1.6 feedback

[God-Emperor]

hi,
ive started my first game of dune wars ever,
down with 100 turns, game properties:
with arrakis map, standard size, atreidis, epic speed.

i gotta say, its a bit bit boring so far - i think maybe we need to increase barbarian/smugglers aggressiveness.

It does seem to start out pretty slow most of the time. The main possible exception seems to be when you have another civ start relatively close to you on the same landmass.

also, to my taste, theres a lot of units on a low count of techs, most of the starting units, you barley use, since the tech is advancing pretty fast.

Techs do seem to fly by pretty fast if you get a good economy going. This is true for most of the game - in the late game I'm currently playing (version 1.6.3, Arrakis map, large with standard 8 opponents, standard speed, just noble difficulty, as BG) I have been getting a new tech every 3-8 turns depending on whether it is an older tech I skipped past or a newer tech, and it has actually been getting faster. I'm almost out of techs - checking... I have 5 more and then nothing left to research, the one I'm currently working on (No-Fields) is 1 turn away, there are 2 that will take 2 (Artificial Spice and The Golden Path), one that will take 4 (Holtzmann Generators), and one that will take 5 (Kwizatz Haderach), not in that order. It is currently turn 332, 66.4% of the way to the time limit of 500 turns. I've been running about 75% research with the rest going to money (at +118/turn at the moment) for most of the last 50 turns. I am currently about 2 techs ahead of Shaddam (who beat me to the Thinking Computer project by 4 or 5 turns a while back - since then he's been catching up, which is why I wanted to build it myself even though I would have gotten maybe 1 cheap tech out of it) and at least 6 ahead of anybody else.

I was hoping to get a diplomatic victory, but I'm not sure if I can pull it off. I may do a sudden switch to terraforming and just pound out the necessary buildings as quickly as possible (something that you can't do in the new version) - I may be able to do this in under 10 turns (checking - using my highest production cities, it looks like I could build the 7 catchbasins and then 7 reservoirs of Liet in 7 turns, actually)

also - ecaz leader - have diplomacy text of spacing guild navigator - from early version when we had them as a civ.

due to the small amount of civs we have, 9, each civ is rather safe till the entire map gets filles with cities, so, in order to compensate - how about making the cost of settlers along with removing the food req, so civs will spead faster, this will also early out the "action" of war.

maybe we should reduce cost of early wonders - since there are no shields from trees like in vanilla civ, it takes too long to build wonders in early game.

p.s,

im playing 1.6.4.2

Some of the wonders do seem to be extraordinarily expensive. A lot of the early wonders would take well over 20 turns to complete (possibly over 30) in the highest production city you are likely to have at the time, all for a questionable amount of benefit for the cost.

 

[davidlallen]

Techs do seem to fly by pretty fast if you get a good economy going.

How much of your economy is coming from spice? There has been active debate about whether we should raise the commerce value of spice. In most games I have seen, a human player can get a pretty huge commerce from spice (more than a vanilla game on similar settings) while the AI usually gets a little less than vanilla.

How much of your spice is coming from forts outside your borders? One suggestion for narrowing the human vs AI gap is to remove this capability; the AI never uses it, and it's not clear how many human players use it.

Some of the wonders do seem to be extraordinarily expensive. A lot of the early wonders would take well over 20 turns to complete (possibly over 30) in the highest production city you are likely to have at the time, all for a questionable amount of benefit for the cost.

Please stop by the wonders thread and help us out. This is the next major thing to redesign. Also, hopefully, it is the last major thing to redesign.

 

[keldath]

i think we should:

1. lower costs of settlers along with food req.

2. lower maintenance cost far from capital - so it wont cost too much to expand

3. rasie cost of all techs, its too fast.

4. make barbarians stronger - i was thinking - how about barbs parties similar to worms - every now and then smugglers appear in your culture borders and attack you with force and then disappear - we can make then suicidal units.

5. raise values that makes a civ hate you - different religion, civics , close borders and so on.

6. maybewe need have a system like hated civics, but it will be hated civ - each civ will have something like an worst enemy - like harkonen will have atredis - this should make war throughout the game, most of the time you'll be in war with that specific civ.some civs will have 2 worst enemy, some will be without, some will have more then 2. this is for your skills david.

7. lower costs of wonders significantly.


i love our mod, but its way to boring, as dune and the mods name suggest, wars, we need more wars.
we must do things to create more excitement and action , not only in late ages, but in early ones aswell, otherwise whats the point of having all those cool units?
i had a hawk thopter right, but what the heck am im going to do with it? i have 3-4 cites, the ai have more, until i will get enough troops to attack ai, my hawk will be obsolete.

anyway,
once you guys accept my 1.6.4.2, i will be happy to make some changes i wrote about, with your approval and feedback on these matter.

 

[God-Emperor]

How much of your economy is coming from spice? There has been active debate about whether we should raise the commerce value of spice. In most games I have seen, a human player can get a pretty huge commerce from spice (more than a vanilla game on similar settings) while the AI usually gets a little less than vanilla.

