New Dome? Yea or nay?

[Roxlimn]

I have always liked the Dome improvement and I built one before in CivBE even when it was completely and totally pointless. Just a few. Like mascots. They look cool and I liked the aesthetic on a Purity game.

The new Dome when totally upgraded gives +1 Food, +1 Energy, +2 Culture as well as providing +10 City HP. This was a lot more useful than I thought, which was "This improvement actually makes my game worse," if we're being perfectly honest.

Basically, it's now not completely horrible.

It's also now on Fabrication, which is not a completely horrible 2nd ring branch tech. Accessible and not super sucky in the late game.

I'd actually like for it to be better, and I feel that it can. Comparatively, the Harmony-themed Biowell is basic +2 Food, +1 Health for 2 Gold maintenance, and it's on a major 2nd ring tech that comes with a tech slingshot.

I think Dome might be more useful (and still not OP) if it were +1 Food, +2 Culture, +10 HP for 2 Gold maintenance basic, with reduced build time, then get more bonuses on top. I really love how it looks in Ocean tiles. Biospheres (a Purity XP-type leaf tech on the opposite side) currently gives +1 Energy. This could be modified to +1 Energy, +1 Food on Ocean tiles. Then have the Purity bonus add +1 Culture more.

So basically, you can get up to +3 Food, +1 Energy, +3 Culture, +10 HP on a Dome in an Ocean tile. With Water Refinery, an Ocean tile is 1 Food, 1 Hammer, 1 Energy, so a Purity-upgraded, Biosphere upgraded full Dome gets +4 Food, +1 Hammer, +2 Energy, +3 Culture on whatever Ocean tiles you can find, making it the improvement-of-choice on Ocean tile, if you can find that many and you have full upgrades. Note that Culture doesn't expand borders on Aquatic Cities.

This still isn't as strong as Biowell's full upgrades, that being +2 food, +1 Health, +1 Science, +1 Culture on any tile. And neither of them are Academies.

I'd actually like for better graphic on some possible Ocean-type improvements (vertical farms on open ocean doesn't look or feel interesting).

Anybody like Domes and would like to see more developments like this?

 

[Promethian]

I agree that the affinity improvements still don't really stand out enough. Unfortunately a big part of that is the damned academies. I think the tech that gives academies more science should be changed to a culture bonus. It is effectively a nerf but not a dramatic one and academies will still be great, just not as overwhelmingly so.

Additionally I think the affinity bonus to the improvements comes too late. It would really encourage these affinity improvements use if we got the bonus sooner.

 

[hevans900]

Academies suck now. That build time.

 

[Roxlimn]

The build time for Academies can be dramatically shortened if you take Drone Sphere and the various +Worker enhancements. Or just spam free Workers and set them to work as soon as you get the tech. Or both.

I believe the affinity bonuses are at Affinity 10 - about the time you really start gunning for the win, however much you've been dragging your feet up to that point. On the one hand, it'd be nice to get Affinity-appropriate bonuses sooner. On the other hand, you want the buildings to be more Affinity-specific.

I think they've been really conservative about the bonuses. One way to resolve that is to have two Affinity bonuses for each improvement - one at 5 and one at 10. Since Biowells are already pretty great, moving +1 food to a level 5 Harmony affinity might take some edge off and make going for Biowells really require some Harmony investment. Which means that without Harmony 5, Biowells are +1 Food, +1 Health. That's more competitive with Dome's +2 Culture.

We could also mirror that and put +1 food for Domes in Purity 5.
Nodes are actually already pretty awesome, but Supremacy could stand giving them +1 Energy (for +4 Energy) at Supremacy 5 for that Cottage Economy feel. Node all the things!

 

[Gorbles]

I agree that the affinity improvements still don't really stand out enough. Unfortunately a big part of that is the damned academies. I think the tech that gives academies more science should be changed to a culture bonus. It is effectively a nerf but not a dramatic one and academies will still be great, just not as overwhelmingly so.

Additionally I think the affinity bonus to the improvements comes too late. It would really encourage these affinity improvements use if we got the bonus sooner.

I disagree given that it's possible to get similar Science yields from Nodes and Arrays now (or was it one of them, I'm not sure). Academies are now some kind of boogieman - especially when improvements aren't the only way to rack up Science now.

I think a general improvements-and-how-they-benefit-the-game in general could do with a pass, but that's possibly expansion material given how we've received balance changes in this expansion (i.e. we're not going to get Improvements 2.0, or at least that's rather unlikely).

