New Horizons: A total conversion for BE

[kruszelnicki]

Just a for your work on this mod.

Virtues changes are awesome and the Expeditions change adds great balance early game (NB - any thoughts on adding to this, so that more 'complex' expeditions would require 3 or even 4 modules?)

C:BE was a massive disappointment for me and its amazing how some of the mods can do such a better job. I'm hoping that even if the developers give up on this game the modders will keep up the work.

In my eyes, this mod & the affinities as yields & the alien strains mod (although yet to try alien mod) pretty close to fixing all the problems I see associated with C:BE.

 

[doctoxic]

possible bug with upgrade of evolved commander - the 2 upgrades are listed but there are no boxes to "select" which upgrade you want and thus can't upgrade

am enjoying the mod a lot - thanks for your work

cheers

 

[Machiavelli24]

Doctoxic, can you take a screenshot of it? That is probably easier than trying to describe it. Also, are you using any mods that change the UI?

 

[doctoxic]

screenshot as requested

none of the 3 buttons work - but you can X out of it

i'm not subscribed to any mods though did have the user interface tweaks and colourful tech web but unsubscibed before playing your mod

also, also all the previous upgrades worked fine

 

[doctoxic]

i carried on despite not being able to upgrade my Cmdr but the game locks up on turn 175 with no clue as to why - unless its something to do with the upgrade bug

will try again after your next update

thanks

 

[Machiavelli24]

I'm looking into the unit upgrade issue.

The turn 175 crash is concerning. Do you have an auto save from around that point? Do you remember if it happened during an AI turn?

 

[Machiavelli24]

Horseshoe, I've released an update that fixes the unit upgrade issues. I also found and fixed a bug that would cause the game to freeze in the mid to late game during AI players' turns. Without seeing your game I can't promise that it is the same issue you've seen but let me know how it works for you.

 

[doctoxic]

I'm looking into the unit upgrade issue.

The turn 175 crash is concerning. Do you have an auto save from around that point? Do you remember if it happened during an AI turn?

sorry - i don't have any saves

the lockup happened on clicking the end turn button - i don't think the end turn process even properly started, just seemed to lock from the get go

 

[omniclast]

Just a quick suggestion for simplicity - why not instead of making expeditions cost 2 charges, make the explorer start with 0 charges?

This would still make it so you'd have to get a perk before you could do any expeditions, but it would make it so that if you stack perks from the lab quest and affinities you can actually use both your charges. As is, if you end up with 3 charges and expeditions cost 2, you can never use the 3rd charge. (Not that people often face this situation, but I could see the benefit of going after both perks if by default no one can do any expeditions.)

 

[Machiavelli24]

Just a quick suggestion for simplicity - why not instead of making expeditions cost 2 charges, make the explorer start with 0 charges?

I tried it originally, the game code didn't react as desired and it didn't work (the explorers wouldn't get the bonus expeditions if they started with 0). The 2 to salvage has drawbacks (the AI gets messed up by it) but achieves the effect.
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On a related note, as New Horizons has expanded I'm want to find ways to make it easier for new users to learn and grasp the mod. I still remember how overwhelmed I was when I first looked at the tech web in Beyond Earth and I expect many first time players of New Horizons feel similarly. For people who feel they have a handle on the structure of New Horizons I want to solicit "introductory strategy guides". What rules of thumb have you devised that can help a first time New Horizons player understand what they should be doing? These guides can be written using the steam guides or in threads for general modding discussion forum. I want to feature them in the top level post here and in the workshop description.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

I tried it originally, the game code didn't react as desired and it didn't work (the explorers wouldn't get the bonus expeditions if they started with 0). The 2 to salvage has drawbacks (the AI gets messed up by it) but achieves the effect.

Probably the program detects whether a unit -is- an explorer by checking if it has nonzero expeditions. And really, that's a fair way of looking.

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Feeling overwhelmed? Overwhelmed at how to play, is just needs a push to immerse himself more. The web is very big, very broad, and represents a huge span of game time. The pressure is off to make sense. Pick what seems like something good, pick Chemistry because you want Chemistry, don't look at the bonuses. Then play the game, and learn. Play on an easy setting, goof off, up the setting next time. That is all I would make in a guide.

