Some hot takes after playing "v5" build first time

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BlueAward
Vacuum Dragon
Posts: 646
Joined: Mon Aug 08, 2022 3:15 am

Some hot takes after playing "v5" build first time

#1 Post by BlueAward »

Hi there!

Some feedback/thoughts after playing build 2022-07-26.9439c8d. I know this is a lot of text, perhaps rambling at times... Being succinct is a real struggle! More of a "raw" train of thought, this is, rather than polished feedback. I hope it still has value, though

Background - I first played FreeOrion oh, several years ago. Don't remember the version. I believe it did not have fighters yet, or any AI to speak of. The latter meant I dropped it quickly, being primarily interested in single player gaming, but I did enjoy my short time simming a space civ. I quite liked the supply mechanic, planetary starlane drives, and production and research having the duality of both point cost and turn cost. Some nice unique ideas around!

After many years, I returned to a 0.4.9 build, I think some release candidate at first, and progress I saw was tremendous, and I very much enjoyed hopping on the new learning curve. AI could even be a threat in early game until you learned the ropes, though I guess I ultimately ended up playing galaxies dense with species trying to make the early game harder (though perhaps mid/end game easier?). Not sure how you play it usually on single player. Though once snowball started, there was no stopping it.

More recently, returned once again, to 0.4.10, and remembered some lessons I learned earlier and saw through my old savegames that I have much improved my game against AI, indeed (any breakages in AI due to changes in balance notwithstanding). For example one of weirder revelations was that AI seemed not to go past detection 30 like forever (ever?) so getting 40 stealth early meant challenge stopped

Anyway... I've read the forums a bit and realized there are those test builds with huge changes, and decided to have a taste of that!

I figured I'll try the more default, more sparse galaxy to perhaps let AI - and myself - some room to grow, 6 AIs and me, ring galaxy, other settings default. I may need to replay to have better idea on how average game goes, because I got some OP start, I think. Went with my fav/OP race, Scyliors, and a Temporal Anomaly terran planet was right next to me, and all three organic growth factors right in my little "corner" of the galaxy. Seeing as it is artistic species I could really go wide on the empire regardless of influence point changes and eclipsed AIs quite readily, but I did notice snowballing is rather curbed.

By the way, nice nerf/rebalance of Temporal Anomaly! Previously I could not even fill its research bar fully before finishing the game, seems much better balanced now... Though it was still a HUGE proportion of my research and game would've been a lot different without it from the start.

I felt the biggest breaks on snowballing was change in population related non-focused bonuses, many more things require the focus now. Plus happiness/stability plays much bigger role now in all that. Stellar tomography changed, distributed thought network changed... On top of that, influence points mean you need to put planets off production or research to have influence focus instead, and I have a feeling that without artisan workshops that would be a tremendous debuff to empire growth! I mean even with artisan species and then even some luxuries, you really have much less production or research than you'd have in previous versions. But I suppose that's exactly the intention.

Granted, now it seems impossible to win through Tanscendence. Previously I could win turn 350-ish with Transcendence, having like 7500 research points per turn... Though if I focused more on conquering I think I could conquer the AI (much?) sooner. In other words, conquering the entire galaxy seemed like a better approach already, but transcendce could come along quite nicely as well, thanks to snowball and all. Now it seems only conquering is on the table, if you actually want to push through and finish the game on game terms (though perhaps hitting "end turn", "end turn" is faster in real life time than issuing all the usual orders). I guess I need to curb my need to feel closure and accept I won already and have more of the more fun part i.e. early game

I mentioned luxuries. On that topic. It's really not clear what luxuries are. Capital Markets and Black Markets policies mentioned those but I could not really figure out what those were or find any reference anywhere else! Of course eventually you find something in the galaxy that fits the bill, but you need to pay special attention to put 2+2 together. Some pedia category for "luxury" and each luxury also referencing that it is, in fact, a luxury, in its description, would go a long way.

Also I wonder, by the way, if the growth specials could do a double duty of being also a luxury, or would that be too much. Perhaps too much. Or perhaps it could be balanced that those are luxuries only for some species NOT affected by its growth angle, so they might be useful to your species even if your species is not growing with those. Some robotic decadence, enjoying something that meatbags need for sustenance and you just revel in, that you took it away from them or whatever? Hah, not sure about the fluff. But at least the robotic and lithic growth specials actually do perform double duty of boosting production regardless of species, so why organics do nothing extra? Perhaps something could boost production, something research, and something be a luxury? Like robotic - production, lithic - science, organic - luxury? Or since that each of those is a triad itself, then have a "production" organic, "luxury" organic and "science" organic etc, for a wilder mix. Just spitballing here

Overall I do like those changes very much, the influence mechanics and policies. Real breath of fresh air. Seems there's a bit of fleshing out there to do, policies have a real potential to influence your playstyle a lot, though I have yet to try if something like feudalism works out already. Seems fun idea in theory, not sure about balance yet. In my game I really got addicted to those artisan workshops and that excludes a bit of other approaches, and not sure if I really saw benefits of those other approaches! Especially after dream recursion.. So perhaps those other ways are to go for in earlier game.

