A few questions

[Milaga]

This week I just played a few games and I have to say I'm confused.

I'm not sure I understand what goes into calculating combat odds with native plant life. Does native life not receive defensive bonuses? Is there something else I'm missing? Spore towers will almost always do 50% of my units health in damage if they attack me. If I attack them back I can usually kill them without damage myself. Many times I've seen my cyborgs get smoked by mindworms while fortifying in rocky terrain. If I were to attack them, even in fungus, the odds are close to 20% ... but I almost always win those. I know the odd combat will happen but from what I can tell the victor is almost always the one who attacks. It happens so often I can't help but think I'm missing something.

I understand the native life happiness and planetmind factors, but even so ... dang!

Also, my economy is getting crushed. It's incredibly hard to field a large army without paying unbelievable upkeep on the special abilities. I don't see any mid-early game economy helpers. City maintenance is not as much of a problem. Police state doesn't help with the ability point cost. Am I missing something here too? I'm going to try another game just never building the +ability slot buildings. It's unfortunate you just can't ignore them since you can never promote your unit until you take all the abilities you can.

In the games I've played civs (myself included) seem to get their economy sorted out or they don't. If they over-expand they crash and don't seem to move past a few cities. This last game it happened to me. Though I didn't over expand, I found myself in some border wars with neighbors. The price of vigilance was a massive upkeep cost and I quickly fell very far behind in technology (mass drivers and dropships full of marines sweeping away my plasma throwers.)

Just wanted to check in quickly. I like the mod and have a lot of other questions which are really more like suggestions for making things clearer. Gonna try the fundi-freaks now ...

 

[Tssha]

Yep, I think we've got a few things to add to the Planetfall Concepts Maniac.

First of all, combat with native life forms works on different rules than normal combat. It's what's called Psi combat, and Psi combat relies on two different elements: surprise and morale.

Surprise determines who's stronger in combat. Basically, whoever attacks gets a big advantage. I can't be more specific than that, since I'm not sure what's changed between Alpha Centauri and Planetfall, but in SMAC (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri) the attacker gets 3 strength in battle while the defender gets 2. That's SMAC's system, not Planetfall, so I don't know what the exceptions are, but basically, in Psi combat, whoever gets the drop on the other guy has a HUGE advantage. Attacking Mindworms first is always a good idea.

Morale basically deals with skill and resistance to attacks on the mind. Promoting your troops to Disciplined or Veteran (basically, the combat promotions) can up your odds of success, and taking the Hypnotic Trance special part gives you a decent chance of surviving a mindworm attack even if you DON'T attack first (but you really should be attacking first ).

Second, those "towers" you say you were attacked by were probably spore launchers, and they're Planet's version of artillery.

Third, the mod is still in development, so I'm sure your input on balance and what concepts need to be explained are appreciated. I know I'd like to see more in game feedback as to the real odds of Psi combat. *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*

Besides, I think I saw another thread where they were discussing the economic game. I think they're going to work on it. In the meantime though, I recommend building a lot of Windmills, especially on coastal tiles (the land kind, not the ocean kind, though building windmills on the sea is an awesome idea too). Remember, different tiles have different yields. Highlands or higher, plus coast, plus rocky can yield 4 big ones.

Damn...this is making me want to play again...

 

[Milaga]

Thanks for the help! Just gave up on my next game. A hair shy of 200 turns with Miriam. Had what looked to be a good start that turned out to be a bad one. Tons of food, decent production potential and relatively free of fungus. I figured this was good to build up a decent planet faction before I went all terraforming on it's ass.

Unfortunately, I was at the focal point of a crescent shaped landmass dotted with my rivals. To my east I had the open sea, or so I thought, because it was the Sargasso sea ... foil after foil fell. And eventually so did my border towns. Valiantly held by plasma throwers against waves of ... mobile infantry? Before I quit I checked: Even if I ignore the few pre-reqs I needed, it would have taken me 117 turns to research those guys.

Well, I guess that was when I was working production plots. I guess the loss was mostly my fault. Since I had ton of resources in my first few cities I was very conservative in growing. I should have put more effort into expansion, not throwing foils away at the deadly sea. Plus when three other civs declared war on Lal, who has been the whipping boy in almost every other game I've played, I figured following suit would earn me some brownie points. Then they all declared peace within 10 turns after my DoW and Lal just marched his mobile infantry all over my poor fundamentalist butt.

