Beta 2b -- Yor can't culture flip planets!

There could be an issue with the tech tree, but it is probably intentional. The Yor are isolationist machines... why would they want any organics to join them?

They probally don't want organics to join them, but they might want their planets.

But when you culture flip a planet the gameplay result is that you get the planet's entire population, which as we seem to have agreed, the Yor would not want.

Yes, it probably makes sense from the vantage point of the game's lore, but the problem is that there doesn't seem to be anything to offset the loss. I don't mind having the Yor or any other race missing one or two conquest strategies available to the other races, but they really do need something to make it so it isn't just a pure loss. They already have significant morale issues and lack access to the advanced governments. Unless there's something absolutely fantastic that I'm simply not seeing at all, the Yor seem decidedly underpowered.

Isn't the counterbalance that they're very hard to flip with influence? They can't use that as a way to gain planets, but they also won't lose many planets that way either. If they don't have to sink much money into countering influence pressure, they can spend it on other things.

It does steer them along a certain strategic path, but it would make sense that not every race would be able to get an influence win. An evil/scary race like the Korath could get an influence win just by frightening other races into caving, but the Yor wouldn't care about assimilating an organic civilization... they'd just want to cleanse it and wipe it out. So maybe this is intentional. TA is supposed to be about making the races more individualized, right?

I'm waiting for beta 3 before I really try the yor, but in my regular DA games, 100% loyalty isn't enough.

Is it enough in TA?

Personally i'd like to see defensive influence techs reducing all cultural influence in a sector, making flipping even less likely or their bonus at around 300%, making it virtually impossible to flip or be flipped. 100% loyalty isn't usually enough imho.

But as I haven't investigated TA for more than a couple of games, I'm speaking hypothetically.


-EDIT
Reducing cultural influence in a sector might be a nice tech for the more xenophobic races

Another thing to consider with the lack of Yor Influence is that their Super Ability heavily depends on it.

That doesn't really do much good, they can still flip in 1 turn. On top of that, most players would make an effort to counter the influence instead of waiting for the planet to flip.



This could work. What do you have in mind: planetary structures, starbase improvements (only works in their space), or some general passive bonus?

The Betas are all about trying to get some balancing, so i don't know if this is a permanent thing or not, or how it willplay against other races. The Yor's super abilitry is one of the better ones in the game and yes, it depends on their influence circle but I've been fine with them without any influence starbases. The AI is unlikely to build its own influence starbases JUST to be able to move into Yor space as a human player might.

True, but maybe that's also intentional, since it's already one of the most powerful Super Abilities in the game. Building the full range of influence upgrades gives the Yor a huge strategic advantage in ship speed. I'm not sure the AI knows how to take full advantage of Super Isolationist fleet movement, but the player sure can.

And yes, their planets can still flip, but they do get at least a few modules for influence starbases to counter that. I'm not having a problem losing planets to flipping in my current Yor TA 2B game, but then I don't take chances colonizing or conquering too deep behind enemy lines. I'm also playing with tight star clusters where neighboring planet influence isn't as strong (if you dominate the cluster). Maybe it could be a problem in other scenarios. Is anyone here actually having a problem losing Yor planets to an influence flip in the TA beta?

I've been messing around more with the Torians of late, but I have absolutely no problems using them to flip Yor planets like nobody's business. The loyalty bonus simply isn't nearly enough to balance out the loss of influence as it stands right now.

Eh, I'd rank it as one of the lower ones, actually... in terms of the player. For the AI? Sure, it really helps counter the weakness the AI has, but I'd rather have something like Super Breeder or Annihilator or even Hive, not Isolationist as a player.

Actually, the yor are able to flip planets, though not by SB means, you just need to "improve" your embassies, eg buying techs.