Oh, one thing that irked me. You have to put a lot into getting a black hole power generator. Natural black holes seem not to have a lot of planets, so you may need to haul a planet there - additional investment in research and production, or perhaps collapse a red star - also additional investment. And then benefits go only from stability of 20! Okay, so maybe you want to try Hyperspatial Dam instead? Cheaper investment, no luck involved, and it requires (much) lower stability, all that supposedly balanced by a hit to population. Guess I haven't run the numbers if it even makes sense to go for either of those in general (actually a lot of options seem to be of marginal benefit/return of investment, and you seemingly mostly grow by colonization or conquering, no real win in tall empire, you go wide... but that's a separate point and maybe I'm wrong). But here's the irksome part - hyperspatial dam stops working when you have a black hole generator - regardless of your stability! And I think for 12 <= stability < 20 I should still have the benefit of hyperspatial dam if I don't see benefit from black hole generator! Dunno, maybe stability requirement should be the same for those, then that would remove this dissonance, though at the same time stability of 20 seems like a lot to me if you already need so much to make black hole generation running. Then again, maybe that's for late game empires that can afford influence points of enough dream recursion to make it rolling everywhere (but... that then gets balanced by more IP generating planets = less production generating planets, so does it really pay for dream recursion combo into black hole generation everywhere? I guess there are a lot of numbers that I could run to check such things out)

Regarding policies, was a bit of struggle to count all the ways you can unlock the slots, and for example it was also not obvious you need to keep those economic policies on to keep the unlocked slots. Or that you really don't get a slot per universal translator, or military command - those are not stacking benefits. Once you get there it makes sense, though.

The battles have changed a lot! I don't know what was wrong with the combat system previously, but I have faith in your expertise that it is balanced better now. Though I suppose it boosted fighter game a lot, and I never really tried those before! Just now, in the latter part of my game, after getting some Eexaw... I think piloting species with those military policies boosting fighter output... that really seems OP to me, needs more testing on my part probably because I never really used them in past, though.

Emotionally though... the combat changes rub me in the wrong way, but that's purely GUI based unhapiness. For one, pedia entries, especially about organic hulls, were not up to date so it was hard to know upfront what the actual numbers gonna be, particularly with the organic growth. And two, the fleet/ship info used to show damage per round. Admittedly, it was never obvious to check the combat stats and see how the rounds/bouts go, but once I realized there are three rounds etc, I could easily see my damage, enemy shields, and build up some estimate on how the fight is going to go. Now I think I get shown maximum possible theoretical damage over all 4 rounds but my issue with it is actual damage may be vastly lower especially if shields are involved and I have additional mental gymnastics to do to get a better feeling (essentially to first figure out again what's really my damage per round). Dunno perhaps I just need a better heuristics now/more experience with the new system to get this feeling/being too accustomed to the old ways.. and ultimately I tend to go for overwhelming odds anyway so it's not that important to figure out the odds more precisely

I was not convinced if planetary shields and defenses got relevant balance, dunno... they felt less of a threat to me than before but maybe that's just a wrong impression, perpetrated by self defense bonus - previously +1 was not much but still actually a sizeable amount compared to, say, mass driver damage, and now +1 is laughable. But I can understand that +1 is just a token value to prevent troop landings without any sort of siege engine support, it just feels out of place

What else...

Interesting to see that AI goes to detection 50 quite fast, thanks to a policy, so it's not as easy to hide from it, though it still happens eventually, just takes a bit longer. And not so long if you have Laenfa in the mix

Think that's it for now for my hot take. Overall really enjoyed the game and admire this is not just some free-remake but actually a unique project

Okay need to go with another start, maybe another species, and see how that goes. Guess the start really is random, perhaps at least some balance to starting system could be achieved? A game rule to always have a gas giant/asteroid belt and somesuch? Though pure randomness has its charm too... But some kind of "strategic balance" setting could be welcomed, too

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Oberlus
Cosmic Dragon
Posts: 5713
Joined: Mon Apr 10, 2017 4:25 pm

Re: Some hot takes after playing "v5" build first time

#2 Post by Oberlus »

BlueAward wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:38 pm the fleet/ship info used to show damage per round. Admittedly, it was never obvious to check the combat stats and see how the rounds/bouts go, but once I realized there are three rounds etc, I could easily see my damage, enemy shields, and build up some estimate on how the fight is going to go. Now I think I get shown maximum possible theoretical damage over all 4 rounds but my issue with it is actual damage may be vastly lower especially if shields are involved and I have additional mental gymnastics to do to get a better feeling (essentially to first figure out again what's really my damage per round).
Absolutely!
Ophiuchus maybe will fix that whem he finds the time.

Ophiuchus
Programmer
Posts: 3433
Joined: Tue Sep 30, 2014 10:01 am
Location: Wall IV

Re: Some hot takes after playing "v5" build first time

#3 Post by Ophiuchus »

Oberlus wrote: Tue Aug 09, 2022 8:34 am
BlueAward wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 8:38 pm the fleet/ship info used to show damage per round. Admittedly, it was never obvious to check the combat stats and see how the rounds/bouts go, but once I realized there are three rounds etc, I could easily see my damage, enemy shields, and build up some estimate on how the fight is going to go. Now I think I get shown maximum possible theoretical damage over all 4 rounds but my issue with it is actual damage may be vastly lower especially if shields are involved and I have additional mental gymnastics to do to get a better feeling (essentially to first figure out again what's really my damage per round).
Absolutely!
Ophiuchus maybe will fix that whem he finds the time.
yes, it is on the list. the design is ready i think, if somebody beats me to implementing it I won't be angry.
Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

Look, ma... four combat bouts!

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