly work with pirates to gain other bonuses, encourage corrupt business practices and get a cut of the profits). I prefer to be somewhere between Good and Neutral, but, to be honest, I really do not see how worthwhile it is to attain Good status over the other ethical philosophies. I only tend to lean that way in-game because the evil choices just don't sit right with me, regardless of the benefits. The 'fluff' influences my decision more than the statistical benefits.

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Yeah ok, I don't have enough game experience to judge if starting 'evil' is worth Loyalty +100%, Logistic +1% and Miniaturization +25% so i'll take your word for it. Interesting info.

Also another not obvious bonus with races from the customization menu is a races starting planet quality. For example the Iconian refuge start with a 12 planet quality world if I remember correctly, well the Yor have 10 PQ. The Korx start with a 10 PQ but always have a 8 PQ world to colonise straight away. There is alot of hidden depth, as in most games, that only becomes apparent after many games. For example each race as its own AI, so plays with a slightly different strategys/goals.

Most players consider the Yor and Drath to be the 2 best races but personally having played them all, I reckon they r all pretty much balanced with each another.

completly agree, but then, as stated in my original post, when you remove the points you put in 'loyalty', you should get your 'hard coded / inherent' bonus back.

Perhaps yr right here, a slight design flaw, I think the developers did something about this in the latest patch by the way.

Olivier Rouleau, Lead Programmer, Ubisoft

Big Heros of Might & Magic fan by the way.

Keep up the good work

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The Yor and Iconian Refuge r balanced, by the fact the Yor r evil and the Iconian's r good. Evil needs stronger bonuses because they often act alone to dominate the galaxy, well the Iconians will ally and build an alliance to destroy the Yor. The Yor will be disliked more by neutral, good races and can not expect any real help from other evil races.

Evil races are not really disliked by good or neutral. You can just as easily build alliances between a good and evil civ, i've done it many times. Also I have usually recived help from other evil races if your evil, in my last game I was at war with torians and the drengin gave me several nice ships, and eventually went to war with the torians, the torians never recived any help at all from other good races.

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Evil races are not really disliked by good or neutral

Yes they r. In the diplomacy screen where u have the +/- to relations. Virtually all neutral/good races will have a - race alignment to evil races.

Also I have usually recived help from other evil races if your evil, in my last game I was at war with torians and the drengin gave me several nice ships, and eventually went to war with the torians, the torians never recived any help at all from other good races.

The Drengin/Torians r a special case in GC2. They have a racial hatred of each another, in the same diplomacy screen as above u get a - racial hatred or something like that, this appears as soon as they meet. That is why the Torians often go to war with the Drengin (it reflects GC history when the Drengin occupied the Torian homeworld).

Also if u play evil or good u will affect all this, I was really discribing the AI behavour with each another (no human interference).

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Yeah the "hardcoded" abilities aren't really nice to mess with. And if you do it would be nice if you could restore it by just removing whatever you allocated there.

Never noticed it before but the techs you start out with for the various races do tend to be, well some are more helpful at the beginning than others. Its nice that they have this flavor, but I can't really see a way around it except making all the races start with the same, or smaller pool of techs. Yes you could give the race that starts off with worse techs a better hardcoded bonus, did they? I'm not sure, but I could see that leading to unbalances in game. Either way the starting tech differences while having some influence early in game disappear later as they get researched.

I'll agree with you, the Yor do seem to come out better on paper but I've seen plenty of games where the Yor whither away while some of what I consider the weaker races come out on top.

As for being evil worse than being good. Well thats a toughy. Yes people hate you more, you may even be limited in trade routes do to a resolution or two, but its not that big of an issue as long as you can balance the other races hate for you. You just need to be more careful when going on a killing spree.

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Yor is NOT balanced as anyone who plays them knows (like me).

They are (in my experience) much much easier to win with then all other races (maybe except the Drath since I have never played those and they get some insane bonuses too). I have begun quite a few games with the other races and they have always been much harder, the Yor is like a drug that I keep coming back to.

The Yor have 100% loyalty bonus, I have NEVER had a planet that was even close to being culturally overthrown.
The Yor start with excellent techs, specially Ion Drive.
If I fast-research the next engine, I can build colony ships with movement 8, approximatly at turn 5.
This is because the Yor also begin with a 25% miniaturization bonus. This makes it incredible easy to get a lot more colonies then the AIs.

To say that the races are completly balanced is silly because they clearly are not.
By the way, Iconians start with a class 14 planet but they are still inferior to Yor.

I would really like to see the races balanced better.

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My understanding is that the Devs aren't too bothered with balancing the civs because it isn't a multiplayer game. Does it really matter if one race is slightly better than another?

Oh, and the reason that some people regard starting as 'Good' as a bonus is that they can take a lot of evil ethical choices and still turn out Neutral without paying for it.

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