Escapist Preview First Pics of Carrier, New Diplomatic Options

[Algeroth]

Interesting that they chose to implement Favors as a unit, rather than as a resource, but considering how they explained their development I can sort of see why. A unit can keep track of who it was originally from -- all those Workers that you can capture from other civs, or liberate and give back to other civs, for example. So I can see how making Favors into units allows you to track where the Favor came from, as opposed to just making it a resource that wouldn't carry any such information without additional coding...

Unit as a "unit of measurment".

And it seems like a cool concept. Especially if only the attacer looses the Favours, not the defender.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

Rocktopus on page 4. It's a Harmony orbital unit that spits acid.

 

[Smith of Lie]

Rocktopus on page 4. It's a Harmony orbital unit that spits acid.

Even better. It is an airborn unit that can temporarily enter the orbit. Means that unlike satelites it can reposition and presumably does not have a limited warrantry (id est, does not fall down after X turns).

 

[3of5]

Civ5 has 4 types of textures for the map (Europe, Africa, Asia, Americas). So they might just have taken those and adapted them to the map scrips. They would be always the same tiles (grassland/plains/desert/tundra/ice - flat/hill/mountain), but they would have different art styles. I like it. It adds way more flavor than to just vary percentages of each biome in the map script. I like the idea of vulcan type planets being optically very different from jungle planets.

Escapist articles are always a great read.

 

[3of5]

Means that unlike satelites it can reposition

Satellites seem to be able to reposition, at least the tactical satellite was shown to be able to (its effectively an overlorified Great General that cannot be targeted by normal units and expires).

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Especially if only the attacer looses the Favours, not the defender.

That wouldn't make much sense logicall, but it would eliminate the obvious exploit of exchanging hard cash and resources for favors and wiping the slate clean via DoW.
I think the best solution would be to to treat an attack on somebody you owe a lot of favors to like an attack on a civ you have a declaration of friendship with: massive diplomatic fallout and an unwillingness of the other factions to agree to any deal that isn't either totally equal or favors them.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

That wouldn't make much sense logicall, but it would eliminate the obvious exploit of exchanging hard cash and resources for favors and wiping the slate clean via DoW.
I think the best solution would be to to treat an attack on somebody you owe a lot of favors to like an attack on a civ you have a declaration of friendship with: massive diplomatic fallout and an unwillingness of the other factions to agree to any deal that isn't either totally equal or favors them.

Yeah, I really can't think of the sense of owing favors to someone you are attacking... its not like they can cash them in with you anymore.

Some type of "trust factor" could be involved ("You betrayed someone who helped you")... and it wouldn't just be a # of times betrayed, it would be a How much did you betray them.... ie attacking someone who had 30 favors with you would cause less of a problem than someone who had 300 favors with you.

I also think that it would be really good if favors could be acquired in non-diplomatic ways.
ie If I
Kill units from a civ that is at war with you on your territory (ie kill units attacking you)
or
Liberate your cities

then you owe me favors (assuming we are not at war)

 

[Karl0413]

Even better. It is an airborn unit that can temporarily enter the orbit. Means that unlike satelites it can reposition and presumably does not have a limited warrantry (id est, does not fall down after X turns).

You know, stuff like this makes me rethink about playing Purity on my first playthrough.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Even better. It is an airborn unit that can temporarily enter the orbit. Means that unlike satelites it can reposition and presumably does not have a limited warrantry (id est, does not fall down after X turns).

Actually I think its an Orbital unit that can temporarily enter the atmosphere... so it might still fall down after X turns.

 

[poom3619]

This is pretty good previews. I like that the affinities are real break from Teeran-Zerg-Protoss system. Become what I would call Bruteforce-Zerg-BuffBuffBuff. I am now really interested how Supremacy force would be like, but I don't mind crushing them with Purity force

The "favor" thing is a great addition and how it can cause something big like changing affinities, flipping city, DoW and make peace. I hope deal with "favor" in it can either force one to accept, or have some passive bonus in it's own as "IOU" resource would mean nothing to human player. I wonder if there are factions who care it a lot or completely ignore it, and it might end up being a diplomatically exploitable resource.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

This is pretty good previews. I like that the affinities are real break from Teeran-Zerg-Protoss system. Become what I would call Bruteforce-Zerg-BuffBuffBuff. I am now really interested how Supremacy force would be like, but I don't mind crushing them with Purity force

The "favor" thing is a great addition and how it can cause something big like changing affinities, flipping city, DoW and make peace. I hope deal with "favor" in it can either force one to accept, or have some passive bonus in it's own as "IOU" resource would mean nothing to human player. I wonder if there are factions who care it a lot or completely ignore it, and it might end up being a diplomatically exploitable resource.

