What I Would Change About IC?
1. LASERS:
Now I always found lasers to be a fun and interesting part of the game that gave a player the option of being more defensive. However, I do feel that with the current player numbers and family sizes that lasers have simply been priced out of the market, or at least building workable laser traps has been priced out of the market.
I have said this before but I feel that it was much easier in the olden days to build lasers when you had 5 bankers and 4 resource players feeding you. Now however your lucky to have 1 good active banker and 1 good active resources, which kind of makes building lasers past a certain point impossible.
In a basic example we have an attacker with construction science at 80% building bombers where on the flip side we have a banker who is facing 400% OB costs if they want to build their laser trap any further, at which point lasers are stupid prices. In that example the attacker is still getting 80% off his bombers but the banker is paying 400% more for lasers which kills it in smaller families.
Really at this stage it seems lasers are only effective really early round, after which there is simply no point building them because an attacker can afford to build 1,000 times more bombers than you can lasers. That essentially with enough bombers you don’t even need to worry about laser traps because building them is far too expensive.
That to me feels broken, because lets be honest it would cost more to build an intergalactic bomber than it would to build a stable weapon platform laser. Ukraine is a good example and entire flagship taken out with what essentially is a hand held rocket launcher. Basically in my opinion lasers are far too expensive now and yes as stated years ago when you might have 6 bankers throwing money around a family it wasn’t such a problem, now however their priced out which is bad.
My solution for this would simply to be to make lasers about 70% cheaper which would help bring back laser traps and defensive play. Still remembering that if you lower laser costs by 70% the player is still facing normal OB charges anyway, so its still going to get expensive, just not impossible!
2: BANKERS:
Yes in days gone by there might have been 15 players in a family, but now with less players in a family it feels that population banking is broken and CF banking is lacking slightly. That yes in bigger families you might get 3 or 4 bankers, but when you only have 1 then sure it could be a struggle for 1 person to feed the rest of the family.
Maybe I’m wrong but a CF makes 8 gold a tic, but then cost 1 gold upkeep as a building, so essentially is making you 7 gold per tic? Honestly 7 gold coins from an entire factory, in an entire tic, what is this factory making, turds? There are child labor workshops that could make more than 7 gold coins in a tic.
During my initial build I could randomly headbutt the keyboard and still come out making more than 7 gold coins in a tick. I can only assume the cash factories are making some of the most useless products ever, cock flavored lollipops!
Guess the point is that if income from CF’s was raised and something was done about population banking then it would make it more possible for smaller families of 1 or 2 bankers to fund a family. If your in a smaller family then its a really big deal, do you take 1 banker and probably be short on cash, or do you take 2 bankers and be short on attack. Yes 1 good banker can run a family but in my opinion it would help if either:
A: CF’s cost less to build.
B: CF’s made more, like 10 or 12.
C: Pop banking was fixed somehow.
The end result being 1 or 2 bankers finding it much easier to run / fund a family. Which in turn means quicker fighting, bigger wars and so on.
3: NAMES:
I don’t like the current “Enable / Disable” race situation and wish we could simply delete the race and that name be added back to the pool.
Personally I think the best policy with race / empire names is that basically if someone isn’t using that name in the current round then you are allowed to use it. I really don’t like it when you create a race and like all the names are taken and it takes you 10 attempts just to find some rubbish name.
Guess its frustrating that loads of names are taken so we often end up with total none sense that doesn’t even fit the theme.
4: RACE POINTS:
I have always been in favor of more custom race points.
However, I guess saying that just sounds greedy or like power playing. Really my main concerns here are more along the lines of:
A: Its impossible to build a decent population banker with the current points, or at least they need more points.
B: Races such as Pax & Qaunt get over double the race points.
C: Hey its been like this for ages isn’t it time for a change.
Personally I don’t think adding 20 race points would be a problem.
However… That doesn’t seem to be a popular fix or idea for some reason, in which case my alternative answer is to leave race points the same but the lower the points for taking droids and tax offices, which might be an easier fix that has the same effect.
I would say with the current race points you can make:
A strong attack race / medium CF banker race / rubbish population banker race.
That actually with the current points you can already make a good strong attack race, in this case if you wanted to help just bankers you would only lower the cost of TO.
That basically it gives you a choice of lowering the cost of both droids and tax offices, or just helping the bankers and lowering TO points cost alone. I would certainly vote for tax offices been less points as this would help both CF and pop bankers a little without adding race points or major changes to the change.
I’m for Tax Office costing less points and think both CF and Pop bankers might agree?
5: VOTING:
I really like the new voting system, well done Pie!
However…
A: Family: Would it be possible to add the stay in family voting option? Perhaps with a cap of 1 meaning if you land in a family you like you can vote stay in family once and then after that back to random.
B: Population: Would it be possible to vote on population growth rate? Potentially thinking that might help bring back pop banking, at least in some rounds.
6: HOME PLANET:
Regarding the home planet I would change:
A: The starting building spaces from 250 to 500.
