Ok i have a better grasp on breeding and genes now, breeding speed is a really bad gene slot losing out to default strapon spam on all significant tiers because of the fact that you can breed gene ups and their lower cap is by default the lower floor of either parent current gene with said cost being a 5x for an exact copy.
The problems:
- Costs balloon out of proportion on both time and resource side.
- Breeding speed is just a really bad gene effect considering it affects linearly a multiplicative cost scaling.
- Gene extraction and modification is miles stronger with the only downside of needing to ONCE up tier said genes from base strapon and keep a character library of the tiers 2, 3, 4 and 5 to spam with generic strapon. Keeping enemy camps around for capture expeditions removes the entire need to keep tiers 1 and maybe 2.
- Strapons relevant stat is currently only gene cap, nothing else matters that much besides cost.
- Levels don't matter, a newly created character is effectively equal to another trained unit in the pen, on other places they benefit from a higher domestication, creating the interest to breed 2 and proceed to the next domestication tier ignoring everything until domestication tier 5 and THEN upgrading genes, it is just free stats for barely any investment or effort where going the opposite route of modifying genes THEN domestication is several times harder and has more cost associated with it.
My suggestion to fix the breeding gene and cost scaling: flip around the logic of breeding speed to breeding cost reduction, a tier 5 being 100% modifier on 1 would turn to a 0.5x modifier (the 200% genes would need a buff) on cost of both strapon and time, massively increasing the benefit of having a breeding gene or a breeding tailored unit, squishing the filters multipliers down to at most 9 so it is in a more sensate place instead of placing the order and forgetting the game at a 5x speed, as in 9 would max the costs increases to 6561 times instead of current 534962 times. Can allow production speed to also affect breeding cost.
In order to balance the power of tailoring all genes make the breeding time cap be related to unit level instead of letting the game become an idle simulator, to this effect create a cap like example: 999*(1.1^unit level), so the power of being to tailor an unit requires a breeding specific unit or having a very high level one, higher base numbers would lessen the constraints on small filter selections.
Make some changes to strapons:
Remove genetic cap but gene upgrade receives a 10%~30% flat final subtraction per tier difference of strapon and the gene (some filter modification to alter the strapon stats aside from the genes), a genetic degradation stat could also be added sharing the random stat %.
The new strapon tier cap is instead of gene cap a domestication upgrade limit (floor is between strapon or either parent lowest domestication), less free upgrades and incentivizes tech + upgrading as you go along instead of blasting from wild through 5 while getting rid of the inbetween, current domestication upgrade requirements also make wild just not worth it, you might as well clone those and extract the genes for your domestication 5, as changing a wild would require either 5 generations with filters or keeping a pet domestication 5 which also kills racial role locked inheritance, there is no catch up option.
Genetic modification is good currently if just a tad clunky, could show the storage of genetic traits beside the upgrade screen so you know how you are faring in the collection.
More interesting stuff sprinkled around to tailoring stuff, like gene floors to some strapons, add free x filters selection to another, add cosmetic features from certain races to some others like chitin, scales, body weight, muscles, upper/lower limbs selection (as you can currently get thick fur), perks but the strapon requires specific genes or tier 5 genes and degrades them.
Probably missed it after skimming a bit, but nothing's stopping me from just reclassing to hit the 5 clerics required for the other temples right?
Personally, hunting for clerics feels more right cause you know, 'do what you want, single player game' , if not more grindy which seems like a bad thing depending on how excessive it is.
But I'm guessing reclassing after hunting for 5 species or importing ones that can reclass into the clerics is the intended way of doing it as it is now.
Tech 2 of the religion is the only requirement, get a new religion capture/breed 5 clerics, rush tech 1 and 2, after that the best strategy is just to retrain 5 specific units on best island to said religion because you don't need to change their needs and they are the best you can provide.