Diplomacy Rebalance!

Hey Polytopians! We've been hearing your myriad of opinions on the new Diplomacy tech and the things it contains, both good and bad, and we've made some adjustments based on your feedback! These changes are live for testing on all beta branches, and are not on the public branches yet. Changelog is at the bottom if you don't want to read all of this!!! The biggest point of contention over the new update was the inclusion of Cloaks and Daggers and how they change up the flow of the game. We think change is a good thing, but that doesn't mean we can't improve that change in order to create a more fun experience for everyone! Interestingly enough, there isn't really a consensus about whether they're too strong, too weak, too oppressive, too ineffective, or etc, but we've made an effort to hopefully address all of these opinions at once with these changes! So, without further ado, let's discuss these changes to Cloaks and Daggers.

All Units Now have Detect

Originally, only Mind Benders and other Cloaks had the Detect ability, which allowed them to notice any adjacent invisible units, but now we've given that ability to all units! While it won't immediately reveal any Cloaks, you'll get a hint that one is around, and multiple units can be used to pinpoint where exactly one is. We've also improved the Detect symbol so that it's easier to read! Mind Benders don't get any consolation prizes for no longer being unique, but we'll probably give them some love in the future. :) We made this change to address the complaints about Cloaks being hard to counter since you couldn't see/detect them well. This should give defending players an edge when trying to find enemy Cloaks, while also not making a Cloak's stealth instantly nullified, and thus, worthless.

Changes to Cloaks

Not to be outdone, Cloaks have gotten some nifty upgrades that should allow them to bypass the newly improved enemy defenses. While it may be easier for enemies to spot them, it's now also easier for the Cloaks to evade a defending player's army with the additions of the Scout and Creep abilities. To assist them in utilizing their movement to its fullest, Cloaks have also been given the Scout ability, which gives them an extra tile of sight, like a Battleship, and the Creep ability, so they're not hindered by terrain movement penalties. The two of these will allow them to see and sneak around enemies, or scout out an enemy's empire without fear. We knew that giving every unit Detect was a super hard nerf to the Cloak, so we wanted to make sure that the Cloaks got some buffs to match. There should now be a more dynamic cat-and-mouse game between players which keeps the experience more interesting overall.

Improvements to Infiltration

In addition to the buffs that Cloaks have gotten, we've indirectly buffed them by making Infiltration a bit more punishing. Many fans claimed that using Cloaks well didn't have as much of an impact as it should have, so we have made some adjustments to keep the "high risk/high reward gameplay" more relevant. The changes are: Buffs:

• Infiltration will damage any units inside the city
• A city's innate income will be stolen by the infiltrating player, not just blocked (not any income from Embassies, Custom Houses, or etc)
• Daggers will spawn inside a city if there is no unit defending (or if the unit is killed by the infiltration)

Nerfs:

• Cities can only be infiltrated once per turn
• Daggers created on the water are turned into Pirates, which can't be upgraded into Battleships

Since it's now a lot more difficult to get into a high-priority city, we wanted to make sure the reward was worth it if you did. Star stealing, injuring defending units, and making it easier to capture undefended cities should help encourage the taking of larger cities, either by themselves or as part of a larger offensive push. To compensate, you can't conga line Cloaks into a city for massive amounts of Daggers, and the Daggers that do get spawned on the water are weaker.

The Addition of Pirates

As mentioned in the previous point, a common complaint was how any Daggers that spawned on the water could be turned into Battleships with no penalty, allowing for a massive spike of power in the area if you had the stars for it. Also, to better align them with the relationship between Cloaks and Dinghies, we've given the Dagger its own water variant - the Pirate! It has stats identical to a Dagger (including the Surprise trait), just like how the Dinghy has stats identical to the Cloak. So, think of them less as "new naval units" and more as "water forms of Cloaks and Daggers". Besides trying to fix the issues with Battleships, Dinghies and Pirates exist so that Cloaks and Daggers are as effective on water as they are on land. We didn't want people to not use them just because there was water in the way, so these forms are our way of ensuring they see use, even on Archipelago or Water World maps.

Other Balance Changes

We've also made some changes to other aspects of the game that we hope you like.

Cymanti

• Explosion damage has been reduced by 50%
• Fungi no longer do damage while poisoning

Cymanti is often considered a little strong and difficult to fight at times, so we're trying to balance out their offensive and defensive power. Fungi don't deal damage (but will still poison), so Cymanti cities should be easier to assault. The explosion nerf should encourage the use of more units than just the Doomux. This explosion nerf should also mean that Poison is spread better, which in turn means more Fungi/Algae on the map. We'll be keeping an eye on whether or not this change nerfs them too much.

Aquarion

• Crabs now have 2 movement

Yes, Aquarion fans, the first buff for your favorite unit since they were first added to Polytopia! We plan to do a proper buff for Aquarion in the future, but for now, we've decided to fix this clear injustice.

Polaris

• Ice Bank max cap increased to 30

We were informed that on larger maps, especially ones with water, Custom Houses were far better than Ice Banks, and we wanted to make sure that the effectiveness of the Ice Bank wouldn't be hindered by map size. So, to make things more consistent and give Polaris players a constant incentive to expand their icy domain, we raised the cap to 30. That should be more than enough to cover a Massive map, we think.

General

• Reduced the amount of income when meeting tribe (1 less star per level)
• AI is now better at trying to reveal cloaks
• You heal 4hp in ally territory (instead of 2hp)

Reducing the amount of stars gained from meeting tribes was only to help early game scaling. You shouldn't see too much of a gameplay difference. We've also improved how AI try to find Cloaks and fixed a bug where you weren't fully healing in ally territory like you should have been.

Conclusion

We hope that these changes to Diplomacy make Cloaks and Daggers both more fun to play with and play against! We'll be keeping a close eye on these changes in the future, and might make adjustments if necessary. We'd like to hear your thoughts on this patch, so please tell us what you think either here or on the official Polytopia Discord! To join the Steam beta, follow these steps: [olist]

Right Click Polytopia from within Steam

Click "Properties"

Click "Betas" on the popup window

Use the Access Code polytopiabetatesters to get access to the beta! [/olist] We'll be releasing this update to the public soon! Have fun! -Zoythrus Changelog: Adjusted Cloaks:

• All units can now detect Cloaks
• Cloaks get "Scout" and "Creep" ability

Adjusted Infiltration:

• Improved design for detect and infiltration
• Cities can only be infiltrated once per turn
• Infiltration now causes damage to the defending unit
• Daggers can spawn in the city if undefended
• City's star production is stolen by the infiltrating player
• Special Pirate ship for Daggers!

Adjusted Balance:

• Explosion damage is reduced by 50%
• No damage from Fungi
• 2 moves for Crab
• Ice Bank cap increased to 30
• Reduced the amount of income when meeting tribe (1 less star per level)
• AI is now better at trying to reveal Cloaks
• You heal 4hp in ally territory (instead of 2hp)

General Additions:

• Improved bug reporter - now lets you send error log to any communication service