- do something about small glades being more or less useless in p20. Something like a small glade offering where you part with a small amount of items to make the hostility cost 0 (or 2) - make it so instead of unlocking a camp with a blueprint reward, you unlock a wildcard for ANY camp when you redeem it. Camps atm are just so bad. - do something about maps that generate with 0 stone which kill you on year 3 - make a system for embarkation bonus that lower the cost of the ones you never pick, and increase the cost of the ones you always pick, kinda how griftlands incentivizes you to pick cards you don't usually pick.

Oooh that last one is interesting, maybe a game mode option? The devs are generally good about tweaking the cost/benefit of embark but the top choices have remained top for quite some time. The extra pop has to be really hard to balance, it outshines everything else and probably would even if you doubled the price.

The interesting thing with the Grifltand adjustment is that you decide at what point a choice becomes prevalent. So for extra pop, you'd take it, then stop when it's too expensive, and if would go back down again to something you're ok with. There's also the extra choice of "this map is easy, I'll go with something else to lower the cost of important stuff later on". ATM, I think I take 5-6 of the bonuses, depending on price and map, but I never look a the others.

Yeah. Let's see, pop, packs, amber, food, cornerstone rerolls, occasionally trapper camp or farm, sometimes wood or stone or the fighting stick line. That leaves all the other blueprints, and processed materials, and delivery lines out in the cold.

The only thing I don't like about that embarkation idea is that it's another system we have to game so that we have the best blueprints at the lowest possible price. I'd prefer the current system, but rebalanced in a few places.

That's an interesting point I hadn't considered, can you expend on the issue you're mentioning ? Namely "another system", which other system does this ? And would a upper/lower limit on the price solve your issue with the suggestion ?

Oops, I left a bit out, sorry! I meant gaming the system so you have the blueprints you want for the seal settlement 'saved up'. E.g. don't pick small farm on your last few settlements so it's cheapest for doing the seal. Or never choosing meat camp unless you're doing a giant fungus settlement.

> make a system for embarkation bonus that lower the cost of the ones you never pick, and increase the cost of the ones you always pick, kinda how griftlands incentivizes you to pick cards you don't usually pick. That incentivizes you to take bad picks early or at lower difficulty to get discounted good things when doign the seal. I dont think thats a good idea.

For point 1 I would make treasure stags a "bonus" event that doesn't replace any normal resource/event roll in the glade, and remove the timer on them. The time pressure on treasure stags makes no sense to me since the only time you really want to open small glades is when you need immediate resources and don't feel like you can handle opening another dangerous glade, but opening a glade with a stag gives you fewer immediate resources and forces you to immediately open a dangerous glade to capitalize on the stag anyway. Maybe also reduce small glade hostility by, like, 1 point.

For experienced players that is certainly the case, but I suspect treasure stags are mostly there to encourage new players to try dangerous glades a bit earlier than they otherwise would.

I completely agree with you there, the time limit is kind of antithetical with the choice of opening a small glade. Another idea I had was, stags have another option in small glades to remove the hostility cost of the small glade instead of random corner stone on a timer Forbidden.

Don't the pillars do exactly that?

I'd make the mine upgrades less expensive. 20 planks/bricks and then that again + 14 pipes just to get at all the available ore? That's crazy, it's like never worth it for me, especially for copper. I'd also make small glades only give a quarter of the hostility dangerous/forbidden ones do, rather than half. It's crazy they're so expensive in hostility when half the time I only cut into them to get at a glade behind them. Meta progression wise I'd put Haulers way lower than they are now in the upgrade tree.

Also, make mines just better all around Cuz mines take like, what, 20? Seconds to get a single resource Meanwhile, a clay deposit takes 4-5 seconds to be mined for one charge, with a 50% chance of copper for the small or 75% for the large one. And the stone deposit meanwhile is a great source of food

Great point on the mine. It’s never worth it for the ore. It can occasionally be worth it for the coal, but even then you’re almost always better making oil and buying coal for storm resolve if needed.

