Is Pearl stuffs (Building / Equipment / Stockpile) Overpowered?

[indraf]

Recently I got into debate about how pearl stuff are overpowered that it's not good for the game. My stance is Pearl stuffs are alright to be "broken" as it's hard to collect consistent amount of pearls, you don't know how many you'll get, you don't know where and when you can gather them again (until later in the game).

I think the most overpowered pearl mechanic is that you can create LOT of pearl stockpiles FAST (with the winter tech "Pearl Hoarding") and hold them until you research all upgrades to stockpile. Still, I think it's still a matter of decision of spending your pearls in late-game stockpiles or spend them to immediately build powerful pearl building such as Ice Works, Chapel of Auriga, and Intensifiers.

How do you guys feel about pearls mechanic?

[Ruzen]

I think there are much of you dont know about Perls.

-You just have to actively scout to collect or just wait they will gather in one place regardless.
-If you move your mouse to the pearl tile you can see how many are there.
-If you really having hard time try Shifters faction.
-Pearl Items only usefull for winter war(strategy). It's really not OP.

[..]

Never really looked into the pearl stockpiles(or stockpiles in general) until now. When it comes to 600-turn games it's not as bad as the winters in the beginning seldom occur and are short when they do come. For shorter games, it does seem to be kind of a problem, as I don't think the stockpile tech ever scales down, so the 100 industry and 10(or fewer) pearls for 1600 food/industry/science does seem a little too strong. Maybe if the pearl stockpiles weren't affected by the other stockpile tech it would be pretty balanced(maybe even provide +50 or +100 to the stockpile bonus initially as it seems too expensive in pearls otherwise). When it comes to the other pearl tech, it is useful, but I don't find it nearly as strong as the stockpile tech. I think the main issue with it is that it doesn't "compete" with empires with strong economic starts, but rather widens the lead.

All of the other pearl tech and bonuses get outpaced by dust(/science)-based empires at least for long games as it takes a while before even the 2nd winter comes and it becomes quite expensive just to get a few units with pearl armor. Even then, there is still the random chance of obtaining powerful hero equipment from ruins or quests that can compete with those units.

[Grzemek]

I don't bother with Pearl equipment because it's either a waste or it's outclassed with Iron/Dust gear and generals. But I find Winter Borough and Abbey of anomalies very good and versatile. Abbey gives x2 approval (among other bonuses) to the animaly tile it's placed on, so I use it as an approval bumper and a peripheral district to level regular Boroughs. And Winter Borough is a wonder itself. Dust, Food and Industry on ALL city tiles in winter? Scalable per Winter Borough level? Yes please! I can sacrifice a single +5 approval from level 2 district for this any day.

Chapel of Auriga is also dank. Especially in 3 village cities. It doesn't empower Slavery of Cull the herd, but free +3 pop is nothing to scoff at. That's why 3 village regions are so potent on Allai, who have troubles with regular ways of raising pop.

I rarely use Intensifiers. Too much of a sacrifice and not every faction has Skyfins/Masterminds to sweep the map for 80+ Pearls each winter.

And I'm not sure it's really worth it mass producing basic stockpiles with Pearls only to boom later. Every 4x is a subject of expnential growth and many bonuses overlapping each other giving a powerful bonus together. That 100 Industry early potentially gives you more momentum overall than starving one city only for building stockpiles. A penny saved is a penny wasted in Endless Legend. FIDSI and resources mean nothing unless they are immediately translated into units, improvements, techs or treaties.

[Wendek]

Wait... what ? I think I had misunderstood Winter Borough. When it says "+X on city tile" I assumed it was, like, the one tile it was placed on and I didn't understand why everyone was raving about that thing. Does it really increase the output of all the tiles in the city during winter ? Because if so I should really get that when I'm playing, say, Necrophages with their super-cheap Boroughs.

[..]

Originally posted by Wendek:

Wait... what ? I think I had misunderstood Winter Borough. When it says "+X on city tile" I assumed it was, like, the one tile it was placed on and I didn't understand why everyone was raving about that thing. Does it really increase the output of all the tiles in the city during winter ?

