Fwurg

[Praetorian Empire]

is this special under revision again? Since the page is currently completely empty...
If the old version still works, can this metal planet have upgraded zones?

[Mercury]

The blank page is an error. The page has been restored. You can upgrade metal zones on the Chtonian planet and the text has been clarified to indicate this.

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[Praetorian Empire]

How is the Chtonian Planet balanced? It looks like it is alot better than a feature that gives like a +10 to metals.
In my oppinion this could be a +20 to a specific resource. Now the Chtonian planet is always alot better then a +10 on metals

[Mercury]

That is a valid issue to raise.

The original reasoning was as follows:

An Ice Giant in hot orbit costs 2 gas. The equivalent in 2 stone could buy 2 rings for example, or part of an asteroid belt, which would result in 4 metal producing zones. The benefit of the ice giant would be that it had 1 additional lunar orbit.

Specials generally add a bonus of about 200 resources per turn. In this case, the bonus is 300 rather than 200, but it requires the construction of 3 zones to claim.

For example, the Jackpot! feature gives +200 resources while requiring only 1 settlement. The Retrograde Axis Spin that gives +10 production to metal actually gives out +370 metal on a large planet, but requires a whopping 37 construction sites.

For higher grades of gas giants, the deals actually get worse in terms of metal to cost ratio's, but these have more moons, which balances it out.

The Chtonian Planet is definitely on the high end of the usefulness scale. I have removed the option for zone upgrades from this planet, to be in line with regular asteroid belts to limit its power somewhat, but it is not too far out there.

Compared to an asteroid belt, an Ice Giant Chtonian produces slightly more than an Asteroid Belt with a Jackpot zone - with the Ice Giant having an additional lunar orbit, however, the Asteroid Belt can be very well exploited for only 1 zone built which provides 300 metal already. The Ice Giant Chtonian requires 7 zones be built before the full advantage can be claimed.

Do you feel that with the upgrade option removed, the Chtonian is still overpowered?

[Sundarian Federation]

My Opinion on this part is that, the Chtonian planet still provides a benefit which is greater then a normal planet, however it is at an extra cost of 1 special point. Besides that it limits the planets potential severly, because it cannot be upgrades, nor can power zones or tertiary zones be added.

I think that in the early stages of the game, a Chtonian planet can give you a boost in your economics, if you are willing to invest a lot into Metal zones, in order to have the full range of the bonus it provides. This requires an investment of 17500 taxes (or less should you choose to put some free zones on that planet already) and you'll have an overproduction of metal untill you can build(and pay) the zones required to process this metal into taxrevenue.

In the later stages of the game however, the fact that these zones cannot be upgrades will might prove to be a small disadvantage over a normal planet, however i don't think that this outway's the benefit in the earlier stages.

Therefore i would submit that the Chtonian is a good choice, if you chose to commit to producing metals (and metal depended taxrevenues), but i think that the cost and time it requires to utilise its full potential is enough to make it balanced.