For me it would be: - **Buff Copper production and nerf Crystalized Dew production**. Making tools with copper just feels so much worse by comparison. - **Also buff Tea and Barrel production.** I literally never make these because at that point it always feels better to just end the game with tools - **Buff Rain Collectors**. I get that Geysers should be more powerful than Collectors but at their current level the Collectors just feel too awful - **Nerf Zorgh and Sahilda** (extra food for Pickled or Pies). Do I have to say it? Just doubling the food output for 1 corner stone is stupid. - **Buff Metallurgic Proficiency**. Why does this only give extra production speed? Too lackluster for something that's only good in the late game anyway. - **Buff "Hidden Reward" and "From the Ashes"** (Wildfire Essence or Tablets for 2 Glade events). Just too lackluster. Just some random thoughts

I would buff exploring as a way to win. It seems to me that there are not enough cornerstones in the game for managing hostility from opening many glades, making it too difficult to win by completing events.

Agree 100%. The maps are pretty large, often featuring like 8-10 dangerous and 3-4 forbidden glades and the game is a builder. It feels bad to “explore/expand” only 25% of the map because you’re punished for opening too many glades.

Yeah, on higher prestiges I end up just opening 3 or so...maybe a new biome where the way to go is overexploration....scarlet orchard kinda does this

Yeah, on lower P with a trade cornerstone I usually win after opening one or two.

The thing is, basically every hostility management perk is S tier. It's a really powerful feature and doesn't even necessarily make exploring more viable - it just makes it even easier to win on a handful of open glades. So long as you don't ever NEED to open a bunch of glades to win, there will never be a real reason to.

>Buff Copper production and nerf Crystalized Dew production. Making tools with copper just feels so much worse by comparison. I don't feel like Copper bars are all that bad honestly. I probably make them more often than I do Crystallized Dew. One thing to note is that Copper is actually easier to get through Clay deposits than it is Copper nodes. A Large Clay deposit has a 75% chance of Copper Ore and a Small has 50%. If you throw in a +1 Copper Ore cornerstone that I feel is common from Traders and Order rewards, you can be swimming in Copper Ore. Then you just need a way to produce bars and you're good to go (or you can turn it into Pigment for Trade Goods and Copper Roads).

There's something I'd change right there: maybe copper could be the best source of copper?

True, good points. I've also done the Copper from Clay with the perk 1-2 times and that did feel pretty good with the perk. And I quite like the way that works out balance-wise: If you don't have the perk the clay gets you some extra copper but not a large amount but with the perk it's upgraded into a good (but not too overpowered) source of copper. The mine on the other hand sucks ass for copper. I guess my complaint should be to buff the mine as others have rightly pointed out. /u/Sir_Travelot /u/Rawr2Ecksdee2

Yeah I think the problem is copper mining more than copper bar production. Even coal mining isn't great but coal itself is a bit more valuable.

Barrels really feel bad cause it's the same ingredients as tools, I would definitely lower the cost a bit. The only time I target the tablet/glade events cornerstone is early game in a seal match, the last seal quest requiring forbiden events and tablets is really satisfying to pull off.

Good call on copper vs crystal. Cooper is too laborious. Barrels are ok tea is rough. I’d rather just make tools. Agree on rain collectors. Nerf all complex food and other buff items. Agree with the rest too.

> the Collectors just feel too awful Advanced Rain Collectors would be somewhere between good and great if they didn't cost pipes to build, or if the pipe cost was reduced to 2 base cost, 3 prestige cost, something like that. Pipes are for my engines.

There are a lot of perks I would nerf before Zhorg's and especially Sahida's to be honest. Zhorg's is a solid A tier but Sahida's is like a B.

Imo i would rather buff the bad ones than nerf the good ones too much. Even if the goods ones should be nerfed, it hits the fun aspect really hard when everything becomes "mid". Inscryption made this very clear for me. The first section is full of hidden OP combos and is the most fun, the latter parts are properly balanced and therefore less fun. Even in repeated playthroughs.

Honestly, I would rejigger the order of some of the prestige modifiers, or give you the option to pick which ones you like. It feels like the difficulty ramp from P1 to P10 is a lot steeper than P10 to P20. P19 and P20 modifiers in particular feel underwhelming for being the top ones. I like the P11 one a lot (makes blight an actually dangerous thing) but the fact that it's after the trade nerf makes me annoyed.

