Cahokia said:
As someone who loves hive minds but has only played one game as them since 2.2 came out due to balance issues, let me remind people of one glaring problem with balance right now. Hive worlds. The ability to have no district cap worlds means you can get absurd numbers of production out of planets, especially since hive minds have +1 job to every district. They are the king of raw resources no one can come close to their raw output. And since their economy has shifted to needing less refined goods, that advantage is far stronger than in a normal empire. Don't underestimate essentially having unlimited resources, the only limit on your economy is growing pops fast enough to fill the alloy factories. (Which is a sarcastic way of saying there isn't a cap on their economy due to insane pop growth) Yes if played competently hive minds grow faster than a normal empire. A normal empire can keep up with hive minds through conquering but a hive mind does have faster pop growth to offset that disadvantage. And the earlier comment about them having double maintenance on low hab worlds, its called resettling. Which is what everyone should do with their normal empires too so that is a nonissue. But it takes a good player to match the growth of a hive mind, which is why I think hive minds are easier for newer players to multiplayer.
All that to say, I think they have become more balanced with the recent patches. (except for the machine empire crazy buff needs to be toned down a little) So I may try them out and see if those amenity nerfs actually hurt them enough. I'm guessing not though based on how overpowered they were before. Their energy disadvantage from not having trade was too easy to overcome and wasn't a strong enough stop on them.
However GC and normal empires are meant to be played differently. Normal empires are more efficient with the resources they are given (big one here is ecumenopoli) and GC just throw raw output at the problem. If the amenity nerf was enough I would say they are relatively balanced against each other. But honestly it will be hard to keep up in the late game with one in multiplayer as you each run out of room to expand. They will be able to continue to grow their economy with no district caps while a normal empire will have to become more reliant on the market for minerals. But honestly good players will not allow a hive mind to grow while everyone else stagnates so I think they should be in a pretty decent spot.
I like that they play differently, its fun to have different play styles and I think they should keep their pop growth advantage and no district caps. But there are ways to nerf that so it remains balanced. Like amenities.
The maintenance change is pretty big. I'm not at home, and the wiki isn't fully updated so I can't be 100% accurate of any napkin math I do without the game running and files open, but you are at the very least using up several precious building slots for maintenance depots, because maintenance drones are pretty much your only source of amenities. Normal empires, on top of the more productive Entertainers, have many more sources of amenities from ruler jobs, clerks, priests... Most of these jobs have GC equivalents, but their versions don't produce any additional amenities (the sole exception is the Replicator/Spawning Drone, and IIRC MEs are hard capped at 3 per planet for the former and Hive Minds are capped at 1 for the later.)
Real question I want direct answers for before I lay down the math is amenity consumption for GC pops. Normal empires is 1, modified by Habitability, .75 for slaves. If that was true for GC, and nothing on the wiki says otherwise, that would mean nearly 1/4 of every GC planet would have to be maintenance drones to just keep amenities at even level. Thing is, though I've had to build more than I would like, that doesn't align with my experience with the recent patches, so I need to test it fully for myself before I declare that that the almost the entirety of extra pop growth Hive Minds get are going to maintaining stability at 50%.
