v7 feedback

[Maniac]

For those too shy to start a thread themselves

 

[dogshu]

Just started a v7a game as Morgan Industries after not having played for several versions, so this might be a dumb question, but does the "Unity Observation Bay" really give you the whole world map? It doesn't cost much more than a colony pod on the first turn of the game. Seems like kind of a low cost for such a big early advantage.

 

[dogshu]

OK I have 2 unity foils. One I upgraded from one of those mobile supply pod things, the other I got directly from a unity pod. The unity foil that I upgraded from the mobile supply pod can be ordered to "build improvements (automated)", while the other cannot. Is this a bug or am I missing something?

 

[Maniac]

Just started a v7a game as Morgan Industries after not having played for several versions, so this might be a dumb question, but does the "Unity Observation Bay" really give you the whole world map? It doesn't cost much more than a colony pod on the first turn of the game. Seems like kind of a low cost for such a big early advantage.

I'm not sure myself if this is too much of an advantage. Only playtesting can tell. The theory though is that, yes, it is a big advantage, but then again, so is having an extra colony pod early in the game. So while you might be getting the world map, the other factions might be doubling the size of their economy.

OK I have 2 unity foils. One I upgraded from one of those mobile supply pod things, the other I got directly from a unity pod. The unity foil that I upgraded from the mobile supply pod can be ordered to "build improvements (automated)", while the other cannot. Is this a bug or am I missing something?

A bug.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I tried to install patch b the usual way (complete removal of the old version, install main file, install patch b), but when I start the mod I get a bunch of XML-errors, starting with:

 

[Maniac]

Crap. That's what I get for not following my own "quality assurance" procedures. Patch c can be downloaded from the usual thread, solving this issue.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Some observations playing with Patch c:

1. For some reason I cannot remove Fungus with my Formers anymore...despite having Xenobiology, the option just no longer shows up, if a former is on a fungus tile - instead a greyed-out button for building a mag-tube appears.

2. Also the material supply you start the game with seem to be no longer able to rush one of the Unity wonders - the option just does not appear.

3. The UN Cyrobay can heavily backfire in the early game, if you start in a less fertile area...if you can't supply the additional citiziens, the ultraponics maintenance can be grippling (especially if you haven't started to build Windmills or other energy suppliers yet)

4. I played with the new close starting positions and one annoying thing is the AI's passiveness vs. spawning points in their sea territories. They don't seem to take any measures against them (likely because the start quite late with improving the seas) and the IoDs and Snakes go for me, who has already some sea improvements. If you have no OB with such an AI, you are flooded with native life without having a chance to stop the waves by killing the spawning points...this made me declare war on Lal, just to take out two spawning points

5. My biggest issue at the moment is still the Flowering Counter and the amounts of natives life - its just to one-sided, IMO. You inevitably run into more and more fungal blooms, as the game progresses. It does not seem to matter, which startegy your pursue - there is vast unsettled land, there is the AI and there is a race vs. the clock you can't win - even if some later inventions will help you, until you get them, you are already drowned in fungus.
Related to this, the difficulty levels don't work very well - to have a decent AI, I found Emperor to be a good difficulty...but on that level you have barely chances to survive vs. the nature. Noble is still tough here, but the AI is hopeless. I experimented a bit by fiddling with the Handicaps Info and copied the values for native life (mainly "tiles per spawn" and such things) on the Noble level into the Emperor level. I started on a rather small (and fungus-free) island, so I cannot comment on the situation on land, but there was still a lot of pressure from native life on the seas.
I also tried to do something vs. the ever-increasing flowering counter - I added reducing values for Forest, Jungle and Kelp tiles (I tried to expand this to other improvements, but I runned into XML-errors by doing this). I think this would make sense flavor-wise and could lead to a more dynamic game - you would have some active means to decrease the FC. The impact on the game was however at best slightly decreasing the speed with which the FC increased - the map is already filled with some fungus at the start, but it takes dozends of turns until the first "counter-features" appear.

6. Purely cosmetic and likely an relict from introducing the Nerve Staplers promotion - there are the City Garrison II and III promotions, but there is no CG I promotion.

