Leviathan animals overpopulation?

[manivo]

I've started a new game after not playing for over a year and have been having a really great time with the mod, but came upon these monstrosities that I don't remember having such an issue with in the past -

I've constructed about 15 sloops of war and sent them out on autohunt to have their giggles on the high seas, and they've been getting absolutely decimated by sea animals with this promotion (plus one of the feral promotions). The oceans are absolutely swarming with them, and I've been losing a sloop of war to one of them attacking every 2-3 turns, at times having up to 3 different sea animals with this upgrade in the ship's 5x5 range of sight.

Edit: I haven't got Dangerous Animals or Reckless Animals turned on either.

It got so bad that I've resorted to cheating units in every time I encountered them to 'thin out the map' a bit, and they chew through about 7-10 sloops of war each before they die (unpromoted). Both the strength of the promotion and the amount of sea animals that got it seem very excessive - is this working as intended?

Not to mention I saw there's also a third level of the promotion -

I haven't come across any of those yet, but.. I don't remember the last time I read about a nuclear submarine getting sunk by an extraordinarily unagreeable manatee.


I assume the idea is to have 'legendarily difficult' sea animals to put some danger on the ocean tiles for the first ocean-able wooden ships during the first stages of exploration, but both the number of animals that get this promotion and the future implications of the third level of the promotion seem way too high.


I'm down with renaming Leviathan III to "Freakin' Laser Beams", though. That'd be a fine compromise.

 

[manivo]

Oh, nevermind. I found a Leviathan III
And the tooltip on its actual promotion is even worse than the civpedia entry:

There's also a Feral 2 down that list, which at least makes it defend only. But in total that's around 640% bonus against wooden ships.
....what.

 

[raxo2222]

@manivo

Are you using moddb version?
Then get V41.2. It was released recently.

 

[manivo]

SVN 11305

 

[raxo2222]

SVN 11305

Upload save then.
Also there were few updates out.

This may happen, when you aren't playing with "Peace among NPCs"

 

[manivo]

See attached.

There's a good example over here, there's three Leviathan III's in a cluster at the center there, plus a fourth one on the top-right of the view square.
The save is from before discovering the techs to explore the oceans, before I started 'culling' ocean animals (and namely the leviathans) so it should be about the amount you'd expect when you're first entering the ocean-going age.
I will note that I play with reloading seed on load (because I'm a dirty save scummer), which I know is frowned upon when debugging saves - but I don't suppose it should affect an issue that develops over long stretches of gameplay.

This may happen, when you aren't playing with "Peace among NPCs"

I assume the beastly leviathan-promoted sea creatures keep attacking the normal ones, and as the RNG creates new ones and randomly applies the leviathan promotion to new units they slowly increase in number due to, basically, natural selection?

I don't usually play with peace among NPCs because it seems more realistic not to - is the setting recommended to be turned on in general?


Edit: oops forgot the save file

 

[raxo2222]

See attached.
View attachment 591973
I assume the beastly leviathan-promoted sea creatures keep attacking the normal ones, and as the RNG creates new ones and randomly applies the leviathan promotion to new units they slowly increase in number due to, basically, natural selection?

I don't usually play with peace among NPCs because it seems more realistic not to - is the setting recommended to be turned on in general?

Edit: oops forgot the save file

Yeah, if nothing kills those units, and it has stuff to kill they will gain XP and promotions.
Peace among NPCs would pretty much prevent this stuff from happening making it easier for AI too.

Prince is easy handicap, try Emperor, it is moderately difficult handicap.

 

[manivo]

Wait, the leviathan promotions are attained by animals? I thought they were randomly 'gifted' upon their creation but were otherwise unpickable by them through normal leveling.

Is there any chance of having those promotions locked out of getting picked and instead being given randomly to have some control over their prevalence?
My main worry with turning on peace among NPCs is that in-fighting at least limits their numbers - seeing as how the oceans are already swarming with them when they DO fight between themselves I'm worried letting them spawn uncontrolled will have a huge impact on turn times before I can create ships to clean out the animals in the oceans. (That's honestly the main reason I send out such a large fleet to autohunt - simply to lower the amount of units on the map to be calculated between turns)

Edit: possibly making it an event linked to amount of water pollution? Junk attracting hulking animals to feed on the waste?

 

[raxo2222]

Wait, the leviathan promotions are attained by animals? I thought they were randomly 'gifted' upon their creation but were otherwise unpickable by them through normal leveling.

Yeah, animals gain those promotions by levelling.

I'm not sure if some animals are defined to start with promotions.
After quick check, they don't spawn with promotions.

There is limitation on how much animals spawn to not overload turn times.

 

[manivo]

Gotcha. At least everything makes sense.

Thanks for the answers, I appreciate you taking the time to!

 

[Raven Destroyer]

the Idea of a creature able to have a Bonus against Diesel and Nuclear Vessels Terrifies me... Also I Guess having Sea Hunter should help against them, but it's indeed Odd for a non-Fantasy Animal to defeat a Squadron of Sloops of War

 

[manivo]

the Idea of a creature able to have a Bonus against Diesel and Nuclear Vessels Terrifies me... Also I Guess having Sea Hunter should help against them, but it's indeed Odd for a non-Fantasy Animal to defeat a Squadron of Sloops of War

Just sayin'

 

[Thunderbrd]

It's probably time we reign back on the modifiers on those promotions severely. They were meant to make for those creatures that ships feared to go into deep waters lest they encounter, but I think they are a bit, like a lot, too strong. The tooltip in the pedia shows the total of all the previous ones in the same combined with the one you're looking at. And yeah, it's just a bit excessive. I'd rather see this promo line be nerfed a lot than to start suggesting Peace among NPCs as an alternative.

 

[raxo2222]

It's probably time we reign back on the modifiers on those promotions severely. They were meant to make for those creatures that ships feared to go into deep waters lest they encounter, but I think they are a bit, like a lot, too strong. The tooltip in the pedia shows the total of all the previous ones in the same combined with the one you're looking at. And yeah, it's just a bit excessive. I'd rather see this promo line be nerfed a lot than to start suggesting Peace among NPCs as an alternative.

Nerfed it by ton - now its +25/50/100% against wooden ships only.
Other ships are way too powerful against animals to make any difference.

 

[Thunderbrd]

Nerfed it by ton - now its +25/50/100% against wooden ships only.
Other ships are way too powerful against animals to make any difference.

I believe I'm in agreement with this completely.