Rising Tide: How do you imagine the hybrid Affinities?

[SupremacyKing2]

I'm more of an "efficiency wannabe", but still:
I personally don't really have a problem with mostly being restricted to "only my affinity techs" - the problem I have is being "restricted" to exactly the affinity techs that I need for my victory condition.

I am not trying to be difficult but I don't get what you are saying. Except for the tech for the warp gate (purity or supremacy gate) and the tech to get the laser com sat, you can pick any affinity techs you want as long as you get to level 13. So, I am not sure how the player is restricted to only the affinity techs necessary for the victory condition. There are lots of different combos of affinity techs that the player can get that will get level 13. Plus, the player might get a progenitor ruin(s) or an affinity quest that will help them towards level 13, so they will need less affinity techs.

Do you mean that if you are beelining for victory that you only need enough affinity techs to get to 13 and after that, there is no incentive for getting more affinity techs?

 

[Ryika]

I am not trying to be difficult but I don't get what you are saying. Except for the tech for the warp gate (purity or supremacy gate) and the tech to get the laser com sat, you can pick any affinity techs you want as long as you get to level 13. So, I am not sure how the player is restricted to only the affinity techs necessary for the victory condition. There are lots of different combos of affinity techs that the player can get that will get level 13.

Exodus Gate forces you to go west -> Affinity Techs on the (outer rings of the) other side of the tech tree are dead.
Harmony requires 3 specific techs that with Affinity Techs in their proximity, which overall almost give you all the "lategame"-affinity tech that you need (Especially combined with Might and/or Memetwork).
Supremacy is probably the least affected by this, but still... don't see a way to work techs like Alien Materials, Geoscaping, Protogenetics and Euthenics into a quick victory path. The Main Techs you need beforehand don't have anything useful, so taking the victory techs that are closer to stuff that you want to research anyway (because the techs are actually strong or on the way towards the gate) saves you a lot of time, or, to turn it around, picking Affinity Techs that are far off the "optimal" path is a time investment that has no benefit.

Plus, the player might get a progenitor ruin(s) or an affinity quest that will help them towards level 13, so they will need less affinity techs.

Well, the way I see it getting free Affinity Levels even increases the problem. The more I can skip, the more I am "forced" to focus on affinity techs that lie on the path towards the "core" techs I need and the victory techs.

Do you mean that if you are beelining for victory that you only need enough affinity techs to get to 13 and after that, there is no incentive for getting more affinity techs?

Well, yes. Once you reach Affinity 13 the game is pretty much already won if you played correctly. 10 turns or so until the wonder is built, a while after that the game ends. If you fear the AI could still become a problem in that phase, then just spamming units in all cities while beelining other random affinity techs that are available just for the unit upgrades is usually the solution.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Exodus Gate forces you to go west -> Affinity Techs on the (outer rings of the) other side of the tech tree are dead.
Harmony requires 3 specific techs that with Affinity Techs in their proximity, which overall almost give you all the "lategame"-affinity tech that you need (Especially combined with Might and/or Memetwork).
Supremacy is probably the least affected by this, but still... don't see a way to work techs like Alien Materials, Geoscaping, Protogenetics and Euthenics into a quick victory path. The Main Techs you need beforehand don't have anything useful, so taking the victory techs that are closer to stuff that you want to research anyway (because the techs are actually strong or on the way towards the gate) saves you a lot of time, or, to turn it around, picking Affinity Techs that are far off the "optimal" path is a time investment that has no benefit.

Maybe we just play the game differently but I frequently need to go off the "direct path" because I am not at level 13 yet and so I need more affinity points. I might go to seismic induction even though it is on the other side of the tech web because I need 2 more levels.

But I also think that this is somewhat by design. Each affinity is a separate ideology so it makes sense that they would lean towards different parts of the tech web. A harmony society is not going to care about what a supremacy society cares about.

