Fixing Neutrality Learning Centers

Bump-zorz

I say leave em just as they are.

The games fun, thats all that metters.....let's not nerf it all to hell please. I have seen too many fun games ruined that way.

Exactly. NLCs are about knowledge, which is what a neutral seeks. No nerfs wanted here.

Frankly, I think that makes Neutral too weak. For each planet, I usually build 1, at most 2 (for more populous planets), morale buildings. Then all the rest factories, unless its a research planet, then I build research buildings. Now, the way you suggest it, I'm going to have way to much a morale:industry:research ratio. After four buildings, I'd have put as much morale as I normally would on a planet. It would be better for me to simply build the lowest tech buildings for everything than to have a whole bunch of jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none buildings lying around. Plus, being neutral ALREADY gives me a morale boost. It's overkill on morale.

And I have to respectfully disagree with your premise. I think being neutral means you are able to think objectively, hence making you a better scientist. It follows that science and research would be a strong point of neutral races.

While the idea of a jack-of-all trades building is interesting, i like the way the game is already set up. The learning centers ARE a tad powerful though, so maybe a simple cost increase might help.

I agree with the OP neutrality research centres are WAY too powerful. dunno about the alternative tho. i think you should recieve a massive diplomatic penalty as neutral, with no bonus with other neutral civs. I think neutral civs should be regarded by other civs as an "easy" acquisition ie easy to subvert to their culture... cultural penalty maybe for having no strong beliefs either way?

One day id love to see a post that Marcathonas doesnt defend the game or claim "that its perfect the way it is" because almost every suggestion or bug report or anything he is there like a good little gal civ maytr dood all you ever post is defense of galciv.. are you trying to get that medal or what?

Leave my NLC's alone!

I think the game is balanced well enough and skewing the formula could make things significantly less fun.

For each planet, I usually build 1, at most 2 (for more populous planets), morale buildings. Then all the rest factories, unless its a research planet, then I build research buildings. Now, the way you suggest it, I'm going to have way to much a morale:industry:research ratio. After four buildings, I'd have put as much morale as I normally would on a planet. It would be better for me to simply build the lowest tech buildings for everything than to have a whole bunch of jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none buildings lying around.

I don't understand how that works out.

The idea is that 4 of this new building is equal to 3 of the other maxed-out buildings. But you get it much earlier (so you can exploit it sooner). Or, as an alternative, it should provide an economy bonus in lieu of morale (though Stock Markets are still preferable because they provide morale and influence buffs in addition to economy).

Like I said, if that ratio turns out to be too weak, it can be improved to a 4:5 ratio. 1:1 might be a bit much; there'd never be a reason to build anything else (except for farms and morale/econ).

Remember, one of the principle advantages of NLCs is how early you can get them (after the march to Xeno Ethics, of course). Discovery Sphere is so nearly comperable as the difference to be almost negligable; it's the fact that you had them 200 turns earlier that makes them God-like.

I like the neutrality learning center just the way it is......

If you think they are too powerful, you are welcome not to use them in your games.

Personally, I like them. I think they are juuuust right.
Not my fault if the other races are too busy racing to build ships to play war instead of doing their homework first.

NLCs are powerful enough to unbalance the game. If there were a multiplayer, I believe it would be the only option choosen by the top players. The other bonuses are weak in comparison. In single player it doesn't need fixing, but it is unfortunate that the design team put it where it was. A modest tweak, making the tech costs more, and the buildings cost more, might be enough to balance it out (percentages would have to be tested in AI only games that force races into each alignment).

As is, a player can avoid the research building techs all together and just go for Xeno Ethics and NLC.

Personally, I moved the NLC furthur down the tech tree and upped the research cost a little bit. Balanced out quite nicely for me. The NLC is still cheaper (costs half the research to go from Invention matrix to NLC as opposed to going to discovery sphere) and they'tre still better than discovery sphere's as far as output is concerned, you just can't get them quite so early.

To those who feel it's overpowered, I suggest doing the same.

It's hard to say how such a strategy would fair in MP altough it definitely works against the AI up to sucidial probably (i only tried up to machositic).

