Do you still get random crashes?

How aggressive is the AI?

:confused: I'm now getting a reproducible crash on loading the mod - while the loading screen is showing "Init Engine", a popup window says "GFC Error: Failed to initialize the primary control theme" and exits to desktop, I've attached the dump file. I'm running WinXP Home Edition, previous versions worked fine for me.

:confused: I'm now getting a reproducible crash on loading the mod - while the loading screen is showing "Init Engine", a popup window says "GFC Error: Failed to initialize the primary control theme" and exits to desktop, I've attached the dump file. I'm running WinXP Home Edition, previous versions worked fine for me.It's due to not loading the theme properly - a quick look into the Civ4.thm (in the folder ...Mods\Planetfall v10\Resource\ ) reveals that the paths in the file refer to "MODS/Planetfall v9/Resource".

Just open the file with a simple text editor and change "v9" to "v10" and you should be able to play the mod without waiting for the next patch.

Cheers, LT.

Patch a (http://www.gamingvault.net/index.php?automodule=downloads&req=idx&cmd=viewdetail&f_id=59).

Wow. Made the same mistake twice in two days...

Patch a.
Wow. Made the same mistake twice in two days...

All better! :thumbsup: Don't worry, frequent mistakes are a good sign of a frequently updated mod :)

i'll give this a whirl later today.

I played about 200 turns last night and two things stood out.

The AI does seem much more aggressive. They seem to be demanding tribute a lot more. In fact I met Lal and Miriam around the same turn. Having built the unity observation bay they both demanded I share my world map with them. Not a chance. Later on they both DoW'd me on the exact same turn.

As of turn 200 the first four religions had been founded and there hasn't been a single passive spread. It wasn't until I signed open border agreement with my neighbor that the first non-founder had a religion. Does religion not spread without an open border agreement? Is that part of the new traderoute rules?

Love the new fungal tower model!

The AI does seem much more aggressive. They seem to be demanding tribute a lot more. In fact I met Lal and Miriam around the same turn. Having built the unity observation bay they both demanded I share my world map with them. Not a chance. Later on they both DoW'd me on the exact same turn.

I have mentioned this to Pfeffersack. Hopefully he'll be able to place this behaviour.

As of turn 200 the first four religions had been founded and there hasn't been a single passive spread. It wasn't until I signed open border agreement with my neighbor that the first non-founder had a religion. Does religion not spread without an open border agreement? Is that part of the new traderoute rules?

An unintended side-effect. Hmm, I assume you preferred the old spread behaviour?

An unintended side-effect. Hmm, I assume you preferred the old spread behaviour?

I'm going to reserve judgment on that. There are some side effects to this. Since opening borders doesn't happen all that early civs seemed to have beelined for founding religions of their own. For the most part the civs that have religions are at odds with each other and there have been some delightful early wars. It is nice to see that not everyone adopts the first religion founded in the game and then gets all buddy buddy.

The free market civic doesn't appear under the Superconductor tech, even though the tooltip says it unlocks free market.

The AI doesn't like trading techs with you. If you don't have any +relations bonuses besides open borders you'll be stuck in "we don't like you enough to trade with you territory". I got friendly enough with lal by switching to democracy for him to trade techs though. Also, the AI will trade their money for your techs. Once I got tech trading unlocked, the AI immediately offered me deals to buy my techs. I personally don't like this. It makes the game feel very empty because there's little interaction going on.

The free market civic doesn't appear under the Superconductor tech, even though the tooltip says it unlocks free market.

You're no doubt playing with the Gaians. The Gaians can't run Free Market. I'll see if it's possible to remove Free Market from that tooltip.

Also, the AI will trade their money for your techs. Once I got tech trading unlocked, the AI immediately offered me deals to buy my techs. I personally don't like this.

I'll try to ensure the AI will neither pay gold or techs to you if they don't like you.

The AI does seem much more aggressive. They seem to be demanding tribute a lot more. In fact I met Lal and Miriam around the same turn. Having built the unity observation bay they both demanded I share my world map with them. Not a chance. Later on they both DoW'd me on the exact same turn.

Did Lal and Miriam really demanded your Worldmap in the same turn? Even if, I'm convinced that it would be pure coincidence, as that never happened to me so far and the parameter is a random per turn chance (of course it is possible that other factors - e.g. compared military power or you suddenly became a juicy target for expansion by gaining the entire map - might influence chances or that they cannot extort you, if there is a nothing to extort). I have made the AI more aggressive which includes higher likelihood of extortion for some leaders.

I choosed values I thought they would fit with personality (and which played out decent in my games), but of course they don't have to be the final wisdom. I just need direction how to tweak things... Just less extortions? From all or certain leaders? Or should you be save from extortions with "cautious or better attitude" instead of "pleased or better"?

For the double war declaration - that sometimes happens in BtS as well and it does not necessarily mean that their is no variance from the parameters. One leader could have bribed the other in the war or you just have become "weaker" after the first DoW in relation to the second declaring faction.
But I think you might have a point her, I supect that the chance for declaring war after a refused tribute has caused this - it is just a one-time dice-roll and both Lal and Miriam have a 50% chance to do so. And you draw the 25% chance of both going to war... Of course this chance could be reduced or set to 0 - this means that a refused tribute will cause a war less often or never. Same for the double-war-phenomen.The question if and to what extend tribute requests should be bluffs or be backed by intentions to go to war (and if, when - though that is a troublesome field, as the parameter does not seem to work at all)

BTS, if you have still any save around of that game, I would be interested - just because you said that AIs are more aggressive. The problem is that I just cannot reproduce that in my games...maybe I can spot a difference this way.


The AI doesn't like trading techs with you. If you don't have any +relations bonuses besides open borders you'll be stuck in "we don't like you enough to trade with you territory". I got friendly enough with lal by switching to democracy for him to trade techs though. Also, the AI will trade their money for your techs. Once I got tech trading unlocked, the AI immediately offered me deals to buy my techs. I personally don't like this. It makes the game feel very empty because there's little
interaction going on.


I'll try to ensure the AI will neither pay gold or techs to you if they don't like you.


Yes, the tresholds are generally upped compared to BtS - no tech trading until pleased relations are reached. It is the same for all leaders (so that no AI brings itself into a disadvantage) - of course from the view of flavour and atmosphere, a "Mansa-like" Morgan and a "Toku-Yang" would fit better... The reason for this chance is to reduce the tech-trade-frequence and to make good relations matter more. BTW, that rules apply inter-AI-wise as well.

For the AIs offering Credits for tech - that was in forever, I haven't changed any direct parameter here, just because there is none ;) What I have done though (and what causes this "new behaviour"), is allowing the AIs to trade more of their cash - before my changes they just had not enough free cash to do such offers. I personally don't see a problem with this - the prices they offer are at best mediocre (at Emperor difficulty at least) and generally, technological progress is seen as more important then a full treasury (so I view it as realistic that AI try to buy tech from you, even if they don't like you...they can still attack you later with their new weapons :devil: )
As said, there is no parameter to limit gold for tech offers to certain tresholds, the AIs will never offer you any tech unless the are at least pleased towards you...and if we further reduce trade (regardless if gold-tech or tech-tech), we would make diplomacy even more empty and have even less interaction, IMO...? I don't claim that my values are perfect -I'm pretty sure things can be improved-, but here I currently don't see in which direction we should head :confused:

I personally don't see a problem with this - the prices they offer are at best mediocre (at Emperor difficulty at least) and generally, technological progress is seen as more important then a full treasury (so I view it as realistic that AI try to buy tech from you, even if they don't like you...they can still attack you later with their new weapons :devil: )

The thing is, in a tech-for-tech trade no one loses anything. In a tech-for-gold trade one side loses gold and the other one gains. It's zero sum. As a consequence a credit is much more valuable than a beaker, and it's actually a bad move to give away credits.

As said, there is no parameter to limit gold for tech offers to certain tresholds

I was thinking there might be something in the SDK.

Not v10 specific, but now I was able to track down the issue and take a save...

I always wondered why my new build bunkers sometimes get out of order immediately (means the bunker improvement is still there, but not the shooting immobile unit on top - like when a working but damaged bunker gets destroyed because e.g. a fungal tower counters your fire) - this seems to happen if you build it outside your faction borders.
I also remember that this happened to me when building it in a blockaded area, but I'm not sure on this (at least not if it was not both blockaded and outside my borders).

My question is if that is intended for:
a) outside-faction territory?
b) blockaded territory?

Below is a save which shows the issue for building outside your borders - the bunker 3 tiles S of U.N. Humanity base gets build and disabled when ending the turn.

I added Bunkers in my pre-SDK days. Back then I could in Python only look at the plot the Bunker was built on, and give a bunker to the owner of the plot. So if the plot is unowned, you never get a bunker.

I had a look again now, and in the SDK I can know who's the owner of the former building the bunker. So I could change the current behaviour.

I'm wondering though... is it a good idea to allow building bunkers in unowned territory. I feel rather inclined to make them only buildable in your territory. What say you?

I added Bunkers in my pre-SDK days. Back then I could in Python only look at the plot the Bunker was built on, and give a bunker to the owner of the plot. So if the plot is unowned, you never get a bunker.

I had a look again now, and in the SDK I can know who's the owner of the former building the bunker. So I could change the current behaviour.

I'm wondering though... is it a good idea to allow building bunkers in unowned territory. I feel rather inclined to make them only buildable in your territory. What say you?

That is ok, but make the site where a bunker has been build part of the owners territory, if that is possible? Then you must attack to destroy bunkers and free that tile...

I added Bunkers in my pre-SDK days. Back then I could in Python only look at the plot the Bunker was built on, and give a bunker to the owner of the plot. So if the plot is unowned, you never get a bunker.

I had a look again now, and in the SDK I can know who's the owner of the former building the bunker. So I could change the current behaviour.

I'm wondering though... is it a good idea to allow building bunkers in unowned territory. I feel rather inclined to make them only buildable in your territory. What say you?

I could live with bunkers being only buildable in your territory - the current implementation is just a bit annoying, because it allows you building a bunker outside, expecting it to work and then getting disappointed. Bunkers on neutral land would be probably to powerful anyway.
Then there is only one case to solve (beside having an eye on what happens with bunkers on your own blockaded territory) - what happens if you lose control over the plot you have build a bunker on? Following the logic about, it would be destroyed - but shouldn't it be a complete destruction then (because the improvement currently stays forever and even hinders you to build a new bunker again, as longer as you don't destroy it seperately)...another possibilty would be that it is captured automatically by the new plot owner, but that might be to powerful as well and would go against the philosophy of making the temporate loss of a base a not-so-big-thing.

1. The Irregular (and probably Wild) promotion isn't working for me. I cannot use an irregular sub to attack without a DoW. It might be working for the AI as I have seen an AI sub with the irregular promotion and a barbarian flag.
2. I know it doesn't benefit from it, but I think the dropship should be given the flying promotion just for consistency. A free special ability for them would be good too, since right now the way to get the best dropships is to make transports (who can have 2 abilities) and then upgrade them.
3. Can a bunker give a point of culture (per turn?) for the tile it's on? Then placing them in neutral territory could still be beneficial and make sense. Especially since bunkers can be used to collect resources.

An unintended side-effect. Hmm, I assume you preferred the old spread behaviour?

As Milaga said, it really changes how the game plays out. Religion spread is now very dependant on OBs, so there is more diversity, leading to different blocks instead of the usual one religon dominating the planet, on the other hand you have less option to adopt certain religion for strategic purposes. Maybe the founder AIs should try to spread there religions more aggressively? Because even with an ongoing OB, the passive spread can take a long time to happen, if at all...
I haven't made my opinion if it is better or worse this way, but it is at least different enough to leave it in for a while for the sake of testing and observing to decide then.

---

Not v10 specific again, but anyway...

In the last couple of games I played, there was at least always one AI which drowned in native live and I somehow managed always to be a neighbour of them. And unless you go planet-hugging (in this case it might be the best what can happen to you - first you can tame the wildlife, then overrun your weak neighbour), it becomes a serious problem for you as well. Signing a OB if possible is a must, because fungus at the other side of the border will constantly try to enter your land. I don't know exactly what's the AIs problem is...but I noticed one strange thing...they don't seem to use their bunkers to barrage native life. Here is a save of my current game...I don't understand why Santiago does not seem to use her bunker N of Commanders Keep vs. the Fungal Tower adjacent to it (just enter turn). Or is the AI to afraid to lose its bunkers vs. the tower? I take that risk always, as bunkers are cheap to replace (at least in terms of minerals compared to units)...and well, they seem to be the only chance vs. native life anyway. Miriam is an even worse example of not being able to cope with native life, but she might be already too deep introuble at that point.

