Rising Tide First 250 turns preview (Marbozir LP)

Well, but most units in civ5 were not necessary if you just wanted to win domination as soon as possible. But a lot of the units were still nice to build and useful in some situations. Likewise, the special bonuses of the hybrid units make them useful even if you don't necessarily need to build them to win. For example, the architect's ability to buff adjacent units or the drone cage's ability to heal adjacent units is quite useful even though they are not absolutely necessary if you want to win.

This, but the question then becomes if the rest of the path is worth it. If the techs leading up to it aren't attractive, then it becomes a harder sell that they're worth getting. Mind you, the fact that a hybrid playstyle will slow down affinity progress might mean that there is an interest in grabbing some later techs to catch up.

Personally, I feel that this was the right idea (add more stuff to 'useless' techs to make them better), but there was one point where they could have gone farther. I know the hybrid affinities aren't supposed to be on the same level as the core 3, but 5-6 buildings for each hybrid affinity would not only help flesh out the hybrids in a conceptual manner, but also provide the opportunity to make even more techs have value (as well as test out some weird mechanics for buildings like the hybrids did with units, but that's secondary). The new orbital units and ocean buildings might do the same thing, but only time will tell.
 
The hybrid affinity units feel a LOT better than the generic affinity units (battlesuit/swarm/CNDR/etc). They've actually got unique gameplay and open up new strategic space rather than being "marines, but BETTER!" or whatever. They all seem to fill a very unique niche that no other unit can replicate (or at least not easily), and that gives you a much better "feeling" that you're playing an affintiy. There's no doubt that one of the issues with the base game is that your affinity units don't make you feel even remotely unique until the game is almost over, and the affinity units upgrades are really generic and boring. You get most of your "unique" play from upgrade units, and even then I feel like the only potential game changers are the Lev tank (giving you the ability to abuse lev early) and....actually yeah that's about it?

It's also really strange, but makes me hopeful, that they are NOT symmetrically placed throughout the tech web, or rather that at least one unit is easier to get than the others. This gives some interesting tech choices, and if balanced right, should be fun, vs the "Cndr/swarm/suits...what am I rushing" determined by how many resources you see when you start.

Also watching lets plays drives me nuts. HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THE RESOURCE POD!?!??!
 
The hybrid affinity units feel a LOT better than the generic affinity units (battlesuit/swarm/CNDR/etc). They've actually got unique gameplay and open up new strategic space rather than being "marines, but BETTER!" or whatever. They all seem to fill a very unique niche that no other unit can replicate (or at least not easily), and that gives you a much better "feeling" that you're playing an affintiy. There's no doubt that one of the issues with the base game is that your affinity units don't make you feel even remotely unique until the game is almost over, and the affinity units upgrades are really generic and boring. You get most of your "unique" play from upgrade units, and even then I feel like the only potential game changers are the Lev tank (giving you the ability to abuse lev early) and....actually yeah that's about it?

It's also really strange, but makes me hopeful, that they are NOT symmetrically placed throughout the tech web, or rather that at least one unit is easier to get than the others. This gives some interesting tech choices, and if balanced right, should be fun, vs the "Cndr/swarm/suits...what am I rushing" determined by how many resources you see when you start.

Also watching lets plays drives me nuts. HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THE RESOURCE POD!?!??!

In fairness, the core affinity units do get some pretty neat gameplay considerations when they upgrade - the Xeno Swarm Miasma bonus, the Aegis multi-attack and heal aura, etc... The difference is that the hybrids get their unique stuff when you unlock them, and don't get anything cool while upgrading, while the core affinities have to wait. So late game, their much more equal, but when you first unlock (or read on the tech web), the hybrids are much more impressive. Part of why I believe they should have moved the upgrade perks to base level, if just to standardize all affinity units.
 
Well, but most units in civ5 were not necessary if you just wanted to win domination as soon as possible. But a lot of the units were still nice to build and useful in some situations. Likewise, the special bonuses of the hybrid units make them useful even if you don't necessarily need to build them to win. For example, the architect's ability to buff adjacent units or the drone cage's ability to heal adjacent units is quite useful even though they are not absolutely necessary if you want to win.

They were still in a more linear tree, so even if you went out of your way to get them, you were never going that out of the way.
 
They were still in a more linear tree, so even if you went out of your way to get them, you were never going that out of the way.