In terms of raw commerce, the spice corp itself is slightly under 10%. That is according to the first column on the financial advisor, my corporation is listed as 90 with the total of 889. The biggest contributor is worked tiles for 510 commerce from 228 worked tiles. I am currently working 18 improved spice tiles and 4 unimproved spice tiles (and evidently have another 22 improved outside of cities BFCs) - if you include these as part of the spice commerce value, that is another 106 from spice which would push it up to little over 22%.

How much of your spice is coming from forts outside your borders? One suggestion for narrowing the human vs AI gap is to remove this capability; the AI never uses it, and it's not clear how many human players use it.

In this particular game it is exactly 0. I (currently) have no spice that is available because of a fort (I seem to have only 2 but built 3 of them according to the statistics screen - I the 3rd was apparently destroyed at some point and I don't even remember where it was). All 40 that I'm getting are in my regular borders, and there are a few that I haven't improved yet - combined effects of a recent spice blow, a couple harvesters destroyed by worms, and some new (and newly acquired) cities.

 

[keldath]

check out my suggestion on spice mechanics on the spice thread.

 

[Ahriman]

also i dont remember that those priest are unlimited in DW. I almost sure they not

Then we should change Theocracy so that it allows unlimited Priests.

Also if we add unlimited Priests to DW perhaps we need to remove so hight bonus to wonder contruction, it will be to powerfull.

I do not understand how unlimited priests is in any way related to wonder construction.

Faufreluches civic gives unlimited engineers, nobles and traders, and it is not overpowered, so I fail to see how unlimited priests would be overpowered.

due to the small amount of civs we have, 9, each civ is rather safe till the entire map gets filles with cities

Try adding more factions the game on a standard map. A standard map can fit 9 civs pretty comfortably, and tension happens not too late. Check out our succession game, which is on a 9-civ standard size Arrakis default map.

how about making the cost of settlers cheeape

We deliberately lowered early water income because settlers were spreading too quickly and expansion is too fast.
Personally, I do not feel that the early game is too boring; yes, the first 80 turns or so (on Epic speed) don't have a ton going on except exploration, but they go pretty fast.
If you really want the game to go faster, play Normal speed, and it will race by.

1. lower costs of settlers along with food req.
2. lower maintenance cost far from capital - so it wont cost too much to expand

I would disagree with these, I don't think that faster expansion or easier expansion is desirable. City maintenance costs are already pretty low relative to economy size.

3. rasie cost of all techs, its too fast.
4. make barbarians stronge

I have no particular objections to these, as long as the barbarians aren't too strong. Since the human player deals with barbarians much more easily, making barbarians stronger hurts the AI much more than the human. Many mods with powerful barbarians (eg Fall Further) end up crippling the AIs.

5. raise values that makes a civ hate you - different religion, civics , close borders and so on.

Why? I already find its pretty hard to get a lot of the civs to trade with you.

6. maybewe need have a system like hated civics

I have no problem with Atreides/Harkonnen hatred, but as for others... do we really want to hard-code in the diplomatic relations? That would seem to reduce replay to me.

7. lower costs of wonders significantly.

Wonders are getting a redesign.

i love our mod, but its way to boring

Please try raising the difficulty level. At Emperor or Immortal it gets plenty challenging, and pretty exciting, especially when the AI can pop out of the fog with a transport fleet bringing 15+ units to one of your cities.

i had a hawk thopter right, but what the heck am im going to do with it? i have 3-4 cites, the ai have more, until i will get enough troops to attack ai, my hawk will be obsolete.

Thopters are not for attacking cities. They are for raiding and harassing, and escort duty.
The hawk thopter is very powerful in the early game, because it can harass the AI without them being able to do much about it.
Start on desert tile, move onto land, pillage, move back onto desert. Only thopters or suspensor gunships or Fremen melee can respond.

 

[keldath]

Ahriman,

thanks for the feedback,

your right about that i played epic, and maybe i should play on normal like you suggested.

humm your saying higher difficulty levels are better, maybe we should post a recommended setting for a good game exp.

hated civs - well i said that not all civs will hate each other, maybe this system will make when going to war, to be more likely to go on its hated civ.

glad you agree with rasing the techs, the reaon i played on epic, is because i didnt want the techs to jump at me every few turns.

barbs, well, not to strong, i agree, maybe we can somehow make it attack more the human player, also - making them sucidel after every attack can be less harmful - it will be annoying to have a party to cripple and weaken you every now and then.

i played the game with 10 civs - had ecaz twice...was funny.


my button line was that w need more wars going on, but i haven't trying higher difficulty levels, so perhaps im wrong.

 

[Deliverator]

3. rasie cost of all techs, its too fast.

Perhaps we should increase the cost of all techs by a percentage. I don't think anchoring them to vanilla costs in each Era is really valid since the economy of Dune Wars is very different.