Is there another way to program the stockpile energy limit? As I understand it, if a city will produce more energy through stockpile than your maintenance, then the stockpile button doesn't appear and you need to use a different city. The only problem is, often I want to use a city with more infrastructure to stockpile energy, but I can't because it will produce too much. Would it be possible instead to have it available for every city, but make it just cut off at the limit?

Do you still get random crashes?

How aggressive is the AI?

I've never got crashes with Planetfall. I'm currently at 300+ turns and the AI is mildy aggressive (but I'm at 2nd easiest level, as I want to play through a game without getting swamped by Native life).

Another question though: I really dig the Carrier unit - would it be possible to use this as a space unit for MOO2Civ?:confused: (I don't know the maker, but it looks way cool!)

I've never got crashes with Planetfall.

Thanks for being the first to answer that question. :D

Another question though: I really dig the Carrier unit - would it be possible to use this as a space unit for MOO2Civ?:confused: (I don't know the maker, but it looks way cool!)

I guess so. It's a water unit with part of the model placed under the horizontal 'waterline' axis, but IIRC Final Frontier did something so this wasn't a problem.(?)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=322227

I'm unable to run v10; on trying to load the mod I get (briefly) the BTS load screen, and then a Windows message saying Civ 4: BTS has stopped working (=CTD).

I had no problems running Planetfall v8.

I installed the main v10 file and then the patch b (did I need to try to find both patches a and b and install them both?).
I have tried deleting the files and reinstalling (though not yet tried re-downloading).
I am running Vista (64bit).
I have not updated to BTS 3.19.
Other mods still run fine.

Anyone else get this, or know of a fix?

*edit*
Now looks from the download thread like patch b requires BTS3.19?
I'm leery of installing this as it will presumably break all my other mods....

Yeah, you'll need 3.19 to run patch b.
You could always just install v10, without any patch. The current main v10 upload already has patch a included, so it should work on 3.17 without any problems.

Thanks, will probably try this.

Thanks for being the first to answer that question. :D

Just my 2 cts.;)

I guess so. It's a water unit with part of the model placed under the horizontal 'waterline' axis, but IIRC Final Frontier did something so this wasn't a problem.(?)

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=322227

Thx for the link (I noticed Deliverator's thread, but hadn't checked the OP).

but I noticed one strange thing...they don't seem to use their bunkers to barrage native life.

Fixed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!charlimit

Two observations with v10 Patch b:

- For me the new drop trooper unit appears as red blob on the map.

- Except for Polymorphic Software (enabling Democratic), no tech which enables a civic has a link to this civic in the Datalinks

The drop troopers should be fixed if you redownload and reapply patch b.

The civic bug has been fixed for the next patch.

Ok, some feedback for v10a since I just finished a game.

1. Gravity Lens obsoletes needlejets and keeps promotions when upgrading to them, but new ones don't get any free XP, and can't spend earned XP.
2. Cloudbases don't get free XP. (And I'm guessing they can't spend earned XP)
3. Range ability is available to Drop ships but doesn't seem to have any use. Behemoths as well.
4. Can xenofungus with a Lab on it upgrade to Hybrid Forest? I never saw it happen.
5. "Green Nanonics" tech isn't on the F6 screen?
6. Gravships can't take fuelcells or other movement increasing ability.
7. Dimensional Gate builds double with Dimensional Gate. :)
8. Magtubes can't be built on ridges, but if build a bunker there you'll get a magtube. I don't see a reason to deny ridge magtubes. Surely at that tech level, the building of shouldn't be a big deal. It doesn't seem overpowered to me either, but rather a nice reward for investing in infrastructure.
9. Solar Power Transmitter building -- I couldn't build it, even with Solar Collectors.
10. Does ECM have any purpose yet? If not, maybe it should be disabled until then.

And some ideas.

a. Release to wild -- gift native units (in neutral territory) to barbarians.
b. Sea forts.
c. "No ability" special ability to give the chance to keep down maintenance costs.
d. Superformer special ability.
e. Gravship formers to get those pesky lakes.
f. A way to get 2 specials on more of the later units.

PS. I am seriously loving this mod. I haven't played FfH in a couple weeks! :goodjob:

PPS. I didn't have a single crash while playing v10a.

Thanks for your report. I'll check those issues out.

Some remarks:

6. Gravships can't take fuelcells or other movement increasing ability.

This is working as intended at the moment.

7. Dimensional Gate builds double with Dimensional Gate. :)

There's a Dimensional Gate building and resource. Not sure what I'll do or if I'll do something with the resource though...

8. Magtubes can't be built on ridges, but if build a bunker there you'll get a magtube. I don't see a reason to deny ridge magtubes.

It's for graphical reasons. You can't move from ridges to lowlands (unless there's a bunker on either plot), so it looks confusing to have magtubes running from a ridge to a lowland.

a. Release to wild -- gift native units (in neutral territory) to barbarians.

Why would you want to do that? Also, there's a hidden nationality promotion called "Wild" for native life.

b. Sea forts.

I think I'll let building a Perimeter Defense automatically give a fort in that base. So then you could consider a base itself a fort.

c. "No ability" special ability to give the chance to keep down maintenance costs.

On the to-do list.

d. Superformer special ability.

I don't think adding promotions for former units will add to the fun of the game.

e. Gravship formers to get those pesky lakes.

The AI wouldn't understand such a unit, and I don't feel like writing code just for that. If the lake isn't too far from the coast, you could consider building a Bunker to act as a canal.

A way to get 2 specials on more of the later units.

As you may have noticed with the Gravity Lens & Cloudbase etc, the endgame isn't as developed or polished as the early and midgame. I'll gradually improve on such issues.

PS. I am seriously loving this mod. I haven't played FfH in a couple weeks! :goodjob:

How did you discover Planetfall btw, and what made you decide to try it out? (marketing question ;))

PPS. I didn't have a single crash while playing v10a.

Great! :D

Perhaps instead of No special ability, you could have "clean" units like in SMAC that don't require maintenance?

When I look at the combat preview when I'm about to attack native life, I never see a penalty/bonus as my average planet value says I should get. Either the bonus/penalty doesn't exist, or its just not getting reported in the combat odds.

7. Dimensional Gate builds double with Dimensional Gate. :)
There's a Dimensional Gate building and resource. Not sure what I'll do or if I'll do something with the resource though...


Aw, I never saw that in v10a. Sneaky dimensional gates. :) Maybe rename the resource to Dimensional Vortex or the like.

8. Magtubes can't be built on ridges, but if build a bunker there you'll get a magtube. I don't see a reason to deny ridge magtubes. Surely at that tech level, the building of shouldn't be a big deal. It doesn't seem overpowered to me either, but rather a nice reward for investing in infrastructure.
It's for graphical reasons. You can't move from ridges to lowlands (unless there's a bunker on either plot), so it looks confusing to have magtubes running from a ridge to a lowland.

How about allowing movement from ridge to lowland via magtube?

a. Release to wild -- gift native units (in neutral territory) to barbarians.
Why would you want to do that? Also, there's a hidden nationality promotion called "Wild" for native life.

The Wild and Irregular promotions weren't working for me. I could take them, but I couldn't attack or pillage friends without declaring war.

b. Sea forts.
I think I'll let building a Perimeter Defense automatically give a fort in that base. So then you could consider a base itself a fort.

I was thinking more for border defense. Sealurks and Isles are much more mobile than their land counterparts, and more difficult to defeat.

How did you discover Planetfall btw, and what made you decide to try it out? (marketing question ;))

You posted in the FfH forums and I saw it in your sig.

I like the choppers, any chance they will get a cargo space?

Here is a save from v10b, which shows a seafight between me and Deidre...and it ends with me capturing one of her IoDs. Shouldn't this be only the case vs. "wild" native lifeforms?

I also have had problems with the Irregular promotion (haven't tried the HN promotion for lifeforms yet) not allowing me to attack. I also had the Submerged promotion.

In another instance I received every promotion in the game for my carrier after I killed a sealurk

Perhaps instead of No special ability, you could have "clean" units like in SMAC that don't require maintenance?

That's the plan.

When I look at the combat preview when I'm about to attack native life, I never see a penalty/bonus as my average planet value says I should get. Either the bonus/penalty doesn't exist, or its just not getting reported in the combat odds.

Interface oversight. I'll see what I can do.

I like the choppers, any chance they will get a cargo space?

Nope. The AI doesn't understand land transports.

Here is a save from v10b, which shows a seafight between me and Deidre...and it ends with me capturing one of her IoDs. Shouldn't this be only the case vs. "wild" native lifeforms?

I was wondering when someone would notice. :mischief:

I've been wondering what to do with this. I was thinking to, of course, disallow the capturing of the native life of Planet-friendly faction, but still allow it for the native life of factions with a negative Planet Attitude.

I also have had problems with the Irregular promotion (haven't tried the HN promotion for lifeforms yet) not allowing me to attack. I also had the Submerged promotion.

Some time ago I've changed the hidden nationality rules, so that you can only attack factions you don't have open borders with. I just find it annoying to see AIs who are my best friends attack me with their privateers. So I did it to protect the AI against itself.
I'll change the promotion's help text to explain this.

In another instance I received every promotion in the game for my carrier after I killed a sealurk

I cannot replicate this. If you encounter it again and have a save of shortly before it happened, it would be welcome!

Nope. The AI doesn't understand land transports.


Does that mean they won't use Dropships? I hadn't noticed. If so, that's a huge advantage for the human player.

Dropships are naval units which can move over land. :D

Dropships are naval units which can move over land. :D

Sneaky, they are a cruiser unit hmm. as far as the promotion goes I will see if I have the game.

Dropships are naval units which can move over land. :D

Ah! Of course! Neat :)

I was wondering when someone would notice. :mischief:

I've been wondering what to do with this. I was thinking to, of course, disallow the capturing of the native life of Planet-friendly faction, but still allow it for the native life of factions with a negative Planet Attitude.

If that solution is possible, it would be great. Perhaps your own PA should play a role as well - it must be better then the opponents one and the greater the difference, the higher the capture chance would become.


In another instance I received every promotion in the game for my carrier after I killed a sealurk


I cannot replicate this. If you encounter it again and have a save of shortly before it happened, it would be welcome!

Just a wild guess...but endless promotions were a consequence of the UAC enabled in the "Mars Now"-Mod. I never had problems with killing sealurks so far...a question...how did the "access" exactly happened? Did you get a ton of experience for the fight allowing you to promote or seemed this to be unconnect to unused experience?

That bug influenced a bit more, and was caused through a crash in the CvPath.py, which Planetfall doesn't have (okay, i have only v8 here).
If more Python is involved in this combat, it could be a good point to start.

I am greatly enjoying this mod, it brings back memories of SMAC, which I last played on a slow boat from Helsinki to Tallinn. I have begun a game as Lal and have noticed two things which may be of interest, or may already be known:
1. I get a CTD when I load up Datalinks from the main menu and hover over certain icons, e.g. the tech prerequisite icon for Autarky.
2. There seems to be a very high rate of ship generation from Unity pods. I obtained four ships by popping pods - one at land, three at sea. This makes naval exploration very rapid if you get an early ship. I will add the caveat that I am basing this on a single observation.

Okay so that Carrier promotion bug came up again. I have attached the saved game. use the carrier in the Hive capital to kill the isle of the deep (i think that is the unit, it will attack the proper one anyhow).

Okay, free day today - and instead of working on something graphical, I wanted to play a bit - normal speed, large map. Played my favourite faction, University - and for a change, I wanted to play as Hybrid instead of Terraformer.

And, wow, a hybrid strategy is overwhelmingly easier to play and massively powerful! After some thinking, I think I also know why:


Positive planet value allows me a great, fast landgrab, getting a lot of good land fast.
It's a self-reinforcing strategy - I build new bases, keep them small by churning out colony pods, which I plant near fungus - result: Every base gets me a positive planetvalue due to the fungus (extended by an early Biolab), making this strategy even more efficient. It's a bit like infinite city sprawl back then!
Maintenance doesn't bother me - I benefit massively from planting windmills over other improvements, hence I get lots of energy - the Hybrid civic also keeps maintenance down. Plus, as I don't need to mow down as much xenofungus, my formers are pretty efficient.
Native life doesn't hate me - exploration is easier, getting me more goodies from pods.
Production is... surprisingly high. Small bases (now with VoP) have such a high planetvalue, that I can easily sneak a couple of mines into the fat cross without significant impact on the planetvalue - it's not a top-production, but enough to live with.
As I get lots of energy (and I'm in fact rewarded for that), I get lots of research as well, putting me further ahead, unlocking the new centauri techs *fast*.


The strategy gives you an distinct advantage during the early game, then it slumps a bit, but once you hit the Hybrid civic, it goes faster and faster. As a terraformer, I may have a possible good endgame (boreholes, huge bases and stuff)... but I'll never get there, because native life costs me lots of resources (more than I gain through being a Terraformer) - and once I got enough momentum to do something... the Hybrids have overtaken my already and playing catch-up with them isn't a great strategy!

