Feedback for v 27.1

[Delta66]

Pandora 27.1 feedback,

I expected to report sooner but I was delayed by a number of unexpected things.


I. Factions:
I played 2 games on medium maps, with hard AI. One with the Imperium the other with the Togra University.

With the Imperium I played a combat oriented game and had good success. With the University I focused on development and research. I tried to limit my production of military units to the minimum for defense. I fared very well in the early part of the game, and discovered much more ruins, especially at sea, than any other faction. I was very happy with my results, and I had a clear lead in technology. Late in the mid game there were only a single AI faction remaining, The Divine Ascension. The problem was, while I focused on development, the Ascension conquered most other factions and ended up with more than 2 thirds of the map. In the end my clear tech advantage and well developed cities were no match for the sheer number of low quality units and average cities of the Ascension.

I don't want to generalize from a few games. But from all the games I have played so far I still strongly believe that a development oriented game is not as efficient as a combat oriented game. I mean it appears better to improve your production and research capacity by capturing already developed enemy cities than trying to optimize your own cities and rely on colonizing empty areas. It takes a long times to build a Colonizer move to a promising territory and build a city. In particular new founded cities are rather inefficient. Unless you researched the Growth operation, however finding this single tech in the tree could prove elusive and doesn't feel a reliable strategy.
Moreover capturing enemy cities is much more painful for the opponent than peacefully developing your owns.

Obviously this is not always so clear cut, as most games actually involve both elements of combat and development. It also depends on the size of the map, as combat feels even more prominent on smaller maps.
However I still feel that I usually have better success with factions having combat bonuses. Considering V 27.1, I rate factions in that order.

1/ Divine Ascension:
It still seems to be the single strongest faction. All its bonuses scream for early attack, and this is a very efficient strategy. The tech penalty is a problem in the long run, but I think that capturing more cities than the opponent can easily makes for it.

2/ The Solar Dinasty, and the Imperium:
Both are also strong factions, The Imperium is a solid all around faction, the little problem I see, is having combat bonuses both on offense and on defense. In most cases, I only really make the most out of the attack bonus. The defense bonus certainly help but often feels underused. The faster healing rate is really helpful. The higher units upkeep is a serious issue, and often limit the size of your army. This is a problem especially in the early game if you wish to have many units while still having 2 or 3 cities. The best way I found to overcome it is to have many cities and I think it is less a problem in the late game when you can build high quality units.

The Solar Dinasty is also very strong. Its production bonus combined with its higher growth rate and a free Former, makes a very effective combo. It also works well to take a lead in the early game, in particular if your can find a production bonus terrain. The pollution is not too much an issue early on, well, you should avoid Fungus areas with the new rules. Later you can buy pollution reduction buildings or expand to balance it over many smaller cities.

3/ The Noxium Consortium and the Togra University.
The Consortium can rush build some units early on with its extra money and purchase discount. This is very useful to discover more ruins or to capture hives to get more money, and buy more units or buildings. However in the midgame or on larger maps I think it is a bit weaker than the previous factions advantages. The -2 habitat penaly, could be a problem early on if you don't find the proper techs in time, especially now that you have less control on cities growth..

In most 4x or civ games, I like to choose factions with a tech advantage, and they usually fare very well vs the AI (it is a bit different in multi player vs blitz strategies). However in Pandora while I had some good success with the Togra I usually find it harder to play than the previous factions. The 50% research bonus is great but the other two advantages are not so good. The morale penalty is a problem early on as it reduces production and also limit your ability to set high taxes rates.
I don't know if it is because of the random tech tree, and the number of “duplicate” techs. But it usually takes a long time to make the most out of your tech advantage. And it is hard to find the right balance between defending vs aggressive enemies and development.

4/ The Terra Salvum:
I think it is clearly the weakest faction. Most advantages aren't useful in the early game, whereas the combat penalty is a real pain from start to finish. As the game focus heavily on combat, and you still cannot have a real diplomacy STRATEGY (and play one opponent against another for example), it really feel very vulnerable to early attacks. If you survive the early game you advantage might be helpful, yet the Alien bonus would be completely useless in the second half of the game. I think they need some extra advantage, maybe one or two ecology oriented free techs, or no pollution from Fungus. On the other hand AI Terra Salvum usually fare pretty well.

II. City growth
Removing the city growth options from the players hands reduce abuse and is fine for me. However in a number of games I didn't find level 2 and level 3 habitat technologies and this was a problem, as I had little way to control overpopulation in major cities. And I did not want to explore possibly lousy parts of the tech tree while I had promising and useful techs available.

I don't know the detail of the migration formula. But, if it is not already the case, consider taking more parameters into accounts for computing migration. In particular if a city is already 5 steps above its population limit, more of its pops should be candidate for migration, than when the same city is only 1 or 2 steps above its limit. I mean in a non linear way. Same in reverse from newly build city with plenty of room to host workers. And maybe also extra food production or extra morale.
Now new cities grow up very slowly from 1 pop to 5 pops.


III.On artillery
Artillery feel right to me, not too strong on its own but a very desirable support weapon. Level 1 is not very strong, especially as we tend to have it late during the first era. However level 3 artillery is very strong and can kill a single enemy unit with low armor in one blow. Planetary bombardments though weak individually, are quite efficient and versatile when you have several of them. They are usually cost effective in the long run, in particular as the AI still stack many units together. Though it has improved a bit in this area and have better troop quality than before.


IV.AI
The AI is a bit lame when attacking hives, many times the AI kill the remaining aliens while it has no extra unit to capture the hive, so I just send a lone unit to capture the loot, thank you. It should rather wait an extra turn and make the final attacks only when it can capture the hive immediately.

Also the AI is weak at cycling back and forth its units for repair, in particular compared to human players.