I was recently in a game where I had a pair of Generals and another player managed to get a hold of 3 (THREE) admirals.

In short his driller only subs were traveling at 2.5 speed and my princess, and all other specialists, were destroying 20 drillers each combat.

It felt wrong and imbalanced that a specialist-free sub would travel faster than one with a helmsman or the admiral partly responsible for its boosted speed.

Taking the smuggler aside, I want to answer these questions:

1. Should a sub ordered by three admirals really travel faster than a sub ordered by one?

2. Should a specialist commanded by two generals be any more effective than the specialist commanded by one?

Realistically I would argue that the answer should be able 'no' to both.

A follow up for those on the fence of this discussion:

Should a driller force repaired by 8 engineers increase by the number of destroyed drillers after each victory?

e.g. I had 15 drillers destroyed, I won, my 8 non-present engineers repair 30.

Only thing that doesn't make sense to me is why subs with a specialist actually travel slower than those with none. If you use that many hires to get admirals then you deserve the boost.

+1 they make global abilities two hires for a reason. They also made only 3 in a deck (so you're theory of 8 engineers is impossible unless you hypnotize a ton of other engineers but even that is highly unlikely.) So no, global abilities are not OP and I like them how they are

Well I had a hypnotist once and I ended up with 5 generals (and a king actually (and 2 security chiefs too!)). Basically I only had to care about the shields of an outpost before taking it, and my enemy couldn't really take it back. But I guess 5 generals could just as easily be countered by something like 5 security chiefs or 5 kings.... Every OP combination has its just as OP counter, even if its just the exact same thing...maybe you just weren't lucky enough to get it...

connor3491 wrote:Only thing that doesn't make sense to me is why subs with a specialist actually travel slower than those with none. If you use that many hires to get admirals then you deserve the boost.

Game balance > Theme.

r10t-- wrote:+1 they make global abilities two hires for a reason. They also made only 3 in a deck (so you're theory of 8 engineers is impossible unless you hypnotize a ton of other engineers but even that is highly unlikely.) So no, global abilities are not OP and I like them how they are

I think it's a matter of opinion. With unmanned subs traveling at 2.5 the number of generators a player controls suddenly becomes very unimportant. His production is on the front lines in 6 hours, just in time for the next cycle. That's a balance issue in my view. It makes the Tinker and Energy-Miester completely counterproductive.

You are given a choice of promoting a second admiral, and are not forced to pick navigator in the first place (though I have no idea why you would not). So being aware of diminishing returns on second and third of a global effects would allow the player to make the decision to pass on a 2nd admiral and maybe getting another specialist.

Gifts, Hypnotists, and Double Agents, can be used to get more than 3 of kind. It's entirely possible to stack global effects and in my view unbalances the game.

I ended up winning this game, but I felt like it was just 2 players in it at the end. The one with 2 general, and the one with 3 Admirals. The other players could only impact the game by donating to either of the top two.

I wouldn't say the balance is perfect, but for an asymmetric game, the wide variety of "this specialist/combo is OP" threads that there have been is an indicator to me that the balance is pretty good.

Best counter ive seen for these is navigator + Assassin/Martyr. Which is only 2 hires to counter something like a triple admiral which is 6 hires.
And the people who decided to make these hires had to take risks choosing those instead of other, possibly more useful onces.

I've also found my own opinion on what the best specialists are have fluctuated quite a bit since I joined the beta.

pandasecret wrote:Best counter ive seen for these is navigator + Assassin/Martyr. Which is only 2 hires to counter something like a triple admiral which is 6 hires.
And the people who decided to make these hires had to take risks choosing those instead of other, possibly more useful onces.

Not sure how a navigator moving at 1.5x manages to pin down a general who moves AR 2x. Is there a pirate involved too?

I'm not looking for advice on how to beat them. I'm stating that 3 admirals are able to get your entire production cycle into combat nearly immediately and make it neigh-impossible to defend against non-specialist subs even when using helmsmen and smugglers. You get 6 hours of time but can't get over to the place where action is happening for 9 hours cause you were in position but only have a helmsman to get you there at 2x instead of 2.5x.

The fact that the 3 admirals remove the need for energy management has not been answered, and their effectiveness is not localized like that of a assassin+navigator.

I mentioned I had 2 Generals in the same game, it was a bit silly to reduce an incoming 100 to 60 by sending two specialist "greeters" 3 and 2 tics prior to combat. It turned all of my specialists into a war hero++. I didn't like the way it made me feel to use the combination. I'm of the firm belief that having 2 different global combat effects should always be better than stacks of the same one.

I would argue that having diminishing returns for global effects is a good way to balance their stacking with themselves.

My proposal would be to allow a maximum of 2x the effect achieved by collecting 3 of like specialists.

Eg:
1 admiral: 1.5x speed
2 admirals: 1.8x speed
3 admirals: 2.0x speed
4+ admirals: 2.0x speed (and a warm and fuzzy feeling that if you lose one, your speed will not change)