Splintering Spire underwhelming?

[Nanostrike]

So I've tried a few Splintering Spire games recently. And I mean no offense when I ask this, but is it supposed to be so underwhelming?

I was picturing the Spire Spheres building up huge forces on their homeworld and crusading across the stars to Vengeance Generators.

Then they would have to hold the line against the VG to disassemble it as it triggers escalating Dark Spire responses. And once deactivated, they would send transport ships from their homeworldd to haul the parts back to their sphere like an Astro Train or Spire Relic. En-route, they could try to steal the parts from each other. Maybe the AI could even get involved, trying to steal the parts for itself or destroy them so no one has them.

The reality was very different. The Spheres were as weak as normal Dysons for most of the game. The AI camped their home systems all game and kept recapturing it so they never really built up if I didn't intervene.
They never went on their crusade until 5 hours in!

Then, instead of building up their fleets at their homeworlds and streaming across the galaxy...they had fleets suddenly spawn out of nowhere around a bunch of VG systems, move in, and start a timer.

The Dark Spire did nothing at all to defend their VGs while these timers completed and even the AI seemed to ignore them during this. Very anticlimactic.

After the VG is destroyed, it spawns a bunch of fragments in nearby systems along with a nearly-trivial amount of Dark Spire ships. And the Spheres spawn a bunch of semi-invulnerable "Collectors" in on top of them to just sit there and passively absorb the fragments until they despawn.


The AI and the Dark Spire ignored all of this going on. I assumed the Grey and Chromatic Spheres would start fighting over the fragments now, but they just... didn't. They seemed perfectly content to each quietly absorb their own fragments and move on.

They proceeded to lazily roam to VGs, pop them, and eat them with no real opposition from each other, the Dark Spire, or the AI. The DS did a few Vengeance strikes and tried to spawn some Locus' and Conquest Generators, but they never really got any traction.

It seemed like they would've just kept crawling along to clear the entire map of Dark Spire, then just kind of sit there, but I ended up killing the AI before they got to that point.


Am I missing something? I thought this was supposed to be a big galactic throw down between the Dark Spire and two Spire Spheres that I could exploit against the AI.

But it was more like a few big Sphere deathball fleets went around eating the Dark Spire with no real response from the DS or the AI. And no real interaction on my part.

I never had to help them hold a VG until a timer finished, never had to help the Grey Spire defend their fragments from the Chromatic a-holes, never had the AI freaking out and sending ExoWar units to nuke everyone involved.

It was just very... lackluster. Is there more to it than that? I saw that there was some sort of Antagonizer I could hack to potentially send the Chromatic Spire after the AI, but their home sphere was always either "Too weak to hack" or guarded by a Chromatic Spire deathball fleet.

[Dismiss]

In general I also found splintering spire fairly underwhelming.

But, my best idea of how to setup a good game is like so:

Have an immediate or very early game dark zenith invasion, of intensity 5-7, and have dark spire at intensity 8-9, have them both allied to one another (dark alliance). Then have the splintering spire timer set to the minimum/shortest possible value for the coalition to form.

You may also want to add an additional spire faction (grey, chromatic, zenith) to the game, on top of the splintering spire--And put them all somewhere in the ~7-8 intensity range.

Pick some exceptionally brutal AI types, or perhaps even ais that might have a tendency to feed dark spire generators (ie, swarmer .. idk?). Having 3 ais or a larger galaxy and playing as spire infused might also be worth trying--So you cannot just win the game early, before the dark alliance power has peaked.

So the idea here to make the game interesting/different, is to set up a game that would ordinarily be unwinnable--The dark zenith + dark spire would for sure take over the galaxy and roaming hoards of dark spire ships would be demolishing everything.

And then, splintering spire actually becomes necessary for you to not lose.

Anyway, that's the goal. Fiddle with the intensities and the galaxy type and planet count.

Another possibility, without the dark zenith/alliance, is to just crank up dark spire even higher and add some other additional hostile to all minor factions that generate conflict, causing the dark energy to spiral out of control--Like say, high intensity marauders and a zenith architrave civil war or something.

[x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park)]

Broadly speaking, IIRC (which I might not), the goal with the splintering spire was to have a few more dyson spheres, which cause some changes in the local topgraphy of the galaxy, but which don't impact the overall galaxy too much if you don't need to go near them.

Broadly speaking, the extra factions break down into the following categories in AI War 1 and 2:

1. Those that have some sort of hugely disruptive effect on the galaxy as a whole. These almost work like a secondary game mode, because their impact is so intense. A lot of players avoid these, because it can just change so much. A strong nanocaust can be a good example of this, or something like the chromatic horror.

2. Those that have a minor to moderate effect on the galaxy as a whole, allowing for subtle adjustments in strategy based on their presence. The Zenith trader is the classic one of these. People really tend to like these. Then again, astro trains can also fall into this category, depending on your perspective, and those have been quite divisive.

