Bear with me since I haven't played any versions in a while, but here are my preliminary comments: (played on quick)

The Great:

1 - The terrain looks fantastic. Great work.
2 - The tech tree flows well, techs too cheap though?
3 - It feels SMAC-ish, which is good

The Questions:

1 - Why does every city get a hospital building graphic?
2 - Can you bump up the mindworm frequency?
3 - Where are the Morganite and Spartan citysets?

Do you have a list of missing buttons because they would really help out the atmosphere of the entire mod. I'm sure someone with experience could whip them up quickly.

FAQ responses. ;)

1) That's the graphic representation of the governor's office except for the Peacekeepers and University of Planet which I already worked on.
3) I still need to include, just like I still need to refine the Hive, Believer -and Gaian cityset. Besides, what kind of cityset did Maniac want for the Morganites now? Yours or Garret's?

2 - The tech tree flows well, techs too cheap though?

Really? I think it's kinda just right at the moment. It's faster than FfH of course, which I assume you might be more familiar with, but it's slower than vanilla Civ for instance.

That's for the early game at least. Later in the game it may indeed become too fast, but the endgame is hardly developed enough for me to already have a strong opinion on the issue there.

3 - It feels SMAC-ish, which is good

I sure hope it feels somewhat SMACish. :scared:

2 - Can you bump up the mindworm frequency?

Mind worm frequency kinda depends on all kinds of different game settings of course. Kinda hard to say much without knowing your game details. Do you mean random native life spawning btw.

Anyway, in the future I'd like fungal towers to spawn native life.

Do you have a list of missing buttons because they would really help out the atmosphere of the entire mod. I'm sure someone with experience could whip them up quickly.

If you do know someone interested, please do tell. I'm kinda bad at finding people. We don't have any dds artists at the moment.

As for buttons, a lot would need to have their mipmaps fixed.

Also, for instance, most resources could use a button. They're just using a vanilla resource button.

3) I still need to include, just like I still need to refine the Hive, Believer -and Gaian cityset. Besides, what kind of cityset did Maniac want for the Morganites now? Yours or Garret's?

I'd prefer GarretSidzaka's set for the cyberpunk look. But as said, I think the models of the woodelf morganic cityset can be used for other factions, if they get a different texture.

Really? I think it's kinda just right at the moment. It's faster than FfH of course, which I assume you might be more familiar with, but it's slower than vanilla Civ for instance.

That's for the early game at least. Later in the game it may indeed become too fast, but the endgame is hardly developed enough for me to already have a strong opinion on the issue there.

I do play quick so that might be it. It does seem like there are too many choices at times, but that's a Civ4 thing with and/or tags.

I sure hope it feels somewhat SMACish. :scared:

Yep, that's a high compliment!

Mind worm frequency kinda depends on all kinds of different game settings of course. Kinda hard to say much without knowing your game details. Do you mean random native life spawning btw.

Anyway, in the future I'd like fungal towers to spawn native life.

I mean just walking along or even staying in your cities. I saw 1 mind worm in 150 turns. A couple of fungal towers (one in the sea :eek:), but only the 1 regular mind worm with 3 scouts autoexploring. Seems low.

If you do know someone interested, please do tell. I'm kinda bad at finding people. We don't have any dds artists at the moment.

As for buttons, a lot would need to have their mipmaps fixed.

Also, for instance, most resources could use a button. They're just using a vanilla resource button.

I'll look into it. I've never made one, but if I can I will since they add a lot.

I forgot that I have made buttons before for SotM, but I just took pics/images from the net and cropped them to the right size. Is that was you want or do you need homemade ones (which my artistic abilities prohibit me from doing)?

I mean just walking along or even staying in your cities. I saw 1 mind worm in 150 turns. A couple of fungal towers (one in the sea :eek:), but only the 1 regular mind worm with 3 scouts autoexploring. Seems low.

Two causes I can think of:
1) Random Native Life can't enter territory before the Flowering Counter reaches 30. With most units in the start having animal ai instead of attack ai, this rule may not be necesary anymore though.
2) Fungal Towers take up spots which could go to mobile native life units instead. I'd like to have a seperate function for fungal tower and mobile barbarian spawning to prevent this. I'll need to give some more thought on how to do it first though.

I forgot that I have made buttons before for SotM, but I just took pics/images from the net and cropped them to the right size. Is that was you want or do you need homemade ones (which my artistic abilities prohibit me from doing)?

What you can do, would already be a great help. I'll get back to you about this.

Woodelf, in the game I played (114 turns) I had enough native life popups to keep me busy. Mind worms didn't happen often but IoD, sealurks and that artillery thingie kept creeping up on me.

I'll try again once I get the sounds. :)

I think you should open up v6 for the masses.

Way ahead of you. It was published last week. ;)

Really? I was under the impression it was internal. I should have posted this in the public area then.

It's not too late for that. :mischief:

Edit: Hey, where have my forum modding powers gone to?? :mad:

Edit2: Oh, it seems I can only move/copy/close threads started by myself.

Mwhahahahahaha!

Some feedback: I noticed gold and silver appear on the map before a tech is discovered which states that it is necesary to reveal those resources?

That tech (Industrial Base IIRC?) is necessary to ENABLE the resources. Without the tech, you don't get the happiness, can't trade them etc.

Ah, okay. :)

Okay, finished my 3rd game running v6, so I think I can provide a few comments:

- Right now it feels like the tech is coming too fast in the middle and endgame, especially once you can also trade it. I think mostly its due to having access to alot (6 or even more?!) different buildings boosting your science output by 25%.
Combine that with having windmills right from the start and the power of solar collectors later on (6+ energy) and it really piles up even when you don't focus on research in that city.

On top of that trade routes also add to energy in Civ4, so thats alot of "free science", too.

So I'd propose to
- either change trade routes to give pure gold (of course you can set your science slider higher, if you get more gold, but at least you wouldn't get +200% like you do from all those buildings)
- remove at least half of those +XX research buildings. +100% (or 200 with supercollider) really is enough. No need to delete those, but how about giving a fixed number of beakers instead of percentages ?
- perhaps also drop the energy production of windmills and solar collectors (and water tiles thingies) by 1 ? prolly not windmills, as this would just net them +1 in the beginning, but perhaps remove the bonus you can get at a later tech ?

An indirect change could be to reimplement the ability to finish production by spending credits - at least this would give a reason to accumulate gold (and thus having lower research)

--------
Whats great is the low health of every city.
Finally helath bonuses are really important (or running docter specialists)
Huge Thumbs up for this !

---------
A minor nuisance so far: Is there a way to get another Icon for Planetvalue ?
Playing this mod since version 4.x, but I am still switching city health with Planetvalue in the city all the time - especially when a holding tells me to give +1 "health" I never know where that adds to....
*looks to woodelf or any other art-genius*

---------
The upgrade system is messed up, but I think you mentioned somewhere that you are already aware of that.
Just want to add another thing.
If I get free exp for an unit (and thus normally gaining 1 level, being able to choose 1 promotion) and also already have the ability to choose special designs, I am just allowed to chose the first special design, but lose all picks for promotions to to leveling up. It's like I did not level up at all.


Hopefully this can help abit - but I guess you won't need any balancing claims right now, sadly I can't help with coding all those features =(

But keep up the good work and thanks for igniting the smac-fever again

- Right now it feels like the tech is coming too fast in the middle and endgame, especially once you can also trade it. I think mostly its due to having access to alot (6 or even more?!) different buildings boosting your science output by 25%.

There's only one building available which increases science percentage output right now: the Research Hospital. Did you give yourself the Planetary Archives tech perhaps??


Re Planet icon, unfortunately there's no one around who can edit the gamefont.tga.

Well, I've only played one unfinished game of 6c (up to 2301) so far.
I play noble, epic speed (because I suck, and don't focus all that much on military.)

Anyways, at epic speed noble...
- The tech speed seems good to me, though I can't speak for the end game.
However, because I'm a Network Node/Research Hospital whore, I tend to have the tech lead, obviously. Although that might only be because I play "noble."
But hey, you've gotta know how losers fare as well!