First of all, combat with native life forms works on different rules than normal combat. It's what's called Psi combat, and Psi combat relies on two different elements: surprise and morale.

Surprise determines who's stronger in combat. Basically, whoever attacks gets a big advantage. I can't be more specific than that, since I'm not sure what's changed between Alpha Centauri and Planetfall, but in SMAC (Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri) the attacker gets 3 strength in battle while the defender gets 2. That's SMAC's system, not Planetfall, so I don't know what the exceptions are, but basically, in Psi combat, whoever gets the drop on the other guy has a HUGE advantage. Attacking Mindworms first is always a good idea.

Morale basically deals with skill and resistance to attacks on the mind. Promoting your troops to Disciplined or Veteran (basically, the combat promotions) can up your odds of success, and taking the Hypnotic Trance special part gives you a decent chance of surviving a mindworm attack even if you DON'T attack first (but you really should be attacking first ).

Yow. This is all news to me. And I did a fair amount of lurking around this board before I dove in. Promotions like disciplined give more than the 10% combat bonus then? Transparency into this would really be helpful. As it stands, I guess I'll just keep on attacking instead of defending then.

I was always taking hypnotic trance ... it was always a good strategy in civ to just let the AI dash his units on your defenses, but I see that's not going to work anymore. Ahh well.

Besides, I think I saw another thread where they were discussing the economic game. I think they're going to work on it. In the meantime though, I recommend building a lot of Windmills, especially on coastal tiles (the land kind, not the ocean kind, though building windmills on the sea is an awesome idea too). Remember, different tiles have different yields. Highlands or higher, plus coast, plus rocky can yield 4 big ones.

Yeah, I've noticed that improvements vary in their yield changes based on the terrain. This is incredibly confusing and there's no information about it in the datalinks for either terrain or improvements.

Damn...this is making me want to play again...

Despite the frustration, I still feel the urge to as well ... if it wasn't so late. If only I could get paid to play civ mods .

 

[Tssha]

...er, sorry, I'm afraid I mislead you a bit on the disciplined promotions. Those help as normal, no extra bonuses. They're just one of the few promotions that help, aside from Empath Song and Hypnotic Trance.

One good thing about Hypnotic Trance, though, is it makes Unity Pods safe. No more mind worms infesting the pods. And, I feel, it's a good promotion for garrison units (not to mention explorers, just in case you don't get to attack first).

 

[Maniac]

If you're consistently getting beaten by the other factions, perhaps you should lower your difficulty level?

Yeah, I've noticed that improvements vary in their yield changes based on the terrain. This is incredibly confusing and there's no information about it in the datalinks for either terrain or improvements.

There is.

Does the following pedia entry which I just added make psi combat sufficiently clear?:

 

[Pfeffersack]

This week I just played a few games and I have to say I'm confused.

I'm not sure I understand what goes into calculating combat odds with native plant life. Does native life not receive defensive bonuses? Is there something else I'm missing? Spore towers will almost always do 50% of my units health in damage if they attack me. If I attack them back I can usually kill them without damage myself. Many times I've seen my cyborgs get smoked by mindworms while fortifying in rocky terrain. If I were to attack them, even in fungus, the odds are close to 20% ... but I almost always win those. I know the odd combat will happen but from what I can tell the victor is almost always the one who attacks. It happens so often I can't help but think I'm missing something.

I understand the native life happiness and planetmind factors, but even so ... dang!

Unless you get crsuhed before it...try to get High Energy Chemistry and build some extra formers to turn them into bunkers on the edges and shores of your civilization - they can do miracles vs. native life (they cannot kill mindworms or IoDs, but after a sucessful hit, your regular troops have excellent chances to defeat them. Just be careful with fungal towers, as they often counter your barrage fire and might even kill a damaged bunker, if you continue using it without giving it time to heal).

Also, my economy is getting crushed. It's incredibly hard to field a large army without paying unbelievable upkeep on the special abilities. I don't see any mid-early game economy helpers. City maintenance is not as much of a problem. Police state doesn't help with the ability point cost. Am I missing something here too? I'm going to try another game just never building the +ability slot buildings. It's unfortunate you just can't ignore them since you can never promote your unit until you take all the abilities you can.

In the games I've played civs (myself included) seem to get their economy sorted out or they don't. If they over-expand they crash and don't seem to move past a few cities. This last game it happened to me. Though I didn't over expand, I found myself in some border wars with neighbors. The price of vigilance was a massive upkeep cost and I quickly fell very far behind in technology (mass drivers and dropships full of marines sweeping away my plasma throwers.)