 

[Slvynn]

Game should played at standrard maps monarch and above difficulty, normal settings, custom game, 9 civs max (we have 9 civs only.)

 

[keldath]

i can change the sdk so the max civ level will be 9.

 

[Slvynn]

Also - i think that DW have level adjustment of +1 maximum of BTS, that means if you struggling on Emperror BTS, knowing its mechanics, you will struggle on Immortal DW.knowing DW full mechanics. At game is not easy and there are couple chanllenging moments that BTS have not.
I also, playing on Immortal find game not boring at all but very challenging and interesting. Beatable, but with very precise planning and performance.

 

[keldath]

sweet , thanks for the info.

 

[Deliverator]

We have another pedia-breaking name overlap with the Water Discipline tech and the Water Discipline civic. I always found the Water Discipline tech too similar in concept to Water Conservation anyway.

I suggest we rename the Water Discipline tech to Planetary Ecology since it links from Way of Liet to Sand Worms. It has a nice Dunish ring since Kynes was the Planetary Ecologist.

Edit: Another one. Landsraad religion and Landsraad tech. Can we rename the tech Politics or something like that?

 

[Ahriman]

your right about that i played epic, and maybe i should play on normal like you suggested.

I should clarify: I think the mod plays much better on Epic than on normal, I'm just not bothered by the first 60 turns or so not having too much happening.
The game feels pretty good on monarch or above. I'd endorse Slyvnn, +1 difficulty adjustment from vanilla. The nice thing about this; many other mods (FFH eg) recommend a +2 difficulty adjustment or more. I think we are actually more challenging than many other mods - which is great. Now, if we could just fix the AI settlement pattern....

I suggest we rename the Water Discipline tech to Planetary Ecology

Sounds fine to me.

Landsraad religion and Landsraad tech.

I don't really think "Politics" works.
How about:
Galactic Parliament
Political Council
Great House Senate

or some mix of these.

 

[Deliverator]

How about:
Galactic Parliament
Political Council
Great House Senate

High Council seems to be the proper name for the Landsraad leadership.

 

[Ahriman]

Ah yes, that was the other I was trying to think of. Yes, lets use that.

 

[davidlallen]

Perhaps we should increase the cost of all techs by a percentage. I don't think anchoring them to vanilla costs in each Era is really valid since the economy of Dune Wars is very different.

I feel like I am repeating myself, but I feel that the solution to "techs go too fast" is "reduce human's commerce rate", not "make techs more expensive".

I have not played manually into the midgame very often, usually I just autoplay or set up corner case scenarios with WB. For those of you who do play, can you post some statistics about the breakdown of your commerce in the midgame? I have done benchmarks at turn 250, but any data points you have will help. We are not really able to get the AI commerce up, and I think the way to reduce the gap is to figure out what works really well for the human player in terms of commerce. Then we can either reduce that (my preference) or ensure the AI is better at using it.

 

[Deliverator]

I feel like I am repeating myself, but I feel that the solution to "techs go too fast" is "reduce human's commerce rate", not "make techs more expensive".

We may have a problem of granularity with commerce though.

We can try reducing commerce across the board by a percentage, but there will be quite a few things that give only +1 commerce which cannot be reduced proportionately.

It might be a do-able exercise to reduce commerce output everywhere, but it would be quite wide reaching. You'd have to start by reducing the sources of commerce where possible: the Spice and the amount of addition revenue from the House Spice Corp, the bonuses - things like Baradye, Incense and Etching Resin give quite a lot.

Upping the cost of the techs is certainly easier. I don't think this is quite the same situation that we fixed before with water being too easy to come by. Because this is Dune, it felt wrong that water was freely available so reducing water yield to slow city growth felt right, but with commerce the situation is more complicated. Reducing commerce might have some other unwanted side-effects as well as slowing the rate of research.

 

[Ahriman]

We may have a problem of granularity with commerce though.

Upping the cost of the techs is certainly easier.

In tend to agree with this.

Changing tech costs is easy, and doesn't mess up all the relativities.
If you start changing other factors, you start affecting the value of spice relative to other economy, the value of specialists vs cottages, the value of maintenance costs for cities and armies, etc.

Water is simpler because water is the only factor that lead to city growth (well, health an happy sortof I guess), so you aren't significantly affecting any other strategic decisions by slowing down water access. But with tech, there are so many difference sources of commerce that lead to technology development rates, and if some are changed then that affects the relative incentives to use one type rather than another.
If tech is perceived to go too fast (and I'm not sure that it is, on epic speed at high difficulty), then its probably better to tweak tech costs.

 

[davidlallen]

If tech is perceived to go too fast (and I'm not sure that it is, on epic speed at high difficulty), then its probably better to tweak tech costs.

In parallel, then, can we try to get information on where the huge commerce values come from, for the human player? This is the main cause of the gap between AI and human expansion rates. Raising the tech costs does not change the gap.