- The Mind Worm/Fungal Tower/Spore Launcher spawning certainly seems healthy to me!
In previous 6b games, any AI marine base was bound to fall to the "barbarian state," and they'd routinely lose other land based cities.
In the 6c game I've played so far, Santiago lost Sparta Command to barbs... and when I... °cough° liberated °cough° New Jerusalem, I has to deal with 8 Fungal Towers, 1 Spore Launcher and 3 Mind Worms surrounding it (date: 2258).
In my 6b games, by roughly 2300 or so, barb spawning usually forced me to have a minimum of 3 defensive units per city + 1 artillery unit per city just to deal with spawnings.
For players who, like me, aren't inclined to devote all they've got to the military, I'd typically not bother with wars or conquest by that point, since repelling spawnings keeps you so busy.
(In fact, I haven't finished a game since constantly fending off new spawnings ends up irritating me too much.)

Another note... In 6b, roads enabled me to dispatch of spawnings quickly.
In 6c, it's another story.
Thankfully, in the one game I played, I only had to deal with a single spore launcher.
No roads almost assuredly means you'll be bombarded before attacking the Sp.L., which will make getting rid of them that much more difficult.
Also, an absence of roads means you can pretty much forget about chasing bears around... I mean Locusts. Just hope it ends a turn next to one of your bases before it destroys too many improvements (or possibly dies attacking one of yer wandering units).

Out of curiosity, does the "raging barbarians" option, if selected in a custom game, increase the spawning frequency?
If so, then you'd be able to have a setting that pleases "builders," and one that'll keep the action oriented warmongers happy as well.
;)



Oh, and, really, I think it might be time to fix the 1st contact diplomacy text.
It still says AI_DIPLO_FIRST_CONTACT_LEADER_PRAVIN_LAL, for example.


Otherwise, the mod's coming along great.

But... I admit it... I really would have loved to play with the Alien Crossfire Leaders/Factions as well.

There's only one building available which increases science percentage output right now: the Research Hospital. Did you give yourself the Planetary Archives tech perhaps??

Ugh, when reinstalling the mod from scratch instead of updating over alot of (modded) files those buildings are gone - so it was my error :blush: Please forget everything above about the techs >_<

Re Planet icon, unfortunately there's no one around who can edit the gamefont.tga.
Is there any special stuff you need to look out for when editing those icons stored in gamefont.tga and gamefont75.tga ? *noobish*
If yes, can you point me to a FAQ dealing with this file ? (and send me the preferred Icons for good/bad planetvalue)
If not, send the Icons right away, if you got some :)



---------------------
More minor bugs/stuff I found (see attached zip for screenshots):
pic 00: Tech tree graphiclaly messed up
pic 01: techtree kinda confusing, perhaps there is a way to ease reading this section of the tree ?
pic 02: pink blurb
pic 03: Hovertank Grafics ingame abit messed up.

Is there any special stuff you need to look out for when editing those icons stored in gamefont.tga and gamefont75.tga ? *noobish*
If yes, can you point me to a FAQ dealing with this file ?
It's not that difficult but the font files are very, err "fragile." You have to be quite careful about maintaining the borders between icons including making sure the Alpha Channel doesn't alter them. There are easy to follow instructions in the gamefont tutorial. (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181119)

Note that it will take more than altering the font file to get different icons to show in version 6c; I whipped up some quick icons based on the SMAC Social Engineering icons when I was trying out the mod thinking it would be a quick fix and it was an utter nightmare getting them to work properly. A massive XML hack was needed that took me forever to come up with and I had also recompiled the DLL along the way to get the enums pointing at the new symbols only to find out later that wasn't going to help...

Anyhow, here are the icons in action:
http://www.isarapix.org/pix51/1228514211.jpg

They aren't perfect (the baseline in particular seems too high although that might be a text issue) but it's a whole lot less confusing and they can always be improved/replaced later. These are the steps needed to use them:

1) Replace the font files in Assets\res\Fonts with the attached ones.

2) Open up Assets\XML\Text\TextPlanet.xml in a text editor that has search & replace. Globally replace [ICON_HEALTHY] with ⇽ and globally replace [ICON_UNHEALTHY] with ⇿ (all the symbols, including the semicolon, are necessary.)

The enum changes needed to match the attached font files are: (POWER_CHAR listed for context)
POWER_CHAR,
MAP_X_CHAR = POWER_CHAR+3,
PLANET_GOOD_CHAR,
PLANET_GLOBAL_CHAR,
PLANET_BAD_CHAR,

The icon for MAP_X_CHAR is just a copy of the globe icon since I haven't a clue what it's supposed to be used for and PLANET_GLOBAL is just a blue tree for the same reason. The "+3" is used to skip the empty spots at the end of the first line.

.

Do you still have a save of that game? I'd like to have a look at the amount of eco-damage bases are producing, and the placement and civics of the bases causing eco-damage.

Does the AI recapture bases conquered/infested by native life btw?

Anyway, I'm once again brooding on some ideas to reduce the annoyance factor of native life spawning.

2) Open up Assets\XML\Text\TextPlanet.xml in a text editor that has search & replace. Globally replace [ICON_HEALTHY] with ⇽ and globally replace [ICON_UNHEALTHY] with ⇿ (all the symbols, including the semicolon, are necessary.)

Thanks for this info! Though I don't understand why this works. :-s

The icon for MAP_X_CHAR is just a copy of the globe icon since I haven't a clue what it's supposed to be used for

I don't know what it's for either. Ellestar, a previous SDKer added these new chars. It's been months ago, so my memory may be spotty, but IIRC the DLL refused to compile if I tried to remove that char. I haven't got a clue why. MAP_X_CHAR isn't referred in any other file.

2) Open up Assets\XML\Text\TextPlanet.xml in a text editor that has search & replace. Globally replace [ICON_HEALTHY] with ⇽ and globally replace [ICON_UNHEALTHY] with ⇿ (all the symbols, including the semicolon, are necessary.)

Thanks for this info! Though I don't understand why this works. :-s
The ICON_* shortcuts are apparently hardcoded into the translator (which isn't available in the SDK). At least, I've never been able to find a way to make a new shortcut work. However, by looking at the output of CyGame.getSymbolID() I was able to determine that civ4 assigns these icons to certain unicode character slots. In the case of the "miscellaneous" icons the :) is character 8675 and those which follow continue on from there. So the power char (offset/enum 22) is 8697, the first character of the last line (where I chose to put the MAP_X_CHAR) is 8700, etc. And since the text allows us to use the &# numeric codes to insert special characters, then those can be used to directly embed the icon characters too.

It's a hack (and damned confusing if you don't know the details) but it seemed much easier than changing all the text-handling to support another argument that would insert the characters at run-time.

@Dresden: Huge Thanks - took me quite alot of (frustrating) hours to get a basic understanding how to use that alphachannel, but your file (and links) really helped to finally understand the basics :)


@topic:
(v 6c)

- I remember being unable to build bases on rocky terrain, but I don't remember a height restriction in SMAC - so is it supposed you can't build bases on ridges in Planetfall ?

Dresden, does the game automatically know when to use the icon from the normal gamefont or the gamefont_75?

- I remember being unable to build bases on rocky terrain, but I don't remember a height restriction in SMAC - so is it supposed you can't build bases on ridges in Planetfall ?

Yes, that's working as intended. It's because cityset graphics don't show up well on ridges. So it's due to graphical limitations, not gameplay reasons.

Yeah; the icons in gamefont.tga are 20x21 and the ones in gamefont_75.tga are 16x16. The size dictates their use. I can probably dig up a link that describes the different situations. From working with BUG I know gamefont_75 is the one used in the scoreboard and advisor screens.

EDIT:
Here's what each is used for:
-GameFont.tga: Worldbuilder, city bar icons, main menu and all associated screens
-GameFont75.tga: Everything else, notably the city screen, diplomacy, the civilopedia, and all other screens

Yes, that's working as intended. It's because cityset graphics don't show up well on ridges. So it's due to graphical limitations, not gameplay reasons.
Ah, thanks.
I guess that's the same reason why Fungus can't ever spread on ridges ?


