kevlargolem wrote:Admiral is OP, Tycoon is OP, King is OP, and... *drum roll* Minister of Energy is also OP. Engineers might also be OP, but I havnt experimented with them enough to say for sure.

So the take-away from this is basically that the promotioned specs are OP.

As always, you miss the point friend. There's not an issue with the specialists being OP. There's an issue with specialist stacking being consistently inconsistent.

The Minster of energy does not have this problem. It (1) has a negative ability associated with it. (2) That negative ability stacks. (3) The negative and positive ability are directly related. This is the logical way for the specialist to stack. You trade one thing off for the other. In this case, slightly less production for an increase in supply cap.


The King is a mess right now. And after executing an extremely tactical maneuver last night, I realized that the King doesn't even work like it's supposed to. Which is to calculate after the specialist phase. It calculates based off of the initial sub count regardless of any sub loss during the specialist phase.

But even if the King did function like it's suppose to, it's not balanced because the positive ability is insanely powerful, the negative ability doesn't stack, and the positive and negative abilities are unrelated.


The Admiral doesn't make sense. It's fine the way it is without a negative ability, but there is 0 logic behind the speed boost stacking. It's the only speed boost in the game that stacks. And with only 4 hires, 99% of your subs will travel at the same speed as the helmsman.


The Tycoon isn't used as often as it should be right now. But soon enough players will realize it's an awesome specialist. And since there is no negative ability, theres no reason not to stack them. Same goes for Engineers. But they are used at a slightly higher rate.

topkilla wrote:

kevlargolem wrote:Admiral is OP, Tycoon is OP, King is OP, and... *drum roll* Minister of Energy is also OP. Engineers might also be OP, but I havnt experimented with them enough to say for sure.

So the take-away from this is basically that the promotioned specs are OP.

As always, you miss the point friend. There's not an issue with the specialists being OP. There's an issue with specialist stacking being consistently inconsistent.

The Minster of energy does not have this problem. It (1) has a negative ability associated with it. (2) That negative ability stacks. (3) The negative and positive ability are directly related. This is the logical way for the specialist to stack. You trade one thing off for the other. In this case, slightly less production for an increase in supply cap.


The King is a mess right now. And after executing an extremely tactical maneuver last night, I realized that the King doesn't even work like it's supposed to. Which is to calculate after the specialist phase. It calculates based off of the initial sub count regardless of any sub loss during the specialist phase.

But even if the King did function like it's suppose to, it's not balanced because the positive ability is insanely powerful, the negative ability doesn't stack, and the positive and negative abilities are unrelated.


The Admiral doesn't make sense. It's fine the way it is without a negative ability, but there is 0 logic behind the speed boost stacking. It's the only speed boost in the game that stacks. And with only 4 hires, 99% of your subs will travel at the same speed as the helmsman.


The Tycoon isn't used as often as it should be right now. But soon enough players will realize it's an awesome specialist. And since there is no negative ability, theres no reason not to stack them. Same goes for Engineers. But they are used at a slightly higher rate.

A few inaccuracies in here.
Firstly, the MoE's negative effect does not stack indefinitely. You could have 2 allies with one having 7 MoE's (which is of course very unlikely but still possible) for storage with the other feeding him drillers, in which case the 7th MoE doesn't do any negative stacking.
Secondly,if you think driller cap and driller production rate are related, the surely attack and defence are related to some degree?
Then When you said 'this is the logical way for the specialist to stack' I think it applies to all, but only, global effects.
The Kings positive ability is also not insanely powerful, just by itself it's not much better (if better at all) than specs such as the tycoon. It's only problem is the lack of negative stacking on the second or later king. (And possibly point 3)
Also about 20-40% of your subs will contain a specialist.
The reason tycoon isn't used all that much right now is because many people don't want to give up the ability of the smuggler for the tycoon.

topkilla, I'm pretty sure the king does work as described, but global effects happen after specialist phase, so a general would not reduce the damage a king will deal.

tw2000, your situation about the MoE is illogical. You can be gifted drillers past your cap, so the MoE has no effect on the situation you've described. With 7, or even 6 MoE, without funding or specific specialists, you would have 0 driller production. At this point, his benefit of increasing your cap is useless. You don't need a higher cap if you have no way to produce drillers. In my opinion, hiring more that 1 MoE is normally a bad idea, as it cuts your production to 2 thirds.

v3xt wrote:topkilla, I'm pretty sure the king does work as described, but global effects happen after specialist phase, so a general would not reduce the damage a king will deal.

