1.6 feedback

[Slvynn]

These are all good observations. Do you play vanilla games very much? Do you find that the AI in vanilla makes the same mistakes? It is important to know that, so we know where to investigate the code. If vanilla does just as badly, then we need to discuss with the BBAI team. If vanilla does well, then there must be something we have done in DW, which makes it hard for the AI to figure out. For example, DW has no roads but it has the Home Ground promotion. It *could be* that the AI does not understand the HG promo, and we have to teach that somehow.

Both of these choices are hard to work on, but we can certainly put it on the list to investigate.

Reference: SL02

I think its DW Problem. Vanilla AI knows terrain very well, and if you come with big stack to his city, he throw all units into city to defend it, even if you move few tiles away. Same in ffh. Offence should be as counter measure when AI’s cities as safe, and there should be some analysis of enemy visible stack/ power ratio and unit types. Ai don’t counter well in DW. Promos, certain unit types.
AI is very good at offence, though. But (I’ll summarize my points):
1. May be because mesa is vanilla peak AI prefer to move through flat land.
2. Defence. The problem, that in DW not-even defence spread, when Coast Cities and border cities are well defended and core cities less defended is not working. There are transports that can pass any terrain, and fast. All defence tactics should be reviewed. Core cities ARE vulnerable in DW. Thats a major change from vanilla. Its also major change for player, if player neglect inside rim cities defences - he lose game.
3. Defence n.2 – I don’t know why AI send his stacks to attack players well defended cities while leaving bad garrison. It seem odd, because I not remember such issue in vanilla. I think the problem is that UnitCombat types are totally changed in DW, and may be some slots mixed. Some coding. This is hardest one imo, and need deep insight into Unitclass tactics.
4. Target analysis and decision &#8211; as I mentioned, AI like Rabban should use his infantry stack against enemy that <0.4 of his power ratio asap, if he know that target can tech Maula pistols. Before target do that. If warmonger AI build stack of early units worst thing is to make him to wait till those units are outdated.
4a. In 1.6.2 game I played standard Deity game and was actually attacked very early by Ordos. May be it is linked to overall aI.

 

[Ahriman]

I am pretty sure the AI won't know how to use it.

Why? The AI uses great engineers to build things. And I think the AI uses slaves for hammers in FFH.

I also had thought about sacrificing slaves for XP added to one unit, representing arena combat. I'm quite sure the AI won't know how to use it, and also I'm not sure how to implement it.

Temporary happiness probably works better than XP. And I think the FFH AI uses that?
Maybe this ability could be tied to the Harkonnen slave pit?

Take a look at the code for Balseraph arena fighting in FFH, and the evil lizard man race temple in FF.

 

[Ahriman]

Let's try to find some other solution.

Well, if you want to have them, but later, then my suggestion about cloning them, creating an identical new barbarian-only unit with a slightly different name, and then putting that at a later tech (suspensors, or combat ornithopters would seem good; that way, people can deal with them).

The exception to this is obviously Fremen, who do very well in most of my games.

Really, are you playing with a high land % or more connected islands? Fremen AI does very badly in my experience on disconnected islands.

use his infantry stack against enemy that <0.4 of his power ratio asap, if he know that target can tech Maula pistols

I don't think this is really a feasible change; the AI can never know what the future tech tree is going to give you, or when.

 

[Slvynn]

Well, if you want to have them, but later, then my suggestion about cloning them, creating an identical new barbarian-only unit with a slightly different name, and then putting that at a later tech (suspensors, or combat ornithopters would seem good; that way, people can deal with them).



Really, are you playing with a high land % or more connected islands? Fremen AI does very badly in my experience on disconnected islands.



I don't think this is really a feasible change; the AI can never know what the future tech tree is going to give you, or when.

Nope, he can analyse your current techs. I am sure that some Tech tree analysis will make AI very smart. As you able to see his techs which he can research - same him, its tied to some function, and extracting value of that function and analysing it can bring results, but sure its all easy on paper, but should be hard code-wise, though it will be ultimate coding goal.