----------


(v.6d feedback/questions )

Forests give +0.5 health while Xenofungus provides +0.5 unhealth per plot in the city cross.
So is it intended that hybrid forest give +0.5 unhealth, too ? (like Xenofungus and more than jungle? )
As far as I remember it's a hybrid between earth's and planet's Ecosystems, so it seemed more logical to me that Hybrid forests should be inbetween the health values, too (?)

---

I also still got a pink square in the box of Neural Crafting in the tech tree (see attached files on last page - techtree is still abit messed up at some spots, too)

---

Empath guild shows a red blob of doom in the city screen when being built.

---

still alot issues with techquotes (check your email for details)

------------------

Working greatly so far is the new promotion system: Assigning special ability slots works really fine :)
Just abit skeptical that both maintenance bay and assembly hall grant +1 slot each for Rover/treaded/artillery units as you can obtain the techs to build thos pretty early and those are 2 really good buildings to get early, too.

Also working greatly (and imho a great additoin, too) is the new tradenetwork-system.
Makes getting culture even more usefull

Yeah; the icons in gamefont.tga are 20x21 and the ones in gamefont_75.tga are 16x16. The size dictates their use. I can probably dig up a link that describes the different situations. From working with BUG I know gamefont_75 is the one used in the scoreboard and advisor screens.

Thanks!

Ah, thanks.
I guess that's the same reason why Fungus can't ever spread on ridges ?

Yep.

(v.6d feedback/questions )

Forests give +0.5 health while Xenofungus provides +0.5 unhealth per plot in the city cross.
So is it intended that hybrid forest give +0.5 unhealth, too ? (like Xenofungus and more than jungle? )
As far as I remember it's a hybrid between earth's and planet's Ecosystems, so it seemed more logical to me that Hybrid forests should be inbetween the health values, too (?)

That could indeed be said to be more logical. In fact some time ago hybrid forests gave +0.5 health. But the intention of a hybrid economy is lots of small bases. Hybrid forests giving health would allow huge bases.
Roleplaywise you can say that to be able to coexist with planet, population growth and size needs to be controlled. There's some Deirdre Skye quote on that which illustrates this. Perhaps even the Hybrid Forest quote?

I also still got a pink square in the box of Neural Crafting in the tech tree (see attached files on last page - techtree is still abit messed up at some spots, too)

I'm aware of this. I simply haven't looked into how to connect a button to enabling espionage spending.
Tech tree isn't set in stone, and is guaranteed to change. So fixing minor cosmetic problems now which will be changed in the near future anyway, is a low priority.

Empath guild shows a red blob of doom in the city screen when being built.

Thanks. I have connected some other building graphic to it for the meantime.

Just abit skeptical that both maintenance bay and assembly hall grant +1 slot each for Rover/treaded/artillery units as you can obtain the techs to build thos pretty early and those are 2 really good buildings to get early, too.

After the next tech tree 'horizontalization' Assembly Hall will be fourth or fifth level techwise.

Also working greatly (and imho a great additoin, too) is the new tradenetwork-system.
Makes getting culture even more usefull

And it's somewhat a counter against ICS/REX (unless you're running high Planet of course).

Examine city for me is a Pink square, using 6d, did I do a poor patching job?

JosEPh

That is weird. That button was missing in patch b IIRC, but it should be present in patch c and d.
Do you have Assets/Art/Interface/Buttons/Actions/BuildBase.dds in your Planetfall folder?

No

I also have a 2nd Planetfall folder inside the $[31] folder. It does contain the Assets/Art/Interface/Buttons/Actions/BuildBase.dds . The 1st doesn't.

I suspect my patching didn't install correctly now.



JosEPh

Re installed Planetfallv6 and then patched 6a, 6b, 6c, and then 6d patches.

Lost 1st game to Barbs with only 2 cities built. Not enough defense.

Had CTD in 2nd Game when establishing 3rd city and sent 3 formers to build Field station on Grenade fruit in 3rd city's original 9 tiles.

Log file reads: [3867.718] ERR: InitWinApp() failed, exiting
[3867.718] ERR: CIV Init FAILED, exiting .

Had been playing this game for about 3hrs off an on.

JosEPh

Re installed Planetfallv6 and then patched 6a, 6b, 6c, and then 6d patches.

You only need the main version 6, and then patch d. No need for a, b and c.

(Are there any games or mods out there which require you to apply several patches on top of each other instead of the latest?? :confused: I wonder why people regularly ask if all patches are required.)

Lost 1st game to Barbs with only 2 cities built. Not enough defense.

Hmm, perhaps I might have to bring back the flowering counter threshold before native life can move into borders...

Had CTD in 2nd Game when establishing 3rd city and sent 3 formers to build Field station on Grenade fruit in 3rd city's original 9 tiles.

That sucks. I thought Planetfall was CrashFree(tm) now. Do you have a save prior to the crash? Was the crash caused by some specific action, or did it crash after pressing End Turn?

(Are there any games or mods out there which require you to apply several patches on top of each other instead of the latest?? :confused: I wonder why people regularly ask if all patches are required.)

I don't know about games or mods, but Windows is like that. Reinstall XP, connect to Windows Update and there are countless updates. You get through them all, and oh no! there's more.
This is the only mod I've put on Civ4, and each patch has incremental changes. You change a bunch of things in A, a bunch more things in B, etc. So there's logic in thinking one needs to install patch A for the A changes, B for the B changes and so on. Because there's logic in that, people check (or just do it straight that way) because they don't want to break anything.
Just put it down to their inexperience :)

197986Was the crash caused by some specific action,...

Edit: It happens at End of Turn. Tried it 3 times now with same results. Save is posted above.

As for the patching, I wanted to be sure.

JosEPh

I'm afraid I'm unable to determine the exact cause of the crash.

I've been able to narrow the cause down to the fact that Morgan Industries is under barbarian ownership. But I have no idea how that could cause crashes.

I've set up a game myself in which I let the barbarians capture a city, waited for the occupation riot turns to pass etc, but I got no crashes. So something more must be going on. No idea what. I'm stuck. :(

If you want to continue that game though, you can prevent the crash by returning control of Morgan Industries base to Morgan Industries faction. Delete the barb mindworm and place a Morganic unit instead in the city.

Started new game with same faction almost at the same number of turns as the posted save. We'll see if anything develops or not.

JosEPh

Patched to 6e. New Game.

CTD at end of turn, similar to the 6d save CTD I posted before.

Save attached.

JosEPh

Thanks. The cause is once again the fact that the barbarians have gained control over a city.
Do you perhaps have a couple autosaves of the turns leading up to the current one? That might lighten up if something special is happening, and on which turn after the capture exactly the crash occurs. That could narrow down what SDK code I need to look at.

Btw, if the purpose of the game is to bughunt, may I ask not to play on a larger than standard mapsize? On my computer it takes two minutes for your save to load. Two and a half minutes for your previous save. Makes bughunting vey tiresome. :scared:

My purpose is to play. :D I'll see what I can do about previos turns.

But if Planetfall requires smaller maps I'll try to remember that.

I play 2 other BtS Mods too, besides Planetfall, Rise of Mankind and Star Trek. And I've gotten used to playing Huge Maps.

I'll try a smaller Map game later this week and if I have another CTD I'll post it. I'll also try to remember to save more often. IIRC both these versions CTDs came after about 150+ turns into each game.

I had no intentions of bughunting, but if it makes Planetfall better..............isn't that good?

JosEPh :)

Thanks!

In CivilizationIV.ini you can change the frequency of autosaving btw, so you don't have to remember to save all the time. Eg these values could work:

; The maximum number of autosaves kept in the directory before being deleted.
MaxAutoSaves = 10

; Specify the number of turns between autoSaves. 0 means no autosave.
AutoSaveInterval = 1

Btw, because of your game I realized there are a bunch of functions and probabilities, both old ones and new ones added by myself, that don't take gamespeed into account. Eg a big one is feature growth. On epic gamespeed this means fungus expands much faster than intended, and in your games already covers half the map while you only have a handful bases! This has been changed for the next patch. But for the moment I wouldn't recommend playing on anything else but Normal gamespeed.

Sure, can do.