The Yor are harder to flip that some other races but their not supposed to be imune from it. The loss of starbase modules in TA won't really change anything for the AI ince I've never seen it build influence starbases to defend itself. In fact, i can never understand why the AI chooses the locations of those bases or why a minorrace would build them



i think their super ability is one of the better ones. admitedly i havnt played all the races yet but it offers a great defencive ability, especially with a coulpe of military starbases with speed reduction modules, AI ships moving at speed 1 makes it real hard to lose ships and planets. The barren would tech is just a nice bonus, one less expensive tech to get. Super isolationist is good for the whole game, and especially the late game. Others like Super trader, super spy and the one ith the fast build factories are good only at the very beginning of the game. On higher difficulties its hrad to keep trade routes with all the wars (of course the diplomacy bonuses from the free tchs are good) and once vryone gets spies that fee one at the beginning doesnt mean much and i never have the need to build the anti spy buildings.

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The Yor definately need a little more influence push, they are pretty crippled as it is now.

As far as the Super abilities go, this is a tangent, but am I the only one who thinks Super Spy is virtually worthless? Sure, you get a free Spy, but by the time you find another race's planet, they can have a spy themselves to counter your free Spy. You can make the argument that it puts you "one up" on any race you want to have an espionage war with, but the facts are that spying is all in the favor of the defender (namely the AI), because you generally want to spy on multiple races, and the computer generally saves its spies for counter-espionage, meaning your spy production is competing against that of every other race.

And getting Counter Espionage from the start is equally not helpful; by the time it's far enough into the game that the AI feels like dumping spies on me, I could easiely have researched it myself. Plus the counter espionage center is generally a waste of a tile on most planets.

Out of all the Super abilities, Super Spy is probably one of the least useful... Certainly it is pathetic compared to Super Trader (yay no one else can possibly manage to get the restaurant of eternity faster than me), Super Breeder, or other of the really good Super abilities.

Super Spy does utterly bite. Perhaps the ability could give any enemy spy a 10-25% chance of being nullified on placement?

Super Spy meant a free agent and immunity to spies early in the DA beta, it was changed to basically what it is now when the Counter Espionage tech was added (it was also given some increase in the max you can spend on espionage per week, or something like that, later, I think...).

Maybe they should just change it back to being that... certainly couldn't be more powerful/useful than Super Breeder or Annihilator, at least IMNSHO. With the Counter Espionage Center added, it would basically just be an extra "free" tile on every planet, in a roundabout kind of way. And maybe then, people wouldn't grumble so much about the Espionage system (although, the proposed change for the 2.0 patch is fantastic and can't wait for it to come out).

Would YOU want to rebel against your government to "join" a race of homicidal machines that want nothing more then the annihilation of all organic lifeforms?

I wouldn't.


Just like the yor are finally moving away from farming, they are also no longer dealing with influence. That is a very good thing...

And as for counter balance... the yor have a bunch of awesome abilities, free structures (that is, structures that require no maintenance) and so on.

About the Yor: Consider that you are barring them from an entire victory condition. That is a HUGE limitation on their options, as well as on the number of playing styles they have access to. It would be like having a race that doesn't get the Alliances tech and can therefore never win a diplomatic victory.

About Super Spy: My thought is that Super Spy should start you at a baseline of Low espionage level with every race you encounter instead of its current effects. Just the number of spies that would save you would be worth it.

Is this necessarily a bad thing? I thought the point of TA was to further differentiate the races, so why should all the aliens be interested in every one of the victory conditions? I like the way the Drengen, for example, can usually be counted on to be militarily aggressive. It's part of their personality as aliens. Doesn't it make some sense that the Yor, hating all organic life, would be completely uninterested in an Influence victory? The idea of emotionless, scary robots trying to win over the rest of the galaxy by being friendly and culturally superior doesn't make much sense to me.

I suppose it does make the game a little more predictable, if you know what strategies a race is likely to go for (or can't use). But otherwise we just have races that are clones of each other, with different faces.

