Slow game pacing makes the Xenophobic trait super powerful.

[SpinyNerd]

I have noticed that slowing the games pacing or the research pacing seems to work by increasing or reducing your planet's production/science. This appears to stack normally with civilization traits, for example if you have +10% science and the game pacing reduces it by 50% then you would have a net loss of -40% science.

The Xenophobic trait is a very extreme example of how this bias can take effect. It gives +200% to your science and social production, and -50% to your military production. This means that if the game pacing alters science by -50% then a race with the xenophobic trait would effectively start with 250% science, which is more like a x5 modifier than a x3 one. Even on the slowest game pacing possible this will still let you get your first tech in about 4 turns.

I actually think that +200% science as a racial trait is already insanely powerful, but thats a story for another thread.

I would recommend changing the game pacing modifiers to be calculated after all other modifiers to keep the game's balance with different game pacing.

Below is a link to an image shows the difference between the science that the Iconians start with on the top, and the science the Terran Alliance starts with on the bottom, with the slowest possible game pacing.

http://i.imgur.com/WuESwG0.png

[Around999People]

I'm confused on your math. I admit, I suck at it as it is and I'm exhausted but any chance you could rewrite that and clarify it a tad bit more? I'm confused on how cutting research in half makes it go up rather than down.

[SpinyNerd]

Reducing the research speed does make it go down and not up. However, it also makes it go down for all of your opponents as well, and the game calculates how it works in a funny way: The game pacing modifiers have the same priority level as other % based modifiers, and all of the % bonuses are added together for a total modifier and the research amount is only multiplied a single time. This prevents exponential growth from science buildings and starbases and stuff. If you have ten research buildings and each one gives a +10% multiplier and the planet has a base research of 10, then the multiplier would be +100%. This means the effective research would be 20, instead of being approximately 26 if the multipliers were calculated one at a time. (To see what I mean, try multiplying 10 by 1.1, then multiplying the result by 1.1 again, continuing to do that ten times)

What the game does, is it "Adds" all of the multipliers together before calculating your actual research amount. If you have 10 base research, then you should have 10 research. Without a modifier you have 100% research. The game does not include this base 100% in its calculation but you know it has to exist because otherwise you would have 0 science because 0% of 10 is 0.

With normal game pacing, Xenophobic adds a +200% modifier to it. This is added to the base 100% modifier for a total modifier of 300%. So if you have 10 base research and a +200% modifier it would be a total of 30.

But with the slowest game pacing, it is given an additional -50% modifier. If that is the only modifier a race has and they start with 10 base research, there would be a -50% modifier so they would have 5 research.

But when there is both the xenophobic modifier and the game pacing modifier, it would give the race +200 and -50. All of the modifiers are added together, instead of being multiplied in sequence so it is like a single +150% modifier. The race would then have +150% research and would get 25 research.