Well, that's the fundamental difference between a tech web and a linear tech tree. The structure of a tech web means that you are always going out of your way to a degree since the techs are spread out in 360 degrees. That is why BE has to find a way to encourage the player to go out of their way. RT does that now with hybrid affinity points spread out more and hybrid units strategically placed in the outer rings. In a linear tech tree, since everything is in a straight line, and certainly the way civ5's tech tree was set up, is that the game basically forced you to research almost every tech. So the game does not need to encourage you as much to go out of your way in a special way since you will do it anyway.
 
Well, that's the fundamental difference between a tech web and a linear tech tree. The structure of a tech web means that you are always going out of your way to a degree since the techs are spread out in 360 degrees. That is why BE has to find a way to encourage the player to go out of their way.
Here is the problem: It failed. And it will fail again. From what I have seen, there is no reason, at all, to ever get a T3 tech in RT outside of two conditions:
(1) Your victory quest condition demands it.
OR
(2) You are a warmonger who failed to win the game during the mid game.

I will repeat what I have said previously: To make T3 techs viable, they do not only need good effects, but the pacing of the game has to slow down as well. Actually by a lot. I think we need 50-100 extra turns to make T2 stuff useful and probably another 50-100 turns for T3 thingies.

I guess the other option would be to create vastly different playstiles and attach them to the techs (like specialist vs. cottage economy in CIV4). But that would just turn the tech web a multi-techtree like thing.

In fact, what this game really needs is a total rework/rebalancing of the basic game mechanics. :(
 
there is no reason, at all, to ever get a T3 tech in RT outside of two conditions:
(1) Your victory quest condition demands it.
OR
(2) You are a warmonger who failed to win the game during the mid game.

Well, but those are pretty important conditions. Plus, I would add that T3 techs do give you affinity points which you might want, some nice buildings and now some of them give you nice hybrid units. So I don't think you can dismiss them completely.
 
Well, but those are pretty important conditions.
Well, are they? The only time Victory Conditions currently demand a t3 technology is for the Victory Wonders/one of the 3 techs for harmony. That's one t3 tech per game.

For "After Midgame Domination"... well, you get those techs to get more affinity at that point, not because you actually want to get the stuff that they unlock. I wouldn't really count that.

Plus, I would add that T3 techs do give you affinity points which you might want, some nice buildings and now some of them give you nice hybrid units. So I don't think you can dismiss them completely.
In the Streams we've seen so far ring 1+2 + quests gave more than enough Affinity to reach a victory condition, so ring 3 affinity techs are for the most part "a more expensive way to get affinity" in comparison. If there's nothing else that warrants the additional cost - which there doesn't seem to be - then for peaceful victories they're still not useful.
 
In fairness, the core affinity units do get some pretty neat gameplay considerations when they upgrade - the Xeno Swarm Miasma bonus, the Aegis multi-attack and heal aura, etc... The difference is that the hybrids get their unique stuff when you unlock them, and don't get anything cool while upgrading, while the core affinities have to wait. So late game, their much more equal, but when you first unlock (or read on the tech web), the hybrids are much more impressive. Part of why I believe they should have moved the upgrade perks to base level, if just to standardize all affinity units.

My problem is that it's only when they upgrade, which makes you feel like it's a palette swap for a majority of the game. The swarm starts caring a bout miasma (which there will be LESS of late game), the suit becomes a crazy defensive wall, and the CNDR finally gets the standard supremecy bonus.

Why they don't start with these (and have their stats tweaked if needed) I cannot begin to understand, as in some cases is actually makes them worse than standard units (CNDR being the biggest offender, since if you can get the next affinity for upgraded marines it's instantly obsolete). I mean seriously, it takes affinity 12 for these units to start feeling like part of their affinity, vs just being "bigger marines".

This is even worse on units like the aegis, which are already late in the tech tree and WAY past the point where you need any more affinity. You can use the aegis at affinity 7 (and i can't imagine getting it that early), but it doesn't do half of it's unique defensive purity defining stuff until purity 14! (or 12/3 for the "hybrids).

This is across the entire tech tree. Rocktopus won't generate miasma until upgarded, angel can't move after attacking, Titan can't heal after killing, and on and on.

All the stuff that makes the units unique and makes battles interesting is locked behind second upgrades that are super late in the game. They'd all feel way better if they came onto the field with these special traits (like the hybrid units do).

I mean imagine if the jellopod (or whatever) was just a cav unit that you had to upgrade to get invis, or if the golem couldn't block shots until you upgraded it. Why would you remove the unique purpose of the unit until further research is done. It just increases the amount of boring play.
 