Essentially, as terraformer, you sacrifice fast early expansion and get disadvantages against natives - but you don't get anything in return - and endgame is not only far away, but the Hybrids also get their bonus for the endgame (huge, cheap, efficient empires).

However, playing the Hybrid strategy, I didn't feel "overpowered", it flowed well and was fun - it was also nice seeing things fitting together (small bases, upping your planetvalue and so forth), so I don't think it needs to be toned down - but Terraformers need something to compensate to reach similar awesomeness. In a way, Terraformers get punishment for following their way, but only regular growth as reward. Hybrids get regular growth (but more energy than production-focussed) and on top of that a chock full of goodies.

As for enclosed biosphere... it feels bland, basically the route you take when you start in a terrible area. It doesn't really has a strategy or a long-term plan, from what I see so far.

EDIT: Reading over it again, I probably sounded far more dramatic than it is - but still, I feel Hybrid is a more powerful strategy because of these points - though the effect is probably a bit exaggerated by the lack of AI war declarations - which frees up more resources for growth - though the Terraformers probably also benefit from that as they can throw more at the planet (poor Miriam in this game, she's getting *pounded*!).

Cheers, LT.

1. I get a CTD when I load up Datalinks from the main menu and hover over certain icons, e.g. the tech prerequisite icon for Autarky.

I'm afraid I don't know what could be your problem. :(

Okay so that Carrier promotion bug came up again. I have attached the saved game. use the carrier in the Hive capital to kill the isle of the deep (i think that is the unit, it will attack the proper one anyhow).

I don't get any new promotions when attacking that IoD.
Could a third person please check what result they get?
Do you have UAC/User Account Control enabled by any chance?

And, wow, a hybrid strategy is overwhelmingly easier to play and massively powerful! After some thinking,

Hmm, it could be interesting for comparison purposes to gather some data how much research and minerals a hybrid and terraform strategy produce on turn 100, 200 & 300.

I'm afraid I don't know what could be your problem. :(



I don't get any new promotions when attacking that IoD.
Could a third person please check what result they get?
Do you have UAC/User Account Control enabled by any chance?



Hmm, it could be interesting for comparison purposes to gather some data how much research and minerals a hybrid and terraform strategy produce on turn 100, 200 & 300.

Yes I do, are there UAC issues specifically regarding Planetfall cos it doesn't affect my other mods (except for blocking creation of the ini file that is).

UAC causes problems with Civ4 in general, not just Planetfall. Eg both FfH2 and Planetfall players have reported the game always crash when they want to simply start the mod if UAc is enabled.

Anyway, there's a simple way to find out. Disable UAC, load your own save, and see what happens.

Would there be any way to allow drop troopers to drop from Drop Ships?

edit: I turned off UAC and still get the same result from the carrier vs. IoD.

...but Terraformers need something to compensate to reach similar awesomeness.I had a little idea - probably not a good one, but I thought I should just put it out, maybe it can serve as inspiration for something.

Give Terraformers the ability to build and use roads. The roads should only work for units controlled by a faction which uses the Terraforming civic and only if the road is not in enemy territory.

Advantages

This would be a huge incentive to go Terraformer (just like the positive planetvalue side-effects for Hybrid)
Fits the theme - mowing down fungus, flattening mounds, hills and so forth to built stuff you want - and the lack of roads marks the Hybrids as well, it would feel "more nature-like".
Compensates for fungal blooms a bit - because they are better at organising their defences and rallying a large force at a point to deal with the blooms/natives.
Reinforces the underlying industry theme and Earth allusions - because roads, highways and so forth are so very important to our live and productivity here.


Disadvantage

What to do with Magtubes - they would require rethinking or restriction to Terraformers.
Benefit may not be big enough? Of course, would require lots of testing.
Changes one of Planetfall's design principles - equal movement for attacking and defending forces - this would also give Terraformers a big defensive edge against the other factions.


Cheers, LT.

How about:
1) Terraformers can move one plot further than others on MagTubes
2) MagTubes can't be built on Xenofungus.

Much easier to implement. :mischief:

I had a little idea - probably not a good one, but I thought I should just put it out, maybe it can serve as inspiration for something.

Give Terraformers the ability to build and use roads. The roads should only work for units controlled by a faction which uses the Terraforming civic and only if the road is not in enemy territory.



I agree, it's a good idea and would help, but I don't feel that it's enough. I think the FC penalty to farm growth should be reduced, or the terraformers still need a greater bonus to farm growth. What could also help is penalizing the Hybrids more. Perhaps Hybrid could have penalties to mines (no bonus production), and Boreholes (no bonus production or energy). I think this would work better than preventing them from building them, as then the player couldn't build them then switch civics to Hybrid. The way I see it, it just doesn't make sense that the Terraformers should be able to get away with using mines and boreholes.

How about:
1) Terraformers can move one plot further than others on MagTubes
2) MagTubes can't be built on Xenofungus.

Much easier to implement. :mischief:

Magtubes come too late for this to matter as much as allowing roads early.

What if terraformers from a Terraformer faction could move one plot further? It would be like the Indian worker.
Oh, I forgot, formers already ignore terrain movement costs IIRC.

Magtubes come too late for this to matter as much as allowing roads early.

Terraforming is a level 4 tech. If the problem is in the early game, then giving extra boni to the Terraforming civic won't help.

Anyway, I just gave Bunkers a 50% combat bonus against Native Life, and let the Perimeter Defense automatically create a Bunker. Let's see what those nasty worms think of that, huh!

edit: I turned off UAC and still get the same result from the carrier vs. IoD.

Hopefully some other people, both with and without Vista, will try it out and see what their result is.

In the meanwhile, a test you can do: go into the worldbuilder, remove the empath song promotion from the carrier, and then attack. Does the carrier still get promotions for free?

Hopefully some other people, both with and without Vista, will try it out and see what their result is.

In the meanwhile, a test you can do: go into the worldbuilder, remove the empath song promotion from the carrier, and then attack. Does the carrier still get promotions for free?

Yes, it still gets the promotions :(

Hopefully some other people, both with and without Vista, will try it out and see what their result is.Just did that - not using Vista here - and nothing happens - but I also found out that the game seems to use "random seed on reload", because sometimes the carrier dies, sometimes not (when I use it as the first unit to attack the stack of natives).

Cheers, LT.

Terraforming is a level 4 tech. If the problem is in the early game, then giving extra boni to the Terraforming civic won't help.


Terraforming happens fairly early in the game if you head straight for it. Magtubes happen a fair amount later then. Also, even if Terraformers got a +1 bonus to magtube speed, that's still slower than a dropship with movement upgrades (that you tend to get before magtubes).
I also feel that Fungal blooms should happen less in the early game, but that's a separate issue.

I'm afraid I don't know what could be your problem. :(
I don't get any new promotions when attacking that IoD.Could a third person please check what result they get? Do you have UAC/User Account Control enabled by any chance?

I loaded the save (Vista, UAC disabled) several times (because of the random seed enabled) and whenever I managed to kill the IoD I runned into the endless promotions - however, you have to end the turn. When you try to promote then regularly in the next turn, the experience stays for ever at 12/10, but you can take all promotions.

I loaded the save (Vista, UAC disabled) several times (because of the random seed enabled) and whenever I managed to kill the IoD I runned into the endless promotions - however, you have to end the turn. When you try to promote then regularly in the next turn, the experience stays for ever at 12/10, but you can take all promotions.D'oh, forgot to end the turn! :blush:

But yeah, same observation here now - on a XP system.

Cheers, LT.

I know we can airlift formers now, but is it really intended to be able to do this from the start? It makes me wonder why I can't airlift anything else without gates, but formers are ok.

I loaded the save (Vista, UAC disabled) several times (because of the random seed enabled) and whenever I managed to kill the IoD I runned into the endless promotions - however, you have to end the turn. When you try to promote then regularly in the next turn, the experience stays for ever at 12/10, but you can take all promotions.

Maybe IoDs are too rare for this to have been noticed before?

Because of the new information that:
1) you have to end the turn, and
2) you don't receive all promotions automatically; rather you can pick them all for free,
I have figured out the cause lies with the special ability code. deadliver, I assume you upgraded that Carrier from a Submarine. The fact that Carriers get no free special ability and Submarines do, caused a problem. I have fixed that, and also given Carriers one free special ability slot.

Because of the new information that:
1) you have to end the turn, and
2) you don't receive all promotions automatically; rather you can pick them all for free,
I have figured out the cause lies with the special ability code. deadliver, I assume you upgraded that Carrier from a Submarine. The fact that Carriers get no free special ability and Submarines do, caused a problem. I have fixed that, and also given Carriers one free special ability slot.

LOL I am just glad you fixed the issue and I could be of help. I did upgrade the carrier from a sub in both instances of getting this bug.

Hi,

I installed the mod today for the first time, and it seems i have a problem nobody else seems to have. Screenshot attached..
I have no text in the whole mod. No menues no introduction text, no technology information or names.


Some information on my system:
running Civ BTS 3.19
Planetfall 10 (Patch c)
German Vista Ultimate 64bit (SP2)

You need to switch your Civ4 language to English.

GermanThat's the problem. Planetfall isn't translated into German (and probably misses a German language tag) and hence it skips the entire language.

You can solve this problem by setting your CivIV's language to English.

(nebenbei: Ich hatte ähnliche Probleme (auch mit anderen Mods)... und spiele CivIV wegen der vielen Mods eigentlich auch nur noch auf Englisch)

Cheers, LT.

Yep .. it worked..
kk running my Civ in english now.. Thanks a lot for the fast help!!

In a game with Patch 10c:

Experienced again a strange situation. I ended my turn in 2265 and in the interturn, there was a native life spawn near my capital (no fungal bloom yet). As an adjacent tile outside of my territory had fungus, no problem so far. The base said that it could further block 8 fungal blooms (btw, it did say 8 as well at the end of 2265 and since the base had 413 culture and +5 p.T., there shouldn't be any increase in the block number as well). Ending another turn, a fungal bloom happened on the same tile crating new native life (a sealurk) - however, the base says still 8 blooms to block. Is such behaviour intended?

Save attached (end once to see native life spreading, another for the bloom), the tile is the one in violet circle:

Explanation: Fungus gets automatically created the turn after a spawning spot is created on a plot.
But I'll make fungal bloom behaviour on sea the same as on land.

Explanation: Fungus gets automatically created the turn after a spawning spot is created on a plot.
But I'll make fungal bloom behaviour on sea the same as on land.

Ok, so there was actually never a fungal bloom to block and therefore the block number for the city stayed at 8? :confused: I didn't know about automatic fungus creation on the spawn tile, but what even confused me more were the two event notifications I got for my capital - in the first turn "native lifeforms detected" and then one turn later "fungal bloom".

The new patch has resolved my earlier CTD problem with Datalinks.

Game with v10 Patch c):

- I don't understand why I can't attack the irregular sub near Morgan Industries in the attached save. I had a look in the older changelogs and I found the rule added in Patch 7e, that you cannot attack an irregular sub if you have an OB with it's owner. I can't tell, not even from the worldbuilder, who it belongs too, but even after cancelling all OBs in that save, I could not attack. I ended the turn - for it may be that the OB-cancellation will take a turn to work - but then the sub is gone, I cannot spot it even in the worldbuilder... :confused:

- Bunkers can accumulate experience when defending, but they cannot acquire any promotions for it.

I'll check out the hidden nationality stuff. Guess how often I've already used that promotion. ;)

I intend to elaborate on bunkers, give them some special ability slots etc, but as so many stuff I don't know when I'll get to it.

I adopted the Consensus civic for the first time and I wonder where the announced benefit for the different religions shows up - I have Edenism as state Religion in that game (though there is only one base which has it actually - it is just to keep Miri close ;) ), so I thought that civic would help with happiness, if I have non-state religions everywhere. However I don't seem to get bonus for them...or is the bonus just the absense of the usual minus? Then the civic info is a bit misleading, IMHO.

The screenshot shows one of my bases where I would expect an extra +2 happiness for having HS and AV:

The notes for patch d) said that it doesn't break savegames - I assume that applies for patch e) as well? Because when I tried to continue my game from patch c) and ended the turn the first times, the interturn took several minutes and I assumed that the some kind of endless loop has occured. I tried to break that with a lot of alt-tabbing and calling up the task-manager, then the game crashed - though I'm not sure if the crash is a result of the loop or of my alt-tabbing. Here is the save, maybe someone else can try if it works with patch e) :confused:

The problem seems related to the Believers, but I don't have any ideas how to pinpoiny it further at the moment.

To clarify:
Did those endless turns start happening right after installing patch d/e?
Did you manage to get through several turns after all after applying patch d/e?

The problem seems related to the Believers, but I don't have any ideas how to pinpoiny it further at the moment.

