Distinct Affinities Mod

[GenEngineer]

Hey Everyone!

After a regrettably long delay, I am pleased to announce that Version 1.0 of the Distinct Affinities Mod is ready for release!

The goal of this mod is to make it so that all of the affinities, Hybrid and Core, feel equally in depth and distinct on all levels of gameplay. While the dream is for this to eventually touch on everything ranging from buildings to units, from quests to victories, the current build only includes some of the buildings.

Currently Implemented:

Spoiler :

Firstly, the upgraded unit names for the affinity units have been changed slightly - a Supremacy leaning Xeno-Swarm is now an Elder Xeno Swarm instead of Prime - serves to make it so that there is cleaner transition on the wheel of units. Harmony Buildings have all been updated to be more focused on using what the surroundings naturally give you - the Xeno Nursery, Xenofuel Plant, and Xeno Sanctuary all key off of worked nests to provide additional yields directly to global total, while the Biofactory, Growlab, and Microbial Mine enhance the yield of various basic resources (and in the case of the Microbial mine, even spawns one). Finally, the Molecular Forge no longer provides a flat 5 food, and instead yields 1 food for every worked miasma tile. Similarly, Purity buildings have been updated to key more off of terraforming and using strategic resources - the Mantle and Terra Vault halve the maintenance of improvements and provide free tiles to build them on respectively, while buildings like the Gene Garden and Bionics lab are changed to focus more on decreasing unhealth/providing food carry over instead of giving health. The Borehole now grants greatly increased yields to canyon tiles, while the Gaian Well increases the yield of Geothermal. The LEV Plant also makes Floatstone very valuable yields-wise. Finally, a suite of buildings for Harmony/Purity (hereafter Ascendancy) have been added - see the following post for more in depth details on them

Possible issues:

Spoiler :

Becasue of the way the Ascendancy buildings work, the PAU may be overpowered with them. For this reason, the AI currently can't build them, and I'd like some feedback before deciding to implement a counter if necessary and give them over to the AI. One of the possible promotions from an Ascendancy building might not be working (or my luck might just be off) - if someone could let me know when they see a 'Llama' promotion, it would be much appreciated. Finally, the Harmony buildings Help text may not read correctly - nearest I can tell, yields are granted as appropriate for having Worked nests, but it is unwilling to say that the building does that, and the yields aren't added to city, instead to the global total.

Plans for Future (immediate and long term):

Spoiler :

Supremacy buildings have for the most part been designed and coded - as soon as they are debugged and the last building changes made, they will be in a follow up update. After that, goal is to work on the other two hybrid affinities for a series of buildings, followed by updating units and quests. Once I have enough experience with the quests, will look into updating the victories to be more consistent with the new goals of the affinities.

Any and all feedback that you can provide (state of balance, state of flavor, ideas for hybrid affinity quests / buildings, etc...) would be much appreciated.

Special thanks to Ryika for assistance on writing a lot of the code that went into this mod, Galgus for providing some of the original ideas that will (hopefully) go into the affinities, and everyone who posted in the development topic for this mod and helped to shape what this mod is today.

Download version 1.0 of the Distinct Affinities Mod here

 

[GenEngineer]

Current State of Affinity Buildings in the mod:

For one thing, all updated buildings are less likely to survive their city being captured - if it's 66% chance to keep the enemy Thorium Reactor, it's only 33% to keep an Affinity building. A bitharder to accidentally mix a lot of affinity buildings.

Harmony:

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Xenofuel Plant, Xenonursery, and Xeno Sanctuary:

Spoiler :

All adjusted so that they provide their respected yields directly to global total for each alien nest worked by the city - 1 Science for Nursery, 2 Energy for Plant, and 5 Culture for Sanctuary. Old yields still included, will be adjusted once balance feedback comes in. Help text might not display properly - not sure whats going on there. Goal is to make it so that clearing nests for Xenomass wells and convenience is less of a no-brainer decision

Biofactory:

Spoiler :

Changed to no longer require a source of petroleum to build (because it was otherwise rare to be able to build it and still use buff to chitin). Now requires local source of Chitin, Resilin, or Chelonia, and improves those yields by 1 production as appropriate. Goal is to increase the focus on building near native wildlife, have focus on working with natural resources. Base yield nerfed to accommodate.

