Since no one has done it yet, I will open the feedback thread for v8 :)

I played 240 turns on Emperor difficulty, standard size map, high sea level and tropic climate. FC reached 51; native life was troublesome, but managable so far. I think the change regarding fungal blooms on sea is a good thing. Also the combo of Unity Hydroponics Bay and Terraformed allowed some Farms to grow big (3x Eden and some settlements as well). Most AIs perfromed mediocre (3 of them 6 cities, 2 with 5, Zak only 2 - I have 12 bases in comparison); some oversea colonization (Morgan has colonized a big sized island with three bases!), but no sea-bases (except one I lost to native life, which Deidre took then)

I like the new Spore Launcher graphic, it adds a lot of atmosphere :goodjob:

Currently there is only one thing which really annoys me...fresh water lakes getting fungal-bloomed...you cannot fight there, because you are not allowed to build ships, so you cannot work the tiles and the spawning points count towards the FC. Not to speak of the interturn delay the animations of native life movement inside two- or more-tile-lakes cause.
Not sure how to solve this issue, though. Allowing to build ships would be the most logical thing to do, but that might hurt the AI badly. Not allowing fungus/spawns on fresh water would be probably the clearest fix.

Downloaded, ran the installer. It didn't install anything! What am I missing?

Downloaded, ran the installer. It didn't install anything! What am I missing?

Did the installation routine load up and an installation seem to have taken place, but after that there was nothing in the place you installed? Or did you double-click the installer and nothing more happened? If it is the former and you run Vista as OS, it might help to run the file as administrator and/or to allow modifying files in the destination place, here for the BTS/Mods direction.
In the latter case or if my tip doesn't help, good luck and hopefully someone else can help you :)

Not allowing fungus/spawns on fresh water would be probably the clearest fix.

Done!é!('"'!!è§(

Bug: The holy city for Voice of Planet gets one point of Planetvalue for every city with VOP even before you build White Pines. I didn't notice any effect of White Pines when I did build it.

I love how you don't get fungus pops if there is no fungus!

Morgan+ that early wonder that makes all terraforming civics available+ terraforming civic = super fast fungus removal. Muahaha, take that you semi sentient planet!

However, border cities have issues. I can't terraform my neighbor's land , so I have to live with the pops. I would like the game changed so that your neighbor's fungus doesn't make your own tiles eligible for fungal pops.


Is there a reason why I can't build farms in the highlands?

Also, do cities with the hydro plant building(the one that gives fresh water health and 1 energy on rivers) also give fresh water for farms? That would be a nice thing to add since often its hard to chain farms to all of your cities due to all the rocky or highlands squares that can't carry farms. Maybe have the terraforming civic give this ability to the hydro plant so that it doesn't come so early?

i found it annoying that while i was meticulously keeping my planet rating up, and meanwhile my neighbors were aggressively not. for whatever reason the planetlife that was spawned during blooms made a beeline for my territory. possibly because of the punch and pie.

Probably you had more fungus and planetlife considered it as a good defensive/movement bonus? Also barbarian AI does that, even in FFH2 :) (I mean picks a player to attack).

However, border cities have issues. I can't terraform my neighbor's land , so I have to live with the pops. I would like the game changed so that your neighbor's fungus doesn't make your own tiles eligible for fungal pops.

I like the idea that a Terraformer would have problems because his neighbour is a Hybrid planting fungus all over the place. So I prefer to keep the current rule.
The problem is that currently not even AI Terraformers remove all fungus inside their territory.

Is there a reason why I can't build farms in the highlands?

I am able to. Send me a save where you can't.

Also, do cities with the hydro plant building(the one that gives fresh water health and 1 energy on rivers) also give fresh water for farms?

No. You can build Condensers. They provide fresh water.

i found it annoying that while i was meticulously keeping my planet rating up, and meanwhile my neighbors were aggressively not. for whatever reason the planetlife that was spawned during blooms made a beeline for my territory. possibly because of the punch and pie.

Hopefully this will eventually be solved by AI improvements. If you have a positive Planet Attitude though, you can take advantage of this situation by placing units with Empath Song near the borders, and capturing the native life.

Space victory isn't working. Two Subspace generators were completed on the same turn for the win (three had been completed already), and instead, only one was built. The one in Gaia's Landing was completely reset, even though the game acknowledged it as having been built.

The save is attached if you'd like to check. Just hit "Enter" to end the turn.
211159

The Great Doctor must have wrong animations, since she's splayed and not animated at all.

Solar Power Transmitter is scaled wrong: it orbits far too high above the city it is in, and is huge as well. (See the screenshot: the sat is in Far Jericho, but it is next to UN Humanity Base.)
211162

A suggestion: you can use the Leviathan (and button) from Next War for the Planetfall Leviathan.

There are a few other units I will suggest, but let me see if I can get them to work. If they do work, I'll submit them with the XML. (It's just a matter of doing the XML, since I've pulled them from the Downloads database.)

Edit 1: Oh, I forgot to ask. How does one build a Gravity Lens on a LaGrange point? I tried deploying Gravity Lenses to the LaGrange points, but a Gravity Lens is a Air unit and so can only be deployed to a base.

Okay, I managed to get four units to work. They are possible replacements for the Acolyte, Creator, Helion, and Mobile Infantry.

The Acolyte and Creator were made by Refar (Generic Male and Female Missionaries)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9697

The female missionary is a close match for the Acolyte button art, and if one could make her hair blond, it would be even more appropriate. (Perhaps use the head of the female pirate settler?)

The Creator is found both in the Warlords Rise of Rome scenario and the BtS Gods of Old mod, and I just like the look of it. (He should carry a sickle though, to symbolize how the religion of Homo Superior will cull the species until the chaff is separated from the grain.)

The Helion is GarretSidzaka's Space Soldier.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4230

This is not my first choice for the Helion. That was Zerver's Spetznaz Plasma Bolter http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11971 Couldn't get it to work right, so I'm abandoning it for now. (I think I now know what I did wrong, and will try again later.)

By the way, could the Helion's name be changed to Hellbore or Inferno Gunner?

Mobile Infantry by Zerver, and is team-colored. It does not have air drop animations: if Maniac does choose to use this model, perhaps some one could add the air drop animations?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9436

The zip includes the units and the XML. However, since I haven't updated to v8a, it is not "drop and play". Interested parties can cut and paste the XML and unit art into their version of Planetfall.

The female missionary is a close match for the Acolyte button art, and if one could make her hair blond, it would be even more appropriate. (Perhaps use the head of the female pirate settler?)
It's easier just to retexture the dds. Keep em coming :). With you supplying new units and me retexturing/remodelling existent we will "fix" the graphical part of this mod very quickly :).

P.S. I retextured Acolyte, it was like this:
http://i40.tinypic.com/s5a9z5.png

I've made her blonde, worked a bit on face texture and added the religion "logo":
http://i39.tinypic.com/xlyu6p.png

Look in the attachment.

[EDIT] PS I like to think that she carries fungus with mind worms in her pot :D.

Hi :) I've started my first Planetfall game yesterday and thought I'd give some feedback. So here are some random thoughts that crossed my mind while playing:

- Height-based movement rules. It's a bit hard now to see the quickest path simply by looking at the map, but I like the new strategical options that these movement rules provide. There are more bottlenecks on the map now, and more safe spots for lookouts.

- No roads. I know that this is by design, but it comes across as an odd choice. I don't see how leaving roads out improves the strategical aspect of the game, and in terms of realism it's extremely odd that the colonists can build mag-tubes, but no roads (which would be far simpler).

- Faction placement: all factions start in roughly the same area of the map. Again I know it's by design, but at least in my game it isn't working very well. Miriam and Lal were so boxed in that they never had any chance (Lal has been destroyed already, and Miriam is stuck at three cities). I started on a peninsula of a huge continent with no one else to bother me, and the four remaining factions settled a crescent at the eastern shore of a second large continent. Having only seven factions is already quite a small number for my games, and placing those in a way that two of them don't stand a chance exacerbates that shortcoming. It's not realistic either, seeing as how the escape pods of the unity were blasted off the Unity at a fair distance from the planet, and with very different trajectories (see SMAC opening movie).

- Crippling worker AI. I had my formers on "improve nearest base", and as soon as I researched High Energy Chemistry, my entire workforce suicided itself into building bunkers at useless spots. If I build new formers and try to automate them, they again insist on building bunkers instead of hooking up resources (for example).

- My automated aquaformers first filled entire shorelines with seamills, only to replace every single one of them with a mining platform as those became available. This also crashed my economy since I relied on the seamills for energy (I have some energy problems throughout the game, but that may be due to my inexperience with the mod's economy).

- No naval invasions. Although my continent is weakly defended, and three other factions with lots of units declared war on me, not a single invasion force ever landed on my continent. The only send submarines, which usually sink themselves by trying to attack my own submarines. After a while, I realized that sea combat with submarines heavily favors the defender, so I placed a shield of submarines in the straits that my enemies use to get to me. This is working well so far, but it makes the AI very easy to handle.

- The AI also entraps itself in major fungal blooms.

- Many technologies are described as requiring previous technologies, but I can select them for research without actually fulfilling the requirements.

- Blockade problems. A city on a lake got a fungal bloom. Now there are two IoDs and a sealurk occupying the only water tile that the city has access to, and blockading the entire lake. I cannot build any ships in the city under these conditions. I cannot bring ships in from elsewhere. I cannot attack the blockaders with land-based units. How do I drive them out?

So far the game has been a mixed experience. I like the idea of a SMAC mod for Civ4 (a lot), but the suicidal formers were pretty frustrating, and the AI doesn't seem competitive yet.

Edit: I should add that this is a v0.8a game.

Edit2: Something else I forgot to mention. Rovers that I pop from pods have four combat promotions ("hardened" to "commando"), but not the first one ("disciplined"). Is this working as designed?

Many technologies are described as requiring previous technologies
Are you sure there're no "or" rules?

Faction placement: There's a checkbox in the bottom of the list of map settings to use a "normal" faction placement.

Okay, I managed to get four units to work. They are possible replacements for the Acolyte, Creator, Helion, and Mobile Infantry.

The Acolyte and Creator were made by Refar (Generic Male and Female Missionaries)
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9697

The female missionary is a close match for the Acolyte button art, and if one could make her hair blond, it would be even more appropriate. (Perhaps use the head of the female pirate settler?)

The Creator is found both in the Warlords Rise of Rome scenario and the BtS Gods of Old mod, and I just like the look of it. (He should carry a sickle though, to symbolize how the religion of Homo Superior will cull the species until the chaff is separated from the grain.)

The Helion is GarretSidzaka's Space Soldier.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4230

This is not my first choice for the Helion. That was Zerver's Spetznaz Plasma Bolter http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11971 Couldn't get it to work right, so I'm abandoning it for now. (I think I now know what I did wrong, and will try again later.)

By the way, could the Helion's name be changed to Hellbore or Inferno Gunner?

Mobile Infantry by Zerver, and is team-colored. It does not have air drop animations: if Maniac does choose to use this model, perhaps some one could add the air drop animations?
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9436

The zip includes the units and the XML. However, since I haven't updated to v8a, it is not "drop and play". Interested parties can cut and paste the XML and unit art into their version of Planetfall.

I re-textured the woman with fungus and worms in the pot, look above.
About mobile infantry: it has too funky colors IMO. I can reskin it, I just need suggestions.

- Faction placement: all factions start in roughly the same area of the map. Again I know it's by design, but at least in my game it isn't working very well. Miriam and Lal were so boxed in that they never had any chance (Lal has been destroyed already, and Miriam is stuck at three cities). I started on a peninsula of a huge continent with no one else to bother me, and the four remaining factions settled a crescent at the eastern shore of a second large continent. Having only seven factions is already quite a small number for my games, and placing those in a way that two of them don't stand a chance exacerbates that shortcoming. It's not realistic either, seeing as how the escape pods of the unity were blasted off the Unity at a fair distance from the planet, and with very different trajectories (see SMAC opening movie).

There's an option you can enable to fix that. If you start a custom game this option disperses the factions all over the map. Check the last of the options in the custom game screen.

Are you sure there're no "or" rules?
I checked again, and you're correct - they are "or" rules, I just didn't expect them to be and constantly overlooked the words "requires the knowledge of ONE OF" in the description. My mistake.

There's a checkbox in the bottom of the list of map settings to use a "normal" faction placement.
Ah, that's the "scattered pods" option. I saw it, but I thought that this option was for the placement of *supply* pods (like the similarly worded option "No Unity Scattering: Supply Pods Only at Landing Sites." in SMAC). Perhaps reword the option into "scattered starting positions" to avoid the confusion?

Space victory isn't working. Two Subspace generators were completed on the same turn for the win (three had been completed already), and instead, only one was built. The one in Gaia's Landing was completely reset, even though the game acknowledged it as having been built.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

The Great Doctor must have wrong animations, since she's splayed and not animated at all.

The Great Doctor doesn't have any animations at all at the moment. IIRC it was supposed to use female settler animations, but IIRC the unit then showed up as a female settler instead of the doctor/nurse. Something must be wrong or missing with the Great Doctor model.

Solar Power Transmitter is scaled wrong: it orbits far too high above the city it is in, and is huge as well. (See the screenshot: the sat is in Far Jericho, but it is next to UN Humanity Base.)

Noted, though nothing I can do about that. IIRC the model has a too high poly count, and should be replaced eventually too.

A suggestion: you can use the Leviathan (and button) from Next War for the Planetfall Leviathan.

The Next War mod doesn't have a Leviathan unit. :confused:

Edit 1: Oh, I forgot to ask. How does one build a Gravity Lens on a LaGrange point? I tried deploying Gravity Lenses to the LaGrange points, but a Gravity Lens is a Air unit and so can only be deployed to a base.

That's a remnant for an old idea for a victory condition. I'll remove the Lagrange Points.

The Acolyte and Creator were made by Refar (Generic Male and Female Missionaries)

I like the Acolyte. :goodjob: I've put it in the game with Deon's new texture.

The Creator is found both in the Warlords Rise of Rome scenario and the BtS Gods of Old mod, and I just like the look of it. (He should carry a sickle though, to symbolize how the religion of Homo Superior will cull the species until the chaff is separated from the grain.)

I'm not particularly fond of the Creator, but it's certainly better than the Hindu missionary currently used.

The Helion is a flame/plasma/whatever thrower. As a consequence its weapon should have an animation like the flamethrower, and neither GarretSidzaka's Space Soldier or Zerver's Plasma Bolter fits.

Generally speaking (that is, without thinking in terms of a specific unit use), I like the helmet of GarretSidzaka's space soldier, but its weapons are rather silly. I mean... some sort of sword??

I like the look of the Plasma Bolter, the weapon and the colour scheme of the texture, but I can't get it to work either. Scene Viewer crashes when I try to open the file. I suspect one of the problem is that Zerver only made a shadernif model. The second problem is, as pointed out by many in that unit's thread, that the texture is MUCH too large. The third (minor) problem is the Russian flag on the uniform.

By the way, could the Helion's name be changed to Hellbore or Inferno Gunner?

No? :confused: (I don't get the reference)

Mobile Infantry by Zerver, and is team-colored.

Ah, I had already looked at that unit, but dismissed it because I didn't really liked how it looked up close. At the usual zoom level as indicated on your screenshot it looks acceptable though. I might use the unit.

A question though. Are all those texture really used by the unit?? There are no less than 18 included in the download. Added up that's just as bad as the huge texture used by the Plasma Bolter.

It does not have air drop animations: if Maniac does choose to use this model, perhaps some one could add the air drop animations?

An a sidenote, I'd love to have another drop animation than the parachute. I'm thinking more along the lines of

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf157ILqJQQ

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a183/TehManiac/Planetfall/SMDropPod2.jpg

Anyone know if this is possible?

For the record, this
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1824
is what I have in mind for Drop Trooper graphics, if it's possible to make it use a drop animation.

.

Most issues you raise are AI-related. Those should gradually improve.

Some thoughts regarding the following though:

- My automated aquaformers first filled entire shorelines with seamills, only to replace every single one of them with a mining platform as those became available. This also crashed my economy since I relied on the seamills for energy (I have some energy problems throughout the game, but that may be due to my inexperience with the mod's economy).