B: The 5% iron bonus to maybe 50% iron & 50% science bonus.
Sure women have told me not to worry and that size doesn’t matter but in IC terms I think size does matter. In other words if you have 20 players in a family then all getting 250 building spaces and +5% iron kind of works out due to numbers.
Now if you have say 4 players in a family, 1 or 2 of which are going to be bankers anyway then really +5% iron on every starting planet is kind of crap. Yes the 5% iron might have helped a little with 20 players, but with only 1 or 2 res guys in a family its not doing a great deal.
In fairness a players home planet should be like a golden planet of sorts / the best planet they have. That in reality the home planet could have +50% in everything, iron, end, oct, science the entire works and it wouldn’t effect game play massively but it might just speed up SOR a little and make for a few new start strategies.
I mean if your home planet had +50% in everything then imagine the combinations we could try, different starting strategies and so on. I’m all for the home world been buffed up and think it would make for interesting play and speed things up a little.
I do think 1 month is okay for a round, however if we could just speed up the start a little more then perhaps give a bit more time for action and more funds to build with.
I also think it would cool AF if you could rename your home planet. No one would care but it might help with themes and add some comedy value.
7: MAP:
The new map functions are great, again awesome work Pie!
Would be it be possible to add:
A: Expos: A box you can tick to see planets you have expo ships heading to.
B: Attack: A box you tick to see planets you have fleets heading towards.
I mean you can search for everything else now, can search for res planets, can search for unexplored planets, can search for other families all of which get highlighted on map. In which case I thought it would be cool if you had an option to highlight planets you had fleets or expo’s heading towards.
8: RACE WAR:
I think it would be cool if there was a galaxy where each family was 1 on the predefined races. That we have 1 entire family of Pax, 1 entire family of Camaar, 1 entire family of Rev’s and so on.
You could say some races would dominate and you would probably be correct, but so what? Each family would be left with its own unique challenges to face, for example turning a Camaar into a banker, or putting a Rev in attack. Think it would be fun!
9: TRANSPORTS:
I think it would be helpful if we started the round with 10 transports?
How many times have you explored for a banker and asked them to take the planets and they reply by saying “Shit I forgot to build any transports” then you get lumbered with these planets until the next day. Like super hours for transports to build then a banker launching at them which can take hours.
Maybe I’m wrong but I do not see this effecting combat game play very much. Usually there is a delay in offensive actions, but even if there is not what is 10 transports even going to do? The round has just started so there is no way your 10 transports can reach another families core before they have built some lasers.
I basically think if people started with 10 transports then it would make growing a banker a little easier, quicker and provide a fail safe for when people forget. The quicker SOR goes the more fun mid round, more action.
10: FALL OUTS:
Lets be honest a round of IC becomes stupidly long and bad if you land in a family with someone you really don’t like. People get hungry, tired, stressed and make mistakes and tensions sometimes run high between people, which is to be expected at times.
However I feel it would good if there was a way to sort this at SOR. That if 2 players who basically hate each other land in the same family then there should be a quick or easy way to draft one of them back out and let them random again or whatever.
I have rambled on about this before but it does suck when you get an inactive or players who don’t want to be in same family and the only option you have is to wait until the round starts and then kill them off after 48 hours or whatever.
Suppose one option would be to give people 1 free RE-Random. That if they land with a player they really don’t like they can use their 1 free chance at landing in a different family before the round starts.
I also find it odd how certain top players ALWAYS seem to land in the same family!
Just wish there was a way of moving players around a little before SOR so we can move players who don’t get along rather than fall outs and inactivity. I also wish there was a SS family slot in every round so anyone who decides to play a team game SS can just be shoved in a family with his SS buddies.
Don’t get me wrong I have seen SS players kick ass but its not much fun, they never speak, never join in with the family, never fit the family theme. Shame they can’t just get moved to the SS family spot and that player who don’t get on can’t re-random.
OTHER THINGS:
Still think it would be cool to be able to send a small typed message when you send aid to family members.
Kind of wish you could still see who was leading on science. Like you can see who is leading on NW / Size and stuff like that, but not science anymore. I do see the point of that as people would just destroy your scientists if you were leading. However that feels a bit shitty for pop bankers as they can’t hide their populations / planet count ect.
I wish the kill inactive players thing was 24 hours and not 48 hours.
I think permanent NAPS should be taken out of the game as in reality there is no such thing and there should always be a risk of cancelation.
Wish there was a few more iron and science planets and not just a loads of food and oct planets that no one uses and just builds with iron or RC anyway.
I wish there was God planets, so for like every 100 planets there is 1 that is like +500% iron or whatever. So that each round there is like 10 planets kicking around all +500 to a random resource.
I wish finding a defense station wasn’t as easy as just sending 1 fighter.
I think people who refuse to work with the family theme should be publicly melted.
I also think I should get double the resources than everyone else because I need them!
Think about it…
Stayed up until 3am to build planets for family, time for bed.