Personally, I like Domes, but I find myself building Farms a bit too much. I've basically cut out Generators because Energy is so damn easy to come by - and that's a problem. Farms where I can, Mines / Manufactories on hills / wherever (considering Health), and normally Biowells on the rest now that they give a decent +2 Food.

 

[Ryika]

The main problem Domes - or any Culture-driven Improvements - have is the fact that you can only a limited amount of virtues before the price skyrockets so high that the amount of domes you'd have to build is just insane.

The effect of Culture is also very delayed - a few domes might give you a virtue X turns earlier and the virtue after that even quicker, but that has to compete with the direct yield that you could have gotten from that the whole time improvement.

So from that perspective, adding additional yields and increasing the Energy Upkeep is actually a pretty reasonable change, as Energy itself is a long-term investment that doesn't pay up immediately. So if a Dome can somewhat mirror the direct yields of a basic improvement, then it may very well be a decent or semi-decent way to get a few extra virtues further down the line - again with the limitation of knowing that increasing costs will not allow us to get more than just a few.

Also, 50% Culture Bonus from water Cities. <3

 

[Roxlimn]

The point of Domes isn't to advance Virtues. I mean, sure, they do that, too. The point of Domes is localized culture expansion - you put a Dome and work it with a citizen so the city's tile acquisition goes faster. This isn't intuitive, and you just pay gold or build some buildings (which are all Harmony or Supremacy).

The problem is that they cede too much growth, especially even to basic farms. Turns out that +1 Food kind of matters.

The point of adding +1 Food to the basic output is so they're better than Farms in exchange for a Gold cost, but not better than Biowells, unless you're doing Ocean, in which case they're a Culture-for-Health deal. This means you could either advance to Vertical Farming with lots of farms or stick with Domes and use Growers or Food Conversion for real growth. Ocean-going cities in particular will want to use these modified Domes, and the graphic on an Ocean tile is just tres cool since it preserves the look of the terrain.

Not sure about increasing the cost. Even fully upgraded, the proposed +2 Food +1 Energy +3 Culture Dome isn't really better than a full Biowell with +2 Food +1 Science, +1 Culture, +1 Health. That's about the same. The Dome is primarily so that Purity-only or Purity/Supremacy factions don't have to poach Xenosanctuaries or Alien Preserves to get their city tiles to size up.

 

[Ryika]

Tile acquisition is meaningless in most strategies. You get enough from culture buildings.

And comparing the endgame-yields doesn't work, an improvement has to be good when it becomes available, not when the game is already almost over.

 

[Roxlimn]

Those culture buildings are Alien Preserves, Xenosanctuaries, Feedsite Hubs, and Holosuites respectively, plus Old Earth Relic and one or two from various quests. If you only use Feedsite and OER - no that's not even enough to fill out the second ring reliably.

As for timeliness, I WASN'T just comparing the end-game yields. In fact, I was proposing significantly frontloading it by just flat adding +1 food to Domes.

 

[Ryika]

I've never had problems with tile acquisition and I've never seen many people complain that they just don't get enough tiles. What exactly makes it a problem for you?

 

[Gorbles]

Please, don't make an argument to popularity. The amount of people you've seen who agree with your worldview is both anecdotal and irrelevant. Either it is a problem for <subset> that can be looked at, or it isn't.

A better thing for you to answer would be why have you never had problems with tile acquisition? Do you beeline Cultural buildings, bias your Virtues towards Culture / tile acquisition, or do you buy them outright? Note that buying tiles outright indicates there is a problem that you're simply mitigating with Energy reserves.

The inhabitants of this forum are such a minuscule percentage of the overall playerbase that dismissing a small percentage of this forum because they don't share your opinion is staggeringly hypocritical (use of "problem for you" indicates problem is not widespread and probably could be solved by a condescending explanation of how to play better).

The problem has been laid out - Culture-based acquisition of tiles is slow. Domes help this, but aren't as effective in other key areas compared to other improvements. You could improve Domes to allow for easier natural tile acquisition so people aren't as reliant on both Culture-dominant buildings and / or purchasing them outright.

(if you remove the mandatory requirement for certain Culture buildings you also open up optimal paths that involve other buildings, thus allowing suggestions to buff more buildings to have more noticeable / unique effects. Two birds, one stone. Would involve probably tweaking other improvements though)

 

[GAGA Extrem]

I like the idae of Domes, but short play times + long build time + suboptimal yield (when unlocked) makes them pretty useless.

I am currently trying this approach in my mod:
Moved to Engineering, Base Yield: +1 Culture, +1 Capital, +10 City HP, Maintenance 1
+1 Culture from Civil Support
+1 Science from Biospheres (*)
+1 Science from Learning Center Virtues (*)
+1 Food from Purity 12

That way they are an okay early game improvement (especially if placed on forests or marshes) and acutally a decent option for Purity players.

