Rising Tide: How do you imagine the hybrid Affinities?

[Doviello]

Right now in the game on it's current state, you need more "affinity xp" and more beakers to reach purity 15 than you need to reach purity 8/harmony 7, because earlier techs are cheaper and late affinity quests are harder to fulfill.

So they can't make it as simple as "your level of purity/harmony is the addition of your lvls in both affinities", that would put pure affinity civs in disadvantage.

But they also can't make your hybrid lvl be the lowest denominator, like, "purity 10 harmony 7, so your hybrid lvl is 7", that would put the hybrid player at a huge disadvantage.

What i really would love to see is affinity being disconnected from tech tree. Or at least from specific techs. It would be nice to research an leaf tech, and get an option on which affinity to pursue. For example, researching alien genetics, which would pop up a quest window with 3 choices: use alien dna to better understand this world (unlocks an harmony building and 1 lvl of harmony); study alien genetics to adapt plants and stuff from this world to our needs (purity building and +1 lvl purity); study alien dna to whatever-whatever (supremacy building and lvl). And if you have enough lvls in 2 affinities, it would give you some extra options to advance in that specific hybrid combination.

But this would still give pure affinity players an edge in upgrades...

So i don't really know

I hope hybrid affinities have their own unique unit looks, because just being able to train both cndr and xeno cavalry is too lame, those two units really don't look like they belong to the same nation.

 

[DefiantMars]

Based on their wording, it felt like the implication was that hybrid affinities get their own "Unique" units. Ones that match the Xenoswarms, Battlesuits, and CNDRs. At least, that's what it seemed like to me.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

Well, I still think that pure affinities should have some advantages. The idea, as far as I see it, is to give the player more interesting strategies so that if a player chooses to go a hybrid affinity approach, they are not left completely behind.

 

[Eagle Pursuit]

The blurb at the end of the IGN article indicates that there will be unique hybrid affinity units.

http://m.ign.com/articles/2015/05/18/control-the-seas-in-civilization-beyond-earths-first-expansion

 

[iki]

Well the tech web is expanding so perhaps some of them award XP for the two affinities

 

[joncnunn]

Moderator Action: Rising Tide added to beginning of thread title

 

[Halbbruder]

In terms of a hybrid affinity society:
- Supremacy/harmony: something as freaky as the combine in half life 2, where you can't quite tell whether the hunters and striders are augmented aliens or not. Or the advisors for that matter. Human bodies are altered to adapt to new world and any shortcoming is fixed by augmentation.
- supremacy/purity: as previously mentioned, humans with robot servants. If humans lose limbs either by natural defect or horrible accident, they could a bionic limb. The game also mentions a supremacy building called an organ printer, such a society would prioritize this. Becoming a cyborg is a choice, not forbidden like in pure purity or compulsory in supreme supremacy. Victory condition involves a 2-way gate to bolster connections with earth by shifting overpopulated areas to the new world while at the same time sending useful technology to recover lands lost to climate change on earth.
- purity/harmony: humans who still wish to remain traditionally human but they give a greater damn about looking after this planet and not making the same mistake on earth. They probably would support an exodus gate, but with strict standards of entry.
- purity/harmony/supremacy: see futurama.


In terms of units, this is more tricky to imagine: will we have a combination of unique affinity bonuses? If so, we'd have a harmony/supremacy bonus which really is just a flat combat strength increase (combat bonus alone + combat bonus in formation). We'd have a purity/supremacy combination where infantry units in formation would have a combat bonus per available movement points + combat bonus in formation.

How will a complete hybrid of all affinities work? Would the hybrid bonuses be stronger? Would a hybrid approach be ideal if your science is going slow and your teammate, especially in MP, is going so deep into one affinity that a hybrid approach is the only swiftest way to respond before you get steamrolled?

Because right now, a hybrid approach only works if you are already deep into one particular affinity.

 

[x2Madda]

I might be alone in this but I would prefer affinities be removed from the tech web altogether and a better approach to affinities be introduced. Unless you are 100% beelining a specific affinity victory condition, you end up with pockets from each affinity and typically in the early game as well which to me felt like a diluting of the experience.