 

[Maniac]

1. For some reason I cannot remove Fungus with my Formers anymore...

I cannot replicate these findings. Do you have a screenshot or save?
I did find a problem with the build-order-widget-health/planet-change-help-text though.
Edit: I'm surprised this widget bug doesn't crash the game.
Do you have Windows Vista perhaps? AFAIK Vista is less able to handle crappy code.

2. Also the material supply you start the game with seem to be no longer able to rush one of the Unity wonders - the option just does not appear.

You are confusing the Unity Supplies and the Material Supplies. Unless the source of the confusion are the graphics, I'm not sure how this could be solved.

3. The UN Cyrobay can heavily backfire in the early game

Not sure what to do here. Perhaps move the Cryobay to Recycling. Then you have the option to go Enclosed Biosphere, and food shortages are less likely. It of course does make the secret project less early of a project.

4. I played with the new close starting positions and one annoying thing is the AI's passiveness vs. spawning points in their sea territories.

Ah good catch. The sea unit AI types don't look for unity pods and spawning spots. I'll have to copy over some code from the land unit ai types.

5. My biggest issue at the moment is still the Flowering Counter and the amounts of natives life

What map size are these experiences on?

Anyway, I think I'll change the growth rate of fungus outside faction territory to:

XML value
* (100 / gamespeed unit training speed) * (# of starting players / 7)
/ (this map's # of plots / standard map size # of plots)

6. Purely cosmetic and likely an relict from introducing the Nerve Staplers promotion - there are the City Garrison II and III promotions, but there is no CG I promotion.

I'm undecided what to do with promotions. There are definitely not enough cool ideas for an interesting promotion tree ánd a special ability list for each unitcombattype. So I was thinking I could just strip down the promotions to Combat I->VI. Other idea would be to let certain special abilities grant access to certain promotion lines. In that case the City Garrison promotions could be enabled by Nerve Stapler.

Anyway, my current undecidedness on this matter is why I haven't bothered to fix that, and won't fix it right now either.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I cannot replicate these findings. Do you have a screenshot or save?
I did find a problem with the build-order-widget-health/planet-change-help-text though.
Edit: I'm surprised this widget bug doesn't crash the game.
Do you have Windows Vista perhaps? AFAIK Vista is less able to handle crappy code.

Yes, I'm running Vista. I reproduced the error by starting as new game as Deidre, using the unity supplies for a former and moving it then on fungus tile (see screenshot at the end and the attched save)

You are confusing the Unity Supplies and the Material Supplies. Unless the source of the confusion are the graphics, I'm not sure how this could be solved.

Ah, ok. Perhaps switching the names could lessen the confusion..."Unity supplies" from (unity) pods allowing to build "Unity wonders" and having material supplies to be converted into formers etc. is IMO the better naming.

What map size are these experiences on?

Standard size.

 

[Maniac]

Yes, I'm running Vista. I reproduced the error by starting as new game as Deidre, using the unity supplies for a former and moving it then on fungus tile (see screenshot at the end and the attched save)

Do tell whether the problem persists in patch d.

Ah, ok. Perhaps switching the names could lessen the confusion..."Unity supplies" from (unity) pods allowing to build "Unity wonders" and having material supplies to be converted into formers etc. is IMO the better naming.

I'll do so for the next patch.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Do tell whether the problem persists in patch d.

No more problems here with patch d


I played an Emperor game past the year 2400 and payed special attention to the FC development and the eruptions of native life. The counter started at 23 and climbed almost linearly (+1 every 7-11 years) to 40 in 2247 - so far no difference to how it was before.Then the increase suddenly slowed greatly, no clear idea why (might be the AIs fighting spawning points or my
attempts to cut fungus back):

2266 = 41
2281 = 42
2294 = 43
2310 = 44
2322 = 45 (but counter switched constantly between 44 and 45 until 2328)
2336 = 46 (flipped back to 45 once)
2358 = 47 (I already noticed in older versions that 47 seems to be a critical number - I got 3 fungal blooms on sea in a row over 3 consecutive turns , while getting none before. After that the counter increase slowed even more)
2392 = 48 (still 48 in 2412)

It definitely better then before, especially if I take in account that this game suffered a bit from the start position generator. I choosed "Scattered Landing Pods" (Map had Low Sea Level) and the generator placed most factions on islands. Worst case were the Gaians, which ended up on a 1-tile-island(!) and got stuck there forever (guess the generator choosed the island because there were 5 energy boni around). Except me and Miriam, who seemed to be the lucky one alone on the main continent, no faction got beyond 4 bases.
I will start another game to see if better developing AIs have an influence on the counter.

