Slot 3 - Too Early for Crisis Perk

[Journeyman Prime]

Just as it says. From my experience thus far, AP slot 3 is far too early to get the Nemesis Perk. God help you if the one who takes it is a genocidal who is already far ahead of everyone else (except you) in everything. Plus there's the whole thing about it being such an early take for something that is supposedly a late-game event. In my experience this crisis will pop up in the latter part of the early game or the early part of the mid-game. You barely get enough time to become the Imperium before the Crisis Aspirant reaches level 4 and starts murdering everyone. The Crisis Perk should be limited to no earlier than slot 6, ideally slot 7. Its an end-game crisis, not "so-early-nobody-has-even-reached-plasma-weapons Crisis."

Furthermore, putting it so early means the player will be forced to take it themselves if they don't want it showing up in somebody else's AP slots, which can kinda suck if you were just hoping to do a semi-normal run with every other Nemesis feature. I haven't played that many games with Nemesis yet, so if anyone could share their experiences with how often the AI takes the perk, what kind of AI empires are most likely to take it, and let me know whether to just wait for a mod that either limits the Perk to the actual End-Game/removes it entirely or whether its actually rare for the AI to take it just cuz.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Publicado originalmente por MayhemX8:

Like I said it was about early mid-game when it reached the ability to build Menace fleets and started snowballing out of control.

I just noticed that the "menacing" ships that you unlock cost minerals instead of alloys. This is probably the reason that they are snowballing so hard. The developers may need to reconsider that. I get that the idea is that the crisis is supposed to be able to take on the whole galaxy, but when you are buying ships for minerals to fight ships that were paid for with alloys the economy of that becomes crazy - especially when it gets combined with the reduced ship cost for Fanatic Purifiers, Determined Exterminators, or Devouring Swarms.

[Journeyman Prime]

Publicado originalmente por tempest.of.emptiness:

Publicado originalmente por MayhemX8:

Like I said it was about early mid-game when it reached the ability to build Menace fleets and started snowballing out of control.

I just noticed that the "menacing" ships that you unlock cost minerals instead of alloys. This is probably the reason that they are snowballing so hard. The developers may need to reconsider that. I get that the idea is that the crisis is supposed to be able to take on the whole galaxy, but when you are buying ships for minerals to fight ships that were paid for with alloys the economy of that becomes crazy - especially when it gets combined with the reduced ship cost for Fanatic Purifiers, Determined Exterminators, or Devouring Swarms.

Exactly. I think just giving a reduction to ship building cost would work, even if its a significant one.

I mean, it was kinda fun and immersive to become the undisputed leader of the galaxy, only to finally, after breaking the Skynet's code and compromising their systems, find out too late that the Skynet next door is planning to and gearing up to end the galaxy. I can just imagine the creeping terror that crawled up my Spymaster's spine as she read the reports. Endless armadas equipped with the latest weaponry, countless fleets the size of our own spread across 10 billion systems, economic output rivaling the Galactic Economy. It must have been utterly harrowing.

But the end result is not so fun. I was just getting started on my Galactic power trip and I got cut off before I could get rolling.

[Koveras]

Had an ai rogue servitor machine empire take the perk. It is kinda funny if you think about it.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Publicado originalmente por Koveras:

Had an ai rogue servitor machine empire take the perk. It is kinda funny if you think about it.

Rogue Servitors are not allowed to take "Become the Crisis". If that happened in your game then you may have a mod that is malfunctioning.

[Koveras]

I don't use mods. I must have been mistaken. It was a machine empire, but not the determined exterminator nor the vanilla flavour. Mayhaps it was the driven assimilatior.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Publicado originalmente por tempest.of.emptiness:

I just noticed that the "menacing" ships that you unlock cost minerals instead of alloys.

It's even worse than I thought... not only do the menacing ships cost minerals instead of alloys, they *only* cost minerals - meaning they never cost motes/gas/crystals/dark matter even when the parts they use would normally cost those special resources on a regular ship. This is just crazy. I might want to take "Become the Crisis" even when I don't plan to actually complete the process, just for the amount of economic pressure it removes from maintaining a strong fleet.