If you're talking about learning the game as a strategy game, well, firstly, the same advice applies: Experiment with things, which means pick something to try to make work and -stick with your choice-, don't waffle, watch your choice do its utmost, or fail and figure something. Where that doesn't apply, you're talking about not just how to get into the game, but literally a guide to what's good.
Or do I miss my estimate?

also

Horseshoe, I've released an update that fixes the unit upgrade issues. I also found and fixed a bug that would cause the game to freeze in the mid to late game during AI players' turns. Without seeing your game I can't promise that it is the same issue you've seen but let me know how it works for you.

lel, dat's not moi.

 

[omniclast]

I like the new combat system a lot, especially that it's easier to fight "uphill" against higher tier units, and there's no longer a broken advantage to suppressing affinity so you can pump units more quickly at the lower productions cost. It's also cool that the affinity upgrades come quicker (though I'm finding it still takes me a while to get them because without farms, my pop stays a lot smaller and science doesn't grow as quickly)

Couple things I noticed on my first runthrough:

-Station HP doesn't seem to have been scaled, so it takes a while to take T2 or T3 stations even with high tier units
-Rangers not being able to hit cities AND requiring titanium to build artillery makes it really hard to get the army composition to actually take cities. It's a lot more difficult to take cities early game (not that it was ever easy), since you need a T1 and T1.5 tech to build artillery, and if you don't have titanium near you you're basically out of luck.
-For the tacjet T1 perks, I don't think the buff to air sweeping against aliens does anything - air sweeping is for attacking other jets on interception, which aliens obviously can't do. Unless this is just a typo in the description and the buff is for air striking aliens, not air sweeps?

One other issue I noticed - I think Manufactories should probably clear the base tile yield as (and maybe academies too?), to be on par with terrascapes. Getting 4P/1F on plains, or 3P/2F on grassland, is pretty nuts, even for -3E. The AI seems to have figured this out as well and is building a -ton of them.

 

[Machiavelli24]

I've released a small update for New Horizons. It adds combat strength scaling for stations and outposts (thank you Omniclast). Any games you've already started should continue to work.
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Omniclast, keep bringing me those experiences. I'm working on changes to the early game buildings and tech tree which will have indirect effects on military units. Having a better frame of reference for how the mod currently plays will help me push or pull in the right things. For example, Jets and Carriers are probably going to be unlocked in a first ring leaf tech and Artillery may be unlocked at the same time Tanks are. Rushing with the first affinity unit may be nerfed by making all affinity units require a building that can only be built by a city harvesting the affinity resource.

Other early game stuff I'm experimenting with includes making most of the early game buildings require certain basic resources near by, as a way to make openings more dependent on the immediate terrain. Labs, Reactors and (maybe) Relics will all have quests that choose between +1 explorer module or a one time burst of yield (science/energy/culture). This should provide some flexibility in how players want to set up their salvage engine. I'm also considering making Labs, Reactors and Relics provides a less efficient input(production)->output(yield) ratio than some of the mid game buildings, so that cities built later in the game can skip over them.

 

[Machiavelli24]

-Rangers not being able to hit cities AND requiring titanium to build artillery makes it really hard to get the army composition to actually take cities. It's a lot more difficult to take cities early game (not that it was ever easy), since you need a T1 and T1.5 tech to build artillery, and if you don't have titanium near you you're basically out of luck.

This is something I've been watching. One option I've been experimenting with is removing the Titanium costs from Armor and Artillery (but keeping it for Affinity unique units) but making Armor and Artillery only buildable in cities with a Repair Facility (which would cost 1 Titanium). So instead of 1 Titanium per artillery it would be 1 Titanium per city you want to use as an Artillery creator.

I also plan to pull the unique Affinity units to Tier 2 leaf techs. The Ageis right now is too far down the tech path to really come online at the same time as other Affinity units.

 

[cboxall]

Has anyone tried using New Horizons with WHoward's Pick 'N' Mix Mods? I am looking forward to trying out New Horizons and I'd love to try some of the interface mods from WHoward alongside.

 

[Machiavelli24]

The next update for New Horizons -- titled "the early years" is nearing completion and will likely be released this coming weekend. It will revamp the early game by completely changing the first ring of the tech tree. ~20 technologies and ~20 buildings have been changed. Here are some of the features you can expect:

• Old Earth Relics, Labs and Thorium Reactors all have quests that provide either +1 explorer module or a one-time burst of culture/science/energy.
• The most efficient early game buildings all require certain resources to be locally available (for example, networks require silica or copper).
• The possible building quest bonuses will show up in the tooltips (so you can plan around them).
• The strategic resource enhancing buildings: Alloy Smelter, Petro Plant and Borehole (for geothermal) will be available on the same tech that reveals the strategic resource.
• Wonders, the Spy Agency and a couple of powerful economy buildings will require Geothermal to build.
• Early game defensive buildings have small economic bonuses on them. They may be worthwhile to build even in cities that aren't directly on the front lines.