One thing to note though is that Xeno ethics doesn't immediatley give you NLC, you need to have researched up to research academies and THEN you research NLC (2,000 RP). The Good/evil side, at this point has the option of Invention matrix which is (3,000 RP ).

Let's compare

NLC produces 22 RP cost 300 , efficency = 22/300 =0.073
Invention matrix produces 16 RP cost 200 , efficency = 16/200 = 0.080

Yes, that's right, you actually get more bang for buck for Invention matrixes (altoigh you need 1,000 RP more which isn't a lot really) , assuming you have room to put the required number of invention matrixes.

Of course, NLC really comes into its own in the later stages where real estate/ tiles becomes a premium. Also when you exploit it with resarch capitals and omega research projects etc,NLC become truly powerful

This shows that early on NLCs are not very powerful and if you base a strategy of going straight for NLCs, it probably isn't going to work very well. Certainly on new colonies with no supporting infracstrucure it takes forever to get a NLC built.

I suspect NLC based strategies are powerful not merely because of the NLC stats, but also because it is easy to fool the AI into not attacking you, hence gaining time for the effects of NLC to kick in.

In a MP situation, it's not certain if you will be given the time to use this. Resources spent exploiting the power of NLC, will mean extreme neglect in other areas particularly military. Against the Ai it doesn't matter since you can hold them off with various means (diplomacy, trading, spin centers) etc...

I don't understand how that works out. The idea is that 4 of this new building is equal to 3 of the other maxed-out buildings. But you get it much earlier (so you can exploit it sooner). Or, as an alternative, it should provide an economy bonus in lieu of morale (though Stock Markets are still preferable because they provide morale and influence buffs in addition to economy). Like I said, if that ratio turns out to be too weak, it can be improved to a 4:5 ratio. 1:1 might be a bit much; there'd never be a reason to build anything else (except for farms and morale/econ). Remember, one of the principle advantages of NLCs is how early you can get them (after the march to Xeno Ethics, of course). Discovery Sphere is so nearly comperable as the difference to be almost negligable; it's the fact that you had them 200 turns earlier that makes them God-like.

If it was changed to economy instead of morale, I may take a second look. However, on small planets, I will want to either put all research or all manufacturing. I think the current system works, just that neutral is a little unbalanced, with evil following closely. Frankly, I think Good sucks. That is really the issue. Neutral get a morale, science, AND soldiering bonus. And tile bonus. All very important bonuses. Let's look the others.

Good gets a loyalty bonus (which usually is easily compensated and something hardly ever having in my games, at least. It gets a diplomatic bonus against other good and neutral civs, something which I normally have towards the middle / late game with neutral anyways, due to insane research. They get good defense techs, which are really expensive at that time of the game to produce at a decent scale, and which with neutral you could easily research to the end of the defense tech tree soon. The maintenance costs bonus is useless since we normally end up with well over 5 planets, eg 50 in some games, and it only gets rid of the initial colony costs! That's like, nothing. (I think it should get rid of maybe all the planets' initial colony costs, or 5 most populous planet's complete costs.) Not to mention you had to pick the crappy choices in order to be aligned with Good. I almost never play Good.

Evil gets free starbase upgrades, which is pretty nice if you want to do a starbase crawl or have military starbases everywhere. It also ends up having most of the races despise you due to ethics differences. But, you get awesome buildings such as the no-cost invasion tactics and huge production boost to your entire civilization (slaves, woot!). Ok, evil is pretty cool. And nice weapons, but balanced out (tho not entirely, because the opponent has to pick the right defense) by Good's defense and neutral's research. Not to mention, to get to evil, you get the awesome bonuses you had to pick in order to align yourself to evil.

Now, I understand all this is theory, completely. We will never find out what the balance is until we start playing other human players. The game changes dramatically in MP. Diplomacy goes to hell, and the other guy actually knows how to defend and build their planets. Influence wins with influence bases? I don't think so. Every game will be pretty much a military win. Anyhow, I probably changed the topic a little, but in the end, NLCs are a little overpowered, but I think if you give Good better bonuses,

NLC produces 22 RP cost 300 , efficency = 22/300 =0.073 Invention matrix produces 16 RP cost 200 , efficency = 16/200 = 0.080 Yes, that's right, you actually get more bang for buck for Invention matrixes (altoigh you need 1,000 RP more which isn't a lot really) , assuming you have room to put the required number of invention matrixes.

