Re: Empire setup and specialization
 

I think that specialized empire designs are quite viable in PvK Balance Mod, and in other mods with balanced starting costs.

The reason balance provides this, is that when there are not enough points to buy everything worth buying, then there are choices, and some abilities, anyway, are worth their threshold cost, because they get better the more you get.

Particularly Attack, Defense, Maintenance, Construction, and perhaps some of the others that generate points of various things (research, intel, savvy, resources).

The proposal to set the Normal range to high is interesting, but unfortunately because of the limited options, it will also mean the default choice will be a minor reduction to get a bunch of refund points, since you can't have a different Normal cost for positive and negative.

The cultures though do offer ways to enable enforced specialist types. I would combine with a balanced mod for best effect.

PvK

Re: Empire setup and specialization
 

<font size="2" face="sans-serif, arial, verdana">This is a problem... Though if you only apply the "specialist" formula (High normal cost, low threshold cost) to the items that are dangerous to lower by much(research, aggressive, defensive, minerals, maint, construction) the idea will still work... Then you could address the other stats in the Cultures to make additional specialist types...(like +1000 Repair...)

Re: Empire setup and specialization
 

This is already being done (to some extent) in the Imperialism mod. Which i need to run turns for, but since ive been trapped at work for such stupid hours over the Last few weeks...

anyway, i did the exact thing you describe - but only for political savvy. high cost to raise or lower a few points, lower cost to raise or lower beyond the threshold. and it pays off even with fewer players (works better with more players) because its more profitable to subjugate AI races (with a high bonus) than it is to conquer them outright.

Re: Empire setup and specialization
 

Well, I tend to make my Empires with a generalist mindset under PvK Balance, but is it because it is better, or because I am used to it? At any rate, your mod helps making some choices be more attractive. 150% repair is actually worth it (thank you Fyron for explaining this one), and raising Happiness may be a good choice once it is tweaked. Mineral production would also be a good one to raise to high levels, as it doesn't cost a lot and saves a lot of headaches if you have few planets with many minerals.

I will have to check what happens with a 0 point setup though, as it may make matters that much more complicated. While an Empire with at least decent stats in the important characteristics can be made with 2,000 points, it may be very well another story with 0 point and much less free points from Happiness.

There would be two ways to mod such a specialization in the mod, as using the regular characteristic system will not exactly work:
- You could make pointless traits costing a certain amount of points, and these would be needed to raise a given characteristic above Average. For example, you will have to take the Scientist trait to raise Research above 100, and it will cost, say, 1,000 points.
- Or you could make a chart and ask your players to design their own cultures, as explained a bit below in the thread. This may allow to hide a part of the Empire setup as well, but it would take longer for the game owner.

Both options require the game owner to check Empire files, but I wouldn't expect such games to take place too often, so. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon12.gif