Roads/Mobility

[slugwalk]

I know I'm a little late (I just found this mod [I played a lot of vanilla civ]), but I'd like to weigh in on the discussions Maniac and Pfeffersack had about roads and within borders mobility.
I realize that this is Maniac's lead, but many people have worked on this (I'm not one of them) and so I figure something as important as mobility should get some discussion.

(BTW I'm interested in helping, but I haven't done any editing of Civ before, so I'd have to start with something easy. I'm interested if anyone has a suggestion.)

The way the game is now, it's very difficult to move troops around, especially before you get the dropship or magtube techs. Now, Maniac has said that he/she (I should follow that Aki-Zeta quote about meeting the alien the first time, and alternate between genders and non-gendered ) prefers that movement is slow. Pfeffersack prefers movement similar to vanilla civ with mobility increases with roads, etc. I personally strongly agree with Pfeffersack, especially with the way I have to respond to fungal threats so often (which I like, I just wish I could get to them).

So what do other people think?

 

[Pfeffersack]

Just for clarification...the main discussions about roads/mobility took part between Ahriman and Maniac, I just remembered in which threads they were

I'm still undecided about this matter. I have kind of accepted the non-presence of roads (perhaps because I never liked the inevitable road-spamming in unmodded Civ4) and try to take it in account. It does not make fighting the native thread easier, but I don't think it the right end to tackle (feels just to realistic that native life has a mobility advantage) - the endless fungal carpets on the see and the issues regarding FC and planet value you raised in another thread are my main issues with Planetfall ATM. I don't want to have the tame planet of SMAC, but on the difficulty I play (Emperor to get a half-decent competitive AI) it's nearly always me fighting the planet, nearly never me worrying about the AIs. Wht makes fighting native life so hard is that you often can only win the fights with 2:1 numerical advantage (sacrifing one unit, then winning with the next) and I find myself constantly producing Foils and Flamethrowers to stand my ground.

However I agree that the mobility situation might be problematic for the AI. I learned to love und use dropships to a great extend and to make use of auto-tranpsports, so normal slow movement over land has lost importance to me. I'm not sure how much the AI understands of that.

 

[Maniac]

First thing first before going any further, have you guys adapted your colonization strategies/directions to the fact that you can move faster along rivers and your sea territory? If not, I dare say the problem is your playstyle, not the current design. If you insist on founding your bases in the middle of nowhere, don't blame me for bad consequences.

I don't think I said I prefer slow movement; rather that I prefer terrain to have a meaningful effect on your combat/tech/colonization strategies for instance.

Rather the comments that fungal blooms are hard to get to, and that you need to sacrifice a lot of units to defeat native life spawns, I'd first want to make sure you are actually using the tools and strategies available to you.

1) If you want to have a non-Hybrid economy, you should clear all fungus in sight. So when played well, fungal blooms should at most be a temporary problem because your economic/population growth outstrips your ability to field the necessary formers to clear the fungus around a new base. As of recently, fungal blooms can also only occur near already existing fungus, so you can know in advance where fungal blooms will occur, and position your troops accordingly.

2) There are some tools to reduce the number of casualties from fungal bloom spawns: ranged strike units! The first one available in the Bunker. Do you guys b-line and build those? I could always move them down a level to Industrial Automation, but only if you're still having insurmountable problems with fungal blooms despite fully using the tools already available to you. Later on things become even easier due to needlejets and mass drivers with range extension special abilities.

 

[slugwalk]

Now that I've read the threads, there are a lot of rules I didn't figure out when I was playing it before. I think Fungal blooms will be less of an issue for me, but really they're much worse on the AI's. As soon as they start getting them, they completely stop growing and sometimes start dying. Although I think the biggest reason the AI can't deal with them is that they blockade so much territory that the AI can't produce enough units to get rid of them.

Aside from the issue of fungal blooms, such limited mobility just doesn't make that much sense to me for a sci-fi mod on a planet, except for the early game. By the time the colonists can develop an industrial base, you'd think that they could move troops over plains (at least) faster than (whatever distance one square represents) per year, by vehicles over roads or over some sort of rail line. Especially after developing magtubes.

I could see Planet being more difficult to build roads/railroads on than Earth, but that could be reflected by long build times for roads/mag tubes, making them too expensive to put anywhere besides connecting cities.

