Make aliens *like* you?

[KrikkitTwo]

It does seem to be particularly easy to befriend them.

I'd suggest something closer to 150 turn-nests (with 2 nests only 75 turns, 3 nests 50 turns, etc.)
Nests inside Ultrasonic fences should not count...if they can't spawn aliens, they are not really a nest.

Harmony level 1 would then double the 'friendly points' if you are above 0...as well as the current effect of doubling recovery if you were below 0

 

[TLHeart]

It does seem to be particularly easy to befriend them.

I'd suggest something closer to 150 turn-nests (with 2 nests only 75 turns, 3 nests 50 turns, etc.)
Nests inside Ultrasonic fences should not count...if they can't spawn aliens, they are not really a nest.

Harmony level 1 would then double the 'friendly points' if you are above 0...as well as the current effect of doubling recovery if you were below 0

madjinn said once the nest is inside of your borders, it will no longer spawn units, regardless of the fence.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

madjinn said once the nest is inside of your borders, it will no longer spawn units, regardless of the fence.

Then that is a problem

Nests should continue to generate units inside borders. That should be a requirement for 'friendly' nest points.

(Ultrasonic fences or miasma removal could stop the nest, but that should negate the friendly points)

 

[omniclast]

I'd kind of like to see civilian units be able to share tiles with friendly aliens. MD's KP stream makes it seem like having them be friendly is a huge hassle for building outposts and improvements, even if you have fences researched. If you could walk colonists under them and build an outpost to bump them off, that would make life a lot easier. Plus it would give you more of an incentive to stay friendly... if they got mad and immediately killed all your workers. And it would still make moving your army around a pain, so it wouldn't be that powerful.

As for keeping the tradeoff... shouldn't other civs get mad at you if you're friendly with the aliens while they're aggressive? Seems like diplo penalties could be a good balance to being friendly.

Edit: Just hit the point in MD's stream where he accidentally dropped from friendly to neutral... and that looked really, really scary. So perhaps the biggest tradeoff is that if you're friendly with aliens, you have to stay friendly, or you're going to get wrecked by all those aliens wandering around your cities and trade routes. Perhaps it should be more work to maintain friendly status once you've got it? Like other civs will go out and be aggressive, and you'll have to protect them to keep from falling back to neutral?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I do think that once you Are friendly the aliens should allow you to move through them (no ZOC). Possibly you should also be able to 'switch places' with them/push them out of the way.

 

[Joneill]

It does seem to be particularly easy to befriend them.

Only if you're willing to give up the free experience from alien-kills, as well as delaying (or never completing) certain quests, especially purity-based ones. Maddjinn's game is probably a very favorable scenario for befriending them - water based map (friendly kraken are really the biggest benefit), nest right next to capital, frenzied aliens. So the pay-off may not be as good in other games.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Only if you're willing to give up the free experience from alien-kills, as well as delaying (or never completing) certain quests, especially purity-based ones. Maddjinn's game is probably a very favorable scenario for befriending them - water based map (friendly kraken are really the biggest benefit), nest right next to capital, frenzied aliens. So the pay-off may not be as good in other games.

Experience doesn't count for that much...and if you go Scavenging virtue or Purity quests you don't have any reason to kill aliens that are not 'in the way'
Going friendly should be an alternative to getting them 'out of the way'

 

[AriochIV]

Nests should continue to generate units inside borders. That should be a requirement for 'friendly' nest points.

The aliens would eventually fill up every tile of your territory. It would make staying friendly with them impossible.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

The aliens would eventually fill up every tile of your territory. It would make staying friendly with them impossible.

I assume the nest doesn't generate aliens every single turn.... I also assume it doesn't generate aliens if there are a certain number of aliens around it.

Essentially you would have to put up with ~1/2 of your non-fenced tiles (the ones around the nest) being filled with aliens. (which should give you ZOC/Move through at that point)

 

[ggmoyang]

Alien Nests count as a Xenomass well, not sure why the first one didn't count. Hope they will fix it before release.

Edit: It counts as a Xenomass well and gets yield bonus, only missing +3 food from base Xenomass well.

Edit: MadDjinn's stream showed unimproved Xenomass was getting bonus from Xenofuel plant/Xenonursery. So nest is just a Xenomass connection, nothing else.

 

[Sal]

Anyone know if the Harmony ability also increases the speed at which you can befriend them? Or has that not been revealed?

