Brainstorming Thread - One-Trick-Pony Techs

[Arakhor]

I want to see many futuristic civics too, but it will mean making relevant UN motions meaningless, unless they're switched over to excluding civics, rather than mandating just one.

 

[<Nexus>]

I agree. Hive Mind isn't bad, but needs a better name and maybe dial the changes down just a little.

Hive mind
Unification
Unified
Unity
Oneness
Mind cluster
Connected thoughts

 

[<Nexus>]

Biosphere dome
requires shielding (archology or something)
converts the city's and the surrounding 8 tiles 1 level better (tundra, dessert --> dirt --> grass)

Gaia transformation world wonder
free Biosphere dome in every city
starts a golden age


Weather Controller world wonder or project
Control the weather for our own advantage, to increase our farming and sell the food to the other civs.
+10% and for builder
-5% and for other civs


Soil Enrichment world wonder or project
+1 on swamp, tundra and dessert tiles


Heightened Intelligence world wonder or project
+1 for all specialists


Post-nuclear economy civic
An attempt to run an economy in a post-apocalyptic nuclear wasteland.
Low or no maintenance
Fallout causes less and reduces tile commerce less
Clearing fallout produce in nearest city (just like chopping forest/jungle)
some other bonus and penalty may also apply

 

[Rezca]

Everyone always talks of Weather Control as a beneficial thing and for farming of all things, what about Red Alert 2 and it being an Allied superweapon?

Though that'd probably be a tad hard to reflect in the Civilization environment...

 

[<Nexus>]

Everyone always talks of Weather Control as a beneficial thing and for farming of all things, what about Red Alert 2 and it being an Allied superweapon?

Though that'd probably be a tad hard to reflect in the Civilization environment...

Storm maker (Weather controller alternative)
A special nuke that causes no fallout but storms upon impact (that will dissipate by time), otherwise the effect is the same as of a regular nuke.
Excluded from UN Nuke proliferation ban.


Ion cannon
A special nuke that causes no fallout and affects only 1 tile.
Excluded from UN Nuke proliferation ban.




I know Vokarya wants no more units, but maybe these could be considered.


@Resca: Don't give me ideas I already have tooo much of them

 

[Rezca]

"Our Ion Cannon was shot down by their SDI!!"





On the topic of C&C/RA tech, I really liked the Sonic Emitters in CnC3. Pretty cool defensive turrets, and the mounted vehicle-based ones weren't too bad either. Dunno if sonic-weaponry would fit in with AND though.

 

[<Nexus>]

"Our Ion Cannon was shot down by their SDI!!"

Just have to make it interception immune.
...at least before orbital fighters.

 

[Rezca]

Just have to make it interception immune.
...at least before orbital fighters.

I was poking fun at the oddities that might show up if we based weapons like a man-made weatherstorm off a nuke, and thus was prone to interception by traditional weaponry. ^^

Makes about as much sense as war dolphins sinking batteships, and laser bears gunning down infantry though. The world of Red Alert is a crazy place

 

[JosEPh_II]

@anyone,

Has AND's dry early game been livened up any? With the removal of many things and tile improvements the last time i started a game the early game reminded me of RI and how dry and click/turn click/turn both mods are.

So anything been done to help the early game? Or do you grin and bear it till you get to medieval?

And if this post is offensive to anyone I'll understand and leave.

JosEPh

 

[<Nexus>]

@anyone,

Has AND's dry early game been livened up any? With the removal of many things and tile improvements the last time i started a game the early game reminded me of RI and how dry and click/turn click/turn both mods are.

So anything been done to help the early game? Or do you grin and bear it till you get to medieval?

And if this post is offensive to anyone I'll understand and leave.

JosEPh

The early game for me was always the time of exploration with Scouts rushing for goody huts

...but I see your point totally
Vokarya had planed to introduce hunting. I am looking forward to see that soooo much I hope he didn't change his mind about it

But to your question: I think it is totally the same for the moment.

 

[JosEPh_II]

Thanks for the answer Sogroon.

And I bid you Adieu.

JosEPh

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

You can consider starting with more civs in order to have more early warfare, but I suggest you do it only with Flexible Difficulty, Flexible AI and checking difficulty every 10 turns. I think it makes early eras more challenging.

 

[Vokarya]

The early game for me was always the time of exploration with Scouts rushing for goody huts

...but I see your point totally
Vokarya had planed to introduce hunting. I am looking forward to see that soooo much I hope he didn't change his mind about it

But to your question: I think it is totally the same for the moment.

I have not forgotten about hunting. I plan to keep the number of options down, but it is a fairly complicated suite of stuff (new animals, buildings, and missions) and I need to figure out how much of it I can do on my own without needing extra DLL changes. I suspect and hope that most of the DLL I need is already implemented and XML will be enough on its own.

So it's still on the radar, but I am trying to clear out as many of these one-trick techs as I can before tackling this.

 

[45°38'N-13°47'E]

I have not forgotten about hunting. I plan to keep the number of options down, but it is a fairly complicated suite of stuff (new animals, buildings, and missions) and I need to figure out how much of it I can do on my own without needing extra DLL changes. I suspect and hope that most of the DLL I need is already implemented and XML will be enough on its own.

So it's still on the radar, but I am trying to clear out as many of these one-trick techs as I can before tackling this.

Since it's something already developed in C2C (and working, afaik), I can certainly import needed dll code from C2C if necessary; I'd make it optional in any case. When needed, just let me know.

 

[JosEPh_II]

You can consider starting with more civs in order to have more early warfare, but I suggest you do it only with Flexible Difficulty, Flexible AI and checking difficulty every 10 turns. I think it makes early eras more challenging.

