Health.. yeesh

[Browd]

Well, it depends what you want to accomplish. If you think per city unhealth is too high, change that value from 4 to 3, 2, 1 or zero. If you think per population unhealth should be less than 0.75, change that number. Then save that file back to its original location. (Suggest saving a back-up copy of the original file -- just rename its file extension from .xml to .old, or some such.)

 

[jgamefan]

In GlobalDefines.xml. Path should be something like C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Sid Meier's Civilization Beyond Earth\assets\Gameplay\XML\

Look for these lines:

-<Row Name="UNHEALTH_PER_POPULATION">
<Value>0.75</Value>
</Row>
-<Row Name="UNHEALTH_PER_OCCUPIED_POPULATION">
<Value>1.34</Value>
</Row>
-<Row Name="UNHEALTH_PER_CITY">
<Value>4</Value>
</Row>
-<Row Name="UNHEALTH_PER_CAPTURED_CITY">
<Value>8</Value>
</Row>

Thanks for the info

I'll be playing with the values to suit my own taste...

 

[CaptainPatch]

Make a ton of biowells in your spy hq capital city and start the propaganda spy agency project. Five spies in your hq amounts to 10% of local healthiness from biowell improvements and buildings added to global health.

What is the earliest that you can build biowells and the propaganda spy agency project? That's how long you will be piling on negative Health modifiers. And then only if you beeline the research path to get them by bypassing all of the other things that you really need.

Seems like that for about the first third of the game, being a Colonist is literally a sickening proposition!

 

[Haggbart]

That's way too much for my personal taste...

Does anyone know where to edit the above values for health ?

Seriously....don't put the values lower. It will be too easy.

You can expand quite a lot in negative health. In my current game I was down to about -20 for a period of time, but the thing is as long as you can keep it from sinking too far down the 20es, you will pretty soon get access to techs that make you swimming in health. I'm now at +30, haven't even got a lot of virtues that altered it. Biowells and late game buildings make health a non-issue.

I think the health penalties should be MUCH harsher. Now -20 health is the new -1 happiness, and with even softer penalties.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Biowells. You can keep your health positive and expand throughout the entire game with Biowells. just be sure to also build enough generators or they will bankrupt you. I didn't even need to go prosperity,

 

[bhavv]

Another thing that helps - pick the +1 health upgrades for Pharmalabs and Gene Gardens.

The +3 energy on the Gardens does look better, but the health will help a lot more.

Oh and ofc, you need to get to level 2 in Purity for gene gardens, on my current game I'm still on 1, with 2 harmony and 3 supremacy, but Vertical Farming will get me to level 2 Purity and I'm not really interested in getting anymore than that.

 

[CreepyD]

First game I ended up struggling, so spammed biowells to fix it.
2nd game I was prepared.. ended up with 6 cities and +26 Health when I achieved victory by miles (Gemini difficulty).

Simple solutions.
1. There's +0.5 health per trade route, in the right hand virtue tree (Not sure of names there yet!) - Trade routes are REALLY op at the moment and should be filled asap in every city.
2. Then there's the 3rd virtue one down in the middle on the Military tree.. 1 health per 4 military units.
3. One of the spying things gives you +2% per spy in the HQ.. I had 1 defending and another 6 or more sat there for +12% (I was able to move them into the field later in the game) - many things give you more agents.

I could have spammed more cities, but tbh I really didn't need any more.
Wish the AI was more aggressive.

 

[nokmirt]

Health needs a fix badly. Whatever affinity you choose you should be able to stay healthy. I find it difficult and would rather build wider than tall.

 

[knighterrant81]

I'm sitting here with only 5 cities, going full prosperity, building every health building and spamming Biowells like they're candy and I'm still at -11 health. This needs addressing. If we're balanced around negative health, why call it negative, and fill the tutorials full of messages about how bad it is to be in negative health? Things like this just make me want to quit playing until they've fixed the game (by which time, we'll be ready for the next installment of the Civ series).

 

[Haggbart]

It's not that hard. I finished my last game with 11 cities and +78 in health. So it will get better later in the game.

Anyway, negative health early should be expected. The consequences aren't anything to worry about before you hit -20.

 

[nokmirt]

It's not that hard. I finished my last game with 11 cities and +78 in health. So it will get better later in the game.

Anyway, negative health early should be expected. The consequences aren't anything to worry about before you hit -20.

