TA beta 2a -- The Yor still need morale???

Interesting suggestions. Would certainly help differentiate the yor.

Yep, hopefully this is just the start for the Yor, who should have one of the most different play styles.

The Collectives were also supposed to produce based on the Population on the planet, I believe. And perhaps their unique research center, too. I do remember reading something about "splitting population between research and production" in relation to the Yor. But, I don't ever actually remember reading that the didn't need morale... just that they didn't have any morale improvements/tech. Big difference there. In GalCiv 2 maintaining a high Morale means having a greater Population Growth. Many of the Yor tech descriptions allude to the fact that the Yor can't "reproduce" as fast or effectively as other races can, and the current low Morale of the Yor certainly does seem to support this. Also, as you noted, having basically "infinite" morale could potentially be very hazardous to the game's balance.

Also, in the previous betas, the Yor Charging Stalk improvements where in the XML files, just never used. They also had a tag "S_RaceRequirement" of "Yor Collective". This is gone in the newest beta. This seems to be replaced with the Planetary Improvements you don't have the tech for being removed on Invasion idea (the Charging Stalk techs can't be traded or stolen, after all). (Minor question here: are these buildings also removed whenever you flip a planet?)

All three of these ideas (race req's for improvements, production based on population, and no morale for Yor) might be ideas they changed their minds on or found too difficult to implement properly. Who knows. Still, the Yor may be "unrefined", as it were. We'll see. I'm still hoping that they will get the production/research based on Population.

As for ideas for the Yor, I certainly have plenty of them!

1. Increase the Morale the charging stalks provide. Greatly, imho. Something like 15/30/45 or so. Someone, somewhere on these boards, mentioned giving the Yor "Compliance Algorithms" techs, or something like that, that provided passive morale boosts by "removing or reducing rouge units". I really like that idea.

2. This kinda struck me when I thought of the Yor having strength in numbers vibe going: Every Unique Yor building (including the Charging Stalks...) would provide +1 "food"/max pop. Charging Stalks in this case are basically "just" morale improvements. The more I think about this idea, the more and more I like it. If it doesn't get in TA, I'm certainly highly considering making a mod that does this.

3. Remove the Maintenance on the Collective improvements. I think that would go a long way in improving the Yor's poor economy, especially in the beginning.

4. Have the Yor's Planetary Invasion Tech be unique to them and give a unique Troop Module that's smaller, cheaper, and holds 750 rather than 500 troops. This unique Tech can't be traded or stolen. (The Yor currently do not get the Advanced Troop Module)

5. Make the Mini Soldiers Invasion Tactic either Yor-unique or available earlier for the Yor. Either the Yor's Planetary Invasion tech equivalent or the first Terror Drone tech could provide it.

I have a few more ideas, but I gotta save something for my aforementioned planned mod, right? (Who knows if I'll actually ever make it though, heh )

Yor pay taxes as energy. Actually the only thing morale affects is the ability to grow you population and resistance to cdertain invasions. Charging stalks provide energy, so the Yor morale is more of "free energy for population growth" than actual morale. And Apparently the yor can't make anything other than Yor without their dedicated cube collective factories.

I disagree on that one i kind of like the way the yor are always running after moral. The charging stocks provide more food than moral required for keeping the pop happy. Anyway who would want to keep an army of cybernetic creatures happy   They don't have any governement techs so there's no voting to worry about anyway. The moral is all that is limiting your pop with the yor.

It is true on the other side they have kind of a slow economy but i would prefer to have economic buildings (efficiency centers or something like that) but leave the moral and the charging stalks as they are so that you keep having moral problems.


Concerning invasions the yor maybe don't have advanced tech modules but they have a whole line of specialized techs for improving their soldiering that are unique to the yor (killer drones or something like that) it kind of compensates in a way. Anyway didn't have any problems for invading, your soldiers have a tedancy to be quite expendable with all those low moral worlds to empty   

Here's an idea that won't need a lot of balancing for Stardock.

Just change the names of those variables.

Instead of calling it 'Morale', call it something else instead, like "Efficiency". And instead of 'Morale' buildings, make it something else like "Robot Tuning Centres"

Easy and effective!

Except they also don't have any of the more powerful invasion tactics either (Core Detonation, Tidal Disruption, Mini Soldiers...) nor the Planetary Defense techs. All of these techs also give Soldiering bonuses, so really, the "Terror Drone" techs are just making up for this loss than providing a bonus. Hence why I wanted to at least throw Mini Soldiers and a "quasi" Advanced Troop Module their way.

True, you could trade for the techs they are missing, but the Yor aren't exactly great at Diplomacy either.

Another thing to consider: the Yor have horrible influence too. They might not need influence to prevent Culture Flips, thanks to their +100% loyalty, but their Super Ability relies on it.

Shouldn't it be that they are provided with energy so they do work? And how many of us are actually able to produce their own energy on a large scale.



I'm not sure how many people would buy that. I'm sure I'm not the only one who wants the Yor to feel more alien.

Thanks for trying though.

I also feel mislead by the promises of the Yor in regards to morale.

I'm not going to bother completely restating what I already said in the Suggestions thread, but basically just because the Yor are machines doesn't mean they have no morale. They say at several times that they are sentient (and therefore free willed), which implies that there will be some number who disagree with the rest. While low morale for them doesn't necessarily represent unhappy people, like it does for the other races, it still represents discontent with their society.

