Discussing the Affinity Ladder

[Nurgle84]

Probably done a few times before, I want to present my views on the affinities, their advantages and disadvantages. I also would like to discuss some opinions about what should be changed in future patches. The reason for me to do this, is simply that I like to discuss the games I play. (Sorry for spelling mistakes, as I am not a native speaker)

Part 1: The affinity-level-bonus

I am gonna rate the advantages simply with +, 0 and -. + meaning its the best at its level, - is the worst.

Affinity level 1:

Harmony: Explorers are immune to Miasma
Good stuff. This lets your Explorers do their work more efficiently. Also those Miasma blocked expedition sites are now more easily available.
Rating: +

Purity: Explorers receive +100% defense power
An ok bonus at the beginning, but loses power rapidly. It basically just helps the explorer survive some aliens (Beetle Bugs, Drones and Manticores) but is useless vs. other colonies.
Rating: -

Superiority: Explorers receive +1 Exploration module
Can be good, can be bad. Depends on map type and the number of exploration sites. But it frees up the Laboratory quest, so one can easily choose the +1 option.
Rating: 0

Affinity level 3:

Harmony: Miasma damage reduced to 5
This takes off some of the pressure of fighting in wild areas. Also lets your workers move more freely (although they are probably immune to Miasma by now). A situational bonus at best.
Rating: 0

Purity: +25% combat bonus vs. Aliens
Great if combined with the Scavenging arm of the Might tree and an aggressive "cleanse the land" agenda. Otherwise its just helpful if you stumble into some alien nest.
Rating: 0

Superiority: Roads and Magrails are free of maintenance
Best of the bunch here. The bigger your empire the more interesting it gets. And free Magrails means basically +20% production in all connected cities for free. Even worth it (depending on empire size) if you are into the other affinites.
Rating: +

Affinity level 6:

Harmony: Units in Miasma heal 10 HP for free
Good stuff, especially if you use Miasmic Condenser. Its a free healing, so you just have to stick to Miasma and still heal. Gets even better with alien Hybridisation (another 10 HP free heal) and +combat strength in Miasma upgrades. Needs preparation.
Rating: +

Purity: +2 Orbital Coverage for all cities
Can be useful, if you use satelites offensively (Spying Tacnets, Laser-Satelites or Phase Transporter come to mind.) or you are using satelites to terraform new settle space (Weather Control and Orbital Fabricator). Its useless if you use satelites just over your own cities.
Rating: 0

Superiority: Orbital Coverage over Firaxite deposits
Same as purity here. Basically you get some coverage over random spots of the map. Even harder to utilise.
Rating: -

Affinity level 8:

All Affinites get +4 main ressource here. So not much to compare. Would be great if some future patch could alter that level (or just add some additional bonus), so that its more interesting in general.

Affinity level 10:

All Affinities get their lvl 5 espionage mission here. I have to confess that after over a dozen playthroughs I was still not able to use even one of them. From the sound of it, I assume that the Worm Strike is useful to remove a small city from the game, the Dirty Bomb is good for weakening big cities and Sabotage for destroying Strategic Ressource supply. They are to hard to use, like lvl 8 something should be added here.

Affinity level 13:

Allows the affinity win conditions. Again, to boring and to early. The win condition should be patched onto lvl 16 or something, and another fat bonus added here. Something that really empowers some strategies. For example Purity could have +50% city growth or something, Superiority -50% time for espionage missions and Harmony cities gain some ressource from Miasma tiles.

In general the late levels need a workover. In the early levels Harmony is often the best of its level with easy Miasma immunity, Superiority has its level 3 and Purity... well, just feels weak. Of course this is just an isolated view at the affinity level bonus. Next up will be the buildings of the affinites, maybe Purity can retake some ground there.

 

[s0nny80y]

I think Harmony is the best.

Siege worms can harass target units, and weaken target economies.

Miasma is a preexisting condition of the planet.

Cities can contribute to the mind flower via xeno sancturaries and mind stems.

