Alternative fungi nerf featuring recycling

[slow beacon]

Despite the current backlash against the fungi nerf, I am still of the opinion that fungi need some sort of nerf, at least for the early game. Even against good players, and early centipede could spell doom and imo we don't really need t0 level economy on a special tribe.

For me personally, the most frustrating thing with the new fungi is that they don't really do anything the turn they are built. Hence this suggestion:

• Fungi start out with 1 pop, but the cap is lowered to 2
• Recycling, through some mechanic, raises the cap of all your fungi to level 3.

The early game economy would be weaker than on public, but stronger than in beta, but the mid-endgame economy would be quite similar. Furthermore, unlocking a 3rd population for your tile is something we already see with farms and windmills. Lastly, it gives people a reason to actually buy Recycling...

The exact mechanic on recycling is up for debate.

• Just flat out raising the cap on purchase in an option
• Improving individual 2/2 fungi for 2 stars, and immediately boosting them up to 3/3
• Upgrading individual fungi and changing the cap from 2 to 3 for 1 star, but not instantly raising the level as well
• Something else entirely

I could see many other options for making recycling viable, like moving shaman to recycling, or allowing you to recycle your units and turn them into spores, but let's stick to the fungi boosting recycling for now

[noble sable]

i like it

[sullen olive]

i like current beta funghi nerf but the problem is that its combined with hexa nerf and that is too much; if funghi nerf was the only change done to cym on land then it would be probably sufficient nerf - though i opt to instead have 6 stars funghi cost and work it as it used to; so the reason ppl feel cym weak now is too many combined nerfs, funghi+hexa especially, and not funghi on its own

[prisma bison]

Given the t3 cost it is reasonable for it to allow lv3 for free

[past tide]

I like the idea of recycling useless buildings and units into spores

[slow beacon]

Upon rethinking that one, it would definitely fit in recycling thematically, but mechanicly sporing units would fit a lot better on free spirit

[mighty inlet]

the problem with this is it would just be worse farms

and i just don't see a world where buying a t3 tech to get 1 more pop out off one resource to be worth it

[past tide]

Yep

[past tide]

They poison units tho

[slow beacon]

That is exactly what construction and mathematics do

[mighty inlet]

i mean thats just way too niche for it's own good it still gives you a massive disadvantage compared to farms economicly

[mighty inlet]

you can get 3-4 pop from one city out off those techs tough

[slow beacon]

Yes. You can also get 3-4 extra pop from a city if you have 3-4 spores

[past tide]

If spores were easier to get it'd justify it not being as powerful

I'd say free spirit should allow units to be converted into spores after 1 turn of decaying

[mighty inlet]

i mean ig but you're still bassicly running on worst farms for most off the game

[slow beacon]

Yes and no. I am perfectly fine with them initially being worse farms. After all, I don't think I want Cymanti to have t0 level economical capabilities. And by the time you have recycling, the bonus population is easier to manage since it applies to all fungi and not just those that are positioned next to eachother with an open field inbetween

[mighty inlet]

i mean i think the problem is that all the other tribes already have a good base economy and have some later in the game economic options to further snowball while your proposition would just result into them having a bad economy early on and maybe decent once you buy a 3rd tier tech

fungi even tough they're slow as is rn atleast allow for a lot off high level cities needing an extra tech to get there would irronicly enough be a nerf imo

[slow beacon]

I honestly think I'd prefer to build 1/2 fungi over 0/3 fungi while actively building up my economy, since having that population earlier means you also get your stars earlier for further economic snowball. For centipedes specifically, 0/3 is probably better. But I do think you'd get the extra tech quite early on anyway. Probably around c3

So you build your economy a bit quicker with 1/2 spores, and then buy recycling for a big econ turn where all your spores suddenly go up to 3

Still slower than public, since there is an extra tech in the way (which imo is fine cnosidering spores econ potential)

Cymanti starting with a tech giving them 1/2 fungi still makes them a t1 tribe btw. That is still more economy than the vast majority of other tribes

Ok, now you have me wanting to draw up an econ plan. Consider 3 cities, all with exactly 2 spores and disregard other resources for now. Imma use the same spore + 1 wa opening for simplicity

public Cym
t0 5s, 2spt
fungi (0s)
c1: 1/3

t1 2s, 2spt
c1: 2/3
workshop (4spt)
wa (0s)
boost

t2 4s, 4spt
c1: 3/3
wa and sm discover village

t3 8s, 4spt
fungi (3s, 4spt)
c1: 1/3, 3/3
step onto villages

t4 7s, 4spt
c1: 2/3, 3/3
stars (12s, 5spt)
capture c2 c3 (7spt)
double fungus c2 (2s)
c2: 1/3, 1/3
ws (9spt)

t5 11s, 9spt
c1: 3/3, 3/3
c2: 2/3, 2/3
double fungi c3 (1s)
c3: 1/3, 1/3
ws (11spt)

Then on t6 and on t7 we get stars

[mighty inlet]

i see

maybe it's just i don't like too much how it's too similar to farms

cause at the end off the day it's still a straight downgrade compared to now where it's maybe generally worse but it's not an objective downgrade