Although it was a good challenge to overcome the local fauna and flora expansion early game. Made me scramble a bit harder to keep the worms and launchers in check. And getting a foothold on the sea has been extremely rough. The early foils really struggle to take out a spawning area. I even had one try to take "root" right in front of New Jerusalem! :lol:

I havn't played a game on normal speed for over a year now. That will be a system shock. ;)

JosEPh :)

I'll put adapting probabilities to gamespeed on the to-do list.

Good news btw! I found the cause of the crash thanks to your second save. There was a possibility for division by zero (= instant crash) left open in some of Firaxis' code, a possibility which can't occur in vanilla civ, but can occur in Planetfall if barbarians capture a base with a Maintenance Bay in it. :crazyeye: It's fixed now. The fix will be present in the next patch, hopefully soon.

Great! :happy: :joy: :joy:

Always glad to be of assistance. :D

Waiting patiently for new patch. :whistle: :twiddle thumbs:

JosEPh ;)

Some observations with Version 6 Patch e (on the positive side I have the impression that the AI plays much better now):

- After someone building the White Pines Wonder, "Apostolic Palace Elections" take place - beside the relict in the name, there was only Deidre eligible (see attached save, just press turn end). I know that this happens in some situations in Civ4 as well, but IIRC the rules for planetary council elections in AC are more simple anyway so maybe this can be fixed.

- Having exactly the same name for Windmills on Land and Sea is confusing - on the first glance you might e.g. assume that the Enclosed Biospheres give a bonus to both, but it works only with the ones Sea. Why not rename the sea ones to Offshore-Windmills or something?

The elections code looked rather complex, last time I had a quick look at it. :scared:
Perhaps Deirdre was the only one running Hybrid Ecology?

I prefer short names. Otherwise they don't fit in the interface in many places. I guess I'll rename them Sea Mills.

First: Great work :goodjob:.
The last time, when i looked in here, you did't have a real tech-tree, but now it's looking good :).

For me, it's a little bit confusing, that no roads are needed, but that's not a bad thing :).
The SDK-Work seems very complex, incredible that such things like the fungus can be done :).


1 Bug: I entered a unity-pod on a land-field, and a isle of the deep appeared.


And: Damn! I also choosed the windmills in my mod to produce commerce.
Now it'll look like i've had stolen this idea :(.


Sad, that i can't play more, modding and rl are very time-consuming :(.


edit: Had a crash after loading a auto-save, but seems to be a random one.

And: you should delete the unused resources, the resources-civilopedia-entry is a little bit confusing.

2. edit: i've seen the lots of good sci-fi-units, why aren't you using more of them? Is it a matter of time?

I prefer short names. Otherwise they don't fit in the interface in many places. I guess I'll rename them Sea Mills.

Hydromills?

And: you should delete the unused resources, the resources-civilopedia-entry is a little bit confusing.

Already done for the next patch. :) Well, they're not deleted (that would require messing with the PlotLSystem :scared: ), but I've made it so they don't appear in the Datalinks.

2. edit: i've seen the lots of good sci-fi-units, why aren't you using more of them? Is it a matter of time?

If you have suggestions for specific fits of available graphics with a specific Planetfall unit, I'd be interested to hear them!

Already done for the next patch. :) Well, they're not deleted (that would require messing with the PlotLSystem :scared: ), but I've made it so they don't appear in the Datalinks.

Yes, the plotlsystem.xml is the hell :scared:, i hate working with it.


If you have suggestions for specific fits of available graphics with a specific Planetfall unit, I'd be interested to hear them!

Haven't played SMAC, but i can't believe that there were no other infantry-units in it.

Haven't played SMAC, but i can't believe that there were no other infantry-units in it.
There was a design workshop, you could select Chassis (including Infantry), Shields, Reactor, Weapon (or Equipment, so Former, Probe Team and Colony Pod were here too), and Special Ability (now incorporated somewhat in the promotions). So there were a thousand infantry units, or one, you could just mix and match.
I haven't found a definitive list of the approx 32000 possible units :)
The game designed some by default for you, but any unit you could make was given a name.
Planetfall's been made simpler in that regard by offering you standard units and cutting out that aspect of the game.
If you have ideas for units, it wouldn't hurt to suggest them, or if a design you've seen would work for an existing unit, suggestions there wouldn't hurt either :)

The elections code looked rather complex, last time I had a quick look at it. Perhaps Deirdre was the only one running Hybrid Ecology?

Indeed, that was the case.

Another thing about the elections I don't like is that ATM they are basically always about victory - because the other options just copied over from BTS don't work very well here (beisde they lack the atmosphere of original AC planetary council vote topics). We have less players in the game, so there is less chance that things like force peace or war vs. someone will work (even more because "non-members" as targets aren't there, all factions are at least voting members)

Beside having the Environmental Economics tech, is there anything you need to plant forests with your formers? The AIs (especially Miriam) seem to make great us of this option, but somehow it doesn't appear for my formers after having acquired said tech, despite trying on various terrains.

I noticed that there is no dipslay for generated espionage points inside cities in the left upper corner (probably because you aren't allowed to use the slider for generating espionage). Nonetheless a display would be helpful, as you still have specialists, buildings and civics influencing espionage point generation.

As a last point I runned into a crash in the year 2259 - save of the turn before is attached, just press turn end.

1 Bug: I entered a unity-pod on a land-field, and a isle of the deep appeared.

Should be fixed now.

edit: Had a crash after loading a auto-save, but seems to be a random one.

I hope I fixed this one too now. :scared:

all factions are at least voting members

Yeah I don't want that (with the White Pines at least). On the To-Do list.
I hope to add Melt Polar Caps/Increase Solar Shade as a vote option in some undefined future. All the other ones are already present in Civ4 though.

Beside having the Environmental Economics tech, is there anything you need to plant forests with your formers?

You can't plant fungus or forest while using the Enclosed Biopshere civic. It mentions this now in the Civics screen.

I noticed that there is no dipslay for generated espionage points inside cities in the left upper corner (probably because you aren't allowed to use the slider for generating espionage). Nonetheless a display would be helpful, as you still have specialists, buildings and civics influencing espionage point generation.

I'll see if I can find where/how to change this.

As a last point I runned into a crash in the year 2259 - save of the turn before is attached, just press turn end.

That one is fixed in patch f. :)

Observations with v6f after playing around 180 turns as Gaians (with Raging Barbs):

- Frequency of Native Life was as expected - a tad higher as without the option checked, but neither I had problems (ok, playing Deidre surely helped abit, but the game wasn't about capturing tons of native life or so - I had to fight against them as the others) nor the AIs (Map Size was Standard BTW)

- Purely cosmetic, but you still find "Gold" inside pods, while the currency everywhere else in the game is already "Credits"

- I runned into an empty pod somehow (see attached save, just move the active Scout Patrol e tile SE into the tile with the pod)

- the text on the espionage screen overlaps badly (leader name and percentage with actual amount of points spent)

- the hoovertank (see attached pic) and the cruiser have strange animations - the former is in a strange cage and sometimes "falls out" of that cage if the unit sits around, while I saw the cruiser playing the sink animation while sitting on a tile

- there seems to be no civilopedia entry for kelp farms

- the hoover help and civilopedia entry for the perimeter defense talk of "+50% defense except vs. Gunpowder" - probably a Civ4 relict, but I also wonder if they work vs. PSI then

- overall my games are far too peaceful...there are no inter-AI-wars (probably because the AI do not expand enough and the map script tends to place the factions rather on seperate islands then on a pangea), only Miriam extorted me in this and the last game (where she declared on me without being able to do a lot of damage)

- Purely cosmetic, but you still find "Gold" inside pods, while the currency everywhere else in the game is already "Credits"

I don't understand this one. The gold unity pods point to the text:
"We have recovered a resupply pod from the Unity! It contains considerable energy supplies!"

I of course only quickly glaze over those messages, so not 100% sure, but IIRC this message shows up correctly.
What is the exact text you get?

- I runned into an empty pod somehow (see attached save, just move the active Scout Patrol e tile SE into the tile with the pod)

Well, that's kinda amusing. Because of sea unit pod popping results, some 25% of the available goodie results are invalid on land. The game tries ten times to get a valid goodie result. Unless I overlooked something, this means you have like one chance in a million to still end up without a valid result after ten tries. Congratulations! You managed to beat those odds.

