[ICW 2.2] Era Progression Overhaul

[Schräge Musik]

Great explanation. Can't wait to try it myself.

[Hairybum74]

As a decently long time person in playing the mod, it is absolutely great to finally see that the IR can actually progress without having to purposefully kill their leaders. It will make being the IR a lot more enjoyable and fun.

[carpemark]

This sounds amazing. I like the forced era/hero changes as this is supposed to be a galactic battle and that would ensue.  Please nerf SSD’s as they are way too powerful.
Perhaps Empire of the hand get some sort way to scout a neighbouring planet? Hate going in blind but so be it. Part of the fun.
Well done and a great exciting effort on the developers.

[kucsidave]

About the SSDs, they will be nerfed. They will have less shields, and gain an engine hardpoint, so you will be able to stop it from retreating, or slow it down, and considering it's speed to begin with, it will make it much less useful.

[ErikModi]

So, now that people have had a chance to play it, what do they think?

Personally, I'm still not a fan.  Knowing there's a time limit makes the Remnant really unfun to play, since I'm feeling pressured to try and make gains before everything changes.  Also, knowing there are penalties to letting the timer run out (missing out on Isard, losing planets as Thrawn, etc.) pressures you into doing the voluntary progression, which is. . . wow, not cheap.  Got to week 255, twenty or so weeks before I need to make Palpatine or lose Thrawn and Ciutric (and however many planets it takes with), and I keep losing defensive fleets because the NR zerg rushes me with Home Ones, forcing me to completely rebuild defensive fleets every so often, making it extremely difficult to save up for Palpatine.

It also rather bothers me that this increases the chances of advancing eras as other factions without actually doing anything.  A few games I've played in earlier versions, I had to fight and kill the Imperial leader, which could be quite difficult, and had a sense of reward to it.  Other times, the leader would die to another AI faction, and I get new units without having done anything at all.  Still cool, but kinda strange.  Now, all you have to do is run out the clock.  You could be just ready to start your offensive, with solid defense fleets on your chokepoints and a good offensive fleet to start taking territory, and boom. . . new units, lose some heroes, gain new ones, and probably have to redefine your fleet compositions to accomodate.  That last may just be my very low-grade OCD, but once I moved to Thrawn, the game got more pressure-filled than I generally like, crunched between only having 100 weeks, restructuring my defense fleets to use Allegiances, and having fewer credits coming in than were going out to that shipbuilding effort, to say nothing of actually finally building a decent attack fleet and army.

I get why it's there, but an option to turn off the timed part would be really nice.

[tlmiller]

I hate the forced progression as well.  Enough that since testing stopped, I just plain won't play the progressive GC's as anyone.  It completely ruins the point of the GC's IMO.

[Corey]

missing out on Isard

You don't miss out on Isard. Quite frankly, none of the timed event downsides are especially punishing.

It completely ruins the point of the GC's IMO.

This I particularly don't get- the point of the GCs is that they progress, all this does it make sure that actually happens at some point.

Most people finish the GCs within 300-400 weeks, having never been in any era anywhere near long enough to actually see the timed events. If you're trying to "run out the clock" on any given subera, you have to be sitting on the galactic map for over an hour.

But whatever, I guess we'll try to find some way to have an option to turn them off.

[tlmiller]

Because it was fun that if you wanted to keep Thrawn, you could keep thrawn.  Or as the NR, you could try to avoid Thrawn to avoid facing palpatine. Now that it forces you to progress, it just isn't any fun anymore IMO.

[Corey]

Which, again, boils down to just turning the era system into a glorified selection menu for single-era GCs that was only available to the Empire in the first place, because everyone else couldn't make that choice to begin with. I'm really curious how many people actually even came up against the timer.

But, like I said, whatever, I guess we'll try to find some way to have an option to turn them off.

[tlmiller]

Eh, IMO it's fine as is.  There's enough non-progressive GC's now that you don't have to deal with the freeze that I don't miss the progressives.

[Lord Xizer]

Because it was fun that if you wanted to keep Thrawn, you could keep thrawn.  Or as the NR, you could try to avoid Thrawn to avoid facing palpatine. Now that it forces you to progress, it just isn't any fun anymore IMO.

Isn't this the point of single era GCs? I actually feel like the new era progression is an improvement as it factors lore and story progression into things and if you don't like it you have tons of single era GCs to do what you previously stated.
Further all the main Imperial leaders(Pestage, Carvin, Isard, Thrawn,Palpatine, and Jax were all betrayed and killed by circumstances that would be outside normal game control and the last two-Daala and Pellaeon have fairly similar ships and units so it hardly seems problematic to have the event oriented progression as it is now.

[ErikModi]

You don't miss out on Isard. Quite frankly, none of the timed event downsides are especially punishing.

I got the message that Isard was ready to take control, and the research option for her appeared.  I didn't work on it, because I couldn't afford it and was too busy securing my boarders, getting my defenses set, working on connecting (or sacrificing) isolated planets, and so on.  Time passed, and I got the message that Isard had taken over and the Empire was now under her control, then the message that Thrawn was ready to return.  Isard's research option vanished and Thrawn's appeared, but no Isard or Lusankya anywhere in my territory.

[Corey]

That would typically be caused by a script crash and would have happened regardless of how you progressed because of a bug, not by design. It tells you what the intended differences are.

[tlmiller]

Isn't this the point of single era GCs? I actually feel like the new era progression is an improvement as it factors lore and story progression into things and if you don't like it you have tons of single era GCs to do what you previously stated.

Yeah, but if you're playing a progressive as not-IR, it was fun to me sometime to see how much you could actually take without forcing a progression.  Or as the IR, it was fun to try to stick with just Thrawn when you're at your weakest, but knowing that if you start losing, you had the option to suicide Thrawn and get Pally.  Now it's just "build like a psycho while you have that leader before you lose whatever unique units they have".  As the NR, it's just set and turtle and wait for Era 5 where you're the strongest and can easily just grade through everyone, you don't have to TRY to survive Pally's return.  Takes all the fun out of playing as them to me.  Trying to survive Pally without losing a LOT of area was the only reason to play as the NR to me.

[the_trots]

I am enjoying the automatic era progression and believe it adds a lot to the game. 

There are tons of single era GCs for those who don't like it.

[huntermad]

IS there any easy way(XML?) to edit the number of weeks for era change after you kill a Imperial leader?

My style is total aggression so by week 20-25 I would have a fleet orbit Corusant and took over Core worlds already, having to wait 15 weeks for era change is too much for me since I likely would destroy all other factions as week 50 at most.

[Tony T.]

Is there a way to stop the era from progressing after the timed events? (for exp: 100 weeks later, Palpatine dies). Because I just want to stay in era 3, I do not want to progress any further. So is there a way to stop this from happening, or do I have to be forced to progress into the next era?

[Corey]

You can't stop era progression in era progressive GCs. There are, however, several era-specific GCs which are set in just those eras.

[ebee8472]

I'm at the moment of redoing thrawn's revenge because for some reason i was stuck on ERA 4; as of now i'm on era 4 again and somehow skipped era 3 (2->4), i knocked off Palps (if i recall he's era 3) and accidentally ran into Gilad Pellaeon, and took him out.....so did I just screw up my game again (was playing "essense of" then tried "art of", in essense, i took over all planets and did not locate Daala)