(*) Sidenote: Academies have been nerfed by 1 Science yield as well, so Domes are just 1 science less

 

[Ryika]

Please, don't make an argument to popularity. The amount of people you've seen who agree with your worldview is both anecdotal and irrelevant. Either it is a problem for <subset> that can be looked at, or it isn't.

Before you accuse people of nonsense you should think about what is being said. Nobody was making an argument from popularity, he made the assumption that "The point of Domes isn't to advance Virtues. I mean, sure, they do that, too. The point of Domes is localized culture expansion - you put a Dome and work it with a citizen so the city's tile acquisition goes faster." and I said that this generalized statement doesn't seem to be correct given that people in general don't seem to share this tile-focused problem but generally want to get more virtues.

It may very well be the case that it's a problem for him, or even for every single person that isn't part of the forums I read, that still doesn't justify the generalized assumption that the point of Domes isn't that one thing that people would use it for it it worked, but that other thing that most people who speak out don't use it for. Not that it really matters though, it's obvious that he and I have two different views on the topic, the rest is just you pulling it down into needless semantics as expected.

So putting that aside, the whole point of my post was to find out why there's such a disconnect between his perception and my perception and to see if there's some sensible middle-ground between the two views that can give Domes a role that makes it useful for both parties - that's why I asked what exactly makes it a problem for him to find out if it's indeed part of his strategy that leads to that situation, an overvaluation of tiles or whatever else.

So no, your questions are not the ones that are interesting to me. But thank you anyways, always a pleasure to talk to you.

 

[Gorbles]

That's not really what you said, but, whatever.

"people in general" is still an argument to popularity; you cannot speak for other people or what they know or like doing. You frequently don't when criticising gameplay based on high-level gameplay (or otherwise optimal play). Ergo, it's merely being used here to give your position more merit. Which is why I said you shouldn't do it.

You don't know who has problems with tile acquisition. The only person you can speak for is yourself - which is why I asked how you normally acquire tiles / improve your Culture output (which you chose not to answer, perhaps you didn't see how it applied).

Another thing to think about; how do his proposed changes to Domes affect your chosen interpretation of how to use Domes? To my eye his changes make absolutely zero impact on how you use (or don't use) Domes, ergo, there's very little point arguing it.

If your intent is that Domes providing Culture is solely useful for acquiring Virtues, then they're always going to be useless short of providing something daft like a %-based modifier to local Culture yields. Which begs the question of what you're debating here, if you can't accept Roxlimn's arguments (which you haven't done, otherwise you simply wouldn't be arguing).

 

[Ryika]

"people in general" is still an argument to popularity

"The main usage of coffee machines is to make tea."
"No it's not, most people who talk about coffee machines use them to make coffee."
"Argument from popularity!!!!"

Just no. What a silly argument you're making. The simple difference is that I'm not saying that one can't use a coffee machine to make tea. It may very well work quite nicely, what I'm saying is that most people don't seem to use the coffee machines that way so you just can't make the argument that the main usage of coffee machines is to make tea.

An argument from popularity would be:
"You can use a coffee machine to make tea."
"I don't know of anyone who does that, so no, that's not true."

And you'd be right in pointing that out as a logical fallacy, but that's not what I'm saying, so your argument is just nonsense. His generalized sentence was an overstatement and many people seem to be at a different point of view than him, which is important to understand if one wants to actually find a balanced solution to a (possible) problem - and that's all I've pointed out before asking for his personal story to get to know the other side of the argument.

Now that that's finally cleared up I wish you a wonderful day. Goodbye.

 

[Roxlimn]

Let's get right to the point. As I said, the main ways I acquire tiles from culture is from Old Earth Relic, Alien Preserve, Feedsite Hubs, and Xenosanctuaries, with some odd point here and again from other tiles and the odd Specialist. Technically speaking, that's not a "problem." There's a solution, but I think the Dome is supposed to be an alternative that's just not working out, hence the need to buff it to make it more palatable. Don't need Alien Preserve if I'm Purity/Supremacy, ya know?

At the proposed +1 Food +2 Culture, it's not replacing the output of a Farm (food neutral or slight positive) and it still costs +2 Gold, which is the maintenance of 2 buildings. The good part is that you can prebuild it in adjacent tiles and switch at the 3 tile range so future cities can claim the first tiles faster. This relieves the need to devote early hammers or gold to OER, if you're so inclined. I'll point out that it's been moved to Fabrication, so kind of the same tech level as Biowell.

