Well, i got BTS yesterday, and immediatly started a game of Final Frontier. I liked it, but there were some things that struck me as odd.
Scouts: as said before, scouts are useless. they need to have 2 movement, if not more. Religion: Why give them names like Knowledge or Wealth, if they don't have benefits that improve that specific. one would think if one adopted Wealth, there would be an increase in gold production. Tech Tree: to fast in proportion to the game (as has already been said) Nebula/Asteroid belts: I'm not sure if this has already been said, but why are nebula dangerous to ships, while asteroide belts aren't? at the very least, asteroid belts should have a small chance of Damage being done.
As for the asteroid belt thing, I suppose the slowing of movement is the deterent here, possibly it could slow movement even more until one discovers some sort of shieling tech, but then I would think that if you were advanced enough to be out in DEEP space you would have already figured that part out.
The special buildings per each value seem to handle that idea. WEALTH has the space market thing, POWER the school of zealots, etc etc.
Theoretically at least nebula space would be impassable as it is the birth ground of new stars, wouldn't you hate to become part of a new star????
I'd like to see some way to clear a radiation cloud, but also have them appear randomly, and possibly move. I hate having my home system with an awesome system to inhabit at about 10 tiles with a 2 tile thick radiation cloud between and nebula space such that it takes 20 and more turns to go around.
Major Bug for Me And Ill get a screen shot next time I have my comp. But the LoS Or revealed map space is off. Meaning The area revealed on the map is to the NW NW NW of where it should be. I.E. right when i start a game the 9 tiles for the city radius is all black (as if I havn't been there) but to the NW*3 there are 9 revealed tiles.
As for the asteroid belt thing, I suppose the slowing of movement is the deterent here, possibly it could slow movement even more until one discovers some sort of shieling tech, but then I would think that if you were advanced enough to be out in DEEP space you would have already figured that part out..
especially as our solar system already has an asteroid belt, which would probably have been used to mine resources. you'd think that those living/ working there would have eventually developed a method of protection.
i still don't like the idea of having to put production into what the value should automatically give... and i think that the building should require a state religion. (if it already does, then i've run into a bug: i had Survivalism state religion, but was able to build the school of zealots)
I'd like to see some way to clear a radiation cloud, but also have them appear randomly, and possibly move. I hate having my home system with an awesome system to inhabit at about 10 tiles with a 2 tile thick radiation cloud between and nebula space such that it takes 20 and more turns to go around.
"i still don't like the idea of having to put production into what the value should automatically give... and i think that the building should require a state religion. (if it already does, then i've run into a bug: i had Survivalism state religion, but was able to build the school of zealots)"
See this is what I like about this system. So long as I have that value in the system I am able to build the special building and get some bonus. When you convert to a value you get the same type of bonus you had with regular civ and a religion in that you get 1 gold per system with the value. This way IF I don't found a value and am lucky enough to have those that do send an advocate (which just so happened in the last game I played) then I can build all the buildings in all my systems and get a nice bonus without ever converting to a value.
"yes, but the formation of new stars takes a very long time, ample time for a ship to pass through"
The formation does indeed take a very long time but I haven't a clue the things that are happening in nebula space, possibly huge spikes in gravity among other things that we wouldn't comprehend how to survive. Space travel as yet is all theoretical, deep space anyway and somehow I doubt travel thru nebula space will be possible for far longer than the time frame this mod is modeling.
Plus I like the idea of having areas that can not be traversed. However in most of the maps I have generated this is a bit overblown. For instance on one map my home system had a roughly 200 tile nebula to the east stretching north with a small gap to another roughly 100 tile nebula stetching south and a roughly 300 tile nebula to the west. I had roughly 5 systems nearby that I was able to colonize before the AI moved in and unlike the AI I don't run halfway across the map to colonize a system I'll never be able to defend or connect to. On another my home system was surrounded all but about a 10 tile passage with even the second system being partially shielded
I also don't like setting the star systems to dense or very dense as then you have systems literally on top of each other. Which is exactly why I tried setting everything to sparce but then it took forever between turns after about 100. I timed it at over 30 seconds between at turn 150.
The starbases probably get more expensive due to Inflation.
I played my first game on Normal speed so I could breeze through and get a hang of the sweep of gameplay, and I thought the techs not revealing their quotes (and thus story) until you research them a nice touch. I did notice tech advancement is ridiculously fast on Normal... maybe it's just because I've played on epic so long, I couldn't ever get a -focused military city built up full factory +mine production before the game ends. I'm happy to hear the tech pace is being slowed.
