fair enough. You could try to explain why.

Infiltrator:most bases have 10-20 shields, so usually the extra 10 would get wasted anyway.
Intelligence officer: probably, the best idea on here but a little too much for a global effect.
Diplomat: Meh, not really needed, one is fine a is plus it makes the general even more exploitable.
Princess: again, not too bad. Interesting with how the queen works. I'd actually support this one.
Thief: the thief is already really good at 15% no need to improve it.
Pirate: 3x speed is really fast and unnecessary, plus it makes it able to catch a helmsman which is cheap.
Tycoon: I love this specialist, but it's not overpowered especially not by 30%.
King:makes him pretty useless, I haven't had problems with kings at 1 to 3 like others had, so I don't think the king needs changed.
Navigator: then it's not a navigator anymore. Unless you mean you can alter its course in the present only which is just really annoying and takes away the great usefulness of the navigator.
MoE: he's not overpowered now so there's no need to weaken him.
Admiral: 2x local speed doesn't make him overpowered.
Tinkerer: he already has a REALLY negative effect. There is no need to make him more useless.

roadkiehl wrote:I agree with you that the game balance isn't perfect, but I think that your suggestions are too radical.

This.

With the excpetion of Princess and Pirate, I would agree these are the specs that could be nerfed/buffed, however most of your suggested fixes are way too extreme.

Its also missing some specs. If those above are getting nerfed/buff, smuggler should also be nerfed. Saboteur should also be buffed.

ucross wrote: I think the developers got a poor balance and failed in getting a good balance.

The thing is that in Sunterfuge, perfect balance isnt critical because of the random 3 hire system, you cant just always use the exact same OP specs every time. Sometimes you get dealt an Ace, sometimes you get delt a 7. But you wont get Aces every time, and you wont get 7s everytime.

Futhermore, part of the skill is knowing when you have an Ace. I see people hire bad specs when they had much better options all the time.

ucross wrote:I think the balance is a little off.

Here are the changes I'd make:
-snip-

WARNING: Personal Opinions!
Infiltrator- I think perhaps a global ability destroying 5 or 10 shield for every combat, or combat with specialists present could be more effective. It would allow you take those outposts that are only defended by shields easier.
Intelligence Officer- No. Maybe 30% max. If you think he needs a buff, I'd try finding something new that he should do. All subs have a sonar range of 20% base sonar for instance?
Diplomat- Eh, I think he's ok.
Princess- This makes sense.
Thief- A solo thief currently destroys more drillers in offensive combat than a War Hero if the opposing force has more than 60 drillers. At 20% it would be more effective than the War Hero if your opponent had 45 to more drillers. Because the thief is not promoted, and its damage scales, I don't think it needs a buff at all.
Pirate- This makes it virtually impossible to escape a pirate with any specialist.

Tycoon- I'd say 35 maybe. 20 sounds like a lot.
King- If you're going to do that, maybe 4 would be better. Or 5 with less of a shield loss?
Navigator- Awkward and doesn't make sense logically. Why would you be able to schedule something in the future if you can't change it later? Would you not be able to cancel the scheduled orders? What if the reroute conditions were no longer met?
Admiral- That's not the part people think is OP though...
Tinkerer- He's only a problem when you stack shields ridiculously. The most you could get out of him normally with your change is +80, and thats really not worth it.
MoE0- 250?

The power of the princess is that it is literally an extra-life.

Ok, a more moderate version with some explanation:

Buffs:

Infiltrator: removes 30 shields (from 20)
- The reason for this is that the infiltrator is pretty awful on defense and even offensively is often worse than a lieutenant. Shields often aren't that high during long engagements. His primary role is to hit up those 20 shield outposts without any drillers. However, that's a fairly weak role. Compared to other specialists he is too weak. At 30 shields reduced he now becomes quite significant in attacking things like a queen or a defense minister.