[Garatgh Deloi]

Publicado originalmente por tempest.of.emptiness:

It's even worse than I thought... not only do the menacing ships cost minerals instead of alloys, they *only* cost minerals - meaning they never cost motes/gas/crystals/dark matter even when the parts they use would normally cost those special resources on a regular ship. This is just crazy. I might want to take "Become the Crisis" even when I don't plan to actually complete the process, just for the amount of economic pressure it removes from maintaining a strong fleet.

Just keep in mind that it seems to have some down sides as well, i had 2 awakened fallen empires declare war at me roughly at the same time and with total war casus belli that meant that i could not surrender without a gameover (i got crushed), i assume that this was because i had taken the "become the crisis" ascension perk since i have never seen anything similar happening before (i was not at the end stage yet btw, i know the whole galaxy is supposed to declare war on you at the last stage).

[RaptorTwitch]

Choosing the Perk doesn't automatically mean that you Become the Crisis. You become the Crisis once you reach menacing Level 5, which automatically dumps you out of the Galactic Community and get declared a permanent total war against all its members. To achieve level 5 it would take you a little less than 200 years of permanent wars and constant Breach of Galactic Law to gather up enough points. Granted becoming the Crisis should be reserved for already steam-rolling empires which would be ok with Slot 4 but Slot 6 or 7 will deny you actually becoming the Crisis before a Crisis happens in a normal game and before it ends.

Again, choosing the Perk doesn't make you the Crisis. Everybody can have the Menacing Ships without actually being the Crisis. For every level you need to research a special Event Chain which you can choose to not research if you don't want to progress in your Menacing Level and thus not become the Crisis.

Yes Level 3 might be a little too early, but Level 6 and 7 are way too late for a normal campaign.

[Dakota]

The AI could use some boost on how they work together to defeat a crisis. Most of the time it doesn't really matter if you are emperor or not as declaring something a crisis does nothing as the AI alone can't stand up to it and they also rarely pool their ships together and actually work as one to defeat something, or even attack from all sides at once, or sometimes even attack at all. All AI also don't tend to be equally powerful anyway, so having the village idiot become the crisis means little, but having that top rank robot empire get boosted up to crisis status is game ending.

[VoiD]

Publicado originalmente por MayhemX8:

Publicado originalmente por tempest.of.emptiness:

I just noticed that the "menacing" ships that you unlock cost minerals instead of alloys. This is probably the reason that they are snowballing so hard. The developers may need to reconsider that. I get that the idea is that the crisis is supposed to be able to take on the whole galaxy, but when you are buying ships for minerals to fight ships that were paid for with alloys the economy of that becomes crazy - especially when it gets combined with the reduced ship cost for Fanatic Purifiers, Determined Exterminators, or Devouring Swarms.

Exactly. I think just giving a reduction to ship building cost would work, even if its a significant one.

I mean, it was kinda fun and immersive to become the undisputed leader of the galaxy, only to finally, after breaking the Skynet's code and compromising their systems, find out too late that the Skynet next door is planning to and gearing up to end the galaxy. I can just imagine the creeping terror that crawled up my Spymaster's spine as she read the reports. Endless armadas equipped with the latest weaponry, countless fleets the size of our own spread across 10 billion systems, economic output rivaling the Galactic Economy. It must have been utterly harrowing.

But the end result is not so fun. I was just getting started on my Galactic power trip and I got cut off before I could get rolling.

Tbh that's pretty great IMO, it's nice to see that the empires that exist in the galaxy can actually become a threat now isn't it?

I've always hated the idea of simply ignoring all the progress, all the history of the galaxy, all the conquests and just spawn random ♥♥♥♥ instead and call it a challenge

[Toppopia]

First time getting past 2280 this patch and I am a life seeded terravore lithoid and decided to become the crisis. Turns out eating worlds counts as destroying them for menace points which is great. But even so it is still a bit of a slog to get menace points, maybe I am eating my neighbours too slow but I have mid game set as 2400 and end year as 2500 (Cant remember how the dates work).

Its the year 2374 and I have 9595 menace points and in a decade or so I will finish consuming 11 planets so will easily reach tier 5. If I didnt consume planets then I would only have 7500 points and so would be another 40+ years away from crisis level 5 at this rate. I dont think it needs to move later in the ascension pool otherwise it will be way too hard to get 10000 points.