 

[Diamondeye]

Well, if you want to have them, but later, then my suggestion about cloning them, creating an identical new barbarian-only unit with a slightly different name, and then putting that at a later tech (suspensors, or combat ornithopters would seem good; that way, people can deal with them).

Sounds like a good solution!

Really, are you playing with a high land % or more connected islands? Fremen AI does very badly in my experience on disconnected islands.

I play standard settings for the Arrakis.py map. I think... 22%?

Also, on that topic, I've noticed that the Fremen simply boom in pts and power early on, even compared to other AIs (in this game, though, the only AI to compare with was a Harkonnen who never expanded because the Fremen landlocked them). We are talking 3-4 times more power, and double my pts, something like 8-double the Harkonnen pts.

Also, Feyd Rautha seems to found the Sandworm religion most of my games with him... Isn't this pretty anti-lorish?

 

[arkham4269]

And in any case, if you only have 2-3 spice then you are either:
a) in the very early game
b) using Arrakis paradise civic (which severely limits the amount of spice you can pull in)
c) incredibly unlucky with spice blows and spice resource deletion
d) failing to build cities near the coast or build cultural buildings to expand your terrain.

Well another problem I've noticed is that it seems to me that you need to build your "big" cities inland and only have 'spice' towns on the rim of sand because the minute you start drilling wells and building certain buildings, the spice shifts away from your cultural boundary. So until you can build theaters, there is tons of spice JUST outside your cultural reach.

In my current game playing as Ix, the map I'm on has all these resources that create water right on the edge of the sand so even though I have about 10+ cities, I think I have 3 spice patches. So I figure screw it and am doing Arrakis paradise since I'm not getting any spice anyway.

So perhaps another Sid's tip might be for people to realize that a city next to a big patch of spice probably should be kept small and not to have certain improvements or buildings. That and keep your bigger cities in-land as possible.

 

[Ahriman]

Nope, he can analyse your current techs. I am sure that some Tech tree analysis will make AI very smart.

This still seems infeasible. AI declarations of war are based of what units you actually have, not what you could potentially build.
The declaration of war AI isn't going to be looking inside the contents of techs.

I play standard settings for the Arrakis.py map. I think... 22%?

Map size, # of AIs?
If you dont' have enough AIs, then there is lots of unsettled space, and lots of barbarian cities will be founded, and the Fremen are very good at picking those up with crysknife fighters vs soldiers defending.

Also, Feyd Rautha seems to found the Sandworm religion most of my games with him... Isn't this pretty anti-lorish?

Well, partly we haven't fixed the tech and leader flavors. That's on my to do list. So the AI's aren't emphasizing flavorful techs.

The Bene gesserit or the Fremen are the most logical founders of Shai-Hulad. Bene Gesserit starting with Mysticism should have a head-start. No other races should start with Mysticism except the Bene Tleilaxu, who can't found any religions other than there own Zensufisim.

because the minute you start drilling wells and building certain buildings, the spice shifts away from your cultural boundary

This is a deliberate strategic tradeoff, and fits well with the lore. If you start building catchbasins in reservoirs, or are lucky enough to have a ton of wells, then yeah, you aren't going to get much spice, but you'll have much bigger cities.
Coastal cities have less water access, but can potentially bring more spice into your fold.

So until you can build theaters

There are many other sources of culture early game. Religions and temples (especially imperium), wonders, specialists with meritocracy, plenty of stuff.
I think its great that there are some financial rewards from culture. Normally (in vanilla) culture is almost compeltely useless except in the rare cases where cultural borders touch.

We could consider changing the culture boundaries though (as in, how many culture points require to expand to cultural radius X). The old version of the mod had different but strange version of these, which we reverted to vanilla.
I like culture being valuable in giving more spice available to you.

David, which file are these stored in? I can take a look at some stage and try tweaking.

