Culture?

[The_Reckoning]

I'm disinclined to "eliminate the need" for something like that...why not split RecCommons up per faction and give each RecCommons a unique trait parallel to the faction flavour, like so:

All RecCommons generate +2.
Spartans: Arena, +2 Unit XP
Gaians: Forest Garden, +1 (or maybe +1, based on Lal's commentary...)
Morgans: Casino, +10%
UN: Reading Room, -1
Hive: Feeding Bay, +1/, whichever the Garden doesn't get

I like this idea. I'd vote that Yang gets the +, since I can imagine health being the limiting factor in how large his bases grow.

 

[Duneflower]

Hmmm...y'know, even if we divorce RecCommons from the religion mechanic, I'm still inclined to make the "cathedral" equivalent require them, on the basis of being places where people meet to discuss everything from the weather to global politics. Thoughts?

 

[The_Reckoning]

I do like the idea of giving each faction more UBs, so they gain more of their characteristic advantages from development rather than having them built in automatically.

There are a lot of buildings which I think could work this way, where I don't imagine they work the same way for each faction, like the RecComs

So rather than the Believers having network nodes, which I never thought suited them, they could have a Monastery, which boosts happiness or GPP while giving a smaller tech% boost.

Or the punishment spheres, much as I love them, should be off limits to the Peacekeepers, who could have a prison or rehabilitation centre, which only eliminates half or a set number of drones but doesn't affect tech.

This way the factions would become more individual in their advantages as the game went on.

 

[Maniac]

Yeah I kinda like that better. Eg the Peacekeepers get an alternative for the Genejack Factory. Giving all factions a different rec commons is basically the same as giving each faction an inherent bonus anyway, except you make Memetics a must-have tech.

 

[Duneflower]

Heh...speaking of that, Maniac, I'm eventually gonna propose an alternative tech-chart, closer to the original one but rearranged and including some of your ideas.

 

[The_Reckoning]

I have an idea:

Perimiter defense keeps native life out of borders, this ability made obsolete with a green, mid-game but vital tech.

Grants the usual protection.

Use the Great Wall code to have a graphical border fence That would be awesome.

 

[Anon Zytose]

If there was a wonder in Planetfall that kept out all the Planet-controlled units (Trance Perimeter?), it'd be much coveted. Probably cost a lot, too. Imagine all that time you could spend not having to worry about a local fungal boom suddenly wiping out a bunch of your formers and other units.

I wouldn't make this obsolete through the use of a tech. (Well, maybe one that could produce similar factionwide defenses for every faction. Like Tachyon Fields or something.) Instead, I'd have the wonder only work on Planet-controlled life that's among the first half of the life cycle. And hope the game is engineered so that the Mature Boil worms don't show up until later.

 

[The_Reckoning]

Yeah that'd be good.

A national project. Maybe gives a large boost to psi-defense in ther city where it's built? So it has synergy with a highly polluting base.

 

[Anon Zytose]

Yeah that'd be good.

A national project. Maybe gives a large boost to psi-defense in ther city where it's built? So it has synergy with a highly polluting base.

I've been thinking the Neural Amplifier could be just that. Increase psi defense for all your units within a certain radius from the base. More so as you get closer to the base. If such can be programmed.

 

[Duneflower]

If there was a wonder in Planetfall that kept out all the Planet-controlled units (Trance Perimeter?), it'd be much coveted. Probably cost a lot, too. Imagine all that time you could spend not having to worry about a local fungal bloom suddenly wiping out a bunch of your formers and other units.

I wouldn't make this obsolete through the use of a tech. (Well, maybe one that could produce similar factionwide defenses for every faction. Like Tachyon Fields or something.) Instead, I'd have the wonder only work on Planet-controlled life that's among the first half of the life cycle. And hope the game is engineered so that the Mature Boil worms don't show up until later.

Actually, I've been thinking about changing to Citizens' Defence Force to that; I'm big on having the mod's buildings and wonders go through roughly the same changes as the -> transition where reasonable parallels can be drawn - RecCommons = Temples, Hab Complexes = Aqueducts, etc. Obviously some won't be possible - Creches are basically both Granaries and Courthouses, the Airport functions are split between the Aerospace Complex and the Psi Gate, which friggin' Lab is a University, and what the crap is a Punishment Sphere? - but where possible...

