Playable Affinities

I'm going to write up this idea in the form of a design proposal document for a mod. Let me know what you think.

Core Goals

1. Playstyle should determine affinity, not choice of leaf techs
2. Each affinity should have a distinctive flavour
   • Purity should be based in growth/expansion and production
   • Supremacy should be based in energy and science
   • Harmony should be based on alien friendship and preserving Planet
3. In leaning towards one affinity civs should veer away from the others, not gradually level up in each
4. Domination victory should be viable for every Affinity
5. Mechanics should favour friendship with civs with same Affinity, and rivalry with opposing Affinities

Assumptions

Wide and tall should both be viable; right now, thanks to trade routes and health mechanics only wide is optimal. We assume this will be fixed.

• It is assumed that the currently overpowered nature of trade routes, which makes ICS and trade route spam the only optimal strategy, is fixed
• It is assumed that internal trade route yields are reduced, so that external trade becomes a viable choice; number of trade routes may also be nerfed.
• It is also assumed that the penalty for negative health is increased
• It is also assumed that biowells are nerfed, for example by increasing maintenance.

Affinity descriptions

Purity
Purity is characterised by expansion. A Purity civ builds tile improvements that yield food, production and health. Strong production makes it easy to build an army and buildings; this is mitigated by limited energy (limiting the ability to support a large army and non-energy buildings) and limited science (limiting/slowing access to more powerful unit, buildings and wonders).

Supremacy
Supremacy is characterised by tech. A Supremacy civ builds tile improvements that yield energy and science. As the strongest affinity for science, it will have the earliest access to powerful units, buildings and wonders. However its limited productive capacity will force it to make hard choices, and it will often be forced to use its energy to rush-buy.

Harmony
Harmony is characterised by friendship with aliens and preservation of the planet. It eschews tile improvements and spreads miasma. The Harmony civ doesn't need to build units: it recruits aliens to fight on its behalf. The Harmony civ is the weakest of the affinities on food, production, science and energy - and doesn't care. So long as there are aliens it has military units that are free to acquire and zero maintenance; so long as there is miasma on unimproved tiles, there will be more aliens.

Affinity point "yields" and "ranks"

• Civs no longer earn affinity from researching techs.
  
• Affinity points are changed to a yield system, similar to culture or Civ5:G&K faith.
  Passing a certain threshold in earned points in a given affinity unlocks the next "rank" in that affinity, in the same way earning culture unlocks virtues. Unlocking an affinity "rank", grants access to the buildings, units and unit upgrades in the same way affinity points do in CivBE vanilla/launch edition. Of course you DO still need to research the tech too.
  
• Each civ has three affinity points pools; one for each affinity. Earning points in one affinity drains the pools of the other affinities. i.e. earning Purity points results in a loss of Supremacy and Harmony points (to a minimum of zero).
  
• Losing points in an affinity could result in losing affinity ranks. Losing ranks will disable access to their benefits, just as with loss of access to a strategic resource.
  

New game mechanic: alien recruitment

There is a new special unit, the Alien Relations Officer. This is unlocked by the new Tier 1 tech "Universal Translator". The Alien Relations Officer upgrades with Harmony ranks in much the same way as other affinity units.

When the Alien Relations Officer attacks an alien, there is a chance the alien is placed under the direct control of that civ (i.e. destroy the alien unit, and replace with playable unit that matches the alien's stats and graphics). The chance for this to happen should be a function of two variables: the alien unit's strength, and the number of upgrades the Alien Relations Officer has achieved. Thus in the early game recruiting Wolf Beetles is merely probable, not certain, and trying to recruit Raptor bugs is risky; by the end game, a fully-upgraded Alien Relations Officer could have a decent chance to recruit Siege Worms.