3. Those that have a very strong "regional" effect on the galaxy. The dark zenith are a classic example of this, in AI War 2. Basically, if you're not in their region, they're not going to bother you. But if you have to go into their region, it becomes all about them for quite some time. This can make it so that they are either a complete non-factor if you stay away from them, or they can be an overwhelmingly potent third party if you do have to interact with them. These have mixed popularity, depending on the players.

4. Those that have very localized effects, usually mild to moderate, but occasionally extreme. Historically, these were the most common factions that people would put on their "I always use these" list. You can often play a whole game without noticing one of these factions, but if they happen to be in a place that matters, then it gives you a lot more to work with in the area of a planet and maybe its direct neighbors, but not too much more than that. The zenith dyson sphere in both games always filled this role, and was massively popular with people. The goal with the splintering spire was to add some more things along those lines, and then there were a few options to make them more widely aggressive. But going too far with those can put them in category 1 or 2, which people tend not to like. Sometimes it's because the third party wins the game for them, or because the third party is so powerful that victory becomes impossible due to them, etc. So keeping these on a fairly tight leash has tended to be important, or they wind up not fulfilling the role that the players were initially looking for.

5. Helpers. These are mostly in AI War 2 more than the original, but it's nice to feel like you have an AI buddy there to help you. The popularity of these also tend to be high, and being able to interact with a neutral party and turn them into a helper (as can happen with the dyson spheres, if only locally to a few planets) is something again people have liked a lot.

6. Sneaky secondary villains. These ones tend to be ones that move through enemy space without too much trouble, but show up various places to harass you. They can sometimes act as third-party spoilers in general, where they shift the expected balance of a fight by showing up unexpectedly. The marauders are a good example of this group. The templars for the Necromancer are kind of like this, too.

---

Anyway, so overall those are the archetypes of third party factions that the game is working with. The general feedback that we got over the years was that people were not very interested in having more factions that are in category 1 or 2, since those can just make the game unrecognizable. The other feedback that we had a lot was that we really did not have enough of categories 4 and 5, and could we please add some more of those.

Splintering spire were designed to fit into category 4, with the ability to interact with them in a few ways that can make them more significant.

Dismiss got at a lot of the ways that they can be made more intense if you want it, but I felt like you might appreciate an explanation for why they are the way they are in general.

[Nanostrike]

@Dismiss - Thanks for the idea! I'll definitely have to try them with the Dark Zenith. Do spheres actually fight the DZ? And will the DZ attack Sphere forces trying to disassemble Generators

Do additionally added Dyson factions, even the Zenith ones, join the Coalition?

Also, how does hacking the Chromatic Sphere work? Every time I've tried, it's either told me I can't do the hack because the Sphere wasn't strong enough... or the Sphere was too well protected for me to even try the hack


@Chris - I get why they're like that and I'm not really complaining. I was just puzzled at the lack of reaction from the Dark Spire when they're disassembling VGs.

When I try to hack a VG to make it vulnerable, the DS go nuts to stop me. But they didn't send a single ship to contest the Coalition.

Also, I wasn't sure why the Chromatic and Grey weren't fighting over the pieces. Is there something specific that triggers that? I'd really like to be able to support the Grey against those always-angry Chromatic jerks.

Additionally, I actually think it'd be really cool if the Coalition fleets would seek out and engage Dark Spire fleets that get above a certain size and/or come near their Spheres.

It'd give sort of a second chance when a stupid faction messes around in a VG system and spawns q 300-strength deathball that's heading towards you. It'd be sort of a natural balancing for the DS' outbreaks.

[x-4000 (Chris McElligott-Park)]

I honestly don't remember the answers to those details! I didn't code those specific factions, I just did the art for them and added some of the meta-features to support them. This was also something like 3 years ago, and my memory just isn't very reliable on details like that at that length of time.

[Nanostrike]

So... turns out that the Dark Zenith were the missing piece. I made a new game where they invade and form the Dark Alliance.

The Coalition evolves into the 'Nadir Coalition' and pretty much goes into open warfare against the Dark Alliance.

They pop Vengeance Generators for the resources and start advancing on Dark Zenith worlds. It's currently everyone in the galaxy against them. Very fun.


A few mechanics I've learned:

1) The Coalition is made of of various Sphere units, but it is it's own "Sub-Faction" of its sphere. They don't give a crap about you, the AI, other Minor Factions, or even their respective Sphere Worlds.

2) Resources from the Vengeance Generator fragments don't seem to be sent to the Spheres at all. It looks like they're used only by the Coalition "Sub-Faction" of that sphere to make more ships.

3) The Dark Spire in "Conquest Mode" (Which automatically happens when the Dark Zenith invade) constantly spawn ships from the VGs, making up for the usual lack of response to the Coalition.


I'm still working on learning stuff.

I still need to see if additional Spheres you add (Including Zenith Dysons) will join the Coalition when it triggers. I'm pretty sure extra Grey and Chromatics will, but not sure on the Zenith.

I'm thinking that once the Coalition finishes it's work, it'll break up, the ships will revert to their original spheres, and they'll start infighting.

If so, then it might be a good idea to not let the Chromatic Sphere build up too much. I know I can build a turret that will make their Collectors vulnerable. Just not sure how the Coalition would react to that.