About Terrascapes and Biowells

[vahouth]

I suspect I may not represent the popular view on this, but I'd like to see Terrascapes & Biowells be linked to affinity levels.
I'm not fond of the current situation where a Harmonious Civ likes to build Terrascapes for example. They shouldn't have the need for it and its silly lorewise.
I'd suggest Biowells to require -lets say- 4 or 6 levels in Harmony and Terrascapes 9 levels in Purity.
What say you?

 

[Haggbart]

If (or when) negative health maluses are made significant there need to be an early way to get health without making it affinity specific. Biowells would be a much narrower improvement for this purpose if tied to affinity. Also terrascapes is the generic "useless terrain"-improvement, what do you suggest to replace them for non-purity factions? The point is they fill very specific purposes, and changing that would require extensive re-balancing.

 

[AlaskA]

I suspect I may not represent the popular view on this, but I'd like to see Terrascapes & Biowells be linked to affinity levels.
I'm not fond of the current situation where a Harmonious Civ likes to build Terrascapes for example. They shouldn't have the need for it and its silly lorewise.
I'd suggest Biowells to require -lets say- 4 or 6 levels in Harmony and Terrascapes 9 levels in Purity.
What say you?

Terrascapes so useless, so i dont think it's need change anything. Also, i think it can be boosted a bit, giving prosperity t3 bonus as default.

Biowells well balanced, but maybe moving to more far tech will be good idea.

 

[Qbix]

Biowells are good if you actually care about health. Terrascapes are useless for the reason that you can get enough additional yields for other improvements through researching technologies and through orbital units. The building time of aprox. 19 turns for a single one is just bonkers compared to the actual yields it provides.

As I mentioned in another thread already, at least half of the available Affinity points should be taken out of the Tech Web. How about making some improvements actually raise your affinity level to some degree? Dome for Purity, Biowell for Harmony and Array for Supremacy. Let's say 5 improvements give you one additional Affinity level.

Oh and ofc switch the +1 from Biowells over to the Terrascapes. Voilà!

 

[vahouth]

If (or when) negative health maluses are made significant there need to be an early way to get health without making it affinity specific. Biowells would be a much narrower improvement for this purpose if tied to affinity. Also terrascapes is the generic "useless terrain"-improvement, what do you suggest to replace them for non-purity factions? The point is they fill very specific purposes, and changing that would require extensive re-balancing.

There are numerous ways to deal with health that are not affinity specific but I don't get why not have each affinity have its own ways to deal with this problem.
In my latest Supremacy playthrough, I hadn't built neither biowells nor terrascapes and by turn 250 I had a health surplus of 23.
Also why should each affinity have a way to improve useless terrain? I'd expect only the "masters" of terraforming to be able to do that.
If some improvements were affinity specific, wouldn't that give more diversity to the way they are played and the strategies involved?
Just saying...

 

[Roxlimn]

Biowells are already prioritized for Harmony. Purity has lots of extra ways to get Health, so they need the Health from Biowells less, and they have better Farms anyway. Specifically, Ecto Pod is so absurdly strong right now that if you're intending to play Purity, there's no reason to build Biowells unless you're cutting that entire tech and Wonder right out.

Supremacy ideally shouldn't even be approaching Bionics - the only reason to do so is for Institute and the tech slingshot. That's it, I reckon. I'd like to see more Supremacy techs upping Node output to slightly increase its benefit. Generators really just trump Nodes right now unless you're fighting a defensive war. Actually, it might be a better idea to reduce Node build time to 1 or 2 turns. That way, you can actually build them following your war front. You don't need them, but having them build that fast might actually make them matter more in a conflict.

Buffed Nodes and shorter build times would have a fairly huge impact on Supremacy play. As mentioned, Supremacy doesn't really need the Health that much (small cities).

I'd consider messing with Affinity directly as a last resort for the improvements.

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Moved to Ideas & Suggestions

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Supremacy ideally shouldn't even be approaching Bionics - the only reason to do so is for Institute and the tech slingshot. That's it, I reckon.