Locusts have the furthest aerial coverage, especially when the hp healing is a chosen perk upon destroying enemy unit, allowing the +2 range to remain in effect.

 

[liv]

I think I agree with you on the bonus.
i play to try to get as many excavating cites as possible so I prioritize the miasma immunity as that makes that work a lot faster.


Since I almost never try to win a science victory I am not opposed to seeing that the AI can try to win early as that makes it harder for me develop freely. But everyone who plays to win quicker do agree that 13 for the winning condition is way too early so that should be changed

 

[LORD ORION]

I don't really care about most of them.

Usually my only interest in affinities is reaching criteria for using buildings and unit upgrades.

Out of all of them, the only one I always have every game is free roads and magrails. I'll also often have 25% vs aliens (but not always) because I want to reach the affinity levels to enable a hybrid unit upgrade.

I typically play varying shades of Supremacy/Purity ratios because of research choices.

I rarely pursue Harmony
One of the main reasons for this is trade convoys. You can't trade through miasma until WAY later in the game with a harmony research. So if I'm getting rid of it anyways... why pursue harmony.

Harmony miasma mechanics have a lot to be desired. Some are in the "affinity tree", others are unlocked in the techs... and still some misama mechanics are not even harmony exclusive. (or good for that matter )

 

[wayneb64]

Free roads is THE affinity bonus for me. It is so huge for getting around the map and taking off the energy load of all that connectivity. Almost OP, but please don't nerf it. Supremacy is pretty much always the path I take unless I just cannot get some Firaxite, which is also the best affinity based resource for me.

 

[Halbbruder]

Purity: +2 Orbital Coverage for all cities
Can be useful, if you use satelites offensively (Spying Tacnets, Laser-Satelites or Phase Transporter come to mind.) or you are using satelites to terraform new settle space (Weather Control and Orbital Fabricator). Its useless if you use satelites just over your own cities.
Rating: 0

Superiority: Orbital Coverage over Firaxite deposits
Same as purity here. Basically you get some coverage over random spots of the map. Even harder to utilise.
Rating: -

I'd say your opinion on supremacy level 6 is a bit harsh. Yes it's unreliable but it would deserve at least a neutral review for times when you receive a good firaxite spot that enables you establish a front right behind your enemies using phasal transporters.

As for purity level 6, it may be more reliable, but the +2 orbital range isn't so great. Might be better if you're following a max prosperity/purity build, with stellar cortex acquired too. I managed to get around 20 orbital range before with that combo.

 

[Alkaid]

I second that you're judging the lvl 6 Supremacy bonus kind of hard. I honestly think it's one of the top bonuses, mainly for domination. Supremacy + phasal transporters is the way to go if you try to win domination as Supremacy. And the orbital space over firaxite anywhere on the map is more often than not a huge bonus to that strategy, allowing you to backdoor opponents. Even if you don't go for domination, it can be a big help if a harmony player isn't near you and you need extra options to storm their territory to take out a mindflower or help prevent one. With how slow Supremacy units are in general (I'm looking at you SABR), the firaxite orbital space adds to how surprisingly mobile the transporters can make your army.

 

[Nurgle84]

Thanks for the input guys. I am not that big into Supremacy because of the low speed (They just feel so slow compared to hovering Purity or terrain ignoring Harmony), but yes I can see the use in Phasal Transporter with Harmony 6. I mainly used it for placing Scout Tac Hubs around the map.

So, Purity along with the late Affinity levels need something? I have seen no arguments opposing that. Next up will be a short one: Win Conditions. Then Buildings and finally Units.

Part 2: Win Conditions

Harmony: Mind Flower

The most scientific Win Condition as you need three different techs in different directions of the tech web. Its also an external Win Condition, as you need many, many cities to speed the win up. So its at the same time scientific, as well as a military win, because puppets are great for adding Victory points. The fastest win I had was 8 rounds after the Flower was built. Xeno-Sanctuaries as well as Mind Stems have to be prebuilt, but nothing else. Suitable for wide, wide empires

Purity: Exodus Gate

The most "external" Win Condition. You need free space. It can be crappy space, it can be far off space (as long as you can reach it) but you need space anyway. Pre-Built Magrails/Roads and Phase Transporter are also a must. In my opinion the hardest win. If you have no suitable space (aka Kavitha, the slaws and the africans are around you) you have to create space. And on top of it, it takes a minimum of 21 rounds to win this way. Suitable for wide empires, so you can conserve some space, military action might be needed in the course of the game to keep the AI from taking all the space in the vicinity.