Intelligence Officer: increases all sonar range by 35% (from 25%)
- Right now he's one of the weakest specialists. His 25% increased range is nice, but just has 0 impact on the actual battles. The majority of the time when you are at war with someone this is not that helpful. You both are sending forces at each other. It's nice, and can sometimes help you spot an incoming sub before danger hits you, but often does next to nothing. Increasing it to 35% allows you to see more of the opponents. Now you might get some tactical information. Perhaps you can verify something that the opponent was lying to you about or trying to hide from you. Still at 35% it's not that strong, but definitely better than 25% IMO.

Diplomat: You get 2 of them
- Diplomat used to be one of the strongest if not the strongest specialist due to abuse. Now with the nerf it is arguably the weakest. We almost never make attacks where we plan to lose specialists and if we do it is often avoidable. Only when things are unexpected due we tend to lose specialists. Purposefully losing them is rarely useful. Then when you do lose them by accident you hope your diplomat is in range? More often then not the opponent will get a hypnotist there before you can get your diplomat there. Even with a war hero attacking back and forth it might take 12 hours to hit, and 12 hours to come back. That's 24 hours for 20 drillers? So giving you 2 makes it synergize better with the general and makes it more likely you'll be able to get them back when attacked.

Princess: Increases shields at local outpost by 10 (from 0)
- Simply if you're not likely to get assassinated the princess is like a worse version of the intelligence officer. This buff gives her a nice little boost that is on theme with the queen and king.

Pirate: Moves at 3x speed towards subs
- Right now the pirate is not that good because it is not that useful to hit subs besides an incoming navigator. However, most smart players will put a helmsman or general on their navigator to give it speed. Even without that speed you can juke the pirate. You simply aim for the nearest outpost that the pirate can't get to you first and the pirate starts to travel in the opposite direction. Do this a few times and the pirate is off in timbuktu while you can continue your mission with the navigator. Giving the pirate 3x speed not only makes it more useful for being able to stop juking, but it also makes it a little more useful for regular uses as you can't just guarantee escape with a helmsman or admiral.

Nerfs:
Tycoon: 30% increased driller production (from 50%)
- An early tycoon might be the strongest specialist in the game. Simply put, drillers win games more than any other factor. Once you goto war with someone and the allies and enemies are decided, few things help more than having 50% more production. It's like another half ally on your side. It's incredible. There really is no reason for this to be so high. This is especially so because it works globally, so when you get up to 10 factories it's like you have 15. If you pay attention to the games, right now those who get tycoons are almost always in the top half. If you get 2 tycoons you're likely to be top 3. It's just because they are so strong. Even at 30% it'll likely still be the strongest specialist in the game.

King: kills 1 driller for every 5 you have (from every 3)
- This is the only other specialist that rivals the tycoon. The king is insane. The nerf to shields is a joke compared to how powerful it is. When you start doing attacks with 180 drillers it's like you are fighting with 3 (!) war heros that don't even have to be there. PLUS this just happens anywhere you gather drillers. Even just 30 drillers sitting at a factory have a free general effect with no specialist. Even when you're getting hammered and losing the king is amazing. This specialist is likely the strongest in the game. When I see shields go down on someone's outposts I do NOT think, "Ohhh... easy target". Instead i think, "Oh crap, he got a king, be really nice to this guy or he'll run me over". Theoretically it's like 33% more drillers but it's far more than that. I just played a battle where I had 2 outposts with 60 troops and an enemy attacked one of my outposts with 4 of his outsposts each with 50 troops (for 200 troops launched at my outpost). I moved my troops together for 120 and gained around 30 by the time he got there to get 150 there by the time he arrived. I then upgraded to a king. All 200 of his troops disappeared to my king. I lost nothing. I then proceed to move my 150 into his territories. If he ever fought me with less than 50 troops they just disintegrated. This is an ideal situation but not that unreasonable. I've done it many times. In one of my most recent games I was getting teamed up on and I was about to die. The king saved me. It gave me so much strength. Kings are WAY overpowered right now. Again, just like the tycoon, even at 1 driller for every 5 it's still going to be one of the most powerful specialists in the game.