I think many of us before civ:be was released had in our minds that we were going to be affinity 'x' and there were discussions to that effect as well. Upon release the reality was that completing the inner web of the tech tree was usually a good idea and that in turn got you a point in every affinity so unlike choosing an ideology we were cherry picking the best technologies regardless of how they effected out affinity growth.

It is not very often you will finish a game of civ:be with 0 points in the other affinities except your main one and I feel that is a missed oppurtunity which from the sounds of it they are moving even further away from that idea.

 

[Doviello]

The early techs are pretty good, and they turn out quite cheap if you wait until the late game to unlock them. So going 18/0/0 in affinities end up being almost the same thing as going 18/3/3 or, of you skip a few neutral techs, 18/7/7. They could at least use a system like Star Drive II, where when picking your research, you have to select 1 out of 3 available techs, the other two becoming unavailable in that particular playthrough. So imagine if, for each tech there were 3 leaf techs, but you could only pick one.

Other sources of affinities are quests, artifacts or virtues. But artifacts are sniped in 1-2 turns by OP AI explorers, and only Might virtues give out affinities. If they remove it from techs, from where would we get affinities levels? Are quests enough to drive up the upgrade of a player military? What about AI's, that don't get quests? I would like to see affinities removed from the tech web as well, but i don't think that's going to change.

 

[x2Madda]

Other sources of affinities are quests, artifacts or virtues. But artifacts are sniped in 1-2 turns by OP AI explorers, and only Might virtues give out affinities. If they remove it from techs, from where would we get affinities levels? Are quests enough to drive up the upgrade of a player military? What about AI's, that don't get quests? I would like to see affinities removed from the tech web as well, but i don't think that's going to change.

yes that is a very good question. We could always simply just pick at game start but I don't know if that would work now that we have already played the game and are more acustomed to its current form. Its also less excited and less feeling like 'adapting to the new world' so that wouldn't be very excited either.

We could keep quests for humans and then the AI will automatically gain an affinity point some turns later, set at random similar to the planet landing at game start, that would prevent them falling so far behind that the game is basically over but I guess that would end up like mario kart where you are never super far ahead despite your best efforts because the AI is always tethered to you.

Yeah I don't see affinities changing anytime soon, I certainly can't think of a better system even if I don't like the current one. What works for the human player doesn't work for the AI and fixing that issue without making it feel 'cheap' or unrewarding is probably more trouble than its worth.

With hybrid systems on the way, I certainly doubt they are going to remove affinities from the tech tree anytime soon either.

 

[iki]

But the game funnels you into an affinity from the very beginning. I've been supremacy almost 60% of the time and harmony 40 % ish

The affinity specific resources seem very uneven.

 

[Ryika]

So just ignore them? Tile yields for these resources are bad anyway (except for Xenomass) and if you really need raw resources, then they can be traded 1:1 as long as you have some neutral relationships.

 

[iki]

So just ignore them? Tile yields for these resources are bad anyway (except for Xenomass) and if you really need raw resources, then they can be traded 1:1 as long as you have some neutral relationships.

I suppose that's possible I have tried. However when the map has more Firaxite than others it's kinda hard to do so.

I tend to win via contact mostly so maybe that's saying something?

 

[Galgus]

It ties into a reddit thread, but I imagine the Hybrid affinities as having their own identity with agreements and disagreements with their parent affinities.

Base Affinities are to primary colors as Hybrid Affinities are to secondary colors in my head.
___________________________________________________________________

Supremacy - Embrace cybernetic and AI technologies, with an ultimate goal of uploading into an immortal computerized form suitable for any environment.

Harmony - Study and preserve this planet and embrace genetic engineering to adapt to it.

Purity - Eschew major changes to humanity while preserving Earth culture and embracing terraforming.
__________________________________________________________________

Purity / Supremacy - Agency

Create a caste system with human-like robots to support and elevate a pure humanity.

Purity

- Agrees on preserving and building a utopia for humanity.

- Disagrees on creating AIs and basing society on them due to perceived dangers.

