Good idea !
Very good idea !
Twenty turns later is a big difference, and leaves the enemy a chance to prepare for it (or kill them before they grow, or even capture the nest).
Also it was mentioned a reduction of maturation probability at older stage - so a player would have larval krakens (nearly unusable except in very early game), young krakens (usable, maybe 80% of current Krakens, but not very strong), a lot less Mature Krakens (3 times the structure of nowadays Krakens, so efficient in combat, but not overwhelming), and a lot less Great Krakens.
So, with the reduced probability for maturation (and maybe a longer delay), the player would have to choose to use the krakens and mature krakens, or to let them frolic on a Gas Giant for later use - a real strategic conundrum, so good for the game.
Oberlus wrote: ↑Fri Oct 07, 2022 12:49 pm I think best option is make them grow slower. I think of changing the maturing effect so that instead of jumping from "max health of this stage" to "max health of next stage", the new stage departs from the health of the previous stage and grows from there each turn (much like the target health of living organic ships increases over time).
That way, getting an early kraken is not that bad: it still needs lots of time to become the huge monster it can be.
Interesting, but not "departs from the health of the previous stage" ; maybe from twice the last stage, both to make maturation a real (and immediate) boon for the player, and to keep with the "chrysalid-style" fluff.
Didn't think of that, but you're right.
Remember that if we were not in a fixed team setting, none of these Nests would have been in uncontested territory.
Settling a Nest and then having to defend it (with the risk that the opponent just captures it with a low-cost troop ship) is not a trivial investment, and requires more skill than luck.
So, Monsters are not that unbalanced after all.
Interesting, but I have a better idea : this decline happens only when multiple mature Monsters of the same type are in the same system.
The formula for each monster being like : p = (c+kt)*n
With p the probability of decline, c an initial constant (like 0,01), t the age of the monster, k another game constant (like 0,001) and n the numbers of monsters in the same system.
The basic idea was to forbid monsters to be in the same system since one Great Kraken is not uncounterable and as such not really unbalancing (it's a great help in a fight, yes, but that's what it's supposed to be), while it's true that when we get 7 Great Krakens it will be very difficult for Oberlus to defend.
Also, forcing the player to disperse the Monsters he would get will make the game very much more strategic and open a lot of manoeuvring, both for Monster fleets and for those trying to counter them.
But restricting the manoeuvres to situations where no Monster would even cross each other's path would be bad for the game (forbidding coordinated attack, for example); making it possible but costly (incurring the risk of losing a Monster to decline) is way better.
It also works well with the slow Structure growth : the more you let a Monster grow the more it is likely to decline if you combine him with other monsters.
Note that letting monsters mature after larval stage (larval stage being immune to decline, both for balance and fluff reasons) would also be trickier : if one needs to separate them on different systems, it means putting some of them either far away from the frontline (so a long time for them to reach it once matured) or exposed to enemy pre-emptive strike.
It also allows "tamer" Species to bypass this restriction : good tamers would have that risk only with more than two monsters on the same system, great tamers only with more than three.
So a real power, and a different gameplay.
Good for owned (incites to use them before they grow too old, so a more dynamic game), bad for unowned imho (we want unowned monsters to be a growing threat when the player doesn't address it).
So my proposition above works for differentiating the two...
Indeed, it was. So please do.