In the Streams we've seen so far ring 1+2 + quests gave more than enough Affinity to reach a victory condition,

Not sure about that. QUill18 is the only LP I have seen where he really raced through the affinity levels before getting to tier 3 techs and that was on quick speed. In Marbozir's LP, he is playing on standard speed and he is getting affinities much slower and it looks like he might need some tier 3 techs to get the higher levels. It just depends too on how many affinity quests he completes.
 
My problem is that it's only when they upgrade, which makes you feel like it's a palette swap for a majority of the game. The swarm starts caring a bout miasma (which there will be LESS of late game), the suit becomes a crazy defensive wall, and the CNDR finally gets the standard supremecy bonus.

Why they don't start with these (and have their stats tweaked if needed) I cannot begin to understand, as in some cases is actually makes them worse than standard units (CNDR being the biggest offender, since if you can get the next affinity for upgraded marines it's instantly obsolete). I mean seriously, it takes affinity 12 for these units to start feeling like part of their affinity, vs just being "bigger marines".

This is even worse on units like the aegis, which are already late in the tech tree and WAY past the point where you need any more affinity. You can use the aegis at affinity 7 (and i can't imagine getting it that early), but it doesn't do half of it's unique defensive purity defining stuff until purity 14! (or 12/3 for the "hybrids).

This is across the entire tech tree. Rocktopus won't generate miasma until upgarded, angel can't move after attacking, Titan can't heal after killing, and on and on.

All the stuff that makes the units unique and makes battles interesting is locked behind second upgrades that are super late in the game. They'd all feel way better if they came onto the field with these special traits (like the hybrid units do).

I mean imagine if the jellopod (or whatever) was just a cav unit that you had to upgrade to get invis, or if the golem couldn't block shots until you upgraded it. Why would you remove the unique purpose of the unit until further research is done. It just increases the amount of boring play.

In fairness to the Rocktopus, that one is already very unique as is, being an interesting spin on the orbital unit concept. As for the others, I'm not sure why they decided not to start with them, especially now that their willing to experiment with the hybrid units. Every other point is sadly correct, including the one about where some of the units are located being a major drain on how useful they can be. Here's hoping that the mod community survives long enough after launch to make the needed changes.

PS: If you're not flooding the board with Miasmic Condensers as the prelude to war as late game Harmony, you might want to try it. Attrition and stronger Xeno Swarms are rather entertaining ;).
 
Maybe the whole point of putting hybrid units out on the edges of the tech web, is to make previously useless techs into now useful techs?

Instead of saying "the techs are useless therefore I will never build these hybrids", we are supposed to flip it around and say "I want these hybrids so now these techs are worth getting". If you put hybrids earlier in the tech web then the outer rings would continue to be worthless. By putting the hybrids out a bit, it makes the outer rings useful now. This is the right move.

That's what they obviously tried to do and how they hoped people would react, but the problem is it doesn't work.

Despite putting the hybrid units out there, the outer techs still continue to be pretty worthless if you're playing pretty optimally. The units don't look good enough to be worth going so far out of the way with research time to get them, just the same as the wonders didn't entice people to tech out there either.

Again, what you're saying is true in that's what the devs tried to do, but unfortunately I don't think it worked.

You don't even need those techs for the affinity they give either. From what we've seen, even without free affinity quests, there's enough affinity around the tech web in places you'd rather go first that you don't need to research that far out besides for your victory wonder's tech to get the amount you need to win.
 
Not sure about that. QUill18 is the only LP I have seen where he really raced through the affinity levels before getting to tier 3 techs and that was on quick speed. In Marbozir's LP, he is playing on standard speed and he is getting affinities much slower and it looks like he might need some tier 3 techs to get the higher levels. It just depends too on how many affinity quests he completes.
Well, he' only has got like 2 Ring 2 techs at the end of the current episode and completely ignored exploring.

There are a total of 7(?) Nodes for each Affinity in the first 2 rings, that's 7x27 = 189 Affinity. That's 12.6 Affinity per Affinity Level. So overall you need a total of what... ~50-60 extra Affinity? If we assume that the later scaling is still the same of course. Get 2-3 Affinity Ruins and you're very close to being done even without quests.

But sure, that's pure speculation. Still, very concerning.
 
Also watching lets plays drives me nuts. HOW DO YOU NOT SEE THE RESOURCE POD!?!??!