[slow beacon]

My suggested Cym
t0 5s, 2spt
fungi (0s)
c1: 1/2

t1 2s, 2spt
c1: 2/2
workshop (4spt)
wa (0s)
boost

t2 4s, 4spt
c1: 2/2
wa and sm discover village

t3 8s, 4spt
step onto villages

t4 12s, 4spt
capture (6spt)
fungi on c2 and c3 (2s)
c2: 1/2
c3: 1/2

t5 8s, 6spt
fungi c1 (3s)
c1: 2/2, 1/2
c2: 2/2
c3: 2/2
ws (10spt)

t6 13s, 10spt
c1: 2/2, 2/2
c2: 2/2
c3: 2/2
buy recycling (0s)
c1: 2/3, 2/3
c2: 2/3,
c3: 2/3,

t7 10s, 10spt
c1: 3/3, 3/3
stars (15s, 11spt)
c2: 3/3,
c3: 3/3,

fungi c2, c3 (5s)

t8 16s, 11spt
c1: 3/3, 3/3
c2: 3/3, 2/3
c3: 3/3, 2/3
double stars (26s, 13spt)

That would be a c3 recycling

Definitely slower that current cymanti, but this econ still doesn't look half bad

My suggested Cym rushing recycling
t0 5s, 2spt
fungi (0s)
c1: 1/2

t1 2s, 2spt
c1: 2/2
workshop (4spt)
wa (0s)
boost

t2 4s, 4spt
c1: 2/2
wa and sm discover village

t3 8s, 4spt
step onto villages
fungi c1 (3)
c1: 2/2, 1/2

t4 7s, 4spt
c1: 2/2, 1/2
buy recycling (0)
c1: 2/3, 1/3
capture c2, c3 (6spt)

t5 6s, 6spt
c1: 3/3, 2/3
stars (11s, 7spt)
double fungi c2 (1s)
c2: 1/3, 1/3
ws (9spt)

t6 10s, 9spt
c1: 3/3, 3/3
c2: 2/3, 2/3
double fungi c3 (0s)
c3: 1/3, 1/3
ws (11spt)

t7 11s, 11spt
c1: 3/3, 3/3
c2: 3/3, 3/3
c3: 2/3, 2/3
stars in c2 (16s, 12spt)

t8 28s, 12spt
c1: 3/3, 3/3
c2: 3/3, 3/3
c3: 3/3, 3/3
stars c3 (33s, 13spt)

Turns out buying recycling before capturing c2 is a LOT better... hmm... So recycling enabling automatic upgrades might not be ideal. In that case, it might be better to change the cost of 1/2 fungi to 4 stars, and to have to spend another 2 stars per fungus to unlock the last level. That should push recycling back just a little while still making it very much worth it

[slow beacon]

By now do you mean public or beta?

[mighty inlet]

i mean beta cause in public they're obviously not worse then farms in most scenarios

[slow beacon]

I consider beta fungi to be pretty bad. When you are fighting someone, spending 5 stars for 3 pop spread out over the 3 next turns is very slow, and in the early game delaying your city upgrades by 1 or 2 turns also has a lot of impact on the total number of stars you get to work with

I do think the fungi I suggested are still more versatile than farms, since they can also be generated from poison and explosions, and they can become 3 pop easier

[lucid glen]

What if fungi cost 4⭐️ to plant at lvl 1, and then 2⭐️ to fertilize/upgrade to the next lvl in subsequent turns?

It would be 2 2/3 stars per population but I think that’s ok for such a population dense building

Maybe initial setup could be 3⭐️

In this 3 ⭐️ case, Cymanti could build the farm and train a warrior t0, then upgrade their capital and begin exploring t1

[primal wind]

I think it's a pretty good idea. Most importantly we should probably get rid of the trampling mechanic again. There is no other mechanic in the game that actively allows you to bring other players' cities into red population. And especially combined with the growth prevention mechanic it just does too much tbh. And like I've seen others mention elsewhere, it seems pretty arbitrary that fungis can be trampled but not farms or markets working as if nothing happened when hostile units stand on top of them

[sullen olive]

but also note that farms dont attack you - so it makes sense if funghi attacks you by poisoning that the attacked unit "fights back" by stomping it a bit 🙂 i really like this mechanic

[winged dagger]

It's like a bunny steps on your Fungi, but it's not as damaging

[plain marsh]

Bro I have been pushing this idea for months now! Finally another person stumbles on the same idea

[hollow ermine]

With 1/2 fungi, I would think recycling could give a way to make additional fungi more easily rather than improving the fungi you already have. Like, recycle buildings into spores. That way the recycling tech can support the new clathrus

Or I guess with your kind of angle here you could have clathrus give an additional spt for lvl3

[noble sable]

(but pls then remove stars reward from it lol)

[hollow ermine]

Well maybe, it seems fine to pay 5 for 2 pop and get the prior cost back. It’s worse than a farm, only better because it could be any building so you have more of them

[hollow ermine]

I could imagine replacing fungi mechanic with manual growing of the fungi. Just a 2* action on the tile to "Grow", do it max once per turn