The only thing I was disappointed in is there's no finale or closure to the game when you win, it just says "you've won!" Even without a movie or slideshow, another creative paragraph of epilogue text giving a sense of conclusion would be welcome.
Oh and (if it isn't going to be revealed in an addendum or sequel to the mod), was Earth destroyed in the first "Project X" attempt to open the gateways? Or is it meant to be left unsaid like in Alpha Centauri?
I liked all the little easter eggs. Donald Rumsfeld discharging static electricity between his fingers for "Shock and Awe" tech. I noticed Paris Hilton's infamous dog-in-a-purse somewhere in the tech icons too, and I think I remember seeing a third icon that was an egg.
It was especially interesting the first time I loaded up the game and noticed the 3 layers of art in depth producing the 3-d starfield effect when you move the camera, it was a very nice touch and made me feel a little like I was in Homeworld.
The Mod was great, However I noticed some problems with the AI.
1. the AI doesn't use stealth ships.
2. In one game i was Hector Alvarez and Leonard Prithchard declared war on me for no reason, even though we had the same value (wealth). however he never went in my border. is this a bug ?
Unit pathing can be erroneous, sometimes it really pays to go straight through a radiation cloud and take a turn of damage and yet even without using r-click dragging, but just pushing the left arrow, the game will automatically path a route around the cloud. This can be frustrating
At one point in the game, a weaker civilization offered to become a vassal state of my civilization. After I accepted, the cultural area around all my starbases disappeared and as a result, I lost access to resources where I had already built an extraction facility. Consequently, total health and total happiness went down in all my solar systems. I can provide a saved game of before and after the fact, if necessary. Great mod though, aside from this 'undocumented feature'.
I had this happen once too, and judging from me and my vassal's power graphs, the same thing happened to him. (The power graph took a dip for one turn when he vassaled to me.)
Unit pathing can be erroneous, sometimes it really pays to go straight through a radiation cloud and take a turn of damage and yet even without using r-click dragging, but just pushing the left arrow, the game will automatically path a route around the cloud. This can be frustrating
Agreed, but which is worse: Having the Go to tool make a route through a radiation cloud when you don't want it to or having it route around the cloud when you don't want it to?
I have CTD problems with a couple of the leaders (sorry I can't recall which ones) -whenever I meet them in-game or select them on the menu screen the game crashes to the desktop. Will this patch fix this problem?
I'm having the same problem. When I look in the Civilopedia, The leaders of The Forge, the Red Syndicate and the Astronomics [or whatever] Corp (the ones based on Hannibal, FDR, and Churchill) all show up fine. But the leader of Paradise has the Cheshire Leader effect going on. All I can see are his teeth, eyes, and edges of his eyelids. And all the rest don't show up at all. They don't even have entries in the Civilopedia. All that shows is a blank page. And if I try to do anything with them regarding the actual game it crashes. For example, when I'm selecting my civ at the start of a game, if I so much as click on any of the glitched guys, the game crashes. What's going on with my game?
I've just tried it out on Noble level and AI is really stupid as mentioned above.
AI DoWed me with 6 delta planetary defense ships while it had access to delta invasion ships. I only had 2 delta plan. def. ships and 2 delta fight squads in that system. They were afraid to attack because of the +200% defense bonus and I air striked them to retreating where they got destroyed.
Huh, the AI doesn't understand the strengths and weaknesses of its ships. And have you ever noticed how it seems like all the AI's missiles are in the city you attack? I've deduced from observing how the AI trucks around its missiles that it's treating them like defensive units, like planetary defense ships. This, of course, is not how you're supposed to use them at all and is only going to get you in a heap of trouble.
Sometimes a star system has a 1 population home planet and no other planets with food (at least in the 1st or 2nd culture expansion area). The city is stuck at a 1 pop until a nutrition center and habitation center are build on the home planet. In MP, people say forget it and ask me to burn the system for them, or gift the system to the AI. Perhaps a modified system generation could prevent the "tundra city" of systems. Of course, if some systems are supposed to be totally crappy, then carry on.
I also get the "double-click required" when prompted for a build order. This is especially annoying when what I want to build requires a scroll-down of the menu.
Planet improvements are too expensive. For the cost (hammers) of a 3rd mining or habitat facility, you could build a battleship or carrier.