Well, yes. Once you reach Affinity 13 the game is pretty much already won if you played correctly. 10 turns or so until the wonder is built, a while after that the game ends. If you fear the AI could still become a problem in that phase, then just spamming units in all cities while beelining other random affinity techs that are available just for the unit upgrades is usually the solution.

Well, I do think they should push back the affinity requirement for the affinity victories so that players would need to go deeper into the affinity level. That would solve the problem of players not even getting to the end game affinity perks or super units because they have already built the gate and are about the win the game.

 

[legalizefreedom]

My thinking was that since hybrid affinity/victory techs would be spread over 2/3 of the web (and a choice of what each one of the thirds would be), there would be a lot more choices while still maintaining a victory path. It would seem to take efficient off of a single path per affinity as it is now.

Well, I do think they should push back the affinity requirement for the affinity victories so that players would need to go deeper into the affinity level. That would solve the problem of players not even getting to the end game affinity perks or super units because they have already built the gate and are about the win the game.

Most certainly! Way back. 18 would be a good spot to test with, but any additional levels would be a plus.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

My thinking was that since hybrid affinity/victory techs would be spread over 2/3 of the web (and a choice of what each one of the thirds would be), there would be a lot more choices while still maintaining a victory path. It would seem to take efficient off of a single path per affinity as it is now.

That looks to me to be sideways to the 'efficiency trap' from Ryika's point, but at least appeasing the overcentralization owing to the affinity military upgrades. Having a single best thing to do seems in the ultimate, unavoidable just from this being a board game with minimal randomness (after initial conditions) and 'transitive mechanics' - there is going to be the most efficient route and whether it beats the runner-up route by ten or by 100 turns, I don't think that changes what will happen when playing to win over your competitors.

You might have some apparent options of what your affinity-development looks like through these options around the web, but the climb to the end will -still- be through one of them. That's if you're lucky - spreading things around might just make people pluck the low-hanging fruit all game, everything could get faster AND more boring.

It's a very complex challenge. But, an imperfect adjustment removing something overcentralizing I would say is worth it. Except the military upgrade rush is not without its skeptics, and I have no more credentials to weigh in on that.

 

[legalizefreedom]

Having a single best thing to do seems in the ultimate, unavoidable just from this being a board game with minimal randomness (after initial conditions) and 'transitive mechanics' - there is going to be the most efficient route and whether it beats the runner-up route by ten or by 100 turns, I don't think that changes what will happen when playing to win over your competitors.

You might have some apparent options of what your affinity-development looks like through these options around the web, but the climb to the end will -still- be through one of them. That's if you're lucky - spreading things around might just make people pluck the low-hanging fruit all game, everything could get faster AND more boring.

So I assume there is currently an optimal affinity on paper and in that sense there will be after the hybrids come in to play. I would also assume the optimal affinity can change when the player is faced with conditions in the game that lend themselves to one of the other affinities, such as getting a couple of free levels from ruins as an extreme example.

Depending on how hybrid affinities are implemented exactly, and if there are several paths that are relatively close, we could end up with the optimal path (on paper) becoming suboptimal with the game conditions. This would potentially cause even optimal players to change paths fairly often.

I know I'm a fool to dream, but this would seem to open things up for most play styles. I say most because I'm sure a great many people will decide what affinity(s) they want to pursue and game conditions be damned.

 

[Ryika]

My thinking summarized is something like this:
- There is currently an optimal path to victory, with some variation
- The opportunity cost for moving away from this path are extremely high, because the game is just too short and the things you get later in the game are just too weak to pay for themselves
- If Hybrid-Affinities are the only thing that is implemented, then that won't really change anything, because the opportunity cost of not directly beelining victory would still be insane.

However, if they change something about the pace of the game, allow to take techs that are not directly geared towards victory because the game is long enough and the tech is strong enough to add enough to the table that the opportunity costs are still there, and it may still not be the "optimal" choice, but the enormous gap in efficiency would get smaller.