It has the same description as a regular Borough tile except with just better stats so I thought the same thing. Haven't tried it out myself yet, but will probably do so when I do a complete run of the Allayi. If it's really on all city tiles then that's definitely more op.

Originally posted by Sabotague:

I rarely use Intensifiers. Too much of a sacrifice and not every faction has Skyfins/Masterminds to sweep the map for 80+ Pearls each winter.

And I'm not sure it's really worth it mass producing basic stockpiles with Pearls only to boom later. Every 4x is a subject of expnential growth and many bonuses overlapping each other giving a powerful bonus together. That 100 Industry early potentially gives you more momentum overall than starving one city only for building stockpiles. A penny saved is a penny wasted in Endless Legend. FIDSI and resources mean nothing unless they are immediately translated into units, improvements, techs or treaties.

When you're at era 4 tech with decent growth/development, producing 800 industry to make 12k industry is a pretty decent investment. I will admit that if you don't have too many pearls then it's not even worth investing into pearl hoarding, but if you have a good 80 pearls or so for stockpiles, investing into the research isn't too bad, as you can immediately get a large increase in military power, or in improvements for your new cities. You could even just skip the smaller stockpile tech and still get decent value out of pearls that you wouldn't otherwise use. If you have the Allayi district tech then I would say it's pretty decent to invest into that instead if you have large bonuses that have "+[FIDSI] per tile with [FIDSI]" e.g. Dust Revitalizer.

[indraf]

Originally posted by Wendek:

Wait... what ? I think I had misunderstood Winter Borough. When it says "+X on city tile" I assumed it was, like, the one tile it was placed on and I didn't understand why everyone was raving about that thing. Does it really increase the output of all the tiles in the city during winter ? Because if so I should really get that when I'm playing, say, Necrophages with their super-cheap Boroughs.

Winter Borough gives ALL of your CITY TILES +2 food / industry / dust during winter PER level of Winter Borough :))

[Ishan451]

Originally posted by indraf:

My stance is Pearl stuffs are alright to be "broken" as it's hard to collect consistent amount of pearls, you don't know how many you'll get, you don't know where and when you can gather them again (until later in the game).

There is nothing broken about it. Pearls are available to everyone. There is no situation in which you have someone play without them against someone with them.

If people do not want to build them in their game against you, that is their business.

As for the mechanics itself.. they are good in early game, especially the armor, but most stuff just pales in comparison to late game. Plow factory for example gives +3 Food on all tiles with food. If you compare that to Winter Borrow you have a situation where even at level 2 it will only give +4 Food.

Yes, you get the equivalent of Era 3/4 technologies already in Era 2, but is you actually look at it, its not that bad (as in overpowered).

Originally posted by indraf:

I think the most overpowered pearl mechanic is that you can create LOT of pearl stockpiles FAST (with the winter tech "Pearl Hoarding") and hold them until you research all upgrades to stockpile.

Which means your city didn't produce something else while you produced those stockpiles. Meaning you are likely behind in your development... or are lacking the Army forces you could have produced.

Producing Stockpiles is only really interesting if you don't have anything better to produce.

Originally posted by indraf:

Still, I think it's still a matter of decision of spending your pearls in late-game stockpiles or spend them to immediately build powerful pearl building such as Ice Works, Chapel of Auriga, and Intensifiers.

How do you guys feel about pearls mechanic?

I think its alright.. even though a bit tacked on.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by indraf:

Originally posted by Wendek:

Wait... what ? I think I had misunderstood Winter Borough. When it says "+X on city tile" I assumed it was, like, the one tile it was placed on and I didn't understand why everyone was raving about that thing. Does it really increase the output of all the tiles in the city during winter ? Because if so I should really get that when I'm playing, say, Necrophages with their super-cheap Boroughs.

Winter Borough gives ALL of your CITY TILES +2 food / industry / dust during winter PER level of Winter Borough :))

Haven't analyzed it myself. But if true, it's hardly OPed as it would compensate for the winter FIDSI penalty. Overall, I don't think pearls are OPed in any way. It also depends on your map setting. It would obviously be easier to pick much more pearls on a huge map with few opponents than a small one with many opponents.