 

[arkham4269]

There are many other sources of culture early game. Religions and temples (especially imperium), wonders, specialists with meritocracy, plenty of stuff.

Of course there are but the point I was making that to build any of these early in the game requires lots of time because if you build up resources to grow your cities (in that you get more water) you end up creating the affect of pushing the spice away from you. That's why I was thinking it would be better to build your big cities inland and let them build units or the expensive wonders so your small 'spice' towns on the rim could concentrate on only building culture since (because they're small) they'd take a long time do to this.

Plus, I DO build a lot of cultural buildings and the like and the problem I tend to run into is you spend so much time building culture that you end up getting swamped by some Faction that seems to have done nothing but build units. So building culture is a dicey strategy considering how aggressive many of the Dune factions are.

 

[Ahriman]

if you build up resources to grow your cities (in that you get more water) you end up creating the affect of pushing the spice away from you

Wells, and the Arrakis paradise buildings, are the only things that can push spice away from you, and they are both very very valuable.

So building culture is a dicey strategy considering how aggressive many of the Dune factions are.

So there is a real strategic tradeoff between investing in culture (and thus spice access) and investing in military. That sounds fantastic to me. This is a strategy game, and tradeoffs are the most central aspect to strategy that there is.

So: why is this a problem?

Those militarists will have a weaker economy with less spice. Trading off economy vs military is central to Civ.

Why should you be able to have everything?

 

[arkham4269]

Why should you be able to have everything?

I don't have a problem other than perhaps sometimes not having my concerns taken at face value as if I was so newbie who can't tell his spice crawler from a hole in the ground. Look, I've been gaming since 1974 and playing Civ since Civ II so I know about the trade off of culture vs. military. I pointed out that since I often play the cultural path, I know the dangers.

My concern here is that the Dune Wars mod seems to create a situation where terrain is even more important than most mods. If you don't have places to put in wind traps and wells are you only real source of water, the trade off is you don't get spice and as we all know, the spice must flow. So in many games, I can either not develop my wells (and thus my cities can't grow) so I can harvest spice. However, this puts me in the position of having small cities where everything takes longer to build and I don't generate as much science.

That's okay. It's a puts the impetus on the Civ IV concept of 'specialty' cities more in force in that you can't have everything in every city. However, I'm pointing out that this isn't often clear to people new to the game. It's very frustrating when you have a 3-plot of spice being worked and a automated worker comes up and creates a well and suddenly you don't have a 3-plot of spice anymore.

So to get back to that spice I have to generate a lot of culture but even when I'm careful, I find the AI somehow has decided that building up their cities or whatever isn't as important as building units and sure enough here comes 2-3 suspensor transports filled with units with a wing of Vultures to back them up.

Again this isn't massively surprising, in fact I'm surprised the AI does "navy" so well since most Civ IV games (as opposed to Civ III) the AI is ******ed in regards to marine invasions. However, as I've commented before, the AI will often declare war on me even when they are listed as being pleased with me! So I can't trust my friends, I can't trust my enemies, I can't afford not to build up my army but then again I can't afford not to build culture...and so I find myself struggling to find a balance.

So going back to my original point, I realize the game mechanics puts limitations on the modder in that since the spice crawler is represented as an improvement, it has to be inside the cultural boundary to be worked, it does cause irritation that there is all this 'free' spice just outside the limits of that boundary that you just can't work.

This is why I've wondered if there couldn't be a way to switch it to where the spice crawler is a specialty worker that is relatively expensive that generates a 1-tile of culture so it can work. (Forts in many mods do this like in Orbis) A 'worked' tile of spice disappears and the crawler then moves to the next one. Obviously you need to keep a carry-alls around to get them out of trouble when the worms arrive. I would think this would work since there is already a mechanic for generating hammers when forests are chopped down. Perhaps a additional form of wealth could be created so you'd have X amount of solaris and also have X amount of spice. Then spice could be traded in for hammers, solaris, units from the guild or other specialty things. Perhaps even certain promotions would need spice for things like prescience for units or reverend mothers.

