Religious Talisman - unbalancing or not?

[solops]

Originally posted by spoon:
Yes, the talisman is overpowered. However, it does not guarantee a win if you are playing with people who know about how overpowered it is. The "balancing factor" that has emerged amongst experienced players is to gang up against and wipe out anyone who chooses the Religious trait before they get the chance to weild the talisman effectively. So in a way, choosing religious can be more of a liability, which makes for a neat mechanic.

How do you tell when someone has chosen "Religious"?

[UseOfWeps]

Once you've met a race in-game, you can click on their flag at the top left of one of their units or on the empire picture in the diplomacy screen, and one of the tabs lists what starting options that race has, eg advanced storage, religious, etc.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by solops:

quote:

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Originally posted by spoon:
Yes, the talisman is overpowered. However, it does not guarantee a win if you are playing with people who know about how overpowered it is. The "balancing factor" that has emerged amongst experienced players is to gang up against and wipe out anyone who chooses the Religious trait before they get the chance to weild the talisman effectively. So in a way, choosing religious can be more of a liability, which makes for a neat mechanic.

How do you tell when someone has chosen "Religious"?

---

The game is too simple in certain ways. One of them is that it tells you exactly what racial traits a given empire has as soon as you meet them. Stupid.

I hope things like this will be fixed in SE 5.

[spoon]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
...it tells you exactly what racial traits a given empire has as soon as you meet them.

Could you mod all the Advanced Traits so they have the same name, like "Secret Advanced Trait", so that when you meet an empire, you only know how many advanced traits they have, but not what they are? Or do duplicate names cause an error?

[Spoo]

Or do duplicate names cause an error?

If they do, you can just add a differing number of spaces to the end.

[Fyron]

I think spaces at the end would show up, so you would want enough spaces to go past the 3rd line of display for the traits (which is only half a line, but you can still figure out what the traits are from the top halves of the names) for EVERY trait, then a random character after those spaces, as it will never be shown in-game.

The problem is that when you meet a race, most of their traits would be painfully obvious. How do you hide the fact that you use organic stuff on your ships? Or crystalline? Or the fact that you are deeply religious (your entire demeanor would give it away)? Some traits could be hidden, but most would be obvious, especially if you ever get to scan or visit a planet of theirs...

[Spoo]

The problem is that when you meet a race, most of their traits would be painfully obvious. How do you hide the fact that you use organic stuff on your ships? Or crystalline? Or the fact that you are deeply religious (your entire demeanor would give it away)? Some traits could be hidden, but most would be obvious, especially if you ever get to scan or visit a planet of theirs...

It might be obvious that a race is religious, but that doesn't guarantee (or even imply) that they have the technology to never miss. Of course in SE4, there's only one type of "religious".

I supose as a mod idea, you could split the racial techs up and have one "religious" that gives you the talisman, and "religious " that gives you the facilities, etc. Maybe also have a "religious " that gives you nothing and costs 0 points.

EDIT: Hey, I've been promoted! Better watch out, Fyron. I'm catching up

[ May 05, 2004, 19:13: Message edited by: Spoo ]

[Fyron]

Of course in SE4, there's only one type of "religious".

Not if you play Adamant Mod, where there are 7 types.

I supose as a mod idea, you could split the racial techs up and have one "religious" that gives you the talisman, and "religious " that gives you the facilities, etc. Maybe also have a "religious " that gives you nothing and costs 0 points.

Way ahead of you. Psychic is also split into numerous subtraits.

[ May 05, 2004, 19:12: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]

[Spoo]

Such a fast reply! I didn't even have a chance to edit!

Looks like I should finally try out Adamant. One day I'll have free time

[Fyron]

I didn't have a whole lot to type.

But getting back to the discussion at hand... it would indeed be good if you had an optional field in RacialTraits.txt that was "Hidden Trait := TRUE" which would hide the trait from being displayed to other races. I would not like to see all traits forcibly hidden, even with a global setting in Settings.txt. More choices are always good.