I experimented a bit with the civics and I think the combination of Autarky and Hybrid is too strong, as it entirely kills any city maintenance (it becomes extremly visible on Emperor - as soon as I had half a dozen bases up, I was forced to drop research to 20-30% to break even and that with Global Free Market at work...switching to Autarky/Hybrid allowed me 70%
science again!) - something you only achieve otherwise, if you build all for maintenance reducing facilities in very base. It might be also a reason, why the AIs have such a strong tendency to Hybrid...the usual way is starting out with EcB and switching then to Hybrid, hardly any AI is interested in being a Terraformer - not even Miriam, who should like that especially.
I tried the Terraformed civic (learned the hard way that you cannot run it, if the VoP is your religion - makes sense, but should be somewhere noted, IMHO) and it isn't bad - unlike Serfdom in Civ4 every turn less you need fight fungus is a win and its the only method to keep the farms growing under high FC values. So I think the problem is that Hybrid is too strong, not that Terraformed isn't useful (or it's the AI just not understanding the idea behind Terraformed)

I also noticed the strong aversion between Terraformed and Hybrid diplomatically. SMAC had such effects for all categories of civics, while Planetfall only has the standard Civ4 modifier (and the occasional demand to switch to the AIs favorit) for the other columns (and its impact is very depeding on the leader...I get e.g. +7 with LAL, when running Democracy, while most others rather seem to care about religion). I don't know if the diplomatic parameters of the original LHs were modified for Planetfall or just copied over, but don't really feel the "personality" the leaders had in SMAC. I think all leaders should value right/wrong civics as much as right/wrong religion - Civ4 destinction between religious leaders and political ones just
does not fit here (as religions in Planetfall are more like "values").

 

[bread smith]

I've got a problem with installing Planetfall (and some other mods, too):
There are no fonts in the game at all. The civiliopaedia only shows about 10 or twenty icons without any descriptions. You can start a game, but there are no mouseover infos and the whole interface looks unfinished...

I installed Planetfall in the beyond the sword/mods folder and patched to version d.

The strange thing is, that other mods like Warhammer or Rise of Mankind get the same problem, while Fall from Heaven 2 or Fall Further are running well.

I think I've read about this problem somewhere in this forum, but can't remember where. Does anyone have an idea, what could cause that problems?

 

[Teodosio]

I experimented a bit with the civics and I think the combination of Autarky and Hybrid is too strong, as it entirely kills any city maintenance

I concur, that combination is so strong that I never use it out of shame. Maybe their maintenance bonus could be limited to -50% instead of -100%?

A second issue is with the genejack factory. It provides +2 to citizens, making them more productive that engineers! Perhaps the bonus could be decreased to +1 ?

Finally, the +2 bonus for the Homo Superior value doesn't seem to work.

I've got a problem with installing Planetfall (and some other mods, too)

If I were you I would try to re-install the whole Civilization IV.

 

[bread smith]

If I were you I would try to re-install the whole Civilization IV.

That would really be the last option, because I've done so many text changes in the vanilla civ and bts (only translations to german) and didn't record them properly...

 

[Ahriman]

I get a CTD when I try moving the Dropship.
I just upgraded the Dropship on the eastern side of my empire from a transport foil; as soon as I try moving it into a tile with other units (eg the city to the SE with the Formers in it), I get a CTD.

Save attached.

*edit* attempting to delete the dropship (disband command, or in worldbuilder) also causes a CTD.

* * *

Also: I agree that Autarky and Hybrid are too strong.

