Affinities arent even balanced resource wise

[Question]

So you are denying that Vertical Farming and similar techs are more efficient for a Purity strategy than for other affinities?

Theres nothing that makes it more efficient for purity other than the fact that vertical farming is purity. You do not get any kind of penalty for researching vertical farming or using farms with other affinities.

If you are using farms, then you would take vertical farming regardless of what affinity you are.

You might even pick it up through spamming agents on steal tech. Its very easy to power through the tech web with that. Even if you dont, its what, 6 turns or so of research on quick speed by that point of the game?

Personally i always spam generators because farms are lackluster till vertical farming and high pop generates tons of unhappiness in BE. I believe its also easier to max out generators at +1 prod/+3 energy compared to farms at +2 food/+1 prod/+1 energy as well.

Most of the other improvements are unimpressive. You effectively pay 2 energy/2 health for +1 prod with manufacturies (compared to mines), biowells is basically 2 energy for 1 health, domes are 2 energy for 2 culture and some meaningless hp, etc. Generators are free and awesome.

 

[Victus Mortuus]

Xenomass seems to be more common in my games almost to the point where I have to force myself to go something else.

 

[Question]

Purity is also the affinity that people are claiming is the strongest militarily, so that might be a balance difference (also, thematically, it makes sense the Affinity that works with the land gets more from it).

Purity is actually the weakest perks wise. Supremacy and Harmony can get tons more combat modifiers, supremacy is made for spamming tons of robots with adjacent friendly unit bonuses and harmony gets both miasma and solo bonuses.

 

[Ryoga]

Purity is actually the weakest perks wise. Supremacy and Harmony can get tons more combat modifiers, supremacy is made for spamming tons of robots with adjacent friendly unit bonuses and harmony gets both miasma and solo bonuses.

Actually I think perkwise harmony is the one that gets the short end of the stick. The solo combat modifier isn't something that I realistically want. If I'm going to conquer a city there are fairly high chances that I'll need to put units close together.

The miasma bonus again, is too situational for my tastes. Yes of course you can preemptively launch a miasma condenser but that's assuming the area isn't already covered by an enemy satellites or that you can reach it.

Purity on the other hand often gets that +10% of attack bonus for unused movement or +1 range for ranged units (including naval!) which are always good to have and add up to purity's already strong units.

 

[TLHeart]

Theres nothing that makes it more efficient for purity other than the fact that vertical farming is purity. You do not get any kind of penalty for researching vertical farming or using farms with other affinities.

If you are using farms, then you would take vertical farming regardless of what affinity you are.

You might even pick it up through spamming agents on steal tech. Its very easy to power through the tech web with that. Even if you dont, its what, 6 turns or so of research on quick speed by that point of the game?

Personally i always spam generators because farms are lackluster till vertical farming and high pop generates tons of unhappiness in BE. I believe its also easier to max out generators at +1 prod/+3 energy compared to farms at +2 food/+1 prod/+1 energy as well.

Most of the other improvements are unimpressive. You effectively pay 2 energy/2 health for +1 prod with manufacturies (compared to mines), biowells is basically 2 energy for 1 health, domes are 2 energy for 2 culture and some meaningless hp, etc. Generators are free and awesome.

the penalty is the wasted science to get the out of way tech, and the wasted turns.

 

[Question]

Its not wasted if you are getting a useful bonus.

An example of a waste would be getting tactical robots if you arent going supremacy or dont need the sup affinity bonus.

But if you have farms, getting a tech that boosts them regardless of your affinity is not a waste.

You may as well say that all the techs that arent affinity techs are a waste.

