[NFP] Climate progression broken in Apocalypse mode

[oSiyeza]

Something in my game seemed off. In phase 1 of the game, I have mecalosal volcanoes everywhere, totally insane and unbalanced. Then in the late game... something strange happened.

Natural disasters were getting less frequent and problematic, not more. And eventually in the final phase of the game, all disasters simply became innactive.

I went trough my saved games and this is what I found:


Phase 1: Total insanity, volcanoes everywhere. Mega colossal destruction every 2-3 turns.

Phase 2-4: Storms and other disasters slowly increase in frequency, id does not matter at all since the disaster are now actually less punishing, as volcanoes decrease significantly its activity.

Phase 6-7: Comets appear and the game starts to be a lot of fun. All other natural disasters disappear from the game.

200 Volcanic eruptions, really? Almost all of them in phase 1?

The progression here seems to be totally broken. I know the volcanoes are not tied to the climate change, but neither the meteorites or the comets or the auroras are. And why reduce their frequency over time? Disasters should progress in intensity and frequency in the game, or at the very least, volcano frequency should be constant, volcanos do not dissapear overtime. This totally destroys game progression.

Not only phase one was totally unplayable as I was interrupted by volcanic eruptions every 3 turns; late game (when the global warming was kicking in) disasters were actually much less frequent. To the point they actually disappear from the game in the late moments.

• Tie the volcanic activity (frequency and intensity) to the game progression; with almost 50% of probability of eruption with mega colossal eruptions; phase one was unplayable; or at least make it constant and more resonable. I usually play GS in intensity 3, so I expected more disasters, still never felt a fraction of this volcano insanity before, all other disasters felt a minor inconvenience compared with this phase 1 volcano activity.

• Phases 2 to 6 should be harder than phase 1, no the other way around.

• Disasters should not be removed from the game in Phase 7. Maybe give some extra time before the comets come to use the carbon recapture and revert climate change in the apocalipse mode, but climate change should not magically stop.

EDIT: Just to be clear. The problem is not too many desasters, the problem is that game progression seems to not be working correctly as early game disasters are much more frequent than mid-late game disasters, volcanoes seem to dissapear overtime, and disasters and global warming are not working in phase 7. Even if the new phase 7 intentionally has no disasters, there is no progression from phase 1 to phase 6, and I suspect this being a bug or balance problem.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I don't think any of those are bugs. You claiming it being broken is onyl because you simply don't like it as I'm fairly sure is by design choice. this is the Apocalypse Mode after all. It's designed to be more destructive. It's the whole point of it.

I'm also not seeing the "reduced" % between Phase I and Phase II either because you didn't provide a screenshot for it.

Remember that the Disaster Intensity is locked at 4 at all times.

The reason for the reduced frequency is to allow the Comet Strikes to be the chosen every turn. It's designed this way because the engine only supports one disaster at a time. (I think the only exception are River flooding).

Only one disaster can occur on each given turn, so they decided to reduce the other's odd to maximize the odds of the comets falling.

 

[oSiyeza]

I don't think any of those are bugs. You claiming it being broken is onyl because you simply don't like it as I'm fairly sure is by design choice. this is the Apocalypse Mode after all. It's designed to be more destructive. It's the whole point of it.

I'm also not seeing the "reduced" % between Phase I and Phase II either because you didn't provide a screenshot for it.

Remember that the Disaster Intensity is locked at 4 at all times.

The reason for the reduced frequency is to allow the Comet Strikes to be the chosen every turn. It's designed this way because the engine only supports one disaster at a time. (I think the only exception are River flooding).

Only one disaster can occur on each given turn, so they decided to reduce the other's odd to maximize the odds of the comets falling.

Is not that I don’t like it, and the problem is not "too much disasters"

• I think volcanoes are not supposed to disappear as the game progresses.
• I think there is a balance issue if you have a volcano eruption every 2-3 turns in your early game.
• I think there is a is a balance issue if the early game has more disasters than mid-late game.
• I think disasters disappearing late game is a bug, cause climate change in civilization is not framed as that being possible.

Phase 7 being intentionally a design decision is posible, you have a point there, but all in game information seems to contradict this point, so at least they should provide some info about this. Also a declining frequency of volcanoes should not be possible according to all I know about the game. Also I dont think a volcano eruption every 2-3 turn is an intended decission.

This is a bug/balance issue and not a personal taste problem, Im not framing this on personal taste, but on how objectively disrupting phase 1 is, on the common understanding of how the disaster mechanics have worked so far, on the information from FXS about climate mechanics, and on common knowledge about how game progression works.

 

[oSiyeza]

More Proof, I started a game on GS, disaster level 4. Played 50 turns and compared with my earliest saved game on Apocalypse (on turn 72). Same Game Speed (Standard), Same Map Size (Standard), Same Map Type (Continents). These are the results:

• Apocalypse: 40% eruption chance, got 1 eruption every 3.5 turns.
• GS disaster level 4: 18% eruption chance, got 1 eruption every 12.5 turns.

Note that this change ammounts to 22 more eruptions / 100 turns in the Apocalypse mode. So is actually a lot. And clearly too much.

This is the capture at turn 72 on my Apocalypse game:

Note that, if you check also the captures from the OP. You can trace the frequency of eruptions through the game. This is the complete timeline.

• From Turn 1 (Phase 1) to Turn 72 (Phase 1), the frequency of eruptions was 1 eruption every 3.5 turns (28 eruptions / 100 turns).

• From Turn 72 (Phase 1) to Turn 272 (Phase 1), the frequency of volcanoes had raised to 1 eruption to every 1.9 turns in average (52 eruptions / 100 turns).

• From Turn 272 (Phase 1), to Turn 386 (Phase 4), the activity of the volcanoes started to decline, getting 1 eruption every 2.5 turns in this interval (40 eruptions / 100 turns).

• From Turn 386 (Phase 4) to Turn 400 (Phase 7) (I think is the 2nd turn of this phase), only 3 new eruptions happened. This ammounts to 1 eruption every 4.6 turns (21 eruptions / 100 turns). A very noticeable decline.

In summary, I think this is definitely a bug or a balance issue.

Having 52 eruptions / 100 turns during the first half of the game is too much and game breaking. Try to watch the volcano movie 100 times in 200 turns and you will see why Im reporting this as a bug.

After the first half, the game got manageable, and eruptions went down to 21 eruptions / 100 turns. This is much less disrupting. But definitely ruins the game progression. The number of disasters should not go down as the game progresses.

There is also a huge problem with the number of volcanic eruptions compared to the rest of the disasters, and with the volcanic eruptions themselves being far too frequent (at least 4 times more frequent than in GS with the maximum disaster level).

I rest my case.

EDIT:

Theory: I think the reason is that only a disaster can happen per turn. So maybe a disaster is happening every turn through the whole game.

This means that, if the game has a volcano eruption every 1.9 turns, all the other disasters combined need to be less frequent than volcanoes, even with 1 disaster every turn. This is a problem, cause this means that the game is fighting continuously with itself to know what type of disaster will show you. And that in order for global warming to have an effect, volcanoes have to go. And, as many disasters of the global warming mechanic happen in the ocean, or in the snow, or in the dessert, or in rivers you have dams on. The game gets easier. and progression is not only not happening but happening on the wrong direction.

Also means that in order for the comets to appear, all other disasters gave to go. This is less of a problem, because that is actually cool. But still global warming and volcanoes magically disappearing make no sense at all.

This also means that map size will be a big issue with this mode. If on large maps you cannot have more disasters than in standard size maps. Not only comets will have much less impact in large maps if there is only one per turn. But all disasters will suffer from this.