Need an over/under on when he finally picks up that resource pod. This LP has had a few of those moments actually. "I need 2 in purity for that" while he's already sitting at 2 purity. :crazyeye:
 
It seems like the tech web would work better in a game with all victory conditions except Domination disabled. As it is, you just don't see many of the cooler units and effects from the high technologies, since by the time you can get them the game is almost over.
 
It seems like the tech web would work better in a game with all victory conditions except Domination disabled. As it is, you just don't see many of the cooler units and effects from the high technologies, since by the time you can get them the game is almost over.

Valid point. I think the trick is that none of the other victory conditions require interaction between the players and the AI, so the best way to win is just race and not take detours. If there is some way where you have to directly interact with the AI, then looking for places where you could get an advantage while that happens are a lot more appealing.
 
It seems like the tech web would work better in a game with all victory conditions except Domination disabled. As it is, you just don't see many of the cooler units and effects from the high technologies, since by the time you can get them the game is almost over.

I've done a handful of games like that for fun, and they really are fun, since affinity rushing isn't so crucial and you can afford to go for the helpful buildings and military wonders you'd otherwise not bother with since they stray too far from the optimal affinity-gaining paths. It makes you realize even more how much of a shame it is you never get to bother with some outlying wonders and bonuses in a normal game.

I feel like they could do a relatively simple change that would fix the whole affinity rush thing causing big chunks of the web to be a waste of time to tech toward. Just make affinity per tech lowered even more and spread the affinity even further around the web than it already is. I'm talking needing many more outer-ring techs and leaf techs especially. With multiple affinity types per tech there should be plenty of room for them, and with a bunch already sharing affinity and a good amount currently not having any affinity on them, I don't think it would make each affinity's tech path/progress feel way too similar.

In Civ V, the linear tech tree means you're forced to research almost everything at some point as you progress(unless the game ends early with a dom vic). In BE the web + affinity rush means you actually have a lot of techs left out by the end of the game, unlike Civ V. Since every non-dom victory in BE is basically comparable to a Civ V space victory, I think that's a fair comparison to how your tech looks at the end of each game. The web's structure encourages you to go for what you want, when you want, yet affinity calls for doing the opposite of that to a degree, neutering a good portion of that freedom if you actually play to win.

That kind of affinity change could do multiple types of good for the game. It would make many of those outlying units, wonders, buildings, and bonuses actually come into play pretty consistently if we needed many more outer techs worth of affinity to hit the 15 minimum. It would make there truly be more freedom in what you tech toward since the victory wonder's outer tech wouldn't be one of the only 1-3 you get before the game finishes. And it would make the game take longer in general, which most players have really wanted.

It doesn't fix the optimal rush to cognition and spam academies, no, but it still could help quite a few issues. Academy spam is an issue in itself that needs fixing too.
 
Another change would be extending the 'wonder-victory' time
If it was 100-150 turns instead of 20-30, and could be sped up through a stronger empire, you couldn't just race affinity and hold out.
 
They might need to revise how easy it can be to destroy victory wonders to work with that, since I'd imagine how brutal it could be to rush and take out an enemy wonder before they can win and it sets them back that many turns to start over. Or maybe making the rebuilding of a wonder not completely have to start over on the victory again.


Also on Marb's newest episode, he points out that you can't seem to see the relations between other sponsors on any of the menus. Aside from the alert when they declare war on each other, you can't even see it listed anywhere on the diplomacy screens. Civ V wasn't the best with showing relations in detail either (hence so many using that interface mod), but checking who was at war at any time was always very easy. I hope that gets changed, unless Marb's totally missing something.
 
They might need to revise how easy it can be to destroy victory wonders to work with that, since I'd imagine how brutal it could be to rush and take out an enemy wonder before they can win and it sets them back that many turns to start over. Or maybe making the rebuilding of a wonder not completely have to start over on the victory again.


Also on Marb's newest episode, he points out that you can't seem to see the relations between other sponsors on any of the menus. Aside from the alert when they declare war on each other, you can't even see it listed anywhere on the diplomacy screens. Civ V wasn't the best with showing relations in detail either (hence so many using that interface mod), but checking who was at war at any time was always very easy. I hope that gets changed, unless Marb's totally missing something.

I think he is, actually. When you talk to someone in a the diplomacy screen, all of the sponsors have a little circle on their right that changes color to represent their relationship with whoever you're talking to. It could use more attention drawn to it, but it's there.
 
Top Bottom