Starting Councillors now even worse since .76?

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neilwilkes
Posts: 184
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:44 am

Starting Councillors now even worse since .76?

Post by neilwilkes »

I would never have thought it possible, but it appears to me that the Starting Councillors - and councillors in general now - have been brutally nerfed.
The last 8 games I have started as Humanity First were all scrapped immediately.
Why?
50+ year old scientist with no useful missions. Sometimes as young as their late 40's, but always a damned bloody scientist.
Why?
The second starter has also been in late 40's/early 50's much more often than a supposedly random selection should be as well, and likewise useless. I am lucky if I see persuasion stats higher than 6 and extremely lucky iof they have both 'Control Nation' and 'Public Campaign'.
To give an example of what I am facing on each & every start these days, please see screenshots of the latest attempt to get a start I can actually work with:
58 year old - useless.JPG
58 year old - useless.JPG (93.86 KiB) Viewed 2161 times
53 year old - useless.JPG
53 year old - useless.JPG (90.96 KiB) Viewed 2161 times
And these are the best I have seen in 8 tries now. Seriously!

The pool is no better either.
Find someone with halfway decent persuasion & they have no usable missions. Find someone with espionage or investigative skills & they do not have any actual missions to use them, or iof they do then they are also too damned old
56 year old 'Rebel'.JPG
56 year old 'Rebel'.JPG (121.58 KiB) Viewed 2161 times
NB - I tried to add more screenshots from this start but cannot seem to add more than 3 in any post. Suffice it to say that his best stat is a Per 7, but 52 years old & an apocalyptic drug addict. Another is actually only 34 and has Per of 8, but no Public Campaign, No inspire, no defend assets - all he can do is Control Nation or Space Asset and Turn Councillor - that is ALL - he is the best in the current pool.

The same issues apply to all other stats & options too. Yes, I understand it is supposed to be the same for the AI, but if this is true then how come the AI is managing to seize large nations before I can even get going - and I am not a bad player in the early stages (it is the later stages where I am not very good as yet) and it really does make starting a campaign an excercise in pure frustration, as time & again I try to go with what I have, sacking the crap ones & getting new ones but by the time I hit 2025 the game is already as good as lost.
Sure, I can edit councillors but once more I would like to point out that this is
A - Cheating, and
B - utterly at odds with what we are supposed to be - leaders of a 'Shadow Government' - we have to accept the dregs of the planet when we are supposed to be a super covert organization yet has almost no control over the quality and skillsets of it's founding members!

I know I have moaned about this before but since then rather than getting better it has seemingly got a whole lot worse.
We need to have some sort of say in who gets recruited for the opening pair. The rest of it I can live with, but in a whole planet full of people is the best we can do really a motley collection of old men & women with no useful skills?
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johnnylump
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Re: Starting Councillors now even worse since .76?

Post by johnnylump »

We actually gave starting councilors guaranteed numbers in their primary stats for .76 -- 8 if they have one primary stat or 7 and 6 if they have two. That's for your faction on cinematic and all factions on other difficulties. The mechanics for age and profession were not changed.
neilwilkes
Posts: 184
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:44 am

Re: Starting Councillors now even worse since .76?

Post by neilwilkes »

Interesting.
It seems worse for the whole age thing though - so many old people seem to keep appearing.
Is this maybe deliberate to try & make players change councillors at all?
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johnnylump
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Re: Starting Councillors now even worse since .76?

Post by johnnylump »

The mind likes to see patterns where there are none --

This is the starting age code for all councilors and it's been this for years.

var roughAge = UnityEngine.Random.Range(8, 23) + UnityEngine.Random.Range(8, 23) + UnityEngine.Random.Range(8, 23);

I'd like to mix it up by giving older councilors better starting stats, just haven't gotten there yet
neilwilkes
Posts: 184
Joined: Sat Oct 01, 2022 10:44 am

Re: Starting Councillors now even worse since .76?

Post by neilwilkes »

johnnylump wrote: Sun Mar 19, 2023 8:39 pm The mind likes to see patterns where there are none --

This is the starting age code for all councilors and it's been this for years.

var roughAge = UnityEngine.Random.Range(8, 23) + UnityEngine.Random.Range(8, 23) + UnityEngine.Random.Range(8, 23);

I'd like to mix it up by giving older councilors better starting stats, just haven't gotten there yet
Fair enough, and I absolutely accept the concept of the mind seeing patterns that are not really there too (Paredolia?).
Older councillors definitely should have better stats too...that would make sense & be a bit of compensation too
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