Feedback thread

How about higher support costs for morgan's units. "Followers have expensive tastes" I believe it used to say.

That way, he favours a builder style, because playing militarily would counteract his bonuses to income, and would try to only build as many units as necessary for self defense, or make frequent use of the Light ability to cut costs, and thusly have inferior soldiers.


But, I'd really like to see the return of the Clean Reactor ability. Removes all support costs. I remember that was always a turning point in morgan gameplay. Maybe at some mid/late tech like fusion power.
 
A final comment on the PSI-defense-thins...a 3:4 instead of a 2:3 ratio could perhaps help the AI. As said, I don't have much problems with it, when I try to concentrate on being the attacker - the AI doesn't use this strategy very effectively, so the greater the impact of this is, the greater the AI troubles become. But of course an even better solution would be improving the AI...

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A question regarding wild/irregular units...the saves below shows two cases (2376: a Locust in Song of Planet and an IoD in Deidre's Fishery), where enemy units with that promotion enter my cities without attacking me...and I am also not able to attack them inside the city...is that behaviour intended? I don't think I have ever gotten the chance to enter a possible target city ("of a faction you don't share an OB with") without attacking. Both the Locust and the IoD are from Morgan (with whom I don't have an OB - I checked with the WB by taking away the "Wild" promotion), he has done the same twice in the last couple of turns Locusts (in one case I killed the Locust, while I captured the other - both outside the city of course). It has also the "Hidden" promotion, but that shouldn't make a difference IMO (my city isn't on fungus and the Hyperian inside is not a native unit). In 2375, when the Locust was still outside the city, the game gave out combat odds... And the IoD leaves the sea base in the interturn between 2375 and 2376 and tries to pillage my sea borhole (at least the animation looks like that), but fails.

Edit: Trying to "skip turn" with a Cloudbase produced the missing sound file message shown in the last picture
 

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Yes, considering the SMAC backround and the idea of "peacekeepers" it makes more sense this way - though I would recommend a 20% penalty (10% might not make too much of a difference for someone like Morgan)

I'll start with -10%. Easy to increase later if Morgan needs to be nerfed further.

How about higher support costs for morgan's units. "Followers have expensive tastes" I believe it used to say.

I've thought of that too, but it would push Morgan towards Police State. I'm not sure whether I like that or not. Depends on how one views the Morganites I guess. :D

Morgan sounds like someone who would employ mercenary armies by the way. Would be cool to work that in somehow. Pay lots of credits instead of minerals to get an army.

A final comment on the PSI-defense-thins...a 3:4 instead of a 2:3 ratio could perhaps help the AI. As said, I don't have much problems with it, when I try to concentrate on being the attacker - the AI doesn't use this strategy very effectively, so the greater the impact of this is, the greater the AI troubles become. But of course an even better solution would be improving the AI...

Yeah I'd prefer the better solution. :D

A question regarding wild/irregular units

Should be fixed in next patch.
 
Morgan sounds like someone who would employ mercenary armies by the way. Would be cool to work that in somehow. Pay lots of credits instead of minerals to get an army.

One possible way to do this would be making useof the Mrcenaries Mod component (recently updated to BTS 3.19):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=329903

RFC has it IIRC. Or the way Civ Col does it with a "European Screen" (AFAIK, Dune Wars makes now use of modified variant of, but I haven't tried it since it was added)
 
Easy to increase later if Morgan needs to be nerfed further.

Is this really what you experience in your games?

Maybe I am lagging behind a little bit as even small map games take me considerable time (in between a job and a family :mischief:), but in no game so far I had the impression that Morgan should be nerfed.

First, I never played Morgan in my games. Is it really simple if the player is Morgan? I don't like to try him, really. Though, if this is the case, why not increase difficulty level?

However, balancing also relates to Morgan as a KI opponent. And as thus - he is a weakling in every single game I played so far. If he is not attacked (which almost never happens from the other KI's) he surely is good. But for sure, you will attack him, right? And get a boost from all the niceties he has build so far :D.
Others, such as Lal and University seem (again, given only a small sample of games so far) to be stronger. Yang never seems to have as much units as I would expect him to have.

Just wanted to mention this, again, as if you would ask me about nerfing or strengthening at this stage I would say only that Yang needs a boost.
 
One possible way to do this would be making useof the Mrcenaries Mod component (recently updated to BTS 3.19):

I wouldn't want to add anything complex involving new screens etcetera. In the next patch you'll only be able to hurry buildings with the Nanites technology. So perhaps the Morganites could have an exception to that, and a 'Mercenary' is any unit hurried with gold. Much simpler: uses the already existing mechanics.

So rather than wondering how to make recruiting Mercenaries special, I'm wondering how they could differ in combat or other attributes to normally produced units.

Is this really what you experience in your games?