It is not more bang for the buck. Its better use of avalible recources - IE LAND

All things being equal Lets assume 250 RP/turn and a Size 10 planet that has a production value of 25/turn for a Good/Evil Civ and a Neutral Civ.

G/E civ 12 turn to reach Matrix + 8 turns to build 1 Invention Matrix
Neutral 8 turns to get NLC + 12 turns to build 1 NLC

In the end the neutral is producing 6 RP more than G/E.

Over time the G/E will have to build 4 IM to equal 64 RP while the Neutral will have used 3 spots to produce 66RP.

It will take the neutral 4 turns longer but will take up less space allowing for the placement of a econ boost improvement to pay for all the research. While the G/E ran out of room. And even with updrading to Discovery spheres later, the G/E will be 14RP ahead but they had to pay for the upgrades & have a higher maintance cost with no more place to help offset this expense

That is why it is so powerful, and I LIKE IT! And I didn't even take into account the planet bonus for being Neutral

G/E civ 12 turn to reach Matrix + 8 turns to build 1 Invention Matrix Neutral 8 turns to get NLC + 12 turns to build 1 NLC

Not sure how you managed to get the 12 turn to reach matrix, 8 turns to get NLC, if you are talking about the research effort needed this depends on how much research you are using and cannot be compared directly.

If you consider production alone (without taking into account that invention matrix cos 1,000 more) Let me show you how it should be done.

In the end the neutral is producing 6 RP more than G/E

You stopped too soon and missed out the first step as well.

It is true that there is a point where you have completed 1 NLC and 1 Invention matrix and temporaily, the NLC side is 6 RP ahead, but this is more than counter balanced by other periods where

(1) There are 0 NLC vs 1 invention matrixes , where the NLC side is a whooping 16 RP down per turn

(2) There are 2 invention matrixe vs 1 NLC, where the NLC side is 16*2- 22 = 10 RP behind per turn!

(3) Not to mention the last part where 2 NLC vs 3 invention matrix the NLC side is 4 RP behind.

Let's call

(0) The period where there are 1 NLC and 1 Invention matrix , where the NLC side is 6 RP ahead.

If you do the math you will find that

The period where (1) prevails is as long as (0).

Given that (1) is 16 RP difference per turn and (0) is only 6 RP this alone means the NLC side is inferior in each cycle.

of course we also have this...

The period where (2) prevails is 2 times as long as (0).

Obviously the slower you build these improvements the greater the dis-advantage to the NLC side, which again proves my point that NLC is not a early win strategy.

It is not more bang for the buck. Its better use of avalible recources - IE LAND

My friend you just restated what I said.

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Of course, NLC really comes into its own in the later stages where real estate/ tiles becomes a premium.
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Yes, that's right, you actually get more bang for buck for Invention matrixes (altoigh you need 1,000 RP more which isn't a lot really) , assuming you have room to put the required number of invention matrixes.
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See the part after 'assuming....' , the point is NLC is not something that is effective until middle stages of the game where tiles become scarce. Early on it's actually very bad. Don't believe me? Try researching straight away from xenoethics and then to NLC and see what happens. Early on NLC won't be powerful, because the G/E race if he intends to chase a research based strategu can match and temporaily exceed you on RP with invention matrixes until the tiles start to become scare.

Don't get me wrong, I fully understand the power of NLC, having won using that strategy at all difficulty levels except sucidial which I haven't tried yet.

What I'm saying is, using it requires some skill because its effects kick in only later, when planetary tiles starts to run low. Typically , you have to keep the AI from attacking you (at higher difficulty levels) something a human opponent is unlikely to allow when he sees you using tons of NLC. In fact, I suspect the power of NLC is also due a large part to the other neutral bonuses (instant upgrades for sure) rather than from the stats of NLC.

Over time the G/E will have to build 4 IM to equal 64 RP while the Neutral will have used 3 spots to produce 66RP.