Getting to Utilitarianism (for omega fighters) or Commerce Theory (for omega planetary defense ships), to defend against battleship/destroyer/airplane, takes too long. I know people have been saying that the tech tree is chewed up too quickly, but I can barely (if I'm lucky) get to Omega fighters, upgrade them, and use Utopia to get Commerce theory to upgrade planetary, quickly enough to defend. Unless you spam fighters, defending against an early b-ship rush is almost impossible. Watching the turns to complete a tech go from 11 to 8 in one turn because a commercial satalite is completed in a 3 pop planet and watching my population go from a 7-8 to 14 in 10-15 turns (because of Utopia) is encouraging; however, my 14 pop always gets burned by someone who has not spent 100's of hammers improving their system. Instead, they go unhappy (and say "whatever") while battleships get completed in capital ship focus and then carriers in squadron focus. Commerce theory and Utilitarianism should not be made more expensive, but capital ship focus and squadron focus should be.
More detailed blabbering about tech tree defense vs. offense (or bottom vs. top):
Spoiler:
If someone is unaware of the impossibility of defense, it is because they have not tried MP. I guess in SP, the AI rarely attacks. When is has against me (in MP games that people quit or SP games where I practiced strat), it generally brings a bunch of light ships that die to my airplanes; then the AI tries to run home. Unlike SP, in MP, you can expect the armada described below to arrive ~ turn 80. I mostly play MP and regularly burn through 4 civs via building (sometimes with a stagnant 4 population! and sometimes with an unhappy(x3) 9 population): 1-4 destroyers, 2 stealth ships, 3 b-ships, 0-2 carriers, and fighters (built as the armada sails to enemy). I click on light manufacturing (take monarchy), then click on squadron focus, grabbing fighters (survival) somewhere along the way. The best defense against this is spamming fighters (does this mod have unit costs? because it sure doesn't seem to) or trying to get omega planetary defenders/fighters in time.
Health buildings are worthless. If you build one, you have made a mistake. The +1 health = +1 food and just doesnt matter. At -9 health, you still grow to a 9 pop almost instantly (if you are a happy 8 pop). Happiness is cheap (early techs for culture and then sports arena). Happiness can be ignored as well (if you simply want the earliest armada possible) but health is completely irrelevant with Utopia (+1 food for all planets = +1 food per current working pop). With Utopia, I get to 18 pop (happy) without one health building. I build sports arenas and run 20% culture.
Note: noble player (because of MP)
Rings and moons should affect planet stats. Star color should indicate planets present in system (does it?).
Pillaging should require something (a promotion?). Promotions should be more available (I play luke because I like to personalize my armada) OR all ships +1 movement and change movement promotion so that it does not require combat2.
Slavery requires a turn of anarchy and generally = -3 turns of production for 4-6 population! Worthless. The time it takes to regrow that pop, and the production lost during the regrowth are WAY MORE than the 3 turns of production up front, even in the 1st 3 turns following the whip!!
Details that prove slavery is worthless:
Spoiler:
Figure 4 population working a 2 hammer planet, thats 8 hammer per turn lost until you regrow (and 8 food and 8 commerce!). Let's say 2 turns to regrow = 16,16,16 lost. Then 1 turn losing 6,6,6 (minus 3 pop). That's a total loss of 22,22,22 on turn 3 after whipping (the turn you would have finished the build had you not whipped 4 pop to eliminate 3 turns). You still have 10 turns to get back to starting population.
Edit: I've started playing deity, since there is no happy penalty. There seems to be no research penalty either.
They weren't like this before. The only thing I can think of that could be causing this is the fact I installed the latest Catalyst drivers (7.8) today. Is anybody else having this problem?
They weren't like this before. The only thing I can think of that could be causing this is the fact I installed the latest Catalyst drivers (7.8) today. Is anybody else having this problem?
Hey, I didn't notice that either, but the same thing is happening to me. I'm using a Nvidia Geforce 5500, there's probably something wrong with the model files.
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After observing how the AI scout ships handle objects like blackholes and damage fields, I've come to a conclusion: The AI doesn't understand how blackholes and damage fields work at all. I have a screenshot of a pirate that "ran away" from my scout ship and blundered into a super nova, where it was destroyed:
I forgot to take a screenshot of the scout ship that has been stuck in a black hole, which is now in my territory, for about a century and a half now. I can get a screen shot if you guys want it, the ship is still there.
I've also noticed that the AI construction ships like to build extravagant networks warp lanes. I think they're trying to spell something out:
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-focused military city built up full factory +mine production before the game ends. I'm happy to hear the tech pace is being slowed.