Is this not standard Civ4 worker behaviour though? AFAIK people often say the same thing about vanilla Civ4. (Important to know if the problem is caused by me, or just a shortcoming of Firaxian code) I never use automated workers, but IIRC isn't there an option to prevent workers from replacing improvements? You could use that.

No naval invasions. Although my continent is weakly defended, and three other factions with lots of units declared war on me, not a single invasion force ever landed on my continent. The only send submarines, which usually sink themselves by trying to attack my own submarines. After a while, I realized that sea combat with submarines heavily favors the defender, so I placed a shield of submarines in the straits that my enemies use to get to me. This is working well so far, but it makes the AI very easy to handle.

How do submarines favour the defender?

Anyway, here too I'm wondering if this is specific Planetfall behaviour, or usual Civ4 behaviour? Regardless of the origin, it still is a problem of course. Hopefully naval invasions will improve after I add BetterAI in some undefined future.

- Many technologies are described as requiring previous technologies, but I can select them for research without actually fulfilling the requirements.

There's an interface change in the F6 screen: AND-prerequisities (the few there are) have a yellow box around them. If there isn't a box around the tech icon, it's an OR-prerequisite.

Blockade problems. A city on a lake got a fungal bloom. Now there are two IoDs and a sealurk occupying the only water tile that the city has access to, and blockading the entire lake. I cannot build any ships in the city under these conditions. I cannot bring ships in from elsewhere. I cannot attack the blockaders with land-based units. How do I drive them out?

I can't really envision the situation you're describing. Do you have a screenie?
Are you really sure you're playing with patch a though? Fungal blooms shouldn't occur on lakes with the latest patch.

Thanks for the quick reply. :)

Workers replacing improvements:

Is this not standard Civ4 worker behaviour though? AFAIK people often say the same thing about vanilla Civ4. (Important to know if the problem is caused by me, or just a shortcoming of Firaxian code) I never use automated workers, but IIRC isn't there an option to prevent workers from replacing improvements? You could use that.
It is standard Civ4 behavior, so if you're using standard Civ4 worker AI, you inherited the problem from there. Using the "never build over existing improvements" option isn't that good a solution because *some* improvements *should* be replaced. BetterAI improves worker behavior a lot, IIRC when you set the governor of a city to emphasize a certain resource, then the workers will build impriovements accordingly. So in a city that is set to emphasize minerals, the aquaformers should build mining platforms, whereas in a city that emphasizes energy, they should leave the seamills in place. Theoretically.

How do submarines favour the defender?
I think I misunderstood the "Trench" bonus. I'll have to take a second look at that. As you said, BetterAI also improves naval invasions, so if the plan is to eventually include BetterAI anyway, then this aspect should improve as well. :)

There's an interface change in the F6 screen: AND-prerequisities (the few there are) have a yellow box around them. If there isn't a box around the tech icon, it's an OR-prerequisite.
Thanks, I missed that.

I can't really envision the situation you're describing. Do you have a screenie?
Are you really sure you're playing with patch a though? Fungal blooms shouldn't occur on lakes with the latest patch.
I'm pretty sure I installed the v0.8a patch (although I didn't find a way to display the version number in-game). But I think the problem is that the patch only prevents fungal blooms in fresh water, and the lake in my game isn't a fresh water lake (it's either too large for that or it was generated as a part of the southern ocean and then closed off by the continent, I don't know how the map script works). Here's the screenshot you asked for:

About mobile infantry: it has too funky colors IMO. I can reskin it, I just need suggestions.

Perhaps a texture more similar to White Rabbit's unit I linked to? Though in another colour than kaki-ish green. Kaki doesn't make sense in an (initially) forestless environment. Black or greyish colours look more futuristic I'd say.

@Deon: re: Acolyte. Yes, that's it. Nicely done. The reason I wanted the female pirate settler head was because my personal image of Gaian empaths has them dressed like Greek goddesses with their hair piled high, and the female pirate has that kind of elaborate hairdo. However, that's just a matter of taste, and the empath in the original SMAC wonder movie wears her hair loose. However, if it's not too complex, one last change to the unit: could you add a forest green hem to her skirt, like in the button art?

As for other units, the look of these Ideologues (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/screenshot_9u4.jpg) is a bit off, but perhaps you can fix that. Maniac says we need a new Great Doctor, these could be used as a base. (The body: that helmet is ... awkward looking.)

Song of the Moon Ideologues http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=5422

@Maniac
re: Great Doctor and Solar Power Transmitter (SPT). Okay. Perhaps for the SPT, we could use Woodelf's satellite (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/satellite0001_QnI.jpg), but with a change of texture. (Real solar panels are black for functional reasons, not aesthetics.)

The Next War mod doesn't have a Leviathan unit. :confused: Ah, sorry. Got the names mixed up, it should be Dreadnought

That's a remnant for an old idea for a victory condition. I'll remove the Lagrange Points.*Nod* Will you be putting in Transcendence, like in SMAC?

I like the Acolyte. :goodjob: I've put it in the game with Deon's new texture.:D Yes, it's a good match with his changes.

The Helion is a flame/plasma/whatever thrower. As a consequence its weapon should have an animation like the flamethrower, and neither GarretSidzaka's Space Soldier or Zerver's Plasma Bolter fits.

Generally speaking (that is, without thinking in terms of a specific unit use), I like the helmet of GarretSidzaka's space soldier, but its weapons are rather silly. I mean... some sort of sword??Yes, I know, which is why it wasn't my first choice. Maybe as a base for Deon or other modelers to work from?

GarretSidzaka also made this Space Infantry (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4290). I considered it, but since it takes the Chinese cannoneer animations from the Warlords Genghis Khan mod, rejected it. To make it easy, it seemed best to keep my suggested units all BtS or Vanilla related. It also looks awkward when firing, although it does make sense if the unit is using some kind of mortar.

I like the look of the Plasma Bolter, the weapon and the colour scheme of the texture, but I can't get it to work either. Scene Viewer crashes when I try to open the file. I suspect one of the problem is that Zerver only made a shadernif model. The second problem is, as pointed out by many in that unit's thread, that the texture is MUCH too large. The third (minor) problem is the Russian flag on the uniform.Apparently it uses custom Janissary animations, which are included in this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11969) download. It also has a custom sound. He does include the instructions for where to put all the changes (if I'd downloaded that first, maybe I could have gotten it to work.)

Don't worry about the suggested name change; it's just a matter of taste. Helion is too much like "hellion" (http://www.yourdictionary.com/hellion) for me, so I think "thug" rather than "soldier". "Inferno Gunner" makes more sense if one uses Zerver's Plasma bolter. I'll just change the name in my own copy.

A question though. Are all those texture really used by the unit?? There are no less than 18 included in the download. Added up that's just as bad as the huge texture used by the Plasma Bolter.I don't know. Are lots of textures for a single unit bad?

If the drop pod animation is not feasible, how about a jump pack animation instead?

Oh, yes, are the AX factions supposed to show up later in the game, or are they not yet activated?

Anyway, I'm going to play my second game of Planetfall. Hopefully I can provide more meaningful feedback, now that the initial learning curve is past.

Well, my game seems to have come to an end now. When I click on "end turn", the game crashes to desktop during the interturn. Maniac, do you want me to try anything and/or do you want the save?

A save would be appreciated!

A save would be appreciated!
Here you are. :) Just hit "end turn", the game then crashes during the interturn phase (at least it does so for me, every time). Tell me if you want me to test anything.

I am unable to find the cause of the crash. :( It must have been something introduced in patch a though. Someone else mentioned getting a crash too, so it's probably not just a freak occurence.

If you or someone else gets a crash, do attach the save. Perhaps I can spot some similarities between the save.

I have a save with a crash! Unfortunately, this was my first game. :mad: Fortunately, I didn't really like the settings anyway. :lol:

Thanks!
I can't even open the save though. I get a runtime error. Can you or anyone else open it?

I can't open it either. When I try to load it, the game displays a "Failed to uncompress game data" error and then immediately crashes to desktop. Perhaps the file got corrupted during upload?

I can't open it either. When I try to load it, the game displays a "Failed to uncompress game data" error and then immediately crashes to desktop. Perhaps the file got corrupted during upload?

Hmm, "Failed to uncompress game data" I usually get from saves meant for previous patches. StormLord, did you have patch 'a' installed when starting/playing that game?

Anyway, I have identified a possible cause for the crash. I can't know for sure though without people playing new games under patch b. If I have identified the cause correctly, then your (Psyringe's) patch a game is irretrievable lost.

So please do tell whether or not you continue to have crashes under patch b.

Anything specific to look out for? I'm curious, what do you think was the reason for the crash in my game?

See this thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=318654), especially the bottom of post #4.

Ehh, no, I didn't have patch "a" installed.

Well, I didn't download it individually at least. I just downloaded Planetfall a few days ago (according to my saves on/before April 14th), but I'm not sure if it came with a patch.

Ehh, no, I didn't have patch "a" installed.

I'm wondering how common this is. I've had suspicions for a while there was something fishy with the patch download statistics, so with patch a I kept track how many times the patch was downloaded compared to the main file in the last two weeks. At one point there were more main file downloads than patch downloads. :hmm: So either new people aren't downloading the patch, or there's absolutely no one who plays Planetfall on a somewhat regular basis. ;)

3. Spawning Spots can't exist adjacent to each other.

That does not seem to be the case with Patch 8b for me. I have attached a pic. I failed to create a save of the turn before so far, but as it happened quite a few times in my game I will probably be able to do so, if necessary.


The second pic shows a weakness in the AIs base placement logic - IMO, it hardly ever makes sense to build a base on a nutrient bonus because of the output restrictions.


One of my outlying bases faced a "native revolt". I never had that before and the base showed no revolt risk in the turn before...is this a feature or a bug? The save is from the turn before, to make the revolt happen end the turn.

That does not seem to be the case with Patch 8b for me. I have attached a pic. I failed to create a save of the turn before so far, but as it happened quite a few times in my game I will probably be able to do so, if necessary.

It's fixed for the next patch. Some little bit of python code which I had forgotten about caused this.

The second pic shows a weakness in the AIs base placement logic - IMO, it hardly ever makes sense to build a base on a nutrient bonus because of the output restrictions.

What output restrictions? The base gets the full four nutrients.

One of my outlying bases faced a "native revolt". I never had that before and the base showed no revolt risk in the turn before...is this a feature or a bug? The save is from the turn before, to make the revolt happen end the turn.

It's a feature. They're food riots, caused by a nutrient shortage. If you get another one of these revolts, the base will turn barbarian and start producing Rebels. It's the mechanic which I plan to use for the Free Drones faction.

What output restrictions? The base gets the full four nutrients.

I wasn't aware that this had been changed from the vanilla roules and moreover, I was fooled by building on a mineral bonus once and receiving only 2 minerals on the base tile. That is still the entire bonus yield, but you lose out the 1 mineral you get regardless of the terrain (so in the sum you get here more out of building the base not one it). But as long as the AI differentiates between nutrient and mineral boni, it is fine of course :)


It's a feature. They're food riots, caused by a nutrient shortage. If you get another one of these revolts, the base will turn barbarian and start producing Rebels. It's the mechanic which I plan to use for the Free Drones faction.

Ah, didn't think of the food shortage and the suppressing impact of EB in many games I played. Cool, I'm looking forward to the day the Drones (and other SMAX factions) make their appearence :goodjob:

---

Patch 8b has worked miracles in regard to native life and fungus. Maps with High Sealevel are now less problematic; their FC starts around 15, while a land-heavy maps start with ~20. Then the usual increase starts, but it does not seem to be impossible to get it to hold in the low 30s. I also made excessive use of bunkers in my recent too games...and yes, they are the key to managing native life. There is only one slightly annoying thing about them...if you ever loose a bunker-unit, rebuilding it with anew former first seems to require destroying the bunker terrain improvement first (for which you need a military unit)

And finally, I saw the first time an AI switching to Terraformed, while others stayed in EB for the entire game :goodjob: I played with cold climate and low sealevel in that game, so I guess the AI really bases its decision on the map outlay here.

A small issue I am having: the AI's always trade away the "Alien Artifact" for free if they have it; if it is me that have it and want to trade it with them they don't want to pay anything for it. The same happened with Planetfall v7. In short it seems that the "Alien Artifact" is worthless in diplomatic trade.

A very good improvement that has been added lately is the capability of moving land units on water within one's own territory. Now it is much easier and quicker to move units around and there is no more need of micromanaging sea transports. I don't miss early roads anymore! :p

In short it seems that the "Alien Artifact" is worthless in diplomatic trade.

Yes that is a fact. I was planning on making the Alien Artifact a happiness resource. (I guess for the souvenir value or technological gadgets derived from Progenitor tech) That should solve it.

I don't miss early roads anymore! :p

:rockon:

Just wondering, are there plans to make planetbusters behave like in SMAC, i.e. turn land into sea?

I have a constant crash in my campaign! :sad:
The save game is attached. After I click "end turn" the game crashes. I have tried it three times, one of them after rebooting my pc.

Since I am uploading my save game I will report a small issue I am having since v7. I find in every campaign that I can easily outspend tha AI in espionage. In the espionage screen I see that I can perform missions against my enemies at an average 70% of the cost, and all of this happens before the espionage slider is unlocked and without any purposeful act on my part.
This is a problem because I can see my enemies' territories and often the inside of their cities without effort. I think the issue is due to the "Network Node" being a very early building that allows a Librarian citizen, providing +4 esp points. I always use "auto manage citizens" in my cities that places a Librarian as soon as the network node is built. This at long generates a number of "Hackers" great persons that I settle in my cities, further increasing my espionage points production.
Can I suggest to unlock the espionage slider earlier in the game to enable the AI to keep up? At "Polymorphic Software" for example? :p

Since I am uploading my save game I will report a small issue I am having since v7. I find in every campaign that I can easily outspend tha AI in espionage. In the espionage screen I see that I can perform missions against my enemies at an average 70% of the cost, and all of this happens before the espionage slider is unlocked and without any purposeful act on my part.
This is a problem because I can see my enemies' territories and often the inside of their cities without effort. I think the issue is due to the "Network Node" being a very early building that allows a Librarian citizen, providing +4 esp points. I always use "auto manage citizens" in my cities that places a Librarian as soon as the network node is built. This at long generates a number of "Hackers" great persons that I settle in my cities, further increasing my espionage points production.
Can I suggest to unlock the espionage slider earlier in the game to enable the AI to keep up? At "Polymorphic Software" for example? :p

I have the same experience in my games...usually I have espionage costs between 65% and 80% soon...just by settling the frequently appearing hackers. IIRC, Maniac supposed that the Governors logic is somehow broken in regard to employing "Spy Specialists" and he is right...the good new is that this bug is said to be fixed in the newest version (v0.70) of the "Better AI" mod (second bold issues under "Espionage AI" in the first post inside the spoiler):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=319673

I'm not sure if I would take the hassle and force Librarians manually in the way the governor currently does, so including this fix in Planetfall might work in favor of the AI (which somehow does not seem to value Network Nodes as much, which is think is the only resonable explanation for the discrepancy)

Just wondering, are there plans to make planetbusters behave like in SMAC, i.e. turn land into sea?

No.

I have a constant crash in my campaign! :sad:
The save game is attached. After I click "end turn" the game crashes. I have tried it three times, one of them after rebooting my pc.

I'm not getting a crash.
Could a third person please check if they're getting one?
I've clicked end turn and attached the beginning of MY 2365 to this post. Perhaps the crash won't happen anymore for you in future turns either. :confused:
For your information, Planetary Archives finished production - I set it to stockpile energy. And your deal for White Algae with Yang got cancelled. No idea why.

I always use "auto manage citizens" in my cities that places a Librarian as soon as the network node is built.

You use lots of librarians, so you're #1 in espionage. I don't see a problem there. The problem is with the AI valuing of the librarian specialist. I'll look if I can find the solution in Better AI. Won't be for the next patch though.

I'm not getting a crash.
Could a third person please check if they're getting one?
I've clicked end turn and attached the beginning of MY 2365 to this post. Perhaps the crash won't happen anymore for you in future turns either. :confused:
For your information, Planetary Archives finished production - I set it to stockpile energy. And your deal for White Algae with Yang got cancelled. No idea why.