 

[Anon Zytose]

Actually, I've been thinking about changing to Citizens' Defence Force to that; I'm big on having the mod's buildings and wonders go through roughly the same changes as the -> transition where reasonable parallels can be drawn - RecCommons = Temples, Hab Complexes = Aqueducts, etc. Obviously some won't be possible - Creches are basically both Granaries and Courthouses, the Airport functions are split between the Aerospace Complex and the Psi Gate, which friggin' Lab is a University, and what the crap is a Punishment Sphere? - but where possible...

Are we sure we want Planetfall to parallel Civilization IV that closely? On one hand, a base with all the non-unique buildings in Planetfall may want a treatment similar to a city with all the non-unique buildings in Civ4. With the major exceptions being stuff involving psi combat and the Planet rating, of course. On the other hand, In Planetfall I'd like to see this total achieved through new facilities that have effects that might not quite parallel any individual buildings in Civ4.

 

[Duneflower]

O, I'm not saying it should exactly parallel ; I'm saying it should parallel where appropriate. I'm not in the slightest advocating tweaking facilities that don't exactly match until they do; I'm saying that those that do match exactly or close should be treated the same way, and that those merely "close" should still have whatever makes them different.

 

[The Beard]

I do like these ideas coming up about the justification of "culture" within Planetfall. I think the ones that make the most sense are ones which are simply making a bit of a modification upon Culture, such as GeoModder's idea of Expansion along with the expanding borders in different ways (Spartans through military might, Morganites through economic domination, etc.), as well as GRM7584's ideas that borders or land claims are somewhat of a legal claim.

The borders, I believe, should reflect the might of the faction and the cities they contain. I fear that if we put too much into the idea of energy production/grid, however, that much of the point of culture is eliminated. I see no problem with culture being an important factor in determining ones' territory. I think of it as something (at least within the context of Alpha Centauri) that encompasses numerous factors within it. Yes, in order for it to be "worth it" for people to leave the relative safety of the city and work the surrounding land, they must feel they are within controlled territory. However, I do not think that simple energy generators or wireless energy could be enough to determine which faction you work for. There comes a time when the energy supply of a base (such as when fusion power and whatnot becomes available) so far exceeds most tasks that it becomes ridiculous to base one's loyalty simply upon energy. Someone working in a greenhouse which only needs good recycling systems for air and water does not need the power of a thermonuclear weapon. Simple loyalty to one's society has to play some factor.

Culture is a concept which is able to take care of the ideas of people immigrating into a city and intermarrying, and is also able to factor in jealousies of people in run-down cities next to pinnacles of power. I feel that, while Planet is a much harsher place, that the mechanics of cultural boundaries can remain largely untouched within the context of Planetfall. We could just write some of these interesting concepts down into the Civilopedia article to give the player an idea of what we mean by culture. Sure, expansion should be harder than in Civ IV, but that doesn't mean we should throw it out the window, or replace it with a concept which is less meaningful, and does less justice to the actual aspects which determine cultural borders.

With that in mind, it should be harder to maintain peace with your immediate neighbors, especially if it is apparent that several of their cities are suddenly switching allegiances. In Civ, they don't really seem to care all that much.

 

[The Beard]

Oh, and I also do really like the idea of having the mindworm towers be like "cities." However, I do not think it is appropriate for them to be able to take over any of my cities, or even raze them necessarily. The mechanic in SMAC, where they simply killed off a good bit of your population is good in my mind (but we could make it more drastic, like they would slaughter half or a quarter of the people within your base. But I was just not happy when a "Locust of Chiron" (a couple of bears) appeared out of nowhere after I had recently discovered how to plant a farm, and then razing one city and seizing my capital. We should really tie those suckers to Centauri Genetics.

 

[Maniac]

I'd prefer to let locusts only appear after a certain Flowering Counter level is reached. Requires an SDK change though.