What difficulty are you playing on? I can't get that much happiness and I play only on hard.

I'm sitting here with only 5 cities, going full prosperity, building every health building and spamming Biowells like they're candy and I'm still at -11 health. This needs addressing. If we're balanced around negative health, why call it negative, and fill the tutorials full of messages about how bad it is to be in negative health? Things like this just make me want to quit playing until they've fixed the game (by which time, we'll be ready for the next installment of the Civ series).

I agree.

 

[Strickl3r]

Prosperity + harmony will get you huge amount of surplus health in late game, if you go for for a peacefull victory. YOu can still have a lot of big citys. I had 8 citys at a minimum of 20 pop, finished transcendence at turn 270 with around 30 health.

You get 20% health in late game which will boost you easy from deep into the red to a high amount of green. I didn't build a single tile improvement which gave me + health, but I'm sure for domination that is quite usefull. I was just terra forming everything in the end.(got diplomatic penaltys for that though from my hamrony friends)

I think it was alien evolution which gave the 20% to health i'm not sure don't have the game open and can't ind a usable tech web on google.

 

[Theodorick]

I find anywhere between 0 and -10 health, the penalty is so meaninglessly tiny it's nothing to worry about. Just keep your health above -10 and you're fine. Even -10 to -20 might be alright, but still, it's so easy to keep your health above -10 I don't see the point.

 

[Natura]

182 positive health, at the end of my first game in BE. I had 22 cities and a grand total of 2 biowells. Oh, and 40 Manufactories and 5 petroleum wells.

Spoiler :

9 of that health was from difficulty level. All the rest was just structures and virtues.

 

[Acken]

Prosperity + Artists means you can usually get into positive health... didn't had problems in my game with 13cities.

Once you get the -25% negative health I had 0 problems. I think purity has a lot of options too.

 

[Oddible]

I think there is a bug with health. I planted a new outpost, on the day it grew into a colony I jumped to -10 health as expected. I then purchased the following buildings in my new city: Clinic (+2 Health), Cytonursery (+1 Health), and Pharmalab (+3 Health). These had zero effect on my health. I checked again the following turn in case it was a result of them not being built on the turn I purchased them... same issue, was still at -10 health. So these buildings don't seem to be consistently applying their effect.

 

[Acken]

I think there is a bug with health. I planted a new outpost, on the day it grew into a colony I jumped to -10 health as expected. I then purchased the following buildings in my new city: Clinic (+2 Health), Cytonursery (+1 Health), and Pharmalab (+3 Health). These had zero effect on my health. I checked again the following turn in case it was a result of them not being built on the turn I purchased them... same issue, was still at -10 health. So these buildings don't seem to be consistently applying their effect.

Health works like happiness most likely. The health benefit of a city most likely cannot exceed its population.

Of course this is not written anywhere but that has been my experience.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Health works like happiness most likely. The health benefit of a city most likely cannot exceed its population.

Of course this is not written anywhere but that has been my experience.

Correct. Local positive health cannot exceed city population. Check your city view - if it shows positive health for all the citizens in that city, buying another building won't do anything yet.

 

[m15a]

Ignoring the actual penalties and benefits, from reading this thread, it does sound like health is "balanced" in the sense that you can get it to be positive if you make the proper investments (buildings, virtues, quests, etc.) and your health will go negative if you don't. I think that's a good sign.

Of course, whether those investments are never (or always) worth it is another, much more complicated, issue.

 

[GhostSalsa]

This needs addressing. If we're balanced around negative health, why call it negative, and fill the tutorials full of messages about how bad it is to be in negative health? Things like this just make me want to quit playing until they've fixed the game (by which time, we'll be ready for the next installment of the Civ series).

I agree. If it was intended to play into negative health, then they should have just shifted the "0" 20 points back. Peaceful, builder-y players don't like to see red on their scorecard - it violates the narrative of "I am a good leader and my people are excelling through infrastructure."

But, in fact, I don't think the devs did balance it around negative health. I think this is the exact reason the game is so unbalanced - they had no idea how ineffective health "penalties" are and how profitable fast expansion is, because they play-tested adhering to their own advice about staying in positive health. Because they are peaceful, builder-y players who don't like to see red (I mean they clearly hate warmongering).

All players should be able to use the same optimal strategies without having to sacrifice their preferred role-play narrative. Allow what is meant to be allowed, forbid what is meant to be forbidden. Don't just throw red text around.