What are your thoughts on the Thalan modules then. They're not actually stronger than the others they simply get EVERYTHING in one go.
Sure. Maybe the Yor could have Doom Ray attributed to Space Weapons then too? Note that their tree wouldn't be stronger as the others .....
Seriously, techcosts cover it in one way. The real downside of the starbase-militarization techs is that you fall in behind on everything else....
Thalans should have an edge here, because of the "Hyperion-thematic thingy" (observe that Gaunathor dis-named the term Hyperion away from most -if not all- general improvements (like Hyperion Shrinker-->The Shrinker etc pp) to make Hyperion a Thalan-thingy^^...). Maybe reduce the necessary research they have to invest to go there.
The basic problem is still the same, if you can muster bases that are omnipotent all nearby civs who are at war will wreck there MMR and are left vulenerable to be picked up by whoever takes his chances. Easy game.
Besides, here's the Minor-changes, if you still need it
http://www.datafilehost.com/d/5fb23844
I hope the hostserver isn't exploded again from the immense filesize
Grrr, another post eaten up by this darn forum I'm brief on this one.
I think that nerfing Aphrodisiac from 50% to 25% pop growth wasn't the best idea.
I agree. Fertility Clinic is gone as well.
but playing as Thalans feels like setting difficulty down from Painful to Tough or even Challenging.
is the same with basically every race. Because everything got buffed to speed up the game.
Korx is underperforming as they always are, a lot has to do with them building Freighters instead of Colony Ships, maybe increase their Cut-Throat Trading purchase now reduction from 25 to 33? They can make a lot of money in a lot of different ways, but their Manufacturing is just average, so they can't turn this money into improvements or ships.
Their manufacturing is the same as the generic one and acts as a throttle versus their better economy. Otherwise they would be better in manufacturing as the "real" manufacturers Yor/Thalan who basically are throttled down with less economy/more maint.
The Korx can alsways turn their money into ships by simply quickbuying them. But usually the AI adjusts his espionage sliders up once he is positively into economics and generally that isn't a good idea. Espionage is a huge money sink.
The Colonization techs are broken atm. I don't know if it's a feature or a bug, after you decreased manufacturing of Initial Colony. Now as you colonize an extreme world you are stuck with 1 point worth of Social Manufacturing (focusing doesn't help), and building on this world is practicly impossible without second colonization tech. This is a big thing for Iconians, who are stuck with planets they cannot use for a long time, as AI not always go straight for Advanced Aquatic and Toxic Colonization techs (as in, it takes some time). It is an issue for other races that get some basic colonization tech like Korath or Yor, but it hurts Iconians most. That's why they are so random, if they go for normal planets they do just slightly below average, if there is a lot of extreme planets they just hit the bottom in every rating, except population and maybe economy and it take a long time before they get those planets up and running.
The advanced colonization techs for any civs who have an approximity to this have been greatly reduced in research costs, so if anything, right now they have it far more easy to get those thna in vanilla. Even the custom race.
Traditionally social on extreme planets was worse because the AI doens't go above 20% slider setting, so 14SP*20%*50% will also be truncated down to 1 SP in vanilla, and even worse when the AI cannot have a 100% global spending.
But I agree. It should be reverted.
The paradoxical thing is that I observe alot of AIs who cannot fund their production during the first 3 years. In that instance giving them more production will not help at all but instead further aggravate the matter because of the increased cost of base production. If that is the case making the AI having more money (through popgrowth, morale or economy) will result in better production because he can raise his spending slider and use the full capacity of the Initial Colony buildings & labs+facs.
I had an idea for this. Super traded gives you all techs which have +trade. My plan is to remove the +trade bonus from Trade and move it to Advanced Trade. That way they start without freighters and will build colony ships instead of freighters.
I'm not sure if I understand this correctly . The ability to trade comes from the module, besides Korx start out with Advanced Trade as well, so what would it change anyway?
But IMO if Korx don't set up an early trade then their whole SA is void. It's actually something you want to do them as a top priority because the initial incoem from trade can weigh far greater than taxes. Only once sufficient planets have been taken + pop grown then trade doesn't make that much of a difference anymore.
Early trade also gives you a good diplomacy rating making you stay out of trouble. However, you need to pay close attention what is going on in testgames, eg. Drath hardcounter Korx because they make others attack them (mostly evil civs) and then they loose their trade bonus. Then Korx build again Freighters instead of warships. In a way it's generally like this but in the case of Korx its worse because their balanced around trade, at least, initially.
If an evil player is present usually this does mitigate it because sooner or later he will have these routes and the player is of course unaffected by the Draths manipulation.
So if we want to boost them I'd rather make them not to waste so much MP on Freighters, which could be done by decreasing the buildcost of the trade module, maybe Korx could get an own one like Arceans have Construction Module Lite?