1.9.5 Feedback

I agree that for the most part the current system works well, which is why I want to keep the same basic affiliations. But there are a few inconsistencies that effect the AI in ways players often don't realize (research priorities, switching to paradise until they research spice industry), which is the main reason I wanted to handle this better.

I'm certainly not decided totally (like I indicated in the first post) that they should ever stay neutral from a performance stand point. As you mentioned, right now nobody stays neutral once they can switch to one or the other. But I think it adds a little more interest if an occasional does so. Just not 100% sure yet which way that should go.
 
switching to paradise until they research spice industry
I have never seen this happen. :confused: Then again, I play normal speed. Maybe the tech pace on Epic (which is slower) allows this to happen? Another explanation might be that an AI demanded the civic change. I always refuse of course, but an AI - who knows, maybe shared religion?
As you mentioned, right now nobody stays neutral once they can switch to one or the other. But I think it adds a little more interest if an occasional does so
I don't really agree. I think it should be polarizing (more than religion for sure). You either want to transform Arrakis or you want the spice to flow. Don't care either way...just feels off somehow. Just my opinion of course. Also, what ever diplo benefit an AI would receive by staying neutral would not come close to making up for the benefits they would receive by not staying neutral. My concern would be that any AI which stayed neutral would fall behind relative to the other AIs (making them easy war targets). A human player would abuse this (read "I will every time") to their advantage.
 
In the mod at present, it's very uncommon to see anyone but the two relevant atredies and the fremen stick with paradise if they can take spice. I don't remember any games where I've seen someone else go paradise into the late game. And that works well.
I agree that this is what is observed, I'm not sure that it works well. Paradise AI civs don't do that well a lot of the time.
It also creates a weird setup where picking Paradise is a better strategy for the human when you are *not* Fremen or Atreides - because then you have two potential allies, instead of only 1.

One possible compromise; if we went this way, do you think you'd be willing to go with my preference for the polar zone; polar tiles (flat and sink) that can be terraformed (albeit slowly), and polar sink tiles that can have cottages and solar farms built in them?
That would make Paradise a bit more appealing, and would help compensate for the diplomatic isolation.

I'm also ok with bundling a bunch of more rigid canon modifiers into a general "canon settings" option (or multiple options for various levers).

I have never seen this happen. Then again, I play normal speed. Maybe the tech pace on Epic (which is slower) allows this to happen? Another explanation might be that an AI demanded the civic change
I don't think I've seen it happen. I do think that there should be the possibility of demanding civic change and having them stick to it somehow; in particular, I should be able to demand that my vassals adopt Paradise, and then their territory should count half towards the Paradise win.

My concern would be that any AI which stayed neutral would fall behind relative to the other AIs (making them easy war targets).
Yeah, I worry about this too. Maybe we should shrink the neutral chances way down.
 
If neutral chance is in game no one should have more then like 20% chance of it as the game and theme of dune is about the spice. Having 2 or more AI's on neutral would be a bit weird when everyone should either want more spice or a green world. On a note I have seen a Ecaz terraforming in one game as they had been vassaled to freman (was multiplay though).
 
polar tiles (flat and sink) that can be terraformed (albeit slowly), and polar sink tiles that can have cottages and solar farms built in them
Did this get changed in 1.9.5? I know for a fact in 1.9.4 (DU 1 - screen shots as proof) that this is the case. I prefer how the mechanic works in 1.9.4 (if in fact 1.9.5 changed it).
in particular, I should be able to demand that my vassals adopt Paradise, and then their territory should count half towards the Paradise win
I would like to see this too.
 
Did this get changed in 1.9.5? I know for a fact in 1.9.4 (DU 1 - screen shots as proof) that this is the case. I prefer how the mechanic works in 1.9.4 (if in fact 1.9.5 changed it).
In 1.9.x no improvements can be built in polar sink tiles; this was a bug that was introduced when the polar sink terrain was introduced (Deliverator forgot to add in the defines in the improvements file that defines what terrain types they can be built on).

And no polar sink terrain can terraform (polar terrain can).