An alternate option could be that any/specific terraforming could automatically have road effects. Actually I don't know if its possible to program this, but I assume so.

 

[Pfeffersack]

First thing first before going any further, have you guys adapted your colonization strategies/directions to the fact that you can move faster along rivers and your sea territory? If not, I dare say the problem is your playstyle, not the current design. If you insist on founding your bases in the middle of nowhere, don't blame me for bad consequences.

I tend to expand in a compact way as long as it possible, but if you start out on an island (and chances for this are quite high with normal and high sea level), you reach the point were you either have to colonize the sea or another landmasses. While even far away land bases can be hold (especially if you have small islands, were clearing out fungus is possible fast), it is very hard even with close sea bases.

1) If you want to have a non-Hybrid economy, you should clear all fungus in sight. So when played well, fungal blooms should at most be a temporary problem because your economic/population growth outstrips your ability to field the necessary formers to clear the fungus around a new base. As of recently, fungal blooms can also only occur near already existing fungus, so you can know in advance where fungal blooms will occur, and position your troops accordingly.

I do this on land (but I have to admit that I probably do not have enough formers and additonal defenders in my backyard to respond to suddenly appearing new fungus, which is most of time followed by a fungal bloom soon), but on sea it seems to be just impossible. I simplay cannot employ that many formers and needed guarding ships to clean out even the fungus near your coast or sea bases.

2) There are some tools to reduce the number of casualties from fungal bloom spawns: ranged strike units! The first one available in the Bunker. Do you guys b-line and build those? I could always move them down a level to Industrial Automation, but only if you're still having insurmountable problems with fungal blooms despite fully using the tools already available to you. Later on things become even easier due to needlejets and mass drivers with range extension special abilities.

Ok, if I understand correctly that means inside a bunker each unit can do a stranged strike? That's good to know I have never dealt with bunkers, somehow they have slipped through...my next game will be a straight beeline to them However, I don't think they can help me on sea, right (or maybe at least at the coast, as kind of "coastal fortress" doing ranged strikes on ships/native life on the tiles in front of them)?

 

[Maniac]

Now that I've read the threads, there are a lot of rules I didn't figure out when I was playing it before. I think Fungal blooms will be less of an issue for me, but really they're much worse on the AI's. As soon as they start getting them, they completely stop growing and sometimes start dying. Although I think the biggest reason the AI can't deal with them is that they blockade so much territory that the AI can't produce enough units to get rid of them.

In the latest patch I added some lines of code in an attempt to make the AI more aware of fungus. (Before they never considered clearing fungus outside their base radii.) It's a start, though I expect more AI improvements will be necessary. Unfortunately the worker AI looks rather complicated.

Aside from the issue of fungal blooms, such limited mobility just doesn't make that much sense to me for a sci-fi mod on a planet, except for the early game.

If you want realism, all units should be able to move around the globe a couple times per year. *shrug*

I tend to expand in a compact way as long as it possible, but if you start out on an island (and chances for this are quite high with normal and high sea level), you reach the point were you either have to colonize the sea or another landmasses. While even far away land bases can be hold (especially if you have small islands, were clearing out fungus is possible fast), it is very hard even with close sea bases.

Kinda strange to here. Land units are able to walk on water at a speed of 3 plots per turn, so a sea base empire would in fact be more mobile than a land empire.

I do this on land (but I have to admit that I probably do not have enough formers and additonal defenders in my backyard to respond to suddenly appearing new fungus, which is most of time followed by a fungal bloom soon), but on sea it seems to be just impossible. I simplay cannot employ that many formers and needed guarding ships to clean out even the fungus near your coast or sea bases.

For comparison purposes, in my "maximize eco-damage"-game I had some 8 aquaformers and 20 submarines by MY 2350 or so. I was clearing out the sea fungus outside my borders by that time.

Ok, if I understand correctly that means inside a bunker each unit can do a stranged strike?

No the bunker build order kills the former but creates a bunker unit instead. That unit can perform ranged strikes.

In the latest patch I added a line of help text to the bunker build order mentioning this. Other ideas how to make this more clear to Planetfall newcomers always welcome!

However, I don't think they can help me on sea, right (or maybe at least at the coast, as kind of "coastal fortress" doing ranged strikes on ships/native life on the tiles in front of them)?[/QUOTE]

Coastal fortresses FTW!