Don't miss out the stockpile energy process. If you have maintenance problems, consider it running at least in one base all time (of course change this base frequently, to allow each base to advance in infrastructure) - you cannot get more then your maintenance costs of both bases and units out of it, but up to this treshold you get credits for minerals at a 2:1 ratio!

 

[Maniac]

Windmill's energy production currently is calculated like this:

+1 energy, always
+1 energy on coastal terrain
+1 energy on rocky terrain
+1 energy on highlands/ridges

That's a realistic representation of windmills (wind is stronger at greater height, elevation and near the coast). But you know what they say about realism versus gameplay.

I could simplify it to:

+1 energy, always
+2 energy on rocky terrain

I'd like to keep the bonus on rocky, to stay competitive with mines.

Would you guys like this change?

 

[Pfeffersack]

Windmill's energy production currently is calculated like this:

+1 energy, always
+1 energy on coastal terrain
+1 energy on rocky terrain
+1 energy on highlands/ridges

That's a realistic representation of windmills (wind is stronger at greater height, elevation and near the coast). But you know what they say about realism versus gameplay.

I could simplify it to:

+1 energy, always
+2 energy on rocky terrain

I'd like to keep the bonus on rocky, to stay competitive with mines.

Would you guys like this change?

No, please keep it the way it is - I love those fine nuances in energy production. It makes you think twice where to build windmills and where to put the other improvements. For me the current sytsem is easy to understand, the hoover help calculates the result and if I have forgotten a detail, I can still go to the datalinks and read the Windmills entry, where all the boni are listed.

 

[Tssha]

Yeah, I agree with Pfeffersack, it's worth the learning curve.

 

[Maniac]

No, please keep it the way it is - I love those fine nuances in energy production. It makes you think twice where to build windmills and where to put the other improvements. For me the current sytsem is easy to understand, the hoover help calculates the result and if I have forgotten a detail, I can still go to the datalinks and read the Windmills entry, where all the boni are listed.

That's what I would say as well, but casual players as the thread starter find it confusing, and can't find the hover and datalinks help. :-s

 

[Lord Tirian]

Yeah, I agree with Pfeffersack, it's worth the learning curve.

Personally, I don't mind it either way - but: The big two questions are:

1) Is there really a gain from the complexity (i.e. does it allow more strategies, or is it more of a moment only rewarding you for reading/paying attention to minutiae)?
Personally, I think it's a nice touch and enhances a bit, as the change would make them a bit too binary (rocky = good, other terrain = much worse).

2) Would a change help the AI?
That's the dealbreaker for me - would the AI profit from the change? If yes, make it, the bit of extra use from windmills it not worth putting the AI at an even greater disadvantage.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

1) Is there really a gain from the complexity (i.e. does it allow more strategies, or is it more of a moment only rewarding you for reading/paying attention to minutiae)?

Yeah, that's what I thought too. If windmills were further up the tech tree, I guess you could say it makes your tech choices more interesting - you'd be more tempted to research them if you had lots of coastal or highland areas. But right now I don't think those yield differences add all that much to the 'grand strategy'.

2) Would a change help the AI?
That's the dealbreaker for me - would the AI profit from the change? If yes, make it, the bit of extra use from windmills it not worth putting the AI at an even greater disadvantage.

The AI wouldn't care either way. The reason to simplify windmills would be to avoid confusion (due to an imperfect interface) and unneeded micromanagement for human players.

 

[Milaga]

There is.

I'll have to check again when I get a chance, but I'm pretty sure that rocky terrain gets 2 for a mine while grassy only gets 1. I don't think I had the unity mine laser last I checked. And no, the windmill entry is quite clear.

Does the following pedia entry which I just added make psi combat sufficiently clear?:

Yes. That is very helpful, thanks. Now I see why unity rovers are so good. They start with Combat V and can be upgraded to lots of stuff.

Would you guys like this change?

Again I'm relatively new to the game so weight my opinion accordingly. I like the bonuses for altitude. It makes high areas more desirable in the early game with the disadvantage of being unable to upgrade those plots to boreholes later on.

 

[Milaga]

Unless you get crsuhed before it...try to get High Energy Chemistry and build some extra formers to turn them into bunkers on the edges and shores of your civilization - they can do miracles vs. native life (they cannot kill mindworms or IoDs, but after a sucessful hit, your regular troops have excellent chances to defeat them. Just be careful with fungal towers, as they often counter your barrage fire and might even kill a damaged bunker, if you continue using it without giving it time to heal).