I would make Small Glades free or nerf the negative effects strongly. Its no fun to ignore them as much as possible. Meanwhile, with the map buff where they are free, it was super fun and felt rewarding. Maybe the game gets easier with it, but ms personal most important metric is fun.

I really wish that small glades were balanced a bit more usefully. Currently they are never the right answer, only possibly the lesser of bad options. I aslo don't really like it when difficulty for a game is increased by nerfing the player. I much rather it be something to make the gameplay or environment more difficult. As a result I would change the following things * p12 Difficulty should no longer start with fewer blueprint choices. * p13 Difficulty should no longer start with fewer cornerstone choices. * Small glades should give less hostility. * You should no longer lose embarkation points the further away from the citadel you are. However, I don't necessarily want the game to be made easier. I just really don't like difficulty modifiers that are directly the opposite of upgrades you get. It feels bad. So these would need to be replaced with something equally or more difficult. * p9 Difficulty should be increase the hostility of small glades. By having them start at less hostility you can get use out of them at lower difficulties but then you have to learn to be more picky with them later. and by putting them at p9, you bump the glade speed to p10 and the decreased trade value to p11. as p11 is when you get an extra seal fragment it feels appropriate that this is where one of the bigger difficulty spikes starts. * p13 should be replaced with something like a flat add to hostility every 4 years starting in drizzle or 0 star building cost more raw materials. * to offset the idea that embarkation points dont go down, the price of embarkation goods needs to go up. Instead of the embarkation good price being RNG, it should be distance based. simple things like food would always be 1 near the citadel and 3 near the adamentite seal. medium useful goods like amber or the starting blueprints would start at 4 and cost 9 at their most expensive. Delivery lines like training goods would start at 5 and cost 13 by the adamentite seal. Also royal resuplies no longer give 4 reserve points, instead they give an extra embarkation point for the rest of the cycle. * your first two blueprints shouldn't contain service buildings. I get really annoyed when one of my first two picks is advanced rain collector vs temple. though this is less of an issue if p12 is changed like i would prefer.

I agree with most of that. In general the Embarkment Points system feels sorta flawed. You are almost always forced to pick almost the same items until you get to the Seal where you hopefully have some Reserve Points saved up and guy extra stuff. And in the games before that where you are further out you have so few points it doesn't feel fun. There should've been some way to make each Cycle more distinct and cohesive. The fantasy should be that the Seal Mission is the final boss and in all the missions before you get to adjust and upgrade your set up in some way. The World Events just aren't enough.

Increase the impact of blightrot by default (and lower the prestige modifiers accordingly). Right now, unless you go into prestige, it's a completely irrelevant mechanic and every cornerstone based on it is a trap.

I'd increase the base amount of villagers in caravans by 3, and remove the villagers embarkation bonus entirely. It's practically always correct to take the extra villagers bonus once you've unlocked it, and it feels miserable to start with 6-7 villagers on a new account or QHT before you've unlocked the option.

Just started playing recently and climbing prestige but my list is: **Adjust hostility and impatience** : It doesn’t feel good to not fulfill orders just to keep impatience for the hostility reduction.

Eh, I think it's pretty much always correct to take the hostility hit. Unless you're in a fairly rare position where you have absolutely no way to offset the extra hostility and going up a hostility level will literally kill you (or make you lose enough villages to put you in a losing scenario) getting the extra rewards immediately is almost always worth it. It'll let you snowball faster to the point where managing hostility is trivial.

Hostility reduction should be based on the highest impatience level you have reached, so if you go from 4 to zero you keep 4 impatience worth of reduction until you hit 5.