So if they do that (and that GDC Video gave me some confidence that they do), then I think your observation is spot-on. But I think by itself it won't really change the core problem.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Yes, tempo is the factor for low-variance optimality. You've said it better.
I watched the GDC postmortem, I don't recall them specifically admitting to pacing issues, just the aesthetic issues.

[/serious]

Considering what affinity is, how is it that player gains experience levels just from finding some artifacts?

"Oh look, a transistor component. CLEARLY WE MUST BECOME ROBOTS."
[serious]

 

[legalizefreedom]

My thinking summarized is something like this:
- There is currently an optimal path to victory, with some variation
- The opportunity cost for moving away from this path are extremely high, because the game is just too short and the things you get later in the game are just too weak to pay for themselves
- If Hybrid-Affinities are the only thing that is implemented, then that won't really change anything, because the opportunity cost of not directly beelining victory would still be insane.

Is there an optimal path per affinity or one total? If three, how far apart are they?

Do you think it is possible hybrid affinities could afford the player an optimal path that arrives at equally optimal splits and offer real choices because the difference in efficiency isn't enough to decide by that alone?

The goal is beelining victory, but what if victory was just as efficient in several directions?

I agree other implementations would need to support it, but can you see the dream happening?

 

[Lord Tirian]

Considering what affinity is, how is it that player gains experience levels just from finding some artifacts?

"Oh look, a transistor component. CLEARLY WE MUST BECOME ROBOTS."

Not really, the way the artefact system was presented is that you trade X artefacts for ever-increasing effects, depending on X. Affinity represents a mix of technological capability and cultural acceptance. If the artefact is something like a progenitor-made cortical stack, I could totally see how such a discovery would a) accelerate research towards mind uploads and b) polarise opinions ("it can be done, we should try, too!" vs "but look where they ended up, it's a dead end!").

On another note, speaking of Eclipse Phase, I feel that the affinities are very thematic but are very vague in places, we need things like "cortical stacks" in the game to add a bit more to the "sci" in "sci-fi" (I don't expect Kim Stanley Robinson levels of hard sci-fi, but it wouldn't hurt the game to add a bit of stylistic "hardness" to it) - something that could especially shine through in the hybrid affinities.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Is there an optimal path per affinity or one total? If three, how far apart are they?

Do you think it is possible hybrid affinities could afford the player an optimal path that arrives at equally optimal splits and offer real choices because the difference in efficiency isn't enough to decide by that alone?

The goal is beelining victory, but what if victory was just as efficient in several directions?

I agree other implementations would need to support it, but can you see the dream happening?

I wasn't asked, but here are my 2 cents on the questions:

Each Affinity has one ideal victory path: The Beeline to Cognition + the best affinity techs in optimal order for your situation. So the early game is similiar but the late game differs somewhat.

Th viability of hybrid affinities depends on how the victory conditions are reworked. If you can build the Mindflower with Harmony 13 OR Harmony 9 + Purity/Supremacy 9, it might open up another 2 potential paths per affinity. It seems quite hard, though, to prevent one of these options from being the default go-to best choise.

To make these different paths really viable, they'd either have to rely on the map situation (ressources, terrain, etc) or they have to offer vastly different playstile (CIV4 cottage economy vs. specialist economy).

 

[Galgus]

I'm surprised that they didn't just make more victory conditions, personally.

 

[DefiantMars]

Going back to talk about units really fast. Based on the Gamecrate interview, it seems to me that the Hybrid affinities will indeed have a fully host of units of its own flavor.

So our hybrid affinities are an answer to that. They're three new affinities that are not really averages, but whole new ideas based on the philosophies of the two that they blend. They have a whole different look, new unique units and new upgrade paths for the base units, so there are a lot of unique new military toys you get with hybrid affinities.

-Will Miller, Gamecrate Interview

Looking at some of their previous statements I assumed that they would but it is nice to have definitive confirmation.