Obviously this would cause spice flow to be more erratic, but farming anything is like that. Changing it to where you could get spice anywhere (other than within other factions cultural boundary) would be more like the book and make the danger of losing your crawlers really a factor. I tend to agree with others that complain the worms aren't that much of a threat. I mean they come in, eat some improvements that I go right back out to fix after it leaves. (yawn)

True I know many folk wouldn't want the micro-managing of watching their crawlers and all that but at least in Civ (unlike in Dune 2000) you get a warning that an enemy has been sighted so hopefully you can get a thopter out to your crawler before it goes the way of Shai-Haluud. Being able to harvest spice far from your borders would increase the risk since it would be harder (before suspensor carriers) for you to get your thopters there in time...or it would be since right now there isn't a mechanic that forces thopters to have to land from time to time.

Anyway, I don't want you folks to think a lot of us are out here just shooting holes in the mod that you folks have put a lot of work in. But any time a game goes farther afield from vanilla Civ you'd expect us out here in gamer land not to understand the mechanics of the game as good as you so don't be surprised there are a lot of struggles to come to grips with the game, especially with the Dune-O-Pedia not being done yet.

 

[Ahriman]

I don't have a problem other than perhaps sometimes not having my concerns taken at face value as if I was so newbie who can't tell his spice crawler from a hole in the ground.

I apologize if you feel disrespected. Such was not my intention. Your feedback is very valuable, and very much appreciated. Not many people take the time to write up detailed thoughful feedback, as you have.

I simply feel that the best way to analyze issues is to dig deep into them in terms of trying to figure out whether something is really a problem or not, and if so, what alternatives would work (and what worse problems they would create). So I try to challenge ideas hard to see if they survive; and if they do, adopt them.

If I didn't think your ideas were worth considering, I wouldn't bother critiquing them.

My concern here is that the Dune Wars mod seems to create a situation where terrain is even more important than most mods

Yes, this is true. Water is very scarce on Arrakis, and so we want to try to create an environment that makes the player acutely aware of which tiles give water, and have those be a binding constraint. I think this is a good thing - or will be at least if we can improve the AI city selection AI.

So in many games, I can either not develop my wells (and thus my cities can't grow) so I can harvest spice

I think that it is very very rarely, if ever, worth not building wells in order to get a few more spice tiles, particularly considering that spice is temporary.

But the design purpose of wells was never really to push spice off; it was mostly intended that catchbasins and reservoirs do this. But we had both provide fresh water, for terraforming access and cottage boost.

We really wanted to make catchbasins reservoirs block off a lot of spice access, so we made it so that fresh water blocked spice not just in tiles with fresh water access, but in adjacent tiles too.

So some of the well blocking is an unintended consequence.

Maybe we can decouple these effects somehow.
So, well provides fresh water in 1 tile radius. Catchbasin provides fresh water in 1 tile radius, AND blocks spice blows in 2 tile radius. Reservoir provides fresh water in 3 tile radius AND blocks spice blows in 4 tile radius.
Remove the issue where spice can't appear in tiles with fresh water, or at least remoev the issue where spice can't appear *adjacent* to tiles with fresh water.

This would preserve the spice blocking effect of reservoir/catchbasin, without having wells have such a large spice-blocking effect, which I think is your main concern.

Culture would still help you get even more spice, but not as much would be blocked by coastal wells.

Do you think this would alleviate your concerns?

However, I'm pointing out that this isn't often clear to people new to the game.

We can try to provide better documentation on the effects between fresh water and spice, however they work.

in fact I'm surprised the AI does "navy" so well since most Civ IV games (as opposed to Civ III) the AI is ******ed in regards to marine invasions.

Cephalo has written improved naval invasion AI for this mod.
I think its great that the AI is very aggressive like this. If you are finding it too tough, maybe a lower difficulty level would suit you better.
(Again, not trying to be insulting here.)

the AI will often declare war on me even when they are listed as being pleased with me!

