Will the Adept Blue station be overpowered?

[Gort]

First, what it does:

Adept Blue has established a revolutionary, vertically-integrated laboratory. Their unorthodox process could yield new breakthroughs our scientists might never have considered. Unlocks a random Technology from among those available to you when the Trade Route is complete.

I assume on Normal speed a Trade Route lasts 25 turns, as in Civ 5. Games can easily go on for two hundred turns in Civ 5. If Adept Blue is one of the early stations that spawns near you, you could get eight free technologies from it over the course of the game.

That seems far too good for a random chance.

 

[OldEarthRelic]

There's a whole thread on this already - it's been exhausted to death.

MODERATORS, PLEASE CLOSE THIS THREAD

 

[MadDjinn]

though, technically it was inside another thread, so that makes it harder to find.

but yeah, this was beat to death.

 

[gunnergoz]

though, technically it was inside another thread, so that makes it harder to find.

but yeah, this was beat to death.

Making this the Adept Blue Zombie that Won't Stay Dead thread?

 

[Gort]

though, technically it was inside another thread, so that makes it harder to find.

but yeah, this was beat to death.

Where's the thread?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

That was another thread that got derailed. Instead of closing this thread the discussion could be merged.

 

[leif erikson]

The discussion starts here.

It does get derailed however. Moving parts of it over to here is not really practical.

 

[Metecury]

I think adept blue adds something really interesting to the gameplay, especially in multiplayer.
Imagine this: the station spawns in between you and another player, from then on the first one who manages to establish a trade rout will have to heavily defend both the station and the convoy from the other player. Yes the first player would gain that free tech but would have to dedicate a big chunk of its military to the defence of the station. This would balance things out as the first player would be vulnerable to an attack on his cities by player 2 .


Even in single player similar situations could arise.

 

[omniclast]

Metecury makes a good point that if another player got it, you could kill it without a DoW. So it will probably get killed a lot.

I'm sort of concerned about how the whole 'only one player can trade with a station' mechanic will work. If more than one player could access Adept Blue -- if there was some kind of competition for it -- it would be less OP because the free techs would be spread around. But as is, you find it, and then get 8 free techs over the course of the game. Same goes for all the other stations -- you find it first, you get the bonus for the whole game, unless someone kills it.

I'd rather see some way to hijack stations from other players, to make them a more fluid mechanic. Then the choice to level them up would be a bit more fraught because there might be lurkers out there waiting to flip your stations...

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Hasn't "one player" been changed (if it was the rule and not a misunderstanding) ? Lately all I've heard/read was "only one city per colony" which I understand as every player can only have one route with each station.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I think adept blue adds something really interesting to the gameplay, especially in multiplayer.
Imagine this: the station spawns in between you and another player, from then on the first one who manages to establish a trade rout will have to heavily defend both the station and the convoy from the other player. Yes the first player would gain that free tech but would have to dedicate a big chunk of its military to the defence of the station. This would balance things out as the first player would be vulnerable to an attack on his cities by player 2 .


Even in single player similar situations could arise.

Both of them can trade with it. (Stations can trade with multipile civs)

Ways to balance it (if necessary)
1. It choses from the X cheapest techs
2. It has 3 tiers...Tier 1 (and 2?) do nothing, the others give free techs.

 

[omniclast]

Do you guys know the source for multiple civs trading with one station? I just checked and both Well of Souls and the CF sticky still say it's only one Faction per station...

Edit: Nevermind, WoS does have it, it just notes there has been conflicting information given.

 

[gunnergoz]

Letting more than one faction trade with Adept Blue takes the air out of the OP balloon, if you ask me.

 

[Karl0413]

Nah, it's not overpowered. Because if I see another faction trading with the station I will simply blast said station off the map.

 

[Galgus]

I think adept blue adds something really interesting to the gameplay, especially in multiplayer.
Imagine this: the station spawns in between you and another player, from then on the first one who manages to establish a trade rout will have to heavily defend both the station and the convoy from the other player. Yes the first player would gain that free tech but would have to dedicate a big chunk of its military to the defence of the station. This would balance things out as the first player would be vulnerable to an attack on his cities by player 2 .

Even in single player similar situations could arise.

The key for me is that every station be balanced with each other.

If Adept Blue becomes a standout among stations, it must be nerfed to be in line with them.

 

[Gort]

Letting more than one faction trade with Adept Blue takes the air out of the OP balloon, if you ask me.

Well, trade routes have limited range, and presumably can't go through territory you don't have open borders with. If you're far away from Adept Blue or not able to reach it you won't be able to trade with it and it'll only give its bonuses to the two or so nearby players, which still isn't great if "get eight free techs throughout the game" is as good as it sounds. You are right, though, it's better than one player locking it down from turn 20 and running away with the game.

However, if the tech it gives you is truly random, you can engineer it to give you more expensive techs by researching the cheap ones yourself.

I'm quite interested in MadDjinn's thoughts on it. That other thread was a bit tricky to read because the discussion was scattered in amongst other topics - have you found Adept Blue to be a particularly good station?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well, trade routes have limited range, and presumably can't go through territory you don't have open borders with. If you're far away from Adept Blue or not able to reach it you won't be able to trade with it and it'll only give its bonuses to the two or so nearby players, which still isn't great if "get eight free techs throughout the game" is as good as it sounds. You are right, though, it's better than one player locking it down from turn 20 and running away with the game.

However, if the tech it gives you is truly random, you can engineer it to give you more expensive techs by researching the cheap ones yourself.

I'm not sure trade routes have limited range. I think they may only be limited by barriers (miasma, unseen terrain, enemy/nonopen borders territory)

 

[gunnergoz]

The key for me is that every station be balanced with each other.

If Adept Blue becomes a standout among stations, it must be nerfed to be in line with them.

I'm not sure I see the need for each Station to be perfectly in balance with the others. First, it's boring. Second, it isn't "realistic" IMO. Third, you can balance out Stations along a bell curve in their totality...some are really generous, others are relatively stingy. That's just off the top of my head.

I really don't want to see cookie cutter stations where the only difference is minimal between them. Perhaps because of the lack of Natural Wonders in the game, keeping Stations unique adds back a bit of the spice the game lost with no NW.

 

[Gort]

I'm not sure I see the need for each Station to be perfectly in balance with the others. First, it's boring. Second, it isn't "realistic" IMO. Third, you can balance out Stations along a bell curve in their totality...some are really generous, others are relatively stingy. That's just off the top of my head.

I really don't want to see cookie cutter stations where the only difference is minimal between them. Perhaps because of the lack of Natural Wonders in the game, keeping Stations unique adds back a bit of the spice the game lost with no NW.

That's nice and all, it'd just be a shame to see people posting in the "how do I get lots of science" threads post-release that the best way is to replay the first 20 turns of the game until Adept Blue spawns near to you, or people switching off Stations entirely in multiplayer since they can be either trash or gamebreakingly good.

Not saying that WILL happen, just saying that that's why I'm concerned that Stations should be reasonably balanced with each other. Stations shouldn't have to be overpowered in order to be interesting, if well designed they would be balanced and interesting.

 

[omniclast]

I really don't want to see cookie cutter stations where the only difference is minimal between them. Perhaps because of the lack of Natural Wonders in the game, keeping Stations unique adds back a bit of the spice the game lost with no NW.

I was thinking the stations remind me a lot more of Natural Wonders than City States. And letting multiple Civs trade with them takes away a lot of the imbalance issues of NWs.

Actually the more I think about it, the less it would make sense to have Stations and NWs in the game together (balance wise at least).