Echoes of Earth: A total conversion for BERT

[Ryika]

Ah, sorry. Had to leave my pc in the middle of writing an answer and forgot to come back to it later. Here's the quick version:

I know it can be tricky to articulate but do you have a sense for what made the games feel slow? Progression through the tech web was taking too long? Affinity level felt low? Cities taking too long to build stuff?

I think it's the lack of "milestones". In Civ 5 you always had specific moments in time where new stuff entered the field. You got your religion and started spreading it, you unlock that wonder that you want, Idiologies come in, Air Units come in, etc. The base game is lacking that as well, but it's so short that it doesn't matter that much. I feel like the fact that you made games longer is great, but I feel like you should think about adding some sorts of accomplishments that shake up the game(play) a bit.

Have you got a chance to try out Vivarium-boosted farms? Does it change your initial view or is the building too much of a hassle to be worth it? Do you find the other non-resource Improvements (ei: Academies, Manufacturies, Domes etc) to be worthwhile or marginal?

Yes, farms feel good now. I have not played around with advanced improvements that much.

You mentioned using Specialists, how often would you build the Specialist only buildings (Growlab, Recycler, Thorium Reactor, Lab, HoloSuite)? In all of your cities? Were you running every specialist slot you had or where there often slots that went unused? You called the yield from Specialists "free". Can you elaborate on that? Free as in no tile maintenance right?

I used specialists when I felt my city wasn't going to grow much further for a while, being aware of 2-food farms did of course change that a bit. Right now I'm not quite sure what to make of them, I ignore most of them and focus on growing my cities.

For Trade Routes, did you not want to build them because you didn't want to lose the food/production bonus Cities get if they don't have a Depot? Do you have a sense of what percent of your cities had Depots? For example, if you had 4 cities did only your capital have a Depot? Of the Trade Routes you did have, were they Internal, Station or International?

No, I guess it was mostly laziness later in the game. I'll make sure to try trade routes in my next games.

Wonders are something I want to change but will most likely have to wait until after the first public release. I have been hesitant to speak too much about my future plans for the mod because I want to get the current execution solid enough that people will be willing to stick around for the future versions.

That's good to hear and understandable.

 

[Machiavelli24]

I've sent out a new version (7) to everyone via PMs. This version is not backwards compatible so don't switch over in the middle of a game. If you didn't get it or you want to become a play tester let me know.

This version contains new Faction Traits and starting Agreements. You can check them out in the image below. I originally intended for this to be added post initial public release but writing all the building quests is taking a long time. It also contains a fix to the issue where Minerals couldn't be improved (thanks for the catch Lamassu).


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One consistent bit of feedback is that the Signal could use some expansion and refinement. As could the Affinity economy. I haven't responded directly to comments about those topics because I didn't want to interfere with the speaker. But I do want to acknowledge that I've been listening to those concerns and will be looking at ways to improve those sections.

 

[Lamassu]

Getting a crash between where you click on the arrow to enter the actual game and before you get to choose your starting tile. Tried a variety for sponsors and loads. Same result every time.

Game freezes, shows black screen and a small window w. "access violation" pops up behind.

 

[Ryika]

Seems to work fine for me. No crashes, no errors (other than the usual unit icon and "Unmoddedhealth"-Errors).

 

[Lamassu]

Never mind. Realised what the problem was: I had forgotten to turn off Nvidia 3d Vision. Since AMD is involved with the Beyond Earth, they've made it so that the game crashes if you try to play with Nvidia's stereoscopic solution. Had forgotten that was the case.

 

[Doviello]

I didn't finished my game on v.6. I found out that anything that boosts specialists is quite powerful. The AU bonus to specialists boosts both the primary and diplo yield (but it doesn't boosts the +2 energy bonus from Prosperity). My growers gave 5f 3diplo 2e, engineers gave 4p4d2e, way better than any farm or manufactory.

 

[Lamassu]

Found a bug: When you lose a strategic resource, you still get it. When the resource comes on-line again, you get it again. This means that a single resource may get multiplied over the course of the game.