I love all the affinities but Harmony seems to be a little confused. For a while it seemed like they were the most inclined to be aggressive to the natives, but with the possibility of befriending more quickly and gaining resources from nests I am liking them more again.

 

[AriochIV]

Anyone know if the Harmony ability also increases the speed at which you can befriend them? Or has that not been revealed?

In the only example I've seen, the Friendly relationship was achieved before the player had any Affinity levels at all, so it's not clear.

 

[Strategist83]

Having watched the first three episodes of Mad's KT Let's Play, I agree that the aliens seem too easy to befriend for the significant benefits that provides (global, ALL aliens turn friendly - permanently). At the same time, I also agree with the suggestion that friendly aliens shouldn't block off hexes or generate ZoC issues - Mad went through some infuriating attempts at colonizing with that bug sitting on the hill forever, and this honestly isn't clever or balanced design, just annoying. So, it's a bit of both: Make aliens harder to befriend (and possibly not globally, either) but also strengthen friendly status by making aliens less of a hassle once you nail it.

Also agree with the suggestion that it should be noticeably easier to befriend if you're pursuing the Harmony path (really, this should be one of the main benefits to Harmony).

 

[s0nny80y]

It's straight to the point, and intrinsic to assume that the fence should suppress regeneration at the bordered al;en nest.

 

[Scrollreader]

It's worth noting that nests are /significantly/ more fragile than improvements. Between not needing to pillage, or your own units pathfinding, someone is going to be very upset when one step in the wrong direction erases 10 xenomass, and all your affinity units take a strategic penalty of -9. Unless it's an archipelago, I don't think the benefits are worth the cost, even if you're going harmony.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

It's worth noting that nests are /significantly/ more fragile than improvements. Between not needing to pillage, or your own units pathfinding, someone is going to be very upset when one step in the wrong direction erases 10 xenomass, and all your affinity units take a strategic penalty of -9. Unless it's an archipelago, I don't think the benefits are worth the cost, even if you're going harmony.

That's why when 'friendly' nests in your territory shouldn't be dispersed by your units.. (you can improve on top of them.)

The nest should also spawn units if there are not alien units nearby (unless there is an ultrasonic fence which should cancel the nest counting as friendly)

 

[War_Pig]

I know this is a bit of a older and alittle off-topic from the way this one went but figured I would just post here instead of making a new one.

Do we know yet if the only way to befriend the aliens is by having a nest in your borders? MD said something in his one let's play about there being a kind of counter to it. If so it seems kind of silly to make a counter system if there is only one way to raise it.

 

[gunnergoz]

I know this is a bit of a older and alittle off-topic from the way this one went but figured I would just post here instead of making a new one.

Do we know yet if the only way to befriend the aliens is by having a nest in your borders? MD said something in his one let's play about there being a kind of counter to it. If so it seems kind of silly to make a counter system if there is only one way to raise it.

I have not seen or heard of any alternative way to bring the Aliens around to like you but it makes sense to me that "hosting" an Alien nest in a kind of "protected reserve" on your territory will be taken by the Aliens (who, after all, are non-sentient animals) as a credible sign they can trust you.

Call me silly, but that is exactly the way the semi-feral cat that we have fed on our back porch for a couple of years, regards us, i.e. the only humans who don't chase him away or try to hurt him. He runs from people and won't let us pet him, but he now sleeps on our porch sofa as if it was his own turf because he feels safe there.

 

[Jimbo30]

What happened to the alien behaviour/aggressiveness depending on what all the human/AI players were doing? I mean if you are friendly towards the aliens for x amount of turns yet everybody else is exterminating them, won't they still be hostile towards you?

 

[War_Pig]

I have not seen or heard of any alternative way to bring the Aliens around to like you but it makes sense to me that "hosting" an Alien nest in a kind of "protected reserve" on your territory will be taken by the Aliens (who, after all, are non-sentient animals) as a credible sign they can trust you.

Call me silly, but that is exactly the way the semi-feral cat that we have fed on our back porch for a couple of years, regards us, i.e. the only humans who don't chase him away or try to hurt him. He runs from people and won't let us pet him, but he now sleeps on our porch sofa as if it was his own turf because he feels safe there.

I get this, but should it be the only way to make them like you? It just seems like there should be one or two more ways. What if there is'nt a nest around a spot your looking to move into.