According to the description, the King is supposed to Kill 1 Driller for every 3 that remain after the specialist phase.

In this situation, I have 3 Kings. 12 Drillers. After the specialist stage I will have 2 left. The Kings shouldn't kill any drillers, but they are killing 12.

V3xt is correct; the General also takes effect after the specialist phase. So you should have 12 drillers left after specialists. THEN the general and King do their work.

topkilla wrote:

kevlargolem wrote:Admiral is OP, Tycoon is OP, King is OP, and... *drum roll* Minister of Energy is also OP. Engineers might also be OP, but I havnt experimented with them enough to say for sure.

So the take-away from this is basically that the promotioned specs are OP.

As always, you miss the point friend. There's not an issue with the specialists being OP. There's an issue with specialist stacking being consistently inconsistent.

Once again you've taken me out of context- either because you didnt read what I said, or deliberately. See the rest of what I said in the following quote:

kevlargolem wrote:The King is different though. Not because King itself is so OP, but as discussed previously, the stacking is just ridiculous because the negative cant stack.

topkilla wrote:The Minster of energy does not have this problem. It (1) has a negative ability associated with it. (2) That negative ability stacks. (3) The negative and positive ability are directly related. This is the logical way for the specialist to stack. You trade one thing off for the other. In this case, slightly less production for an increase in supply cap.

You're right, the MoE doesnt have this problem, its OP without even needing to stack. All you need is 1.

(I dont want to derail the conversation by changing the topic, BUT if you do want to see a stacking problem, along with a negative which isnt related to the benefit, a negative which doesnt really get much worse with stacking, how about multiple Tinkerers stacked up? Add a king, queen, or sec chief into that mix, and its just so OP. ...and tinkerer is only 1 hire ...and is literally the only spec in the game that does what it does, other than its promoted counterpart.)

topkilla wrote:The Admiral doesn't make sense. It's fine the way it is without a negative ability, but there is 0 logic behind the speed boost stacking. It's the only speed boost in the game that stacks. And with only 4 hires, 99% of your subs will travel at the same speed as the helmsman.

Agreed, however I think youve actually undervalued how OP it is. 2 of them is 50% + 50% = 100% = 2x. Thus, you only need 2 to match the speed of a helmsman. If you have 4, un-speced drills move as fast as a smuggler. Please correct me if my math is wrong.

topkilla wrote:The Tycoon isn't used as often as it should be right now. But soon enough players will realize it's an awesome specialist. And since there is no negative ability, theres no reason not to stack them.

The natural drill cap is why you dont stack them. People dont realize how many drills their own cap "kills"

kevlargolem wrote:

topkilla wrote:The Admiral doesn't make sense. It's fine the way it is without a negative ability, but there is 0 logic behind the speed boost stacking. It's the only speed boost in the game that stacks. And with only 4 hires, 99% of your subs will travel at the same speed as the helmsman.

Agreed, however I think youve actually undervalued how OP it is. 2 of them is 50% + 50% = 100% = 2x. Thus, you only need 2 to match the speed of a helmsman. If you have 4, un-speced drills move as fast as a smuggler. Please correct me if my math is wrong.

I believe your math is correct (and you can trust me on this one). But I also believe you understood him wrong. I think he was referring to 4 hires: those being hire a nav, promote the nav, hire another, promote it too. 4 hires = 2 admirals.

v3xt wrote:tion about the MoE is illogical. You can be gifted drillers past your cap, so the MoE has no effect on the situation you've described. With 7, or even 6 MoE, without funding or specific specialists, you would have 0 driller production. At this point, his benefit of increasing your cap is useless. You don't need a higher cap if you have no way to produce drillers. In my opinion, hiring more that 1 MoE is normally a bad idea, as it cuts your production to 2 thirds.

I never said anything about it being logical. I just said that what topkilla implied about the indefinite negative stacking of MoE is inaccurate.

A lot of good thinking on both sides here. I'm honestly not sure where my opinion falls. In my experience, however, I don't think multiple stacked kings is as OP as people think or assume. And if you haven't actually played at least one or two games where you or an opponent has had 3-5 kings, I'd encourage you to reserve judgment until you have (e.g. see here for example of almost useless 4-King stack). I've found that after the combination of lost shields, driller cap, and especially the need to have most-to-all drillers combined in one sub to really make it worthwhile . . . . it can really leave whole swathes of territory exposed. I think the OP-ness is way overestimated.

