Mercenaries 1.6 General Thoughts

They finally put some effort into map generation?  Thank freaking god.  GalCiv3 maps have always had terrible map gen.  And I think it turns a lot of people off to get 200 turns in only to realize that they were screwed from the get-go.

Thanks for the feedback!  We did adjust the map generation settings and are pleased that they are to your liking.  

I'll chime in after more than several hours playing. I am playing on a large map with my custom race vs 7 random Incredible AI's. I chose malevolent and don't play passively.

1) I've posted in another thread the the Mal. trait Eager no longer works. You no longer get a moral boost of 1 per planet conquered after choosing this trait. This should be an easy fix.

2) I've read that the number of precursor planets has been halved. I'd say that's about right and proper balance. 

3) However, I fear that the number of precursor relics has also been reduced. IMO, this things were nerfed enough already. In my 1.5 game (I adjust settings to get quite a few precursor relics) I found 7 of them, but here with over 60% explored I've only seen 1.

4) I see hot keys for starbase stuff but it would be SO nice to have some for planetary structures. ie at the start of the game, I'd like to put my cursor on a tile, click a hot key to build a factory and click another hot key to buy it. This would speed up play and result in less mousing around.

5) Mercs! A fun idea indeed, but IMO most of them cost a bit too much. I'd think that 75% of current cost is about right along with a reduction of some of the resources needed.

6) Coercion penalties have increased considerably. Personally, I think by too much, maybe lots too much. For example, near the start of the game, I am getting slightly more production out of my ship yard by having the slider near the middle rather than forcing it all to manufacturing! Is this what the dev's intend?

Less important items but worth consideration follow:

7) The "You are trading with an infidel" diplo hit should be reworked. As it stands you always get this hit with any race who's ideology is different from the one you make the trade route with. I doubt that this is intended. It makes sense to only get the negative from races of your OWN ideology if you trade with other ideologies. 

8) It seems kind of silly that when Snathi are in the game as a major race, to also have them as a minor race. 

In summary, this X-pack is a step in the right direction towards making GC3 and even better game than the already superb GC2 is. Yes, I've been a critic of some of the things done so far in GC3, IMHO due to needing more beta testing, but I will happily point out that it took quite a while for GC2 to get everything just about right.

Looking forward to more.... neilkaz ..

  Agreed, at a global 45/45/10 when I choose a production focus I get -20% coercion penalty.  I get -1% at 10% econ, so I need it set at 11%, which is messy.  It would appear that even at 33/33/33 the use of a focus would cause coercion penalties. 

I think the coercion is fine. Research r chnologies to overcome it. 

Additional thoughts.

Free Trade Agreement has been morphed.  This is now allowing trade for up to 5 trade resources, which is way over powered, especially being that I'm essentially getting all these trade resources for free and they stack.  I thought before you could get too many for them at 2.  Either that or trade resources are now given like table scraps.

A few thoughts myself.

Agree that amphibious is too weak.

I also found that the merc called "The Final Breath" which is meant to terraform a dead world to lvl 16 currently does not seem to work. 

Also- perhaps it is time to change the pirate's logo. It is just the Torian logo upside down? 

Other then that I am really loving the new races- the campaign, while still only a single map, was a lot of fun too. Makes me hope/wish the Korx will come back as a major themselves in a DLC soon. I mean, A) they look really great- They must be making a ton of money from the market.. surely enough to get back on their feet before the next expansion comes round.

I just purchased this Mercenary ship as well.  There is no way to activate this ship, one is unable to lock into orbit on a dead planet and no way to really activate it or lock on to a dead world either.  Hopefully this remains though and works as I love the idea.

Other than that, it now appears I can upgrade mercenary ships just as if they were my own ships.  I dislike this, I think one should be able to upgrade them, just not as easy as they would their own.  Such as upgrade through the Bazaar only or something...

We have fixed "Final Breath" internally.  Thanks for the report.  

Good to hear that you've fixed this!

Now please fix the new bug that the Eager trait in Malevolent no longer provides any moral bonus! (Yes, I sound like a broken record requesting this bug repair)

thx .. neilkaz ..

   I'm having fun with Amphibious, but I also think it is too weak.  The only good part about it, other than boosted homeworlds, is when I find another Aquatic planet, esp one near my homeworld.  It is a trait that benefits you an average of 6 times in a game - 2 home worlds, one more aquatic planet (depending) and 3 additional tiles.