To clarify:
Did those endless turns start happening right after installing patch d/e?
Did you manage to get through several turns after all after applying patch d/e?

I skipped patch d) for the record, as I read the reports about the city-build-crash under Vista OS and waited for e) and I did a fresh install as usual then - removed PF, installed mainfile v10 again, then e) on it.

The loop happened right after completing my first turn under patch e), so no sucessful turns with that game under the new patch.

A new games runs without any trouble, BTW. I also checked, if the fact that I played the old save with my v10 of the leaderhead.xml, while e) uses the old v3, had an impact, but the loop also happens if I replace it with v10.

It seems my fix for hidden nationality causes problems with patch c saves. So you won't be able to continue that game under patch e. :(

Now I runned with my new game started under patch e) into a loop as well (note: again played with leaderhead.xml v10) :(

Third time's a charm? :scared:

Patch f released.

Third time's a charm? :scared:

Patch f released.

Can continue both saves with Patch f) :goodjob:

Can continue both saves with Patch f) :goodjob:

You know, if its related to a left-over issue in patch d or something that means it can happen again in this latest patch. :scared:

1. I wonder if the Planetmind promotion can have an impact on the game at all in its current form - leaving the incompetent AI not knowing about FC stuff and eventual balance issues aside, is it technically possible to get an FC of 100? In my understanding this would mean that every tile which can have fungus on the map has fungus - that's very unlikely at best, but what happens with city tiles? They obviously can never become fungus tiles or do they just not count for the needed 100%?
Perhaps there should be a gradual bonus from FC=50 on or a smaller bonus when 60 or 75 is reached...I know, it isn't a clear and atmospherical as 100, but if it can't be reached...?

2. I experienced a weird graphical issue with the fungicide ressource - it is on a tile near the coast and the adjacent water tile has seafungus on it...and the fungicide plants seem to grow into the water (see picture)

3. Patch c) adds a rule that an Bunker from a Perimeter Defense gets automatically destroyed if the PD is lost, but I experienced at situation where this wasn't the case - load the following save and blow up Lal's PD in U.N. Haven City with the spy...the Bunker is still there, right after the mission and in the next turn as well.

Had a bit more time to play Planetfall again with the latest patch and it plays pretty well, so far.

My earlier issues with the Terraformer/Hybrid-choices are somewhat remedied, since the AI declares war more often, not going Hybrid is more viable - the raw concentrated production in singular big cities is more powerful during war times. The Hybrid city sprawl is still good and powerful - but you clash more often with other people - and you have to prepare way earlier for wars as you don't have a single base that just pumps out units.

I still see Miriam (as AI) getting whacked, so a hardcore Terraform ecology seems not to work out that well for the AI, but one where you are a bit careful with your planet attitude works nicely - as I do now with Morgan (sort of a playstyle hovering between Enclosed and Terraform - of course, having the Manifold Nexus helps with that rather precarious balance - but that's fun!).

The general feel of the early to mid-game is pretty nice - I have the feeling that it breaks down a bit after getting to tech tier 5-6 or so, somewhere there seems to be a shift where it feels less polished, but I can't put my finger on the exact cause, so far (but it feels like something between the units and the expansion rates - somehow it doesn't flow as well as the stuff up to tech tier 4-5 or so).

It's by no means bad, just not quite as polished as the early game. Of course, this may also be due to the fact that the AI isn't grasping every concept (like seabases).

Finally, I noticed that the AI has quite a bit of reluctance to trade techs, way higher than in standard BTS (or does it just appear like that?). While I think it fits - especially for leaders like Miriam, Yang, Dierdre and Santiago - I think Zak should be a more of a tech trader with his "free information"-view (plus it's basically his "currency" and almost always helps him as he unlocks higher techs, which he'll still research faster), similarly a bit more for Lal. Morgan - can't say, as I'm playing the hell out of them now - for a change.

In any case: Thanks for putting all the work into the mod!

Cheers, LT.

1. I wonder if the Planetmind promotion can have an impact on the game at all in its current form

The Flowering Countes does not need to be 100% for this promotion to have an effect.
On the FC in general, hybrid forests and centauri preserves provide a bigger increase to the FC than fungus. But anyway, until I can get the AI to follow a hybrid strategy too, I feel there's no point yet in trying to balance the flowering counter effects certain stuff gives.

2. I experienced a weird graphical issue with the fungicide ressource

Yeah I'm aware. Those are just some random graphics I linked the resource to, because nothing fitting is available. (Nor do I have an idea myself what would look fitting for that resource...)

3. Patch c) adds a rule that an Bunker from a Perimeter Defense gets automatically destroyed if the PD is lost

It's the other way around: if the Bunker gets destroyed, the Perimeter Defense is too. Not sure it's worth spending the time coding the rare cases where the opposite happens. :dizzy:

The general feel of the early to mid-game is pretty nice - I have the feeling that it breaks down a bit after getting to tech tier 5-6 or so, somewhere there seems to be a shift where it feels less polished, but I can't put my finger on the exact cause, so far (but it feels like something between the units and the expansion rates - somehow it doesn't flow as well as the stuff up to tech tier 4-5 or so).

Yeah, the endgame is definitely less polished. Some reasons I can think of:
1) Most of the cool stuff is researched in the first half of the tree. It's hard to not fall into repetition the longer the tech tree gets.
2) The early game is always more challenging than the late game in any civ game, because by then you've built yourself a well-oiled empire which can withstand whatever challenge is thrown at it.
3) AI does not yet understand certain concepts.

Let's hope improved AI (including Hybrid<->Terraformer wars and Progenitor interference) will keep the game interesting and challenging longer.

Finally, I noticed that the AI has quite a bit of reluctance to trade techs, way higher than in standard BTS (or does it just appear like that?).

Were you able to trade with no one, or only with a couple factions?

While I think it fits - especially for leaders like Miriam, Yang, Dierdre and Santiago - I think Zak should be a more of a tech trader with his "free information"-view

I agree. Besides Zak being more willing to trade with other factions, I think the AIs should also be more willing to trade tech with Zak. That would require an SDK change though, and I've got no idea yet where in the SDK I could change this. ;)

Let's hope improved AI (including Hybrid<->Terraformer wars and Progenitor interference) will keep the game interesting and challenging longer.
Yeah, I also get the feeling that a bit of a problem is the development of units. In standard civ, you start out with a small choice and it broadens over the course of the game. In Planetfall, it broadens out a little more quickly, but then "folds" together again - in Civ, you start with galleys, at the end you have stealth destroyers, subs, carriers, missile destroyers.

In Planetfall, the carrier is all you really want (okay, it's more expensive than the cruiser... but it's still strange) - would be nice to have that variety, forcing you to have a well-balanced mix of foils, cruisers and carriers. On land, the infantry variety also goes down, because the Gravebringer is so good (before, you have helions, marines, drop troopers, cyborgs - then you only have mobile infantry and gravebringers).

It seems to exacerbate the endgame problem - because you not only get less new toys, it feels like you lose your toys (not to mention that the midgame units are just cooler - Plasmathrowers are more interesting than that gravebringer any day) - and all mobile land units are a single path (rover->(chopper->)hovertank->gravship) as well.

It would be nice to have more distinguished unit paths and roles for them. Also, due to the rather small spread of unit strengths, getting better units doesn't feel like a big accomplishment. I don't want to see the big spread of Civ (3 - 30+, which fits the "history of mankind thing" - whereas Planetfall fall has a rather tight spread that fits the progress over a small time scale of several hundred years), but slightly more distinct differences would also help to make it feel a bit better.
Were you able to trade with no one, or only with a couple factions?Only with a single faction - University (IIRC) - with which I had the best relations. It is just strange to see other leaders that are cautious to pleased to you having a stack of techs - and you have a stack of techs (and I had better ones) - and no trading is going on - they only want to buy my techs with energy.

Cheers, LT.

The Flowering Countes does not need to be 100% for this promotion to have an effect.

:confused: Eh, that promotion has another effect beside +50% at FC=100? +1% for each 2 points on the FC or can the FC go beyond 100 (so 100% isn't 100, like it is in FFH with the AC) ?


On the FC in general, hybrid forests and centauri preserves provide a bigger increase to the FC than fungus.

Ok, so with CP and HF the fungus counter can reach 100 or go far beyond that without covering the entire map?


It's the other way around: if the Bunker gets destroyed, the Perimeter Defense is too. Not sure it's worth spending the time coding the rare cases where the opposite happens. :dizzy:

I would make the espionage operation I used more effective, so it is also the question if we want that.


Only with a single faction - University (IIRC) - with which I had the best relations. It is just strange to see other leaders that are cautious to pleased to you having a stack of techs - and you have a stack of techs (and I had better ones) - and no trading is going on - they only want to buy my techs with energy.

The current treshold is "pleased" for everyone to trade techs - however, reaching please does not always require excatly the same amount of "green points", because there are some hidden factor at work, which increase or decrease this amount (e.g. boni for liking peace in general or for better/worse rank things - though their impact is smaler then in standard BTS, I believe)
Enabling tech trade at cautious makes it very common and there is no in between setting - maybe except "cautious" with very restricted settings in regrad to monopoly techs or a limit on total traded techs in a game - the question is if we want that. other more sophisticated solutions would require SDK coding as Maniac said.

On land, the infantry variety also goes down, because the Gravebringer is so good (before, you have helions, marines, drop troopers, cyborgs - then you only have mobile infantry and gravebringers).

I was planning a while back to just remove the Gravebringer and use its graphics for the Mobile Infantry. Shall I proceed with that?

In Planetfall, the carrier is all you really want (okay, it's more expensive than the cruiser... but it's still strange) - would be nice to have that variety, forcing you to have a well-balanced mix of foils, cruisers and carriers.

What would those extra units do though, keeping in mind they can already be specialized with special abilities?

Also, due to the rather small spread of unit strengths, getting better units doesn't feel like a big accomplishment. I don't want to see the big spread of Civ (3 - 30+, which fits the "history of mankind thing" - whereas Planetfall fall has a rather tight spread that fits the progress over a small time scale of several hundred years), but slightly more distinct differences would also help to make it feel a bit better.

That's a difficult issue. In vanilla Civ4 being a unit level behind is very dangerous. It pushes you in a constant rat race to keep up with your opponents. That is fun, however I think this only works with a narrow tech tree with few choices, where you can quickly research the needed military tech to get equal again with your opponent.

Planetfall's tech tree is broader. This allows a greater variety of game strategies. If I were to increase the strength difference between two unit levels, I'd need to include a whole bunch of extra units in all tech themes, so that you don't need to switch your entire research focus when an opponent gets a better unit. Else everyone would flock to either mind worms (to get out of the rat race), or to those few techs that grant the military units (which would remove the greater research variety the tech tree now has).

Only with a single faction - University (IIRC) - with which I had the best relations. It is just strange to see other leaders that are cautious to pleased to you having a stack of techs - and you have a stack of techs (and I had better ones) - and no trading is going on - they only want to buy my techs with energy.

Are you sure that faction who were Pleased with you also didn't want to trade tech with you?
I don't want factions to buy tech from you if they don't want to trade you tech either, but that would require an SDK change. And I have no idea yet where to do that.

+1% for each 2 points on the FC

this

Ok, so with CP and HF the fungus counter can reach 100 or go far beyond that without covering the entire map?

Yes. Later on I could also do stuff like 'every Transcend great person born increases the FC', or a Mark of the Prophecy or whatever it's called promotion effect like in FfH, which increases the Flowering Counter. But before the AI can join in the flowering counter game, there's no point in including that yet I feel.

I was planning a while back to just remove the Gravebringer and use its graphics for the Mobile Infantry. Shall I proceed with that?Yes, please! I think that would help a lot.
What would those extra units do though, keeping in mind they can already be specialized with special abilities?Mainly because the special abilities are pretty encompassing - but not universal. In my opinion, they rather "round out" units - you pick them to either reduce certain weaknesses or increase their effectiveness in their specialisation - both are valid choices. It's nice to have choices like: Do I build cruisers and trick out their air-defenses or do I rather throw in some air-defense foils (let's say they have an in-built bonus against air) and improve the cruiser's defence against other ships? Or do I improve the speed of my infantry or do I combine them with other fast units and specialise their strength against native life?
That's a difficult issue. In vanilla Civ4 being a unit level behind is very dangerous. It pushes you in a constant rat race to keep up with your opponents. That is fun, however I think this only works with a narrow tech tree with few choices, where you can quickly research the needed military tech to get equal again with your opponent.I see where you're coming from and can agree with that, just a little more extra spread would help I think - especially if good special abilities are on techs that don't enable new units (perhaps even less military techs). That way a new base unit isn't quite as good and gives the other research paths viability (even in the military race). Also, this makes experienced units more valuable (something that doesn't work in Civ, because of the far too big spread) - it's just what might be enough to close the gap! So, for example, university has better tech, so they have plasmathrowers - but the spartans and their experienced troops can still win and have good chances, because their experienced units compensate for the tech lead. And upgrading units kills experience - hence it's not always a no-brainer choice, allowing you to either try to tech-race or to keep your units top-of-the line experience-wise, both would be viable strategies.