I also find the way that native life pops up and instantly destroys upgraded farms that took many many turns to mature very annoying. I wish that the natives popped up, but only converted the tile to fungus on the turn after, if I didn't eliminate them all in a single turn.
I also wish all native life spawns started with zero movement (have them start with a promotion that gives -5 moves and wears off at the end of the turn with 100% chance - thats how we worked it in Warhammer), so you had a chance to kill them before they pillaged all your stuff (particularly naval spawns, that can each pillage 2-3 imrpovements.

You should be able to use sufficient military strength to stop the native-lifeforms from wrecking your economy.

Other pet-hates; overall moisture level is a bit low. Very often the player (or several of the AI players) start off in all-arid areas that are totally useless for any food production, which completely puts them out of the game.
Also; I hate that you can't build greenhouses in high food production areas; I can't think of any logical reason for this.

* * *

*Re-edit*
Also; the dropship should have some promotion that makes it ignore terrain costs (flying promotion?). Its lame that it can only fly over fungus one square at a time.

 

[Ahriman]

Units should be ale to scale ridges->lowlands and vice versa if both tiles have magtubes constructed. Its bizarre to see the road connecting the tiles, but to still be unable to move between them. I hate these ridges that block off continents - given the long/thin nature of the mapscript, very often a continent is blocked by a ridge going all the way across, forcing you to use naval units to move around the ridgeline.

 

[Maniac]

The counter started at 23 and climbed almost linearly (+1 every 7-11 years) to 40 in 2247 - so far no difference to how it was before.Then the increase suddenly slowed greatly, no clear idea why

That's kinda weird. If anything, their should be a temporary increase in expansion speed then, because at Counter 40, fungus can expand into unimproved plots within a human territory.

I guess the expansion speed might slow thereafter because all spots fungus can expand into are already expanded into

.It definitely better then before, especially if I take in account that this game suffered a bit from the start position generator. I choosed "Scattered Landing Pods" (Map had Low Sea Level) and the generator placed most factions on islands. Worst case were the Gaians, which ended up on a 1-tile-island(!) and got stuck there forever

Sounds like a bug.

(guess the generator choosed the island because there were 5 energy boni around).

Nah, it's the other way around. The game noticed the Gaian starting position was much worse than the other factions', so it placed a bunch of bonus resources to try and compensate.

I experimented a bit with the civics and I think the combination of Autarky and Hybrid is too strong

Any suggestion to what the maintenance reduction should be reduced? -50% like Teodosio suggests? Something else?

I think all leaders should value right/wrong civics as much as right/wrong religion - Civ4 destinction between religious leaders and political ones just does not fit here (as religions in Planetfall are more like "values").

Leaderhead personality hasn't been developed yet.
From a gameplay perspective I don't think it's a good idea to let favourite civics have too much an influence though. Religions are a more interesting diplomatic mechanic because it allows diplomatic groups bigger than two players. A civic attitude bonus is just between two players.

I've got a problem with installing Planetfall (and some other mods, too):
There are no fonts in the game at all.

Is it possible you are playing Civ in a language other than English?

A second issue is with the genejack factory. It provides +2 to citizens, making them more productive that engineers! Perhaps the bonus could be decreased to +1 ?

Would you ever use 2 hammer Labourers though? Even getting more than 3 hammers, by mining a plot, is easy. The thing what makes regular specialists special are their Great People Points, not their yields.

Finally, the +2 bonus for the Homo Superior value doesn't seem to work.

Works fine with me. Do you have a save?

I get a CTD when I try moving the Dropship.
I just upgraded the Dropship on the eastern side of my empire from a transport foil; as soon as I try moving it into a tile with other units (eg the city to the SE with the Formers in it), I get a CTD.

You can solve the issue for now by Unloading All Units... The unit got loaded onto itself. I'll fix it for (one of) the next patch(es).

I also find the way that native life pops up and instantly destroys upgraded farms that took many many turns to mature very annoying. I wish that the natives popped up, but only converted the tile to fungus on the turn after, if I didn't eliminate them all in a single turn.

I like the thought, but converting a plot on the turn after would probably require some spell or so. I need to think about the implementation.

Don't naval fungal bloom spawns already start with zero movement points though?

Other pet-hates; overall moisture level is a bit low.

It's the same as vanillla Civ.
In addition, there's the Enclosed Biosphere civic which makes all terrain as good as Moist.