Nope it isn't. The experiences by different players on which factions are considered strong and weak vary greatly, so I don't see a need yet to seriously consider rebalancing some of them.
 
So rather than wondering how to make recruiting Mercenaries special, I'm wondering how they could differ in combat or other attributes to normally produced units.

Some brainstorming ideas...

* ideas around plundering improvements
- automated from when standing on enemy tile (always or with a certain chance)
- can pillage without using up movement, but only half the usual or no yield
- maybe they could heal themself (only) by pillaging

* danger to flee, desert, convert...?
- when wounded
- too long in enmy territory
- can be bribed by enemy spies

* other things
- no WW sounds like a must, but we have that for the cyborg units
- higher upkeep
- refuse attack, when low odds?
- randomly special abilities get assigned when being built (or you have to pay for them as well)
- cause Anger when garrisoned in morgan cities
- a morale system depending on victories, wounds, pillage actions...

I think an important question is if that additional special should be something positive or rather a penalty (I tend to the latter, because instantly receiving a new unit, even if for a lot of energy, is powerful enough...)
 
* danger to flee, desert, convert...?
I think this could be pretty interesting, drives home the idea that they're not loyal-to-death troops but just mercenaries. They could have a ~15% chance to convert to the winner when they are defeated by a non-Morgan unit and a ~25% chance to convert when defeated by a Morgan unit.

This would mean that Morgan would lose them when the war goes bad, but when it goes good, they come back more readily (because he pays more). The interesting bit, I think, is that they can get into the hands of the enemy, meaning every faction would get involved with them - meaning you could sometimes see Morgan mercenaries popping up in other factions as well (I'd like the feel of that) - but using them against Morgan can sometimes backfire.

Cheers, LT.
 
I think an important question is if that additional special should be something positive or rather a penalty (I tend to the latter, because instantly receiving a new unit, even if for a lot of energy, is powerful enough...)

Good point of course. Perhaps "can hurry units with credits" is good enough as a faction effect, and there's no need to further make these units special in any regard. This would also be easier on the AI who wouldn't realize it would be better to hurry rather than produce units.

Some of the ideas posted could perhaps be used for a Mercenary special ability, available at Neural Grafting. It could for instance remove war weariness, and grant one random other special ability, even if you don't have the tech for it yet (as the mercenaries can come from other factions).

The Invitro's and Cyborg's no war weariness could be removed. I'd like to give them another effect then though. Any ideas? I find it cool if researching better units gives you something more than just an increase in base strength.
 
The Invitro's and Cyborg's no war weariness could be removed. I'd like to give them another effect then though. Any ideas? I find it cool if researching better units gives you something more than just an increase in base strength.

Hmm, no WW just fits very good and it is hard to come up with something else - one things which makes special trouble is the fact that this unit line sums up a couple of units with different relations of "human" and "non-human" parts. So when thinking about them I'm always unsure if they should behave rather like humans or machines/computers... One immidiate idea I had tough, was something related to being better in PSI combat - they way PSI combat works, it might be difficult to influnece e.g. a Cyborg as much as a human. The problem is that just higher strength doesn't fit and would punish any green style too much. Forbiding attacks with PSI creatures on them would be too much as well. Perhaps that attacking such a unit with a PSI create would only "disable" it like a Former? Would especially make sense for the Walker - the crew is killed, but it can be reequipped after cleaning out the mindworms. Or - more complicated - force native life into conventional combat vs. them (that would require all native life have a conventional strength as well and maybe there life cycle promotions could be factored in this value with more impact)

Two other ideas:
- they could start with Scavenger (but that might be too much combined with Bioenhanced)
- the healing by pillaging I suggested above for mercenaries (could be split up - Mercenaries heal when it is about farms, greenhouses and labs on food ressources, while the Cyborgs could make use out of what boreholes, mines and labs on mineral ressources offer)
 
one things which makes special trouble is the fact that this unit line sums up a couple of units with different relations of "human" and "non-human" parts. So when thinking about them I'm always unsure if they should behave rather like humans or machines/computers...

In the past I used to think of Cyborgs as shown in the Cyborg Factory movie, but since they're now an upgrade of the InVitro, I think of them as humans with cybernetic implants. So no need for special rules. That would only diminish the value of flamethrowers anyway.

I like the idea of giving them healing benefits. Fits for the culmination of the genetics/medicine tech theme. I'll give them an alwaysheal promotion for free. Infantry can't pick the Silksteel spec ab, so at least for infantry units that would give the Cyborg a unique benefit.
 
I noticed that you can't attack a seabase with a mindworm from a transport even if it has the Flagella promotion. Is that intended?
 