Growlab:

Spoiler :

Changed to have a lower base yield, but now can be constructed with Fruit or Plankton, also increases their yields. Goal is to make it so their are more generally accessible, place higher priority on areas rich in basic resources (which are usually wild, alien dense locations)

Microbial Mine:

Spoiler :

Spawns a minable resource somewhere within the cities workable radius when constructed, and increases the production yield of most minable resources by 1. Goal is to encourage placing value on the existing basic resources (+a newly spawned one), bringing more of a focus on the natural terrain

Molecular Forge:

Spoiler :

Causes worked Miasma tiles to yield +1 food. Goal is to make it so that harmony can thrive most anywhere with a bit of effort, and also rewards spreading a lot of miasma around your cities

Progenitor Garden:

Spoiler :

Apparently unchanged. Goal is to have it increase city health for each worked Miasma tile, but code isn't certain how to handle that - needs more looking into. Would also like it to grant a perk that increases strength of leashed Alien units by an appropriate amount for each building constructed. But for now, just +20% Health

Purity:

Spoiler :

Gene Garden:

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No longer provides Health or Science. Instead, only gives food carryover after growth. Would like to change it so that it also provides negative unhealthiness, but that seems to be a bit tricky. Idea is to make it distinct from genetic modifications in other affinities

Bionics Lab:

Spoiler :

Changed to no longer require a resource or change a resources yields. Now provides a promotion for units built in the city to give +10% strength to encourage the type of raw strength typified in Purity units. Similarly, decreases % unhealthiness instead of % healthiness, to change how Purity handles genetics. Finally, costs Petroleum to construct, to encourage strip mining resources of the planet

Gaian Well:

Spoiler :

Slight change here, where nearby Geothermal now also have yields improved by 2 production. Raw production and energy are the goals of Purity, especially focusing on grabbing a ton of strategic resources.

LEV Plant:

Spoiler :

Changed to key off of Floatstone instead of cost Floatstone. As such, yield is reduced slightly and given to be a bonus yield for Floatstone. Idea is to continue keying off of strategic resources present nearby.

Terra Vault:

Spoiler :

% Yield eliminated, replaced with flat yield of 6 Culture (Raw strength over fancy tricks). Also immediately provides 3 tiles for the city, with the idea of more tiles meaning more high end improvements to milk the most out of it, enhancing a focus on terraforming

MANTLE:

Spoiler :

% Yield eliminated, flat yield increased to 8 beakers (Purity is more focused on raw strength than fancy tricks). Also decreases the maintenance of nearby improvements by 50%. Goal is to encourage building more high end improvements, as they are less expensive to keep.

Borehole:

Spoiler :

Simple change - no longer has a flat yield, but now provides a massive production yield to canyons (if too powerful, will add a cost in Geothermal to construct). Idea is to find a way to make Purity want to compete for some territory, but in a different way than the other affinities.

Skycrane:

Spoiler :

Currently yields 10 Production, no modifier. Would like to eventually add a perk so that it speeds up worker activity, if I can find a way to cap the number of such perks that can be granted. Goal of such perk would be to encourage mass terraforming of the planet

Ascendancy:

Spoiler :

Because all of these buildings are new, looking for feedback on everything from unlock location to production cost to building icon (suggestions for others to use welcome, provided samples INCREDIBLY welcome). All buildings have full Civpedias (flavor of buildings explained there) and Quests, and would love to hear feedback on them.
NVRS:

Spoiler :

First Introduction to the Ascendancy theme - Transcendi specialists. They yield 1 of each yield, and hopefully make it so that Ascendancy is more focused on improving specialists (and paradoxically care very little about surroundings, compared to it's parents)

Epigenetic Temple:

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Second case of Transcendi appearing. Start at 2 slots, and also yielding 2 food - idea is to continue developing city to Specialist focused, with the food being present to help support specialists (free specialists are sadly not supported)

Anthropantheon:

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Ultimate building of Ascendancy. Not only provides 4 slots for Transcendi, also causes wings to be built in the city that have a single slot each for each type of specialist. Goal is to make it so that Ascendancy can fully divorce themselves from environment in favor of massive numbers of specialists.

Orichalcum Smelter:

Spoiler :

Resource dependent building. Requires gold to construct, improves the yield of gold and provides Artist slots. Goal is to make it so that Ascendancy is still encouraged to compete for certain territory, to encourage interaction with other players.

Mytho-Menagerie:

Spoiler :

Harmony leaning building, designed with idea of being transition to/from Hybrid and Parent. Has Trader slots, and also grants 1 of five promotions to units built in the city. Idea is to be a somewhat silly building that still encourages specialists and specialization of the army.

Cloudhome:

Spoiler :

Leans towards Purity. Provides a decent % Modifier to health - would ideally specifically decrease unhealth of specialists, but can't find a way to do that. Goal is to make it so that large, specialist focused cities are more feasible.

--More to come when other affinity buildings are released-

 

[GenEngineer]

--Reserved for future miscellaneous details to mod--