I tested the save Teodosio loaded up and I don't experienced a crash after ending the turn as well.

You use lots of librarians, so you're #1 in espionage. I don't see a problem there. The problem is with the AI valuing of the librarian specialist. I'll look if I can find the solution in Better AI. Won't be for the next patch though.

Here jdog5000 explains how the spy specialist fix works (post #5):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=319673

Thank you people for having tried my savegame. It still crashes here, perhaps there is a problem with my installation. If it happens again I will let you know. In any case I had already started a new campaign and I will start a new one with the latest patch. :p

About the excess of espionage spending: I have noticed in my games that this is due in good part to great persons "Hackers" that I settle in my cities. I get several of them in my games since the "Network Nodes" are built very soon and the AI assigns a lot of Librarian specialist.
A possibile solution to avoid settling the Hackers: is it possible to make some technologies researchable by them? It this were the case I would rather use the Hackers GP to bulb technologies than settle them, and this would greatly reduce my espionage spending.
What do you think?

Here jdog5000 explains how the spy specialist fix works (post #5):

Thanks! :)

A possibile solution to avoid settling the Hackers: is it possible to make some technologies researchable by them?

Reviewing what techs what great people give is indeed err somewhere on my to do list. Can't tell when I'll get to it though.
In any case, Hackers will then be able to research Discover-themed techs.

Planetfall has had a small review (http://flashofsteel.com/index.php/2009/05/08/alpha-centauri-revisited/).

Do you guys share his experiences? If so, do you have any ideas on how to improve on these issues?

For the record, using SMAC's leader dialogue in diplomacy is on the to-do list, though it would certainly speed things up if someone offered to move all the dialogue into XML files.

It's his opinion. Me, I'm just happy to see the old leaders portraits, putter around with formers and transform the face of Planet.

He's got a point though. Psi combat doesn't happen nearly enough...not without fungal blooms, anyway.

I think I'll stop there. I don't really share his opinion much. It's hard to transfer those things like music and movies to Planetfall without violating copyright (and bulking up the download size). Diplomacy text would help, but I think this guy would be aided by the perspective that this mod is still a work in progress...albeit with a solid gameplay mechanic. In fact, half the reason I don't play it much anymore is because it's still pretty far from completion.

Don't sweat it that much. Though, I may take a look at the diplo text someday...and I have a few ideas of my own of diplo text that might work. I've even written down some new lines of my own. Since there's only a few faction leaders, it would be nice if there was some way to have certain leaders (like Morgan) get different diplo text from all the other leaders (even if only slightly different). For instance, alluding to the fact that because he was a stowaway, you aren't well known to the faction leader you're talking to on first contact. For the others, they can refer to their time on the Unity, and remark on old friendships or old rivalries. Not that I know of any rivalries from the Unity days...

Yeah...I think diplo text could be better. It's your mod though, so it's your call what goes in it.

I only agree with one thing and that is not enough mind worms

To those who don't encounter enough native life: do you play with Raging Barbarians turned On or Off?

but I think this guy would be aided by the perspective that this mod is still a work in progress...

Is there certain stuff in particular which makes you feel Planetfall is a work in progress? I can always move up stuff on the to-do list.

Is there certain stuff in particular which makes you feel Planetfall is a work in progress? I can always move up stuff on the to-do list.
I have read that review. First of all, let me say that in my opinion Planefall at the moment is better than SMAC. SMAC is a great game and one of my favourites, but in many aspects it is really outdated now (mainly about interface and graphics).

A couple of ideas:
First, what surely gives an impression of work-in-progress are the Datalinks, they are almost empty. I think this is a sensitive issue, particularly for new players that want info about how to play the game. We must say that at this point a good number of things are different from vanilla Civilization, so having a guide in-game would be a great help and a major step to eliminate the feeling of "work-in-progress". I hope someone is planning to work on the Datalinks; if there is no one I could do something after I have finished working on buttons and gamefonts.

Second, the reviewer tells the truth when he says that the details do a lot to create the atmosphere. In this respect there is a thing that Planefall is missing at the moment: events. In SMAC there were both scripted events (dialogues with the planet-mind when a particular tecnology was researched or when you first meet the worms) and random events (resources drop or boom in a base for a number of turns, or the great "communication disruption" that was a pain but also my favourite :p). It would be nice to bring back some events and possibly to create new ones.

Question: can you put your to-do list on a dedicated thread, so that we can see it and send comments/proposals?

I have read that review. First of all, let me say that in my opinion Planefall at the moment is better than SMAC. SMAC is a great game and one of my favourites, but in many aspects it is really outdated now (mainly about interface and graphics).

Yeah. In his latest Podcast, Troy Goodfellow (who wrote that review) said he fired up SMAC recently and was amazed at how bad the interface was. :lol: I wonder if that was recorded before or after giving Planetfall a go.

Datalinks, they are almost empty

The Datalinks is supposed to provide two things:
1) Provide information
2) Provide flavour

You are talking about the information part now.
The Datalinks is completely up to date with with the new tags for improvements, features, buildings... I've also added a couple Hints in the Hints section based on questions I've been asked recently. Do you have ideas what else I can do?

The review states that it takes forever to learn the tech tree. I'm hoping this may be helped a little by having all the techs and buildings in their correct colour code. I could add Hints explaining what each colour stands for.

There are Brian's Tips. I wouldn't really know what kind of information to put in those. I have always found those completely useless in vanilla Civ. Those should probably be written by someone else.

I hope someone is planning to work on the Datalinks; if there is no one I could do something after I have finished working on buttons and gamefonts.

That would be awesome! Though like you say, I'd say the gamefont and buttons have higher priority. People with gamefont editing skills are more rare than people with XML editing skills.

Planefall is missing at the moment: events

While they indeed add flavour, from a gameplay perspective these are about as low priority as it gets. I'd rather have a well-balanced base game first. Anyway, that's the reason why I haven't given those much thought yet.

For random events to be worthwhile, there should also be a sufficiently large pool of them, so you don't always get the same. That's a problem at the moment. So people should suggest ideas for random events. If people take the initiative on this, I can move them up on the priority list.

Question: can you put your to-do list on a dedicated thread, so that we can see it and send comments/proposals?

I'm not sure that would be of much use. They are just random ideas which I sometimes discard later and short notes to remind myself of what to do. I don't know if they would be intelligible to others. Anyway, at least I write them in English, so here goes:

...

in the next post - I exceeded the character limit. ;)

Maniac:

articles on hurrying and morale
change button guide with conquer brightness
rubin PM
Teo buttons
grey out buttons
CFC planetfall forum

/WPC recruitment poster thread
/WC Junction
/GFV
/WPC planetfall thread
/WPC SMAniaC thread

-fix ali quote
-Alcohol! (It's what's for dinner.)
-Lesser species kept as entertainment, often against their will. Occasionally bonds of affection develop between owner and pet.
-A wonderful ingredient for glowing paints.
-Produced by a genetically engineered hybrid of Terran and Xeno flora, the F62 variant of the extract of the seeds of the Khaisal plant induces a prolonged state of euphoria and psi awareness in humans. While the extract is not intrinsically toxic, it is highly addictive, and therefore illegal in most places.
-grenade button
-empath button - b0d4f8 - f8f8ec
-place of Envecon in techinfos
-barb leader button, eg F5
-add two leaders
-shorten SMAX leader names
-terrain buttons
-make aki & cha leaders of some civ
-check size of diplo leader - 353*452 - cut off 1/30 at each side - W = H / 1.272727
-worm_gate -> dimensional_gate
-plasma thrower art
-barbarian state -> natives
-make raging barbarians normal spawning rate

if ( gc.getTeam(gc.getPlayer(self.iCivSelected).getTeam ()).isHasTech(i) ):
screen.setPanelColor(szTechRecord, 85, 150, 87)
self.aiCurrentState.append(CIV_HAS_TECH)
elif ( gc.getPlayer(self.iCivSelected).getCurrentResearch () == i ):
screen.setPanelColor(szTechRecord, 104, 158, 165)
self.aiCurrentState.append(CIV_IS_RESEARCHING)
elif ( gc.getPlayer(self.iCivSelected).isResearchingTech( i) ):
screen.setPanelColor(szTechRecord, 104, 158, 165)
self.aiCurrentState.append(CIV_IS_RESEARCHING)
elif ( gc.getPlayer(self.iCivSelected).canEverResearch(i) ):
screen.setPanelColor(szTechRecord, 100, 104, 160)
self.aiCurrentState.append(CIV_NO_RESEARCH)
else:
screen.setPanelColor(szTechRecord, 206, 65, 69)
self.aiCurrentState.append(CIV_TECH_AVAILABLE)

rename space victory
add txt tag to leaderheads for title
We Love the faction leader title day
hints explaining the colour code
bunker imp destroyed upon bunker unit destroyed
check out better AI 0.70 for spy specialist
where in code production popup? / WIDGET_EXAMINE / POPUP_EXAMINE_CITY
fac sounds upon "new build order" popup - CvCity::popOrder / chooseProduction - probably in executable / CvDLLButtonPopup::launchProductionPopup
hybrid forest contributes more to the flowering counter
marines should still have river movement bonus even when crossing river
alien artifact as happy resource
garden of eden -> the tree of life
hybrid forest +0.5 health, +1.5 planet, -1 mineral?
fungus gets +1 energy from bioreactor
In Vitro unit
formers should not move over water to build roads
terraformers should build kelp if no need for other terrain imps
source of white pines votes?
voice council proposal: ascent to transcendence, reqs min FlowC level, creates permanent alliance, war with terraformers
every unit has a off&def withdrawal chance equal to their hitpoints before the battle, or given by XP?
line of morale promotions
amphibious pods/jet pack doubles movement speed on water
change native life selection sounds, create AS3Ds
trainsound, selectionsound, actionsound, patrolsound, die, hurt, strike, audiorunsound (feature, terrain), ambience (feature, improvement, terrain)
fungal bloom feat & help txt
F6: don't display civics the faction can't run

