We won't be buffing the same building for specific planets, sicne that's really hard to communite to players, but the economy, how it works, and how it's presented is being significantly overhauled in the next version.

Ok thanks for the feedback! Anything on the icons? Like I'm looking to edit those files that I have just to clearly identify what planets I should be building the mines on, but can't find the text reference.

Originally posted by Corey Loses:

We won't be buffing the same building for specific planets, sicne that's really hard to communite to players, but the economy, how it works, and how it's presented is being significantly overhauled in the next version.

Hey Corey,

When I had read notes on version 2.3. in regard to trade routes, I thought trade stations would render the lion share of income - but they don't. Whether they are built as a network of adjacent planets or distributed among planets with the highest base income, they generate merely a few thousand credits at best, versus the 10ks of direct taxation, making them neglectable in compare to rapid territorial expansion.

Is this intentional to reflect aspects of lore ?

Historically, controlling trade routes would be more lucrative than brute occupation and the 'prequels' tried to adress that idea, although as akwardly as it's romantic relationships.

My impression as a player was initially that the 'sectors' of the new map and adjacent 'hyperlanes' would give strong boni to trade income that incentivizes specific expansion in order to maximize income in early game (e.g. controlling the inner core and building a network of trade stations=restoring order, disturbed by 'raiding' civil war factions - mirroring the competition for high base income planets for 'tax collector agencies').

What's the actual perspective of the mod's economy, is it outlined somewhere ?

It's got nothing to do with lore, it's got everything to do with gameplay. We had to make sure smaller factions could compete with larger factions, and have certain diminishing returns on expansion so blitzing isn't as encouraged. We had a plan to work on adjacent planets having trade ports giving extra bonus income but the way EaW applies and removes abilities is dumb and doesn't allow for that on planets because the planets would need to respawn with the abilities, which they can't.

If the tarderoutes (which are not trade routes, they are simply travel lines) were the bulk of your income, it'd be impossible for smaller factions or more spread out factions to ever compete, whereas with things like the afction and local capitals, and a smaller number of higher-value trade ports and tax agencies, you can get a good economic base from a smaller number of planets and still get some bonuses from expanding to other planets without that choking out every faction. EaW has a huge snowballing being OP problem, and that's what we design around trying to mitigate, not lore.

"EaW has a huge snowballing (...) problem"

I hear that mentioned through several design choices, e.g. removing credit rewards for planetary conquest - which was a plausible incentive to me in early game and helped to keep a strategy of 'nomadic' conquests going.

I must say, I like the 'institutional' buildings as a source of steady, even dynamic income (due to the recent 'influence' mechanics). And from what I understand, trade ports are for now meant to be build on isolated planets with a high base income - just like 'tax collection agencies' or 'mines', right ?

I just wonder, if any of these steps will change the only useful strategy of expanding as fast as possible in every direction, simply in order to deny the 'AI' the time to build up ever larger fleets of a few unit types.

For example, just yesterday it occured to me that fleet upkeep is not a permanent factor as I assumed, but is only applied when a fleet or an army stack is in orbit of any owned planet. Moving these stacks into the orbit of 'foreign' planets or having them even transit through 'hyperspace' for the very last moments of a galactic 'week' saves the player all that upkeep - which can be thousands of credits with larger stacks.

Needless to say that this 'logistical loophole' will be exploited, once discovered, in order to circumvent any obstacles on 'zerging' the map.




And at some point - in any 'galactic conquest' that doesn't 'strangle the player in his crib' in the first 10 weeks - the player will reach a pivot around the 80 or 100 week mark when he already knows that he will grind down all opposition and 'paint the rest of the galaxy monotoneously in his faction colours' - even if he now starts reluctantly building up 1k 'population point' fleets in order to draw out the present moment of 'frontier spirit'.

To make it clear, all strategy games that rely on 'victory through conquest' - exclusively - have this issue of 'end game ennui'.
One way of 'gamification' could be to make the inevitable more comfortable, rather accelerating conquest beyond a certain point of 'crisis', e.g. by granting access to simplifying mechanics or units, than to 'bog' it down.

Another way could be asking, how to achieve a deliberate stalemate faithful to the 'Expanded Universe' lore that requires 'negotiations' in era 5 - or even a fragile alliance between warring factions when confronted with signs of a 'Yuzhan Vong' invasion.

I like the latter - as fraternal cooperation is a great story arc for a civil war themed game.




Sorry, if that seems off from the matter of trade mechanics, but it comes to my mind when I notice the often 'heated' back and forth on 'balancing' within the community.