The Let's Fix Affinity Perks Thread

[GhostSalsa]

With so much out-of-balance in the first BE build (trade routes, quest alternatives, pointless diplomacy, pointless boring stations, and health) it seems trivial to theory-craft about affinity perks right now - which is in itself pretty sad, since affinities is the "blockbuster" new mechanic of the game!

But let's assume the other core stuff is improved later - then the balance between affinities will have a pretty big impact on player enjoyment, if they are not ironed out a bit at the same time. Might as well start now.

Here are some of my complaints/ideas"

Purity 1 perk:
-Uneatable explorers? Why? Exactly what about respecting Earth customs helps my explorers not get eaten by aliens? This makes no sense and allows an important game element - alien nest defense - be totally ignored.

None of the affinities should have this perk. No ability in the game should let you clear nests without a fight - we, the players, want to engage with the features of BE. It's just annoying to have a free pass on the nests so easily available.

What it should be: culture from alien kills, duh. This is a fun mechanic from CiV, and I don't think anyone was saying, "ugh, I hope I never have to use the Aztec UA again." It will give Purity some extra flavor and create interesting synergies between the Might tree, without creating a sense that other affinities are "missing" something. Yield culture at half-of-alien-unit-strength for the level 1 perk, throw the other half onto a later Purity level.

Harmony 1 perk:
As argued in this thread, it doesn't make sense to encourage an affinity called "harmony" to kill native wildlife. A policy called "conservation" in Earth-based-Civ would not grant "furs look extra good on you." Harmony should not want to kill aliens.

Others have also noted that in player perception, this perk will always feel weak because you can't see alien aggression as a numeric figure.

What it should be: Maybe alien nest alerts (perpetual lifeform scanner), including nest clear-alerts which was always missing in CiV. Maybe also three free alien units near capital? Harmony needs a lot of conceptual cleaning up and I'm less certain what should be done with it.

Supremacy 3 perk:
Half-price roads/rails would be good enough. Free roads is just weird.

All level 8 perks:
Yawnnnnnnnn. 4 strategics? This is really just too boring. It's bad enough that the last 2 level perks are also the same between all affinities - but at least with different names.

This is an open spot that should be filled in with something more distinct and interesting for all three affinities. Just some ideas:

Purity 8 - old Earth wonders (e.g. Eiffel) will sometimes (about every 20 turns) appear in city build options, with a notice that your citizens suddenly "yearn" for this reminder of home. As if humans would really go anywhere and not re-build the Eiffel. These could be fairly cheap on hammers with decent (and somewhat random) perks.

Harmony 8 - Reduced operation success from non-Harmony enemy spies (if all your people are running around with alien genes in them, it would be pretty easy to spot an outsider).

Supremacy 8 - Martial law time only 60% of population (half of standard 120%). The easy-courthouse option for Order in BNW was fun to play with without being game-breaking, so an affinity-specific fast-annex perk would work in BE too.

 

[Infiltrator]

Purity 1 - agreed. This is just broken. I agree that culture from aliens is ok, BUT for a later perk, definitely not something for a tier 1 thing or people would end up abusing it along the might tree science per alien kill.

I'd say give explorer an extra move. It's on par with the extra excavation of supremacy and it's not exploitable since the unit sucks on its own.

Harmony 1 - yea, it assumes you're being aggressive from the get-go which is counter-intuitive. Aliens should grow increasingly docile as time passes instead of becoming less aggressive.

Supremacy tier 3 - eh, I think it's alright. Roads are situationally useful depending on what you do and the map type. In some strats/maps the payoff is big but that can be said about a lot of perks. The roads being paid is typically most problematic early on, by the time you get perk 4 it's substantially less so.

Level 8 perks should be +4 AND something else - a bonus from the affinity resource tiles - like +1 production from firaxium, +1 science from well and +1 culture from floating stone things. Your suggestions are great though.

 

[joncnunn]

Agreed with Purity 1.

As to Harmony, I don't think the designers have Harmony being friends with animals approach, but instead had the Humans as the top dog in the natural food chain. (e.g. Grizzly Bears in areas without man, T Rex)

Another way to look at this is that for Harmony the designers took their inspiration from Native Americans instead of PETA.

 

[Chaos Blade]

Also endgame affinity needs to be much higher than 13. perhaps 18?

 

[TheGrumpyBuddha]

Purity 1 - agreed. This is just broken. I agree that culture from aliens is ok, BUT for a later perk, definitely not something for a tier 1 thing or people would end up abusing it along the might tree science per alien kill.

I thought this would be broken (also kind of makes no sense with Purity) but in practice, the aliens rarely attack my explorers, even when my explorers walk up right next to them. If aliens were a bit more hostile as the default, then sure ...

 

[GhostSalsa]

I thought this would be broken (also kind of makes no sense with Purity) but in practice, the aliens rarely attack my explorers, even when my explorers walk up right next to them. If aliens were a bit more hostile as the default, then sure ...

It's mainly relevant WRT nest-clearing. Want to clear a nest when you're purity? Just send an explorer in and keep all your other units far away. Ludicrous.

Actually, a workaround to the same fix is to just bar explorers (and workers) from clearing nests, either by making the tile inaccessible to them or by giving nests a certain level of melee strength (I prefer the first option, even early soldiers have a hard enough time with nests as it is).

But then one has to wonder, why bother having the Purity level 1 perk at all any more, since the main use of it was clearing nests? (and yes, expeditions within two tiles of nests as a less useful/abusable benefit) - so it makes sense to scrap it and put something else in either way.