SolarGamer: First 100 Turns as African Union

[Mustakrakish]

"Your society functions adequately, but not smoothly. Intellectual pursuits are curtained in order to pursuit more immediate needs."

Love this. It might be just about different texts and name to the same mechanic, BUT it is so much more appropriate and so much more immersive. It's just fitting.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

"Your society functions adequately, but not smoothly. Intellectual pursuits are curtained in order to pursuit more immediate needs."

Love this. It might be just about different texts and name to the same mechanic, BUT it is so much more appropriate and so much more immersive. It's just fitting.

I like it...although I am disappointed that they are doing it by category (flat -10% penalty for 1-? unhealth rather than continuous (like BNW -X% per unhealth)

 

[Liex]

Okay, so when you choose a "Harmony" option the quest is either putting you in that way by enabling other quests or giving some level (sometimes just a fraction). I guess it's a bit confusing as I wasn't able to follow the quest lines, but now it makes sense.

 

[Lucius_]

Where the hell do you get health from, besides cytonursury? I'm guessing early game, you either don't expand at all or it's expected to be negative health. For colonists, is anything other than aristocrats and artists even a viable option? I'm feeling like health is too scarce and is going to always be THE go to option anytime it's an option.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Where the hell do you get health from, besides cytonursury? I'm guessing early game, you either don't expand at all or it's expected to be negative health. For colonists, is anything other than aristocrats and artists even a viable option? I'm feeling like health is too scarce and is going to always be THE go to option anytime it's an option.

Buildings
Clinic (+1 base, +2 total with quest)
Pharma lab (+2)

Difficulty level
+9 at the Solar Gamer difficulty level

Virtues (2 in Prosperity, Synergy in Prosperity, 1 in Might, 1 in Knowledge, 2 in Industry)

Wonders (one is known to give +2)

Terrain Improvements (Biowell gives +1)

 

[Lucius_]

Buildings
Clinic (+1 base, +2 total with quest)
Pharma lab (+2)

Difficulty level
+9 at the Solar Gamer difficulty level

Virtues (2 in Prosperity, Synergy in Prosperity, 1 in Might, 1 in Knowledge, 2 in Industry)

Wonders (one is known to give +2)

Terrain Improvements (Biowell gives +1)

Ok so lets add this up. Lets say 3 colonies at 10 pop each...

-22.5 pop
-12 # of cities
+12 buildings
+7 Prosperity virtue
+9 difficulty level
Can't assume getting a wonder.
=
-7

If you have more cities, it's worse. At mid game you aren't going to have lots of health virtues so I picked the easist one for math that I know can be reached fairly easily and is relatively strong early on. So we either spam biowells for citizens after about 7 pop or we are negative?

 

[Seek]

Titanium mines give additional 4 production? Tectonic scanner looks really good now.

The geothermal tile is quite good, too - unimproved (? it's in the fow) on a hill at 27:41 it's 2 production and 2 energy (as opposed to normal hill which only give 1 production in BE). It seems none of the other strategic resources provide an inherent bonus to the tile in terms of yields when unimproved, however.

In case anyone is curious about the difficulty level these games have been played on, it's Mercury, the second easiest. (at :20)

Tier 2 station (Shackleton) adds +1 to each yield over the base (9:44) - I wonder if that's true for all stations? Also, the tooltip stated that the station would reach tier 2 when any faction completed a trade route with it.

It was extremely odd that the trade route to Mandira (KP capital) (30:05) stopped providing energy after he chose Gift Economy (+3 energy from TRs to foreign cities) (27:14).

 

[GenEngineer]

The geothermal tile is quite good, too - unimproved (? it's in the fow) on a hill at 27:41 it's 2 production and 2 energy (as opposed to normal hill which only give 1 production in BE). It seems none of the other strategic resources provide an inherent bonus to the tile in terms of yields when unimproved, however.

That's probably because of when you can unlock each of them; Petroleum and Titanium are unlock by ring 1 root techs; Geothermal is a ring 1 Leaf tech, so it takes longer to get.

 

[OldEarthRelic]

I saw that unhappiness is flat in its effect (unlike BNW). If this is true, getting to -9 unhappiness, or -19 if you have a military, won't be so bad.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I saw that unhappiness is flat in its effect (unlike BNW). If this is true, getting to -9 unhappiness, or -19 if you have a military, won't be so bad.

Well it depends on what the next 'level' is and what those penalties are.