I mean, there is already a big example of what feels "good" in Planetfall:

The Flamethrower->Plasmathrower->Helion line as native/infantry killers with the InVitro->Cyborg line as no-war weariness line and the marine/droptrooper->mobile infantry line as mobility line. These three paths have a nice spread in strength that you get the feel that you get better units (but not overwhelmingly so, with right strategy even older units can stop better ones, also that might be why I dislike the gravebringer, because it sort of breaks down the whole infantry line thing for me - and make the tech for it a must-have; with several lines, you are more likely to have at lease one line pretty advanced, meaning you are still good in the strength race).

Also, with these infantry lines, you could also make the argument that you could roll them into a single line, differentiated by special abilities - but I think having them split as now and having special abilities to customise them more works pretty well.
Are you sure that faction who were Pleased with you also didn't want to trade tech with you?I'll double-check later, perhaps there are other things as well.

EDIT: Ah, now I see what Pfeffersack meant: Lal at Pleased does trade now, so it was probably more of a situation-specific thing in my current game. I also think it's because in the vanilla game, it's easier to arrive at pleased as there are more civs - Planetfall has only six factions as possible trade partners and has more tensions between them, making it more difficult to trade (as you don't get them to pleased that often) in comparison to the standard game - I need to break out of these impressions a bit.

Cheers, LT.

Yes, please! I think that would help a lot.
Mainly because the special abilities are pretty encompassing - but not universal. In my opinion, they rather "round out" units - you pick them to either reduce certain weaknesses or increase their effectiveness in their specialisation - both are valid choices. It's nice to have choices like: Do I build cruisers and trick out their air-defenses or do I rather throw in some air-defense foils (let's say they have an in-built bonus against air) and improve the cruiser's defence against other ships?

Several different ship lines, similar to infantry, sounds interesting to me, however there are two issues:

1) I have no idea what the inherent boni for these ship types could be.
But more importantly:
2) I have no idea on what techs I could place different ship lines. Currently they're all on the Industry and Naval tech themes, which occasionally mix with each other. For different ship lines to be interesting, they should also be enabled by different tech lines. Otherwise you'll always have the most powerful of all ship lines anyway, and you might as well just have one ship type after all.

Also, this makes experienced units more valuable

I don't understand. :confused: You suggest to increase the difference in strength between unit upgrades. That would reduce the effect of XP, no?

I don't understand. :confused: You suggest to increase the difference in strength between unit upgrades. That would reduce the effect of XP, no?Compared to vanilla BtS. And upgrading caps the XP at 10, all XP above is lost, meaning an experienced older unit could still win combats (favourably) with a fresh high-tech unit or a unit that was upgraded very often (and hence lost its XP and never got the higher promos).

Compared to Planetfall now... well, yes, the impact of promos would decrease. But as you're contemplating folding promotions into one single line, which would make them better again... or one could also increase the effect of promotions a bit. Not sure, I have to admit (don't forget, these are more or less ideas as reaction to what my gut feelings are, not finely crafted "can-use-it-now" suggestions).

About the ships: I have some ideas... I'll take a look at the tech tree and try to make a little chart or so with some ideas, if I have time. Perhaps you can use the product for something. :)

EDIT: Now, as I started to look over some units... I have the feeling - after reading this old thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=286964) that the current unit design is still a bit of a work in progress - is my impression right?

Cheers, LT.

EDIT: Now, as I started to look over some units... I have the feeling - after reading this old thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=286964) that the current unit design is still a bit of a work in progress - is my impression right?

Cheers, LT.

I especially miss the Battle Ogres. They were just cool, though their no-repair-penalty was a bit too harsh IMO. They could spice up pod results a bit in Planetfall (BTW, I think another reason why it feels that their is less variance in sea pod outcomes, is the fact that PF compared to SMAC/X does not reward it especially to use a ship with transport capacity - in the original that was compulsory to allow Alien Artifact finds and you could end up with finding e.g. a Rover as well. In PF such founds seem to be impossible on sea, regardless what ship you use...or was I just especially unlucky in the past?); a repair penalty should be still attached (-75% for example), maybe somewhat reduced if you have access to an alien artifact...?

Bringing them as a late game unit would be ok as well (but then the slowed repair wouldn't make sense - shouldn't you be able to repair what you have built?)...though I prefer the pod variant...just makes them more unique and special.

About the ships: I have some ideas... I'll take a look at the tech tree and try to make a little chart or so with some ideas, if I have time. Perhaps you can use the product for something. :)

Thanks!
Btw, there's a third issue with adding new ship types: graphics! While I feel modern submarine graphics can also fit fot futuristic subs (you can't go wrong with eg one of The_Coyote's black-coloured subs), I don't know of any fitting Cruiser graphics besides the ones already used.

EDIT: Now, as I started to look over some units... I have the feeling - after reading this old thread (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=286964) that the current unit design is still a bit of a work in progress - is my impression right?

Nothing is set in stone of course. When I see the need for something, I add it.
For instance I felt the Genetics theme could use some extra military benefits, so I added the InVitro unit. Also I felt the game could use some extra ways to combat offshore indingenous lifeforms events, so for the next patch I gave the Chopper the ability to fight inside your territorial waters. Plus I added a Chopper upgrade, the Rotor, at Kinematics.
Notes: 1. I should move some of the Kinematics goodies to other techs.2. I should rethink what makes Hovertanks special compared to Choppers.

(BTW, I think another reason why it feels that their is less variance in sea pod outcomes, is the fact that PF compared to SMAC/X does not reward it especially to use a ship with transport capacity - in the original that was compulsory to allow Alien Artifact finds and you could end up with finding e.g. a Rover as well.

The AI wouldn't understand this I think.
I could add a naval version of the material supplies (supply trawler - though the AI will just move that home by itself and let it get eaten by IoDs...)

Also I felt the game could use some extra ways to combat offshore indingenous lifeforms events, so for the next patch I gave the Chopper the ability to fight inside your territorial waters. Plus I added a Chopper upgrade, the Rotor, at Kinematics.Oh, that's actually pretty cool, because I also thought the chopper could need an upgrade.

In my opinion, you could keep choppers and hovertanks distinct, making the upgrade lines like this:

Chopper->Rotor->Gravship
=> make the distinguishing feature of this line to be able to move on impassable terrain and to fight off-shore in territorial waters. Then add for the gravship some extra, like the March promotion. That would make the line a line of mobile and relatively independent patrol units.

Recon Rover->"Assault Rover" (needs better name!)->Hovertank
=> make the distinguishing feature of this line a withdrawal chance and perhaps something like the flanking effect, making this line sort of the "cavalry" in Civ: fast attackers. Then the hovertank gains the ability to have flat movement cost - but not the ability to enter impassable terrain, see it as sort of "ground hovering", only a couple of meters high (I think it actually looks like that in the SMAC pictures as well).

Together with the treaded units, this would give three pretty distinct lines of land vehicles (terrain ignorers/fast withdrawers/heavy armour) - that should be more than enough.

(Note: these are just some thoughts I was musing about, lacks a lot of elaboration, I want to take a look at the navals first - and their strengths etc.)

Cheers, LT.

Some future units art by deliverator
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/eefuture1_I52.jpg

http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads/eefuture2_010.jpg

Also instead of Rotor, how about Gyrodyne?

Thanks!
Btw, there's a third issue with adding new ship types: graphics! While I feel modern submarine graphics can also fit fot futuristic subs (you can't go wrong with eg one of The_Coyote's black-coloured subs), I don't know of any fitting Cruiser graphics besides the ones already used.

Perhaps not exactly a cruiser, but did you know of the Skjold (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9808) class model? Also, here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11623) is a modern-looking frigate, but it definitely needs to be retextured. And Xenomorph made teamcolored subs here.

Thanks!
Btw, there's a third issue with adding new ship types: graphics! While I feel modern submarine graphics can also fit fot futuristic subs (you can't go wrong with eg one of The_Coyote's black-coloured subs), I don't know of any fitting Cruiser graphics besides the ones already used.I've attached an excel file with what I gathered - where you could expand a bit - it's mainly keeping foils around instead of ditching them for subs, but also other tweaks. Make sure to read the notes, there are quite a lot of them to explain the "why".

For the graphics: The big cruiser "Leviathan"-thing from the EE2 units is pretty cool. I think you're using it for a promo-graphic of transport ships right now, but I think you could give promoted transport ships some other graphics, as the leviathan has a couple of turrets on it and looks pretty much like a big military unit (though to reinforce that cruiser-theme, I could re-skin it to make it look more metallic like the current cruiser).

Cheers, LT.

Posting this (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8256115&postcount=100) to make sure this former post won't get unread...

Perhaps not exactly a cruiser, but did you know of the Skjold (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=9808) class model? Also, here (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=11623) is a modern-looking frigate, but it definitely needs to be retextured. And Xenomorph made teamcolored subs here.

Those textures look horrible. :mischief: Can't really comment on the models - often I feel a model is poor, but then when it gets another texture it suddenly looks awesome.
The download page for the Skjold says there's only a shader version btw.

I've attached an excel file with what I gathered - where you could expand a bit - it's mainly keeping foils around instead of ditching them for subs, but also other tweaks. Make sure to read the notes, there are quite a lot of them to explain the "why".

Some thoughts:

Cruiser-Carrier-Leviathan are on the same tech line. For this I refer back to my comment I don't see the point in creating two ship lines which are enabled by the same tech theme. However I have an idea. Or rather I remember one of my previous intentions. More powerful submarines could be enabled by the Space and Enclosed Biosphere themed techs. I don't know if this makes any sense , but I figured the materials developed for the space industry, and the recycling technology with enclosed biosphere themed techs, would allow submarines to operate at higher pressure and deeper waters, and allow them to stay underwater longer without the need to rise to the surface or return to port for resupply. This could aid their combat usefulness.

Regarding foils, do this really make any sense in combat situations? :confused: I figured those are useful as cheap craft for exploration, but could foils function in combat?
A cheap craft enabled by Biofuel certainly makes sense though. What's the reason for Ecological Engineering enabling a ship though? And what's behind the name Dronefoil? Does the foil launch drones (ie, unmanned autonomous air vehicles I assume), or is the foil itself an unmanned ship?

Also keep in mind that Choppers and especially Gravships should be considered part of the naval combat model.

For the graphics: The big cruiser "Leviathan"-thing from the EE2 units is pretty cool. I think you're using it for a promo-graphic of transport ships right now, but I think you could give promoted transport ships some other graphics, as the leviathan has a couple of turrets on it and looks pretty much like a big military unit (though to reinforce that cruiser-theme, I could re-skin it to make it look more metallic like the current cruiser).

I think the WW2 transport for the transport cruiser looks rather lame in Planetfall's context. I was rather thinking to use the Leviathan graphic as the standard transport cruiser graphic. :blush:

Cruiser-Carrier-Leviathan are on the same tech line. For this I refer back to my comment I don't see the point in creating two ship lines which are enabled by the same tech theme.I didn't want to touch the tech tree too much. For me, the ideal tech for the carrier would've been Silksteel Alloys, which is a different line (more the industrial than the physics/power line) - but then you could get carriers without getting subs first, if you don't get to silksteel via kinematics (and that whole line fits subs rather well, as it already deals with "deep sea tech") - so one would need to make kinematics->silksteel mandatory to avoid skipping subs - but as I've said, I didn't want to mess around with the tech tree. And it would mess up the rather neat idea of launching aircrafts with mass drivers.
Regarding foils, do this really make any sense in combat situations? :confused: I figured those are useful as cheap craft for exploration, but could foils function in combat?Do you mean flavour- or game mechanics-wise? Game mechanics-wise, I laid out my case in the excel file, I think. Flavour-wise, I think units are representations of several actual vessels, so the foils are comprised out of several crafts that make hit-and-run attacks, using their smaller size to outmanoeuvre bigger, more sluggish vessels like the cruiser (hence the withdrawal chance as well - many small ships mean that even a failed attack allows you to escape with some of them).
...or is the foil itself an unmanned ship?This was the original idea - I wanted to tie it to the mind-machine/AI techs, but they are not really connected to the other naval techs - plus I saw the niche at biofuel (and the idea of a terraformer-line for navals) and made this just a follow-up, carrying over the name from the original plan.
Also keep in mind that Choppers and especially Gravships should be considered part of the naval combat model.Yes, that mainly came in with the latest patch (for choppers, at least), so I really haven't considered that. :sad:

Well, I hope the document at least gave you some raw material/ideas/inspiration you can work with or expand upon! :)

Cheers, LT.

