The more I play with attitude buildings, the less I like them

[GC13]

I posted my feedback ticket pretty early, after just one game with the attitude buildings. While I still stand by my suggestions for giving players more ways to get races to like each other, I think I was too generous to the attitude buildings themselves.

I like what the attitude buildings are trying to do. They force us to 1) put in time to 2) enact a long-term strategy that 3) has strategic trade-offs and 4) was formed by looking at our tools and trying to maximize benefits and minimize costs.

That said, I don't think it works. Though the attitude buildings take up a huge chunk of real estate on the Property Development dropdown, you're still very constricted in your choices. If you want to make the Acutians like you, the Burlusts are going to like you as well. It's hard to cozy up to the Skylaxians without bringing the Evucks along for the ride, etc... The races being packaged deals like this clearly wasn't part of the original vision for the game, but the attitude buildings tie them up fairly tight.

Now, it's true that the inevitable angering of other races while endearing yourself to others is a strategic tradeoff. It's just a very unsatisfying one because the magnitudes involved mean that not only is a rapprochement is unlikely (you can take someone to -100 while getting up to your +300 with someone, and the inevitable war that crops up in because of that low attitude will make it worse), but you didn't really even have much of a choice on who you wanted to hate your preferred race due to the constricting nature of the buildings.

Of course the map does tend towards being somewhat of a love-in as Wellbeing Admiration starts to stack up, but I really don't think that the planned other ways to get races into the Federation can come soon enough. I want to see attitude buildings gone, other ways to build up inter-racial esteem brought in to replace them, and us to be given more things to worry about than how much races like each other. I've flowcharted the game; it's pretty simple right now, once you learn to ignore the options that are unimportant. Most of your good options are just ways to different ways to affect the same things, so the deepest gameplay I had in my most recent building was trying to optimize buildings for inter-racial harmony (six surviving races—I could have done better, but it's still better than any game I've had before).

Real inter-planetary trade (not, as I pointed out in another thread, simple trade in minerals) might be a good strategic tradeoff. If would make two races like each other more and boost their economy, but that economic boost could turn into a crushing weight if either planet were blockaded by an enemy, bombardment or no. Benefit in exchange for a vulnerability. Also, why can't we start up pro-Federation agitators on a planet? We can compel them to join whether their leaders like the other members or not.

[Histidine]

I'll just say I agree with pretty much everything said here. Voted strong support on Mantis issue.

[ptarth]

I concur with your observations (which are consistent with my campaign Fix the Underlying Mechanics First). I fear that Arcen is feeling pressured to add new features (e.g., Federation Points, autoresolve, more quests, diplomats, influence buildings, changing technology and building RCI contributions, etc) rather than to adjust the underlying mechanics. Reading the regular released patch notes you can see their recurring promise to continue to release new features. However, in the last one, they noted we wanted mechanic adjustment (which I consider a good sign), and we should also continue to show support for fixes to know that we aren't just being fickle.

My favorite fix in the last patch is that research rates were aligned to stop the 1 to 400,000 Burluck:Skylaxian advantage, which, while underwhelming, actually is making things much better in slowing research and making power growth more stable.  This leads to longer games, which is what Arcen attempted to do with the Federation Points and the massive relationship standards.

I'd also like to point out an old post: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,15399.msg170347.html#msg170347
With some ideas about a framework that would be useful to develop the inherent AI relationships that would work organically. The massive swings that are provided by events and quests (which seem to be next on the agenda), are only going to make things more confusing. Why would you bother working on the relationship between two races or their RCI for +0.1 per month when an event/quest can come along that will swing it by 100 points?

[MaskityMask]

Eh, I do like attitude buildings. Though I do think there could be more buildings like Confectionary which give more unusual bonuses.*shrugs* Maybe thats just because without them creating alliance with burlust or boarines is impossible since neither of them doesn't trade and so can't like anyone enough. I think it was literally impossible to even create strong federation in older versions... And boarines don't have option of influencing their opinion on other races even when they have solar unity, so unless they are able to trade when they have solar unity, there isn't really easy way to make races like them and them like other races.

I do agree with that really bad thing about attitude buildings is that if plans change, you are kinda screwed since you can't get rid of them. Like in my game where I created strong federation, ultimate reason why I failed was that I had made boarines built gladiatorial arena which made skylaxians hate them and when trifecta of superioty was formed none of unallied races liked each other enough and it was impossible to form federation in time to prevent trifecta conquering everyone.