First I was wrong. Government Centers (and later parliament/Empire) are a very big deal, not for production but for research, w/ the improvements to morale being incidental (for early / mid game). Morale becomes much more important as your empire grows in size.
Second this means that an empire that can keep itself very compact early on (read this as find multi planet system cluster close together w/ huge mineral concentrations) become the empires to watch out for. All this works only helps till about Level 4 tech. The penalties from base pop & tech pop become such that size of your empire matters less (just don't get too spread out w/ a pop of over 1.5Mill. Failure to do so will result in large penalties to tech; say an extra 3 to 4 hundred.).
Cyborg w/ their abridged tech tree are still heavily impacted, because lateral research is now the way to go, while vertical research is heavily punished. Bionics lose quite a bit of their efficiency so keeping pop down to increase tech research becomes very hard at about level 4 to 5. Both species will struggle. Cyborg can compensate by making friends w/ research pacts, Bio can do the same but does better by utilizing their efficient ship design capabilities, as well as efficient support structures, while working w/ mediocre research / industry.
Humans seem to be the exception to this. I am getting ready to start a single player session. will script it up and run it about 150 days (in a 72 hour window). But what little I have seen so far indicates the Lab complex & Orbital lab complex are now very timely. Where before in the game Humans would run away w/ tech in a sprint to complete the tech tree, they are now reduced to a jog; while the other species are reduced to a crawl.
Buildings that are quickly assembled and then complete over a 3 to 6 day timeframe, adds an interesting dynamic. and raises a few issues / ideas.
A: when you build on top of a new building you use a fraction of the previous buildings CP (up to half of the old structure & doesn't convert more than 1/2 of new structures CP). Which brings up the fact that a Flak battery built on fresh slot will have more starting CP than one built on top of an outpost or being built on top of most level 3 structures. Is this on purpose? or was the idea to add the CP of the old structure to the starting CP of the new structure?
B: which brings us to a new problem. Namely if you build something and soon after it is built you change it out for another structure that you need now, you will put your entire planet into population collapse. There is no lack of resources, just this building that is haunted w/ a negative population that keeps sucking in the souls of your entire population. The only way to stop it now is to demolish the haunted building or turn it off (which is effectively the same thing); allowing the population to recover.
C. If a deployable flak battery item was added to medium or large hull option at about level 4 / 5 for the cyborgs, this might go a long way to helping them become more competitive late game, if they need it.
D. This also makes Advanced Colony modules more valuable, except for the fact that they are hidden behind 2 layers of Level 6 Tech. I do not see a 9 player game getting more than 1 or maybe 2 techs from Level 6 before the game is done. Which now means level 6 might be useful for 42 player games, but will not see any real use or have any real impact in smaller games. Which also hurts the cyborgs as their best tech options really come in at Level 6. (nanoweb armor, devastator drives, psionic beacon, cool items that improve civ docks & solves energy problems / defense in general.
First I was wrong. Government Centers (and later parliament/Empire) are a very big deal, not for production but for research, w/ the improvements to morale being incidental (for early / mid game). Morale becomes much more important as your empire grows in size.
Second this means that an empire that can keep itself very compact early on (read this as find multi planet system cluster close together w/ huge mineral concentrations) become the empires to watch out for. All this works only helps till about Level 4 tech. The penalties from base pop & tech pop become such that size of your empire matters less (just don't get too spread out w/ a pop of over 1.5Mill. Failure to do so will result in large penalties to tech; say an extra 3 to 4 hundred.).
Cyborg w/ their abridged tech tree are still heavily impacted, because lateral research is now the way to go, while vertical research is heavily punished. Bionics lose quite a bit of their efficiency so keeping pop down to increase tech research becomes very hard at about level 4 to 5. Both species will struggle. Cyborg can compensate by making friends w/ research pacts, Bio can do the same but does better by utilizing their efficient ship design capabilities, as well as efficient support structures, while working w/ mediocre research / industry.
Humans seem to be the exception to this. I am getting ready to start a single player session. will script it up and run it about 150 days (in a 72 hour window). But what little I have seen so far indicates the Lab complex & Orbital lab complex are now very timely. Where before in the game Humans would run away w/ tech in a sprint to complete the tech tree, they are now reduced to a jog; while the other species are reduced to a crawl.
Buildings that are quickly assembled and then complete over a 3 to 6 day timeframe, adds an interesting dynamic. and raises a few issues / ideas.
A: when you build on top of a new building you use a fraction of the previous buildings CP (up to half of the old structure & doesn't convert more than 1/2 of new structures CP). Which brings up the fact that a Flak battery built on fresh slot will have more starting CP than one built on top of an outpost or being built on top of most level 3 structures. Is this on purpose? or was the idea to add the CP of the old structure to the starting CP of the new structure?
B: which brings us to a new problem. Namely if you build something and soon after it is built you change it out for another structure that you need now, you will put your entire planet into population collapse. There is no lack of resources, just this building that is haunted w/ a negative population that keeps sucking in the souls of your entire population. The only way to stop it now is to demolish the haunted building or turn it off (which is effectively the same thing); allowing the population to recover.
C. If a deployable flak battery item was added to medium or large hull option at about level 4 / 5 for the cyborgs, this might go a long way to helping them become more competitive late game, if they need it.
D. This also makes Advanced Colony modules more valuable, except for the fact that they are hidden behind 2 layers of Level 6 Tech. I do not see a 9 player game getting more than 1 or maybe 2 techs from Level 6 before the game is done. Which now means level 6 might be useful for 42 player games, but will not see any real use or have any real impact in smaller games. Which also hurts the cyborgs as their best tech options really come in at Level 6. (nanoweb armor, devastator drives, psionic beacon, cool items that improve civ docks & solves energy problems / defense in general.