Affinity yields from tile improvements

The following tile improvements generate Purity points per turn

• Farm, Mine (few)
• Biowell, Manufactuary (more)
• Terrascape, Floatstone Quarry (most)

The following tile improvements generate Supremacy points per turn

• Generator (few)
• Node, Academy (more)
• Array, Firaxite Mine (most)

The following tile improvements generate Harmony points per turn

• Paddock, plantation (few)
• Tile with miasma (more)
• Alien nest, Xenomass Well (most)

Affinity friendship and rivalry

Love and hate

• AI civs will generate positive reaction modifiers for civs that follow the same affinity, and negative reaction modifiers for civs that follow an opposing affinity. As with Civ5 BNW ideologies, this reaction modifier should be one of the most important in the game.
• AI civs should be strongly inclined to attack a civ that follows an opposing affinity when that civ approaches the completion of its affinity victory condition, if it is at all feasible to do so.

Trade and diplomacy preferences

• Trade routes with the capital of a civ following the same affinity should yield bonus special resource (Floatstone, Firaxite, Xenomass); this will reduce strategy rivalry between civs of aligned affinities.
  
• Trade routes with civs following differing affinities should suffer steadily increasing penalties as each of the pair ranks up in their respective affinities. Ultimately, trade should be impossible. Likewise, as a pair of civs rank up in opposing affinities, diplomatic deals should suffer penalties or be disabled altogether.

Other game mechanics changes

• Because Harmony usually does not improve tiles, it will need access to buildings that boost the yield of unimproved tiles.
• Harmony may need a mechanic to increase the rate of alien nest spawning within its borders. (Perhaps nests could occasionally spawn an alien "colonist" unit, so the player can choose the new nest location?)
• Harmony may also need a mechanic to increase alien spawn rate from nests (building attribute?).
• It may be necessary to increase the number of alien unit types, and the maximum strength of the best alien units, to keep Harmony's military viable.
• Do Harmony workers need the capability to spread miasma?

Variations

1. Generating Supremacy points from science and energy tile improvements severely penalises use of such improvements by civs following Purity and Harmony. If this is too harsh, we could have every leaf tech unlock access to its own super-cheap national wonder that generates Supremacy points.

[reserved]

I think you are sort of starting from a biased assumption that robotic/computer advance is the true form of science while bioengineering is a lower form or an irrelevant technological path.

As it stands now the harmony affinity is not a bunch of tree lover naturalists but a group of people devoted to development and engineering of artificial life and evolution.
The Xeno Titan, for example, the ultimate harmony unit, is not an alien creature but an entirely artificial living being. So it goes for the Rocktopus.
That requires a very high degree of technological advancement.

Similarly the Purity faction is not low on technological advancement, quite the opposite. They reject changing humanity which means they, more than anyone else, need technology to compensate for the inherent human flaws (i.e. Battlesuits).

There is a fair amount of ambiguity in the descriptions of what each affinity stands for, and therefore a lot of leeway and room for debate in deciding exactly which improvements should correspond to which affinity.

My own interpretation of the affinities is that
- Supremacy promotes machines over biology of any kind, either human or alien (and therefore builds robots and computers to replace people)
- Harmony promotes the biology of this new planet over either Earth biology or machines (and therefore builds genetically engineered hybrids for both military and industrial purposes)
- Purity promotes all things Earth over anything from this new planet (and therefore recreates traditional old-fashioned Earth environments such as mines, farms, terran forests and suburban neighbourhoods inside domes).

Adjustments I would make

Acadamies should not be tied to any affinity - as Ryoga points out none of the affinities is any more pro-science or pro-education than the others.

Domes should yield Purity - their civilopedia description says they're meant to recreate an earthlike living environment inside, which would surely appeal to people trying to recreate their lost homeworld.

Biowells should yield Harmony - their pedia description says they're designed to let humans live amongst nature without disturbing it, which should appeal to bioengineers. It also gives Harmony players a way to generate a lot of food without building Farms.

Manufacturies, I'm in two minds about. On the one hand they're traditional factories just like the good old ones on Earth, so should appeal to Purity. On the other hand they're vast halls full of automated machines and robots which build stuff, so they should appeal to Supremacy too. Perhaps they could yield both?



Of course this is all rather academic until we figuire out how to make tiles yield affinity points. I suspect this will require lua scripting, something at which I am not at all experienced.

Ryoga said:

I think you are sort of starting from a biased assumption that robotic/computer advance is the true form of science while bioengineering is a lower form or an irrelevant technological path.