 

[slugwalk]

If you want realism, all units should be able to move around the globe a couple times per year. *shrug*

Yeah I've always thought that units were too slow in the civ games. It just seems especially unreal that highly advanced faction shouldn't be able to move any number of troops a few hundred kilometers (or whatever five or six squares is) between two cities in the depths of their controlled territory.

It feels like my faction is living in the Ancient era, taking years to move a combat force from the center of my empire to the edge.

 

[slugwalk]

I finally played a game long enough to get magtubes, and then I find the route finding doesn't work. Will it be possible to fix that? It's not really worth it otherwise.

 

[slugwalk]

My mistake actually, because the magtubes were only providing half cost movement, there wasn't any point in the units using them. I think I misinterpreted an earlier post on the download thread that a unit could move 6 plots at most using mag tubes. I guess I'm back to my old argument that magtubes are nearly worthless for such an advanced tech. Especially compared to other options like dropships and Psi gates. I really think magtubes should either come earlier or be more effective (like railroad level movement speed).

 

[Maniac]

Let's first see if we have our facts straight. Unless I messed something up:
Basic Magtubes half movement cost
With either Gravitonics or Atmospheric Transformation, they cut movement in 1/3
With both these techs, it's 1/6 at most (this increase is only useful for infantry in other words)

Correct?

Given this, I don't see how a three-move Dropship in domestic territory is better than a hi-tech 6 moves Magtube for instance.

 

[darkmoon303]

Bunkers/Automation Beeline is one of the early must-haves for a serious Terraformer-strategy. Next to Edenism that is. Also if you don't have about 10-20 Formers + 1-3 mobile Defenders per base when you enter the midgame you are doing something wrong . Using the Production advantage of the Terraformers to the fullest is the key of beating the native life into submission.

 

[slugwalk]

Let's first see if we have our facts straight. Unless I messed something up:
Basic Magtubes half movement cost
With either Gravitonics or Atmospheric Transformation, they cut movement in 1/3
With both these techs, it's 1/6 at most (this increase is only useful for infantry in other words)
Correct?
Given this, I don't see how a three-move Dropship in domestic territory is better than a hi-tech 6 moves Magtube for instance.

Ahh, my mistake, I missed the bonus from Gravitonics. It still seems very late. I always have a fleet of dropships long before I can reasearch even two of the techs. Also, since it takes a lot of formers or time to build all the magtubes (which can't even be built everywhere), I'd rather just build more dropships. Especially because the dropships can be upgraded to 5 movement and even have double movement over water. I'd like magtubes on land to be at least equal to dropships (with 2 navigation) on water (i.e. 10 plot movement with all three techs). Also, the ability to build the unupgraded (1/2 movement) magtubes could come before dropships since they aren't competitive at first.

 

[slugwalk]

Bunkers/Automation Beeline is one of the early must-haves for a serious Terraformer-strategy. Next to Edenism that is. Also if you don't have about 10-20 Formers + 1-3 mobile Defenders per base when you enter the midgame you are doing something wrong . Using the Production advantage of the Terraformers to the fullest is the key of beating the native life into submission.

Are you looking for the thread for the Planetfall beginner's guide, to suggest a strategy I should include ?

 

[Maniac]

Some points:
1) If Dropships with Navigation II are too powerful, my inclination would be to forbid them from picking the promotions, rather than increasing Magtube speed.
2) Naval travel should always be faster than land travel. It increases the value of navies.
3) While magtubes require former time, dropships cost minerals, so at the moment I'd say that's just a personal preference.
But the most important point 4:
Inspired by this article, I plan to allow a 'Transport Sub' special ability for the Transport 'Cruiser'. Makes economic sense for a world with oceans infested with hostile lifeforms. I would then push the Dropship higher up the tech tree. That would give low-tech Magtubes more opportunity to shine.

 

[slugwalk]

I can accept you wanting movement on water to be faster than movement on land (I'd prefer the opposite, but that's just a matter of opinion). I'm not sure if dropships with navigation 2 are too powerful or just right. If you do make the transport subs, they should start with the submerged promotion. I'd rather see magtubes drop lower on the tech tree, than dropships move up, but I'd definitely think the ability to build magtubes (or roads) should come before dropships.