Have you ever considered buying a lottery ticket?

- the text on the espionage screen overlaps badly (leader name and percentage with actual amount of points spent)

Yeah long names mess up the interface in many places. I've reduced the leader names to one word only. Was thinking about doing that for a while now.

- the hoovertank (see attached pic) and the cruiser have strange animations - the former is in a strange cage and sometimes "falls out" of that cage if the unit sits around, while I saw the cruiser playing the sink animation while sitting on a tile

Alas, I don't have the skills to change that.

- there seems to be no civilopedia entry for kelp farms

They're a feature.

- the hoover help and civilopedia entry for the perimeter defense talk of "+50% defense except vs. Gunpowder" - probably a Civ4 relict, but I also wonder if they work vs. PSI then

They do. Except fpr the changed base strengths, modifiers apply as usual.

- overall my games are far too peaceful...there are no inter-AI-wars (probably because the AI do not expand enough and the map script tends to place the factions rather on seperate islands then on a pangea), only Miriam extorted me in this and the last game (where she declared on me without being able to do a lot of damage)

That's not something that can be changed quickly unfortunately, especially if the causes are unknown. :(
In some future though I plan to add a "Landing Pod Scattering" game option. With this option On, the starting positions would be like now. With the option Off (default), all seven original factions would start close to each other. So that could cause more conflicts.

I don't understand this one. The gold unity pods point to the text:
"We have recovered a resupply pod from the Unity! It contains considerable energy supplies!"

I of course only quickly glaze over those messages, so not 100% sure, but IIRC this message shows up correctly.
What is the exact text you get?

It is the message you have quoted, but there is a third sentence:

"We have recovered a resupply pod from the unity! It contains considerable energy supplies! You have received 29 Gold!"

BTW, it wasn't easy to make it trigger again - from a certain point on, I runned into no more pods giving "Gold" to me. I had to start a new game to see it again...


Well, that's kinda amusing. Because of sea unit pod popping results, some 25% of the available goodie results are invalid on land. The game tries ten times to get a valid goodie result. Unless I overlooked something, this means you have like one chance in a million to still end up without a valid result after ten tries. Congratulations! You managed to beat those odds.

Have you ever considered buying a lottery ticket?

Likely it was that 1 in a million chance, because since you have corrected the pod results the last time, I never runned into an empty or invalid pod.
I will keep an eye on it and post it, if it should ever happen again, though :)


That's not something that can be changed quickly unfortunately, especially if the causes are unknown. :(
In some future though I plan to add a "Landing Pod Scattering" game option. With this option On, the starting positions would be like now. With the option Off (default), all seven original factions would start close to each other. So that could cause more conflicts.

In the new game I started, I choosed "Low Sea Level" and when I was defeated by natives (Playing Miriam, Monarch, Raging Barbs) around turn 40, the screens after defeat showed me, that in this game 6 factions started on a pangea-like continent (the map reminded me of the Big&Small map-script somehow) - maybe this is a key to more interaction for the moment.


Another thing I noticed is that it is very easy to grab Great Engineers - the Maintenance Bay and Assembly Hall give you two quite early slots for them, so all you need to fill them is enough food. And with GEs its easy to grab the Secret Projects...there are less then in Civ4, so it has more impact here (do you plan to bring the rest of them form AC over to Planetfall?)...also all of them I stumbed across so far are so cheap, that you can instantly get them with an GE without having to provide additional minerals

"We have recovered a resupply pod from the unity! It contains considerable energy supplies! You have received 29 Gold!"

Thanks. I have changed the message for the next version.

maybe this is a key to more interaction for the moment.

I don't understand what is. Pangaea you mean?
The Planetfall mapscript uses Big&Small as base by the way.

Another thing I noticed is that it is very easy to grab Great Engineers - the Maintenance Bay and Assembly Hall give you two quite early slots for them

Once I get down on my to-do list to modifying that tech branch, Assembly Hall will come available later.
I could also remove the Engineer from Maintenance Bay, but then there would be no engineers at all until the mid-game. That might be overbalancing a little too far. Not sure yet what to do.

(do you plan to bring the rest of them form AC over to Planetfall?)

Only a few.
Some secret projects make more sense as a base facility or national project. Eg Virtual World.
Some can't really be thought of as an actual project. Eg Ascetic Virtues is a philosophy. Hunter-Seeker Algorithm is a piece of software. Kinda strange to keep those as 'buildings'.
Others just have ridiculous names in my opinion.
Also I'd like secret projects to have interesting effects as much as possible. Having six projects grant a free building isn't interesting IMO.
So I kinda don't have much inspiration.

I recently had the idea though to have Unity X Bays as early secret projects, reflecting the fact that each landing pod was specialized in something. Unity Hydroponics Bay, Cryobay, Observation Bay...

There was a design workshop, you could select Chassis (including Infantry), Shields, Reactor, Weapon (or Equipment, so Former, Probe Team and Colony Pod were here too), and Special Ability (now incorporated somewhat in the promotions). So there were a thousand infantry units, or one, you could just mix and match.
I haven't found a definitive list of the approx 32000 possible units :)
The game designed some by default for you, but any unit you could make was given a name.
Planetfall's been made simpler in that regard by offering you standard units and cutting out that aspect of the game.
If you have ideas for units, it wouldn't hurt to suggest them, or if a design you've seen would work for an existing unit, suggestions there wouldn't hurt either :)

I'm having also problems finding good names for my units, so i'm really not the best person to make suggestions :D.



Only one thing, if Maniac hasn't already seen it: Here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=284188&page=15), tried it out for my mod, and when i remember correctly the pictures, SMAC also had a missile, which tranforms the land.

minor fix for the both units mentioned above (still not really finished, eg no weapon effect and explosion - no idea which weapon effect do you want for this units - also both units have no real weapon attached so far).

Is there a list saying which units have problems or which needs work? Depending on my time and mood (both will be problem in the next weeks) perhaps i can look at some of this (or somebody else)

minor fix for the both units mentioned above

Thanks! :)

Is there a list saying which units have problems or which needs work? Depending on my time and mood (both will be problem in the next weeks) perhaps i can look at some of this (or somebody else)

I'd say most needed would be native life art. This may be rather complex though, requiring knowledge of how the Afterworld Entity works. A quote from a while back:

I'd prefer the locust, IoD and mind worm to look like an actual boil/swarm instead of a few individual worms. So those units would mainly be a texture job, a blob similar to the Afterworld Entiry, with changing textures (or however it is done) when the unit moves or attacks.

The exact model of the Afterworld Entity could be used for the mind worm and/or Isle of the Deep, but the textures would need a different colour.


Something else probably more simple is a model for a sea former.
Given that Planetfall does not have a unit workshop, it is not required for the aquaformer/sea former to look the same as in SMAC. But unless someone has inspiration for a better look, the SMAC look is of course great.

Do you have SMAC? Or would you need some example screenshots?
The already existing (land) former and foil models/textures might be useful for creating the aquaformer.

i have SMAC ;) [lost my CD for AC so now i have only smac]. The SeaFormer will be possible, considering the alien lifeforms, must first look if i can mimik the Afterworld Entity effect. I didn´t done something like this so far, so no gurantee that i can get i working.

Am I missing something, or have roads been removed? This is really irritating....

Also, what is the justification for not allowing farms earlier? If you don't start near any food resources, you're basically left completely unable to grow. This makes both human and even more so AI performance far too dependent on start position.

Am I missing something, or have roads been removed? This is really irritating....

In what way?

Also, what is the justification for not allowing farms earlier? If you don't start near any food resources, you're basically left completely unable to grow. This makes both human and even more so AI performance far too dependent on start position.

Are you aware of the Greenhouse improvement and the Enclosed Biosphere civic?

Well.... formers no longer seem to have the build road order, its just missing. So, no roads.

And Greenhouses seem unbuildable on anything with 2 food production (eg flat rainy), and Enclosed Biosphere civic only boosts tiles that produce 0 or 1 base food (flat arid, flat polar, ice).

So, the only tiles that can generate more than 2 food (which is what you need to grow) before farms are food bonus tiles.

Save attached.

I deleted my old Planetfall folder and did a clean install of the base version 6, and then the patch f.