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That's a fair criticism. However, the fiction needs to support the game; it's no good having a fiction that results in bland gameplay mechanics.

The problem with "soldiers in battlesuits" vs "giant robots" vs "bioengineered monsters" is that, from a gameplay point of view, there's really no difference.

My proposal was an effort to make the gameplay style drive the game mechanics of affinity - so yes, I've skewed what Affinities "mean" to support that adjustment.

I sort of feel like the three affinities don't really distinguish themselves terribly much at the moment, except of course that they have somewhat different military units. Here's just some thoughts I've had on how the three affinities could distinguish themselves a bit more on the builder side, in the matter of health. Of course the overall sources of health would need a fair bit of tweaking for this to make sense (more early health, less later health). And negative health penalties would need to scale more as you go further into the negative, and hit a fair bit harder. I also think (relatively modest) bonuses for staying in high positive health (+10/+20/+30 etc) would also improve balance generally.
I'm not attaching numbers to any of this, since I really don't know what would be balanced - really more just throwing out some ideas. I imagine having these bonuses unlock gradually at increasing levels of affinity, and also via affinity-favoured techs.


Harmony:
Tread lightly

- Reduced -health per pop
- Added small local health per worked miasma/forest tile
- Tech path has plant forest and forest improvement (?)
- Of all affinities, have least ability to deal with added -health (from new cities/conquest/manufactories/petroleum)

Harmony focuses on reducing the footprint of each individual citizen as they adapt to the new environment. -unhealth is considerably more powerful than +health because it then allows a developed city to provide net positive global health. Miasma/forests provide modest amounts of +health. They will not need as many +health buildings to break even, but as they develop health infrastructure (and terrain) they will ideally benefit from the bonuses given from keeping health well into the green. The -health from manufactories etc will be harder to justify for Harmony factions, although improved forests will ensure their production isn't dire.


Purity:
Regrow humanity

- Tech paths have +food from terrain, +growth bonuses and +health buildings (already pretty much the case)
- Powerful health buildings available at high affinity
- Reduction of -health per city connected to the capital

Purity are fairly much as they're currently designed, which I really like. They're all about taming the land and growing their population - and their 'preferred' tech paths reflect this, giving hefty growth bonuses, big bonuses to farms and food production, and lots of health-improving buildings. Their power is in raw population numbers, and they are probably best-served by growing right up to their health limit and keeping health fairly neutral. The big population numbers cause a lot of -health, but they have powerful buildings (and biowells) to deal with it - although there is of course the associated production and maintenance cost. And they're a bit better at dealing with per-city unhealthiness, so they can spread out a bit more. All the +health floating around means they're fairly robust for building manufactories etc in reasonable amounts.


Supremacy:
Beyond the flesh

- Penalties for negative health greatly reduced
- A +health satellite on their tech path
- A powerful +production, -health factory on their path

While Harmony aim to adapt to the planet and Purity aim to tame it, Supremacy aim more to transcend it. In going beyond human limitations and weaknesses, they are thus less concerned by adverse conditions. The Supremacy civ can go well into negative health and suffer relatively few consequences. The higher levels of unhealthiness will still hurt, so they can't ignore health entirely, but they have much more flexibility with actions that cause a drop in health. So they can build manufactories and -health buildings with much less concern than other affinities. But they'll always have at least a minor penalty, and getting the benefits of highly positive health will not be worth the cost.


Any thoughts? One concern I have with all this is the benefits of having a minor in a secondary affinity. I think the Harmony and Supremacy bonuses can both synergise with Purity, but Harmony and Supremacy don't seem to gel quite so well.

I think this is a good idea. The affinities at the moment don't really change gameplay that much, if at all. You just get some different buildings and some different units, but the fundamentals don't differ much.

Of course I think for your suggestions to really work, the health system needs to be made much more compelling and relevant itself; you can pretty easily ignore negative health as it is right now, so the supremacy perk suggested here has no real teeth.

Suggestion #392 regarding Affinity overhaul.

Cutting straight to the chase, Affinities seem uninspired and bland. The victories also come much too early. Affinity levels should bring real changes to your Civilization, and near the end of the game you should see significant differences between Civilizations of different Affinities.