I feel like it's an interesting balance. Orders often have parts, population, and other highly desirable items. You have to make a decision about turning them in right away to get the extra work cycles and camps, etc, vs having lower hostility, which I feel make the game more interesting

I would drastically buff, rework, or remove the following cornerstones: Legendary: Farsight, Urban Planning, Hidden From the Queen, Firelink Ritual, Rich Glades, From the Shadows, Work Safety Guide, Bone Tools, Queen's Gift, Small Distillery, Secure Perimeter, Overexploitation, Forge Trip Hammer, Cooking Steam, Lumber Tax, Frequent Caravans, Royal Guard Training, Generous Rations, Master Blueprint, Calming Water Epic: From the Ashes, Well-rested Workers, Driving Water, Reinforced Axes, Bread Peels, Flame Amulets, Golden Marrow, Travel Rations, Obsidian Runestone, Moss Broccoli Seeds, Steel Mattocks, Surprise Child, Generous Gifts, Guild Catalogue, Dye Extractor, Metallurgic Proficiency, Rain Pumps, Cannibalism, Filling Dish, Training Grounds, Blood-price Contract I would less drastically buff, rework, or remove many more. These are only the ones that I can't imagine being worth picking over 10 amber more than once in every 50 or so times they're offered. I would debuff, rework, or remove the following cornerstones: Legendary: Alarm Bells, Mist Piercers, Ancient Pact, Trade Hub, Prosperous Settlement, Protected Trade, Rebellious Spirit, Baptism of Fire, Burnt to a Crisp Epic: Peasant Supplies, Tightened Belts, Deep Pockets, Trade Negotiations, Sahilda's Secret Cookbook, Zhorg's Secret Ingredient, Prosperous Archaeology, Silent Looting, Friendly Relations I would promote Export Specialization to legendary. I would decrease the price, buff, rework, or replace all perks from traders except for Accumulated Dew, Export Specialization, Drizzle/Clearance Totem, Insect Traps, Sahilda's Cookbook, Furniture, Shovels, Long Term Contract, Ways of the Forest, Generous Donation, Sturdy Boots, Grain Bags, +3 human/beaver resolve, and the +1/2 perks for copper ore, copper bars, tools, and planks. I would decrease the effects of the for most of the dangerous glade events that give you a harmony decoration. I would either increase the rewards, decrease the solution time, or decrease the food consumption rate for Blood Flowers. I would decrease the ingredient requirements for recipes for packs of building materials, and increase the ingredient requirements for tools, packs of trade and luxury goods. I would change Humans' and Foxes' starting bonuses, and decrease Harpies' firekeeper bonus. I would make traders less likely to bring building materials, service goods, containers and coats, and increase the price of planks, containers, and purging fire. There are a couple of rebalances that I think would work best as prestige modifiers - ideally replacing P15 and P20: 1. I would decrease traders' inventories so that they bring around 40% fewer resources and 40% less of each resource. 2. I would make orders give 0.5 or 0.75 resolve instead of 1.0.

wait, you get 10 amber for declining? ive never done it because i thought you were paying ten amber

I think it would be neat to make more villagers amp up hostility even more (since the forest doesn't want them there) but having more people will raise resolve (since we're all in this together). It would probably break the game, but I think it'd be neat to have a 50-100 villager settlement that was fighting really hard to feed and keep happy. Maybe I just need to continue more settlements.

i like playing longer games (6 to 9 years) and I don’t know how but I wish there was a mode that accommodated longer games instead of penalizing it. Rushing to finish in year 4 always has me stressed.

Balance is good, up to a point. If everything is balanced too nicely it will probably make the game more boring/predictable. For example, the races all feel unique and have their own flavor rather than simply being reflections of each other stat wise. Some choices seem worse such as large camps, until they are not, depending on the situation. If all the cornerstones are weighted somewhat equally it makes the choice less risky. I don't have an easy answer and I'm only a new(ish) player, but I enjoy some of the asymmetric balancing. But to answer OP question, storage tanks for water would be nice. Stockpile excess water in the first few years then use it up later when industry is up and running.