Augmentation! Augmentary!!

 

[Roxlimn]

Yes, I know. Thematically, it makes sense, but mechanically, it's just not a good tech for Supremacy. The only reason it's even on the menu is because everyone right now is teching Bionics for the slingshot.

Contrast this to Purity, which needs Augmentation for Aegis, which is one of their more effective UUs, and Bionics leads directly to their key Affinity 4 unit, and gives them Bionics Labs. Purity is taking Bionics, even if the Free Tech was removed.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

Just recently noticed that the vivarium food bonus to deserts still applies if there is a terrascape on it. I assume the mass digester energy on tundra works too. So terrascapes are somewhat better on the type of terrain you would want to replace. It's still odd that something that thematically should be big for Purity is the same for everyone.

About biowells, 2 food 1 health is perfect for them. Their description says they allow people to live among nature and two door one health makes them self sufficient, as though they weren't even living in the city.

 

[Lord Tirian]

I suspect I may not represent the popular view on this, but I'd like to see Terrascapes & Biowells be linked to affinity levels.
I'm not fond of the current situation where a Harmonious Civ likes to build Terrascapes for example. They shouldn't have the need for it and its silly lorewise.
I'd suggest Biowells to require -lets say- 4 or 6 levels in Harmony and Terrascapes 9 levels in Purity.
What say you?

I'd rather see affinity boosts than limits, representing that every civilisation can also have a mix of needs, ideologies and people.

If, for example, Purity 5 gave you +0.5 health to domes and terrascapes, Harmony 5 gave +0.5 health to biowells and Supremacy 5 gave you +0.5 health to nodes, you'd subtly push affinities towards their respective improvements without enforcing it.

Otherwise, you lock down strategies too much, this way you represent that affinities are somewhat fluid and open to interpretation as well.

 

[silvertuerk]

"I suspect I may not represent the popular view on this, but I'd like to see Terrascapes & Biowells be linked to affinity levels"

I believe that game would benefit greatly from a few affinity-specific improvements and buildings. As long as they are not terribly imbalanced then the both competitive players and casual players should be happy. In addition, if there is game start with skirmish map and option to limit human players to only one Affinity strategy, then the balance-emphasizing competitive players should be mollified.

A good example of three different tribes that balance each other out reasonably well is that of Protoss, Human and Zerg in a legendary RTS game that is also almost national game of Korea, at least the southern part

 

[Roxlimn]

"The Terrascape is the ultimate symbol of humanity's dominance over nature. A lat-game improvement, the Terrascape is like the Garden of Eden - a perfect environment which improves a city's output of everything, except energy. This amazing feat is achieved through Terraforming and can be built on any resource or terrain. However, those who seek perfection must be willing to pay the price. Not only is the Terrascape expensive to build, it is also expensive to maintain."

Terrascapes are favored for both Supremacy and Purity. Both factions thematically wish to express dominance over nature. Terraforming has both Purity and Supremacy Affinity leaves, and leads to another node tech with Purity and Supremacy leaves. There are no Harmony techs on that part of the web. There are no Biowell or Xenomass benefits on that part of the Web.

Purity is slightly more incentivized to research Terraforming early in order to secure Floatstone, which is necessary to produce their mid-tier unique units.

I don't see the benefit of building this as Supremacy (or Harmony) on Tundra when I could be building Academies or Manufactories, both of which yield more valuable output. I don't even see the benefit of building it on Desert when I could be building Generators there. The Worker time and the 6 Energy/tile seems marginal. Actually, I don't even see the benefit of building it as Purity. 6 Energy for 6 output seems profoundly weak, and it's not even beakers.

 

[Minor Annoyance]

"The Terrascape is the ultimate symbol of humanity's dominance over nature. A lat-game improvement, the Terrascape is like the Garden of Eden - a perfect environment which improves a city's output of everything, except energy. This amazing feat is achieved through Terraforming and can be built on any resource or terrain. However, those who seek perfection must be willing to pay the price. Not only is the Terrascape expensive to build, it is also expensive to maintain."