The first change I think is that the first Affinity level should grant a bonus for Explorers. Purity and Supremacy already accomplish this, though seem somewhat odd. The first Affinity level should also try and steer you towards a certain attitude with Aliens.

There should also be Affinity specific improvement bonuses. The different Affinities should encourage different improvements, so that the lands of a civilization following Supremacy looks different than that of a Harmony civilization. Of course all improvements would be available to everyone, but Affinities would grant bonuses to certain ones. Harmony would grant boosts towards Biowells (which would be renamed "Biopreserves"), Supremacy would have the Node, and Purity would get the Dome. I view these improvements becoming the "signature" for the different Affinities, and their lands will be littered by their respective improvements. The Terrascape would also be sort of a Purity improvement, but instead of getting directly improved by the Affinity, you would instead be only be able to build 1 per level of Purity. All yields of it would be improved by 1 to make it more desirable and make investing in Purity more compelling.

The special spy operations are good, but seem highly situational and occasions to use them are rare, especially when you could just coup the city instead. I propose they should be available at intrigue level 4, making them easier to get access to and not a choice between it or a Coup. Victories should be tied to level 16, and level 13 will instead give each Affinity a powerful "finisher" style bonus, but you will only be able to one of these (if you get the Supremacy "finisher" first, you won't get the Harmony "finisher" upon reaching 13 Harmony). So without further ado, here we go:

Purity
Level 1
Explorers gain +1 movement and ignore Alien Zone of Control. Gain Culture for killing Aliens.
EDIT: Allows 1 Terrascape per level of Purity (for those that didn't bother to read the opener).
Level 3
+1 Health and +10% Growth in any city without adjacent Miasma.
Level 6
Domes provide an additional +1 production and +1 culture if there is no Miasma present on the tile.
Level 8
Floatstone Quarries and Domes provide an additional +2 production on tiles next to coast or fresh water, provided they have no Miasma.
Level 11
Allows the Dirty Bomb/no change
Level 13
Doubles number of Terrascapes available, +20% combat strength for units not in Miasma.
Level 16
Unlock Warp Gate/no change.

Purity is focused on bringing back the glory of Earth, and they do it by changing the Alien world to be like home. They have a fondness for Domes and Terrascapes, and are going to be removing all the awful Alien Miasma to try and make this world at least somewhat habitable.

Harmony
Level 1
Explorers are immune to Miasma and won't be attacked by Aliens. Alien aggression returns to normal twice as fast.
Level 3
Cities gain +1 culture per adjacent Miasma, +1 culture on any tile with both Miasma and a Forest or Marsh. Units only receive 5 damage from Miasma.
Level 6
Alien Nests provide the same yield and act as Xenomass Wells for cities, must be pillaged (by either your own or enemy units) to be destroyed if they are within your territory. Biopreserves provide an additional +1 culture and production if Miasma is present on the tile.
Level 8
Workers have the option to "Grow Forest" on any land tile within your territory that has Miasma and is not snow or desert. Biopreserves yield +1 food. All units immune to Miasma and heal 5 Health each turn when on Miasma.
Level 11
Call Worm Strike/no change.
Level 13
Can train Alien units in any city with an Alien Nest, will appear as "Wild" Aliens to enemies and can be used as such (still subject to Ultrasonic Fences/Trader Immunity, but can go anywhere and attack anything else with no diplomatic reprecussions). Kraken and Siege Worms cost 2 Xenomass, all others cost 1. +1 to all yields present on Biopreserves in Miasma.
Level 16
Can build Mindflower/no change.

Harmony loves the new world they have found themselves in, and wants to exploit the unique opportunities it provides. They spread themselves out over the planet quickly and grow nearly as quickly with their Biopreserves, which exploit the natural bounty of the world. They are always evolving and will be quickly adopting new virtues even as their empire sprawls ever larger.