If this is the case, the first question I have is "how will everything fit in the Unit Upgrade interface"? Second, if it cannot fit "will we get a different Unit Upgrade Interface"?

On a more speculative note, what kind of specializations will we see with the Hybrids?

 

[MatThePhat]

I can think of a few ways these hybrids can work out from a theme perspective:

Purity-harmony
Zerg: similar to the supremacy-purity in the sense that it's more about humans using the native life. I'm thinking buildings that are just gigantic alien organs (like the zerg), with specialized broods that serve humanity. Harmony agreed with utilizing what the planet provides, but disagrees with exploiting it. Purity agrees with maintaining human supremacy, but disagrees with the rejection of creating a new earth.

Gattaca: humanity accepts biological engineering in its greatest form, mandating the genes a human is born with to fit a certain role in society. There is no social mobility, as each person is designed for the job they do. Harmony agrees with modifying ourselves to better suit our needs, but disagrees with the idea that we,re sticking to a mostly human template and not wholly transitioning to the alien. Purity agrees with improving the human form, but this divergent specialization is more insect-like than is comfortable.

God-emperor: only the elite are allowed to take on monstrous alien forms and people worship then as gods that control the planets neural network, giving them a hydraulic despotism as they control the resources of the planet the people in this society depend upon for survival. Harmony agrees with how the society lives close to the land and modification of those gods, but they disagree with how humanity is exploiting and controlling the land instead of working with it. Purity agrees with maintaining form and dominating the ecosystem, but allowing this perverse hegemony from monstrosities is to much.

Supremacy- harmony
These are really tough to think of...

 

[SupremacyKing2]

If this is the case, the first question I have is "how will everything fit in the Unit Upgrade interface"? Second, if it cannot fit "will we get a different Unit Upgrade Interface"?

We saw the screenshot of the new unit upgrade screen. So, yes, the game got a new unit upgrade screen so that all the new units would fit.

 

[edingess]

We saw the screenshot of the new unit upgrade screen. So, yes, the game got a new unit upgrade screen so that all the new units would fit.

I do wish there were multiple hybrid tiers for non-unique units though.

 

[Halbbruder]

Supremacy- harmony
These are really tough to think of...

If you've heard of the game half life 2, think of the Combine: humans (in this case, forcibly) mutated [to adapt to planet], but also enhanced with some robotic features. They use robots as weapons (think striders and hunters) but the robots seem to have the attitude of a disciplined hound-like creature. You order them to kill, they go and kill as if they were wild creatures born to just hunt.

A more harmony tilted harmony/supremacy hybrid might consist of aliens with some robotic gadgets like heat-vision sensors to hunt prey, if they don't naturally have such a thing.

The supremacy/harmony infantry unit concept design is also shown and it looks like a super-combine soldier.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Supremacy- harmony
These are really tough to think of...

It could combine genetically enhanced soldiers, immune to miasma, with cybernetic implants as well for increased vision, physically stronger, and networked together.

 

[MatThePhat]

You know, everyone tells me I need to pay half life 2. Here's another reason to!

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Supremacy-Harmony , now that I think I get 'Harmony' (but still find it to be the Evil One), would be... machine bugs, swarm intelligence, and cybertechnology, to contrast with Supremacy's mind-uploading and mind-machine interfaces, and perhaps singularity AI that transcends Humans.
Or something has to be machine bugs. Admit it, you want machine bugs.

Purity-Supremacy has AI servitors, smart technology tools, but the Human is still the locus of control and there's a boundary somewhere to what is not changed.

Purity-Harmony is the believable version of genetic alteration. But man, Harmony as total adaptation.... it's masochistic. It's saying "Let's give up Humanity. We're a mistake." But that's just contradictory. We were part of the world, too. We couldn't fix a mistake of us by denying our existence. Countering any statement with its opposite and no more is... nothing.