Rising Tide Contact Victory WTF

[hevans900]

They need to simply change "waiting" victories to fx. build up X energy in reserve and then push the button to win, then it's at least a little more "active" and you keep having to avoid the temptation of using the cash.

It's 135 turns on Marathon.

Holy mother of bejeezus. 135 TURNS?!

I've never played on Marathon and think I'll continue to avoid it...

 

[stormtrooper412]

Well it was a (not very good) attempt of reasoning with complaints that the Contact victory was the most broken and easily (in terms of speed) achievable in the base game. The concept is alright, await contact from that other race but the implementation needs tweaking. i like the idea of pouring X amount of energy in it to be activated

 

[Ryika]

You're right. It should be 13 cities or 25 mind stems/xenosanctuaries, and I somehow mixed up the two numbers. 13 cities is slightly more plausible but still far beyond the investment needed to optimize a Supremacy or Purity victory.

But that may as well be because Purity/Supremacy can't be optimized to that level.
I think at this time it is save to assume that we don't know which victory is the fastest in Rising Tide yet.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Contact is a bit of a silly beast by design because of the RNG-part of the victory ruin that could basically make you win faster than any other victory condition. With now 45 turns it seems to be "somewhat balanced" IF you get the signal-piece from a ruin and probably a lot slower than the rest if you don't.

I have no idea why they haven't tried to tie the Contact victory to the artefact system. Getting your hands on three progenitor artefacts would be a much more interesting quest and something that rewards consistent exploration over randomly getting lucky.

It might be a fair bit slower than now, but you can still focus on it and get it done fairly quickly and would be a nice contrast to the very science-based victories we have at the moment.

 

[The_Cebador]

What they need to do is to implement the Progenitors better in the game. Im not talking a Sponsor, just something that better justifies their existence besides some artifacts and a time demanding ending.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

But that may as well be because Purity/Supremacy can't be optimized to that level.
I think at this time it is save to assume that we don't know which victory is the fastest in Rising Tide yet.

They could just have limited the number of accelerating buildings. The mind stems are twice as effective, but you can only build 10 of them. Add a national wonder that is ten times as effective, but remove the effect from the Xeno Sanctuaries. There you go - you still have to invest production almost equal to Sumpremacy, but you no longer need an insane amount of cities to compete.

 

[Ryika]

You're making the assumption that victories are balanced around the idea that you need to push harmonies timer down to "basically 0", which I can't quite agree with. If anything, then being able to spam -1(2) turn(s) in 20 cities is a bonus for them. And one that is hard to balance as well, given that that amount of cities is quite useful anyway.

So if anything, yes, limit the amount of Mind-Stems - but I don't see why they'd need to be "twice as effective" - there's probably nothing to compensate for.

 

[GAGA Extrem]

Was more thinking about ~20 turns (like the rest). So make that 5 stems.

 

[Doviello]

Mind stems should have a STRONGER effect on the blossoming, but they should be improvements (like the victory gates), so your opponents could slow you down by pillaging them, just like you can slow the purity victory by pillaging the earthlings settlements (i always feel bad doing that).

 

[Amrunril]

If they wanted to really shake things up, they could make mind stems and xenosanctuaries actually do what they say they do and contribute points each turn towards a set number needed to complete the victory. In addition to resolving the unintuitive (and as far as I can tell undocumented) issue of needing to build all your mind stems/xenosanctuaries before completing the mind flower, it would make balancing easier- more buildings would mean a faster victory, but you wouldn't need to worry about someone building enough to reduce the victory to a single turn.

 

[Ryika]

Was more thinking about ~20 turns (like the rest). So make that 5 stems.

Well, again:
Pre-Rising Tide Harmony was the fastest Affinity Victory. In Rising Tide the Victory Time got extended to get them on a level with the rest of the victories. Why exactly should that now be reverted when we haven't even figured out what victory performs best in RT yet?

I know you want to be lazy and play your 5-city-kindoms, but I don't see why you'd need a buff for that. If anything, superwide strategies should be nerfed - WITHOUT a buff for tall strategies. Until we come to the informed conclusion that Harmony is slower than other Victories at least.

Mind stems should have a STRONGER effect on the blossoming, but they should be improvements (like the victory gates), so your opponents could slow you down by pillaging them, just like you can slow the purity victory by pillaging the earthlings settlements (i always feel bad doing that).

AI doesn't really know how to do that, so that's not really a final solution.

 

[Amrunril]

Well, again:
Pre-Rising Tide Harmony was the fastest Affinity Victory. In Rising Tide the Victory Time got extended to get them on a level with the rest of the victories. Why exactly should that now be reverted when we haven't even figured out what victory performs best in RT yet?

It isn't on par with the rest of the victories unless you're playing with a 13 city empire (all of the cities well enough developed to finish mind stems before you complete the mind flower). I don't deny that slowing Transcendence down a bit was the right call, but 45 turns is clearly overkill.

Mind stems should have a STRONGER effect on the blossoming, but they should be improvements (like the victory gates), so your opponents could slow you down by pillaging them, just like you can slow the purity victory by pillaging the earthlings settlements (i always feel bad doing that).

AI doesn't really know how to do that, so that's not really a final solution.

It certainly isn't going to solve everything, but just about anything that makes the victories more interactive is a step in the right direction.

