Zones; what is good, what needs to be fixed before 4.0

[HFY]

That said, factions not working correctly does mean a unity cushion that would've propped you up for a while longer is (usually) missing.

In one Parliamentary System beta-test game I happened to get two relevant factions first, and it was +177 Unity per month.

That's quite the monumental "cushion".

Even with only one relevant faction, which happened in the next beta-test game, it was still almost +80 Unity per month from month 2.

 

[SirBlackAxe]

In one Parliamentary System beta-test game I happened to get two relevant factions first, and it was +177 Unity per month.

That's quite the monumental "cushion".

Even with only one relevant faction, which happened in the next beta-test game, it was still almost +80 Unity per month from month 2.

I haven't tried Parliamentary System, and I don't think I've seen a faction giving more than like 20 unity (and not for lack of trying by resettling good ethic pops back to my capital every month to preclude tiny factions forming on my colonies). It feels like the game forms factions out of either the smallest or maybe the newest pop group of that ethic, so getting them to form really early before your pops are split across colonies or have had much time for ethics divergence would be very strong.

Also that looks like factions are giving 100x too much unity, which is being masked by the majority of your pops (usually) being unable to join one.

 

[HFY]

I haven't tried Parliamentary System, and I don't think I've seen a faction giving more than like 20 unity (and not for lack of trying by resettling good ethic pops back to my capital every month to preclude tiny factions forming on my colonies). It feels like the game forms factions out of either the smallest or maybe the newest pop group of that ethic, so getting them to form really early before your pops are split across colonies or have had much time for ethics divergence would be very strong.

Also that looks like factions are giving 100x too much unity, which is being masked by the majority of your pops (usually) being unable to join one.

Yeah the majority of pops being unable to join a Faction really does hamper testing that.

The one game I had where it worked perfectly was Mat + Fan Egal, and I got roughly a 70 / 30 split between the two, all of whom were pretty happy.

 

[NorseGod]

Which may work well if you have the two automatic suitable worlds for colonisation nearby.

If however you turn that off and go with a random distribution of worlds matching your species' preferred type it is going to be more difficult.

There are limited options to deal with 'Scum and Villainy' and if you're in a unity deficit spiral and don't have 250 headroom to 'fund' law enforcement.

If the problem is a lack of Unity, why did you swap the Archives to only Research? You cut your Unity, and then went into a death spiral. So leave the Archives as is. That's the consequences of the Zones system, you're trapped with this one mixed build.

Personally I think it's a bad idea, but they're going with it, full steam ahead.

 

[Tisifoni12]

Archives seems like a weird Zone title / function. Also weird that a Zone labelled Archives thar comprises Engineering research, physics research and generic research labs should perform differently to with the same composition labelled Research.

We've got districts, zones, buildings and the planet 'label'; Empire capital, agri-world, mining world, etc. Zone labels and Planet labels, a mining world with a unity zone and a factory zone . . .