Hi,

I just installed planetfall-v10 and patch"f" in addition to civ4-BTS v3.19. When I start the game it loads succesfully but in main menu i dont see any menu options. It seems to me like all the fonts are somehow "invisible".

I managed to start a game by clicking on 1st option and lower right corner all the time, though i couldnt read anything there.

In the game there are also most fonts invisible to me. I m really dissapointed because this mod looked so great and now i cant play..

Anyone ever had this problem or knows a solution?


Main menu:
http://img262.imageshack.us/img262/435/mainmenud.th.jpg (http://img262.imageshack.us/i/mainmenud.jpg/)


Ingame:
http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/1220/ingameq.th.jpg (http://img136.imageshack.us/i/ingameq.jpg/)

Do you play on another language setting then English? That could be the cause...

Yes. Switch your language to English. Or translate the Planetfall text to your language. ;)

I understand the intention of the "Light" promotion in the way that you trade the possibility to specialize a unit for halved maintenance - however, in the case of having two special abiliy slots available, you can get away with sacrifing one of them, if you pick first a special ability and then "Light" (instead of choosing "Light" first)

This is it!

I played on german language setting & after changing to english everything worked great.

About the translation: where are the strings of the main menu stored?

I looked in all files in planetfall's xml folder but couldnt find them..

Maybe they are in PAK0.FPK?

I'll keep looking but for now: THANKS FOR THE HELP!

This is it!

I played on german language setting & after changing to english everything worked great.

About the translation: where are the strings of the main menu stored?

I looked in all files in planetfall's xml folder but couldnt find them..

Maybe they are in PAK0.FPK?

I'll keep looking but for now: THANKS FOR THE HELP!

The .fpk stores only graphic files.
Since no translations were made, you won't find those files in the mod, you must look for them in the main BtS assets/xml/text folder.
But I hope you realize it will be a tremendous job of doing a translation by yourself. :scared:

About the translation: where are the strings of the main menu stored? Doesn't matter - if even a single German XML-tag in the [i]entire set of xmls[/url] is missing, all German texts are missing. You would need to go through all XMLs in the Text-folder an make sure that each entry with an English-tag would also have the corresponding German-tag (and that's why *every* text is missing).

If you, however, do that, you could start with a German translation for Planetfall - I'd love to see that!

Cheers, LT.

Bunkers don't seem to be able to upgrade. Am I doing something wrong?

I understand the intention of the "Light" promotion in the way that you trade the possibility to specialize a unit for halved maintenance - however, in the case of having two special abiliy slots available, you can get away with sacrifing one of them, if you pick first a special ability and then "Light" (instead of choosing "Light" first)

The Light special ability doesn't really have any deep intention. I just added that because people requested the option not to pick any special abilities. So if people want to throw away a special ability slot, that's their choice. ;)

Bunkers don't seem to be able to upgrade. Am I doing something wrong?

No. I had to change some code for that. Done for the next patch.

The Light special ability doesn't really have any deep intention. I just added that because people requested the option not to pick any special abilities. So if people want to throw away a special ability slot, that's their choice. ;)

Now that you say I remember ;) Nonetheless, I would prefer for the sake of consistency that the order of choosing has no impact here (= choosing "Light" as 2nd would remove any special ability learned before)

Don't special abilities increase the maintenance cost? That's the reason for the need to have a "no special ability" choice.

Is it just me, or is enclosed biosphere civic really weak? It only boosts low-yield tiles that you shouldn't be working anyway.

And water-based improvements are pretty useless, because as soon as you get a fungal bloom the isles of the deep come in and pillage all your stuff in 2-3 turns.

Is it just me, or is enclosed biosphere civic really weak? It only boosts low-yield tiles that you shouldn't be working anyway.

Well, if most of your bases are in a low-yield area of the map...

And water-based improvements are pretty useless, because as soon as you get a fungal bloom the isles of the deep come in and pillage all your stuff in 2-3 turns.

Then you need to think about a naval strategy for defending your territorial waters.

Well, if most of your bases are in a low-yield area of the map...

All it does is have a worked tile able to support its own population. What does that achieve? There is no point in having another population point if all it does is work a 2-food tile.


Then you need to think about a naval strategy for defending your territorial waters

But having a navy doesn't even prevent the pillaging; a bunch of isles come in from outside and pillage, and then all you can do is kill them afterwards, but you've already lost the improvements.

All it does is have a worked tile able to support its own population. What does that achieve? There is no point in having another population point if all it does is work a 2-food tile.

Since the civic doesn't boost plots with a bigger natural nutrients yield the same is true for a faction that doesn't run the civic and has bases in more friendly terrain.

But having a navy doesn't even prevent the pillaging; a bunch of isles come in from outside and pillage, and then all you can do is kill them afterwards, but you've already lost the improvements.

It is more likely to prevent an initial pillaging if that same navy is guarding the plots themself. It won't stop it completely, but with a big enough navy not all your improvements will be pillaged at the first run.

All it does is have a worked tile able to support its own population. What does that achieve? There is no point in having another population point if all it does is work a 2-food tile.Plots with a low nutrient yield are likely to have other yields. That way, you get a bit of extra production or energy. Furthermore, greenhouses get bonus yield later in the tech tree, so with them you can actually use enclosed to produce positive food (i.e. 3+) later on. And unlike Hybrid/Terraform, it doesn't demand the pro-/contra-Planet choice, which can be a diplomatic boon (though I agree that the enclosed route is a bit bland, as I've noted earlier).
It is more likely to prevent an initial pillaging if that same navy is guarding the plots themself. It won't stop it completely, but with a big enough navy not all your improvements will be pillaged at the first run.My problem with navy is (that's why I pitched some ideas to Maniac earlier) is that native life is brutal on the seas (way more than on land) - since Psi combat on seas is 3-3, it means that you only win half the battles. And native life likes to come in stacks and to stay on fungus - if you attack, you get wrecked, if you defend, you get swarmed. And ships are a little more expensive than land units, making ship spam infeasible - and there's no terrain you can really use as defensive terrain (trenches for subs with deep pressure hull... but that's it).

On the other hand, pillaging isn't that bad, because it cannot cause starvation and aquaformers are only damaged, so after the combat is over, you're usually good to go and can quickly recuperate. Furthermore, I suspect that Ahriman's problems may be due to the fact that the BtS barbarians on sea are... piddly. Planetfall's sea natives are every bit as dangerous as raging barbarians on land.

In my experience, there are three broad approaches to naval: 1) Go Hybrid; 2) Use bunkers and ranged strikes to soften up native life; 3) Stay the hell away from water if you're not prepared!

Cheers, LT.

I'm getting a CTD in between turns.

Save attached.

I think EB has its place - it's your choice if the taerrain is bad and then it is powerful enough for the reasons Lord Tirian mentioned. Plus that there are no food revolts, you are free to choose any religion and you are safe from the Pholus Mutagen without having to completely ruin your relations with the hybrid-followers.


Defending sea bases and there improvements is indeed more difficult and bunkers are a must have - but I can manage it usually, though ship spamming is sometimes necessary (especially if you play as Terraformer, because then you can't fill your
rows with captured native life).

However, I think raging native life on sea is a great problem for the AI - I always wondered why the AIs often don't expand oversea and almost never build seabases. My current game is a drastic example of this - I had turned SLP off and the start location generator put three factions on a mid-sized island...the AI didn't get very far with their expansion after almost 250 and I'm now pretty sure that it isn't the AI not priorizing seabses or focussing on far islands...if you look especially on the harbour bases of Deidre, Morgan and Lal you will find both a couple of unused land and sea colony pods. My impression is that the AI is just too afraid of all the native life on sea (or they lack the means or coordination to put up proper escorts).

Another hint on that this could be the reason is the fact that the Dune Wars Mod suffered from a similar issue, which prevented the AI from oversea (or better: overdesert ;) ) expansion - just because they were too afraid of all the sandworms and -storms. Sadly I wasn't able to loacte the thread with the full-length discussion about that topic again, but it is briefly mentioned in this thread (from post #64 on):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=325981&page=2

Now that you say I remember ;) Nonetheless, I would prefer for the sake of consistency that the order of choosing has no impact here (= choosing "Light" as 2nd would remove any special ability learned before)
That doesn't sound like a good idea to me. It should be possible to select only a single special ability for a unit, and the current implementation allows that. Being forced to chose either multiple special abilities or no special abilities would be annoying.

Defending sea bases and there improvements is indeed more difficult and bunkers are a must have - but I can manage it usually, though ship spamming is sometimes necessary...Oh, there's another thing - you may want to use Choppers/Rotors to fend off naval attacks - that addition is pretty new, so I haven't fully absorbed it yet - but it might prove helpful, since it's a bit easier on production as they double as defenders on land as well (i.e. less need to build a dedicated navy).

And, by the way, there's an oddity I've seen in the current game I'm playing: Mindworms are invading Miriam - they took two bases already... and one is building a Children's Creche! Is that like farming? :crazyeye: (more seriously... could it be made possible that native life that's not under player control can't invade bases? Instead, what if they enter a base, they destroy themselves, reduce the pop count by one (destroying pop 1 cities) and also raise the flowering counter - might be a nice way of jacking up the counter a bit more)

Cheers, LT.

I've used these tricks (forts, choppers, cheap navy swarms etc) to try to fend off the naval native life, but the point is that the reward simply isn't worth it. There are never really a shortage of tiles to put windmills on, so tile yields on land always seem to exceed those on sea, and it is much easier to protect these from native life.

Maybe barbarian Isles and SeaLurk could all have a promotion that reduces their movement rate? Its the fact that a bunch of them can easily spawn, move long distances to attack any naval units that leave port and rapidly pillage all your stuff that makes them so annoying.

That doesn't sound like a good idea to me. It should be possible to select only a single special ability for a unit, and the current implementation allows that. Being forced to chose either multiple special abilities or no special abilities would be annoying.

Thinking about it again, I agree with you - the "cheat" I mentioned isn't one probably, assuming that the maintenance fee reduction both gets applied to base and special ability cost. You will still pay something for the 1st special ability, though not as much as for the 2nd - but that's ok and even fully in line with SMAC of diminshing returns in regard, when you try to create "super-units".


And, by the way, there's an oddity I've seen in the current game I'm playing: Mindworms are invading Miriam - they took two bases already... and one is building a Children's Creche! Is that like farming? (more seriously... could it be made possible that native life that's not under player control can't invade bases? Instead, what if they enter a base, they destroy themselves, reduce the pop count by one (destroying pop 1 cities) and also raise the flowering counter - might be a nice way of jacking up the counter a bit more)

Native life building a Children's Creche is almost worth a Screenshot of the Day :lol:

Builds ago they even built human units. I guess it would be no problem to restrict that even more to native life units only. But as you said, some kind of conversion mechanism lowering population would make more sense (another way to do it would be still allowing native life capturing the base and give it the ability to draft each turn one mindworm until pop reaches 0, which would mean that the base is lost - that would lay some pressure on the player to recapture the base ASAP)

(though I agree that the enclosed route is a bit bland, as I've noted earlier).

I'd like to relate the Enclosed Biosphere theme to being hidden and invisibility somehow. Not sure though. Perhaps the Enclosed Biosphere civic could, with some tech, give the Stealth special ability for free to all submarines built.

My problem with navy is (that's why I pitched some ideas to Maniac earlier) is that native life is brutal on the seas (way more than on land) - since Psi combat on seas is 3-3, it means that you only win half the battles.

Hypnotic Trance and ranged strikes should improve the odds in your favour both on attack and defense.

I'm getting a CTD in between turns.

I released a patch to fix this. See Download thread.

safe from the Pholus Mutagen

Safe from the Pholus Mutagen?

However, I think raging native life on sea is a great problem for the AI

I should have a look at the sea transport AI. I'm not convinced right now without further research that native life activity is the reason for potentially reduced overseas exploration. Perhaps the reason why the AI may seem to expand less is simply that they have less land to expand to and build up their economy before needing to go overseas. In Planetfall the factions are placed closer to each other. And Dune uses an Archipelago map IIUC. Does the Planetfall AI expand less than the vanilla AI on an Archipelago map?

I've used these tricks (forts, choppers, cheap navy swarms etc) to try to fend off the naval native life, but the point is that the reward simply isn't worth it.

A tip I haven't seen mentioned yet. Plant Kelp instead of improvements on places that could be threatened by native life.


Anyway, even though myself I have never felt overwhelmed by naval native life, I have in past thought of some ideas which could make life easier for the AI:

1) naval units can only pillage once per turn, regardless of movement points
and
2) Dropships (and gravships) have a 100% defensive withdrawal chance against barbarian mindworms, IoDs and sealurks. This would require some unitAI changes though to make them understand it's actually pretty safe to send out dropships unescorted.