Which AIs?
Some AIs are backstabbing, or are simply aggressive. Others are more loyal. Any Harkonnens, Ordos or Corrino in general shoudlnt' be trusted too much. You can generally rely more on the Bene Gesserit, Atreides or Fremen more often.

This is why I've wondered if there couldn't be a way to switch it to where the spice crawler is a specialty worker that is relatively expensive that generates a 1-tile of culture so it can work.

We've been thinking about this in other threads. Personally, I am strongly opposed to trying to push the game out into the deserts, away from the land. It is hard enough to get the AI to do well on land, getting it to contest the deep desert woudl be very hard, and I don't think it woudl be fun for the human player. It woudl also be easy for the human player to swarm the map with workers, they AI wouldn't realize that was a profitable strategy.

I tend to agree with others that complain the worms aren't that much of a threat. I mean they come in, eat some improvements that I go right back out to fix after it leaves. (yawn)

Can you think of a way of tweaknig worms to make them more interestnig, without also potentially destroy many units (especially for the AI) or forcing massive micromangement?
You should ideally be able to automate workers without losing them all to worms.
Since there isnt' really anything you can do about worms, other than try to avoid them, what else could they do other than eat some improvements, without becoming severely annoying and not-fun?

Anyway, I don't want you folks to think a lot of us are out here just shooting holes in the mod that you folks have put a lot of work in.

Not what any of us think; constructive criticsm is greatly appreciated, especially when its well thought out and communicated clearly, as in your case.

 

[davidlallen]

But any time a game goes farther afield from vanilla Civ you'd expect us out here in gamer land not to understand the mechanics of the game as good as you so don't be surprised there are a lot of struggles to come to grips with the game, especially with the Dune-O-Pedia not being done yet.

I commented about this before, but let me come back to it. *Everything* the beginning user needs to know is supposed to be covered in the Dune Wars Concepts tab in the civilopedia. Please list the things you were stuck on, which are not listed there, and we will add them. It is important to get this feedback from a new user, while you still count as a new user. The mod developers cannot think of them anymore.

I have just re-read the tab, and I agree that the information about how fresh water is produced and its prevention of spice is missing. This is embarrassing, and I will fix it.

You have already listed religion founding, axlotl tanks, and mentats as missing.

What else should we add to this tab?

 

[Slvynn]

May be some words that in comparison to vanilla DW player should be more carefull with his defence, because, eventually, any point/place/tile of his empire is quite vulnerable.
May be just a single sentence.

Gameplay in DW is quite different, and combat strategies too.

 

[davidlallen]

Maybe we can decouple these effects somehow.
So, well provides fresh water in 1 tile radius. Catchbasin provides fresh water in 1 tile radius, AND blocks spice blows in 2 tile radius. Reservoir provides fresh water in 3 tile radius AND blocks spice blows in 4 tile radius. Remove the issue where spice can't appear in tiles with fresh water, or at least remove the issue where spice can't appear *adjacent* to tiles with fresh water.

The discussion about this design happened around this post in the terraforming mechanics thread; go backwards in the thread to find previous history, forward to find discussion about the current design.

The previous design, where fresh water, spice prevention and terraform-able plots were tracked separately, had grown too complex. I unified them into one thing. Perhaps we can tweak this, rather than going back to the previous approach. For example, we are not using the irrigation mechanic. This is different from fresh water as discussed around this post. Perhaps wells should not spread fresh water, so that only catchbasins and reservoirs will do this; and the cottage hammer bonus can come from irrigation.

What do you think?

 

[Diamondeye]

Well another problem I've noticed is that it seems to me that you need to build your "big" cities inland and only have 'spice' towns on the rim of sand because the minute you start drilling wells and building certain buildings, the spice shifts away from your cultural boundary. So until you can build theaters, there is tons of spice JUST outside your cultural reach.

In my current game playing as Ix, the map I'm on has all these resources that create water right on the edge of the sand so even though I have about 10+ cities, I think I have 3 spice patches. So I figure screw it and am doing Arrakis paradise since I'm not getting any spice anyway.