Supremacy
Level 1
Explorers gain +1 sight and +1 Expedition. Earn Science upon clearing an Alien Nest.
Level 3
Roads and Magrails cost no maintenance, gain +2 science in any city connected to the Capital, Capital gets +1 science for every city connection.
Level 6
Cities gain +1% science for each Node worked. Nodes provide an additional +1 food and production on tiles with no Forest. Gain Science equal to the Production gained when chopping a forest.
Level 8
Nodes provide +1 science and culture if a military unit is stationed on it. +1 production on Firaxis mines.
Level 11
Sabotage/no change
Level 13
Nodes deal 20 damage to enemy units that end their turn next to them, provide +1 culture, and can be built in enemy lands if the tile is pillaged or unimproved. The tile will culturally become yours until pillaged or peace is made(upon which the tile is automatically pillaged). Units gain +10% combat strength against Civilizations with less technologies than you.
Level 16
Emancipation Gate/no change.

Supremacy focuses on science above all else. They are quick to tech up and can offset the science penalties from expanding with their nodes. They have little regard for their less advanced rivals, constructing their nodes freely in enemy lands when at war no one has more staying power in a fight than a Supremacist.


And there we go. I'm sure they are ridiculously unbalanced, but I would love feedback. Are they better than worse than the current Affinities? Do they create more differences between various factions? Supremacy is obviously going to be the hardest to balance, since science is still as important (if not more) as it was in Civ 5.

Lanth said:

Of course I think for your suggestions to really work, the health system needs to be made much more compelling and relevant itself; you can pretty easily ignore negative health as it is right now, so the supremacy perk suggested here has no real teeth.

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Oh absolutely. I feel like even in its current state, the game needs much more weighty penalties and another couple of levels of ill health. I would imagine having a fourth or fifth level of ill health so dire that even the full Supremacy player's society would be badly hurting if it reached it. And of course these suggestions would also need some relatively modest bonuses at e.g +10/+20/+30 positive health.

Those ideas all sound good

Two changes I would make is removing many of the harmony unique units, and placing those in the wild. As of now, I feel that there are not enough aliens, and they quickly become not a large part of the game. As well, aliens should upgrade over time

One way to make the tech and affinities seem more real would be just some more writing. Each tech should have a shord describtion of what it is in non gameplay terms. I don't know what 'cognition' does but it gets me the neurolab and after I built it I was informed in a quest that my citizens have uploaded themselves into the neurolab and are a group consciousness. That was news to me, I had no idea what it did other than give be science from firaxite. I could have found that in the civilopedia but they should put more of that upfront to catch interest in the fiction.

I really like the ideas being worked on here. I think the game would benefit from Affinity being tied more to actions rather than tech. It would make gameplay very different depending on affinities.

My experience is that, in my games into the 2xx-3xx turns and I find that the further you come, the more you start picking up the other affinities and you start unlocking things that logically doesn't fit your affinity. Over time, each Colony becomes the same.

But, rather than massive changes to gameplay, I'd like to, at first atleast, see changes to how you earn affinity. I'm no modder, so I'll be needing someone with skill to make it happen.

One thing I'd like to see is that Alien killing have an effect on Affinity; -0,25 Harmony point per alien killed, +0,25 Purity for example.
Supremacy I can't rightly place in that context.

As you suggested, make building tile improvements impact positive points. Am thinking rather than making them accumulate points and implementing a brand new tech/culture system (which I suspect is harder to mod) then simply make completion of an improvement add points.

For the purpose, I'd suggest not letting standard improvements such as Farms, Mines, Generators change anything.
Maybe have Paddocks add points to Harmony, while Plantations add points to Supremacy. Purity could instead gets one quarter point from farms (with implied earth crops).

But, where it really should matter what is built is with Dome, Terrascape and Biowell.

Dome should be Purity based, because inside it people can live as if on Earth.
Terrascape could be purity too, but its civpedia entry says it's a sign of humanity's dominance over nature. So I'm wondering if it isn't more down supremacy's alley.
The Biowell is specifically said to be built with a focus of Harmony.

Of course, this isn't enough to boost affinity, so various buildings should add points too, and of course some tech should add points towards a new affinity.

Lastly I'd really like the option to avoid researching some things entirely or perhaps rather to pass on getting Affinity upgrades other than my primary.
A Future Tech like tech for that purpose would be nice.

If any of this could be implemented into a mod I'd be happy.