The update that comes after this will focus on the second tech ring. I had originally wanted to do both the first and second tech ring but divided the effort so I could release the update sooner.

 

[cboxall]

First, wanted to report that New Horizons and WHoward's Pick 'N' Mix Mods work together just fine. I played an Epic length game with both enabled and had no issues. Well, other than I got spanked by the Slavic Republic.

New Horizons is really excellent. I really felt like everything fit together how it should have from the beginning. Only weird thing I ran into related to the artillery. I'm not sure if it was because of the tech level I was at, but from what I experienced personally and from what I saw happening with the computer players, the artillery units seem to have become useless. When I got them to artillery from missile rovers, I selected the option for them to have a bonus against cities. As artillery, with the city bonus, they still seemed to do almost nothing to cities. After a few attempts of taking cities with them, I gave up on them and was able to take cities with melee units and aircraft. I noticed that the computer player didn't bother with the artillery at all. Was this something specific to my game or what?

 

[Ryika]

The next update for New Horizons -- titled "the early years" is nearing completion and will likely be released this coming weekend. It will revamp the early game by completely changing the first ring of the tech tree. ~20 technologies and ~20 buildings have been changed. Here are some of the features you can expect:

• Old Earth Relics, Labs and Thorium Reactors all have quests that provide either +1 explorer module or a one-time burst of culture/science/energy.
• The most efficient early game buildings all require certain resources to be locally available (for example, networks require silica or copper).
• The possible building quest bonuses will show up in the tooltips (so you can plan around them).
• The strategic resource enhancing buildings: Alloy Smelter, Petro Plant and Borehole (for geothermal) will be available on the same tech that reveals the strategic resource.
• Wonders, the Spy Agency and a couple of powerful economy buildings will require Geothermal to build.
• Early game defensive buildings have small economic bonuses on them. They may be worthwhile to build even in cities that aren't directly on the front lines.

The update that comes after this will focus on the second tech ring. I had originally wanted to do both the first and second tech ring but divided the effort so I could release the update sooner.

Hehe. I'm currently working on very similar stuff for my "Awesome Gameplay"-Mod. Guess these ideas must be good then, or otherwise 2 people wouldn't come up with the same changes.

I would recommend reconsidering this one though:
[*]The strategic resource enhancing buildings: Alloy Smelter, Petro Plant and Borehole (for geothermal) will be available on the same tech that reveals the strategic resource.
...because what it basically leads to is a huge gamble that can make that one tech extremely powerful or very weak based on something that the player can't know beforehand.

We had a similar situation with Iron in Vanilla Civ 5 (the swordsman being available on the same tech that revealed Iron) and people didn't like it - I strongly assume you would get the same reaction here.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Hehe. I'm currently working on very similar stuff for my "Awesome Gameplay"-Mod. Guess these ideas must be good then, or otherwise 2 people wouldn't come up with the same changes.

I would recommend reconsidering this one though:
[*]The strategic resource enhancing buildings: Alloy Smelter, Petro Plant and Borehole (for geothermal) will be available on the same tech that reveals the strategic resource.
...because what it basically leads to is a huge gamble that can make that one tech extremely powerful or very weak based on something that the player can't know beforehand.

Oh, doesn't everyone pick Tectonic Scanner? Or is there a balance mod for that no one showed me?

I was concerned about the "efficient buildings" requiring resources. To the degree that they are the efficient ones, they will make terrain dictate technology. What's your thinking here, Machiavelli? Why not write in a doubled effect with the appropriate resource (+1 [whatever] per turn, +1 with resource)? Something to strongly suggest but still not override strategic vision, no?

 

[Ryika]

Sure, the people who care about Efficiency will probably have Tectonic Scanner, but one can't assume the same for everyone else. Though, to be fair, many people who don't care that much about Efficiency will probably not see the randomness as a problem then. ^^

I think tying certain buildings to certain resources can be good for gameplay though - it just means that you have to improvise every single game and think about a way to make the best out of the resources that are available. If the buildings have enough influence that is.