 

[Ikael]

The problem is that affinities are not even asymetrically balanced, which would be a way to give them flavour and differenciate them. I think that if we would follow the game designer's intentions we would be presented with the following set of strenghts for each affiniy:

Purity
- Unique buildings focused into giving location-dependant food and production bonuses, rewarding tall empires and careful city placement
- Improvement bonuses for terrascapes and domes, rewarding terraformation
- Military units with high HP and firepower yet low mobility, aimed to be parked near your cities. Slow but though, defensive strategies are encouraged

Harmony
- Unique buildings focused into giving massive health bonuses, rewarding wide empires
- Improvement bonuses for miasma, alien nests and forest rewarding the preservation of the natural enviroment and vast expanses
- Military units with superior mobility, numbers, and terrain-dependant bonuses. Perhaps low HP, but high HP recovery rates

Supremacy
- Unique buildings focused into giving tech and energy non-fixed bonuses (percenteages rather than fixed values), rewarding city specialization
- Improvement bonuses for Arrays, autoplants and Nodes, rewarding artificial landscaping
- Military units that rewards grouping and combos, keeping with the theme of heavy specialization and offensive capabilities

 

[Question]

Funfact : Apparently purity has the most expensive unique units too. The tech to get battlesuits and aegis is more expensive than the tech to get the harmony/supremacy equivalents.

 

[ddd123]

Why do affinities need to be balanced?

It's not Starcraft, it's Civilization. If anything having a spread in power is preferable because it lets people design (and then overcome) challenges.

this is the dumbest thing ever read here

its a strategy meaning ppl need to have choices that matters not nonchoices to make challenges

also there is multiplyuaer you know, if ever the multiplayer worked but ok, one day maybe devs will understnad and there will be some slightly competitive challenge so you cant have only 1 viable option

 

[GAGA Extrem]

On the flip side Purity has a strong early game: Genetic Mapping and Alien Genetics provide early Affinity at low cost and decent extra tech benefits, the Purity 1 trait is just superb for scouting, Gene Gardens are fantastic early game buildings and their Battlesuits are a very strong unit that doesn't need floatstone. I am also a big fan of Boreholes (but those are obviously late game buildings).

So far I haven't really been able to determine if there are really terrible imbalances. Yes, yield wise Floatstone is pretty *meh*, but it isn't *that* terrible imho.

 

[Chaos Blade]

personally I think we need to get rid of the affinity resources. call them advanced resources and make all affinities need them, in different amounts. Make the resources more evenly spread out and give more reason for you to take somebody else's stuff.

And nerf the health penalty for taking cities and the unrest times. this is 4x game after all.

 

[MadDjinn]

Probably someone should go look at all the buildings and such for each affinity and then think about balance.

There's no mention of the skycrane giving +2 production to each floatstone here.

Nor is there a mention that everyone can get big xenomass wells due to their buildings being at 2 affinity level. Sneeze and you'll get that.

Purity also gets a tonne of production buildings. So bigger units + spam units === more pain.

 

[Haggbart]

Lol, saw another thread where people said purity is OP. Now it's harmony. Maybe the balance isn't that far off then

 

[Ryoga]

Lol, saw another thread where people said purity is OP. Now it's harmony. Maybe the balance isn't that far off then

They are looking at different stuff, everything that OP said is true but there are other factors to consider. I would say that militarily purity is absolutely awesome especially for early rushes. That of course really depends on the titanium available, but titanium can be improved early on and doesn't requires a specialized advanced tech, there are fairly high chances that you'll be able to buy it from someone if you are in a pinch, I actually did that once.

Battlesuits are an unstoppable force and it might be exploit-y but the fact that your scouts are immune to aliens makes the quest to raze 2 nests abysmally easy, because aliens aren't smart enough to permanently station one of their own on them.

 

[Soffacet]

Theres nothing that makes it more efficient for purity other than the fact that vertical farming is purity. You do not get any kind of penalty for researching vertical farming or using farms with other affinities.

If you are using farms, then you would take vertical farming regardless of what affinity you are.

You might even pick it up through spamming agents on steal tech. Its very easy to power through the tech web with that. Even if you dont, its what, 6 turns or so of research on quick speed by that point of the game?

Personally i always spam generators because farms are lackluster till vertical farming and high pop generates tons of unhappiness in BE. I believe its also easier to max out generators at +1 prod/+3 energy compared to farms at +2 food/+1 prod/+1 energy as well.