Also; I hate that you can't build greenhouses in high food production areas; I can't think of any logical reason for this.

Why not build farms?

Also; the dropship should have some promotion that makes it ignore terrain costs (flying promotion?). Its lame that it can only fly over fungus one square at a time.

Will do.

Units should be ale to scale ridges->lowlands and vice versa if both tiles have magtubes constructed. Its bizarre to see the road connecting the tiles, but to still be unable to move between them.

I think I'll rather make it impossible to build magtubes on ridges.

I hate these ridges that block off continents - given the long/thin nature of the mapscript, very often a continent is blocked by a ridge going all the way across, forcing you to use naval units to move around the ridgeline.

You can also use choppers/hovertanks/gravships, dropships, drop troops if you want to invade.

 

[Ahriman]

Any suggestion to what the maintenance reduction should be reduced? -50% like Teodosio suggests? Something else?

50% is probably a good starting point. But these bonuses are huge. Particularly because inflation seems very high in this mod, and inflation increases the gains of forgoing city maintenance, but does not increase the gains from for eg bonuses from extra trade routes (from free trade civic).
So if city maintenance is 50 and inflation is 100%, removing all city maintenance saves me 100 gold per turn. Whereas even if a bonus trade route somehow gave me an extra 50 gold per turn, inflation wouldn't modify that.

I'd also consider adding a penalty to Autarky (it is a stupid idea IRL) - maybe no foreign trade routes AND -1 trade routes per city, or -50% yield from trade routes.

Its also very irritating playing a Terraforming strategy when every other AI on the planet all changes to Hybrid, and hates you terraformers, and none will trade with you anymore because you are now their worst enemy (made worse by the fact that the diplomatic benefits from gifts seem to wear off after a while?).

Works fine with me. Do you have a save?

It doesn't seem to work at least if Homo superior isn't your state religion - which is intended.

I like the thought, but converting a plot on the turn after would probably require some spell or so. I need to think about the implementation.

I realize it could be annoying to implement.
Possibly you could do it as an Event? So the initial spawn triggers an event the next turn, that checks if there are any barbarian units on the plot and spawns fungus if there are, otherwise does nothing.

Don't naval fungal bloom spawns already start with zero movement points though?

Not in my experience I think, unless I just don't notice them on the turn they spawn.

It's the same as vanillla Civ

It isn't, because:
a) Vanilla civ has a LOT more bonus food resources - wheat, sheep, deer, cows, pigs, rice, corn, flood plains. Planetfall has much less in the way of these, basic nutrients are only a 2 food bonus, and many of the bonuses require significant tech to reveal.
b) Vanilla civ mapscript won't start a player in an area without a decent level of food production.
But check out, for eg, the start positions of the Gaians and University in the save I attached above. Gaians are in the middle of 0 food arid area (Civ will never start you in the middle of an empty desert - or if it does, its in flood plains tiles), and the University is in the middle of the arctic.

Why not build farms?

Farms have a higher tech requirement, require fresh water, and have a negative planet modifier.

I think I'll rather make it impossible to build magtubes on ridges.

Ugh....
You really are set on making it impossible to move your units around the map
I find its really not fun to have so many limitations, and the fact that the AI doesn't use transports particularly well just makes it worse.

You can also use choppers/hovertanks/gravships, dropships, drop troops if you want to invade.

Well, you can't really launch any significant invasion without some artillery.
But its not combat that makes this so annoying. I don't mind having to use transports when launching an invasion, but the micromanagement of having to use transport units to get around within my own empire. I want to move a missionary to one of my cities; I have to use transports. I want to build some defenders and then move them to to my city; I have to use transports.

Maybe make it so that you can move ridge<->lowlands if it is within your cultural borders?
And similarly, maybe make terrain within your cultural borders reduce the terrain movement costs by -1, so even without roads (or late-game magtubes) its still easier for you to move around your borders than it is for your enemy.
And so that it doesn't take forever for your infantry to march around inside your empire.

Another point; the human player willing to micromanage can get massive mobility with dropships, that the AI player won't be able to mimic. Note that a unit unloaded from a dropship can attack, so you can move units in dropships 3 tiles, unload them, and then have them move and attack.