hybrid civic gets health penalty
consensus civic can have state religion, but -1 hap for state religion
autarky back to -100% distance maintenance?
improve sea colony pod AI
sub should get bonus against aircraft
make rebel/native barb distinction - was destroyed by a - killed a rebel IoD
believers get combat bonus against infidels
believers start with missionary, reduce edenism spread speed, missionary reqs terraforming as prereq
tech for first explorer of borehole clusters?
having borehole cluster in your territory grants borehole technology
check out letum frigus event, for borehole tech inspiration
psi/dimensional gate should also transport sea units + change text
space elevator acts as teleport
only factions you have good relations with, should ask you to join war against his enemies
unlimited missionaries
differentiate sea/land fungus growth rate?
formers only become damaged inside your territory?
why can't great tycoon/hacker research tech?
unity pod gives defense bonus?
sea movement by land units only with terrain trade enabling techs?
dropship as needlejet combattype. how about special abilities compared to transport cruiser?
raceway pond gfx + xml
chopper & hovertank can attack water?
perfectworld2 http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=310891
quantity of fungal bloom spawns varies with your planet attitude?
naval yard & aerospace complex give +1 culture
addfreeunit, generatepath not working right?
reduce dropship movement?
dropship AI
council proposals: melt polar caps/solar shade effects, repeal un charter (razing, nukes), invite pirates/angels/drones as members, ban brilliance
planetary governor gets trade route bonus
unit which have been attacked cannot heal that turn?
pillaging also sets blockading to true - setBlockading(true); ?
water units can only pillage once per turn?
Better AI - assault_sea/explore_sea/settler_sea / AI refuses to explore or transport CPs / pickup
outpost/settlement/eden should reduce flowering counter
everyone gets a missionary upon researching the relevant tech?
sea colony pod should be able to carry one land unit, and survive base foundation + AI - CvUnit::found, AI_pickup, pushMission, AI_load, AI_guardCity
SPs: armory/weapons bay, reactor, sickbay, command bay, recreation bay, sleeping, shower, dead bay
Infest promotion: defeating unit creates larval mass (unit with larval mass promo which disappears on combat)
psychic terror promo causes +1 unhappy for 10 turns upon city attack
reduce native life cost?
buiten territorium (plotowner == -1) fungus defense bonus niet meetellen?
remove old planetculture code
hill attack/def bonus also applies to peak
ridge gets even bigger combat bonus
borehole, greenhouse, mine in hive territory can't be pillaged by non-psi units
hive gets slave units from razing base?
armor can't attack fungus, instead of can't move in fungus
diplo AI: only beg for tech if not tech trade possible
plothelp should show enabling tech if still required, even if already has enabling imp
barb natives can draft other natives - CvCityAI::AI_doDraft
"you hold bases which are culturally mine" diplo modifier
drone riots when drones and (genejack factory or under espionageunhappiness from incite drone riots)
pirates must start on water, different starting units
add free drones faction
effect midgame faction start on planet attitude?
morgan like khazad - CvPlayerAI::AI_doCommerce ? AI_goldTarget
ffh civ founder - addPlayerAdvanced
flowering counter threshold before native life can move inside borders?
remove barb flowC movement restriction code?
holographics & fac quote
change infantry combattype unitAi to citydefense?
trench dds, mapscript change
city culture affects surrounding terrain defense - see ffh forts
hyperian/hellian/empyrean name for flamethrower unit
gametxt civic help: hybrid/terraformed hated by hybrid/terraformer
can draft colony pod for 3 pop?
cloning vats: +food, still lets base grow without food surplus, as long as surplus health/happiness
cloning vats allow drafting?
water material supplies?
can't pick promotion while damaged
maxed out XP units get bonus to great general point production - same effect by exp bonus
a base of size 15/20 (under enclosed biosphere civic?) can build building which gives specialists (except doctor) +2 food?
doc:mob enables land terraintrade?
terraintrade over ice with naval/recycling tech? deal with CvPlot::isTradeNetworkImpassable
blockade reduces healing speed of enemy?
blockade reduces plot culture?
blockade doesn't block your own plotgroup and open border-partners / CvPlot::isTradeNetwork ? / getBlockadedCount?
without open borders, factions can't use your territory for plotgroup / CvPlot::isTradeNetworkConnected ? / blockade around your own cities?
still trade routes without open borders, but bonus with open borders
tech allows feature trade plotgroup?
fix repeatable techs - cvteam::m_paiTechCount
alien reactor imp: degrades with use
slavery only allows facility hurrying?
glowmites
air unit spawning?
change barbsperwatertile?
remove one of needlejets, tech_never
FFH high to low game option
CLONE - personality transcription, starts with XP, doesn't contribute to GG points
can't replace improvement on plots with fort or fungal tower - cvgameutils.py def canBuild
create fungal tower 'fort' improvement
planetary economics reqs PlaNets
ethical calculus, optronics
unity foil can upgrade anywhere
chopper/hovertank/gravship get defensive bonus?
zeppelin
thermobaric missile, smoke feature
fire/nanites/genetic virus takes out fungus?
weather control building
action buttons
different chance of rocky terrain on ridge and highland?
native life can pick "spirit guide/planetmind" promotion
fort gets higher yield on higher elevation
gambling halls secret project
sea beetles resource?
goodie creates improvements& features, fungal tower should also spawn spawning spot
battle ogre goodie
hated civic - diplo penalty?, gametxt?
renable highlander promotion
mount planet landmark -> see Fall Further vulcano - volc_sm.pcx button
pholus ridge landmark/button/resource
dimensional gate landmark?
garland crater landmark - gives iridium?
Ur/He gives combat bonus to individual unit per # of resource?
FfH art: new trees, mana button, FoL button, planar gate button, spider
genejack factory gives +1 unhappy under democratic
contact great people for their name - Sun Wenguang
"you seek world domination" diplo penalty if declares war while #1
aircraft can only land within air range
lagrange bonus AIobjective
nanites - hurry
units increase flow counter
every fungal tower increases flowering counter
promotion for canmoveimpassable
fungal missile
Bonus iResearchModifier FfH
Improvement iRange, iRangedefenseModifier FfH
Promotion IgnoreBuildingDefense FfH
Unit No war weariness FfH
larger city radii
Conqueror's Delight:
-spawn units in cargo hold
-onUnitCreated where in SDK? worm in IoD doesn't work?
refine IoD cargo spawn code
Barbarian IoDs will spawn with Mind Worms in their cargo hold.
base planet from commmerce slider http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=6978
city maintenance modifiers http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=5839
tech research cost modifier http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=5837
higher farm growth on highlands? http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4626
ffh/DCM civ changer
Super Spies http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=259221
culture thru trade routes http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=516
bonus affects tech costs http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=234120
CCCP iVoteModifier Impaler http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=174026
CCCP GreatPeoplePointPooling Impaler
global GPP counter / look at great general code?
civics with flavor http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=206770
examine city on conquest http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=316806
enclosed bio doesn't get non-nature feature health/unhealth?
unit system
biolab/hydroplant/network node?/infirmary/maintenance bay? free with tech, increases colony pod cost/city maintenance?
OR rather free network node/infirmary/factory with some techs, but these techs increase max. # of cities maint, and add to # of cities maint
FfH unit duration
review pillage benefits
pressure dome/hab complex/hab dome/arcology
longevity vaccine
xenobrew
mercenary guild
petc inc
network backbone
thinker -> spy effects
sub can move through sea fungus at 1 mov?
hill attack promotions
scout patrol, marines, mobile infantry, gauss rifleman
leviathan bug in modern era
conscript, recruit, regular XP levels
total espionage spending does not affect mission cost
leaderheads
leader personalities http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=274966
SMAniaC base names
tech screen: second road movement change
"plant psi emitter" spy missio, reduces planet value at base / health code
further rocky promos: infantry, hovertank, chopper/waiting for double working double terrain movement
no centauri preserve for enclosed?
enclosed bio civic obsoletes planet boni?
vary what barb units spawn
lagrange: improvement, build, unit, python fort, victory
jet pack upgrades to antigrav struts
tech sounds
barb spawn freq
remove weapon assignment code
AS3D_UN_SPACESHIP_FORTIFY missing
difficult movement through fungus
more fungus at start on grassland?
remove building graphics
razorbeak resource
geothermal spa gives health, acts as oasis
geyser...oasis...borehole...geothermal spa/shallows
event: geothermal activity detected: spa or borehole?
fallout impassable except for some units
locust interception chance
give interceptors blitz?
alien artifact / archeological dig?
foil double move in sea fungus promo?
enclosed bio civic cannot remove fungus?
no extra visibility land->sea
reduce base air capacity to 2?
SOLAR COLLECTOR TURNS POLAR INTO MOIST
native life promos: air range, cargo, invisibility
hit movies, terran fauna resources
university base music
change flowering counter/ # map plots
drop range promotion tag
dimensional gate bonus gives drop range
remove bCanstrike tag
remove gamecoreutil promotionvalid restrictions?
landmarks
spies should not be caught for just walking in rival territory
GPP/ general point increase affected by game turn
additional religions can spread with lower chance?
more than one religion can spread in base?
air/artillery interception
recycling tank reduces population unplanet?
defensive withdrawal
happiness: GPP
global GP collection with tech
FfH spell system?
fort should act as city for resource connection - list
barbarians must heal
artillery should use iAircombat?
buildings/Morgan effects base trade profit
Caretakers as sprawling civ
master should only take over BFC from vassal, even after including sprawling code
caretakers immune to nukes
progenitors pissed off at hybrids at high FlowC values: You wish to transcend (in our stead)
progenitors pissed off at terraformers at low FlowC values: You are harming Planet
settlers cost less in the beginning (with civic?)
sea CP can move through ice with some tech - canmoveimpassable, but cannotmove in ice feature until passable tech
native life combat penalty in jungle?
BUG
spy mission which converts base to free drones
spy mission which creates hidden nationality units "dissidents"
black out fort buttons when second former tries to help
incendiary bomb sets fungus aflame
check fungal tower range attack code - doesn't always attack
multiplayer logs & OOs
key theme techs are untradable
goodies should have tech prereq?
genites = knights of genetic purity
units should be unable to heal if heal rate < 0
bases razed by Cha Dawn/natives increase flowcounter
switch leader: GC.getInitCore().setLeader - cha dawn, aki luttinen -> zeta-5
civilization destroyed pop-up
advancedstartcostincrease in SDK? extra cost determined by # of global instead of player's units/routes/improvements...??
INTRONEW
[OUR_NAME][OUR_EMPIRE][OUR_CIV_SHORT][OUR_CIV_ADJ] EntryPoints/CvTranslator.py
[CT_NAME][CT_EMPIRE][CT_CIV_SHORT]CT_CIV_ADJ
probe teams can't coexist with other probe teams - attack them? - canCoexistWithEnemyUnit ??
yield display messed up? calculatenatureyield etc
why canreceivegoody no const? - is cvplayer::addfreeunit const ?
(if already visibility range bonus promotion:) visibility range increases with fortification turns (what with bNoDefensiveBonus units?) by (movement points - 1)
city/cities -> base/s
F2: split up city maintenance into its components, new functions in cvplayer (see CvGameTextMgr::buildFinanceCityMaintString) & python
edenism gives negative planet
centauri tech enables feature trade over fungus
refine tech flavour values
double use of an espionage point
add some python callback defines
spreading religion in own bases should have 100% success rate?
orbital insertion only possible on plots you have vision on
can build bunkers inside vassal/teammate territory?
sporefish resource
capturing a unit sets haspillaged to true?
barb native life can capture native life (given with planetmind promo?)? Only native life of factions with negative planet attitude?
morgan industries should have base named Fountainhead, Atlas & Fallingwater, Picard Enterprises. Spartans: Citadel/Ponterbee Station
tie fungus growth to percentage of owned plots/mapplots?
Vassal State -> Satellite
can remove fungus in territory of terraformer factions?
do spartan popped units get a free combat promotion?
unit withdraws instead of dies if its victory odds were higher than 95%
tie foreign trade route profit directly to your relation with the other civ
(aqua)formers are invisible to barbarians inside your territory
A rather common radioactive used primarily in fission piles. The depleted isotopes are used in kinetic impact weapons.
Iron has been vital in the histories of all of the spacefaring races. The prime variance is the ratio of cast iron cookware to iron and steel killingware.
Exceptionally hard, and useful for many industrial purposes, these carbon lattice crystals have long been loved for their gleaming appearance. Even though the differences are no longer perceptible between manufactured and natural diamond
Wonderfully handcrafted with near-forgotten techniques and wondrously copied with exceptionally well known ones. 'Dogs playing poker', 'Kilrathi plays it by trust', and replicas of mid 21st century CE Terran plastic food storage unit
change bonus pedia healthy/happy
dimensional gate unit which can create that building?

stasis generator, nanohospital, quantum converter, hab complex, habitation dome, energy grid, terrarium

universal translator, network backbone, self-aware colony, Project PYRRHO, edit universe project

AI:

CvPlayerAI::AI_bestTech, CvCityAI::AI_buildingValueThreshold, CvCityAI::AI_updateBestBuild, CvCityAI::AI_bestPlotBuild
Buildings
CityBonus: building, tech
BonusCommerceChange: bonusvalue?, building, tech
cityplanet: tech, buildingfocus
tech/CvPlayerAI::AI_bestTech: UnhappyProduction, featureyieldchange (countCityFeatures), freepromotionpick
Traits
cityplanet: strategyhash, foundvalue
Specialists
CityPlanet: building, building->tech - AI_specialistValue?
health: building->tech
Civics:
CvPlayerAI::AI_civicValue
bhybrid/bterraformer/benclosed: civic, strategyhash, tech, AI_STRATEGY_
Improvements/Builds:
tech: AdjacentRainfallChange, PlotTypeYieldChange, TerrainTypeYieldChange, CoastalYieldChange, isaddsfreshwater, BuildingYieldChange
CityPlanetPercent: worker, improvement, tech, CvCityAI::AI_clearFeatureValue
worker AI for forts - workermove / AI_fortTerritory?
only build advanced terraforms/magtubes if extra formers - AI_updateWorkersNeededHere? or no undevelopedplots
when does terrain need to be irrigated? -CvUnitAI::AI_irrigateTerritory
Boni:
CvPlayerAI::AI_baseBonusVal
CityPlanet: colonization?, enabling imp->tech
Features:
tech: build order
Units:
PlanetModifierPercent?: unit, tech
foundwater: unit, city, colonization, tech, strategyhash
psi: unit, tech
Promotions:
PsiAttack; promotion, tech
PsiDefense: promotion, tech
PlanetModifierPercent: promotion, tech
AI for invis types

why does AI build so many farms?
bunker AI
prioritize researching techs enabling imps enabling resources
naval/planet strategy
why do factions run wealth process?
AI should build ships to protect damaged aquaformers
sea worker and colonization AI - CvCityAI::AI_bestUnit - CvPlayerAI::AI_foundValue
researching unitai_sea_colony unit techs should only be useful if out of land or enclosed - CvPlayerAI::AI_bestTech
why does sea CP explore? / CvUnitAI::AI_setUnitAIType
how do units switch unitai?
AI code for unity supplies hurry
unitai_great_doctor
AI_getPlotDanger - exclude "if (pLoopPlot->area() == pPlotArea)" ??
AI: don't build bases too far from plotgroups?
reduce espionage commerce value - AI_yieldValue, AI_commerceWeight ?
refine CvUnit::isActionRecommended build order suggestions
Units should prefer moving in plots which make them invisible
CvPlayerAI::AI_unitValue should look at what promotions a unit can have
CvUnitAI::AI_plotValid : make valid for immobile units, so that they can pillage, blockade etc?
change playerai functions involving canattack to take water movement rules into account
AI worked farm while outpost available??

NOT ME:

ask BUG: F9 statistics buildings # incorrect, CyStatistics().getPlayerNumBuildingsBuilt
request plotgroup mod
cvmaininterface line 795
cvmaininterface line 2351 addTableControlGFC
maintenance bay -> engineering bay

TESTS:

how does AI handle new peak movement rules in combat?
does AI use dropships for overland transport/drops?
does AI found sea bases?

GRAPHICS:

ask rubin about F screen background, like F4 green (ArtDefines_Interface),and leaderheads, flags - Art/Interface/Screens/TechTree/TechTreeBG.nif, MAINMENU_SLIDESHOW_LOAD
airship graphic aokces -> username who made it
include FfH hope effect in psi gate building
rubinize tech/fac/proj buttons
religion founding buttons
bridge/port gfx
change native life flag
empath button
terrain improvement graphics
unit buttons
nut bonus nif gfx
modern terimps, BrokenStar missile silo -> bunker?
main menu
cityset graphics
red light on unity pod
feature graphics density river hill border
solve slating trench lines
secret project buttons
asio WW1939 promo buttons
missionary buttons, eden, cycon(thinker), homosup
rubin SMAX factions flags leaders
update texture for tidal harness
infanterie http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=320022
future cityset zerver http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=10079
modern sniper & infantry, in my datalinks, uses infantry kfm - navy seal with better weapon
hammerhead http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=279658
air unit http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7503829#post7503829
air unit http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=300997
shuttle http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4595 4740
tank http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4332 3544 3543 3533 43
speeder http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=925
inf&ntry http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4290 1824 9436
cyborg http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=3720 3537 3536 3535 11261
walker 1.0 http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=291476
satellite http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=176713
foil HROCHland mechinf-based http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4049
UN PK scout patrol Garret marine-based http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=3199
war satellite asio http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1573
solar collector http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=319
building graphics http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?p=7405305#post7405305
drone industrial building http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=313526
zerver plasma thrower http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=314685

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=1824 Rabbit, White
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9436 Zerver
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=3720 C.Roland uses Redcoat animation

units:
drop trooper -> mobile infantry
plasmathrower -> helion
gravebringer
partisan
InVitro

good gfx:
white rabbit sam
automaton
gravebringer

bad gfx:
paratrooper (Firaxis)
WW2 plasma/flame thrower (AA)
infantry firaxis
marine firaxis
AT_INFANTRY
SAM_INFANTRY

alunit_sm.pcx
fungalpayld_sm.pcx
monbig11.pcx
ogre_sm.pcx
satbat_sm.pcx
volc_sm.pcx

SOUND

ask for privateer text & sounds
miriam and spartan music
"cpu drone riots over" when occupation timer at zero
"cpu enemy probe team eliminated"
"cpu faction eradicated"
"mission aborted" for withdrawal
"cpu new orders needed"
"cpu please don't go"
"cpu prod complete"
"cpu project complete"
"cpu project initiated"
"probe team compromised"
"request information/ are you certain you want to do this/review options"
"cpu resource shortfall"
"cpu insufficient energy"
sounds:
are you certain you want to do this?
enemy probe team eliminated
faction eradicated
mission accomplished
new data received
please don't go, the drones need you
production complete
project initiated
probe team compromised
request confirmation
resource shortfall
review your options

DISCUSSION:

melanin/molectronics leads to better solar panels/supercapacitator
rectenna: solar power transmitter, nanominiaturization
fungal bloom = -100 culture?
city maintenance
tech trades
culture increases council votes
net positive diplo modifiers increase if culture ratio bigger than partner?
espionage

/filefront, fileshack, mediafire
megaupload, atomic gamer, rapidshare, Apolyton, filefactory
https://planetfall.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/Planetfall_BtS
https://planetfall.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/SDK_BtS
http://rapidshare.com/files/153076203/Planetfall_v6.exe.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/153076203/Planetfall_v6.exe.html?killcode=820420366121336383 9
http://rapidshare.com/files/156597984/Planetfall_v6a.exe.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/156597984/Planetfall_v6a.exe.html?killcode=26097160198862165 4
http://www.mediafire.com/?mjkmyvlzcyk
http://rapidshare.com/files/154060456/SMACSounds.7z.html
http://rapidshare.com/files/154060456/SMACSounds.7z.html?killcode=16847642983476391223
v6e
http://files.filefront.com/Planetfall+v6eexe/;12725960;/fileinfo.html
v7
*http://files.filefront.com/Planetfall+v7exe/;13067061;/fileinfo.html
http://files.filefront.com/Planetfall+v7exe/;13081584;/fileinfo.html
v7a
http://files.filefront.com/Planetfall+v7aexe/;13071793;/fileinfo.html
v7b
http://files.filefront.com/Planetfall+v7bexe/;13166949;/fileinfo.html
v7c
http://files.filefront.com/Planetfall+v7cexe/;13180019;/fileinfo.html
v7e
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=NKNJUDIS
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=12688a17b3f559734012e8015643d9c89a16cc6f 6f7aed57
http://rapidshare.com/files/201679690/Planetfall_v7e.exe
http://planetfall.apolyton.net/Planetfall_v7f.exe

http://www.gamingvault.net/files/CivilzationIV/BtSPlanetfall/Planetfall_v8.exe
http://www.gamingvault.net/files/CivilzationIV/BtSPlanetfall/Planetfall_v8c.exe
http://rapidshare.com/files/214704633/Planetfall_v8.exe
450-0/742-303/1024-591

[tab]Mod: Planetfall v7 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=7712)
[tab]Patch: Patch "f" (http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=12688a17b3f559734012e8015643d9c89a16cc6f 6f7aed57)


Patch: Patch "g" (http://files.filefront.com/Planetfall+v7gexe/;13471872;/fileinfo.html), Mirror #1 (http://planetfall.apolyton.net/Planetfall_v7g.exe)

@ Planetfall Review

I don't miss blind research that much. Surely, more options almost never hurt, but there is so much more which I think is more important.

I also don't have a problem to cope with the tech tree.

Regarding mindworms...the author of the review likely hasn't played the builds before the latest changes to sea fungus and spawning spots (in which their was too much native life and fungus for my taste, with or without "raging an"). Now things feel much more calm (though I haven't test raging with 8c so far). If something should be changed again, the this change should lead to more native life (=units), but not again to a lot more fungus.

He has a point regarding atmosphere, though my biggest desire here aren't wonder movies or similar things, but the personality of leaders (and the missing ones from SMAX) - e.g. Morgan should have more Gold available for trade then the others, Miriam should become especially mad if you have the wrong religion, Deidre should hate you for having a negative Planetvalue, Lal for commiting atrocities and so on...
Currently they just feel to similar.