Maybe there is something weird that happened from not also installing all the intermediate patches a through f?

Formers can't build roads anymore, thats true.
But there is no point anymore for roads, so why bother ? (except for the movement bonus, perhaps, but I think it's a nice feature for PF)


@greenhouses:
I can't build them on 2F tiles either.
But it never stopped my expansion, especially as big bases are not always that good in SMAC (planetvalue, having unhealth due to pop, etc,) and as you can get up to 75% food stored on growth, it's still fast in the midgame.
(you still get +2F each turn with "just" 2/1/1 greenhouse tiles.

Well.... formers no longer seem to have the build road order, its just missing. So, no roads.

In case it wasn't clear, I meant, why exactly is the absence of roads irritating?

I removed them for two reasons:

1) They just add to the amount of repetitive actions you need to do during the game. The less of those, the better of course.

2) Having roads all over the place reduces the differences between terrains. If all units have high movement at the end of the game, stuff like some terrain costing two movement points to pass through has little meaning anymore. Reducing overall movement speed increases the value of bonuses which allow you to get somewhere faster. Like 'double movement in fungus' (native life), 'flat movement over all terrain' (chopper->hovertank->gravship), 'drop range' (drop troops), naval transporting.

Until now the focus of Planetfall has mainly been on economy and ecology. I'm just now again getting more into adding cool unit abilities and balancing the unit system. So the system no doubt has its shortcomings at the moment. But for now my response to your feedback would be that there is nothing inherently wrong with my design decision - you just haven't figured out how to adapt to it yet.

Also, if time would prove that the design decision to decrease overall mobility is a bad one, my response would not be to re-add roads, but rather increase the overall movement of units. That way the repetitive action of road building is still removed. At least from the early game, until mag tubes come along; but if you have already improved a plot, there's less need to go back there just to build a road.


Regarding food surplus. As Shakiko says, you start with a +2 food surplus. My personal experience is that food surplus is rarely a limit on my base size in the early game. :confused: Rather it are the happiness and health limits. So I don't really see how there could be problems in this department.

Vanilla indeed has more food in the early game, but my experience is there's almost always much more than you need, and slavery is used to get rid of it.

In case it wasn't clear, I meant, why exactly is the absence of roads irritating?


Because they massively slow the ability to move units around your empire, carry out wars, or generally do anything at all. They also mess with the effect where it is easier to fight in your own territory than enemy territory, because you can use your own roads, while your enemy cannot.
The lack of roads basically makes any kind of war infeasible in the early game, because it takes too long to be able to build a concentrated force.

The lack of roads cripples the AI in particular by making it really bad at responding to an invasion.


1) They just add to the amount of repetitive actions you need to do during the game. The less of those, the better of course.

Building roads isn't really that much effort. I've never seen anyone complain about road building in vanilla civ or any mod.

2) Having roads all over the place reduces the differences between terrains.

Even with roads you get this effect during invasions because you can't use terrain in enemy territory. And, on earth and any other planet, part of the *point* of roads is to reduce the difficulties of harsh terrains. Thats why we build roads; because we can move faster on-road than off-road.

If you really want fewer roads, you can increase the build time for roads, so you can really only use them to link your settlements rather than roading every tile.

But for now my response to your feedback would be that there is nothing inherently wrong with my design decision - you just haven't figured out how to adapt to it yet.

Thats true to some extent, I'll try to give it a chance when I have time, but my main response is that I hate this change. I'll try it a bit more, but I suspect that this will be a deal-breaker; taking dozens of turns for my armies to get anywhere is incredibly boring, and means that the army is often obsolete by the time it gets anywhere.

Regarding food surplus. As Shakiko says, you start with a +2 food surplus. My personal experience is that food surplus is rarely a limit on my base size in the early game

I have had multiple games where I was unable to get my capital above size 2-3 in the early game, which *massively* slows the whole game. When this is happening to the player, it is also definitely happening to the AI. And the AI is much worse at figuring out how it needs to terraform intelligently.
It also means that any AI with a food resource gets a *huge* advantage over any other.

It wouldn't be so bad if you could build greenhouses on the 2 food tiles. I an mystified as to why this is disallowed.

Question: on what map size do you play?

In case you play on large or huge maps, I can imagine it takes way too long to move an army somewhere.

It could also explain the different experience with starting positions. I assume the climate zones are much larger on huge though, so you'd be less likely to have at least a couple rainy or shelf plots in your radius. As, with the exception of the nutrient/mineral/energy boni, the frequency of resources doesn't adapt to map size (but only to the # of players), it could also cause there to be less resources in your starting radius.

In general, personally I don't recommend playing on larger than Standard. (That suggestion also counts for unmodded Civ4 btw :D )

Standard size maps, I've never tried anything larger. There are also enough code things going on in the background that this mod runs much slower than most others (probably flowering counter/fungus related I'm guessing), so anything over standard would also start to take a very long time between turns on my system (in addition to being too large to be playable with 7 factions).

Which generally means it takes infantry 15-20 turns on average to get to attack your neighbors, and 25-30+ turns to wage a war against anyone who isn't your neighbor.

Removing roads severely limits the ability of a defender to resist an invasion, because they no longer have a movement advantage over an attacker; they no longer have the ability to whittle down an invading stack through hit and run, to respond easily to pillager units (and farms take *hundreds* of turns to improve, so pillaging = death) or barbarians, or to move a defensive force to defend the city that the attacker chooses to target - because it takes the defender an equal amount of time to reinforce their own city as it takes for the attacker to get to it.

It is also making the AI players totally unable to cope with barbarian planet units pillaging; they can't kill them fast enough because they can't get to them, so all their improvements get pillaged, and their economies crash. In a mod where the yields from former improvements are so high, this is a big problem. Particularly so when the AI doesn't understand how Planet works, and so will get lots of native life uprisings.

This fails on both realism and gameplay measures, and makes the combat aspects of the game much less fun.

I don't care about roads connecting resources or not, but the movement issues are key.

Also,
Bug: Land units in sea bases don't actually defend the base, they're just treated as cargo. Surely this isn't intended?

And solar power transmitters are acting as fighter/bomber aicrcraft, and obsolete interceptors and penetrators. Intended??!?

Bug: Land units in sea bases don't actually defend the base, they're just treated as cargo. Surely this isn't intended?

I haven't actually done many naval invasions yet, as that would require the AI to build many sea bases. :-s
I set up a situation in the worldbuilder though: a barbarian base with a couple defenders, and me attacking with a unit from land, and with a foil. In both cases the barbarians defended. So I can't repeat your findings. :confused: Can you give some more information as to where you encountered this, or what exactly happened?

And solar power transmitters are acting as fighter/bomber aicrcraft, and obsolete interceptors and penetrators. Intended??!?

Intended at the moment, but I will no doubt revisit the air unit line at some later point.

***

I noticed the APC special ability isn't working at the moment. This is fixed for version 7. With that SA, infantry can move as fast on flat terrain as they could on roads in their territory, and faster than ever before in enemy territory.
I may remove that special ability at some later point though. :mischief:

Removing roads severely limits the ability of a defender to resist an invasion, because they no longer have a movement advantage over an attacker; they no longer have the ability to whittle down an invading stack through hit and run, to respond easily to pillager units (and farms take *hundreds* of turns to improve, so pillaging = death) or barbarians, or to move a defensive force to defend the city that the attacker chooses to target - because it takes the defender an equal amount of time to reinforce their own city as it takes for the attacker to get to it.

That is in fact all intended.
Civ4 tried to add some Rock-Paper-Scissors (RPS) to combat, but IMO that failed miserably. Reason is RPS becomes pointless if you can have Rock, Paper AND Scissors all at the same time at the same place. Then you just get stack-of-doom warfare without any tactics, and the one with the biggest army wins. What fun.

Reducing mobility means it's harder to have Rock, Paper and Scissors always present at every spot. So stuff like scouting, preparing ahead, harrassment of weak spots, opportunism, positional warfare can become more important. That's at least the goal I'd like to eventually achieve.