The return of distributed food economy through the TRs does relax food requirement for cities considerably, so GAGA Extrem's idea of putting them on Engineering is a nice touch so you can get a heads up on building them, though the build time has to be reduced. In fact, just reducing the build time for a Dome above everything should increase its utility in general.

Not sure about the Science thing. I think that should really be an Academy and Supremacy sort of thing, and Array already kind of steps on some toes there, especially given that it gives you some lovely Orbital Coverage in addition. You don't even have to work it, and it's maintenance free (relatively speaking).

That's why I was careful to only boost Culture, and then soften the blow by pairing it with some modest food, with some major Food for Ocean tiles, since I think Domes make a whole lot of sense for that tile.

In general, you guys should actually try out the current new Dome as well, with its new place in the tech web and its new Purity benefit. Turns out there's not that many Culture outputs in the game generally speaking, unless you specifically pick up the techs for them, many of which will not be Purity techs. So 4 tiles with +8 Culture from Domes turns out not to be such an insignificant thing after all.

Specifically, OER gives +2 Culture, Alien Preserve +2 Culture, and that's it for early buildings! So each city gets +4. Maybe you guys keep playing Artists? At +2, they're the most valuable because they effectively boost the entire early-game colony-wide output for their resource by at least a third.

 

[Ravenwild]

Though not a power game strategy. I quite like combining aqua cities, artists, domes, and the holomatrix for a cultural powerhouse city. With the aqua cities 50% bonus to culture yields, each +2 becomes a +3.

Agreements for the cheaper virtues and culture from strategic resources work great as well.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Not sure about the Science thing. I think that should really be an Academy and Supremacy sort of thing, and Array already kind of steps on some toes there, especially given that it gives you some lovely Orbital Coverage in addition. You don't even have to work it, and it's maintenance free (relatively speaking).

I don't think it's bad to have multiple improvements with science yield in a tech web. That means you can research in different directions and use different affinities without having to fall back on Academies all the time.

Let Purity players use Domes as a more versatile main improvement and let Contact players use the Arrays regardless of what Affinity they want to pick up. Arrays are a very limited improvement anyway, because they are buildable on flat land tiles only and they come pretty late, so I don't see them clashing with a classical Academy spam strategy.

 

[Ryika]

Let's get right to the point. As I said, the main ways I acquire tiles from culture is from Old Earth Relic, Alien Preserve, Feedsite Hubs, and Xenosanctuaries, with some odd point here and again from other tiles and the odd Specialist. Technically speaking, that's not a "problem." There's a solution, but I think the Dome is supposed to be an alternative that's just not working out, hence the need to buff it to make it more palatable. Don't need Alien Preserve if I'm Purity/Supremacy, ya know?

At the proposed +1 Food +2 Culture, it's not replacing the output of a Farm (food neutral or slight positive) and it still costs +2 Gold, which is the maintenance of 2 buildings. The good part is that you can prebuild it in adjacent tiles and switch at the 3 tile range so future cities can claim the first tiles faster. This relieves the need to devote early hammers or gold to OER, if you're so inclined. I'll point out that it's been moved to Fabrication, so kind of the same tech level as Biowell.

The return of distributed food economy through the TRs does relax food requirement for cities considerably, so GAGA Extrem's idea of putting them on Engineering is a nice touch so you can get a heads up on building them, though the build time has to be reduced. In fact, just reducing the build time for a Dome above everything should increase its utility in general.

Not sure about the Science thing. I think that should really be an Academy and Supremacy sort of thing, and Array already kind of steps on some toes there, especially given that it gives you some lovely Orbital Coverage in addition. You don't even have to work it, and it's maintenance free (relatively speaking).

That's why I was careful to only boost Culture, and then soften the blow by pairing it with some modest food, with some major Food for Ocean tiles, since I think Domes make a whole lot of sense for that tile.

Thank you. Yes, I think that if you basically want to use them as a replacement for culture buildings to get the "basic border expansion", then that makes a lot of sense. In fact, I like the idea of being able to choose either constructing a building and "frontloading" the Investment or focusing on something else and then "paying" over time by not being able to work another improvement that later in the game may have higher/better yields.

It's important that they don't outperform the culture buildings then though. In fact I think they HAVE to be a bit weaker (or more expensive), as the construction of buildings is limited to 1 at a time and it takes a while for a city's infrastructure to take off, while more citizens become available very quickly.

I'm still not really satisfied with the very niche position that puts them in though. Some other bonus that makes them the really "spamable" improvement later in the game, placed somewhat off the main road, would probably go nicely with that.

 

[Ravenwild]

I think the best solution is to make science not the "be-all and end-all" yield that leads to victory...