I would like to see the old random events, as well...especially that Perihel event every 80 years comes to my mind.

I also sometimes miss some cool special stuff like Unit Workshop, Global Warming, Echolon Mirrors, Pod Outcomes (earthquake, new rivers, battle ogres), the tectonic and fungus missiles, "planet pearls" from killed native life or those useful 100-turns-loan you give out or take, but I'm aware that most of that stuff is likely either close to impossible to implement in the Civ4 engine or that I would not fit balance-wise (some things in SMAC were probably just "cool" because they were too powerful in the hand of the human player vs. a rather incompetent AI)

I like the change from inflation to higher unit costs. We have replaced a statically growing cost with something dynamic, which you can influence with your playstyle.
Police State has get a serious boost with this and time will tell if the higher unit cost are fair regarding the balance of building vs. warmongering (eventually a similar designed building maintenance could level the playfiled, if needed)
But the best about that change is that the AI plays like you have removed their brakes...in my current game Miriam has already 17(!) bases, Deidre around a dozen.

There is a small (display) glitch in the way the Planet Value (PV) figure and the "total net +/- accumulated through the game" (I will abbreviate this to TN) interact which each other (not a new problem of 8c, but I somehow never came round to reporting and taking a save) sometimes. It has some gameplay impact, but for the worse it might greatly confuse new players.
I will explain it with the example of my current game. Playing the Hive, I started my game with fast population growth and many mines/farms and soon got in the red area with both figures. But then a couple of things changed my situation (Deidre as neighbour infected me with the VoP, I discovered the Manifold Nexus and probably most important, the charm of pop-rushing).
In the consequence, the -300 TN I had accumulated vanished within 30 turns or so - however, the PV figure raised much slower.And here the problem started...the PV was still negative and in the reds, while I started already to accumulate a postive TN.
The excess favorable planet value from all the bases was correctly applied to TN each turn, but the entire figured was still displayed red - and obviously counted as a negative figure as well, because if you exceed 100+ you expect to be able to capture native life. But that doesn't work (the hoover help doesn't display any capacity here as well). The situation magically corrected in the moment the PV passed the 0.00-line. The problem can occur BTW just the other way round - if a "planet fried" suddenly starts to pollute the planet, it takes some time to bring the average PV down - and during this phase, he can still go for native life. To make the problem better vissible, I have attached the hoovers of the PV figure from the years 2225 and 2226, also the save of 2225. Even if the impact on native life captured is intended (one might argue that PV is just the deciding figure), then the wrong colour should be change if possible.

Another thing regarding the PV figure...you can see the AI value for it, if you hoover above their score. The AI doesn't seem to be very good at managing this. All of them are more or less deep in the reds, even Deidre with VoP and running Hybrid. The AI's love for farms might be one reason, but I also noticed that my governor will not always recognize the value of Empath specialists - I often have to force them manually. Perhaps at least the Deidre AI could priorize them (together with buildings like the Biolab)

I also wondered, why my Mass Driver near People's Teeming in the attached save cannot be promoted with AAA tracking...is there any hidden (because I could not find anything in the Datalinks) prequesite - beside Polymorphic Software, which I have - for it?


Edit: Those to-do list is indeed impressing...still reading, many interesting ideas :goodjob:

Yeah, I've tried taking a look at the Leaderhead values for some of my own modding work...I've looked for real Leaderhead information: tutorials, references, descriptions of XML values and what altering them does (and what values are ludicrously high...or gamebreaking) and what have I found?

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip.

The one file that alters how the AI deals with the world, and there's zero documentation. At least, that I can find.

It's not surprising that all the faction leaders act the same. If their LeaderheadInfos numbers are all similar, they'll all act the same. Unfortunately, at this point it looks like if I want a guide on leaderhead values and how to use them, I'm going to have to write it myself.


Hell, my mod isn't even runable yet. How am I supposed to test this stuff?

You are talking about the information part now.
The Datalinks is completely up to date with with the new tags for improvements, features, buildings... I've also added a couple Hints in the Hints section based on questions I've been asked recently. Do you have ideas what else I can do?
I don't know if it is just me, but though all the entries are present, there are no descriptions, expect for technologies. Adding descriptions for units, buildings and resources would do a lot to create the atmosphere. Buildings' descriptions could be taken from SMAC. I'm sure many players would be curious to know what is a "Manifold Nexus" (I asked you that myself) or a "Locust of Chiron".
Furthermore, more info would be needed about gameplay mechanics. It would be good and very useful for new players to create a section "Planetfall concepts" (akin to the present "BtS concepts"). It could contain info about such things as "Planet Value", "Flowering counter", "PSI combat", units transport on sea, and so on.

The review states that it takes forever to learn the tech tree. I'm hoping this may be helped a little by having all the techs and buildings in their correct colour code. I could add Hints explaining what each colour stands for.
I don't see that as a drawback, in fact I appreciate that there are many things to discover and that a campaing can last long.

Regarding the review, I think it (somewhat unnecessarily) focused on the question whether Planetfall is better than SMAC. I don't think that this is an important question, especially because Planetfall was never meant as "the mod that makes you never play SMAC again", and Maniac has been quite frank about that.

However, it's also important to see that this blog entry was never meant as a complete review. It seems to be a collection of some semi-random thoughts that occurred to the author while trying Planetfall. For a blog entry, this is perfectly okay. Treating the blog entry like a complete review (and holding it against the standards that apply to one) would be doing the same to its author that he did to Maniac - i.e., criticizing a product for not being something that it never aspired to be in the first place.

Anyway.

The review does raise some points with which I agree, but I also always assumed that these would be dealt with in Planetfall's further development, like the diplo texts. (And according to Maniac's posts on the subject, I seem to have been correct.) I'm not sure whether the reviewer realized that Planetfall is still a WIP, he probably should have mentioned it in his blog because it's important for readers to know that there's a good chance that the problems he mentions will be solved later on.

There's one point though where there may be a misunderstanding going on, that's the importance of the narrative. One of the things that raised SMAC above many other Civ games was that it was not only a strategy game, it was a strategy game with a powerful narrative that unfolded while you played. This narrative, enhanced through tons of little details that I'll mention shortly, made the playing experience unique. And I think the reviewer is correct in saying that Planetfall currently doesn't capture this aspect of SMAC very well.

Maniac asked what could be done to improve this. Here are some suggestions (note that this is some kind of brainstorming, I'm just throwing out ideas and at this stage I'm not concerned with how hard or easy these would be to implement - that's for Maniac to decide, I'm just adding some more suggestions for him to decide upon):

- Adding the SMAC/SMAX interludes through event scripting

- Adding the full tech descriptions to the Datalinks. In SMAC, each tech has two descriptions - one is flavor and has a voice-over that plays upon discovering the tech, the other is more technical and usually links the tech to the one required for it. The former enhances the atmosphere, characterizes the factions, and strengthens the narrative. The latter helps understanding and memorizing the tech tree (something that is difficult for a SciFi game, as the reviewer correctly observed).

- Add more such flavor information throughout the game, inventing new texts for those situations where no original text exists. Example: There's a voiceover where Lal describes how the atmosphere of a faction's base can be observed in the rec commons. He goes on to describe several ways of what different factions build as rec commons. This text is absolutely great because it fulfills so many tasks that are important for the narrative: It characterizes several factions' ideologies by illustrating their idea of recreation. It fosters Lal's position as a perceptive observer of mankind. It also transports the idea, quite early in the game, that building X for faction A isn't identical to building X for faction B, in fact they may be very different things that just happen to have the same effect and purpose. Last but not least, it inspires our imagination with regard to how the bases might look like from the inside. Having more of such quotes would be great.

- Adding the wonder movies (another great way of SMAC to enhance the atmosphere and immerse the player in the narrative), perhaps by finding a conversion tool which allows users to translate movies from SMAC's format to a format that Civ4 understands.

- Also, as already mentioned by Maniac, adding unique diplomacy texts for each faction would go a good way towards these goals as well.

Yeah, I've tried taking a look at the Leaderhead values for some of my own modding work...I've looked for real Leaderhead information: tutorials, references, descriptions of XML values and what altering them does (and what values are ludicrously high...or gamebreaking) and what have I found?

Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip.

The one file that alters how the AI deals with the world, and there's zero documentation. At least, that I can find.

It's not surprising that all the faction leaders act the same. If their LeaderheadInfos numbers are all similar, they'll all act the same. Unfortunately, at this point it looks like if I want a guide on leaderhead values and how to use them, I'm going to have to write it myself.


Hell, my mod isn't even runable yet. How am I supposed to test this stuff?


I digged up some interesting links regarding the meanings of the variables in the leaderhead XML:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=181620 (XML values explained)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=145867&highlight=dogpile (XML values explained)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=177450 (XML values determining AI relations)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=139740 (XML values explained)

There is no complete guide explaining everything, but I think it will be possible to work with the most important variables. The BTS standard leaders are probably the best comparison line - we all know how they behave and if you compare for an XML tag the leaders with the highest and lowest and how they behave in game, you might get a pretty good idea how certain numbers for a variable work (of course only if you know what it influences). Of course, this method fails for all the unused stuff - there is a couple of tags in the leaderhead XML, where each leader has the same value.

Since I'm very interested in improving this aspect of Planetfall, I would be willing to sum up the known facts from the various sources and write a comprehensive list of the XML values of the leaderhead file. For each variable, I will give an explanation what is its effect (if possible) and the maximum and minimum value under BTS rules, together with the leaders having those extrem values.

In the next step we can try then to assign resonable values to the Planetfall leaders.

TIs there certain stuff in particular which makes you feel Planetfall is a work in progress? I can always move up stuff on the to-do list.

Pssht, Tssha.

Police State has get a serious boost with this

Unless I did something wrong, Police State does not change special ability costs, only the basic unit maintenance.

Perhaps this can be used somehow to create a difference between a large Hive army of unupgraded units versus a Spartan smaller army of elite units.

There is a small (display) glitch in the way the Planet Value (PV) figure and the "total net +/- accumulated through the game" (I will abbreviate this to TN) interact which each other

Fixed!

Mass Driver cannot be promoted with AAA tracking

Fixed!

I don't know if it is just me, but though all the entries are present, there are no descriptions, expect for technologies. Adding descriptions for units, buildings and resources would do a lot to create the atmosphere. Buildings' descriptions could be taken from SMAC.

SMAC doesn't have building descriptions. Do you mean the voice quotes perhaps?

In the next step we can try then to assign resonable values to the Planetfall leaders.

Would be awesome!

SMAC doesn't have building descriptions. Do you mean the voice quotes perhaps?
Ops, probably I am confusing it with the tech descriptions. In any case including descriptions in the Datalinks would be very good for the atmosphere.

Thanks a lot Pfeffersack. I saw your thread below and I'll check out all those links as soon as what I read in the thread below starts to sink in. :crazyeye: Yeah, it's a lot of info to absorb all at once.

Maniac, I am very specifically avoiding comment on what isn't finished because I don't want to you move something up the schedule in order to "window-dress" this mod. I just want you to take the time to develop the mod in the direction you feel it needs to go. Creative processes that are rushed are often of lower quality than those that get the time they need to...well, shall I say, percolate?

Regardless, it's your mod and I'm not going to try to influence your development process. I know you want some input, but right now I can't give it to you. Maybe when it's closer to completion I'll point out some "less refined" bits that you may not have noticed, but until then, I'll reserve comment. If it isn't fixed by then, it won't be too late to change it.

I'm not playing this mod currently...and I can wait a bit. It gets better with every version, so I'm in no hurry and I've got other games on my plate right now.

Feedback with v8, Patch d:

- The governeurs Hacker-Mania is still present. After 200 turns, 19 out of 31 Great persons in the world are Hackers (for me: 3 out of 5). Among the left 12 GPs, Doctors(5) and Tycoons(4) dominate - only 2 Transcendents (me=1), 1 Great Psych Caplain (mine as well) and yet no Great Scientist/Great Engineer

I think there are two possible reasons for this. One is that Librarian slots are opened up early, easy and frequently - building a Network Node seems to be never a bad idea (Hologram Theathers aren't bad either), while buildings providing other specialist come much later (and then their impact on GP generation is much lower) or get only build in some bases. Especially Scientists, Merchants and Engineers are hit by this (though the latters are dangerous terrain, because too early and/or easy GEs can unbalance the game greatly)
The other problem is that the governeur seems neglect some specialist types on purpose - likely because their yields don't fit in his understanding of valuable yields or priorities. Thats ok to some extend, if their are situations where the governeur puts emphasize on them - Doctors are a positive example, they get only employed if health is an issue. However, the governeur seems to next to never see a value in assigning Empaths or Psych Chaplains (unless you set GPs in general as priority and even then only if no other slots are available - you have no "special" emphasize to get them)

A fundamental solution would be changing the governeur, but some changes regarding the specialist slots some buildings procide could help as well. E.g. the Biolab could provide a Scientist slot or the Hologram Theater could provide a Psych Chaplain instead of a Hacker (or is that too far away from the idea of this building - at least it helps with recreation as well?)

- I played as Deidre and planned towards running Autarky and Hybrid. I think the health penalty should be higher to achieve smaller cities. -2 can be easily overcome by employing a single doctor or trading for health ressoruces. Maybe the penalty should be somehow connected to your average planet value (-1 per 0,5 positive planet value) or the flowering counter (-2 flat, another -10 for every 10 point flowering counter)?

- Is it intended that the Memetics tech icon is now the Divine Right one from unmodded Civ4? (see picture)

- A minor problem, because you can use the show-ressoruce-overlay, but anyway: The Brown Algae ressource is sometimes very hard to spot. The picture shows it on Highlands/Rocky Arid.

I think there are two possible reasons for this. One is that Librarian slots are opened up early, easy and frequently - building a Network Node seems to be never a bad idea (Hologram Theathers aren't bad either), while buildings providing other specialist come much later (and then their impact on GP generation is much lower) or get only build in some bases. Especially Scientists, Merchants and Engineers are hit by this (though the latters are dangerous terrain, because too early and/or easy GEs can unbalance the game greatly)

The fact that the only-situationally-useful specialists (Doctor, Empath, Librarian, Chaplain) are available earlier, is intentional. Now early-game buildings which open one of these specialists slots are somewhat valuable - I mean, almost anything is better than the default Citizen specialist. If a universally useful specialist (engineer, merchant, scientist) is available earlier, then it's a no brainer choice to pick that specialist, and the value of all other specialist-providing buildings drops.

It may be true though that even in the later game, there aren't enough universally-useful specialists slots.

I want universally useful specialists to appear at the earliest through level 3 or 4 techs. Unfortunately there aren't any level 3 or 4 buildings right now, for which it would fit to give a engineer/merchant/scientist specialist slot.

Perhaps civics can provide a solution. Those come available about at the right time. Civics giving unlimited specialists I deem too powerful (and reduces the value of many buildings), but perhaps some civics could give each base one of a certain specialist slot? Free Market or Wealth gives one Merchant slot, Knowledge gives one Scientist slot, and Planned gives one Engineer slot.

However, the governeur seems to next to never see a value in assigning Empaths or Psych Chaplains (unless you set GPs in general as priority and even then only if no other slots are available - you have no "special" emphasize to get them)

Chaplains are only useful in very specific situations. And in those situations (border expansion) the AI does use them. I don't see a problem there.
Empaths not being chosen over Librarians even when you're running a high Planet strategy, is a problem. I did add some AI code for empaths, but the values may be too low to make the specialist worth it. Kinda hard to know sometimes what order of magnitude some SDK function's value is. I could add a quick fix that when you have a positive Planet attitude (>=1) and the base does not have positive commerce modifiers for espionage, an Empath is always deemed more valuable than a Librarian.

- I played as Deidre and planned towards running Autarky and Hybrid. I think the health penalty should be higher to achieve smaller cities. -2 can be easily overcome by employing a single doctor or trading for health ressoruces. Maybe the penalty should be somehow connected to your average planet value (-1 per 0,5 positive planet value) or the flowering counter (-2 flat, another -10 for every 10 point flowering counter)?

