Cause of Mind Worms?

[Bearcat44]

I am now trying out the second difficulty level, and finding it bludgeoningly difficult.

I always play as the University, and begin by concentrating all my research on Weapons. This allowed me just barely to survive and win a game, playing beyond the turn limit.

It feels like the Hive, Spartans and Belivers are given an insane advantage at the beginning of every game. I've tried playing as those, and it's just hopeless, they seem weak to me. Yet when they attack my University, they suddenly show up with ten or twelve units, within the space of time I can only build maybe three or four unitls.

The game just feels like it is one sucker punch after another.

My question is, when I get attacked by an enemy Faction, suddenly wild red Mind Worms ALSO attack, at the same time! How and why does this happen?

I'm guessing that it is the red fungus that allows Mind Worms to breed? Yet, no matter how many formers I put to work at getting rid of fungus, the Worms keep coming and coming and coming. This is well before I can build a Centauri Preserve or such. And when I DO build a bunch of Centauri Preserves, it seems to do NOTHING to stop the Mind Worms.

Another thing that is bludgeoning, is that at random times, there are explosions, destroying my farms, mines, solar collectors. This is because "fugus is growing"? HOW is fungus growing where I wiped it out and built things on that square? How is it growing when I have so many formers out killing it?

Is there a way to shut off the damn Mind Worm stuff completely? It's ruining the game.

 

[Petek]

See my reply in this thread.

 

[Volcanon]

I've played this game on and off since it was new.

> I always play as the University, and begin by concentrating all my research on Weapons. This allowed me just barely to survive and win a game, playing beyond the turn limit.

Why don't you play gaians? They can convert mind worms from turn 1 (other civs have to wait a long time).

> It feels like the Hive, Spartans and Belivers are given an insane advantage at the beginning of every game. I've tried playing as those, and it's just hopeless, they seem weak to me. Yet when they attack my University, they suddenly show up with ten or twelve units, within the space of time I can only build maybe three or four unitls.

Warmonger civs have an advantage with attacking, but they have bad science with believers and bad economy with hive and spartans. Why don't you make friends with them? If you pick police state hive and spartans will not attack you (at least, not early on, and not usually). If you go fundamentalist then Miriam is your BFF.

> My question is, when I get attacked by an enemy Faction, suddenly wild red Mind Worms ALSO attack, at the same time! How and why does this happen?

Worms randomly spawn on red fungus, both when a unit moves on fungus and just randomly as well. It sounds like you have ecodamage. This game is unlike civ 5 and rewards having many cities over having one supercity, at least early on. So you can have one city in the middle of the crater with huge production but you'll hit ecodamage which will spawn worms. Why don't you dial back on the production, buff some other cities, and beeline for tree farms? Each tree farm you build reduces your ecodamage.

> I'm guessing that it is the red fungus that allows Mind Worms to breed? Yet, no matter how many formers I put to work at getting rid of fungus, the Worms keep coming and coming and coming. This is well before I can build a Centauri Preserve or such. And when I DO build a bunch of Centauri Preserves, it seems to do NOTHING to stop the Mind Worms.

Once the worms are in play the preserves do nothing.

Have you tried using weak units left over from the beginning of the game to attack the worms? You don't need use your uberpowered Rovers O' Doom to attack worms. Use your 1/1/1 scouts and any unity rovers, etc. Psi is not based on weapons tech.
Also note that this game favors attacking over defending, so be aggressive. If a worm is right beside your base, attack it. Don't wait for it to attack.

> Another thing that is bludgeoning, is that at random times, there are explosions, destroying my farms, mines, solar collectors. This is because "fugus is growing"? HOW is fungus growing where I wiped it out and built things on that square? How is it growing when I have so many formers out killing it?

That is definitely ecodamage.

> Is there a way to shut off the damn Mind Worm stuff completely? It's ruining the game.

No, because it's a huge part of the game.

If you're playing on the second easiest difficulty and having trouble you'll want to try these things:

1. Don't have ecodamage
2. Be buddies with everybody, but if you're right beside Hive or somebody be a police state or don't choose democracy. The AI civs hate people who are the opposing ideology. The AI University always hates fundamentalism, for example. Always trade techs unless you're giving somebody some end game tech for a starting tech.
3. Try to "go wide" until later in the game. Your first few units should be a scout or two, a former, and colony unit or two. In games versus AI it's often a good idea to snag one of the early projects (wonders). Virtual World fixes University's happiness problem and the enemy AIs don't go for it early because it doesn't help them nearly as much. The terraforming one means that you can do a lot of cool stuff way before everybody else.
4. Don't focus on weapons to the exception of anything else. University gets free network nodes so they have huge science advantage, but they get huge happiness problems (again, so going wide is a good idea). Even if you just have the computer choose your next tech you should always be ahead. Once you get the airplanes those are absurdly powerful (so are choppers).