I'd like to expand terraforming to all polar and polar sink tiles (terraforming requires moisture and so would happen only with Catchbasin/reservoirs, or from melting lenses, which should provide moisture to adjacent tiles) nd allow improvements in polar sink tiles.
Chris prefers to block terraforming and retain no improvements on polar sink.

See:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=423905&page=6
 
Right now only Polar terrain, not Polar Sink, can have improvements (other than melting lenses). As Arihman said, Deliverator forgot several things (trading over them for instance) when he added Polar Sink for 1.9. But I'm afraid with the change to a big polar cap as we have now (remember it used to be islands of just polar), and the fact that all polar terrains gives water, and the high water of melting lenses, that allowing improvements on polar sink as well would make polar cap cities uncharacteristically better than cities elsewhere.

I'm of the opinion that settling the polar regions should be first and foremost for extracting the resources found there (most notably ice). If you look at a map of Dune, you won't find any mention of settlements, nonetheless major cities there, and it was to my recollection only settled at all for the purpose of extracting polar ice. While the cities shouldn't nerfed into the ground if built there by any means (for gameplay reasons), there is more than enough incentive for capturing/settling there without allowing super cities on it.

I do like the idea of counting vassals terraforming partially towards your goal (this idea had occured to me before too), and I've already made the change to ensure they stick with paradise (or spice and even neutral) if demanded by their master.

I'm also fine with terraforming on the polar cap, it just needs to be slowed down. Right now, I'm pretty sure (though I'll have to check) that polar terrain starts with 'moisture', so as soon as paradise is chosen, all owned polar tiles begin capable of terraforming. They are also the only terrain that goes straight to grassland (no anchor grass stage), which speeds it up even more there. All I've got to do is lower the terraforming probabilities for them (yes, Polar Sink too) from the base numbers for all other plots.

I've also got to fix the 'backward' terraforming where conquered terraformed polar terrain reverts to rock instead of polar, but that's an easy fix :)
 
And also for Ahriman, while polar sink will be fairly slow to terraform, once it has, you will be able to build improvements on it. :)

I've pretty much wrapped up AI tech value balancing for at least the first third of the game (where it's the most important). I've shifted to taking notes on worker AI and.... .. . well... it sucks :lol:. Now that I'm watching it, there are so many inefficient and just plain, oh, what's a nice word... dumb things it's doing, it explains a lot about why AIs often lag in the early game.
 
One thing that might need to be looked at : workers (and units) moving into obvious danger. The AI doesn't do this, but Firaxis never bothered to copy the relevant code over to the player function that handles movement.
 
:mischief: That's always annoyed me to. You can clearly see the bad guy right next to the plot the worker is assigned to head to. He checks before he moves if he's in danger, but doesn't check for visible danger at the plot he's heading towards :mad::p. I'm not sure where this is handled exactly, but I'm pretty sure I can find it.

I also need to see if I can make sandstorms moving on to a unit's tile wake up the unit. If a worker is out in the desert building a harvester, he's usually already used his moves when a sandstorm moves into his tile, which gives a fair chance that he's toast. Sand storms are more lethal out in the desert than on land, but it's an issue regardless of where the worker (or other unit) is.
 
But I'm afraid with the change to a big polar cap as we have now (remember it used to be islands of just polar), and the fact that all polar terrains gives water, and the high water of melting lenses, that allowing improvements on polar sink as well would make polar cap cities uncharacteristically better than cities elsewhere
I think the polar zone should be more water-rich, and valuable. The whole point of the polar zone was to create a valuable central area to fight over (king of the hill style) and to mimic the big economic value of the polar water resources.
If you're really bothered, I think the better solution is in tile yields, not improvement limiting.
You could change polar so that it was 1w, and polar sink was 1w1h, and then allow improvements to be built there as normal (cottages and solar farms).

I'd also be fine with removing the ability for non-ice resources to spawn in the polar area (though: either this or the yield changes, not both).