Er no, check your math. 4 IM = 4*200 = 800 , 3 NLC = 3*300 = 900.

The correct ratio (assuming sufficient land) is 3 IM = 3*200 =600 cost to produce 16*3 =48 RP

VS

2 NLC = 2*300 = 600 cost to produce 22*2 = 44 RP

That works out to an overall disadvantage of 4 RP .

Of course this will not hold in the long run as the number of plantery tiles run out.

At most, I'd move the Neutrality learning center behind invention matrix, and otherwise leave it alone. Good is the only ethos that is currently getting screwed, but after the 1.2 battle change, their defense bonuses may get way better. Also, do any of the instant defect super projects for evil actually work? I build one last game and watched 4 planets sit in states of rebellion for months, but they never joined me.

If I was replacing buildings, I'd make 1 neutral building that is split for half research and half manufacturing at a rate just lower than adding industrial centers and discovery spheres together and dividing the points in half, so it's slightly worse than specializing. I'd also make one for economy and influence and probably call them indian casinos or something. Hell, you could have happy candy farms too that give both happiness and food. It would make for lazy yet decent planet building. I like it as it is better, but if this were a mod, I'd try it.

Of course, NLC really comes into its own in the later stages where real estate/ tiles becomes a premium.

Later stages? What are you talking about?

By the time NLCs or Invention Matrices become reasonable build targets, you either have the production to build them relatively effortlessly, or you're losing the game.

The cost of a building is basically irrelevant, because that building will be producing research far longer than it took to build.

Later stages? What are you talking about?

Later as opposed to NOT the beginning stages?

It depends on the size of the map of course, on a tiny map with 9 opponents, you quickly run into a space constraint.

On a gigantic map with one opponent, you will be developing for a long, long time.

Certainly a strategy where you go straight for xeno ethics, then straight o NLC ignoring all other techs is not optimal, if it was, I would agree that NLC was super unbalanced.

By the time NLCs or Invention Matrices become reasonable build targets, you either have the production to build them relatively effortlessly, or you're losing the game.

Exactly, "by the time..."....

The cost of a building is basically irrelevant, because that building will be producing research far longer than it took to build.

In the long run it will be insigificant. In the short run (how long this period lasts depends on your game settings), is where things get interesting. If you think cost of buildings are irrelevant and all that matters is total raw production per building, Try using cheats and start with NLC and restrict yourself to using it, see how far you get.... There's a reason why people don't like to upgrade to manufturing centers you know

That said The power of NLC is undeniable, and in the long run it will allow a neutural player to dominate, but so what? That's the nature of the bonus. An evil human player would be knocking on your door early on with psionic shredder before then if he was smart.

Again let me repeat, I have played and won NLC based strategies for all difficulty levels except sucide, and I'm well aware of their potentional , my impression is that I'm winning as much as from my ability to discourage AI from attacking while I harness the power of NLC as from the strength of NLCs.

Aftter a certain tipping point, the NLCs start to dominate but it's hardly an instant win strategy, because of factors I have listed.

My comparison with IM is not meant to show a none-netural race should research Invention matrixes, fill their planets with it and try to compete with research , but i'm merely showing that NLC are not so our of this world. that they blow everything away, they do have their disadvantages at first.

They are better, maybe even substantially better in the long run, but so what? Evil also gets it's subtantially better weapons and nobody (well some do) complain about it!

If your style is sit back and research, NLCs are powerful, particularly against AIs which are easily swayed from attacking. But if you were playing life human opponents, I doubt you will get the luxary of doing that.

I agree. NLC's only work if you can keep everyone friendly with you while you rush for them. You also need an economy that can handle them, and then once you get them, you need some time to build them and research enough tech to make up for the deficit in your other areas compared to the computer. If the computer AI used this strategy, we as players would end up monitoring their planets and launch a pre-emptive war when we saw the centers being built, as that is when the opponet's deficit in other techs and production would be the greatest. If the AI did this, NLC's wouldn't seem so great anymore. I think if stardock makes a change here, improving their AI even more would be way preferable to nerfing something.