PvK Balance Mod Version 1.1 posted (for SE4 Gold Version 1.91 - Patch 4)

[PvK]

Ok, here's the latest. Please comment. Notice I got to the combat bonuses, and because of what I did there, I increased the price of Religious to 2000 - see explanation below.

Traits:
=======

* Advanced Power Conservation cost lowered from 1000 to 500.

This trait was rarely used, and while helpful, was not nearly as useful as other 1000-point traits.

* Mechanoids cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

This trait was probably never used by a skilled player in a competitive game. I have played many unmodded games, and have never been attacked by a plague bomb, and the few natural and espionage plagues have been easily cured for little cost and little effect. Moreover, empires with this advantage are immediately identified as such, so only an unobservant player would ever try to use a plague attack on a Mechanoid player. 250 points seems about right for this minor advantage, and removes the "balance penalty" for roleplaying mechanoid races.

* Lucky cost lowered from 1000 to 250.

The practical value of this varies depending on the game settings for random events. In many games, it will not be worth very much. In games with catastrophic events, at 250 points it simply becomes a dare to risk not taking it. Since the effects vary, and if multiple empires take it, they counteract each other, and since frequently this has little effect, it seemed to make sense to reduce it to a minor cost, which removes the amount of "wasted points" for empires which take Lucky in games where it won't have much or any effect.

* Natural Merchants, Propulsion Experts, Ancient Race and Hardy Industrialists left at 1000 points.

These all seem of roughly equivalent value to me. Ancient Race can be abused in some gamey ways, but gives no advantage beyond knowledge, so opponents can get more permanent advantages. Hardy Industrialists may be somehwat less efficient compared to construction aptitude, but it can be combined with it to reach the highest levels of construction rate, which some players use in their grand strategies.

* Advanced Storage Techniques cost increased from 1000 to 2000 points.

This one was pretty much universally accepted as the best 1000-point unmodded advantage, for its many effects and side-effects on facilities, starting strength, population, and cargo space. 2000 points seems about right to me compared to the other adjusted values.

* Most racial techs remain at 1500 points.

After the many discussions over the years, it seems to me that these are all fairly well balanced and rated at 1500 points. They can all seem too powerful or too expensive if one doesn't appreciate all of their abilities and counter-tactics.

* Deeply Religious increased to 2000 points.
This is because the compensation for reducing Aggressiveness by a small amount has been greatly increased. Essentially, an average Religious player is expected to take a -5 in Aggressiveness, for a net cost of 1500 points.

* Emotionless cost reduced from 3000 to 1750 (net 2200 to net 1000 when minimizing Happiness).

This is a very useful ability for lazy or new players, as well as for large empires that suffer damage that would otherwise make the entire empire riot and fall. Almost no competitive players were thinking twice about paying 2200 points for it, however. At 1000 net points, I'd say it's a good deal, and a valid choice for roleplayers.

Physical Strength:
==================
* Basic cost lowered from 25 to 3.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 5.
* Negative Threshold cost lowered from 10 to 3.

Minimizing troop strength to 50 now only provides 150 points.
Maximizing troop strength to 150 now only costs 230 points.

Intelligence:
=============
* Basic cost increased from 25 to 50.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Positive threshold cost lowered from 100 to 75.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 40.

This means "the cheap bonus" is +10 for 500 points, instead of +20 for 500 points.
+20 costs 1250 points, and +50 would cost 3500.
Playing a "dumb" race is now more viable - a 90% race gets 500 points, while a 50% race gets 2100.

Cunning:
========
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 10.
* Positive threshold cost lowered from 100 to 40.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10

This means less can be gained by lowering cunning, and raising it is more expensive between 110% and 122%, but less expensive for a heavy spymaster race over 122%. Maximum 150% Cunning costs 1850 points. Minimum 50% gains 650 points.
Part of the reason for the overall reduction is that defensive intelligence projects have multipliers to their effectiveness, so even a 50% Cunning empire can build up fairly effective defenses against a single antagonist without a lot of effort. The other reason is that concentrating in intelligence seemed very expensive for the amount of advantage gained. 150% Cunning in the unmodded game costs 3500 points, which is way more than it was worth compared to other advantages.

Environmental Resistance:
=========================
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 0.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 12.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 18.

This follows Imperator Fyron's information that 5% in this is like 1% in Happiness and 1% in Reproduction. Threshold reduced to zero since this effect is divided by 5 so the actual range is -10 to +10, and zero threshold allows different rates for low-level increases versus decreases, which need to be balanced differently to avoid "free points" schemes with offsetting choices for Reproduction or Happiness. Since it requires raising both at once and thus offers less flexibility, I devalued it 2 per point (almost insignifigant).