Regarding pillaging. I *want* to make that a bigger part of war strategy. Note that no one is forcing you to build farms and boreholes. They have a higher yield, but they also carry with them more risk: being pillaged. That's their design: high reward, but high risk. So in areas which you are unable to defend well, you can always stick to greenhouses, mines and windmills. Less big of a deal if they get pillaged.

How to deal with an invading stack of doom?
You can always try to slow down the invaders, giving you more time to reinforce.
Build Perimeter Defenses for instance, forcing the invader to spend some turns reducing base defenses, unless he wants to lose lots of units taking the base right away.
Or build some static defenses, ie bunkers. Not a good idea for your enemy to leave those around, unless they like being bombarded constantly. Destroying those takes time and health.
I also hope to eventually add a limited number of special ability 'spells'. Stasis Generator for instance could immobilze a stack or some units for some time, again buying you extra time.

Also note that in unmodded Civ4, 33% of a city's buildings are destroyed upon conquest. In Planetfall this is reduced to 5%. I might even make it 0%. I also plan to disable razing cities.
This means that in unmodded Civ4, losing a city is a disaster, lots of buildings permanently lost. In Planetfall however, losing a base doesn't have to a big deal, if it is only temporarily. You can get it back in pretty much the exact shape you left it.
So an invading stack of doom doesn't have to mean disaster. Instead of trying to counter the stack of doom directly, you could send some harrassment/pillaging forces in HIS territory, while his forces are concentrated elsewhere. Or you could let the invading stack capture the target base, and then wait him out. If he moves his stack of doom to a second base, the first base captured is less defended, so you can run around his back and recapture it. If he splits his stack in two, so that he can keep protecting his first captured base, well, two smaller stacks are easier to defeat for you than one big one.

If I can add a limited spell system (ie remove all the for me useless stuff of the FfH spell system), I also plan to re-add supply crawlers. I would give them spells which allow them to create units for a gold cost (justification: they're built with nanites). So you'd have mobile production centers which you can move closer to where the actual combat is happening.

It is also making the AI players totally unable to cope with barbarian planet units pillaging; they can't kill them fast enough because they can't get to them, so all their improvements get pillaged, and their economies crash. In a mod where the yields from former improvements are so high, this is a big problem. Particularly so when the AI doesn't understand how Planet works, and so will get lots of native life uprisings.

I'll watch out for this.

So I can't repeat your findings. Can you give some more information as to where you encountered this, or what exactly happened?

I had an ocean city next to a coast tile, with two plasma shards with a ton of city defender promotions, a transport foil and a sea lurk.
I was attacked by 3-4 gun foils, and they fought the sea lurk and transport foil and eventually won, and captured the base, without fighting the plasma shards.
Possibly the issue was that somehow the plasma shard has ended up loaded onto the transport foil, (even though I'm 90% certain that I manually unloaded them) and so were just treated as cargo.

But I'm still really really hating the lack of roads, it just takes too long to get anywhere even within my own empire.

Another thought: this mod really needs a Strength 5 2 moves Armor unit (that armor can upgrade to) in the midgame.

I'll watch out for this.

The AI regularly gets ~-10 planet rating for a base, which triggers native life uprisings very often. These then kill their formers (especially from locusts), pillage their stuff, and often even capture their cities.

Another thought; the religious specific buildings (Voice of planet, etc.) should probably require that you have adopted the appropriate state religion; I don't think it really makes sense that you can spread all the religions and get the benefits from all of them.
The different religions represent very different lifetyles and social value systems; many of them really aren't compatible.

I may remove that special ability at some later point though.

I like the idea of the APC ability, I'd keep it.

That is in fact all intended.

Well, then I hate your design intention :-)
I can understand disliking the civ engine's RPS mechanic (since it makes all specialization favor the defender, who gets to defend with the strongest unit), but I don't think this is a good solution.

But the AI is really designed to use the vanilla civ mechanics. It can't really handle a world without roads. All the AI knows how to do is build a stack of doom and advance with it. It defends its cities and a small surrounding area; it doesn't do recon, or even start to respond to threats until it is too late.
If you start advancing on an AI city across land, the AI won't even realise it is under threat and start reinforcing it until you're within the fat cross. With roads and railroads, this isn't such a problem, because in 2-3 turns, units can travel a fair distance and the city can be reinforced. Without roads, the AI doesn't respond until it is too late.

Also, normally, you take an enemy city and end up with a bunch of damaged units. Using roads, the AI can then normally attempt to retake the city immediately, attacking your units while they are still damaged. Without roads, you are able to fully heal your troops before they can get enough units in to be able to recapture the city.

So, stack of dooms still work here for the human, its just that the AI is even less able to deal with them.

There are a lot of great things in this mod (I love how you've made it so that bigger cities aren't always better), but the lack of roads just doesn't work IMO.

Something else: I plan to make factions start close each other if the 'Scattered Landing Pods' option is off, so that will reduce travel time to another faction.

I had an ocean city next to a coast tile, with two plasma shards with a ton of city defender promotions, a transport foil and a sea lurk.
I was attacked by 3-4 gun foils, and they fought the sea lurk and transport foil and eventually won, and captured the base, without fighting the plasma shards.
Possibly the issue was that somehow the plasma shard has ended up loaded onto the transport foil, (even though I'm 90% certain that I manually unloaded them) and so were just treated as cargo.

Fixed for next version.

Another thought: this mod really needs a Strength 5 2 moves Armor unit (that armor can upgrade to) in the midgame.

Done for next version.

Another thought; the religious specific buildings (Voice of planet, etc.) should probably require that you have adopted the appropriate state religion; I don't think it really makes sense that you can spread all the religions and get the benefits from all of them.
The different religions represent very different lifetyles and social value systems; many of them really aren't compatible.

Those religious bonus facilities have been removed in the next version, though religions now give an inherent similar bonus (eg Voice of Planet gives +1 Planet). Every non-state religion gives -1 Happy though, so the boni and penalties kinda even out.

But the AI is really designed to use the vanilla civ mechanics.

AI can and will be changed.

I runned into a strange situation when I recaptured a base lost to Native Lifeforms a few turns before...the city suddenly had an ultra-high upkeep (or is that something similar like damaged fromers repairing?) See pic and save (to make it happen, just attack Gaia's Landing with the hoover tank, go then inside the city and look at the maintenance figure):

A few turns later, the display showed a strange "ultraponics maintenance"...maybe it has to do with the lack of foods and the number of drones in that city? But what about the -25%...they somehow don't seem to get figured in correctly - the upkeep seems to grow by that percentage.


Another strange thing is that you can promote Transport Cruisers with Accuracy - what does the +10% Bombardment damage them good?

When a base has a food shortage and you have no more food reserves, instead of reducing in size, you pay +2 'ultraponics' maintenance for every food needed. The natives no doubt had foos shortages.

This prevents starvation when you capture a base which subsequently gets surrounded by foreign culture. (I hate that)

Have you already tried going forward to the next turn? Without having looked at the save yet, I'd expect the number would get normal again then. I'd have to investigate if I can get the number tp update right away.

Edit: Oh, it seems the problem persists, reading your next post. :(

Another strange thing is that you can promote Transport Cruisers with Accuracy - what does the +10% Bombardment damage them good?

Hmm, I can probably put a restriction in the SDK, preventing OnlyDefensive units from getting that promotion.

A few turns later, the display showed a strange "ultraponics maintenance"...maybe it has to do with the lack of foods and the number of drones in that city? But what about the -25%...they somehow don't seem to get figured in correctly - the upkeep seems to grow by that percentage.

I can't replicate these findings. :confused: The first turn I too get that high maintenance, but as expected the calculations return to how they should be the turn after, including the -25%.

I can't replicate these findings. :confused: The first turn I too get that high maintenance, but as expected the calculations return to how they should be the turn after, including the -25%.

It was a few turns later, but I didn't manage it to happen again as well.Will have an eye on it and post a save, if I should see again a maintenance calculation I don't understand.

However, some more issues:

- Anyone else having trouble with very long development times for farms/outposts? There is something weird going on when the game progresses, the numbers seem to increase exponentially sometimes...my current record is an outpost taking 3280 turns to develop into a settlement. I haven't used the Terraform civic in that game ever, so this likely has no impact. I can't see a pattern why some tiles have that problem and some not, but observing one of the tiles for a few turns showed that those strong increase does not happen linear, there must be certain times, when the numbers "jump". Also, such tiles don't "lose turns" if they get worked.