Supremacy: Emancipation Gate

In my opinion the most "internal" win condition. Just build Magrails, the strongest Unit you can muster in large enough numbers, build the gate, click until win. You can place it deep into your own territory and as a strong military is needed to win this way anyway, hostiler intervention is not that threatening. Best Units for sending through are upgraded Angels (if you swim in Firaxite), upgraded CAAVR (If you have some Firaxit, I hope thats the correct translation, the offensive Bots) or Combat Rovers (Highest strength of the non-ressource units, also fast). Very suitable for small, tall empires, because you can produce everything in advance. After the gate is built, can be won in about 12 rounds.

For comparison: The Beacon

The most "lucky" win condition. I always thought you can get at maximum one part from progenitor ruins. My last game showed me, you can get both. Thats just wrong. I had the signal decoded around round 100 on epic speed. If you can find one part, its a production-dependant Win condition as you need to build the Trancendent Math Wonder for the second part. If you can´t find even one part, you also need science for the Deep Space Telescope.
After the beacon is built, it seems to always take 30 rounds to win,independant on the energy you sacrifice. I am not fan of that, as a higher energy production should be rewarded. Suitable for tall, production heavy empires.

Finally: Conquest

For stumbling into . Not much to discuss here.

 

[tedeviatings]

You can win purity in 20 turns if your last settler can reach it's destination and settle in 1 turn. Usually very possible with magrails. I'm inclined to agree on hardest win since it's slow and that's dangerous in itself. Then again affinity 13 is usually also the time I feel I can start to get aggressive against the AI so domination would probably be slower (i.e. harder) for me still.

 

[Nurgle84]

After some thought I think the Affinity levels should be tied to improved tile yields instead of certain techs. For example could Purity levels lead to better Domes (from most to least: Culture, Food and Prod) and Terrascapes (less upkeep, more of the rest either in addition to prosperity or instead of), Supremacy for Arrays (Science, Energy and Prod) and Nodes (Energy, Science and maybe culture, not Academies, these are powerful enough) and Harmony, probably must controverse, to Forests (Food, Prod and Culture) and Swamps (Food, Science and Culture).

This way, you have to really invest into an affinity to get upgraded tiles. Basic (Farms, generator and Mines) tiles should be switched to general Techs without Affinity Bonus.

 

[Ryika]

Its also an external Win Condition, as you need many, many cities to speed the win up.

Not sure how you came to that conclusion. After a certain point every additional city will slow your total progress down immensely, optimum is probably 6-8, leading to a turn ~205-210ish victory if everything works out very smoothly (AND if you even have the space for that many cities that is) - more than that and you delay your victory far more than you can ever make up for with the 2 turns you spare by having both buildings in a city.

Overall I'd say Transcendence is the most streamlined and passive victory of all of them, with a very clear tech path, a victory wonder that needs no pesky micro management and very long phases of research focus.

 

[Nurgle84]

I meant more cities as in:
More cities faster, less cities slower, measured from the point of a completed Mind Flower. I have no idea about "optimal play" or something. Its not my idea of playing this (or any) game.

Compared to:
Purity: More cities, less space for settling
Supremacy: More cities, doesnt matter at all

Sure if you aim for optimal win time, there is probably a sweet spot between more cities and win earlier. I hope that they fix Transcendence. 6-8 turns between building the flower and winning is way to quick.