For example, in the beginning of a game I got 2 xenomass from an alien nest on my territory. Aliens turned neutral, I still got 2. When they turned friendly again I suddenly had 4 xenomass. Had this turn up when I lost other strategic resources in other ways as well.

 

[Machiavelli24]

Lamassu, do you know if it was caused by getting the Harmony level 6 perk that provides +1 Xenomass Resource quantity from every deposit? Is this only something you're seeing with Affinity Resources and friendly aliens? Or are you seeing it with Titanium/Oil/Geo too? If you have a save game that reproduces the behavior I can take a look.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Being midgame in game with v7, I can only state again that I'm impressed about the direction this takes. I don't have specific complains or suggestions about the current mod content at this point - mainly because the changes so far are all good and contribute to a much more varied and challenging game (I have health and financial troubles and constantly beat of angry AIs) and I'm exploring them still yet in detail.

The things which bother me are all related to the game itself (e.g. AI behaviour, espionage and combat mechanics); so if I have a hope, then it is this developin into something similar like Gazebo's CBP is for Civ5

 

[Barathor]

Mach, don't sweat it; if he experienced that only on an alien nest, then it's just an annoying bug that exists in the base game. If I remember correctly, I believe Firaxis tried to fix the initial bug early on, but their fix is broken too.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=559351

 

[Machiavelli24]

Thanks for the info Barathor. I had a vague memory of the issue but I thought one of the official updates said the bug was fixed in the changelog. Do you know off hand if it still around? I'm inclined to assume that is the root cause of the behavior Lamassu saw.

 

[Doviello]

The sponsor bonuses are cool, but PAC and Slav are below average in terms of power / usefulness, and KP and FI are above average, IMO.

You should do the policies next i think. I have to make a rule not to go prosperity since it's so much better, giving everything: lots of health, energy from trade routes and specialists, improvement and outpost speed etc.

I like the sponsor diplomatic agreements, but i don't like how some of them have a lower initial cost, but a higher cost per turn, or vice versa; it makes the list of agreements confusing when sorting them by cost (since it only sorts by the initial cost, not by cost per turn, which is the value that i care about). Does mixing up the costs like that really add anything of value? I'd suggest keeping the agreement prices more like RT, in tiers: 25/2per turn for the cheap agreements, 50/4pt for the next tier, 150/9pt, etc.

 

[Barathor]

I believe it's still around, unfortunately. To verify, I actually just tested it right now too, since I haven't modded in a while or played. Just enable the "Aliens" panel in Firetuner so you can change alien approach and you can check it out. I haven't tested it out within a "natural" game without Firetuner; though, I've also ended turns to somewhat simulate things in case there's a check for things that only trigger at the beginning of turns.

I had plans for alien nests, but it's not worth it until this is fixed. You're good at this; perhaps you can figure out a fix for it if you're interested and get around to looking at it. (Or rather, a workaround, since I assume the code for this is within the source files.)

Within the Winter 2015 patch (Feb... before RT) it contains:

"Fixed an issue that was causing Xenomass under an existing alien nest to not be counted when the nest turned friendly."

There was also an old bug (before RT, I believe) that let you have infinite xenomass if you kept destroying a friendly nest and let it respawn. Firaxis then addressed it by simply making a friendly nest that is removed subtract from your total.

But, they didn't account for changes in alien approach in the turns between the creation and removal of nests. So, if you've never gained a resource from a nest (again, haven't verified this in a natural game) because you acquired it when they weren't friendly, if they're friendly when you lose it, it'll subtract resources from your total that you've never even gained from it, which can give you negative totals.

According to Lamassu's description, perhaps the Winter 2015 fix works since it's adding the resource once the alien's approach goes friendly. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like it's subtracting it when they go below friendly, haha.

It seems like a mess.

 

[Machiavelli24]

Does mixing up the costs like that really add anything of value?

No it doesn't. All the reasons I can think of are only relevant once I finish changing all the Traits and Agreements. Until that point it makes more sense to mimic the unaltered cost structure.

PAC and Slav are below average in terms of power / usefulness, and KP and FI are above average, IMO.

Would you be willing to elaborate on this? Which aspects you find pull each of them above or below?

You should do the policies next i think.