I'm thinking someone you owe a lot of favors to
1. Might request that you settle up after a certain time
2. Might become more unhappy with you and request that you settle up once they get unhappy with you
3. Might attack you cancelling the favors and make everyone mad at you for ignoring the favors
4. Might cause your people to be unhealthy (unhappy) because of the stress of living in debt to a foreign power/having an untrustworthy government*


*This is one thing I really hope... having bad foreign relations lead to domestic problems


Although it can't lead to changing affinities, because you don't get to "change" affinities... your affinities are based on the techs you have researched.

I could see cities having an individual Affinity separate from your empire as a whole, and they might request that you not Force your Affinity on cities of a different affinity (that you had captured)

 

[Callonia]

Well that's interesting I guess, I might play the diplomatic game again just to check out how favors work xD

And that flying jellyfish, now I have to play them at least once..

 

[AriochIV]

There is another view of that Marine heavy weapon unit:

 

[Karl0413]

There is another view of that Marine heavy weapon unit:

I really think that is the Ranger unit we heard about and it is the machine gun / archer equivalent.

 

[bouncymischa]

Unit as a "unit of measurment".

I dunno, when I read "they may offer you a unit labeled as a favor" it still sounds like an actual unit to me. Perhaps I've just been doing too much modding lately...

 

[AriochIV]

Favors sound quite straightforward -- just another unit of currency that can be traded for, except that it can only be traded back to the same faction, and if you go to war with that faction (or it is destroyed by someone else), you lose any favor you have accumulated. It has the same pitfalls as trading for cash and then declaring war, but I think it may help to make an "investment" in friendship with another faction more palpable, as well as offer an incentive to trade in the early game when not everyone has extra resources. However, if the faction AI inevitably backstabs you, then favor will be pretty useless.

And anyone who thinks that favor will be an actual unit on the map needs to cut back on the glue-sniffing.

 

[Mount Suribachi]

Is it just me, or are the angled flight decks angled the wrong way?

I know it looks cool and all, but the pointed outboard for 60 years for a reason.

 

[SupremacyKing]

I really think that is the Ranger unit we heard about and it is the machine gun / archer equivalent.

Yes. It looks to me to be a portable rail gun. It has a tripod for the soldier to set it down and a range finder on the top for the soldier to calculate range and the rail gun spits out a large size bullet at super fast speeds.

 

[poom3619]

Favors sound quite straightforward -- just another unit of currency that can be traded for, except that it can only be traded back to the same faction, and if you go to war with that faction (or it is destroyed by someone else), you lose any favor you have accumulated. It has the same pitfalls as trading for cash and then declaring war, but I think it may help to make an "investment" in friendship with another faction more palpable, as well as offer an incentive to trade in the early game when not everyone has extra resources. However, if the faction AI inevitably backstabs you, then favor will be pretty useless.

And anyone who thinks that favor will be an actual unit on the map needs to cut back on the glue-sniffing.

I wish they have idea about amnesia after DoW in their mind, maybe giving a "backstabber" relation penalty for it. If one have surplus sum of Favors to who they declare war with, they could have some process of justification, that can't be used without in-game actual cost. I doubt that the system itself is unexploitable through.

Someone probably a bit confused to think it's a literally unit. Such confusion can happen with anyone in any bad day.

 

[AriochIV]

Is it just me, or are the angled flight decks angled the wrong way?

I know it looks cool and all, but the pointed outboard for 60 years for a reason.

I had a similar thought, but they shouldn't be angled at all if you plan to use them both simultaneously for landing. And if you don't plan to use them simultaneously, I'm not sure what the advantage of having two is.