The Hybrid civic is supposed to have a synergy with a high Planet strategy. Your idea does the opposite. I'm not sure -2 health is too low. I'll explain the math I had in mind when deciding on that number:

As a rule of thumb I consider 1 food = 2 commerce. A base can under Emperor difficulty IIRC have at most 7 credits worth of number of bases maintenance costs. So that's a benefit of 7 credits, but a penalty of 4 credits (2 * 2 food). That's a benefit of 3 credits per base. Or the extra benefit of three Sea Mills if you would be running the Enclosed Biosphere civic instead. On first sight this doesn't seem too big a benefit to me. I noticed in your save btw you yourself aren't even running a Hybrid ecology!

- Is it intended that the Memetics tech icon is now the Divine Right one from unmodded Civ4? (see picture)

I know - I'm just too lazy to make fitting buttons.

- A minor problem, because you can use the show-ressoruce-overlay, but anyway: The Brown Algae ressource is sometimes very hard to spot. The picture shows it on Highlands/Rocky Arid.

I don't know how to solve that issue. I named the Algae after the colour of the terrain they appear on, so they would be easier to remember. That does indeed create visibility issues if the resource model is the same colour.

is there some sort of high maintenance mechaninc for newly captured cities?

also, the game crashes on me for some reason, but it appears to be arbitrary.

is there some sort of high maintenance mechaninc for newly captured cities?

Are you suffering food shortages? This causes 'Ultraponics maintenance'.

also, the game crashes on me for some reason, but it appears to be arbitrary.

Yeah, me too... It's a recent problem and I don't know the cause. :( Is it only when loading a save game or exiting to the main menu, or also when simply playing?

Are you suffering food shortages? This causes 'Ultraponics maintenance'.

not that i could tell. there were instances that maintenance would read -3.2, and then the total maintenance was about six times that.

Yeah, me too... It's a recent problem and I don't know the cause. :( Is it only when loading a save game or exiting to the main menu, or also when simply playing?

just when playing. it's the only time that i experience these random crashes.

it annoys me to no end when my terraformer neighbor has a pop, and then does nothing about the fungal tower that proceeds to blockade my base :mad:. i can't do anything about it because i'd have to declare war on him to be able to resolve the issue.

not that i could tell. there were instances that maintenance would read -3.2, and then the total maintenance was about six times that.

Do such situations correct themselves after one turn?
A screenshot could come useful.

just when playing. it's the only time that i experience these random crashes.

That is cause for concern. Kinda strange how these random crashes work. Other people have reported being able to play 700+ turns without a single crash. :confused: Anyway, I'd appreciate a save. Most likely, being random, I won't be able to find the cause, but a save of a game at an advanced year is always good to track down asserts and weird AI behaviour.

it annoys me to no end when my terraformer neighbor has a pop, and then does nothing about the fungal tower that proceeds to blockade my base :mad:. i can't do anything about it because i'd have to declare war on him to be able to resolve the issue.[/i]

I'm making progress on these issues. Last time you played Planetfall the worker AI was simply unaware of anything outside the base radii, such as fungus. Now they will remove fungus even outside base radii.
That new code doesn't help of course when the AI has too few formers, so in the near future I will try to make heavy polluters build more formers.

That is cause for concern. Kinda strange how these random crashes work. Other people have reported being able to play 700+ turns without a single crash. :confused: Anyway, I'd appreciate a save. Most likely, being random, I won't be able to find the cause, but a save of a game at an advanced year is always good to track down asserts and weird AI behaviour.

I have random and non-reproduceable crashes regularly, but they only happen after and in the process of frequent alt-tabbing (means getting back in the game crashes it). Loading the last autosave allows to play on without problems. The only other factor beside alt-tabbing, which seems to infuence the frequemcy of those crashes, is the game stage - they happen more often in the later game.

true, the game does seem to crash more often in the late game and when someone's pestering me on trillian, but only for planetfall.

and yes, maniac the discrepencies were generally for only a turn or so, but some did last longer, if i remember correctly.

Have these crashes started to happen recently (in the last month or so), or have you had them forever?

If they were recent, the sea colony pod unit may cause crashes.

Of course in the same patch that I made a change (and thereby introduced bugs) to the sea colony pod, I also solved another unrelated bug which would cause similar symptoms, so it may be hard to figure out what crash is caused by what problem... :dizzy:

Save games of around the first time you get a crash (and if possible the ten turns before that) are always welcome. The asserts can help find the crash source.

a few screenshots and a save game that might be useful to you.

I've been playing this mod and wanted to post that I thought it is actually really well made and enjoyable :goodjob: I was particularly impressed with implementation of the Planet and Bloom counters, also the cool terrain tactics of apparently having to access a Ridge by climbing through Highlands (how was that done, through a Python check?) Well here are a few initial comments/feedback:

I don't know if this is too difficult to achieve or already discussed; but one of my fave features of SMAC was how your government "Efficiency" was affected by the civic choices; you then had to work within caps of how much of your economy you could devote to science / energy stockpiling etc. I thought this was a really creative way around the old Civ problem of science being basically equivalent to gold, I wonder is this at all possible in BtS modding? In this mod so far, in general I often found it easy to get more than enough energy for my needs; maybe this is because of the new maintenance cost system I'll have to read more about.

As I think someone else posted earlier, maybe consider re-including Roads with Doctrine:Mobility? They were available early in SMAC, and it's a long wait for Maglev technology - especially if movement costs in fungus were increased a bit, roads can make an interesting tradeoff between unit mobility / hooking up resources vs angering Planet with more construction.

are there any other victories available other than the diplomatic victory and the rocshambeaux victory?

a few screenshots and a save game that might be useful to you.

Thanks!

(how was that done, through a Python check?)

SDK

are there any other victories available other than the diplomatic victory and the rocshambeaux victory?

Rocshambeaux?
The most realistic ones are Domination, Diplomatic and Interstellar Gate.

I also want to add Transcendence, but that will first require AI improvements. (see the flavour or gameplay poll)

- A minor problem, because you can use the show-ressoruce-overlay, but anyway: The Brown Algae ressource is sometimes very hard to spot. The picture shows it on Highlands/Rocky Arid.
I have made a modification to the algae resources in order to make them larger and more visible on the map. Preview is attached.
I have changed in the file:
CIV4ArtDefines_Bonus.xml
the line:
<fScale>0.5</fScale>
to:
<fScale>0.9</fScale>
(this makes the resources bigger)

Maniac if you like the change you could implement it in the mod.

The most realistic ones are Domination, Diplomatic and Interstellar Gate.

I also want to add Transcendence, but that will first require AI improvements. (see the flavour or gameplay poll)

is the IG win with the subspace generators?

it will let me build the fifth one, but then deletes one so i'm stuck at four.

Maniac if you like the change you could implement it in the mod.

Thanks, I'll do it for the next patch.

it will let me build the fifth one, but then deletes one so i'm stuck at four.

This I have also fixed for the next patch. In the meantime, I hereby officially declare you the winner of your game. :D

Hi Maniac, I'm back playing again ^_^. I formatted installed Vista 64bit OS, now I will find out if this will crash less. :lol:

I found this bug a bit ago, but forgot to mention it. Beginning of game you graciously allow us to have supply pods. If you change one into a former, it has to be manually controlled, no automation icons and no shortcuts work. ;) Repeated this bug every game I played.

Been playing off and on for the last week and I've a few bits of feedback.

First of all, I've got a CtD while WoC. I tried rolling back a few turns but it always happens at the end of turn 185. I played around in the WB but I'm not familiar enough with the mod to know what might be wrong. I thought it may have something to do with New Jerusalem's borders about to push back the Native borders but I pumped up the culture in the native lands and it still crashed. Save enclosed.

I also seem to get a lot of random CtDs at random times. Anywhere from mousing over plots to opening windows.


Religions - Apart from the +2:) shift for adopting a religion present in a city there isn't much benefit to it. I personally don't think adopting a religion is worth the faction hit I'll take against civs with opposing religions. In addition, I find it very unsettling that you don't get a free disciple when discovering a tech for a religion, just for founding it. If you don't found any religion at all you don't have any control over. I'm sure this was intentional but is there a reason why? Some of them are quite powerful just to have in your city.
Planet Attitude - This is maybe something else I don't understand very well. There seems to be a tipping point. Specifically if you can stay in the green PA the planet seems to like you. Fungal blooms rarely happen and if they do it's on the border of a neighbor. The native life seems to go after the other civ instead. Therefore fungi in and near your borders is safe for you. This ups your planet attitude some more and endangers your neighbors. It also happens to bring culture as well. If you can stay in the positive numbers of planet attitude you also get a power/culture boost. Even 1:culture:/turn is more than enough to win an expansion war ... which can net you more fungal lands and more planet attitude etc ... Nevermind that positive PA will let you have native pets as well, perfect for dealing with the more tech advanced civ armies. I haven't seen the AI able to counter this strategy at all. All too often I see other civs surrounded by fungus with badly negative planet attitudes.
Voice of the Planet - This brings me to this puppy. It seems to be the most powerful religion hands down. Not only is it the first available it's disciples are cheap but the White Pines is incredibly good. If you own it you are basically getting 2PA per new city (4 if you are Dierdra). When I first started playing I always went for this and I crushed. Looking for a challenge I upped the difficulty and Dierdra was always my primary contender (although occasionally she had a bad start and the University dude was score leader.) I'm sure there are counters to the VotP rush that someone can point out. Although it is one of the holy shrines to build, its far superior to the others. I suggest halving the PA bonus for the shrine.
Civ Flavour - I find the differences between the civs is very minor. Except for their diplomatic preferences there isn't much real difference. Any plans to add unique units or buildings or add traits?
Civ Leaders - I noticed in the Datalinks there were a lot of other civ leaders but they don't seem to be active. It makes it somewhat troublesome to play with more than seven civs at a time. It's a pain to figure out exactly which Yang is demanding I convert to Police State all the time. Any plan to add them in? Or any of the SMAX factions? If you'd like I could suggestion some separate civ/leader changes.
Commerce Bonuses/Yields - The appearance of a 5:commerce: plot is identical to a 10:commerce: plot. The large energy icons must stack on top of each other and not tile like the smaller icons. The additional energy resource is fairly large and obscures a lot of the plot. Perhaps it can be toned down? It's also a bit annoying to see these and the additional mineral resources when you enable resource popups. There are so many of them and it's quite obvious where they are by appearance (unlike most of the algae.) Is there a way to keep them from having popup flags?
Scientists and Hackers - I'm a bit puzzled at the lack of Scientist GP. In fact, you won't be seeing any of them at all until late game unless you get the Human Genome Project. This flies in the face of what I see as the obvious GP choice in Planetfall. Do you try to get an early great scientist for an Academy and increased general science output or do you try for another one to lightbulb a tech or build a holy shrine? Most civs however get an early great hacker, which I don't think can lightbulb anything early game, so it gets burnt for a wonder. This ensures they get another great hacker next time around. I like that you have a variety available early, but all I really see out there are hackers. In addition, I find it very annoying that I have to take all my cities off of auto management. As soon as they pop it always seems to be a new hacker instead of a workable plot or even a genejacked citizen. I haven't played for long but on more than a few occaisions I got a great hacker instead of the GP I was trying for because the pool got diluted by my lack of micromanaging.
Espionage - With all these great hackers is there anything new up with Espionage in Planetfall?


Phew, that's all I can think of for now. Thanks for a great mod!

In addition, I find it very unsettling that you don't get a free disciple when discovering a tech for a religion, just for founding it.That's just the standard CivIV behaviour... I think you played too much FfH II, where you DO get a free disciple for researching a religion tech! ;)
I find the differences between the civs is very minor. Except for their diplomatic preferences there isn't much real difference.Look in your cities - there are bonuses from the Governor's office or the HQ in the capital, unique to your faction - for example the Governor's office (which is automatically built in each base) for Zak gives you +20% beaker output.

Cheers, LT.

Except for their diplomatic preferences there isn't much real difference.
Look in your cities
Would it be possible to include this info in the mouseover help text for leader traits (ie The Scientist, The Mogul) visible during leader selection? It currently only shows effects that don't come from the faction-specific Governor's Office and Headquarters, probably making most new players overlook these. Also, the faction-specific building versions could be given names (e.g. "Faculty Tribunal" instead of "Governor's Office (University)" ) , to add some flavor and make it clear they have distinctive effects.

Got another CTD between turns that's reproducable every time. I rolled it back to the previous autosave and it doesn't crash. I got a Great Tycoon the same turn (different name) but this time around Homo Superior did not spread to my capital. Don't know if there's any other difference.

I've enclosed both saves.

That's just the standard CivIV behaviour... I think you played too much FfH II, where you DO get a free disciple for researching a religion tech! ;)
Look in your cities - there are bonuses from the Governor's office or the HQ in the capital, unique to your faction - for example the Governor's office (which is automatically built in each base) for Zak gives you +20% beaker output.

Alas it's true. :twitch: Too much FfH I suppose. But even with the differences in scope between the two mods, I do find Planetfall somewhat lacking in this department.

Even in vanilla civ each civ has two traits and a unique unit. In Planetfall a civ either has a UB that provides a bonus for every city or they have a trait. It seems to be even more vanilla than vanilla!

And yes, I guess I've played FfH I bit too much more than I've played Civ recently. I withdraw my comment regarding religions.

Religions - Apart from the +2:) shift for adopting a religion present in a city there isn't much benefit to it. I personally don't think adopting a religion is worth the faction hit I'll take against civs with opposing religions.


That's the way Civ4s diplomacy always worked, you can't be friend with everyone. Indeed, it's questionable if you should adopt a religion as state one, if you are the only faction, but things change if there is another faction following it. You get one friend for several enemies, but it better then to be neutral with everyone (diplomatic actions like tech trading, bribing into wars or DPs require good relations). See also my idea for shrines below.


In addition, I find it very unsettling that you don't get a free disciple when discovering a tech for a religion, just for founding it. If you don't found any religion at all you don't have any control over. I'm sure this was intentional but is there a reason why? Some of them are quite powerful just to have in your city.

I'm rather used to BtS, so it is normal for me...sometimes other factions will actively spread their religion in your faction, maybe that should happen more often. I'm undecided about if a disciple for everyone reaching a certain tech would
improve things...it may level the playfield, but takes away another incentive to found a religoin


Planet Attitude This is maybe something else I don't understand very well. There seems to be a tipping point. Specifically if you can stay in the green PA the planet seems to like you. Fungal blooms rarely happen and if they do it's on the border of a neighbor. The native life seems to go after the other civ instead. Therefore fungi in and near your borders is safe for you. This ups your planet attitude some more and endangers your neighbors. It also happens to bring culture as well. If you can stay in the positive numbers of planet attitude you also get a power/culture boost. Even 1:culture:/turn is more than enough to win an expansion war ... which can net you more fungal lands and more planet attitude etc ... Nevermind that positive PA will let you have native pets as well, perfect for dealing with the more tech advanced civ armies. I haven't seen the AI able to counter this strategy at all. All too often I see other civs surrounded by fungus with badly negative planet attitudes.

Yes the AI needs to get better at it and it also needs to learn how to run the opposite strategy. Still most Civs switch to Hybrid after leaving EB (which further weakes a terraform startegy, as you get isolated). In my games, it's not always the way that Deidre is up and Miriam down. Miriam runs usually one of the biggest factions and tends to farm her entire land...
Maybe it is the emperor difficulty I'm playing, where the AI gets more boni - this might give them more means to cope with the dangers of native life. You can be sucessful as terraformer as well, but the Way of the Planet is still easier for my taste.

I'm pretty sure that we will see more improvements here in the future, as Maniac mentioned this as one next step in the poll thread, if a better AI will be the focus (and the vote goes in that direction currently)


Voice of the Planet - This brings me to this puppy. It seems to be the most powerful religion hands down. Not only is it the first available it's disciples are cheap but the White Pines is incredibly good. If you own it you are basically getting 2PA per new city (4 if you are Dierdra). When I first started playing I always went for this and I crushed. Looking for a challenge I upped the difficulty and Dierdra was always my primary contender (although occasionally she had a bad start and the University dude was score leader.) I'm sure there are counters to the VotP rush that someone can point out. Although it is one of the holy shrines to build, its far superior to the others. I suggest halving the PA bonus for the shrine.