I currently see the following chunks of work:

1. Virtues
2. Diplomatic Traits and Agreements
3. Wonders

I'm not sure exactly which order I'll tackle them in but Virtues will come.
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Barathor, thanks for tacking down all that information. It does sound like the bug is in the DLL which modders don't have access to but there may be a way to do a clunky work around.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

This mod actually makes me want to get Beyond Earth.

But then $70 price tag.

Still. You are a true hero, Machiavelli.

 

[Machiavelli24]

According to IsThereAnyDeal.com it looks like Beyond Earth+Rising Tide is on sale for $30 at GamesRepublic. I haven't used GamesRepublic myself so I can't vouch for its reputation.

 

[Ubik1994]

Any spot for an additional tester?

 

[Doviello]

Would you be willing to elaborate on this? Which aspects you find pull each of them above or below?

Ok well:

PAC is weak right now because wonders are either terrible or not interesting. But once you mod in some cool stuff for the wonders, They should be fine i guess.

Slavic isn't that good because the orbital game right now feels very strange to me. I was playing them yesterday, and with the trait maxed out, plus pan-observatories from relics (100% production for satellites), i was still taking 6 turns on my capital to make one solar collector, that would last 20 turns in the air. Later on it took 3 turns, but there was always something more urgent to build, and i ended up not using that ability much. I think the cost of orbitals are fine, but i'd prefer that they give +25% yields (instead of +50%) but last twice as long. Maybe boosting his orbitals with another effect, to be in tune with the other sponsors. FI get extra virtues and they generate science, INTEGR get cheaper agreements and they generate culture, i think SF should get some extra yield out of their orbital units in addition to having them cheaper, because right now i can totally live without them. Like, +3/6/9 culture out of every orbital unit.

Kavitha is ok, now that i think about it.

But FI is definitely strong. The science bonus is too strong, the lvl 1 ability is half of a ring 1 tech, the lvl 3 is a ring 2 branch tech on it's own. With artists, and cheaper virtues, i can get her science boost very often. Sure it's not as good an ability on the late game, but the early boost is very strong. I'm playing a game with her right now. I'd suggest changing it from a science boost to a production boost in the capital, that would make it a "nice to have" ability.

The other sponsors are fine in terms of balance, but i find Brasilia and NSA very boring... They are too alike as well. BR gets cheaper units, NSA get cheaper boats, but NSA is bound to have more sea cities than land cities anyway, so they are the same in practice.

 

[Machiavelli24]

I sent the PM to you Ubik a couple days back, if you didn't get it let me know.
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I spent the weekend getting a bunch of work done on the next content update. My focus was on Loadouts (as part of a redesign of some aspects of the Signal). And changing the Diplomatic Traits and Agreements. The Diplomatic Traits are a pretty big chunk of work so I will probably just include the Loadout changes in the next version. I'm hoping to push it out on the 17th but I may not have enough time during the next couple of evenings to finish testing.
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Doviello, thanks for taking the time to write that out. I expect I'll have to do additional refinement passes on the faction traits. Franco-Iberia is going to get weakened (current experiment is 0/50/100 Sci). Between the rising Tech costs and rising Virtues costs the Science gain plateaus fast. I thought it would plateau fast enough to make the ability look more powerful than it actually was. But the early game science boost speed up so much of my early game development that I was able to stay ahead of the curve the rest of the game.

As for Brasilia, China and Russia are currently designed to help teach players the new identity for Strategic Resources. Brasilia, NSA and Russia's abilities may be moved over to Diplomatic Traits and replaced with something weirder. It will depend on if some other part of the design needs those effects more.

 

[Doviello]

Awesome. I do like that pac and slav get those free resources, it makes their ability be usable even in the worst possible start. But brasilia doesn't need titanium as a trait, at least not as much as those two, thematically.

I think the "awesome mods" by Ryika had some good ideas on improving the sponsors. They each have 1 upgradeable ability, plus two abilities related to the diplomatic agreements that they can give away.

Actually i decided to give a look again to be sure and i'm remembering it wrong. The two extra abilities aren't always related to the diplomatic agreements. Still, some of the better done mods on steam.

Spoiler :