PAC personality trait upgrades.

[Idleray]

HAhaha that's the joke.


You're spending DC to earn DC, at the rate of about 40-80 turns before you see an ROI

Seriously, I'd like to see the upgrades actually do something worthwhile rather than having the ability to upgrade PACs trait be a trap.
I don't think that it would even be imbalanced to have each wonder provide +1/2/3 to all yields or maybe something more focused like +3/6/10 energy per wonder.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Or nerf the ridiculous free wonders and give a 25/35/50% cost reduction for the first wonder.
Same for Hutama: what he gets now should be what he gets after two trait upgrades.

 

[Idleray]

Nerfing the instant wonders would be a big blow to the fun of playing PAC.

One of the major gripes i had with the game design in original BE was all the "+10%" non-bonuses. They were non-bonuses because they were unexciting in terms of fun and uninteresting game-play wise.

Getting a free instant wonder is awesome and exciting and also creates interesting gameplay decisions without being overpowered (due to the otherwise laughably bad wonders themselves).

If the wonders were legitimately good then I could see PACs trait nerfed this way.


Anyway back on topic, PACs trait is so worthless to upgrade it actually boggles the mind. Since Wonders already give you +5 DC each. It's like upgrading the benefit she gets from this trait by a miniscule miniscule 0.1%.

In the meanwhile, upgrading African Unions trait gives you a legitimately BIG increase in overall trait effectiveness.

Looks like balancing team made a lot of the same oversights where bonuses that don't do anything don't raise issues and so go past QA but the result is an underwhelming sense of lost potential for fun.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Or nerf the ridiculous free wonders and give a 25/35/50% cost reduction for the first wonder.
Same for Hutama: what he gets now should be what he gets after two trait upgrades.

I actually think PAC's ability is very strong but not quite OP, if simply because wonders are not exactly in prime spots on the tech web, usually.

On the other hand, I could very well see a 50/75/100% cost reduction for it. The completely free wonder should be something you earn by investing into your ability, not the level 1 version!

 

[Ryika]

- Rank 1: 1 Instant Wonder per City with max production cost of X, + 1 Diplomatic Capital per Wonder
- Rank 2: 1 Instant Wonder per City with max production cost of Y, + 2 Diplomatic Capital per Wonder
- Rank 3: 1 Instant Wonder per City with max production cost of Z, + 3 Diplomatic Capital per Wonder

Obviously X < Y < Z

You'd still have the interesting Trait, now have an incentive to upgrade and you could even cap Z to not allow the most powerful wonders to be insta-built if that's a concern.

Diplomatic Capital Bonuses are an optional consideration, still don't quite know where to put PAC strength-wise.

 

[Barathor]

- Rank 1: 1 Instant Wonder per City with max production cost of X, + 1 Diplomatic Capital per Wonder
- Rank 2: 1 Instant Wonder per City with max production cost of Y, + 2 Diplomatic Capital per Wonder
- Rank 3: 1 Instant Wonder per City with max production cost of Z, + 3 Diplomatic Capital per Wonder

Obviously X < Y < Z

Ooh... very good idea!

Gives some incentive to upgrade it.

 

[Red Menace]

yeah I was wondering why they even bothered with the stupidly small increase, is General Longname's ability still a stupid small amount of DC. also what is the African Unions Upgrade like?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

If the wonders were legitimately good then I could see PACs trait nerfed this way.

Some are, and that makes the ability even more unbalanced. If all wonders were either useless or good, the other players wouldn't necesarily lose out on much. But the way it is now PAC can instantly get every single wonder that's really worth having.

 

[Evgenij]

Some are, and that makes the ability even more unbalanced. If all wonders were either useless or good, the other players wouldn't necesarily lose out on much. But the way it is now PAC can instantly get every single wonder that's really worth having.

It would still require doing research first. For example:

There are 2 great wonder that you can get in early game: Panopticum (+1 visibility) and Gene Vault (free worker for new cities).

If you play PAC and focus on Gene Vault, and player X (non-PAC) focus on Panopticum - then by the time you both get your research done you can build Gene Vault in 1 turn, and player X can build Panopticum in 10-30 turns (depending on game speed). Can you catch up in those 10-30 turns and do required research for Panopticon? I doubt it.

So, PAC ability is limited by your research speed. What it does allow you is to get wonders in your tech-tree direction earlier than anyone else. Players that focused on other directions would still get their wonders.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

It would still require doing research first. For example:

There are 2 great wonder that you can get in early game: Panopticum (+1 visibility) and Gene Vault (free worker for new cities).

On a side note, it's funny: I though this wonder to be very bad: at the time you got it, you have all cities up and you won't benefit from the free workers.
BUT
It work when you conquer cities for some reasons.... So getting a city, letting AI recapture and so on can grant you loads of free workers

 

[nimling]

Instant wonders are dumb.