This is the point I've been trying to get through; either you have big cities capable of pumping out units, or you have small cities that can farm spice. Now, if the Permanent Peace option is enabled, you would do well in picking the latter. But I feel that this is rarely the case and that, when choosing between being the conqueror or the cottage-cheese sitting duck, I personally prefer a good stroll in my neighboors cities, flashing my new horde of Bladesmen.

Map size, # of AIs?
If you dont' have enough AIs, then there is lots of unsettled space, and lots of barbarian cities will be founded, and the Fremen are very good at picking those up with crysknife fighters vs soldiers defending.

In this case, I tried a Tiny game with me as Paul Atreides, AIs were Feyd Ratha of the Harkonnen and Liet-Kynes of the Fremen. As I said, Feyd got off to a bad start before I killed him. But the Fremen only took one barb city, and I took one aswell.

What bothers me more is their powergraph and score, though, it skyrocketed and just stayed 3-4 times mine (power) from completely early on. I mean, like, pre-Crysknives. And their score is still almost double mine, but that's probably due to a bit more cities and wonders (do these give more pts in DW than standard games?)

Well, partly we haven't fixed the tech and leader flavors. That's on my to do list. So the AI's aren't emphasizing flavorful techs.

The Bene gesserit or the Fremen are the most logical founders of Shai-Hulad. Bene Gesserit starting with Mysticism should have a head-start. No other races should start with Mysticism except the Bene Tleilaxu, who can't found any religions other than there own Zensufisim.



This is a deliberate strategic tradeoff, and fits well with the lore. If you start building catchbasins in reservoirs, or are lucky enough to have a ton of wells, then yeah, you aren't going to get much spice, but you'll have much bigger cities.
Coastal cities have less water access, but can potentially bring more spice into your fold.

It may be an intended trade-off, but it is a trade-off that in most cases is completely off-scale because a proper industry makes you able to conquer the world. Hammers > Commerce.

I think that it is very very rarely, if ever, worth not building wells in order to get a few more spice tiles, particularly considering that spice is temporary.

Me too. Which is why Spice plays a completely minor role in my games; I make the rational choice with each city - "good city or minor improvement to another city?"

But the design purpose of wells was never really to push spice off; it was mostly intended that catchbasins and reservoirs do this. But we had both provide fresh water, for terraforming access and cottage boost.

It would be a good solution to stop wells from spreading fresh water. The cottages don't need the boost, we have Wind turbines for hammers (and solar energy aswell if in dire need). That way it would be easier to keep more spice.

We really wanted to make catchbasins reservoirs block off a lot of spice access, so we made it so that fresh water blocked spice not just in tiles with fresh water access, but in adjacent tiles too.

So some of the well blocking is an unintended consequence.

Maybe we can decouple these effects somehow.
So, well provides fresh water in 1 tile radius. Catchbasin provides fresh water in 1 tile radius, AND blocks spice blows in 2 tile radius. Reservoir provides fresh water in 3 tile radius AND blocks spice blows in 4 tile radius.
Remove the issue where spice can't appear in tiles with fresh water, or at least remoev the issue where spice can't appear *adjacent* to tiles with fresh water.

This would preserve the spice blocking effect of reservoir/catchbasin, without having wells have such a large spice-blocking effect, which I think is your main concern.

Culture would still help you get even more spice, but not as much would be blocked by coastal wells.

Definately an improvement, I think.

Can you think of a way of tweaknig worms to make them more interestnig, without also potentially destroy many units (especially for the AI) or forcing massive micromangement?
You should ideally be able to automate workers without losing them all to worms.
Since there isnt' really anything you can do about worms, other than try to avoid them, what else could they do other than eat some improvements, without becoming severely annoying and not-fun?

Would making Worms move at speed 2 be outrageous? And have them auto-raze improvements when passing over them (instead of ending a turn on them?)?

