Smuggler Smuggler Den doesn't work against Fremen or Vilnius?

[SpicyCrab]

It seems like since Fremen and Vilnius don't directly harvest spice in cities, the smuggler spice stealing building doesn't work on them?

Feels pretty bad if you are playing a game with Fremen, Vilnius, and one other faction; you can only steal spice from one person rendering the building nearly useless...

Am I missing something?

[Magni]

You can use the station on your own spice harvesting, too. The effective exchange rate for the trafficked spice is 4:1 (without upkeep for the station factored in), higher than anything you can achieve reliably before stacking both the CHOAM Branch building, final CHOAM tech and like 30%+ CHOAM shares.

[SpicyCrab]

I ran some tests on that and it seemd to reduce my overall money production most of the time. I don't think your numbers are right.

[Magni]

Simple math, man.
20% less spice production, for 80% of the production in solari income.

So at 50 production, you lose 10 and gain 40 solari in return, minus IIRC 4 solari for upkeep of the station. That's a 3.6:1 rate, and it only gets better as your spice production in that village increases, because the upkeep cost for the trafficking station remains static.

[SpicyCrab]

Welp, you're right. I must have run my experiment in the very early game where the upkeep cost was high compared to my overall production.

This is big news you learned me something!

I still think it's a little disappointing I can't steal from Fremen or Vilnius though. Considering how hard it is to actually set that situation up anyway, having it not function against 2 of the factions just feels kinda... boring.

[Salty_Johnson]

Try playing as the Fremen... you don't have any voters in the Landsraad unless you spend influence so you get shafted on every vote for the most part. Every faction has something they excel at and a weakness.

[SpicyCrab]

Originally posted by Salty_Johnson:

Try playing as the Fremen... you don't have any voters in the Landsraad unless you spend influence so you get shafted on every vote for the most part. Every faction has something they excel at and a weakness.

The fremen 'weakness' does not uniqely activate against one specific faction. Having your abilities just 'not work' because your opponent is playing a specific faction is the complaint; not that factions have strengths and weaknesses.

Yes, every faction has different strengths and weaknesses. ONLY the smugglers have a marquee ability that simply doesn't function against 20% of the available factions. Has nothing to do with how powerful it is, it's just boring.

It's like if EVERY Corrino city had automatic detectors, rendering Fremen cloaking useless against them. Now Fremen vs Corrino is just ... more boring, Because a fun ability has been removed and replaced with 'nothing.' That would be bad, right?

[Magni]

Some factions being able to mess with the gimmicks of others just comes with an asymetric balance. Ecaz can immensely frustrate the unique expansion methods of Atreides and Corrino through their sanctuaries, Corrino hilariously hardcounters the normal battleplan of late-game Harkonnen armies, Fremen laugh at Ecaz shenanigans with the garden resort and masterpieces as well as Harkonnen putting corruption on proposals because you can't lose Landsraad standing when you never had any to begin with etc.

[SpicyCrab]

Eh, The smuggler 'steal spice' ability is pretty weak overall, very hard to get value out of in general (in regards to stealing from others), and pretty hard to set up. To then ALSO have it simply 'not exist' against 20% of the available factions is frankly just bad design. There's no other way to slice it.

Great game, great game. But I stand by this being a really poor design decision. It's just... BORING. The only thing you mentioned that is somewhat similar is the Landstraad standing Fremen thing which is also kinda lame but considering that the Smuggler Landstraaad ability is ALSO kinda useless 95% of the time (against any faction since giving your opponents copious amounts of solari is ALWAYS bad)... doesn't really make this any better.

It's great to know that I can just steal from myself and get some value that way, since that is what I will be doing 99% of the time anyway.

[Magni]

...Smuggler bounties are a huge thing, just one that can backfire if you overuse it. Calling them useless is a very hot take. Gets even more questionable in the late game with their tech that automatically adds 25% of the Smugglers Landsraad standing as minor house votes to the resolution they out a bounty on. At max standing, that's effectively 125 extra votes you put on that resolution, even before anyone else decides to cash in.

[SpicyCrab]

The minor house bonus is nice but there are very few situations where i want to give ALL of my opponents 8000 solari basically for free.

Its not useless, especially very late game when it can force a win... but my experience has been, most of the time, giving all of my opponents that much money (and unless the vote is absolutely crucial they will usually take it.) is a really tough proposition.

Compared to the fremen landstraad ability which can basically eliminate a player in certain situations, or ecasz ability that closes games often; its definitely on the weaker side.

[hibbidy_jibbidy]

i assumed it was to split votes

[Magni]

Originally posted by SpicyCrab:

Compared to the fremen landstraad ability which can basically eliminate a player in certain situations, or ecasz ability that closes games often; its definitely on the weaker side.

Erm, wut? The Fremen's rebellion is a minor irritant at best. Woop de doo, a couple villages stop production until a small army does a tour through.

Even funnier, it's another thing that is actually extremely hard-countered by another faction: The Baron's gonna laugh in your face and go full "Don't threaten me with a good time!" thinking of all the extra money and manpower he'll get from massacring the rebels. And in any village with an office of order, his militias are gonna do it automatically, too.

[Soho]

Well you're right, the Baron might actually vote FOR the rebellion to happen

I have found that the rebellion mechanic for Fremen works best if you trigger it in certain situations (either through Landsraad or the operation) e.g. if you know that your enemy is mech-heavy with their army and has fuel-consuming buildings... rebellion on one of their fuel village right before you attack can cripple their mech units momentarily (make them go into a fuel deficit). This can be helpful say against an Atreides that is using support drones/Kraken to buff up his army, or a Corrino who went heavy into seige drones

Another use would be to hit a spice producing village right before the spice tax is due, if you know they are cutting it close on paying their spice tax. Missing a tax payment hurts (this works a lot better if you are attacking another spice field with your army at the same time and can perhaps destroy the refinery before they get there in response)

[SpicyCrab]

If youre in a war with fremen and theyy vote through + add the operation that can be 4 or 5 cites rebelling simultaneously.

Your entire economy instantly collapses, your turrets turn off... and then fremen attacks you .. attack you. So you cant just go and put down the rebellions, which often require a pretty decent force esp. If your empire is big and you need to fly around.

Im not sure in what world where this isnt super powerful?

[Magni]

Originally posted by SpicyCrab:

If youre in a war with fremen and theyy vote through + add the operation that can be 4 or 5 cites rebelling simultaneously.

Your entire economy instantly collapses, your turrets turn off... and then fremen attacks you .. attack you. So you cant just go and put down the rebellions, which often require a pretty decent force esp. If your empire is big and you need to fly around.

Im not sure in what world where this isnt super powerful?

Okay, and? You can clean that up nicely unless you're already on the verge of bankruptcy before. Like, a couple rebellions are a nuisance unless you already seriously messed up. And they can't attack rebelling towns, either, so you're free to prioritise as needed. Well they can, it just means they have to fight the rebels, and then fight your militia while the missile battery is online again. And really, a "decent" force? By the time the Fremen can afford to launch rebellion operations even a very small detachment should be able to mulch a couple rebels easily enough. And of course Harkonnen outright loves rebellions in their villages, and Atreides can shut off rebellions via operation.

If you want powerful, look at Corrino or Ecaz's big operations, those can be actual army killers. (And then there's Smugglers being able to just outright block everybody's operations in a territory.)

Fremen rebellions are more bark than bite, their main danger is in being a big flashy distraction.