 

[Nurgle84]

Next up Buildings. As these need a bit more space I will do them Affinity for Affinity starting with Harmony:

Harmony Level 2:

Xenonursery
(+10% Science, +1 Scientist, + 1 Science per Xenomass, Quest: 450 Science one time or +5 Xenomass)
Harmony is the only Affinity with two buildings at Level 2. And both are good with a big catch. You need a running Xenomass-Well for both of them. The Xenonursery gives plain old early science, including one of the rather rare percentage bonus. If you can build it in a city, you should. The quest is also interesting, as 450 Science is quiet a chunk, basically a free early tech and if you are really low on Xenomass, summoning 5 units more is also helpful.

Xenofuel Plant
(+3 Energy, 2 Trader, +1 Energy per Xenomass, Quest: +1000 Energy one time or +3 Energy, +2 Prod uction per Xenomass)
The Fuel Plant is similar to a second Thorium Reactor and will the bill for at least 4 Buildings. The big thing for this building is the quest. 1000 Energy means almost two settlers, while the Yield choice makes any Xenomass tile (even unimproved ones) into a fantastic tile. You should build at least on of these for the quest, more if you need the Energy.

Harmony Level 4:

Biofactory
(+3 Production, +1 Production from Chitin, needs an improved Petroleum tile, Quest: +1 Food or +1 Culture)
Basically a good building, but you won´t have that many cities with petroleum. And to fully utilise it, you also need Chitin. The quest is also not as good as the level 2 ones. Should be built in all cities that can, but if you don´t have a Petroleum city, its not that bad.

Growlab
(+3 Food, +1 Food per Fungus, needs and improved Fungus tile, Quest: +450 Energy one time or +1 population for all cities)
Fungus is a quiet common ressource and not even a bad one. And with the Growlab you make them even better. You will get at least 4 Food out of this building, which means 2 more specialists without problems. The quest is interesting. 450 Energy is not bad and if you have a very small empire, I would use this, but +1 Pop per city is great if you have a sprawling empire. Again a "build at least 1 for quest" building, but more Food is always helpful.

Harmony Level 5:

Xeno-Sanctuary
(+4 Culture, Ressource-Cost: 1 Xenomass, Quest: +2 Science or +2 Food, Special: +1 point per turn for Transcendence Victors)
Basically a must have if you go for Transcendence. If you go for another win condition and don´t need Culture or every Food you can get your hands on, you can skip this and save the Xenomass for units or other buildings.

Harmony Level 7:

Microbial Mine
(+3 Production, +10% Production, Ressource-Cost: 2 Xenomass, Quest: +1 Science or Energy per Affinity-lvl)
If you saved on Xeno-Sanctuaries, this would be a great place to invest into. A percentage bonus on production is always good. The only problem: It is on a very inconvenient place in the tech web. Basically the only things interesting for Harmony players in that area are the two buildings. The Rocktopus is... interesting but weird. The quest is an ok one. Get a few more Science or if you really need the Energy to pay a dozen more buildings.

Harmony Level 8:

Molecular Forge
(+5 Food, Quest: +10% Production or +10% Science)
Two and a half more specialists. No requirements, no ressource-cost and a good quest on top. Again in a bad spot in the tech web. Together with the Microbial mine thats 20% more Production and the Food for 2.5 Engineers. If you need Hammers, here you can find them.

Harmony Level 10:

Progenitor Garden
(+20% Health, Ressource-Cost: 4 Xenomass, Quest: +10% Health/+5% Science)
The mighty level 10 building, the pinnacle of everything you researched for, the endpoint of city construction. And it sucks. For a hefty 4 Xenomass you gain 3 maybe 4 health. Seriously? Purity has the same bonus on level 4. The quests are also bad, as they are bound to the building and not global. You either get 1-2 health more (yay) or 5% science (thats good, but not for the price). If the +% Health would work on Virtue health it would be good, but not if it just works on local health.