Yeah, I try to get that tech asap for the bunkers and the plasma throwers, which is a good infantry troop for any situation and doesn't get replaced for a while.

Don't miss out the stockpile energy process. If you have maintenance problems, consider it running at least in one base all time (of course change this base frequently, to allow each base to advance in infrastructure) - you cannot get more then your maintenance costs of both bases and units out of it, but up to this treshold you get credits for minerals at a 2:1 ratio!

I saw that a few games back but I must have forgotten about it. 1 a turn equalling -2 to maintenance? Yeah, that really does seem to be the way to go.

Thanks for the help!

 

[orlanth]

No, please keep it the way it is - I love those fine nuances in energy production. It makes you think twice where to build windmills and where to put the other improvements. For me the current sytsem is easy to understand, the hoover help calculates the result and if I have forgotten a detail, I can still go to the datalinks and read the Windmills entry, where all the boni are listed.

As another newbie player I'd agree w this, I thought the terrain-specific bonuses were interesting & not that hard to pick up on, and they favorably reminded me of SMAC where I now remember the yield from solar panels being affected by altitude.

 

[Milaga]

That's what I would say as well, but casual players as the thread starter find it confusing, and can't find the hover and datalinks help. :-s

I think I was just overwhelmed by the large number of terrain types and the fact that it wasn't always easy to see the type just by looking at the plot. The mouseover tip does explain this but if you are new (like me) it isn't immediately clear that a windmill will be more effective on highlands than on lowland terrain (which might look the same.) Or that it's better to put a mine on rocky rather than flat terrain.

Perhaps in the Datalinks under the Planetfall Concepts section there could be a quick summary of this information. Explaining that there are different altitudes, rockyness and moisture levels, how this effects movement and which is better for the earlier improvements like mines, farms and windmills.

 

[Maniac]

I have added a concept page describing terrain effects.

I'd also like to describe what terrain allows what improvements, but I'd need to add the Excel picture attached to make it clear, and you can't show pictures in the Concept page.

Oh btw Milaga, since you're a new player, I'm wondering, how did you learn of the existence of Planetfall, and what drove you to download and try it out?

 

[Milaga]

I have added a concept page describing terrain effects.

Looks good. Very helpful.

I'd also like to describe what terrain allows what improvements, but I'd need to add the Excel picture attached to make it clear, and you can't show pictures in the Concept page.

You only really need to list the ones that are limited in where they can be built:
---
Greenhouses and Condensers can only be built on flat terrain. Greenhouses cannot be built on rainy terrain while Condensers cannot be built on polar terrain.

Xenofungus, Forests and Hybrid Forests cannot be planted in polar terrain. In addition, Forests cannot be planted in arid terrain.

Farms can only be built on either flat rainy or moist tiles and require irrigation.

Solar Collectors can only be built on arid or moist terrain.

Boreholes are only limited by altitude. They can be placed on any tile so long as it's a lowland.

Mines, Windmills and Bunkers can be built anywhere.
---

Oh btw Milaga, since you're a new player, I'm wondering, how did you learn of the existence of Planetfall, and what drove you to download and try it out?

Occasionally in the FfH forums someone would make a reference to SMAC mechanics or a situation. Since I didn't understand what I was missing I decided to try it out. I opted to try Planetfall instead since it was free and still being developed and supported. Plus I'm quite comfortable with the modding community here.

 

[slugwalk]

Two questions: 1) Why can't greenhouses be built on rocky terrain? Because it seems to me, like it should be physically possible to build a greenhouse anywhere on land. Or is it a strategic reason I don't see?
2) In the maintenance table, I see a unit cost for "special ability"; what's this cost the result of?

 

[Pfeffersack]

Two questions: 1) Why can't greenhouses be built on rocky terrain? Because it seems to me, like it should be physically possible to build a greenhouse anywhere on land. Or is it a strategic reason I don't see?
2) In the maintenance table, I see a unit cost for "special ability"; what's this cost the result of?

2) The recent removal of Inflation in Planetfall was compensated by higher costs for units - one part is that later units cost more, another that specialized units cost more (each unit you choose a special ability after you build it, costs that special maintenance). The advanatge of the new model is that you have more control about it and that you can counter the addiitonal maintenace by using the wealth process.