Supremacy

- Agrees on looking towards artificial intelligence for the future of humanity.

- Disagrees on leaving humanity unchanged and, perhaps, viewing AIs as subordinates and the obsession with making them in humanity's image.
___________________________________________________________________

Supremacy / Harmony - Ascendency

Combine genetic engineering and studies of cybernetics to create a perfect race.

Supremacy

- Agrees on embracing cybernetics to augment humanity.

- Disagrees by rejecting neural uploading and remaining in a constant body.

Harmony

- Agrees on embracing genetic engineering to augment humanity.

- Disagrees on being mostly indifferent to the local environment.
_____________________________________________________________________

Harmony / Purity - Synergy

Modify the environment to perfectly support civilization, providing resources with minimal effort.

Also modify humanity so that our imaginations are not limited to accommodating human biology.

Harmony

- Agrees on the need to adapt humanity and embrace genetic engineering.

- Disagrees on radically transforming the environment.

Purity

- Agrees on optimizing the environment for civilization.

- Disagrees on altering humanity to fit this new environment.

 

[GenyaArikado]

I love all your ideas omg

 

[Galgus]

How would Hybrid-Affinities be viable then? "Interesting effects" don't win you battles. ^^ And because of 1upt just having a stronger industry doesn't help either, because having "focused" power is very important.

I'm actually not sure if adding Hybrid-Affinities at the current time is a good idea anyway - at least when it comes to military gameplay. The system still needs a lot of work and just adding more options doesn't really change the fact that the armies are very basic and not that much different from each other - especially not in the early and mid game.

It would be nice to see more differentiation among affinities in war and peace.

Generally I think more innate abilities would make things more interesting.

They could start by giving the base forms of unique units the abilities that all of their upgrades have later - like the Aegis having its move after attack, extra attack, bonus damage on attacking wounded targets, and medic traits in its base form.

Beyond that I'd like to see more unique traits for affinities - like the Aliens being an actual war asset for Harmony, Purity (and its hybrids?) having exclusive access to hovering units, and perhaps Supremacy getting better satellite warfare.

The affinities play too similarly in wartime and in peace for my liking, and much of the things that set them apart are gated into late game upgrades

 

[bite]

I'll be interested to see what the purity/harmony hybrid is like, as that is the style I tend to play, for both strategic and RP reasons (Being protective of humanity but not being an ass to the new environment)

 

[DefiantMars]

I philosophically resonate with the combination of Purity and Harmony as well. Learning the lessons of your ancestors and not repeating the mistakes of the past; not being so arrogant as to think that humanity is the extent of its environment.

I was chatting with Galgus in the reddit thread and we thought it would be amusing if the Affinity units for Hybrid Purity/Harmony tried to recreate or emulate creatures from Old Earth mythology using genetic design.

Beware the terrible might of the Llama.

 

[Galgus]

I'll be interested to see what the purity/harmony hybrid is like, as that is the style I tend to play, for both strategic and RP reasons (Being protective of humanity but not being an ass to the new environment)

As stated above I view Purity / Harmony as the inverse of that: engineering the environment and humanity to try to make a sort of utopia.
_____________________________

@DefiantMars

Indeed, but I'm having trouble sneaking in any Llama references of any kind into a unit - even less dangerous beasts like Dragons seem hard to reference.

As I side note I'd probably have Purity / Harmony steal the Rocktopus and replace it with something else - it just fits too well not to.

 

[DefiantMars]

I just looked up the Rocktopus and its Pedia entry seems to lean heavily in your favor, Galgus.

One curious property of floatstone is its high biocompatibility with hybridized terran/planetary biochemistry. Neither planet's home biochemistry is fully compatible with it [...] but when the two biochemistries are combined [...], the resulting tissue easily integrates onto floatstone. This breakthrough led directly to the creation of the Rocktopus.

-Civilopedia Entry, Rocktopus

For Harmony/Supremacy, I'm kind of hoping for some type of "Swarm" unit. A collective made up of smaller bio-mechanical entities, but that's probably unrealistic in terms of modeling and rendering.