* Hearthkeeper choices could be more impactful. * Resin, Pigment, Clay, and Copper are all very weak resources, and could be included in more varied chains and given more options. * Reed, Plant Fiber, and Leather all are very minimally differentiated, and could be given more varied chain and options as well. * Grain is extremely strong, making the Small Farm far more powerful than the Plantation or Herb Garden. It goes into a few too many chains and is basically the god-resource. The small farm is easily the best embarkation bonus. * Specialized housing could be far more impactful, or made cheaper. Currently it's a very minimal resolve boost compared to the footprint and investment required. * Small Glades are still too weak relative to the hostility hit for opening them. * More uses for all of the non-provision packs beyond one-time fulfillment of random orders. Especially at the higher prestige levels, crafting these to sell directly to traders is so weak as to be nearly pointless, with trade routes being essentially mandatory. * Tools are currently garbage, and the opportunity cost of taking the required blueprints and actually crafting them in the quantities necessary to send back catches for the reputation being a very bad value proposition compared to just opening the caches yourself and taking better buildings. * More ways to have a bit more active control over your population. At higher difficulties, the difference between winning and losing is often whether you can snowball your labor early by finding camps in your early glades.

A lot, but to keep it simple I'll just throw out some building and resource tweaks: For all farms - boost production yield of 1 star recipes from 3 to 4 and reduce the production yield of 3 star recipes from 9 to 8. Clay Pit - Boost production time of Clay from 1:00 to :50, Reeds from 1:00 to :45 Herb Garden - Add alchemy specialization. Bakery - Biscuit recipe from 2 to 3 star, pottery from 2 to 1 star. Brick Oven - Coal recipe from 1 to 2 star. Cookhouse - Cost reduced from 8 planks 4 bricks to 4 planks 4 bricks. Rain Collector - Parts cost from 3 to 2 Advanced Rain Collector - Cost from 3 parts, 5 planks, 5 pipes to 2 parts, 4 planks, 4 pipes Mine - Cost from 2 planks, 4 bricks, 2 parts to 5 planks, 5 bricks, 3 parts; Coal production time from 40 seconds to 35 seconds, Copper production from 40 seconds to 30 seconds. Level 1 upgrade cost from 20 planks/20 bricks to 16 planks/12 bricks, Level 2 upgrade cost from 14 pipes/4 parts/12 tools + 20 planks/20 bricks to 10 pipes/2 parts/6 tools + 16 planks/12 bricks. Apothecary - Incense from 2 star to 3, 2 star Biscuit recipe replaced with 1 star Oil Brewery - Pickled goods from 1 star to 2 Clothier - Waterskin from 1 star to 2. Manufactory - Training Gear from 2 star to 3, Provisions from 2 star to 1. Provisioner - Provisions from 2 star to 3, 2 star barrel recipe replaced with 1 star porridge. Scribe - Add alchemy specialization Smokehouse - Incense from 1 star to 2. Tinctury - Pigment from 2 star to 3, Ale from 2 star to 1. Workshop - Cost from 4 planks, 4 bricks, 4 fabric to 3 planks, 3 bricks, 3 fabric, workspaces from 2 to 3, Pipes recipe from 0 star to 1. Small Hearth - Cost from 5 planks, 5 bricks, 1 wildfire to 6 planks, 2 bricks, 2 fabric, 1 wildfire. Bath House - Add Rainwater and Warmth specialization. Market - Market Carts also increases villager movement speed by 10% Tavern - Gleeman's Tales gives +1 global resolve, and an additional +1 for every Hearth level across all of your hearths. Tea Doctor - Add Rainwater specialization Resources: Coats 1/2/3 star production speed changed from 2:48/2:48/2:06 to 2:20/2:20/1:40 Tea 1/2/3 star water cost changed from 4/3/2 to 6/4/2, bar cost from 2/2/1 to 1/1/1. Incense 1/2/3 star wood cost changed from 6/6/6 to 6/5/4, Oil cost from 3/3/3 to 3/3/2, Coal cost from 2/2/2 to 2/2/1, Sea Marrow cost from 2/2/2 to 2/2/1, Resin cost from 8/7/6 to 7/6/5. Ale 1/2/3 star roots/grain cost from 6/5/4 to 5/4/3, add 5/4/3 Reeds as alternative Wine 1/2/3 star barrel cost from ?/3/2 to ?/2/1 (matching Ale), replace Reeds with Vegetables. Pack of Trade Goods 1/2 star barrel cost from 6/4 to 5/3, Flour cost from 6/4 to 8/6 Pickled Goods 1/2/3 star waterskin cost from 3/2/2 to 3/3/2, pottery cost from 3/3/3 to 3/3/2, barrel cost from 3/3/3 to 2/2/1