Terrascapes are favored for both Supremacy and Purity. Both factions thematically wish to express dominance over nature. Terraforming has both Purity and Supremacy Affinity leaves, and leads to another node tech with Purity and Supremacy leaves. There are no Harmony techs on that part of the web. There are no Biowell or Xenomass benefits on that part of the Web.

Purity is slightly more incentivized to research Terraforming early in order to secure Floatstone, which is necessary to produce their mid-tier unique units.

I don't see the benefit of building this as Supremacy (or Harmony) on Tundra when I could be building Academies or Manufactories, both of which yield more valuable output. I don't even see the benefit of building it on Desert when I could be building Generators there. The Worker time and the 6 Energy/tile seems marginal. Actually, I don't even see the benefit of building it as Purity. 6 Energy for 6 output seems profoundly weak, and it's not even beakers.

I do now notice that harmony has nothing going on in that area of the web. I think I just ended up there before because I had floatstone I could get energy from and trade. I think the problem with unbalanced trade making everything happen too fast and the game being too easy is why I and other players end up playing too 'general' and getting tech that doesn't relate to our affinity. Taking a 5 turn detour to an nice but unnecessary tech instead of going straight to the more necessary 10 turn tech doesn't seem like a big deal. But if the important tech is 20 turns and the unneeded one is 10 then it seems farther out of my way. Also since the game isn't that hard you don't need to play that tight a game so taking time out for off affinity tech won't cause you to lose.
It reminds me of playing Puzzle Quest 2. It was too easy and while I did see good spell, and equipment combos and ways to defeat specific enemies if I adapted to them it wasn't necessary. I could win doing anything even on the highest difficulty level. Sometimes I think that's intentional that they want everybody to be able to play the way they want and not be forced to play a specific way. Well that is what the lower difficulty levels should be for. Higher ones should require some though to avoid losing and a lot of adapting to situations to win.

Regarding terrascapes, I do see that supremacy isn't against them but I'd think they'd be more about not having to rely on unstable biology and would be more about their satellites in the same area of the web. However purity is supposed to be trying to make this a new earth like the old one so terrascapes should be their jam, but right now they aren't for anyone.

Ecoscaping is very specific to terrascapes so why not make it -50% tile improvement maintenance then it will be useful for any advanced improvement, but it would have the greatest affect on terrascapes.
Other upkeep improvements seem to be around 2 cost for 3 output, and the enhanced terrascape is 6 for 9, but you lose the 2 yield the tile used to have. So even if it gets a bonus from mass digester or vivarium it's not cost effective. Also it's so general that it doesn't fit any specific strategy.

So...
Terrascapes defining traits are supposed to be that it is expensive in time and upkeep to build, generalized, and an apex improvement that would be slightly favored by purity.

So how good do they need to be to make them worth building at very least on the building enhanced tundra and desert? What does purity need to make them more generally useful? Is improving terrascapes enough or does some competing improvement have to be taken down a notch?

 

[Minor Annoyance]

OK I've got something for terrascapes.
Remember the moai from Polynesia in civ 5? More culture the more of them are next to each other. Give terrascapes 1 energy for every adjacent terrascape. A center tile would totally offset maintenance, plus whatever %tage increase or trade comes from it. It makes sense that the more of an area is terraformed the easier it would be to maintain. I checked and the culture adjacent thing is still in there but is is specific to culture so it can't be modded with the tools we have now.
Since the code would have to be changed anyway maybe it should just reduce maintenance rather than generate energy so it doesn't get out of control too easily.

I think this would be pretty good. Even at 3-3-3 terrascapes are expensive with six energy upkeep. It's hard to think of how to make them good enough to justify that cost. Also it's hard to tell if this would be balanced. If you really got going with it it would could have a lot of free terrascapes, but they still take a long time to build and there would always be an edge to pay for. This would give terrascapes something unique about them and make them more practical.