   Isn't there a Malevolent trait that grants you 1 more tile on your first 5 planets?  5 is more than 3, even if you can choose the 3, so that is less than impressive.

   By contrast, many other traits benefit you repeatedly.  Every new colony, or every time you assign a planet to a shipyard, or every starbase, or every battle, or every colony invaded.  I can buy 3 more colony ships with Wealthy, and I get money flow in the early game as well.

   I'd like to see amphibious grant a free aquatic terraform on every planet, like the Altarians get, or the benevolent trait.  To make it distinct, limit it to tiles BELOW a certain level of soil quality, and prohibit its use on barren, toxic, and irradiated planets.  But give them 3 extra plots, one per age, on aquatic planets (don't want to waste the art).  I think I'd rather have 3 more plots per aquatic planet than +25% per aquatic planet.

Let me add to my original thoughts now that I've ventured more into the game.

Mercenaries

• They seem to be early to middle game extra's.
• While there are some great things here, one can obtain all of them relatively quickly into the game.
• Once a player has all of them or the game has distributed them to all of the player then what?
• I'm at turn 166 and I have two 3rds of them all purchased.
• Have a way to continue to use these later in the game.
• Have new ones spawn beyond the 3 categories already in place larger hulls, more weapons, more planet opportunites ect...
• There is a Mercenary colony ship to colonize level 1 extreme worlds maybe add another for level 2 extreme worlds?
• AI is slow to utilize the Mercenaries.
• This is going to need to be changed going forward or this will make the game very lopsided to the human.
• AI should grab as needed especially if at war and need protection ect...
• With 80 players in the game I as a human should struggle to get a handful in any game especially if playing above normal difficulty.

I play in large galaxies, vs 7 random incredible AI and don't play nice with the AI. ie no Alliance Victories for me. I find an AI or two and attack and in general keep attacking.

One game, I decided to guard 3 planets from Iconian colony ships and DOW'ed them and destroyed some ships. Soon they bought two Mercs and were chasing around and destroying (not enough movement to escape) my scouts and the rather weak ships one gets early from graveyards. 

Another game, I found a precursor relic between me and the Drengin. When I checked back a dozen turns later as I'd mustered up enough fire power and shielding to go after it, I found a Drengin Merc near where it used to be. I think they may have hired a Merc to help out with it.

However, in this ongoing game, as I quickly crush the Iconians who weren't really ready for war, I noted that their Merc was a ship that can colonize harsh worlds.

OK so at least playing Incredible, my experience shows that the AI merc use isn't hopeless, but could be better. I suspect the devs can improve it with some time.

When you say slow to use, do you mean that they are slow to hire them or does the AI not use them very well? 

In my current game with around 80 AI all set to Genius, however, the AI only purchased a total of 3 Mercenaries.  I purchased all the rest.  Even with this 2 of the 3 that were purchased by the AI were by the same faction (using the Torian tech tree) and the other was the Torian's themselves.  To me with that many players I has a human should have a harder time obtaining most of them and, this should increase by difficulty.  It should be mostly evenly split at normal difficulty.

I'm currently at turn 188 and all mercenaries are purchased so at this point the Bazaar is completely useless.  I have a few more suggestions...

• Have the number of mercenary ships available adjust depending on number of players in game.
• 1 mercenary type ship available per 10 players.
• No player can obtain more than 1 of the same Mercenary ship type (except if the scavenger trait takes an extra one extra bonus for scavengers).
• Increase the number of mercenary ships available period number of types.
• Increase the cost especially on the later stage ships (more resources)
• Upgrade options on these mercenary ships using the Bazaar especially later in the game (using resources)

I concur with Seilore's observations.  I'm currently on a Huge map with 11 opponents on Godlike and have vastly more mercenaries than all of the AI combined.  For a human player, it's partly a symptom of diplomacy providing lots of disposable cash, while the OP motivation line under Malevolant ideology supports fast expansion.  For the AI, they seem to have the disposable cash given the Godlike bonuses, so prima facie should be more active buying them. 

I'll bring up your observations up with the team.

In my experiance the more AIs you have the less likely one of them will stockpile any cash....  I think the AI does not buy the Mercenaries because they cannot afford them or on the flipside they identify something they need more.


Honestly I think the best thing they can do for the Mercenaries is to change how they work.   Make them"leaders" who can be assigned to a fleet or planet.   as well as ships that can be flat out bought.

Heck you could even make the Bazaar run like a ship yard where some of the designs are not unique so one could buy several of them etc etc etc.