I just love how random and unintelligible the sentence "you can't attack a seabase with a mindworm from a transport even if it has the Flagella promotion" is to anyone who isn't familiar with all of this. Sorry, I have no useful comment, I just laughed at that sentence. Possibly because the word "Flagella" is inherently funny on top of the "wait, what?"ness of the rest of the sentence.
 
I noticed that you can't attack a seabase with a mindworm from a transport even if it has the Flagella promotion. Is that intended?

Will be fixed in next patch. Or if you prefer I could also attach a DLL here so you can continue your current game with amphibious assaults?
 
Will be fixed in next patch. Or if you prefer I could also attach a DLL here so you can continue your current game with amphibious assaults?

A new .dll would be nice - unless you plan to release the new patch soon (=this weekend)...then I see myself starting a new game anyway ;)
 
A not too useful feedback : under linux, from time to time I have the graphical server that crashe. Planetfall is one of the mod that make this happen the more often. For now I don't really have a lot of other thing to say, because it's rather random.
 
It seems that upgrading the Solar Power Transmitter Unit into Gravity Lens causes the corresponding building to vanish in the next turn (including it's energy bonus to solar collectors) and allows to build another SPT, so that you end up with the GLs, the SPT unit and the SPT building, ready to start that cycle again. This leads to multiple instances of those orbital installations and also makes it necessary to keep always at least one of them unupgraded to reap the economic benefit. I wonder if it is designed to be this way and if it is, if the AI knows about the special benefit of the non-upgraded unit here.

Save to cause this behaviour:

1. Go to Greenhouse Gate
2. Check output of the solar collectors in the base radius
3. Upgrade SPT to GL (note: the SPT building and the bonus haven't vanished yet!)
4. End turn
5. Check base and surrounding tiles with collectors again

Edit: Thanks for the .dll BTW, it allowed me a quick vassalization of Miriam :lol:
 

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Got BTS specfically for this mod alone so I could check it out. Long time fan of SMAX, if I recall correctly I had to break the CD in two to stop playing it. :)

I figured the mod would probably be a bit "meh" but worth it just to add some colour around the tech samples (which was really why I wanted to play the game again, the media surrounding it was sooo very, very cool). However I WAS BLOWN AWAY by Planetfall v12.

This mod is absolutely incredible. The fundamental game is still the same, still unity pods, still water bases, still all the awesome factions. The tech tree is just brilliant, you can completely skip techs you don't want and create a totally unbalanced tree of knowledge (Firaxis take note!). The planet is beautifully aggressive (oh yea... I shoulda built more than one defensive unit!) the whole commune idea is really cool too. I adore the way you've incorporated religions, especially since they're not "one tech" away like the early religions in Civ4.
The tunes. Woaw, Yang's music. That rocks. Have I forgotten them from SMAX or are they originals?
Bunkers. They're fun. Nice idea. Culture is kinda cooler too. I prefer the "spread" to be based more on military might (Command Centre gives the +) than on namby pamby temples like in Civ4.
Fungus! Looks cool.

Basically i'm in love. It's like combining the best of SMAX and Civ4 into a brand new game. If Firaxis ever get the license back they're going to have to put in a lot of work to make it better than this.

For the future...... I was wondering:

Can we have more Secret Projects? I'm finding after you've completed all the unity projects there aren't that many more. Would it also be possible to incorporate the original movies into the game? (you need some extra code for this?)

Obviously I'd love to see the additional factions. I like the idea someone suggested that they turn up later. I'd love to see Cha Dawn turn up when Voice of the Planet is researched for example.

Devestating late game weapons. I haven't played ALL the way to the end yet but from looking at the tech tree it looks like the tech kinda peters out. Planetbustas + The ground shifting missiles were great for finishing off games that would have otherwise continued forever. Perhaps create a "consolidation point" for tech where you need to have ALL the techs to get the later ones would prevent a rush for the IMBA later techs.

Negative effects with social engineering. I noted that the left most ones all just have positive effects. I'd prefer to see trade-offs myself.

Tech stealing. I guess this is mainly still the BTS code but the requirements for stealing tech are utterly insane. Making tech stealing easier would allow us to provide more negative teching for certain social engineering choices (like Fundamentalism). Perhaps you could bridge the gap in EPs with credits?

Ogre Mk 1s. I'd really dig finding these in unity pods again.

Any reason why obelisks don't provide unit upgrades like in SMAX? I assume the code is a pain to implement?

Better AI in regards to anti-native life. On Monarch I find that Miriam still loses most of her bases to Native Life.

Moar special locations, like the boreholes and pholus mutagen. I'd like to see the monsoon jungle back and also the broken up remains of the unity craft, especially so you can get the comms for everyone on the planet.

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Anyhow those future requests by no means should detract from the utterly amazing job you guys have done on this game. MUCH RESPECT and thanks for bringing this game back from the dead! :)
 
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