 

[Ahriman]

Perhaps wells should not spread fresh water, so that only catchbasins and reservoirs will do this; and the cottage hammer bonus can come from irrigation.

Possibly. What we lose from this though is being able to get some terraforming of tiles that are:
a) not near a city at all
b) near a city that has low water income, so you don't want to have to build catchbasins there.
Atm, tiles can terraform if they are next to wells, which is a good thing IMO.

Another thought:
could this issue be behind the magical non-disappearing harvester issue?
i) build harvester on spice
ii) build well nearby; spice gets destroyed, but harvester remains forever

This would explain why its only happening to tiles near to shore, and so why I thought it might be from worked tiles.

In this case, I tried a Tiny game

The game is really not balanced for Tiny.
The Fremen early game advantage comes from the +1 water from deathstills, and their ability to snag more goody huts (which give gold and techs) using scouts.

The cottages don't need the boost, we have Wind turbines for hammers (and solar energy aswell if in dire need).

Without the boost, the AI wont' build cottages. Cottage = 1c, turbine = 1h1c. AI builds turbines.
Plus, there was a design goal to make fresh water access more interesting.

Would making Worms move at speed 2 be outrageous?

I think this would be incredibly unfun, constantly having your units destroyed by worms charging at you out of the fog of war.

AI could also get severely messed up by it.

 

[Diamondeye]

The game is really not balanced for Tiny.
The Fremen early game advantage comes from the +1 water from deathstills, and their ability to snag more goody huts (which give gold and techs) using scouts.

I know Tiny is unbalanced.

Without the boost, the AI wont' build cottages. Cottage = 1c, turbine = 1h1c. AI builds turbines.
Plus, there was a design goal to make fresh water access more interesting.

I can understand why the water needs to be interesting, and the AI cottaging issue. I was just suggesting something that would correct the Spice issue.

I think this would be incredibly unfun, constantly having your units destroyed by worms charging at you out of the fog of war.

AI could also get severely messed up by it.

Right, again, just a stray idea.

 

[davidlallen]

Another thought:
could this issue be behind the magical non-disappearing harvester issue?
i) build harvester on spice
ii) build well nearby; spice gets destroyed, but harvester remains forever

Ah-ha! I bet that is it.

 

[arkham4269]

Which AIs? Some AIs are backstabbing, or are simply aggressive. Others are more loyal. Any Harkonnens, Ordos or Corrino in general shoudlnt' be trusted too much. You can generally rely more on the Bene Gesserit, Atreides or Fremen more often.

Just a quick reply as I'm on break at school. What surprised me with this was it was Leto II of the Atreides! We had been mostly friendly throughout the game and after some tech trading seemed to be best buds, but then 3-6 turns later he attacks me out of the blue. About the only thing I can think of is Corrino bribed him into attacking me since I was already at war with them.

While I don't think this sort of thing shouldn't be allowed to happen, I do wish there was some diplomatic penalty for attacking someone who is pleased with you. As I said on another forum, if factions see another faction stab an 'ally' in the back, they too will become very distrustful of that person. I mean to me (not saying there isn't any) there doesn't seem to be much penalty for being a backstabber or a reward for sticking true to your allies.

I mean you think you'd get a bonus with a faction everytime you refuse another factions request to go to war with them. I mean I'm taking a diplomatic hit for the refusal, it would be nice to get a reward.

Of course I'm sure that would probably be a pain to code.

Anyway, I totally agree with you; trusting the Harkonen or Ordos is a good way to end up dead.

 

[arkham4269]

You have already listed religion founding, axlotl tanks, and mentats as missing.

What else should we add to this tab?

A lot of the stuff isn't missing; it's just in game it's a bit harder to go through. My biggest beef with Civ is I wish you could read the Civlopedia without opening the game. As I said, if the game is opened...I want to play it! I don't know, maybe a general warning. "DON'T THINK YOU CAN LEARN WHILE PLAYING! WE MEAN IT READ THE RULES!"