Early warfare hasn't been the problem for me. It's empire building and build up that is slow, again for my style of play. And filling a map with Civs to Start the game ruins the eXploration part of the early game. I still adhere to the 4X rules that Civ is supposed to be about; EXplore, EXpand (which most modders want to kill off impo), EXploit, and Then EXterminate (when necessary).

I don't use Flex Diff, it's never impressed me as a needed way to play. So I'm not sure if Flex AI is needed either. And you know I don't use REV.

It's base game play that I consider that either makes a Mod or breaks it. If you have to add 10-20 options to get a challenge then again Impo something went wrong with the basic design for the Mod or game. Options are for variety of course, just as there are multiple ways to play.

And my Victory conditions are usually just 2 or 3 conditions, Mastery is for those who need more not for those that want less.

But I've already posted too much, so have a great day guys and Thank you for the responses.

JosEPh

 

[Rezca]

I like Flexible Difficuty a lot, but there's still times when I wonder what the heck it's doing. Capping me at Immortal/Monarch when I'm running away with the game, or giving an AI whose a world power by a huge margin and tech leader by 7 ~ 10 techs a Noble / Warlord handicap merely because he's down on score - which is a meaningless measure of worth in the long run anyway, and so on. When it works it's great, but sometimes it's just bizarre

Early expansion limiting I've never had a problem with. To me it's like the trying to move away from the Settler Spam "One Right Way To Win" days of CivIII - strictly adhering to the old tried and proven methods aren't always best. If there was one strategy or method for approaching the game that was always the best way to play it, that's just an illusion of choice then isn't it? Why bother having any of the other options or playstyles if they're always going to be inferior no matter what?
I actually haven't even noticed a slow beginning, I guess I've been playing AND that long it's just become natural to me

C2C on the other hand, now there's a slow start! Extra cities don't come in until after like, an hour of gameplay!
Do I like early expansion? Certainly. Once I find a way around the limitations (Upkeep, etc) then I go at it as much as I can. Just like the huge costs of Republic - at first it's brutal, but once I tailor my cities and economy for supporting it, it's better than Monarchy or the others and I can research just as fast if not faster than the other civs not running Republic.

Of course, I've always had a strange and chaotic way of approaching the game, so take my words with a grain or two of salt x)

 

[Vokarya]

Here's what I am considering for the Cybernetics tech. It's not as radical as some other suggestions, but I don't think it will be that difficult to balance. The trick is a building called the Augmentation Center. It is almost a twin to the Incubation Center that occurs at Artificial Life.

This building has two possible versions, the "basic" and the "advanced".

Basic Augmentation Center:

• Requires Computer Network and Power
• +1 free Android Worker
• Hi-Tech units start with +2 XP. Keep in mind that there will be no other sources of class-specific XP for Hi-Tech units except Auxiliary Body Exchange (which requires the Superhuman civic)

Advanced Augmentation Center is all of the above plus:

• Open up the Combat AI 1.0 - 4.0 promotions to the Hi-Tech category.
• Units trained in this city start with Combat AI 1.0 promotion.
• My concern is that units starting with Heal and Combat AI 1.0 on top of everything else they would get for free may be too powerful; if it is, we can make Augmentation Center and Incubation Center mutually exclusive. On the other hand, these are both late-game buildings and Transhuman Era stuff is likely to break rules. Most buildings that offer free promotions are limited in some way (UB, wonder, obsolete by this point, or restricted to other types of units) but these would be available to every city and affect just about every new land unit produced. What do you think?

 

[<Nexus>]

Maybe I miss something, but does the two buildings (basic and its upgrade) come at the same tech? If so, I don't see any sense of it. If the basic building and the upgrade are both present at the same conditions (even though the second requires the first) there should be only one building.

Maybe it could work by limiting it to 1 AAC / 3 BAC. And it wouldn't be too powerful either.

 

[Vokarya]

Maybe I miss something, but does the two buildings (basic and its upgrade) come at the same tech? If so, I don't see any sense of it. If the basic building and the upgrade are both present at the same conditions (even though the second requires the first) there should be only one building.

Maybe it could work by limiting it to 1 AAC / 3 BAC. And it wouldn't be too powerful either.

It's one building but I'm trying to figure out how many abilities to give it. I'm just not sure if the version with all the abilities is too strong in conjunction with all the other buildings that are available at the same time.

 

[Vokarya]

We are currently down to 9 techs that need assistance. One of them is Agriculture, which possesses 1.5 tricks at the moment. The Farm improvement counts as a major trick, and the reveal of the Cotton resource counts as a minor. I count the big strategic resources as major tricks for their reveal tech and other natural resources as minor tricks; the reveal techs for manufactured resources and the enabling tech for all resources don't count at all, as I see those as functions of the buildings/improvements/units that either produce or require the resources.

I've been trying to think of ideas for what we could do for Agriculture, and I have two ideas, with a couple variations on the second. We could do either or both.

1. Require Agriculture for the reveal of the Grain resources (Corn, Rice, Wheat). This would count as an additional 1.5 tricks (3 resources, 0.5 for each).

2. The Quern. This is a primitive mill for grinding grain. I would make this into a simple building that requires Agriculture and Stone Tools technologies and Corn OR Rice OR Wheat resources (this does not need to be a vicinity bonus, as unground grain travels fairly well) and provides +1 food. There are then two ways this could upgrade; one is to the Bakery (both deal with Grain resources), and the other is to a Mill building available at Agricultural Tools and providing +2 food.

Let me know what you think would work best.