Why are you limited at 3 species at a time?

[redxlaser15]

Currently have about 18 hours in the game, and have unlocked harpies but not foxes.

Humans are great at farming and get a bonus with ale.
Beavers are great since wood is so important.
Lizards tend to vary a bit more in my experience.
Harpies don't do much early on but are pretty great later.

They each have their own uses and I like diversity, but I can't properly have that diversity when it seems to always be limited to 3 species. Why? It doesn't make much sense to me.

If the goal is to rebuild the Smoldering City, why not be more efficient and take into account the strengths of every species rather than arbitrarily limit each settlement to 3? Why would the Queen do something actively detrimental to progress?
Even if it wasn't functionally useful, I've always been a fan of having multiple intelligent species in a game, but it's not fully embraced here.
From both a game play and lore/storytelling position I don't really get it.

[Nimea]

That's... part of the roguelite experience? Having all species active would just make every playthrough feel more of the same since it'd take away one RNG angle. The interplay between the available blueprints and available species is what makes each playthrough different enough tbh, and not just "all humans go into farms, all dwarves go into wood, etc.".

[rpgfreakiod]

I'm new but felt like adding my bit.

From a story stance you're building an outpost, not a city. Your goal isn't really to do everything, it's to specialize. So for instance lizards will mostly hunt and cook meat, making a hunter outpost. Humans will mostly farm and brew, making a farmer outpost. They both work for the city by making extra in their specialization, and could also trade with each other till the storm comes.

Something I do kind of hope for ( I don't know if it is already in the game ) is that as you build outposts, other outposts come up along with yours. I mean the game does make it sound like you are one of many Viceroys. Or at least the option for them. Like maybe an npc Viceroy will take a land you wanted, forcing you to make an outpost somewhere else, but also expanding the map more from their settlement.

[Oobaneko]

Imho, they need to add sandbox runs, where we can set everything we wanna, including 5 species, huge map, etc.

[el Darkness]

You can unlock Training Expedition in Citadel, I am not sure if it will let you play with all races at once (don't think so) but otherwise you can set the game to be exactly as you want it to.

[waku waku]

I wish it were possible to "reroll" the species the same way, or at least see what the third species is going to be offered to you on a map. I don't know if the caravan upgrade helps see it, but it's frustrating me that you can start with one or two species, but you can't really change the ones you are offered, even before you actually have any of them, no matter what you do.

[Tenebrais]

Originally posted by rpgfreakiod:

Something I do kind of hope for ( I don't know if it is already in the game ) is that as you build outposts, other outposts come up along with yours. I mean the game does make it sound like you are one of many Viceroys. Or at least the option for them. Like maybe an npc Viceroy will take a land you wanted, forcing you to make an outpost somewhere else, but also expanding the map more from their settlement.

This starts happening once you unlock factions!

[redxlaser15]

Originally posted by rpgfreakiod:

I'm new but felt like adding my bit.

From a story stance you're building an outpost, not a city. Your goal isn't really to do everything, it's to specialize. So for instance lizards will mostly hunt and cook meat, making a hunter outpost. Humans will mostly farm and brew, making a farmer outpost. They both work for the city by making extra in their specialization, and could also trade with each other till the storm comes.

Something I do kind of hope for ( I don't know if it is already in the game ) is that as you build outposts, other outposts come up along with yours. I mean the game does make it sound like you are one of many Viceroys. Or at least the option for them. Like maybe an npc Viceroy will take a land you wanted, forcing you to make an outpost somewhere else, but also expanding the map more from their settlement.

If the goal is 'to specialize' like you say, then the species that appear should reflect that, but that's not the case. As an an example: Lizards have one of their focuses around meat (and insects), and on some maps only eggs can be found as a direct resource rather than meat or insects. On the other hand, the same area has good farmland and forageables, which aregreat for humans. To specialize in that location particular, humans would be far superior than lizards, so why exactly did I get lizards? The lizards that I got should've gone to a different viceroy setting up camp in a local with lots of sources of meat for better optimization.
If not diversity, I'd like choice, but that's very limited as well.

[redxlaser15]

Originally posted by Nimea:

That's... part of the roguelite experience? Having all species active would just make every playthrough feel more of the same since it'd take away one RNG angle. The interplay between the available blueprints and available species is what makes each playthrough different enough tbh, and not just "all humans go into farms, all dwarves go into wood, etc.".

This guy really just called a beaver a dwarf.

I suppose you do have a point, but a lot of time it's just frustrating rather than fun since I also can't properly choose what species I get either. As I mentioned in the above comment, you can get a map that humans would be better at but then get lizards instead.

A good thing to note as well as that newcomers are pretty random between the species you have in your settlement. Even if you had all 5 species you'd still need to choose which newcomer group you want between themselves and what they have on them. There still is RNG in there and player choice.