At higher levels
1. You get penalties to Growth and Production
2. The Culture+Science Penalties are probably stronger

Ok so lets add this up. Lets say 3 colonies at 10 pop each...

-22.5 pop
-12 # of cities
+12 buildings
+7 Prosperity virtue
+9 difficulty level
Can't assume getting a wonder.
=
-7

If you have more cities, it's worse. At mid game you aren't going to have lots of health virtues so I picked the easist one for math that I know can be reached fairly easily and is relatively strong early on. So we either spam biowells for citizens after about 7 pop or we are negative?

Well you can probably continue at a negative health for a while, it doesn't give you any penalties besides the -10% science and culture

But, yes after that biowells

Essentially they nerfed Both tall and wide.

3 cities at pop 10 is to large for this system early game.

of course later game (not counting wonders)... you can get ~10 net health per city and a base amount of ~19+difficulty level extra health

city -4->-3 (Eudamonia)
Buildings +4
Prosperity Synergy +1
Industry-trade routes +1
Industry buildings (~60 buildings in the tech web-12 health... but you won't get all of them)..so say +7
+10 (how much pop that supports depends on the Eudamonia/Community Medicine virtues and possibly difficulty level)...at solar gamer's difficulty level with Eudamonia and Community med (1 health per 6 pop) that's about 25 pop/city

Base
difficulty
Prosperity +7
Prosperity resources +12 max
(about 70 extra pop at solar gamers difficulty level with Eudamonia and community Medicine)


so it is possible to 'go big' wide or tall, but it is only in the later game if you pursue the right virtues... otherwise, just put up with being unhappy / build biowells

 

[OldEarthRelic]

If you're REXing at the beginning, I wouldn't care about Growth, although losing Production would hurt.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

I saw that unhappiness is flat in its effect (unlike BNW). If this is true, getting to -9 unhappiness, or -19 if you have a military, won't be so bad.

It doesn't look as bad as unhappiness in Civ V, but it cancels the PAU ability and Foresight bonus. It looks it's a good idea to either delay expansion until you have Genetics and/or a health virtue or prioritize health as soon as you have a second city.

 

[ggmoyang]

It doesn't look as bad as unhappiness in Civ V, but it cancels the PAU ability and Foresight bonus. It looks it's a good idea to either delay expansion until you have Genetics and/or a health virtue or prioritize health as soon as you have a second city.

Or you can choose other sponsor and not pick foresight

 

[s0nny80y]

Quick note taken from video,

Sieging a city may have to take into account of whether or not there is an ultrasonic fence to defend the flanks of an army from hostile aliens as the army closes in on a city.

 

[Karl0413]

Well, taking artists or aristocrats and playing a faction whose UA that didn't encourage a city's population to balloon quickly might have allowed him to expand faster. Maybe set the capitol's focus on production instead of growth might have been a good idea too. Seriously, PAU + Refugees + rapid early game expansion = begging for -10 health.

 

[Asmodean]

Really good video. Honestly, I can't wait to get my hands on this game.

Harmony looks interesting. I will definately be testing how well Harmony + prosperity will make for a totally feel-good play-through - and how well it counterbalances a gung-ho Supremacy neighbour

Good thing this game isn't a drug. It would be the first drug that had you addicted even before you tried it the first time

/Asmodean

 

[Sprenk]

This is probably too obvious to be worth mentioning, but poor Solar Gamer never seemed to realize that finishing an explorer move within two tiles of an alien nest is a bad idea. As a result, his explorer units became the equivalent of red shirts in Star Trek.

That said, we're probably going to have to modify the way we explore. For example, it would seem to be smart to move the explorer one tile, look around, and only then decide if moving the 2nd tile into uncharted territory to finish the turn is really such a good idea. But again, this is probably blatantly obvious?

 

[OldEarthRelic]

I do this now on Civ 5. BTW, Aliens are mega-strong at the beginning, compared to the human units.

 

[Lucius_]

I do this now on Civ 5. BTW, Aliens are mega-strong at the beginning, compared to the human units.

Sure but in Civ, if a barb camp is hidden behind forest and that second move puts you next to it, it doesn't attack unless your scout is wounded. Also your scout can survive a couple hits if there is an additional barb.

 

[gunnergoz]

One of the things I like most about BE is the way they have altered the aliens from barbarians. They are their own "faction" in a sense with their own AI and need to be handled accordingly.