I don't know why people are so dead set against ever researching something from the "wrong" affinity. Someone asked how do you grow cities with supremacy and the answer was get vertical farming. Yes vertical farming gives you purity points, but if it didn't give you purity points would you be avoiding it? No! Because it's useful. So why would you avoid it because it does?
The only techs you should avoid of a different affinity are the ones that only give a unique unit which you won't be able to use or a wonder which you might not get. Otherwise the affinity points are only a bonus to the correct affinity, not a penalty to others.
It seem some want to play the game in a very rigid way and want the game to force you to do that. Even purity has to be a little flexible. One person said harmony should never kill an alien. Does that mean they shouldn't build paddocks for chitin because I'm pretty sure they're eating those to. I'm planing a rant on what harmony isn't so look forward to that!

I for one don't mind having a few points in Harmony and Supremacy, and I usually get the tech I need to succeed. Admittedly it is a minor thing that messes with my storytelling that my Human-Purity Atlan Empire apparently allow harmonics and supremacists to build in the outskirts. But, I could live with it, if their existence and that tolerance were a result of something my Colonists had done.

My gripe is isn't about how various affinities should be played. I don't want to dictate what is right and wrong. Rather, the reason I'd like a change is because the Affinity system as it is now, is based almost entirely on which techs you research, and not what kind of playstyle you actually have.

And I cannot help but feel that how you go about your work on this new planet, is more telling of what affinity your people adhere to than what the researchers do in their dark damp basements.

But, all that said, this is talk about a mod. The beauty of it is that one can simply choose not to load it. I for one would like to see a change to how affinities work. And, it makes sense for me to go by how the civpedia describe the three affinities. If you have a better understanding, I'm sure a constructive post on it could be useful for developing the mod.

Atlan Nestor said:

But, rather than massive changes to gameplay, I'd like to, at first atleast, see changes to how you earn affinity. I'm no modder, so I'll be needing someone with skill to make it happen.

One thing I'd like to see is that Alien killing have an effect on Affinity; -0,25 Harmony point per alien killed, +0,25 Purity for example.
Supremacy I can't rightly place in that context.

As you suggested, make building tile improvements impact positive points. Am thinking rather than making them accumulate points and implementing a brand new tech/culture system (which I suspect is harder to mod) then simply make completion of an improvement add points.

For the purpose, I'd suggest not letting standard improvements such as Farms, Mines, Generators change anything.
Maybe have Paddocks add points to Harmony, while Plantations add points to Supremacy. Purity could instead gets one quarter point from farms (with implied earth crops).

But, where it really should matter what is built is with Dome, Terrascape and Biowell.

Dome should be Purity based, because inside it people can live as if on Earth.
Terrascape could be purity too, but its civpedia entry says it's a sign of humanity's dominance over nature. So I'm wondering if it isn't more down supremacy's alley.
The Biowell is specifically said to be built with a focus of Harmony.

Of course, this isn't enough to boost affinity, so various buildings should add points too, and of course some tech should add points towards a new affinity.

If any of this could be implemented into a mod I'd be happy.

Click to expand...

I think that as well as that,there is no longer many affinities in the tech trees. They stop people from taking techs that gain other affinities. As well, there could be more ways to gain affinity points, such as having specitalists of affinity point producers.

Lglenhaber said:

I think that as well as that,there is no longer many affinities in the tech trees. They stop people from taking techs that gain other affinities. As well, there could be more ways to gain affinity points, such as having specitalists of affinity point producers.

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I don't know why getting the wrong affinity would stop them from getting it. There's no penalty!

I favor playing purity every game. I also enjoy 3 points in supremacy to get free roads and researching harmony techs to give my troops health regeneration. It keeps me in the battle longer and shortens healing time between city captures. I don't see a problem with mixing affinity levels at the end you still are whatever your dominant affinity is.

Minor Annoyance said:

I don't know why getting the wrong affinity would stop them from getting it. There's no penalty!

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People feel that their units may upgrade into the wrong upgrades that they do not want

Lglenhaber said:

People feel that their units may upgrade into the wrong upgrades that they do not want

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That doesn't happen. Choose ignore and you don't have to select an upgrade.