RNG isn't inherently a good thing, and different people have different levels of bad luck they'll tolerate. Games are meant to be fun, so at least having an option somewhere to allow getting all species feels like a good idea to me.

Personally, I'm far more nervous about going to higher difficulties than pioneer right now due to the low player agency in choosing species, since they can matter a lot. I could easily end up with a run that is off so much worse because of the species choose the game gave me, which I have absolutely no control over.

[kory]

Originally posted by redxlaser15:

Originally posted by Nimea:

That's... part of the roguelite experience? Having all species active would just make every playthrough feel more of the same since it'd take away one RNG angle. The interplay between the available blueprints and available species is what makes each playthrough different enough tbh, and not just "all humans go into farms, all dwarves go into wood, etc.".

This guy really just called a beaver a dwarf.

I suppose you do have a point, but a lot of time it's just frustrating rather than fun since I also can't properly choose what species I get either. As I mentioned in the above comment, you can get a map that humans would be better at but then get lizards instead.

A good thing to note as well as that newcomers are pretty random between the species you have in your settlement. Even if you had all 5 species you'd still need to choose which newcomer group you want between themselves and what they have on them. There still is RNG in there and player choice.

RNG isn't inherently a good thing, and different people have different levels of bad luck they'll tolerate. Games are meant to be fun, so at least having an option somewhere to allow getting all species feels like a good idea to me.

Personally, I'm far more nervous about going to higher difficulties than pioneer right now due to the low player agency in choosing species, since they can matter a lot. I could easily end up with a run that is off so much worse because of the species choose the game gave me, which I have absolutely no control over.

The beavers are obviously dwarves.

The major thing about races is that they make each game different, and I think it helps that some games I have to look and see that I am missing humans, so farming might be a bit harder this game. Really though, the races aren't a huge difference, and the effect on farming of having or not having humans is pretty small, it matters, sure, but it is small enough that i would suggest not to worry about it for the most part.

[Noma]

It's a rogue-like, you have to make choices, choices that makes the game more interesting because it means that you have to make do without what you don't have.
It's not a genre where the player is expected to prosper, it's a genre where the player survive against bad odds.

[redxlaser15]

Originally posted by Noma:

It's a rogue-like, you have to make choices, choices that makes the game more interesting because it means that you have to make do without what you don't have.
It's not a genre where the player is expected to prosper, it's a genre where the player survive against bad odds.

Actually, you're supposed to survive against the storm.

Part of my issue with it is that in the context of the story behind the game, wouldn't the Queen want better chances of success? So why arbitrarily have it so that only 3 species can join a settlement when it would be objectively better to allow all of them? And if it's due to settlements supposedly needing to be specialized, then the options given aren't always that great for that task either.

[Nimea]

Ok yeah, I forgot they were beavers, not dwarves lmao. I can't even hide being a speciesist /s

Jokes aside, regarding mismatching species and maps, I'd recommend going on a lower difficulty for that one particular game, or even just straight up trashing that settlement immediately to re-roll the species list. I honestly have more trouble if I'm given bad RNG on cornerstones or blueprints than species, since all species are eventually useful one way or another. Source: Prestige 15+ games.

[Done25]

I do wish we could pick which species are "allowed" into our settlement. Either just a single one (High focus low flex) or all five (wide flex but multiple needs).

[rpgfreakiod]

Been playing a while and I do have to admit sometimes the Queen is kind of nuts. I got an order for mushrooms, then noticed my area I was in did not grow mushrooms at all. So I just bought a bunch from a trader. Is it cheating to send trader bought mushrooms to the city? Well I guess somebody grew them.

Also I really like Lizards in my Human settlement, because in addition to being great at hunting eggs, they really like cooking and smelting. I end up with a little army of Lizard chefs making biscuits and pies for those fat little humans, as well as making jerky and skewers for themselves and any Harpies that join. Or if there are Beavers then I can have the Lizards run the kiln and smelter. Of course it is much nicer for the Lizards to be in a settlement that has natural meat for them to hunt, but they aren't just meat based workers.

One thing I have noticed is when I get Harpies and hope I got good cloth industries to make coats, I either don't get a blueprint to make coats, or my cloth industry is bad, either lacking natural cloth resources or never getting a blueprint that makes cloth. Also it seems like I never get things I need to make Harpies happy, except making them hundreds of pies. I guess it's not about the villagers though, it's about the city and the Queen.

[Samseng Yik]

A true video game about decision making will remind the player
"You cannot have everything, a correct option mean whenever you choose something, you always feel losing something"
Regardless of lore reason or not. limiting 3 races play heavily to favor food, luxury option and their specialization.
You cannot have every specialization

Don't need to bring in queen or lore. We can start challenge all classic RPG games of "only 4 or 6 hero party"
A game need to have certain limitation to control the balance.
As if DOTA why can't we have 65 heroes vs 65 heroes in tournament play