Most of the other improvements are unimpressive. You effectively pay 2 energy/2 health for +1 prod with manufacturies (compared to mines), biowells is basically 2 energy for 1 health, domes are 2 energy for 2 culture and some meaningless hp, etc. Generators are free and awesome.

What is this I don't even. If you take vertical farming while intending to develop Purity, the then the Affinity level helps you in a meaningful way. You are now closer to Battlesuits or whatever your plan was. You are not closer to CNDR or Xeno Swarm or whatever your Supremacy/Harmony plan was. At some point you will need to spend time researching an additional affinity level that the Purity strategy will not need to.

So for a Purity strategy, vertical farming serves two purposes. This is known as efficiency. For another affinity, it serves one. This is known as relative inefficiency.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I'd call it "Opportunity Cost", but yes - grabbing high-cost techs of a different affinity is usually pretty inefficent.

 

[Question]

Probably someone should go look at all the buildings and such for each affinity and then think about balance.

There's no mention of the skycrane giving +2 production to each floatstone here.

Nor is there a mention that everyone can get big xenomass wells due to their buildings being at 2 affinity level. Sneeze and you'll get that.

Purity also gets a tonne of production buildings. So bigger units + spam units === more pain.

Im pretty sure i factored the skycrane bonus in considering that floatstone quarries are only +3 energy by default.

Biggest culprit of the imbalance seems to be the xenofuel plant which has a quest that gives +3 energy +2 prod to all xenomass....you dont even need the wells.

Purity doesnt really get more prod buildings when yo uconsider that each building is weaker than average and costs a lot of floatstone.

Tech costs for the unique units :


Level 4 affinity

Battlesuit : 824

Xenoswarm : 546

CNDR : 546

Level 7 affinity

Aegis : 2,284

Xeno cavalry : 1,293

CARVR : 2,284

Level 9 affinity

SABR : 824

Rocktopus : 2,284

LEV tank : 1,293

Level 12 affinity

All : 2,284

Looking at the pattern im guessing its supposed to be :

Level 4 : 546

Levle 7 : 824

Level 9 : 1,293

Level 12 : 2,284

But someone messed up with the copy and pasting.

So for a Purity strategy, vertical farming serves two purposes. This is known as efficiency. For another affinity, it serves one. This is known as relative inefficiency.

One purpoe is not the same as none. You are really missing the point. Are you going to play harmony/supremacy, build farms, and then refuse to touch vertical farming because its a purity tech? Are you going to refuse to research solar collectors if you are not going harmony?

 

[Ryoga]

Tech costs for the unique units :


Level 4 affinity

Battlesuit : 824

Xenoswarm : 546

CNDR : 546

Wait, are you factoring the tech necessary to improve the necessary resource in this? Because you can't build CNDR without firaxite, you can't build Xenoswarm without xenomass and Battlesuits without titanium.

Therefore the tech needed to improve the resources is something you must take in account. Titanium doesn't even need any tech at all if you take tectonic scanner.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

It is not about *refusing* to get that tech - but, yes, if I don't play Harmony I have less interest in picking up Solar Collectors (mostly because I usually have enough Energy in my games anyway).

Usually you spend more time for researching these techs than you will get back, slowing down your victory. That being said, Vertical Farms is one of the best affinity techs to get for everyone, considering that you can usually grab the Ectogenesis Pod. Still: It is less powerful for non-purity players.

 

[Question]

Wait, are you factoring the tech necessary to improve the necessary resource in this? Because you can't build CNDR without firaxite, you can't build Xenoswarm without xenomass and Battlesuits without titanium.

Therefore the tech needed to improve the resources is something you must take in account. Titanium doesn't even need any tech at all if you take tectonic scanner.

They are all leaf techs and it just so happens that the firaxite/xenomass improvements are unlocked in the branch techs for CNDRs/Xeno swarms so its not an extra cost at all.