- Native life can produce normal human units like Plasmathrowers, when they manage to capture a base and hold it long enough to get past resistance. Doesn't feel very realistic.

- I noticed a Spore Launcher intercepting a Drop Trooper while using its drop ability...is that intended?

- AIs seem to have great trouble in the later game to get their research going...I have now played almost 300 turns and the research times of the AIs are getting longer and longer. I suspect that they pay a lot of unit support, some bases are just crammed with often obsoleted units (the pictures show such a troop concentration at a Morgan base...and 10% research!) ...OTOH the AIs need the units to defend, because they seem to have no understanding of how to avoid big minusses regarding planet value in their bases.

- I think that the Hybrid Civic is overpowered in the late game...you save lots of maintenance plus it is probably the best way to deal with the ever-increasing flowering counter and its consequences (at least that is something the AIs understand - within a couple of turns they all switched from EB to Hybrid) Compared to original SMAC, defending yourself vs. the Planet is a much bigger challenge (with the current AI, most of the time the challenge at all, as you are hardly attacked) and you don't seem to have much more choices then to build tons of units (fighting native life means often sacrificing a unit first, to kill then with a second one). I haven't tried a pure green strategy yet, but given that is becomes easier that way...doesn't that penalize the terraforming, not-planet-hugging-way too much? In my game the FC has now reached 50 and I'm busy with fighting against waves of native life...

- Anyone else having trouble with very long development times for farms/outposts?

Farm upgrade speed is affected by the Flowering Counter. Unless you're running Terraformed, upgrading ceases completely when the Flowering Counter is 50 or higher. I assume that's what you're seeing. I'll see about changing the mouseover txt to provide this info.

Native life can produce normal human units like Plasmathrowers, when they manage to capture a base and hold it long enough to get past resistance. Doesn't feel very realistic.

Yeah I'm aware of that, but didn't consider solving this a priority. I'll move it up the priority list now you mentioned it.

noticed a Spore Launcher intercepting a Drop Trooper while using its drop ability...is that intended?

Might you mean the Fungal Tower? That one has air interception, and unfortunately uses the same graphic as the spore launcher at the moment.
Regardless, spore launchers having some air interception (with some promotion perhaps) might not be a bad idea. People who go full native could still use some mobile anti-air.

AIs seem to have great trouble in the later game to get their research going[/B]...I have now played almost 300 turns and the research times of the AIs are getting longer and longer. I suspect that they pay a lot of unit support, some bases are just crammed with often obsoleted units (the pictures show such a troop concentration at a Morgan base...and 10% research!) ...OTOH the AIs need the units to defend, because they seem to have no understanding of how to avoid big minusses regarding planet value in their bases.

Not completely sure, but I think the cause for all those scout patrols might be the same as why FfH suffered from AI warrior spam earlier in its development: the AI is crap at determining what are good city defense units, and build scout patrols. I've changed some line of code so that the AI will consider more unittypes as valid city defenders. Let's see if that improves things.


Regarding the threat level of Planet, and a hybrid/terraformer strategy, I think the concept is good, but it obviously still needs a lot of balancing. :mischief: For now I've changed it so locusts can't appear from fungal blooms before Flowering Counter 50. Let's see if that helps with AI defenses.

(fighting native life means often sacrificing a unit first, to kill then with a second one)

I'll re-add some ranged bombardment units at some later point. Will be useful to bombard native life stack and reduce your own casualties.

Farm upgrade speed is affected by the Flowering Counter. Unless you're running Terraformed, upgrading ceases completely when the Flowering Counter is 50 or higher. I assume that's what you're seeing. I'll see about changing the mouseover txt to provide this info.

Ah, okay its good to know that. However, to make that work it would mean you have to work with the Flowering counter - and thats something I seem not get to work. Reading an older design document I understand that I can fight the FC by removing fungus tiles in the world. I do that frequently, but since it is a dangerous business I'm occupied with improving my own territory. Outisde and in the AIs lands, it probably rather the case that fungus expands.
The Counter starts always around 25 or so and I have never manage it to get down, which makes farms a no-go. I'm missing something?

No. ;)
There need to be some more ways for the Terraformers to reduce the Flowering Counter. One way would be to let the farm upgrades reduce the Flowering Counter at an exponential rate (so one Eden reduces it much more than four Farms). I was also thinking of adding some super-fungus-destructive weapon in the tech tree, but I have no idea yet how this could look in concrete.

Shameless plug from FfH, but another option could be 'fungus fires', similar to FfH forest fires. I'm not sure this is realistic science though. But IIRC Chiron has a lower percentage of oxygen. So this might mean initially fires have the tendency to quickly die out. (Or am I completely mistaken here?) As Terraformers add more oxygen to the atmosphere (by planting forests etc), and fires can last longer, simply setting all the fungus ablaze might become a good tactic to destroy the fungus. This option could be opened up by a late game Terraformer tech.

A major problem though for a balanced Flowering Counter system is the growth speed of fungus compared to the expansion speed of human factions. To have a balanced system, the fungus growth rate should be affected by map size and by how many civs start the game. Eg IIRC you play on large maps, so this means human factions will for a long time occupy a smaller percentage of the map than on standard or small maps. Meaning fungus has more time to grow uncountered, and the flowering counter will tend to be higher in all your games.
I have no idea right now how such a formula dealing with map size and # of players should look.
(I've already changed it so it takes gamespeed into account, for the record)

No. ;)
There need to be some more ways for the Terraformers to reduce the Flowering Counter. One way would be to let the farm upgrades reduce the Flowering Counter at an exponential rate (so one Eden reduces it much more than four Farms). I was also thinking of adding some super-fungus-destructive weapon in the tech tree, but I have no idea yet how this could look in concrete.

I assume this means that farms already fight the FC, right? Farms upgrades fighting it more isn't a bad idea, but it might not be working to good in practise (because before it can work you might need to grow farms, which is currently very difficult when facing a quickly rising FC)


Shameless plug from FfH, but another option could be 'fungus fires', similar to FfH forest fires. I'm not sure this is realistic science though. But IIRC Chiron has a lower percentage of oxygen. So this might mean initially fires have the tendency to quickly die out. (Or am I completely mistaken here?) As Terraformers add more oxygen to the atmosphere (by planting forests etc), and fires can last longer, simply setting all the fungus ablaze might become a good tactic to destroy the fungus. This option could be opened up by a late game Terraformer tech.

Sounds like an interesting idea, given that it can be properly implemented. Reading up the AC manual again, I found out that Alpah Centauri has indeed much less oxygen (only 8,92% of the atmosphere). As you said, the key might be forests here. How effective the fires are, should be determined by the number of forest squares on the map. Forests could also have a more direct way on the FC - perhaps each forested tile could "eliminate" one fungus tile in the FC calculation? Don't know if this is already the case (haven't met the prequesites for being able to build them too often), but forests should be also able to expand like in original AC (though slower then fungus)


A major problem though for a balanced Flowering Counter system is the growth speed of fungus compared to the expansion speed of human factions. To have a balanced system, the fungus growth rate should be affected by map size and by how many civs start the game. Eg IIRC you play on large maps, so this means human factions will for a long time occupy a smaller percentage of the map than on standard or small maps. Meaning fungus has more time to grow uncountered, and the flowering counter will tend to be higher in all your games.
I have no idea right now how such a formula dealing with map size and # of players should look.
(I've already changed it so it takes gamespeed into account, for the record)

As long as there are 7 players default, I think the game should be balanced around that values. Even if the SMAX factions enter the planet on day (and that only matters, if then more then 7 factions are allowed in one game, means the FFH path is choosen, to make civs appear in a game), it is still to be taken in account that those are AI factions, which aren't very good at dealing with the FC.
Map Size is of course more tricky, but I think the standrad size you recommend makes for the best gaming experience.


I have kept for my v7 game track of the FC increases and will post them with my other comments.

What could also help would be introducing an option in the game setup to create a map with more or less fungus coverage (so games with different starting values for the FC would be possible). SMAC had such an option.