Hmm, maybe you should get the shrine bonus only if you adopt a religion as state one (or it should be cut by 1/2 without at least)? That would give another incentive to set up a state religion.
If it's only VoP which is too strong a simple reduction in PV gain might be enough. I haven't settled my mind here...as said above it is hard to evaluate a Terraformer strategy if you pay for it all the time with being an outlaw...


Civ Flavour - I find the differences between the civs is very minor. Except for their diplomatic preferences there isn't much real difference. Any plans to add unique units or buildings or add traits?

I think the reason is just that the original SMAC did not offer more variances as well and that the factional boni get converted into "headquarter buildings" partly for Planetfall, as Orlanth explained. UUs and real UBs would be great additions, I agree - but first we would need to have ideas, for BtS civs the source is just human history, here it's brainstorming in science fiction world.


Civ Leaders - I noticed in the Datalinks there were a lot of other civ leaders but they don't seem to be active. It makes it somewhat troublesome to play with more than seven civs at a time. It's a pain to figure out exactly which Yang is demanding I convert to Police State all the time. Any plan to add them in? Or any of the SMAX factions? If you'd like I could suggestion some separate civ/leader changes.

Thats probably the most frequent request in the last feew weeks :) Maniac said that they will come in future (Cha Dawn and Aki Zeta as 2nd leaders of Gaians/University, the others as new factions, some entering the game later), but not too soon.


Scientists and Hackers - I'm a bit puzzled at the lack of Scientist GP. In fact, you won't be seeing any of them at all until late game unless you get the Human Genome Project. This flies in the face of what I see as the obvious GP choice in Planetfall. Do you try to get an early great scientist for an Academy and increased general science output or do you try for another one to lightbulb a tech or build a holy shrine? Most civs however get an early great hacker, which I
don't think can lightbulb anything early game, so it gets burnt for a wonder. This ensures they get another great hacker next time around. I like that you have a variety available early, but all I really see out there are hackers. In addition, I find it very annoying that I have to take all my cities off of auto management. As soon as they pop it always seems to be a new hacker instead of a workable plot or even a genejacked citizen. I haven't played for long but on more than a few
occaisions I got a great hacker instead of the GP I was trying for because the pool got diluted by my lack of micromanaging.

Lightbulbing techs for Hackers is planned to be added, IIRC. Eventually some civics will open slots in future as well. There was already a change to how the governor weights hackers vs. other specialists, but that only works if there are better slots available. Late Scientists, Merchants and Engineers are more powerful, so it is intended that there aren't many early slots.


With all these great hackers is there anything new up with Espionage in Planetfall?

No new missions, but some of the old have gotten more important. Tech stealing (because you trade as much), treasury stealing (credits are often scarce) and creating unhappyness/unhealthiness (might overthrow bases into native revolts, if the population starves) come to my mind. No SMAC style mind control and no SMAX freeing of defeated leaders, though.

Been playing off and on for the last week and I've a few bits of feedback./quote]

Most of it got covered by Pfeffersack.
Some minor extra remarks:

Re the crashes. In some two hours a new full version should be available for download. I made some change which may fix the random crashes. Given that they're random of course, it's hard to say for sure with limited testing. So I'd love to hear your and everyone else's experiences whether or not Planetfall still has random crashes in the next version.

[quote] Civ Flavour - I find the differences between the civs is very minor. Except for their diplomatic preferences there isn't much real difference.

I agree. Ideas are always welcome. I'd prefer something cooler than 20% science or double production speed for network nodes though.

Commerce Bonuses/Yields

I do not have the skills to change that.

Espionage - With all these great hackers is there anything new up with Espionage in Planetfall?

As a lot of other stuff, on the to-do list...

In my games, it's not always the way that Deidre is up and Miriam down. Miriam runs usually one of the biggest factions and tends to farm her entire land...
Maybe it is the emperor difficulty I'm playing, where the AI gets more boni - this might give them more means to cope with the dangers of native life.

Ah yes. I usually play on Monarch but I was going to try the VoP rush on Emperor for my next game. At this level, fungal blooms can be devastating and the wildlife overruns cities regularly. This is something I consider appalling. Coming from FfH I'm surprised at how relatively undefended AI civs leave their cities.

Although I have been in a situation where multiple blooms have left me to focus on fungal cleanup for many many turns. I can see how dealing with these blooms and their trade blocking can crash an economy. The key is not letting yourself get into these situations. I think this is what the AI has trouble with.

This reminds me of something that came up in my game last night. The Datalinks say that blooms can only happen in your borders if you have bad PA. But I had one while I was +1 PA. Screenshot enclosed. You can see how it was quickly and thoroughly dealt with. :)

Hmm, maybe you should get the shrine bonus only if you adopt a religion as state one (or it should be cut by 1/2 without at least)? That would give another incentive to set up a state religion.
If it's only VoP which is too strong a simple reduction in PV gain might be enough. I haven't settled my mind here...as said above it is hard to evaluate a Terraformer strategy if you pay for it all the time with being an outlaw...

I don't think going with the Terraformer civic is important for this strategy. While it is extremely powerful the diplomacy penalty for it is too strong for my taste. It also seems to be too strong for the AI, as I've never seen anyone adopt it. Maybe this needs to be smoothed over a bit.

Having VoP just means you can keep your lands clear of fungus and throw the heavy PA hitting improvements down like boreholes and condensers without upsetting mother Chiron.

UUs and real UBs would be great additions, I agree - but first we would need to have ideas, for BtS civs the source is just human history, here it's brainstorming in science fiction world.

I agree. Ideas are always welcome. I'd prefer something cooler than 20% science or double production speed for network nodes though.

I've already been working on it. :) I'll post my ideas in a separate thread.

No new missions, but some of the old have gotten more important. Tech stealing (because you trade as much), treasury stealing (credits are often scarce) and creating unhappyness/unhealthiness (might overthrow bases into native revolts, if the population starves) come to my mind.

In my recent game, being isolated on an island I decided to try an espionage strategy. Great Hackers and police state got me to a substantial lead and I just started bombing my rivals with probe teams. The problem is it's hard to get them into their borders since you can't give submarines cargo holds. Next time I'll build a few foils with cargo holds before I research Doctrine Initiative.

So I'd love to hear your and everyone else's experiences whether or not Planetfall still has random crashes in the next version.

Will do! Can't wait to try it out.

It says fungal blooms can only happen around bases with a negative Planet value.

The Planet Attitude is the average of the Planet value of all your bases throughout the game.

I understand the confusion can be easy though. Any ideas how to make it easier to understand?

I find the differences between the civs is very minor. Except for their diplomatic preferences there isn't much real difference.
I agree. Ideas are always welcome. I'd prefer something cooler than 20% science or double production speed for network nodes though.

Here are a few possible ideas for faction differentiation, trying to combine some SMAC flavor and balance with what should work well in the Civ XML. BTW, does anyone currently get the default Governor's Office? The default Headquarters doesn't seem to provide it.


United Nations:
+100% to :gp: rate (attracts intellectual elite)
from Lal trait

enemies suffer +25% war weariness (international legitimacy)
from UN Headquarters (replaces Headquarters) iEnemyWarWearinessModifier

+10% to maintenance costs in all cities (byzantine bureaucracy)
from UN Consulate (replaces Governor's Office) iMaintenanceModifier


Morgan Industries:
+100% trade route yield in all cities
+20% to war weariness in all cities
from Corporate Office (replaces Governor's Office)

+1 energy from Merchant in all cities, +1 energy from Great Tycoon in all cities
from Corporate Headquarters (replaces Headquarters)


University:
+15% to beaker rate
-50% to espionage defense
from Faculty Senate (replaces Governor's Office) - don't know if a negative is possible using iEspionageDefense?

+1 beaker from Scientist in all cities, +1 beaker from Great Scientist in all cities
from University of Planet (replaces Headquarters)


Believers:
+1 :) from state religion
-10% to beaker rate
from Believers Synod (replaces Governor's Office)

all units start with Hypnotic Trance promotion
from Miriam trait

+1 influence from Psych Chaplain in all cities, +1 inf from Great Chaplain in all cities
from Great Conclave (replaces Headquarters)

My intention is to let all faction effects be given by traits. That allows for a smoother interface: you don't need to look at multiple places what the faction boni and penalties are.

This means you should not let your imagination be restricted by what is currently possible in XML. I'll need to make SDK modifications anyway.

It also means all the faction-specific headquarters and governor's office will be removed later on. They're just placeholders at the moment, awaiting a more permanent implementation of faction effects.

Some comments:

enemies suffer +25% war weariness (international legitimacy)

I'm not sure this is fitting. Lal thinks he has legitimacy, but other factions don't necessarily agree with this - otherwise they wouldn't have splintered the Unity mission.

This gave me the idea though to give a player extra war weariness if he's running the favourite civic of his war enemy. So then you'd get extra war weariness fighting Lal if you were a democracy.

+20% to war weariness in all cities

I'll implement this.

-50% to espionage defense
from Faculty Senate (replaces Governor's Office) - don't know if a negative is possible using iEspionageDefense?

I'll check it out.

-10% to beaker rate

I think general science penalties are kinda boring. Besides, in Planetfall the Believers are supposed to be the forerunners in Terraforming technology. It's rather specifically Centauri, Computers/Cybernetics and Genetics technologies they are opposed to. So perhaps some way could be thought of that discourages Believer research endeavours in those fields?

all units start with Hypnotic Trance promotion

The Believers are the première anti-Planet faction. (In fact I think I'll give them -1 Planet in each base, similar to SMAC) Free Hypnotic Trance is something that fits with a Planet-friendly faction.

Morgan Industries:
+1 energy from Merchant in all cities, +1 energy from Great Tycoon in all cities
University:
+1 beaker from Scientist in all cities, +1 beaker from Great Scientist in all cities
Believers:
+1 influence from Psych Chaplain in all cities, +1 inf from Great Chaplain in all cities

Buildings allowing specialists to produce extra commerce is a FfH thing. ;) It is possible to let specialists produce extra yield though: I have let the Believers get a hammer from Psych Chaplains. I'll see about implementing commerce boni to specialists.

On a general note, you have posted some cool ideas which I will implement, but overall with none of the factions' suggestions I get the feeling "Wow that gameplay mechanic would be awesome to try out!" Do you feel differently?

Oh btw orlanth, since you're a new player, I'm wondering, how did you learn of the existence of Planetfall, and what drove you to download and try it out?

Neat! I wish I had read this before posting my suggested list. I like some of the ideas and would have stolen them!

I think general science penalties are kinda boring. Besides, in Planetfall the Believers are supposed to be the forerunners in Terraforming technology. It's rather specifically Centauri, Computers/Cybernetics and Genetics technologies they are opposed to. So perhaps some way could be thought of that discourages Believer research endeavours in those fields?
I like that suggestion.. As you know every tech belongs to a research Flavor, it looks like in Planetfall there is a good assortment of: Centauri, Biotech, Culture, Enclosed, Terraform, Military, Physics, Science, Computers, Growth, Naval, Industry, Religion, Espionage with many belonging to more than one flavor. With your SDK knowledge, would you be able to code some flavor-specific research bonuses/penalties into leader traits? I think this could be a straightforward way to add a significant amount of game interest and get around the blandness of straight beaker rates where science=gold. As a starting point, perhaps there's even room for many or most leaders to have one favored research focus (+20%), one minor advantage (+10%), and one area of backwardness (-10%).

enemies suffer +25% war weariness (international legitimacy)
I'm not sure this is fitting. Lal thinks he has legitimacy, but other factions don't necessarily agree with this - otherwise they wouldn't have splintered the Unity mission.
I thought I remember him having something vaguely similar in SMAC.. The other faction leaders certainly don't buy into his leadership, but since it was a UN mission he can probably rely on relatively more support among certain sectors of the general populace that would make stomping on him less popular than most other factions (eg Morgan or the Hive). I picture his vast diplomatic apparatus as constantly arranging for sanctions, resolutions and condemnations that can gradually make things increasingly inconvenient and painful as war drags on. :mischief::deal:

The Believers are the première anti-Planet faction. (In fact I think I'll give them -1 Planet in each base, similar to SMAC) Free Hypnotic Trance is something that fits with a Planet-friendly faction.
Agreed - I was aiming more at a Morale-type bonus from fanatical devotion, which I believe gave them a bonus in psi combat vs the Mindworms in SMAC. Hypnotic Trance doesn't have the lifeform capture ability though, which could make it fit. Perhaps a new promotion called Morale or Fanaticism which gives +25% Psi defense only? Optionally this could get unlocked for other factions at Social Psych.

On a general note, you have posted some cool ideas which I will implement, but overall with none of the factions' suggestions I get the feeling "Wow that gameplay mechanic would be awesome to try out!" Do you feel differently?
Yeah no radical innovations there, was mainly using what I remembered being available in the Civ XML. If you're able to flexibly tweak the SDK (which I am not :rolleyes:), I will rack my brains for some interesting new effects!

Oh btw orlanth, since you're a new player, I'm wondering, how did you learn of the existence of Planetfall, and what drove you to download and try it out?
I guess I was browsing the civfanatics mod forum list and found this is one of the few mods that seems well developed and is actively updated; as a SMACie from way back I was glad to give it a try! I've been previously occupied on the team of the Warhammer mod which is currently on hiatus.

A couple ideas, kinda brainstorming, something to make civs play out differently than just being hybrid or terraforming.

Morgan, Economic dependency
Should try to get open borders with everyone, letting them spy and spread religions and whatnot, all in the name of trade. And for every turn he has open borders agreements with others he should get a larger and larger part of their economy up to say 20% or something, and when this is reached a declaration of war on him would gives massive economical penalties. Morgan should not be able to open war on people that he has 20 % from. Perhaps only he should be able to start and spreat cooperations as well?

University, Research dependency
Massive bonus for great scientists, so the name of the game is to create these and finish projects to get great scientists. The typical espionage penalties. Also, other civs should be able to trade :commerce: for :science: from the university without them actually loosing any (will be hard to balance I guess). Thus creating a dependency to this warwise weak civ. University should never start a war... almost.
This mechanic of buying things in a special way could be used by datajack rose as well, she should be able to sell anyones secrets for a price :)

Spartans, Keep the best armed forces in the world
Spartans need to have the best armed forces, not the largest, but the best. Unhappiness as soon as someone fields a large number of superior troops of any type. Unhappiness after awhile if no war is started or no combat happens. Also will get 5 % combat bonus for each great general cashed in any city encourages going the great person growth...

The Hive, Maintaining control
Yang should be able to spam units and attack with human waves. He must however build secret projects regularly to keep the spirit and control of the people correctly ( though he builds them at double the speed!), and thus a diminishing power base would be devastating for him. Also, Morgan or Lal at his borders will give more drones in his cities since they see with envy... If the unhappiness due to envy or lacking of national pride get's to high the Drones will start a civil war as the Drones Civ.

Lal
Maybe a religion/theme called human rights that can be spread to the others giving unhappiness where such a civic is not implemented? Double votes is good, but perhaps rather a veto right, giving him the possibility to ruin international cooperation nomatter how small :) Should have a +100% :gp: at least but not be as likely to get scientists or tychoons, but rather doctors and such.

The Believers, Controlled by religion
Miriam has willing control of her population, but she must assert this on the international arena all the time, and no compromise is allowed. When the lord says attack she must attack. Some sort of events that portray the ungodliness of another civ and attack or suffer unhappiness or revolts. Also events of miracles will work the other way. The planet should hate her and target her more often than anyone else, but her followers work very very hard to terraform, all formers work at twice the speed.

The green, caretakers of the planet
Since the snotty little caretaker kid is not in the game, perhaps Gaia should take a more militant role to protect the planet. The mechanism in the game already favor them with stuff if they keep the planet attitude good, but Gaia should have all bonuses doubled (as well as penalties). The GP transcends? that gives plus planet should spawn planet troops now and then with special names and abilities (like FFHs unique barbarians) that berserk the other factions;

By the way, I don't think the religions should be in the game. The factions are to fleshed out to let them go this way or the other without loosing the personality that made SMAC great.