Reproduction:
=============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 50.

Basic cost is raised because although population isn't a huge factor in unmodded games, a 1% change is about a 10% change relative to the base rate, and low rates can cut reproduction to 0% or a few % under bad circumstances, which becomes a relevant effect. The minimum setting will only earn 450 points, and is a meaningful disadvantage.

Happiness:
==========
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 0.
* Positive Threshold cost lowered from 100 to 40.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 15.

Threshold lowered to zero in order to reduce reward for lowering happiness a small amount, since in the unmodded game a little unhappiness is easy to counter with troops. A lot of unhappiness can be a problem however, so the Negative Threshold cost was increased. Positive Threshold can be low, because for the most part, a high value gives diminishing benefits which can be accomplished by others using troops. Minimum setting of -50 gives 750 points (and would be hard to survive long enough to develop troops before riots took over). Maximum setting of +50 costs 2000 points.

Aggressiveness:
===============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 200.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 50.

The pre-threshold increase to +5% costs 500 points. Maxing to +25% costs 4500 points. Dropping to -5% gains 500 points, and minimizing to -25% gains 1500 points. Because of the way to-hit modifiers stack in SE4, this seems to me a fairly accurate valuation.

Defensiveness:
===============
* Basic cost raised from 25 to 100.
* Threshold lowered from 20 to 5.
* Positive Threshold cost increased from 100 to 200.
* Negative Threshold cost increased from 10 to 50.

The same value as Aggressiveness.

PvK

Edit: Corrected Emotionless cost for new Happiness price, and fixed the stupid line breaks inserted by either IE or the forum software when I pasted that in the first time.

[ January 09, 2003, 03:23: Message edited by: PvK ]

[Captain Kwok]

Overall, I like the changes and might even steal some. I'd be more specific but I'm really quite tired and can't focus on anything...

[Quikngruvn]

Very nice, PvK. I doubt seriously that I could improve on it.

Quikngruvn

[geoschmo]

Well Pvk, for all the discussion, I think the end result was very well done. Good job.

EDIT: BTW, how did you get through working on the proportions mod all this time and never notice that you have to have the complete /data folder when you mdo any data files?

Geoschmo

[ January 09, 2003, 14:09: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[spoon]

The numbers seem good to me. Only thing I would consider doing differently is maybe making aggressiveness cheaper than defensiveness (by giving it a higher threshold, perhaps), and/or lower the maximum possible for Defensiveness to 120% (lowered from 125%).

My thinking is that survivability seems to be(slightly) more important than lethality...

[PvK]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Well Pvk, for all the discussion, I think the end result was very well done. Good job.

EDIT: BTW, how did you get through working on the proportions mod all this time and never notice that you have to have the complete /data folder when you mdo any data files?

Geoschmo

Thanks.

I remember now running into the /data thing before, and even sending suggestions to MM, but I'd forgotten about it.

PvK

[PvK]

Originally posted by spoon:
The numbers seem good to me. Only thing I would consider doing differently is maybe making aggressiveness cheaper than defensiveness (by giving it a higher threshold, perhaps), and/or lower the maximum possible for Defensiveness to 120% (lowered from 125%).

My thinking is that survivability seems to be(slightly) more important than lethality...

Thanks.

Yes, as a player, I tend to think of defensiveness as slightly more valuable than aggressiveness, for the same reason you mention. If you dodge for a turn, you get a chance to try to hit again. However, on the other hand, if you nail your opponent first, you might not have to worry about him hitting you the next turn. Also, if defensiveness cost more, you could counter your [i]opponent's[\i] defensiveness more cheaply by with your own aggressiveness. Similarly, aggressiveness might seem worth less to reduce since it could be made up for eventually by a talisman or seekers/ramming/boarding/intel, but from the opponent's perspective, all of those things ignore defensiveness as well.

All told, I think they're more or less the same value - different depending on the specific situation and enemy choices. But I'd be interested to hear more ideas about it.

PvK

[spoon]

The main reason I buy Aggressiveness at all is to counter the (kind of cheesy) tactic of maxing out Defensiveness + Bezerker. Against most players, I don't think it comes in as being critically important. You might want to view it as a "counter" to defensiveness, and should therefore cost less (the only other viable counter being the Talisman - but I don't like to consider racial traits as counters, since you can't adopt them after-the-fact).

On the other hand, I've maxed out defense and have been untouchable. Maxing out offensiveness doesn't help you as much. I think.

-spoon

[PvK]

That's an interesting argument, which makes some sense. Perhaps defensiveness is inherently slightly better than aggressiveness - any other thoughts?

PvK

[Fyron]

Any recent work on this?