Navigator: Can only perform future course alterations at an outpost (once en route can't give the sub new commands)
- This is more just for convenience. Right now a smart player can hover a navigator indefinitely around with no way to take it down. It's frustrating and annoying and goes against the games general policy of "you make a move, it takes a while and you can come back later". When a navigator approaches you you kinda have be logging on every 5 minutes to check for changes and adapt to them. Using the navigator is the same. Often it's smart to make constant modifications. Both require a lot of logging on which often is quite annoying or impossible. With this new system the navigator will still have half it's strength (the fact that it's unblockable save for a pirate) and will still be able to alter course mid way for some decent juking action. However, it will be a lot less responsive so that you don't have to log on so much and it doesn't just hover indefinitely around your outpost.

Admiral: Gives no speed boost to the admiral himself (only the subs without specialists)
- This is a small nerf just because speed is so strong and the admiral is simply stronger than most other specialists for this reason alone. Even at just the 150% speed to all non-specialist subs the admiral will still be a very strong specialist.

More Opinions:
The pirate is arguably the strongest offensive specialist(Pirate, Thief, Lieutenant, Assassin, Infiltrator). If positioned correctly it can be used to defend multiple outposts from one location, and it probably has the most uses out of any other specialist. The pirate can free captured specialists as they are being transported, take out enemy reinforcements before they arrive, piggy back off allied subs to act as a helmsman, steal gifts, avoid certain subs by targeting ones behind them and he and the navigator are the only specialists that allow you to enter sub to sub combat but return to your original outpost. His only counter is "run away really fast and hide". Giving him a 3x boost would make him much to powerful. If a pirate was on your border, you couldn't transport any specialists without sending more drillers than the pirate has at their outpost.

2 Diplomats would allow for them to free each other, making it very hard to get rid of them without assassins.

Your navigator just sounds awkward. While I agree with your point about forcing you to log every 5 minutes, I don't think that this is a good solution.

The kings ability to destroy large forces at no cost is powerful, but it's the same as a War Hero, stacked Generals, an Inspector, or double Engineers. All of these destroy drillers at no cost. The counter to this is to retreat until you have enough drillers to win combat in 1 battle. The King will lose drillers from your shields, and you might have a chance.

v3xt wrote:More Opinions:
The pirate is arguably the strongest offensive specialist

Strongly disagree. He's one of the weakest. In fact, most high level games players just stop picking him unless all of their options are bad.

2 Diplomats would allow for them to free each other, making it very hard to get rid of them without assassins.

They already free themselves.... However, it doesn't really matter as their usefulness is so bad that 'who cares?'.

Your navigator just sounds awkward. While I agree with your point about forcing you to log every 5 minutes, I don't think that this is a good solution.

Fair enough, my other though was just lowering the speed of the navigator.

The kings ability to destroy large forces at no cost is powerful, but it's the same as a War Hero, stacked Generals, an Inspector, or double Engineers. All of these destroy drillers at no cost. The counter to this is to retreat until you have enough drillers to win combat in 1 battle. The King will lose drillers from your shields, and you might have a chance.

No, it's MUCH different than a war hero, stacked generals, an inspector or double engineers. It works EVERYWHERE you have drillers. And it stacks. I've been attacking with 400 drillers with 2 kings before. That's the equivalent of over 13(!) war heroes, and my kings weren't even at the battle. Also an inspector ONLY works on defense, ONLY if you have good shields; the kings work all the time everywhere. Even the generals that are stacked you might get 3 generals (which would be a lot) and now you're taking out 30 drillers on battles where you have other specialists (if you have others). A single king will already do that on stacks of 100.

Double engineers is powerful if you're winning, not great if you're losing, but they are good too. However, give me double kings and I'll destroy someone with double engineers all else equal. Because when our 200 vs 200 battle his 200 is cut down to 80. In fact, I could fight his 200 with only 121 of mine while me remaining 79 go and terrorize his other territories. Just that kings are easily the strongest specialist in the game.

Why do you think the pirate is weak compared to the other 4 offensive specialists?

Because it does nothing for you when just straight out attacking or defending an outpost, which is the majority of battles. It's not useless. I've used it quite effectively sometimes. It's just far more useless than many of the other specialists. For example: a helmsman blows it out of the water on offense.