Why Aquarion Atoll does not give population?

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With the new rework finally public, I really loved the new version of the Aquarion tribe. But I don't really get why the Atoll does not have any feature like every other "route creating" building has!

And I really mean every one of them!

Almost everyone has Port that links cities and give 1 population
Polaris has Outpost that link cities and give 1 population
Cymanti has Mycelium that link cities and heal units

Another thing to point out: with the atoll not giving population, the new Aquarion is really the worst tribe in terms of city upgrading. So many times I end up with many little cities due to the fact that they spawn with 1 or 2 tiles of fish and that's it. No Aqua Farm, no nothing. The only way to upgrade is by temples, and that is way too much expensive compared with other tribes! At least they can put a few ports (or similar) and get some points.

Maybe a different option to fix this could be by changing the technology "Grow Forest" with "Grow Aqua Farm". Is in the last circle of techlogies, so it'll be not super easy to get, and with that we could create a way to upgrade the cites.

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3 months ago - /u/Zoythrus - Direct link

So, not having pop is intentional.

Originally, they did give 1pop, but we didn't like the idea of "place down 30 of them to grow cities".

Ultimately, we wanted most pop generation to come from Aqua Farms and stay true to the fact that we want coastal cities to be harder to upgrade than land cities

3 months ago - /u/Zoythrus - Direct link

Originally posted by SnooDogs6855

Wouldn’t coastal cities being easier to upgrade than land cities make more sense for aqua? Though I agree placing 30 atoll’s down wouldn’t be good, but maybe fertilizing shallow water.

Potentially. We'll keep an eye on it

3 months ago - /u/Zoythrus - Direct link

Originally posted by Afifi96

How about one atoll per city, when placed it floods the tile it's placed on and/or tiles around depending if you want to keep the water/flooded requirement.

We originally had it as one atoll per city, but it was really restricting, so we don't want to do that again.

Concerning the flooding, we want it to be a relatively difficult thing to do. We're making an active attempt to keep them from becoming "water Polaris".

3 months ago - /u/Zoythrus - Direct link

Originally posted by Afifi96

Polaris freeze water whereas Aquarian flood non-aquarian land with the exception of mountain. So the dynamic is reversed, but fair enough I guess.

I've only had a full game since Aquarion rework flooding tile felt quite the labor for not that much benefit.

For Polaris, ice spread is "their core mechanic and what everything of theirs is built around".

For Aquarion, flooding is "a nifty thing you can do" or "a tool in their arsenal". We want it to be something relatively difficult to do and to get rid of.

3 months ago - /u/Zoythrus - Direct link

Originally posted by jimmy0gun

I get your point, so I would really think something like the "Grow Aqua Farm" tech mentioned in the post to keep Aquarion comparable to other tribes.

Thanks for answering, by the way! You devs are truly amazing in keeping this game fun and challenging :D

We'll keep an eye on how people play with them and make changes as necessary.

3 months ago - /u/Zoythrus - Direct link

Originally posted by Bruhculob

Why not make it heal?

Isn't that just water Mycelium?

3 months ago - /u/Zoythrus - Direct link

Originally posted by Anna-2204

Doesn’t that make Aquarion a lesser Polaris in almost every way?

Yes, and that's intentional.

They are not Polaris, nor should they be, even if there's a little bit of similarity.

3 months ago - /u/Zoythrus - Direct link

Originally posted by Anna-2204

I mean this is less about being Polaris and more about being a water troop so I thought they should at least dominate in water

I don’t play Aquarion so this is not really a problem for me though

Well, yes, but we walked a fine tightrope with water balance.

Aquarion should be good on the water, but not so good thay no one can compete and the game reaches a stalemate.

3 months ago - /u/Zoythrus - Direct link

Originally posted by Sivetus

and how about it giving 1 pop but only 1 per city? i don't think you really need more if you place them well and 1 pop for each could be a decent boost to their bad eco

another idea i had was that they could start with the marine life tech. it's not an eco tech, so it won't make them a t0 tribe, but it'd allow for some interesting mechanics - accessing deep water really early on and an option to rush navigation and grab starfish. not sure if this wouldn't be too much of an eco boost (maybe not - because of how little vision they'll have early on, so they won't be able to grab too many of them), but imo it's definitely something worth trying (and maybe adjusting later)

Originally, that's how the Atoll functioned and they had the power to go onto deep oceans from the start.

We removed both of those during the testing period for balance.

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