SephiRok wrote:Population (20 credits per pop), buildings (25% of purchase cost) and units (25% of purchase cost). In the next patch accumulated credits as well.
Haa, must have been the units. The AIs (all of them) had swarms of units. They also had many tall cities. Everybody was friends, so, no wars, a zillion of units laying around. I was playing on Huge, so... with much less breathing room (space for expansion) it could have been a totally different story. My 92 population empire should have been enough in a small/medium map. By the way, in the end, all continents were authentic carpets of doom (which shouldn't be, because of stacks, right?). Here's one shot:
fortydayweekend wrote:adamsolo wrote:SephiRok wrote:So, my attempts to rush an Economic victory so far have been unsuccessful. If you let the AIs develop you'll have a very hard time going for an Economic victory, at least on Hard, Huge. I only had 5 cities though
Mine have been on Hard, Small. So probably a different scenario than on Huge. But I had 8-10 cities! Could be that 5 cities on Huge isn't enough? How did you compare on Economic rating vs. the other factions during the game? I haven't tried to win from being far behind, just 3-dots to their 4 (and about 80% when looking on the graph at the end).
Ahh, the small vs huge map thing helps explain it, at least partially. I mean, if you had 10 cities in a small map it should have been much easier to go Economic, yes. I had only 5 cities on Huge for a total of 92 population, so the AIs had much more cities than me (and buildings), and had swarms of units. The thing is, I decided to go tall (bigger fewer cities), but having more cities should give you much more pop growth, and, more taxes, so part is that.
I was always 2 to 3 circles tops in Economy. So, perhaps my strategy to go tall is the wrong one if you're going for an Economic victory, especially on Huge. Thinking about it, it IS the wrong strategy, since Noxium has the habitat malus after all. More medium sized cities developing with a couple food powerhouses should do the trick.
So, in conclusion, I feel that building wealth may be slightly overpowered for an Economic victory due to what other players are reporting. But, I suspect that it largely depends on the map size (smaller maps should be much easier), and more importantly, also seems to depend on how focused you are in going after that specific victory condition since the beginning (on how obsessed you are with it, like stress testing the game). I mean, I don't usually play my games thinking in which victory path I will pursue in advance. So, perhaps more evidence of this unbalance is required? I'm not against tweaking the wealth generation, but think about it, Noxium largely depends on that, and, after 4 games (3 complete with two going after an Economic victory large/huge/high in mid-late game) I didn't feel wealth generation to be overpowered. I feel that it gives you flexibility, and as long as it's not too exploitable I would prefer for it to remain that way.
So, I advise the devs to gather more feedback and to give it more time before they tweak wealth generation. It may be the case that it's not the wealth generation per se that is wrong, but the Economic victory condition itself. Sometimes, a feature may be considered unbalanced and exploitative if you concentrate on it too much but perhaps 95% of the players will never notice it. The danger is that by tweaking wealth generation you may have a bad impact on other areas of the game. Namely retrofit and units/buildings rushing, which I feel are about right.
If map size proves to be the issue, then perhaps the Economic victory condition should be the thing to change. Perhaps military strength's weight should be toned down heavily and more weight should be put on population amount, production potential, facilities, morale, pollution, and accumulated credits (the real economy). Example: You could have a huge army, a huge population and all the resources and production facilities, but you could be swimming in pollution and your workforce could be so demoralized and ill-trained that you wouldn't really have a strong economy at all. Thinking about it, research could be a factor for a strong economy too.
Well, just my impressions on the matter. What do you guys think?
Where do I find the button to do that?
And, please add a production queue re-ordering function (is that planned to come soon?).