Regarding native life taking over bases. I was thinking, perhaps when taking a base, its population could be reduced to one (signifying all humans are dead), but the base would not be razed. Instead it would be considered infested by native life, fungal towers etc. Then you could still take back the base with some of its infrastructure/buildings intact.

 

[Anon Zytose]

If a (non-city) tile flips from one faction/empire to another, I've interpreted it not as people in the local area changing their minds on who to work for, but which people would have influence over the tile. If there's population displacement between the cities, it's because the gaining city now has one more source of food or health or happiness that the other city is (for now) forced to do without.

Of course, migration from one base (or faction) to another is probably worth considering. It might have requirements like the bases must be trade-linked, no more than two movement points away, and either in the same faction or between two factions that share an open borders treaty. The reason a unit of population might migrate from its home base to another is because either there isn't enough food, people are too sick, people are too angry, or the base is undefended and open to attack. At this point the population unit may choose the closest neighbor that is within range and can provide sufficient comfortable support. Still, the question remains on whether someone here would find coding such a model to be worthwhile.

 

[The Beard]

As for the thing on locusts--As far as I understood it, Locusts of Chiron were actually a human creation. We were messing with the genome of mindworms and created something way more terrible. Planet thought this was a good idea and started making its own. I'm not sure if this is the "real reason," but I'd inferred it from the fact that Locusts of Chiron are available to build once Centauri Genetics is discovered, and native locusts show up a bit afterwards.

As for the population stuff I was talking about--I was meaning how the reason that cities flip or revolt in Civ IV is often because the city has only 33 percent population which is the nationality of the state of which it is a part. It doesn't have so much to do with how much better it is to live in the other city, as people in the smaller, less significant city have started idolizing the other culture. The idolized culture thinks this is awesome, and as a result, gets laid.

So I wasn't proposing a new mechanic, only another argument for keeping the current the default Civ IV mechanic, and perhaps just renaming it and doing slight tweaks.

Oh, and on the native lifeforms--I think if the base is of sufficient size, it should only lose a chunk of population, rather than be totally conquered, because at a certain point, I'm sure some of the population would stop wetting themselves and screaming and try to actually bring out the necessary torches and fight back. A whole lot of people would still die, but not everybody. Also, we have to be careful with the size 1 thing, because that might make it so that when you re-take the city, you simple obliterate it. And I imagine that after too many turns, it should be too late, and the city cannot be reclaimed, because Planet doesn't exactly care about whether it has the Human Genome Project or not. This could perhaps be partly simulated by having Planet dismantle an improvement every few turns until nothing is left. I don't know, we'd have to play with that for a while to get everything working nicely...

 

[Duneflower]

Agreed on the bit about native lifeforms being able to raze/conquer cities. We're talking about pretty much the exact opposite of barbarians here - barbarians, while they may not have an innate desire to settle down, still may choose to do so in a pre-existing city; for Planet's native life, it's actually a matter of restoring their native habitat. In , can animals actually conquer cities?

Also, I think I just had a brainstorm about the fungal-tower/native-culture thing: If it's possible, have all terrain-improvements generate a small amount of "native culture" (very small in the case of forests) to represent the slight increase in the fungus' aggression when terrain is improved, and have Tree Farms/Hybrid Forests generate either local culture or negative native culture, along with the various ecodamage-mitigating buildings. I'm sure I can think of something if that can't be done.

 

[Duneflower]

With that in mind, it should be harder to maintain peace with your immediate neighbors, especially if it is apparent that several of their cities are suddenly switching allegiances. In Civ, they don't really seem to care all that much.

I'd say, create a triggered event whenever a base flips, with choices like: Give them your blessing (+1 in all cities for 10 turns, +3 relations with rival), Ignore the situaion (+1 relations with rival), Denounce the base as traitorous (-1 relations with rival, +1 in all cities with rival's culture), Declare a crusade to reclaim the base (-3 relations with rival, +1 per population of rival's nationality or in all cities, immediate vendetta). Maybe even a choice that does something like giving you the city back with a huge happiness boost but making you their vassal.

 

[The Beard]

Having improvements generate native culture is a very interesting idea--I wonder if it is possible to do, without having to place native "cities" (fungal towers) everywhere.