* * *
Btw, despite all the criticism, I'm loving this mod. It helps that the source material is great (I found SMAC way better than civ in general), but you've done an excellent job of implementing it too.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I stumbled a bug/crash, when trying to trade techs. I believe it is related to the fact that I built the Unity Observation Bay in this game...in the attached save, call up Morgan and ask him what he is willing to give you for Algaculture. Should be Industrial Automation, 220 Credits and his worldmap - if you accept that deal, the game crashes. Even more strange is the fact that Morgan will no longer accept the deal, if you remove the Worldmap (from his side!) of the table.

Any suggestion to what the maintenance reduction should be reduced? -50% like Teodosio suggests? Something else?

I also think that -50% for both Hybrid and Autarky is good point to start with.

Edit: Save removed, as it has no more use.

 

[Maniac]

50% is probably a good starting point. But these bonuses are huge. Particularly because inflation seems very high in this mod,

It's the same as in unmodded Civ.
Anyway, I hate inflation and would like to remove it. I still want unit maintenance to increase somehow though, as otherwise that would become less of a factor as the game progresses. So before removing inflation I first need to code a way for unit maintenance to increase. Perhaps later era units could cost 2 gold in maintenance or so.

It doesn't seem to work at least if Homo superior isn't your state religion - which is intended.

In the save you attached it works for me. Not for you?

a) Vanilla civ has a LOT more bonus food resources - wheat, sheep, deer, cows, pigs, rice, corn, flood plains. Planetfall has much less in the way of these, basic nutrients are only a 2 food bonus, and many of the bonuses require significant tech to reveal.

Ah, you only mentioned moisture level, not food resources. Anyway, with condensers you can turn all terrain into rainy if you want. Of course you need to research the required tech, but it wouldn't be a strategy game if you didn't have to make hard choices.

But check out, for eg, the start positions of the Gaians and University in the save I attached above. Gaians are in the middle of 0 food arid area (Civ will never start you in the middle of an empty desert - or if it does, its in flood plains tiles), and the University is in the middle of the arctic.

That's crappy AI choices, not bad design choices I think. I also noticed that Gaian position. I would have run Enclosed Biosphere if I were that civ. Perhaps reducing the Hybrid civic bonus will already help in that regard.

Farms have a higher tech requirement, require fresh water, and have a negative planet modifier.

If you want to have 3+ food tiles, you need to pay the price. You can't eat your cake and have it too.

I find its really not fun to have so many limitations

But there are always multiple ways around the limitations, be it movement limitations, or food limitations, or maintenance limitations (too many even, so you say ). What would for instance be the fun of a map completely consisting of rainy plots, not a single peak in sight etc?

I don't mind having to use transports when launching an invasion, but the micromanagement of having to use transport units to get around within my own empire. I want to move a missionary to one of my cities; I have to use transports. I want to build some defenders and then move them to to my city; I have to use transports.

Maybe make it so that you can move ridge<->lowlands if it is within your cultural borders?

Ridges are supposed to be an obstacle, just like peaks and oceans are in unmodded Civ. But I personally hate micromanagement, so...
Making ridge<->lowland movement always passable within your borders would give too great an advantage to the defender I think. However I could allow you to move between ridge<->lowland IF there is a bunker on the source or target plot. One can assume every bunker comes with a local ferry service. That implementation allows an interesting twist in combat, as it allows an attacker to cut off the possibility for reinforcements, by first focusing on the bunker.
The AI of course wouldn't understand that tactic without additional coding.

And similarly, maybe make terrain within your cultural borders reduce the terrain movement costs by -1, so even without roads (or late-game magtubes) its still easier for you to move around your borders than it is for your enemy.

The fact that enemy units can move as fast in your territory as you, is never gonna change.

And so that it doesn't take forever for your infantry to march around inside your empire.

Another point; the human player willing to micromanage can get massive mobility with dropships

This strikes me as a contradiction.

Regarding 'fungal blooms', I could not let them cause fungal growth directly, but let fungus spawn after a while on every plot with a fungal tower (sometimes spawned with fungal blooms). So you'd have a while to try and save the furniture.