[Journeyman Prime]

Publicado originalmente por VoiD:

Publicado originalmente por MayhemX8:

Exactly. I think just giving a reduction to ship building cost would work, even if its a significant one.

I mean, it was kinda fun and immersive to become the undisputed leader of the galaxy, only to finally, after breaking the Skynet's code and compromising their systems, find out too late that the Skynet next door is planning to and gearing up to end the galaxy. I can just imagine the creeping terror that crawled up my Spymaster's spine as she read the reports. Endless armadas equipped with the latest weaponry, countless fleets the size of our own spread across 10 billion systems, economic output rivaling the Galactic Economy. It must have been utterly harrowing.

But the end result is not so fun. I was just getting started on my Galactic power trip and I got cut off before I could get rolling.

Tbh that's pretty great IMO, it's nice to see that the empires that exist in the galaxy can actually become a threat now isn't it?

I've always hated the idea of simply ignoring all the progress, all the history of the galaxy, all the conquests and just spawn random ♥♥♥♥ instead and call it a challenge

I wouldn't mind it if it hadn't happened BEFORE I had reached the techs that give me the toys I like to play with. My ONLY complaint is that it happened too EARLY. Not that it happened at all.

[Journeyman Prime]

Publicado originalmente por Dakota:

The AI could use some boost on how they work together to defeat a crisis. Most of the time it doesn't really matter if you are emperor or not as declaring something a crisis does nothing as the AI alone can't stand up to it and they also rarely pool their ships together and actually work as one to defeat something, or even attack from all sides at once, or sometimes even attack at all. All AI also don't tend to be equally powerful anyway, so having the village idiot become the crisis means little, but having that top rank robot empire get boosted up to crisis status is game ending.

This. I was the only one even trying to fight it. I did quite well alone, but even I couldn't stand up to it by myself for ever. I was fighting an overwhelming enemy.

[Journeyman Prime]

Publicado originalmente por Toppopia:

First time getting past 2280 this patch and I am a life seeded terravore lithoid and decided to become the crisis. Turns out eating worlds counts as destroying them for menace points which is great. But even so it is still a bit of a slog to get menace points, maybe I am eating my neighbours too slow but I have mid game set as 2400 and end year as 2500 (Cant remember how the dates work).

Its the year 2374 and I have 9595 menace points and in a decade or so I will finish consuming 11 planets so will easily reach tier 5. If I didnt consume planets then I would only have 7500 points and so would be another 40+ years away from crisis level 5 at this rate. I dont think it needs to move later in the ascension pool otherwise it will be way too hard to get 10000 points.

The problem is that even when not at max level the perk is still way too powerful. At the very least Menace ships should not be available until Tier 4 or 5.

All I know is that the DE got menace ships by early mid-game and started snowballing TF out of control.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Publicado originalmente por Garatgh Deloi:

Just keep in mind that it seems to have some down sides as well, i had 2 awakened fallen empires declare war at me roughly at the same time and with total war casus belli that meant that i could not surrender without a gameover (i got crushed), i assume that this was because i had taken the "become the crisis" ascension perk since i have never seen anything similar happening before (i was not at the end stage yet btw, i know the whole galaxy is supposed to declare war on you at the last stage).

I believe that you are correct, and I had something similar happen to me in my game. The difference was that one of the fallen empires kept threatening me before either had awakened, and for a while I kept accepting its humiliation penalty as I built up their forces. Eventually both of them threatened me but by then I had a large enough fleet to challenge one and I refused both threats. One attacked me right away, but the other did not, which gave me precious time to wear away on the still-fallen-but-hostile enemy. During that war the other one awakened, but set itself against the nanites and the unbidden, presumably viewing those are greater threats than me even though I was conquering the other FE. After the unbidden were eliminated they attacked me, but I was landing troops on the last planet I needed to force terms, and so the FE was eliminated before any of my fleets had to face off against the AE.

I was very lucky with the timing of that, and it certainly could have gone differently. Also, it is worth noting that I had only progressed to stage III crisis at that point, so their hostility began and culminated in war before I had even become an "existential threat".