But that's not why I wanted to post! I wanted to play devil's advocate for a minute: Let's grant for a moment that stacked Kings are very OP. Why is that bad? I'd suggest that it's good because it ultimately helps ensure the game ends (as opposed to continuing indefinitely because everything is perfectly balanced). This is even more important now with Domination mode, which we're all finding can stretch on painfully long despite allegedly OP King stacks. The point is, having everything be "perfectly" balanced could detract from enjoyment of the game by creating more 'stalemates' and/or causing the game to drag out much much longer, especially in Domination mode. Don't forget, it takes a long time and a lot of hires to accumulate 4+ Kings, which I'd say auto-balances things nicely.

turnout wrote:A lot of good thinking on both sides here. I'm honestly not sure where my opinion falls. In my experience, however, I don't think multiple stacked kings is as OP as people think or assume. And if you haven't actually played at least one or two games where you or an opponent has had 3-5 kings, I'd encourage you to reserve judgment until you have (e.g. see here for example of almost useless 4-King stack). I've found that after the combination of lost shields, driller cap, and especially the need to have most-to-all drillers combined in one sub to really make it worthwhile . . . . it can really leave whole swathes of territory exposed. I think the OP-ness is way overestimated.

But that's not why I wanted to post! I wanted to play devil's advocate for a minute: Let's grant for a moment that stacked Kings are very OP. Why is that bad? I'd suggest that it's good because it ultimately helps ensure the game ends (as opposed to continuing indefinitely because everything is perfectly balanced). This is even more important now with Domination mode, which we're all finding can stretch on painfully long despite allegedly OP King stacks. The point is, having everything be "perfectly" balanced could detract from enjoyment of the game by creating more 'stalemates' and/or causing the game to drag out much much longer, especially in Domination mode. Don't forget, it takes a long time and a lot of hires to accumulate 4+ Kings, which I'd say auto-balances things nicely.

You do make some good points here, and you are right that the king has some downfalls ( downfalls that can be covered by other specialists that will eventually become availabe) and everyone and their cat has a tale of how they defeated a guy who stacked Kings.
The Staked King is definitely beatable- That's not the argument
Dominion Stalemates can definitely be a pain and some kings is an ok Tie breaker- But lets try to stick with Vanilla here- The way the game was balanced and designed to be played initially.

I am seeing Kings a lot more than when I first started- When kings where considered more of a glass cannon type pick of a specialist they are now considered a powerful strategy with a decent win rate and limited counter play. King+King+Speed+Production=Win or at least a force to deal with.

The question I want to ask is this: Is the ability to increase the global value of your drillers repeatedly, with the only consequence being your shields, Healthy for the game?

By Value I mean that each King makes every driller worth 33% more than an average driller- Often 2 Kings is the most common and shows the stacking effect so 66%
If combat ensues and you don't have at least 66% of his drillers, then the enemy drillers can get out without a scratch- essentially giving them a kind of shield- A barrier of 'Must be this tall to touch me'
That essentially means that an opponent must be able to match you in both driller count and production by 66% for it to be a fair fight driller to driller. They better pray that they have been hiring driller destroying specialists to mitigate that loss.


The counters to the King are as such:
Shields- Security Chief- The Kings 66% guard cannot wipe out shields so losses are taken
Countercounter- Infiltrator- A single hire...neat
- Engineer can take the sting away
Thief- Actually stacks with high enemy driller count and is a single hire woot woot
Countercounter- you'll lose him if you send him alone and must be sent on the offensive

General Combo- Takes as many hires as a king but is reusable to widdle down thier drillers
CounterCounter- Reusable until they get their hands on a assassin- come in two for the hire of one

Diplomacy- Everybody attack his weak underside! Depends on who your playing with.
Attacking a stacked king is a bloody process that does weaken most who go for it- Unless everybody does it then those who side with the King will be healthier than those who go through the conflict. The damage a Raging Vengeful Stacked King is enough for many to opt out.

Even if it costs a whole 4 specialist hire's, is there another 4 specialist that is this strong and grueling to deal with?
Every game I have been in since 2 weeks ago has had a stacked king- Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, But the dread that comes with dealing with stacked kings is annoying as hell.
Oh better drop my grudging battle with Teal so I can try and stop this Double king from snowballing into being unstoppable.

If I see another player hire a hypnotist I have to change my game plan, allies, future hires, driller placement, everything- I don't think a single specialist line should have that power. I don't think its healthy.
I don't want people to start playing like "First to hire 2 kings wins woo"
Thoughts?