 

[Adino]

Yea the timer on Contact victories is horrid! I got my beacon up around turn 100 on Apollo and when I saw I still had 50% of the game left I got worried. I had a handful of defenders so I played it safe and declared war on everyone near by so they couldn't attack me (the dead don't attack). I won Supremacy before the beacon finished.

 

[Halcyon 7]

I am liking the idea of there being tile improvements tied to the victories. More opportunity to hinder a player from finishing a victory and more ground to cover to assure a victory. Sounds like a great idea to me.

Kudos to Doviello for that mindstem tile improvement idea.

Put some restriction into it so they can only be built so close together and that sounds like a plan.
Alternatively mindstems are constructed in cities the same way as the mindflower itself which would result in a tile improvement as well.

Incentify purity players to provide quality land for the earthlings somehow. Terraformed tiles being king for reasons. Making it more of a city growth idea rather than a supply line. X number of fat happy settlements rather than x number of refugees in Siberia.

Could add a tile improvement based on a supremacy building, perhaps use nodes or manufacturies to aid in a supremacy victory. "Skynet factories" TBC

Some combination of generators, arrays, and satilites could be be used to help shave off turns for a contact victory. Tying in more of the orbital game here seems good.

Perhaps these are not the best ideas but the idea of giving a player alot of targets to slow a victory while giving players proactive ways to speed them up with increased liabilities seems like a proper idea if making the victories more enjoyable is the goal.

 

[DWilson]

How are the other victories scaled on marathon?

I seriously hope they do another expansion with the prime changes being a total revamp of each victory condition (ala cultural victory BNW) and possibly implementing a hybrid victory condition.

(That said, despite the various imbalances and numerous bugs, BERT is way more fun to play than BE. I'm really glad to have purchased it. It has already more than matched my $1/hr value target).

 

[NukeAJS]

While we're on the subject, ALL the affinity victories need to be increased. Yeah, they moved them from level 13 to 15, but between quests and all leaf techs giving +20 points (and some branch techs giving a boost too), it's way to easy to get to level 15.

I think that either the affinity needed to construct the affinity wonders should be increased to 20 (or something), or even better -- bring back the old system where tier 1 techs give the least affinity and tier 3 techs give a lot of affinity. Currently, you can get level 15 without researching any tier three techs and I think that's nuts.

EDIT-- oh, and their are so many expeditions laying around that I routinely get 2-5 free affinity level ups a game from progenitors ruins and alien skeletons.

 

[Lord Tirian]

While we're on the subject, ALL the affinity victories need to be increased. Yeah, they moved them from level 13 to 15, but between quests and all leaf techs giving +20 points (and some branch techs giving a boost too), it's way to easy to get to level 15.

I think that either the affinity needed to construct the affinity wonders should be increased to 20 (or something), or even better -- bring back the old system where tier 1 techs give the least affinity and tier 3 techs give a lot of affinity. Currently, you can get level 15 without researching any tier three techs and I think that's nuts.

EDIT-- oh, and their are so many expeditions laying around that I routinely get 2-5 free affinity level ups a game from progenitors ruins and alien skeletons.

I'd rather see affinity progression slowed down than added affinity levels.

In terms of what affinities unlock, level 15 (out of 18) is a decent spot for a victory condition. It means you're about 85% there, similar to how victories don't happen right at the end of a Civ tech tree in general, but a bit earlier. Otherwise, you have a victory race during which no more progression happens and that's a bit boring.

Instead, the speed at which you traverse the affinity ladder should be slowed down a bit and ultimate units could be in more accessible spots in the tech tree so you actually unlock them around the same time (or a little bit earlier) than the victory wonders (since they're not stalemate breakers like nukes or the GDR).

 

[Lucius_]

I agree with Lord Tirian, in that affinity should be slowed down. It doesn't make much sense to me that a center ring tech that costs 100 science gives the same affinity points as a later one that costs 2000. And yeah, progenitor ruins are completely out of control in BERT. Nerfing the frequency of free affinity levels from those would help quite a bit, but of course a nerf to ruins would be a nerf that only affects the player and not the AI. Could be a good thing, but something to think about.

 

[EpicWestern]

If they wanted to really shake things up, they could make mind stems and xenosanctuaries actually do what they say they do and contribute points each turn towards a set number needed to complete the victory. In addition to resolving the unintuitive (and as far as I can tell undocumented) issue of needing to build all your mind stems/xenosanctuaries before completing the mind flower, it would make balancing easier- more buildings would mean a faster victory, but you wouldn't need to worry about someone building enough to reduce the victory to a single turn.

Agreed with everything you said, and its amazing me to how poorly documented BE is, both in game and in the civilopedia. Go out and hire some interns or something.

 

[Montezumas Hat]

How are the other victories scaled on marathon?

I pretty much only play on marathon (in Civ V and BE), and my first few victories in the expansion (all on Vostok, so I admittedly haven't had much trouble with the AI) have all been before turn 700. And I haven't had a game yet where I've been rushing a victory. I finished Contact victory around 650 despite the 135 turns of waiting, and I knocked out a supremacy victory by turn 550, which is also about when I'd have finished Purity. Haven't tried Harmony since the expansion, so I'll try that next. I'll also try to run through a few games where I attempt to spike Purity/supremacy, instead of flipping a coin when I'm sitting at 15 of each affinity. I honestly think I could knock out Purity or supremacy in under 500 turns easy, which is pretty bad if you compare it to Civ V on marathon.