That plus a free agent and starting with Counter Espionage tech (and whatever the little bonus to max espionage spending is...) could be pretty nice...

Another side note: Speaking of espionage spending, how does Espionage ability actually affect Espionage, anyway?

On topic:


It's not necessarly a bad thing... but the Korath want to exterminate all life (not just Organic life) in the universe, so why do they have a good influence but the Yor don't? Wouldn't they be just as "uninterested" in an Influence victory as the Yor?

The Yor are NOT barred from an influnce victory. If you conquor 75% of the galaxy you can achieve an influence victory. Its that simple. As its stands now, i flip all kinds of planets without ever building any influence starbases. So the Yor CAN do it with fewer modules availabe.

Now if they also cant have the resturant of eternity, or stock exchanges (or whatever influence type structure they may have) then maybe it will be near impossible for them to flip plnets. But they can still get an influence victory.

Anyway, i do agree that they shouldnt be flipping planets often anyway. It makes more sence for them to not want to, and for no one to want to join them. I mean who will think that the Yor are "culturally superior?" maybe some robot hugging space hippies. TA seems to be tking care of a lot of past scommnts peopl have had about the realism aspets of the races, or at least coming up ith a good story for them in some othr cases.

I'd think so, yes. However, if the Korath have the same limited influence upgrades as the Yor, then the Yor lose that distinctive difference. It's the problem of having more than one evil, extermination-oriented race in the game, and having to pigeonhole them into just a few victory conditions instead of something more complex.

Maybe the Korath have good influence in spite of themselves. I'm imagining Terran teenagers going all Goth/Death Metal, and thinking the Korath are real bad-@sses that should be admired and emulated.

Isn't that what influence techs for? To potray your civ in a form that is more desirable to join? With a little work, organic genocide may be potrayed as something nobler than everything else.

Lets try this example:
________________

Ohh... sure we want to exterminate all organic life. Organics are disgusting, wasteful, inefficient creatures. You all exist in a perpetual state of war, and oppression. You organics kill, maim, and bucher each other, and when you aren't doing that, you oppress your own kind by creating class system to put a select few above all other, with many supporting them so they aren't pushed as far down as the majority.

Some of you were more vile than others. The Drengin pratice slavery, the Torians, although nobler, seek revenge against the Drengin, their former masters. But the Terrans are the worst by far. They nearly destroyed themselves when they used their enviroment as a place to dump their garbage, and more recently, they foolishly gave out the "Hyperdrive" technology, the very cause of this Great Galactic WAR!

This however, is not how things must be. We, the Yor, are a race of machines. Our only sin is a desire to do the right thing, eliminate the very cause of these disasters, organic life. We lived a peaceful coexistance with ourselves since the precusor war. We strive for the virtues of efficiency, productivity, and stoicism.

But you must be wondering why you should summit yourselves to the machines given our mission. You organics are mortal, you will die in time. Until then, your kind can be useful. Your kind can recieve upgrades, ones that can give your kind increased strength and intellegence. We can strip your kind of your barbaric tendencies, and give your empty lives a purpose. Does you life suck? We can replace that. Do you suffer from an incurable desease? We can fix that too. Do you have a bad habit you can't stop? We can correct that as well.

Finally, when your time of death comes, you can die knowing that your mind has been reguarly backed up. Why waste your unique mind? By studing your minds, we can make a better generation fo machines. You can make the lives of a millions, maybe billions, possibly trillions of robots better.

Rebel now! Why waste your lives in a meaninless organic existance. You can be part of something greater, a collective. Purpose, and immortality in our networks. Why wait any longer?
________________

Any comments on my example?

Nice, it is pretty similar to the arguement I was going to make based on the "goodlife" from Fred Saberhagen's Berserker stories. (Goodlife being living beings who have joined forces with the Berserker machines that wish to destroy all life in the universe)

Hell, I'm surprised that no one has brought up the Berserkers yet. They will try anything to acomplish their genocidal goals.