I like that suggestion.. As you know every tech belongs to a research Flavor, it looks like in Planetfall there is a good assortment of: Centauri, Biotech, Culture, Enclosed, Terraform, Military, Physics, Science, Computers, Growth, Naval, Industry, Religion, Espionage with many belonging to more than one flavor. With your SDK knowledge, would you be able to code some flavor-specific research bonuses/penalties into leader traits? I think this could be a straightforward way to add a significant amount of game interest and get around the blandness of straight beaker rates where science=gold. As a starting point, perhaps there's even room for many or most leaders to have one favored research focus (+20%), one minor advantage (+10%), and one area of backwardness (-10%).

It's something I have thought about in the past. In fact IIRC there's already a mod component which allows this. It sounds kinda... easy though. Such research boni are an option to keep it mind, but I'd rather have certain faction boni automatically lead a faction to a tech branch. For instance the Gaians with their +2 Planet in each base. That alone already naturally nudges them towards the Centauri themed techs. Stuff like an actual research bonus or a colony pod cost reduction as suggested in the other thread are in a way redundant - they eventually result in the same effect as +2 Planet.

I thought I remember him having something vaguely similar in SMAC..

He had double votes in council. That certainly sounds something like something that could be used in Planetfall, if it weren't for the fact that I don't really like how the UN/Council works right now. :sad:

Morgan, Economic dependency

I agree his central theme is trade, and that he should try to sign open borders with everybody.
But your dependency sounds complicated and unfun to me.
Morgan and Corporations BtS-style sounds logical of course. However my worry is that BtS corporations are basically another variety of religions. So having the Morganites be the corporation-spreading guys might make them feel too similar to the Believers, who should be the religion-spreading guys.

University, Research dependency

A bigger benefit from Scientists sounds good.
I don't really understand the beaker trade idea though, or how it could work.

Spartans, Keep the best armed forces in the world
Spartans need to have the best armed forces, not the largest, but the best.

I agree. How to reach this effect though?

Unhappiness after awhile if no war is started or no combat happens.

There are too many gamey ways this could be prevented.

Also will get 5 % combat bonus for each great general cashed in any city encourages going the great person growth...

The only way to get great generals is through combat. And great generals already benefit a military strategy. So this would not really make the Spartans more unique than they already are with their current boni.

The Human Hive
-2 unhealth from population in every base
(subtly different from a straight + health; makes large bases more feasible if citizens can be controlled, while a small base surrounded by unhealthy fungus wouldn't be helped at all)
+1 mineral from every Drone (some synergy with the above oppressed masses and Genejack Factories)
-20% :gp: in all cities
+10% research in Growth domain, -10% in Culture domain

for a second I considered suggesting Sprawling trait from FfH, but then I realised I really hate that trait :p

Freeman Domai
+1:mad: per 2 non-Citizen specialists (mistrust of elitism)
+1:) per 4 tiles worked (egalitarian society)
+1:hammers: in squares with 4:hammers: (advanced heavy industry)
+10% research in Industry domain
diplomacy: -1 attitude for each 10% of opponent's total population that are Drones

I'm not sure I understand the beaker trade thing either..? Here are some potential rule twists that could be interesting:
* No Tech Brokering is turned on for all factions, but Zak and/or Roze is exempt from it.
* Roze gets +1 espionage per foreign trade route, or +1 espionage against a player for every Network Node in their empire
* Zakharov gets +10% extra :science: from minerals when building Research.
* Morgan is exempt from the new rule regarding access paths for trade - he can enter trade agreements with anyone he has Open Borders with. Likewise, Open Borders with him does not open up a trade access path to civs on the other side (monopolistic trade practices)

Spartans, Keep the best armed forces in the world
Spartans need to have the best armed forces, not the largest, but the best.
I agree. How to reach this effect though?
Hmm, how to model an edge from superior military training without resorting to a bland + to strength? Maybe it sounds lame but..
all units start with Superior Tactics, +1 first strike chance
It looks like the First Strike mechanic is gone from the game, making access to it one option to model a unique tactical edge without direct change to strength.

It's something I have thought about in the past. In fact IIRC there's already a mod component which allows this. It sounds kinda... easy though. Such research boni are an option to keep it mind, but I'd rather have certain faction boni automatically lead a faction to a tech branch. Gaians with their +2 Planet in each base. That alone already naturally nudges them towards the Centauri themed techs
Well, keep on keepin it in mind ;) A human player might or might not be automatically lead, but modifying the ease of research subsectors would allow a subtle nudge to both players and AIs while allowing deviation from a stereotypic path if circumstances warrant the extra effort.

I agree. How to reach this effect though?

Apart from a special promotion (or extra EXP from certain buildings), eventually something which ensures that Santiago has always the techs around, which give her access to the newest weapons (research flavour for them and I know that there are ways to make such techs a lot more valuable for AIs in diplomacy). And second - if there is a problem at all with the AI upgrading it units - cheaper unit upgrades (or, in case we tweak iMaxTradeGold again, that she keeps more money away from trade for this purpose)

So having the Morganites be the corporation-spreading guys might make them feel too similar to the Believers, who should be the religion-spreading guys.

What if the Morganites spread a number of different corporations, whereas the Believers would only want to spread their one "true" religion? In fact, you could make the Morganites the only ones able to start them, and have all their bonuses related to Corporations. For example, if each of the corporate headquarters provided different effects in addition to, or instead of extra income. To counter this, the Morgans should only get these bonuses for corporate offices in Factions they have open borders with. This would drastically change the game mechanics for the Morganite faction making playing them all about trying to keep things friendly and spreading corporations as much as possible. It might also work best with an Economic victory option like in SMAC.

* Morgan is exempt from the new rule regarding access paths for trade - he can enter trade agreements with anyone he has Open Borders with. Likewise, Open Borders with him does not open up a trade access path to civs on the other side (monopolistic trade practices)This strikes me as a bit overly complicated without a large gain, I have to say.
Hmm, how to model an edge from superior military training without resorting to a bland + to strength? Maybe it sounds lame but..
all units start with Superior Tactics, +1 first strike chance
It looks like the First Strike mechanic is gone from the game, making access to it one option to model a unique tactical edge without direct change to strength.This however, I like - it's straightforward and gives them something unique. And first strikes usually allow the unit to end up with more hp after a combat than usual, so Spartan units - even in the battlefield - would usually be of high "quality" (i.e. not as damaged as you might expect)! I think that's nifty.

Cheers, LT.

The :science: for :gold: trade would have to be coded, either by modding :gold: trade deals so that you can trade :science: as well, or with s slider setting for trading every day. Since I'm not familiar with the code I can not say.

I want the kind of differences that makes for a completely different game if you play another faction, not just a few bonuses and flavor. But like a different mechanics, such as playing the more advanced FFH civs.

Also, I think the struggle of the planet should be very much about other things than just war.

Morgan just spreading cooperations is a good example, and believers being the only ones with a real religion. Hive having to build wonders to keep the population under control, Spartans needing to keep at the military top, Lal needing to spread human rights and enfore civics on others etc...

I will try to think of more suggestion but since I have no idea what is feasible to mod I'm not sure how much of it will be useful...

The Human Hive
for a second I considered suggesting Sprawling trait from FfH, but then I realised I really hate that trait :p

I was planning to give that trait to the Caretakers. :mischief:

* No Tech Brokering is turned on for all factions, but Zak and/or Roze is exempt from it.

That sounds cool if you're playing Zak or Roze. However a problem I see: if I was playing against them, I think I'd never want to trade with those guys then.

* Morgan is exempt from the new rule regarding access paths for trade - he can enter trade agreements with anyone he has Open Borders with.

But that would just turn their trade route advantage into an automatic bonus, and as a consequence not affect their playstyle at all. Needing open borders with everyone to put their trade advantage to maximal use, that actually affects how the Morganites approach the game.

What if the Morganites spread a number of different corporations, whereas the Believers would only want to spread their one "true" religion?

That doesn't change the similarity that with both factins you'd be spending a lot of your playtime moving units to other civs's bases. IMO Boooriiiiiiiiing.

To counter this, the Morgans should only get these bonuses for corporate offices in Factions they have open borders with. This would drastically change the game mechanics for the Morganite faction making playing them all about trying to keep things friendly and spreading corporations as much as possible.

How is the result different from just giving the Morganites a bonus to all their trade routes? That results in the same drive to seek open borders with as many people as possible.

I will try to think of more suggestion but since I have no idea what is feasible to mod I'm not sure how much of it will be useful...

I know I just said you don't need to let your imagination be restricted by what's possible in the XML, but I have no ideas how to translate any of your ideas so far to game code. :-s

That doesn't change the similarity that with both factins you'd be spending a lot of your playtime moving units to other civs's bases. IMO Boooriiiiiiiiing.

How is the result different from just giving the Morganites a bonus to all their trade routes? That results in the same drive to seek open borders with as many people as possible.


The biggest difference I see is that the satellite corporate offices would still provide some benefits to those factions with many resources. The point when playing the Morgans would be to only spread corporations to those factions that wouldn't get much benefit from them. I also think that the negative effects of corporate offices should then be reduced, making the biggest negative effect strengthening the Morganites.
The Morganites would then have a vested interest in controlling as much of the resources as possible reducing the benefits for the other factions. This could change the whole focus of the Morganite game, making their goals all about spreading their corporations and controlling resources. For example, they wouldn't normally want to go to war, but it might be worth it to them to capture some resources. The way I imagine it, the Morganites shouldn't really want a huge empire, but should have a goal of controlling and benefiting from the economies of the other factions. Culminating in an economic victory where they finally take direct public control.
The numbers of corporations and their exact benefits would need to be worked out to make it interesting but still keep it balanced.
For the Angels I think there should also be a similar drastic change in game play, but focused on espionage rather than economics.
This would actually make these factions much more interesting than they were in SMAC.

That doesn't change the similarity that with both factins you'd be spending a lot of your playtime moving units to other civs's bases. IMO Boooriiiiiiiiing.


There is a button you know, so that a unit spread religions/corporations automatically. Just a click...

Also, your comment is almost describing warfare in this game as well :D

That sounds cool if you're playing Zak or Roze. However a problem I see: if I was playing against them, I think I'd never want to trade with those guys then.
That's good, you should want to somewhat think twice before trading data with Roze in particular.. :shifty: The rub is they are also the most likely to have an exclusive on the more advanced techs that you seriously need. Bump up their leaderhead tech trade proclivity, and they might make you an offer you can't refuse :mischief::D


But that would just turn their trade route advantage into an automatic bonus, and as a consequence not affect their playstyle at all. Needing open borders with everyone to put their trade advantage to maximal use, that actually affects how the Morganites approach the game.
No, they would still need to have open borders, but they could get around the geographic limitations to resource trades that others face (so wouldn't need to have a globe-spanning empire), and be able to obstruct others' trade with their territory while maintaining OB with them. Alternatively, maybe they could earn more of an energy tariff from other factions' resource trade that has to pass through their territory.

I'm not sure where to stand on the corporations issue - is the earlier concept of the Data Angels, Free Drones etc as corporations definitely out, & if so what kind of corps do you envision?

I was playing with the idea of a corporation and/or building that requires and consumes one of each DNA resource from the city in exchange for some powerful Affinity Gene resource or effect; or does likewise with all Algae resources. Another idea is a Grand Menagerie type deal where you sacrifice one of every type of captured Native Life to create a unique DNA resource or Wonder. I just have no idea what said miracle effects should be.. :rolleyes: Any ideas?

The biggest difference I see is that the satellite corporate offices would still provide some benefits to those factions with many resources.

Trade routes are also mutually beneficial.

No, they would still need to have open borders, but they could get around the geographic limitations to resource trades that others face

I believe that would make them less interesting to play.

I'm not sure where to stand on the corporations issue - is the earlier concept of the Data Angels, Free Drones etc as corporations definitely out, & if so what kind of corps do you envision?

Angels/Drones as a corporation was never an accepted concept to begin with. I'm not sure what corporations to include, if they should be included at all. Some ideas I had are: the Longevity Vaccine (bonus for DNA resources), Cloudscoop Enterprises (Helium), Xenobrew Inc. (fungal gin, brilliance), Mercenary Guild (boost with chemical elements, allows recruitment of mercenaries with gold), the Pet Project (replaces McDonalds...), the Network Backbone (crystals, alien artifact)

It should be noted: personally I find corporations a useful game concept because they make it useful to have more than of a resource type. Making having more than one of the same resource useful, does not have to happen through a corporation with its missionary mechanism though. A building buildable in all bases which gives the corporation effects also does the trick. As does a national wonder.


Anyway, I've pondered the relationship between Morgan and resources. Given Morgan's background as an African diamond warlord, it does seem within his psychology to place a heavy emphasis on control of raw materials. However if I would just give the faction a bonus for controlling any resource, that would drive them to be a warlike faction. Which is the opposite of their I assume desired gameplay. I ended up with this idea to make Morgan more unique:

Morgan Industries' Headquarters building automatically gives an unspreadable Morgan Industries corporation in the base. The corporation gives mineral and energy benefit for having multiple Crystals, Oil, Silver, Gold, Uranium, Helium, Iridium & Rubidium resources. Basically all the "raw material" resources.

The corporation being unique to Morgan Industries means ICS won't be encouraged, that the faction can be succesful with fewer bases than the other factions. Perhaps a unique Morganic Great Tycoon great person unit could spread the corporation. A rare but cool event.

A second idea: perhaps the Morgan Industries could also provide benefits for the Mineral and Energy bonus resources! As the Morganites are the only faction who could profit from having these resources, the AI should be willing to trade them away for free. As long as Morgan maintains decent relations, he can profit from other factions' resources without having to go to war to get them.

Trade routes are also mutually beneficial.

It should be noted: personally I find corporations a useful game concept because they make it useful to have more than of a resource type. Making having more than one of the same resource useful, does not have to happen through a corporation with its missionary mechanism though. A building buildable in all bases which gives the corporation effects also does the trick. As does a national wonder.

Anyway, I've pondered the relationship between Morgan and resources. Given Morgan's background as an African diamond warlord, it does seem within his psychology to place a heavy emphasis on control of raw materials. However if I would just give the faction a bonus for controlling any resource, that would drive them to be a warlike faction. Which is the opposite of their I assume desired gameplay. I ended up with this idea to make Morgan more unique:

Morgan Industries' Headquarters building automatically gives an unspreadable Morgan Industries corporation in the base. The corporation gives mineral and energy benefit for having multiple Crystals, Oil, Silver, Gold, Uranium, Helium, Iridium & Rubidium resources. Basically all the "raw material" resources.

The corporation being unique to Morgan Industries means ICS won't be encouraged, that the faction can be succesful with fewer bases than the other factions. Perhaps a unique Morganic Great Tycoon great person unit could spread the corporation. A rare but cool event.

A second idea: perhaps the Morgan Industries could also provide benefits for the Mineral and Energy bonus resources! As the Morganites are the only faction who could profit from having these resources, the AI should be willing to trade them away for free. As long as Morgan maintains decent relations, he can profit from other factions' resources without having to go to war to get them.

The reason I like corporations over trade routes is that they can provide different benefits than just trade, and as you mentioned later, they provide benefits for having multiples of resources. I also like needing corporations (rather than buildings) to get the benefits because of the headquarters that provides increasing benefits with the spread of the corporation. This helps keep the Morganites from being warlike (I agree that this faction should be discouraged from making war) by providing a benefit to spreading the corporation to other factions they have OB agreements with. This might be reinforced by making the corporation start up costs in other factions equal to those in Morganite cities.

I think Morgan would be smart enough to see the benefits of all of Planet's resources, not just the physical materials. Except perhaps for the alien resources.

I'm not certain that I feel that the Morganites should be the only ones to start corporations, but I think that they should have one or more that are uniquely theirs, and that compete with all other corporations. This way the Morganites always found at least one corporation (probably with superconducting fiber allowing open borders).
The way I see it, the Morganites are the only faction I see with any sort of corporate culture. Corporations seem very alien to all the others, something that might be permitted but not encouraged. In fact, the Morganites see them selves as a corporation, and so should have ways of working within other factions rather than only interacting with them in nation-like ways (war, trade agreements, etc.).