Generally I have the feeling that in the building departement, Harmony is kinda front loaded. The early buildings are good with powerful quest or at least plain useful. Microbial Mine and Molecular Forge are great but are in this weird spot on the web and the Progenitor Garden just sucks.
The most interesting about the Harmony buildings is the Food focus. That makes using specialists, working Hill heavy areas and living in Food starved areas easier. On top of that, the Solar Collector can be found on the "food path"(meaning the upper area of the web). The buildings create extra food, the Solar Collector pays the bills, the population can focus mainly on Production, Science and maybe Culture. On the other hand the Win Condition along with the Xenomass-Well can be found on the "Unit path" (meaning the right area of the web).

 

[tedeviatings]

Sadly no building in the game is worth getting if it sits on an outer ring tech w/o affinity. Not in the time it still matters (before 13) anyways. I'd glad you mention bad tech web placement since it can hardly be overstated. But it does mean about half of these buildings could as well not be in the game

 

[Nurgle84]

Next up: Purity Buildings

Purity Level 2:

Gene Garden
(+1 Science, +2 Health, Quest: +3 Energy and no maintenance or +1 Health)
Purity starts of with another Health booster. Thats surely a nice thing, but compared to the other options (Xenofuel Plant/Xenonursery and Feedsite Hub) it is a bit mee. But the Quest is in my opinion a good example how a Quest should look like. +1 Health vs. +1 Energy is not a descision, but +3 Energy and free maintenance allows a lot of monetary freedom in the early game. With the Gardens, a purity player can basically skip Transgenics and Focus on other matters.

Purity Level 4:

Bionics Lab
(+20% Health, +1 Production per Resilin, needs an improved Resilin tile, Quest: +1 Science or +1 Culture)
Another Health Booster and in this case its one, that puts Harmony´s endgame building Progenitor Garden to shame. Same Health bonus, additional Production bonus on a common ressource and no Cost. Of course the Quest isn´t as good, but more Science or Culture is always in demand. The only catch, you need Resilin in the city area to build it. (Hint: If you two cities can claim the same Resilin, it belongs to the City that claimed the tile first, either by Culture or Buy.) Purity players should probably able to do one of two things: Either skipping Transgenics for Health Issues or hovering about 0 Health and skipping the later Health Virtues like Magnasanti or Eudemonics.

Gaian Well
(+3 Energy, needs an improved tile of geothermic, Quest: +2 Energy or +1 Production)
Basically a limited second Thorium Reactor. Can only be built near Geothermics. Not bad, but nothing exciting either. Extra Bonus: As its required Tech is Terraforming, which you have to tech anyway as a Purity player, its not hard to tech for.

Purity Level 5:

Purity is the only Affinity, that does not have a level 5 building. I assume one of the buildings has been put into a higher level in the beta-test balancing process.

Purity Level 7:

Terravault
(+15% Culture, Quest: +5% Culture or +5% Science)
Sits on a good position in the Tech Web, comes with two other good buildings, brings a big percentage bonus and the Quest is also good. A bit expensive, but very worthwhile for bigger cities, especially with a Holo Matrix above.

Purity Level 8:

Borehole
(+5 Production, Quest: +5% Production or +5% Energy and no maintenance)
In my opinion the best building Purity has to offer. No ressource-Cost, no requirements, two good Quest options and Production is never useless. Must build as soon as you can get it up in reasonable time.

Lev-Plant
(+4 Production, Cost: 2 Floatstone, Quest: +2 Production or +2 Energy and no maintenance)
Boreholes little, ugly brother. Less Productio, costs Ressources and the Quests are also worse. But is still an option for smaller cities that can´t use the 5% bonus properly or just build both for even more Production.

MANTL
(+3 Science, +10% Science, Cost: 4 Floatstone, Quest: +1 Energy or Science per Affinity level)
One of this building you should really think about where to build it (Hint: Look in your economics tab which of your cities produces the most Science.). The high Ressource Cost prohibits spamming, but you should build at least one for the Quest.

Purity Level 10:

Skycrane
(+15% Production, Cost: 4 Floatstone, Quest: +2 Production from Floatstone or +4 Floatstone one time)
Similar to the MANTL, the Skycrane belongs into the city with the most Production. With this, a Borehole and a Lev-Plant, lategame Purity cities can become production powerhouses. Sadly the Skycrane like the Molecular Forge sits in an awkward spot in the Tech Web, but a detour can be worth it. For example if you want to beef up your Crawler city.