Do these sound good?

I'm not convinced right now without further research that native life activity is the reason for potentially reduced overseas exploration

Something they found working on the Dune mod; the barbarian sandworms and sandstorms were scaring the AI into not sending out settlers. They fixed it by adjusting those units so that the AI wouldn't be afraid of their strength value.

Its possible something similar is occurring here.

I released a patch to fix this. See Download thread.

Thanks.

Plant Kelp instead of improvements on places that could be threatened by native life.


*every* naval tile is at risk of being threatened by native life, unless its in a tiny lake or inland sea.

Normally, you can scourge your own terrain of fungus and you'll be pretty safe from land natives; and if they start coming near, they're slow enough that you can bombard them into submission. But if your neighbor (or your neighbors neighbor half way around planet, or just in unsettled terrain) has some fungus around to spawn sea life, as soon as you start bringing naval units out, all the native naval life will beeline for your territory to attack your stuff and pillage it.

Land units don't work like that.


1) naval units can only pillage once per turn, regardless of movement points
This would help somewhat.

Safe from the Pholus Mutagen?

Though the Hybrid Forest tiles it self aren't bad (better then both fungus and forest), you might not want increase the FC with them, if you follow a non-planet strategy. Terraformed and EB are your options to have the tech without having your forests convert in to Hybrid Forests and the latter doesn't bring you into the Hybrid/Terraform conflict. I admit that this probably a rare situation, but it is another advantage of EB, IMO.


I should have a look at the sea transport AI. I'm not convinced right now without further research that native life activity is the reason for potentially reduced overseas exploration. Perhaps the reason why the AI may seem to expand less is simply that they have less land to expand to and build up their economy before needing to go overseas. In Planetfall the factions are placed closer to each other. And Dune uses an Archipelago map IIUC. Does the Planetfall AI expand less than the vanilla AI on an Archipelago map?

I was some time ago that I played the last Archipelago map under stock rules or Better AI, but I don't remember such strange delays in the use of colony pods. Moreover, I usually play Prince/Monarch, but Planetfall under Emperor difficulty.
I could run a test, but that would only cover the oversea land expansion, not the question why the AIs happily build sea colony pods without using them ever.

Is it intended that fungal towers can shoot down mass driver bombardment? Seems pretty bizarre.

I could run a test, but that would only cover the oversea land expansion, not the question why the AIs happily build sea colony pods without using them ever.Yeah, that's the weird bit - plus the game actually makes settle suggestions, meaning there is a plot evaluation for sea colony pods going on.

Another thing: Sea colonies can be settled on the trench feature - and settling cities destroys features... it's somehow odd to see cities munching up trenches. I think settling on trenches could be forbidden - just like peaks on land.

Cheers, LT.

The destroying of features can be disabled in the CvGameUtils.py.
But i don't know, if it makes sense.

See the picture for both issues:

- AI sometimes spams bunkers...they give +1 food, but I don't think they should be the main terrain improvement for anyone - perhaps there should be a rule that bunkers can not be placed adjacent to each other?

- Native life can even get Great Persons (I guess they ended up in a city with a wonder)

Another thing: Sea colonies can be settled on the trench feature - and settling cities destroys features... it's somehow odd to see cities munching up trenches. I think settling on trenches could be forbidden - just like peaks on land.Noticed something else along this line: Kelp farms destroy trenches (this is due to the fact that kelp farms are features - like trenches - not improvements).

Cheers, LT.

Two questions regarding promotions/special abilities...

- It seems that there is no way to acquire the Blitz promotion (the Datalinks entry shows both no tech which enables it and no class of units for which it is allowed). SMAC had no special Blitz ability, but IIRC units could always attack as long as they had movement left, e.g. choppers (what made them - beside their low cost - so insanely powerful and unbalanced) - so I think having Blitz in Planetfall would be right, also it would help vs. native life in some cases.

- Dropships can both get the Movement promotions and the Range abilities - both seem to increase their movement, but the latter also adds a zone around the Dropship. I wonder what this zone does you good...I tried to load units on the dropship, when being a tile away, but that does not work. Or would it extend e.g. the interception ability to adjacent tiles, if you have choosen AAA tracking as well?

Thanks guys! I'll check out the issues you reported.

Is it intended that fungal towers can shoot down mass driver bombardment? Seems pretty bizarre.

The fungal towers send out a cloud of locusts to attack the artillery. :cool:

In gameplay terms, the trick is finding some kind of balance between making the fungal tower not too strong, but also not a sitting duck. Don't know if the current implementation is right, but generally speaking bizarre things may sometimes be necessary for the sake of gameplay.

- AI sometimes spams bunkers...they give +1 food, but I don't think they should be the main terrain improvement for anyone - perhaps there should be a rule that bunkers can not be placed adjacent to each other?

I intend (in some undefined future) to have a look at bunker placement. For instance make the AI more likely to build them on fungus-infested coasts. I don't think hard restrictions are necessary though. If a player wants to spend all those minerals on building a more or less impregnable defense, I guess that's their choice. It does not come over as an efficient strategy to me.

It seems that there is no way to acquire the Blitz promotion (the Datalinks entry shows both no tech which enables it and no class of units for which it is allowed). SMAC had no special Blitz ability, but IIRC units could always attack as long as they had movement left, e.g. choppers (what made them - beside their low cost - so insanely powerful and unbalanced) - so I think having Blitz in Planetfall would be right, also it would help vs. native life in some cases.

I don't want all high movement units to have inherent blitz, but I do like the idea of a special ability. I don't have any inspiration though. What name would you give to the special ability with this effect? What tech would enable it? What unit combat types could pick it?

Those textures look horrible. :mischief:

thanks ;) (btw i have no idea why the ships have this 'strange' colour sheme), if you are interested (are you?) in the skjold, why you did not asked me if you can get a slightly different texture (or the non shader version) :confused:

nevertheless a pic of a quick greyed texture version attached (i´m sure Lord Tirian can still improve the texture further - think he is already better creating textures than i)

I don't want all high movement units to have inherent blitz, but I do like the idea of a special ability. I don't have any inspiration though. What name would you give to the special ability with this effect? What tech would enable it? What unit combat types could pick it?

A tech enabling Blitz? Mind/Machine Interface of course. :D
Or if it needs to come early the Doctrine: Flexibility tech.
An idea for the special ability name could be "tacticalAI" if MMI enables it.

if you are interested (are you?) in the skjold, why you did not asked me if you can get a slightly different texture (or the non shader version) :confused:

1) The two cruiser units already have unique graphics at the moment, so there's no urgent need. Of course, due to the ability to change graphics with promotions, the graphic could still be used for a cruiser unit with extra movement points.
2) It would be kinda lame to ask you to create a no shader version if I'm not even sure yet if I wanted to use the model (due to not being able to see it - circular problem :crazyeye: ).
3) How come it has so many polygons? For a ship at least. The stealth destroyer has a mere 150 polygons for instance, the missile cruiser some 400.

A tech enabling Blitz? Mind/Machine Interface of course. :D
Hmm... MMI is a pretty good tech already, giving you a unit, a building and a new special ability. I'd rather stick it onto Neural Grafting or Moletronics, which are both a bit underwhelming for me - especially the latter.

The nice thing about Blitz is that it can be visualised in a lot of way, some rough ideas (only the first suggestion is tied to moletronics, the rest is generic):

Moletronic Circuits - some sort of computerised system, that responds extremely fast, meaning you can shoot more often!
Soma Stimulant - drugs that make you last longer so you can attack without resting, could be something synthetic or planet-derived (you can read "soma" as in "somatic", i.e. body-related or as in "Soma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soma)"
Autonomous Weaponry - some computer-controlled weapons, just drive/walk/hover - the computer will do the shooting for you!
Doctrine: Shock - just what it says on its tin - people trained to do a "shock and awe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_and_awe)" tactic.

Of course, due to the ability to change graphics with promotions, the graphic could still be used for a cruiser unit with extra movement points.Huh - the camouflage texture was... not that good, but the ship itself is actually quite nice. With a bit of retexturing, I could imagine a couple of uses for it:
Made smaller and with larger windows, it looks like a nice little patrol boat - foil-sized or so.
It would also make a nice transport cruiser - it's nice and looks utilitarian, I can totally see the bulk of the ship as some sort of cargo hold. Perhaps one would need to remove the cannon for that.
In the same vein, with some launcher structures added at the sides, it would make a really nice carrier, especially with the radar/antennas it already has.


Cheers, LT.

1) The two cruiser units already have unique graphics at the moment, so there's no urgent need. Of course, due to the ability to change graphics with promotions, the graphic could still be used for a cruiser unit with extra movement points.
2) It would be kinda lame to ask you to create a no shader version if I'm not even sure yet if I wanted to use the model (due to not being able to see it - circular problem :crazyeye: ).
3) How come it has so many polygons? For a ship at least. The stealth destroyer has a mere 150 polygons for instance, the missile cruiser some 400.

1) it´s not really a cruiser, it´s more a costal patrol craft (even if a helicopter could land on the ship in front of the gun - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEWbRqf4MOo&feature=related ) [i only wanted to post the video link ;) - was a bit chocked to see how big this tiny looking ship really is]

2) i thought nifscope could :confused: - nevertheless without in game test it´s really a bit of a circular problem - therefore attached a non shader version (also added the damage texture to the shader version)

3) i´m not a pro - to be honest, i created this model as part of a tutorial (so no real model optimations - was a side product) - and i also have the tendency to model parts which are important for me but in the modeling process but are barely visible in game (eg here the holes in the back are for real and not painted) - sometimes i do this because of my lacking painting skills - sometimes because i´m still under 1000 and i want it that way - compared to the stealth destroyer also the masts and radar parts cost alot, without there is already a drop by 300 (nifs also included)

(use it if you want it and / or need it - i only dislike the idea that somebody don´t use my model because he need a small fix / change and not asked me to do this)

:)

3) i´m not a pro

:lol: Are you kidding?

The nice thing about Blitz is that it can be visualised in a lot of way, some rough ideas (only the first suggestion is tied to moletronics, the rest is generic):

Another idea to add to the list: some reactor/battery upgrade. Basically you just have more energy/ammunition to shoot at the enemy.

Huh - the camouflage texture was... not that good, but the ship itself is actually quite nice.

Yeah, that's why I said I can't really appreciate the quality of a model if the texture is not that good - I need to see the wireframe then.
I can agree now the model looks good. And as you say, it could be used for several things, so I'm not sure how to use it yet. :crazyeye:

2) i thought nifscope could :confused:

I don't know how to see the polygon count or the wireframe of a model in NifSkope. :(

(nifs also included)

Thanks. :D Now there's a model for with and without the deep radar special ability. :D

I don't know how to see the polygon count or the wireframe of a model in NifSkope. :(Click on the model itself, and the wireframe will show up (at least for the part you clicked on). Showing the polycount is a bit more fiddly - when you clicked on the model, expand the tree views until you get to the TriShapeData (or TriStripsData) and click on that - then in the data display on the bottom, there is somewhere in the list an entry for "triangles", then repeat the process for all TriShapeData-nodes you can find in the model (several models have more than one) and add them up.

It's a lot more fiddly than Nifviewer, but Nifskope is a bit more robust (it even shows models that would crash Civ4) and versatile (as it allows more editing of the nodes) - but it doesn't require the "BoundShape.nif"-files.

Cheers, LT.

I completed my game with patch j) with a Diplomatic victory and I had a lot of fun with this.

The starting positions were very close and two AIs (Miriam and Yang) got destroyed soon and Zhakarov almost (after I declared an ultra early war on him because he settled a critical position). Frequent tech trading allowed the relations to improve again and he became my vassal peacefully later. I followed a combo of EB and pro-planet strategy early on (which became impossible from the midgame on - after Contained Ecosystems Greenhouses allow too high populations), which put me a good feet with Deidre. She decided to declare war on Morgan and I joined here. But Morgan was so strong in this game that she got vassalized and I had to sign peace - and there was never much hope to catch him, so I decided to try to improve relations again by adopting FM and trading with him (which took long, but worked in the end - I was even able to trade techs with him again). Lal used my weakness and I had trouble to hold my line in a first war. The second war was a hard stalemate for along time (the AI was quite effective in mounting and repelling oversea invasions, also Lal was a generation ahead in tech) until I amassed enough troops to invade a midsized island of him and get a beachhead (see picture - my key to success was heavy use of automated units to avoid WW, consequent preperation of the troops by using all experience boosters in the training process and choosing the right promotions - that way you can overcome even Mobile Infantery and all that bunkers with older stuff) - this made him capitulate and after Deidre became strong enough again to break free a diplomatic decision was finally positive.

In the later game the AIs started to expand even a bit oversea (but still no sea bases!)