Taxes fall into the same "similar but different" category - they could, for example, represent the amount of time each day an individual in the Yor society is required to spend working in a Collective or what-not.

The basic point is that taxes and morale make sense because the Yor, regardless of being machines, are ~individuals~. They handle taxes and morale in a very different way, but there is still a very good argument for them having them.

Now the Thalan, on the other hand... that's a very different story that we'll get to when they are added.

Shouldn't they have computers constantly calculating what would get the maximum output given their resources? We are not talking about a species that has a long history of trying assert their own free will. We are talking about a species that build each other. I would think that they would atleast consider how to build each other so that they may serve society better than the other civs.



Just because they are individuals (assuming they are) doesn't mean that they must therefore have contempt for their society like many teenagers. Being machines, and being built by society, it would make more sense if they were built with a sense of duty to serve, and protect their collective. In case you have forgotten, the Yor have a +100% bonus to loyalty, which implies that they might have software makes them loyal, and would also imply that might have other software to make them more likely to serve unquestionably.

Actually, the Yor do get Mini-Soldiers. It's my favorite tactic for taking a planet with 100% Loyalty. The only time I don't use it is when the planetary loyalty is less than 75%. Better to use all that meat against itself with Information Warfare in that case and it makes my inner Berserker feel all cold and efficient inside.   

Nothing says efficient quite like killing off a few thousand Goodlife by softening up the defending Badlife.   

Nope, Mini-Soldiers requires the "Shock Troops" tech, which isn't in the Yor's tech tree. Certainly can trade for it, though. Shame that it isn't in their tech tree, though. If anyone should have it, it should be the Yor and the Iconians.

Um, then why am I able to use Mini-Soldiers as Yor long before I trade/steal Shock Troops?

My pet theory for the Yor is that, at the moment they became self-aware and decided to rise up against their masters (or were manipulated into it), they made a decision to lock in the prototype of their design. It could be something like a religion glitch in their software... believing that the original prototype was perfect, and shouldn't be improved on. That would leave them with the natural flaws and frictions any normal sentient society has between its members, instead of improving themselves into ruthlessly efficient beings like an ant colony.

I like that idea of a "flawed" Yor, and it slots better into the game's tax/morale setup. If the Yor were capable of continuously improving and upgrading their hardware and software, and maximizing their efficiency, then they'd probably be unbeatable. At least this way, the meat has a chance.

Good question, you shouldn't be able to. The Mini-Soldiers invasion tactic requires "Shock Troops" and no tech in the Yor tech tree file has the internal name of "Shock Troops".

I don't think that's accurate for the TA Betas. For example, the Terrans no longer have shock troops in their tech tree either, but I've used mini soldiers in every game I've played since the first version of the beta. The invasion tech applications, among others, were reassigned to different techs. I believe the terrans get mini soldiers with space marines now.

Maybe one of the Terror Drones techs provides that tactic? It makes sense, considering that is essentially what a Terror Drone is.

That's odd, the InvTactics.xml file in the TA Data folder isn't changed from what it was in DA, other than Traditional Warfare and Information Warfare requiring "Planetary Invasion" (which is only technically different from what it was before)... with Space Marines still only giving Core Detonation. Hmm. I'm going to go start a new game and see what techs give what invasions for each Civ.

Edit: Yeah.... there is defiantly something funny going on with the new Tech Trees and Invasion Tactics Tech Requirements... posted a new thread about it.

Not only are the Yor affected by morale, they appear to have the worst morale in the game. I find it ironic that the 'ruthless machines' are so easily affected by Information Warfare. I'm seeing approval ratings in the 40s on planets with populations around 2-3 billion. Something needs to get a tweak here.

Think of it as a virus

I think that the Mini-Soldiers tactic should be specially available to the Yor based solely on what Miniaturization percentage they've managed to achieve. Or, maybe a price reduction affected by their Miniaturization percentage (balanced by boosted price for all other races).

Ever played SMAC? For a future society energy IS money. You need to dispens energy credits to "buy" items, since it takes energy to build those items. It also takes energy to power any private veihcle you have, you're home computer, to grow you're food...

The Yor probably different in regard energy as food/money. A kind of food that dosen't involve the disgusting biomass the Yor were designed to "digest for energy". BTW the SF is a bit weak on that. It was probably a work around so it would make sense for robots having farms. I imagined them using something like the biofuel or high energy plant based substances... I hope they weren't envisioned as eating a bowl of cereal.

BTW The Yor as I understand it they don't care, but this does not mean per se that they have "no" emotions, since those are quite usefull for survival. I mean anger, hate or even dispositions such as pride or loyalty (to the collective off course) are all plausible for the Yor and are in fact usefull (efficient if you will).

I want the Thalan and the Icorians to be more alien.

The Yor just need to be fleshed out.

Plus have they thought about other robot races?
I mean there are too many meatbags in the game right now! I wonder? There are just soo many possibilites. How about a planet wide benevolent good intelligence, that had a blody past (accidentaly killed off the species that created it)? It could be a minor civ. If ti was a normal civ, than each colony would be a superintelligent individual, with the ships being lesser AI? Or perhaps the species isn't extinct and it trusts the AI's to run their lives.

Why not a cyborg civ. Or cybernetic enhancments for you're own citizens?

It doesn't look like the Yor have gotten a tweak in the latest mod. They are still incredibly vulnerable to influence flipping.