Generally, Purity in contrast to Harmony is back loaded. The first few buildings boost Health and Energy and level 5 has no buildings at all. But from level 7 on all buildings a very worthwhile with a tendency for Production and percentage bonus. The only problem: The buildings are scattered all over the Tech Web. While Gene Garden, Bionics Lab and Gaian Well are all more or less autoincludes, the Terravault lies in the top right, the Borehole in the lower right, the MANTLE at the bottom and Lev-Plant and Skycrane at the lower left side. The Farm upgrades which are tied to Purity can be found upwards. The Exodus Gate and almost all Affinity units (The Lev-Tank is the exception) can be found on the straight left side. If we take the Tech Web as a clock, important purity techs are scattered from about 4 o´clock to 12 o´clock. This supports the lategame feel of Purity compared to Harmony which is basically scattered towards right and upwards (11 to 4 o´clock).

 

[LORD ORION]

After the beacon is built, it seems to always take 30 rounds to win, independant on the energy you sacrifice. I am not fan of that, as a higher energy production should be rewarded. Suitable for tall, production heavy empires.

That's not exactly how to look at it if you do it right.

Once you decide for contact victory, you put your +energy output into the negatives which is easily done with units, academies, biowells and terrascapes.

Then after you activate you should do nothing but produce units as you no longer pay maintenance.

It is nearly impossible to stop a proper contact victory because there will be a zillion units guarding the beacon.

So in effect you are being rewarded for high energy output because as you move towards this victory you can put much more investment in energy draining items, and then once activated you can build unlimited energy draining items.

 

[Nurgle84]

Wait... The Beacon actually sets income to 0? Even if you make -1000 per round? (as long as you can afford the 1000 Energy for activation) Sounds pretty broken to me. Anyway, thanks for this fact, didn´t know.

 

[LORD ORION]

The 2 point affinity buildings are terrible.

Harmony = tied to Xenowell access
Purity = the tech to gain the 2nd affinity point is a leaf tech underneath the building itself
Supremacy = Sure it is not a bad building, but it does nothing to solve the problems you are actually facing.

Generally you'll go Cognition (academies) -> Bionics (biowells) to get the things you do need. +Sci, +Food, +Health... and you do it without gumming up your city queues with more buildings.

As an added bonus, build 1 institute (from Bionics) and unlock a free tech with its quest.

Then you can pick up whatever tech for these buildings in a few turns once you've floored your +output with the more useful techs.

This is an overall terrible design paradigm.

 

[wayneb64]

The Beacon should really turn off if you go negative energy. It's very broken in it's current state. It should require some minimum amount of energy and have a cap on how much it draws, but they probably didn't have time to implement that.

 

[tedeviatings]

Basically a limited second Thorium Reactor. Can only be built near Geothermics. Not bad, but nothing exciting either. Extra Bonus: As its required Tech is Terraforming, which you have to tech anyway as a Purity player, its not hard to tech for.

Extra Malus: You also have to tech Geothermal. Which isn't very expensive but still.

In my opinion the best building Purity has to offer. No ressource-Cost, no requirements, two good Quest options and Production is never useless. Must build as soon as you can get it up in reasonable time.

This would be a prime example of "useless for no other reason than techweb placement". Hey building is awesome, don't get me wrong.
But think about it: You can't use it until Purity 8. By the time you get to purity 8 you're right on track for your victory condition, you just need 3 to 4 more affinity techs until 13 and then you can build the gate and end the game. So if you tech Boreholes even though it doesn't help your affinity progress your cities will have more production - but you'll be at affinity 13 later. Best case you shave off 1 turn of the gate because of this building but teching it has definitely taken longer. So in the end you've increased your victory time, which means increased chance of someone else finishing before you. I'd argue you'd rather have less production and finish earlier 100% of the time. Even though the building is awesome the techweb placement is plain fatal.