Some observations:

- I noticed that the unit cost progression is low compared to the increase BTS has. I had a production powerhouse with Skunkworks and a Military Academy and every military unit including the most expensive I reached (Locusts at 120 hammers) was built in a turn. That kind of kills the need for specilaization. Not sure if a change would be for the good only (could give Terraformers a too big edge over Hybrid followers), though.

- The Marine Detachment special is a very powerful tool (especially in the hand of the human player), because it suceeds always (was only 30% in SMAX) and works perfectly together with softening the enemy first with bunkers - also the AI has a tendency to send single ships or spread them out.

- The FC took an interesting path - the increase came nearly to hold in the midgame (though native life was a big issue for everyone over the entire game), but at some point it started to rise again. I tried to fuel this by trading the Pholus Mutagen to Deidre -because my enemies were even more in the "planetry reds"- but it seems to that the heavy wars in the second half of the game had more impact - it is hard to fight at two fronts and so fungus and native life got the space to expand and somewhere beyond a FC of 40 it seems to gets its own dynamic.

I completed my game with patch j) with a Diplomatic victory and I had a lot of fun with this.

Thanks for your story! I'll also use that screenshot in future patch releases. :D

- I noticed that the unit cost progression is low compared to the increase BTS has. I had a production powerhouse with Skunkworks and a Military Academy and every military unit including the most expensive I reached (Locusts at 120 hammers) was built in a turn. That kind of kills the need for specilaization. Not sure if a change would be for the good only (could give Terraformers a too big edge over Hybrid followers), though.

I haven't really given that much thought to the mineral cost of a whole lot of things, so improvements are definitely possible. Some possible counterconsiderations though:
1) in vanilla civ I usually also end up with a city that can build any unit in a single turn. If it's only one city, I don't see the problem.
2) While the cost of endgame units is lower than vanilla, there are also than production multiplying buildings. Partially compensated by boreholes of course.
3) Just yesterday I noticed the Multiple Production (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=326545) modcomp. I'll definitely include that in Planetfall.

- The Marine Detachment special is a very powerful tool (especially in the hand of the human player), because it suceeds always (was only 30% in SMAX) and works perfectly together with softening the enemy first with bunkers - also the AI has a tendency to send single ships or spread them out.

I'm not a fan of random chance. :( Umm... perhaps the capture chance could depend on the XP of the defeated enemy unit? 0 XP = 100% capture chance: 10 XP = 0% capture chance?

By the way, if you want to observe AI behaviour, an interesting way is to give yourself an AI teammate. To ensure I still have some decent opposition, I also create an AI-only team of two players.

I'm not a fan of random chance. :( Umm... perhaps the capture chance could depend on the XP of the defeated enemy unit? 0 XP = 100% capture chance: 10 XP = 0% capture chance?I feel this would be a bit overly complex - and plus the effect of XP is already factored in the fact that you defeated the ship, after all! I only see a problem with the softening up beforehand, because that sounds a bit like possible "ship-farming", if done cleverly. I'd say a neat mechanism would be a capture chance equal the initial health of the to-be-captured ship. This way, softening it up before becomes an interesting decision - it's easier to win, but you decrease the odds of getting a goodie out of it. It's also interesting, because it rewards risk (something that's not very common in Civ, sometimes) and encourages decision. It also balances itself a bit: If you have higher odds getting ships, you also have a higher chance losing them, if you go for a low risk for yourself, you'll get less but also lose less.

If this doesn't work, you could also make it dependant on the health of the marine detachment ship - this would, however, increase the value of ranged fire to stop attackers from taking your ships... and is opposite of what we want, I guess.

EDIT: Unless, however, it is the health of the attacking ship *after* combat - in this case it might be interesting, because promotions, first strikes (for the spartans), the healing in enemy terrain and so forth might become way more important. On the other hand, that makes the random chance way less controllable - I don't mind random a lot, as long as I have a modicum of control... this one is probably too far out there.

The flavour behind it might be a bit contrived, but I think you can visualise it like this: Marine detachments require you to get physical access to the ship without getting shot down before. So you have to provide cover fire/suppression fire to get close to the ship - or you even need to take out their guns - if the ship is already damaged, it's more likely that existing structural damage is exacerbated and sinks the ship. On a pristine ship, you have it's more likely that you can provide cover fire without having this fire ripping the target apart before.
By the way, if you want to observe AI behaviour, an interesting way is to give yourself an AI teammate. To ensure I still have some decent opposition, I also create an AI-only team of two players.By the way, Better AI has the AIAutoplay component - have you integrated that as well? It looks like a nice function to see how the AI develops.

Cheers, LT.

I haven't really given that much thought to the mineral cost of a whole lot of things, so improvements are definitely possible. Some possible counterconsiderations though:
1) in vanilla civ I usually also end up with a city that can build any unit in a single turn. If it's only one city, I don't see the problem.
2) While the cost of endgame units is lower than vanilla, there are also than production multiplying buildings. Partially compensated by boreholes of course.
3) Just yesterday I noticed the Multiple Production (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=326545) modcomp. I'll definitely include that in Planetfall.


1) It was only one city being so extreme, but it is probably much more common under a Terraforming Strategy (my game was a transition one with all time EB, as described in the Hybrid thread)
2) You mean *less* production multipliers? Yeah, thats true...also my example was a special case because of a wonder and the MA (the latter is prone to produce similar situations in BTS). However, both drones/citizien with Gene Factory and boreholes can lead to much higher base production.
3) Interesting mod. It offers at least a fix for the (not really, but in terms of hammers) "wasted" production in indutrial powerhouse cities.

BTW, planes strike out to me as being very cheap...30 hammers for a unit comming that late? Ok, their strength value is limited, but softening units (see below) is a strong tactic and one without risk (if no interception capabilites are available on the other side) 30 hammers would be ok (though still cheap) for a one-shot cruise missile, but for a plane you can use more then one time?



I'm not a fan of random chance. :( Umm... perhaps the capture chance could depend on the XP of the defeated enemy unit? 0 XP = 100% capture chance: 10 XP = 0% capture chance?

I'd say a neat mechanism would be a capture chance equal the initial health of the to-be-captured ship. This way, softening it up before becomes an interesting decision - it's easier to win, but you decrease the odds of getting a goodie out of it. It's also interesting, because it rewards risk (something that's not very common in Civ, sometimes) and encourages decision. It also balances itself a bit: If you have higher odds getting ships, you also have a higher chance losing them, if you go for a low risk for yourself, you'll get less but also lose less.
(...)
The flavour behind it might be a bit contrived, but I think you can visualise it like this: Marine detachments require you to get physical access to the ship without getting shot down before. So you have to provide cover fire/suppression fire to get close to the ship - or you even need to take out their guns - if the ship is already damaged, it's more likely that existing structural damage is exacerbated and sinks the ship. On a pristine ship, you have it's more likely that you can provide cover fire without having this fire ripping the target apart before.

I also don't think a flat 30% or any other pure random chance is a really good solution, but what Lord Tirian describes and suggests strikes me as an elegant solution. He worked out my main complaint - the farming of ships and his solution targets especially this. It is still a random chance, but one strongly weighted. Also, in terms of flavour and imagination it makes sense - there is always the danger that the other ship gets further damaged in the process of boarding.

The experience method also has the problem that I can't see the experience of other units and only using the targets experience feels a bit artificial. If at all, I would subtract targets EXP from the EXP of the boarding vessel and use the resulting number...but the biggest problem I see with this is that it don't really stop ship farming - it is just limited to the either unexperiened enemy ships (which are not so uncommon in the AI fleets) or my own experienced navy (makes it more difficult in the beginning, but once you get it rolling, there would be no difference)

I'd say a neat mechanism would be a capture chance equal the initial health of the to-be-captured ship. This way, softening it up before becomes an interesting decision - it's easier to win, but you decrease the odds of getting a goodie out of it. It's also interesting, because it rewards risk (something that's not very common in Civ, sometimes) and encourages decision.

Hmm, I disagree. By taking into account the hammer cost of your unit and the enemy unit, it becomes possible to precisely calculate what is most economically beneficial: weakening the target or not. Rather than adding an interesting decision, it just adds extra math. I'd like to avoid that.

Another possible idea: capturing a ship removes the marine detachment special ability. Perhaps you could get it back by picking a promotion. That is: when picking the marine detachment special ability, you also get a marine detachment promotion. That promotion is removed after capturing a ship, but can be picked back like any other promotion, and giving you the ability to capture one extra ship.

Of course 'one ship = a couple XP' may still be too lucrative... Perhaps the Marine Detachment special ability (or promotion) could also give a combat penalty of -20% or so. That wouldn't make much difference in your home territory if you have plenty of bunkers nearby. But in enemy territory or the high seas, it would encourage a more varied navy and combined arms: you'd need a strong ship to protect the weaker marine detachment-ships, and you'd encouraged to use cruiser or air unit strikes to weaken your target (which the enemy could counter with AAA or their own ranged strike units).

Another serious option is just removing the Marine Detachment special ability. You can argue it takes away from the uniqueness of an IoD farming strategy.

By the way, Better AI has the AIAutoplay component - have you integrated that as well? It looks like a nice function to see how the AI develops.

I added that long ago, but only the SDK part. You need to open the python console and type 'game.aiplay #', where # is the the number of turns you want autoplayed.

BTW, planes strike out to me as being very cheap...30 hammers for a unit comming that late? Ok, their strength value is limited, but softening units (see below) is a strong tactic and one without risk (if no interception capabilites are available on the other side) 30 hammers would be ok (though still cheap) for a one-shot cruise missile, but for a plane you can use more then one time?

What hammer cost do you suggest?

Another possible idea: capturing a ship removes the marine detachment special ability. Perhaps you could get it back by picking a promotion. That is: when picking the marine detachment special ability, you also get a marine detachment promotion. That promotion is removed after capturing a ship, but can be picked back like any other promotion, and giving you the ability to capture one extra ship.I'm... really torn on this. One the one hand, it's a sound concept - most promotions add strength to an unit, this promotion sort of "splits off" the original unit and manifests in the form of additional units. On the other hand, I distinctively dislike the feel it gives (not the mechanics, I think they could work), because of two reasons: 1) It sort of robs you of the feel that promotions are better trained units, 2) Diminishing returns: the more often the unit is useful to you, the less useful it will be (because the XP costs for extra ships would always go up and up).
Another serious option is just removing the Marine Detachment special ability. You can argue it takes away from the uniqueness of an IoD farming strategy.:( - I think it's a fun ability - might it might have to go rather having it half-working or unbalanced.

But the main two problems seem to be: AI-farming and too high returns, and by fixing the latter, you might arguably fix the former to a certain extend. The flat random chance isn't too bad. I know you don't like random, but in the long run, it basically says "you get a third of destroyed cruisers", the problem is just the "short run", where statistics are less reliable.

So, what if you don't tie the control mechanism to random chance or the originating unit? Make something like "you can have a number of captured ships equal to the number of X you have", a hard and fast limit. This can be rather easily tuned and isn't too bad, I think.

You could base it on the number of naval yards you have - the flavour explanation would be something like that even capturing a ship doesn't mean you have a full crew to run it - so the naval yards would represent the number of "spare crews" you have.

Then you could even turn the captured state into a promotion that you can remove with sufficient XP, representing that the crew is now a full crew and you've got another spare crew back - now this also encourages actively using the captured ship instead of waiting for more ships to come to you (because then you hit your limit and that's it).

In any case, something that might help as well is making ships with marine detachments impossible to capture to avoid a snowball effect (also allows you to pick a defensive option against it).

Cheers, LT.

But the main two problems seem to be: AI-farming and too high returns, and by fixing the latter, you might arguably fix the former to a certain extend. The flat random chance isn't too bad. I know you don't like random, but in the long run, it basically says "you get a third of destroyed cruisers", the problem is just the "short run", where statistics are less reliable.

That's true. It's mainly random chance in game altering events I don't like. For instance losing a hero in combat in Fall from Heaven, or not getting a Great Person you really need for your shrine. I'll implement the random chance idea.

What hammer cost do you suggest?

Difficult. I would say 50 or 60, but that might make them to expensive compared to the better air units. 40 wouldn't be too much, I'm sure.

done&é"'(§è

I don't want all high movement units to have inherent blitz, but I do like the idea of a special ability. I don't have any inspiration though. What name would you give to the special ability with this effect? What tech would enable it? What unit combat types could pick it?

I would like to have the ability mainly for all high speed units (= all types of ships, Choppers, Hovertanks and Rovers, all native units and the treaded ones). However, it should be perhaps restricted to a 2nd attack - otherwise it will be too powerful (there could be still "Blitz II" for a third one) and - inspired by Moo2's autofire - the 2nd attack could come with a 10% penalty, the third with -20% combat strength.

For native units it could be called "Agil", "Starved", "Restless" or just "(Ultra-)Agressive"; if "Raging Barbarians" is enabled, the wild native units could start with it...