[Argus]

I've noticed that now in the early game I'm often reluctant to build a city district on top of anomalies or resources, just for the chance to build the related pearl district there after the 3rd winter. Speaking of which, pearls are spent fast when you do it in all your cities.

Still, I think the pearl buildings such as Ice Works and Winter Borough are a nice way to counterweight the new harsh winter penalties introduced in Shifters.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by xargon42:

I've noticed that now in the early game I'm often reluctant to build a city district on top of anomalies or resources, just for the chance to build the related pearl district there after the 3rd winter. Speaking of which, pearls are spent fast when you do it in all your cities.

Still, I think the pearl buildings such as Ice Works and Winter Borough are a nice way to counterweight the new harsh winter penalties introduced in Shifters.

I play it differently. While the resource intensifiers are great, I build them only when the opportunity arises. The reason is you don't know exactly when you will have enough pearls to unlock that tech and when you do, if you will still have additional pearls to build the intensifier itself. I just build over anomalies anyway to benefit from them immediately. Think about it this way. If you have to for example wait 20 turns to get enough pearls to build the intensifier, how much FIDSI from anomalies would you have forgone during that time?

[Ishan451]

Originally posted by Idlihx10:

Think about it this way. If you have to for example wait 20 turns to get enough pearls to build the intensifier, how much FIDSI from anomalies would you have forgone during that time?

You don't have to build over them to get their effects. You can just build next to them to make your city work the field with the anomaly.

[ElPrezCBF]

Originally posted by Ishan451:

Originally posted by Idlihx10:

Think about it this way. If you have to for example wait 20 turns to get enough pearls to build the intensifier, how much FIDSI from anomalies would you have forgone during that time?

You don't have to build over them to get their effects. You can just build next to them to make your city work the field with the anomaly.

That wasn't what I've heard from others so far. But in my latest campaign, I was unable to build intensifiers (abby of anomalies) over them anyway, unless the anomaly is already covered by an existing city district. But I'm not sure if building next to them or over them (on an existing district) will yield the same results. I'll have to take a closer look.

[indraf]

Originally posted by Idlihx10:

Originally posted by Ishan451:

You don't have to build over them to get their effects. You can just build next to them to make your city work the field with the anomaly.

That wasn't what I've heard from others so far. But in my latest campaign, I was unable to build intensifiers (abby of anomalies) over them anyway, unless the anomaly is already covered by an existing city district. But I'm not sure if building next to them or over them (on an existing district) will yield the same results. I'll have to take a closer look.

You can exploit an anomaly's FIDSI just by putting a city district next to it. However, you can't place Abbey of Anomalies / Strategic Intensifier / Luxury Intensifier over Anomaly or resource if your don't have any city tile next to it (they are district which have to be connected to your city tiles, unlike normal resource extractors).

Anyway, you can build normal resource extractor and when your city tile finally reaches the tile next to it, you can place an intensifier over it. The normal extractor will be destroyed and replaced by the Intensifier district.

[ElPrezCBF]

Good to know. Thanks!

[Balkoth]

Originally posted by ..:

I think the main issue with it is that it doesn't "compete" with empires with strong economic starts, but rather widens the lead.

Indeed.

Originally posted by Sabotague:

FIDSI and resources mean nothing unless they are immediately translated into units, improvements, techs or treaties.

I'll gladly spend 800 Industry on turn 80 to take 12800 Industry on turn 90. It's an investment in the future, just like buildings like Mill Foundry. You don't have to build the stockpiles until you're close to the first stockpile tech.

Originally posted by Ishan451:

There is nothing broken about it. Pearls are available to everyone. There is no situation in which you have someone play without them against someone with them.

If people do not want to build them in their game against you, that is their business.

So if a new trinket for units was added that was called "Fury of Auriga" and gave +100% damage, +200% life, and +300% attack/defense to the unit...you would argue it's not broken because everyone can use it? And it's a CHOICE to use it, people can CHOOSE not to?

Originally posted by Ishan451:

Which means your city didn't produce something else while you produced those stockpiles. Meaning you are likely behind in your development... or are lacking the Army forces you could have produced.

Apply that same argument to Mill Foundry or another Industry boosting building.