But the polar zone should be valuable. It already doesn't have any health resources (for water collectors) or food crops, luxuries, or mesa tiles. So the yields aren't that great. But with no improvement construction and the status quo, the area just isn't valuable enough. It isn't worth pushing to settle or claim it early or to focus war there.

The other option would be to reduce the cost and increase the effect of the polar water shipper buildings (that give water per ice resource).

you won't find any mention of settlements, nonetheless major cities there, and it was to my recollection only settled at all for the purpose of extracting polar ice
"There are other cities scattered in the northern regions of the planet (especially near the ice cap, where water is harvested)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrakis#Other_locations

And also for Ahriman, while polar sink will be fairly slow to terraform, once it has, you will be able to build improvements on it.
... you should be able to build improvements on it *before* it terraforms. Sink terrain in the polar zone should be some of the best terrain on the planet. It should certainly be better than the non-sink terrain, because it is sheltered from the winds. The whole point of the sinks is that they are supposed to be superior, it is really weird if sinks are better on non-polar continents but sinks are worse in the polar zone.
Polar area should be useful for non-Paradise civs, and it should be useful to found cities there immediately, not only after many dozens of turns of terraforming.

I'm fine with the slower terraforming rate. I'm relatively indifferent to whether they start with moisture, or get it only from melting lenses and catchbasins/reservoirs (though of course it matter for more than terraforming, because it affects cottage yields).
 
You could change polar so that it was 1w, and polar sink was 1w1h

I'm going to try this, allowing improvements on both polar and sink, no change to the resources there, with the slower terraforming and see how it goes. Seems like a good compromise. They currently don't start with moisture, and melting lenses give moisture in a 2 tile radius, which all looks just fine I think.
 
I'm going to try this, allowing improvements on both polar and sink, no change to the resources there, with the slower terraforming and see how it goes. Seems like a good compromise. They currently don't start with moisture, and melting lenses give moisture in a 2 tile radius, which all looks just fine I think.

Works for me.

Not to resurrect an old argument, but it does say "near" and not "on top of".
It says near the ice cap. The entire polar sink isn't the ice cap, the ice cap is only that part of it covered by ice - in our game terms, those tiles covered by the polar ice resource. So yes, cities in the polar zone are near the ice cap but not on top of it.

Keep in mind that the status quo design is already a compromise, we have already reduced the yields from what they used to be (2 water).

In any case, all the "realism" arguments seem to be missing the important point to me, which is to make a king-of-the-hill type zone that is worth contesting, so that it might be feasible/valuable to prosecute a war with someone who is not adjacent to you on the donut.
 
Right, looking at a map of Dune, if it's to be trusted to show every significant settlement, there isn't anything on the polar sink:

Spoiler :


But from a gameplay perspective, that's not necessarily a good model to use. I'm not convinced it should be always necessary for all strategies to gain control of the pole king of the hill style, but it should have enough incentive to make the player want to in many cases. Whatever approach accomplishes that the best without making it overpowered (again, I don't think it should support mega-cities whatever the case) is best in my opinion.
 
I'm not convinced it should be always necessary for all strategies to gain control of the pole king of the hill style
It isn't. In most games I never build any cities in the core, and often I focus on my neighbors rather than contest it.

I am convinced that it should *sometimes* be worth trying to settle in the core or contest it.

I don't think it should support mega-cities whatever the case
I don't think 1W per tile exactly supports megacities. Desert cities with windtraps, advanced wells and moisture extractors can often be bringing in much more water than a polar city can, even without any terraforming.

Another possibility; if you like, block construction of the polar water shipper building in cities built on polar or polar sink terrain [it doesn't get more water from shipping it in, because it already has a lot locally].
 
block construction of the polar water shipper building in cities built on polar or polar sink terrain [it doesn't get more water from shipping it in, because it already has a lot locally].
@Chris - this change needs to be made. Ahriman is exactly right about this.
 
I have considered that before and agree. This can easily be blocked with python. I'm also thinking about slightly lowering the cost of the polar water shipper as suggested, it tends to be a bit pricey, making the advantages of owning ice less 'advantagey':lol: in many cases.
 
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