Ulstrasonic fences. Do they work at all?

[Makavcio]

I'm playing an "arid" biome. It's supposed to have "few but strong" aliens. In reality, I'm swarmed with cannon fodder. It's a very early game and I cannot really just butcher them. Was planning to befriend them, but it's getting more and more insane. I'm surrounded by nests, they are spamming creatures like crazy and couldn't care less for my ultrasonic fences.

Do these fences work at all? Like the Great Wall in CivV, they never worked against aquatic creatures, however they did repel land units. Now they are completely useless.


On a side not, this is an Apollo game on a standard terran map. Jackie Chan and Duncan were already slain by the aliens...

 

[Ashbery76]

They seem a waste of time.Aliens are no threat at all to your city.

 

[Aldor]

Indeed, it seems like the fences have no effect at all anymore. I resort to befriending the aliens by getting as many nests inside my territory as quickly as I can. They turn friendly rather quickly, and I think nests inside your territory don't spawn new aliens anymore. Also you can use some explorers to leash the aliens if they keep getting in your way.

Being hammered by krakens or worms early on is very annoying however, and there's not much you can do against it.

 

[jozef57]

playing first rising tide game, huge fungal, epic, duncan. the first 60 turns the alian atacks drove me crazy after they are not a real problem anymore. the krakens and worms where lets say abundant the first 60 turns, all efforts going into millitairy and losing lots of units. but as i said after 60 turns, and more city's it became much and much more easy

 

[Makavcio]

I usually use fences for trade routes protection only, though in this game, I have extremely hard time developing my 3rd city. It's in nice terrain, however it's almost all miasma and nests right out of my reach. I've managed to get one of them inside my territory, but it's taking forever. I cannot really send workers there, because if they come with units, everyone gets slaughtered immediately. When I use the leaching tactic, the slaughter is even faster because aliens hate other aliens near their nests. Miasma + forests = good defense for everyone, decay for me, healing for them.

The thing is that I cannot really move in guns blazing. There's a sweet spot for an aquatic city but it's swarming with krakens. If I want to settle it, they need to be at lest neutral towards me.

Well, I wanted to know if I was doing something wrong with fences. Their description says that repelling force depends on relation with the aliens. I guess they are waiting till marriage for some repelling. Just like in real life.

 

[Gali]

Fences are quiteuseless. The best defense against aliens is the xeno siren. Place it a little oustide your territory where the affected region is. Does a great job. Also useful for herding them for science harvesting.

I would like them to increase the effectiveness of the fence at green alien levels. Maybe also make it much more effective against non colossal aliens. That siege worm will still come but the swarm will be held off.

 

[Gorbles]

Does anyone have the updated code for the new Fences? I tech to them mainly to get the Quest for trade immunity, really. More than the City benefits.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

They should make it have some absolute effect,
Like +X% to City Strength v. Aliens, or -X% Alien Combat Strength in range 2
and/Or
Won't attack your city at Orange or better
and/Or
Won't enter in 1? tiles of city at Green
(Blue aliens should get bumped by your units when in your territory, regardless of Fences)

Quest is
[Trade route not attacked by Orange+aliens]
or
bump 1 range up to 3, applies to Orange as well / Increase Combat bonus/penalty v. aliens depending on what the base benefits are

 

[TheFourthDoctor]

I agree. The fence does not "strongly repel" the aliens. With a description like that I would expect incursions to be the exception, not the norm. But they keep wandering up to the inner ring of the 2 hex zone as merrily as they please. (They're not angry. They're not even alarmed)


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[SahintheFalcon]

I think they're bugged. Some of the aliens are just programmed to move back and forth between the same two tiles if not blocked by any units.

Also, aliens almost never, ever attack you now unless provoked. The only time they attack is when they have no other space to move to.

 

[wjones37]

They seem a waste of time.Aliens are no threat at all to your city.

That's what I thought till today. Kraken rammed straight into my city and oneshot it.

 

[Evgenij]

I get one ultrasonic fence for quest that makes trade units immune to aliens. Other than that I see no use in it.

That's what I thought till today. Kraken rammed straight into my city and oneshot it.

I have played 3 games so far and noticed that aliens will never attack player, unless player have units or city near their nest. Destroying their nest will of course agro them even more. So, as long you are carefully avoiding their nests - you won't need ultrasonic fences, I think.

 

[SahintheFalcon]

I get one ultrasonic fence for quest that makes trade units immune to aliens. Other than that I see no use in it.

Ever since Rising Tide came out, I have also never lost a trade unit to aliens, even when the drawn trade path CLEARLY passes through an alien. This is before I get the quest that makes them immune to aliens.

 

[Evgenij]

Ever since Rising Tide came out, I have also never lost a trade unit to aliens, even when the drawn trade path CLEARLY passes through an alien. This is before I get the quest that makes them immune to aliens.

Yes, by default they won't attack trade units. But they will if you agro them. I had a situation where my city was swarming with aliens that did not attack me. I did not attack them either. And then I built a city near their nest and they suddenly destroyed half of my trade routes...

 

[hevans900]

Ever since Rising Tide came out, I have also never lost a trade unit to aliens, even when the drawn trade path CLEARLY passes through an alien. This is before I get the quest that makes them immune to aliens.

This is not true - I've played 3 games of BERT now where my trade units were relentlessly slaughtered by passing aliens

 

[kipwheeler]

This is not true - I've played 3 games of BERT now where my trade units were relentlessly slaughtered by passing aliens

Confirming the above. I've had aliens going after my trade routes relentlessly in multiple games. I'm liking it for the challenge, even if it's frustrating.

 

[Dactyl]

My solution to aliens is to get the alien biopsy option as soon as you can so your combat units can leash them. After that, before they get too crazy, I leash them then delete them, rinse and repeat. So far that has worked pretty well for me. If I encounter some powerful ones like makaras or krakens, I leash them and keep them. Actually I expect Firaxis to nerf the combat units leashing aliens technique. It is ridiculously overpowered.

 

[Alkyon]

My solution to aliens is to get the alien biopsy option as soon as you can so your combat units can leash them. After that, before they get too crazy, I leash them then delete them, rinse and repeat. So far that has worked pretty well for me. If I encounter some powerful ones like makaras or krakens, I leash them and keep them. Actually I expect Firaxis to nerf the combat units leashing aliens technique. It is ridiculously overpowered.

It works on other biomes too. Just gotta get the tech/harmony 3 to do it. And yeah, it really is the easiest way. Just a quiet, peaceful, profitable...genocide.

I mean, I feel dirty doing it, but damn does it feel good to just turn that annoying pile of aliens into $$$. Especially since it feels like aliens are almost encouraged to sit next to your cities just to encourage you to shoot them. My last game I had several nests close-ish to my cities and all the water aliens decided to hang out by my farms instead of of over by their nests. The nests were nearly clear of alien life, my coasts weren't.

And god forbid a colossal alien comes through and trips over some of your improvements. There's now an obnoxious sound effect that plays when an improvement gets pillaged and it plays every time the improvement is on screen. "RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE" *move screen a bit then back* "RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!"

 

[Azem.Ocram]

If you want to trade extensively and have a strong army (slaughtering aliens), build 1 Ultrasonic Fence, choose to protect traders and don't build any more Ultrasonic Fences. They don't seem to keep aliens away and each one costs energy to maintain but now, more than ever before, protecting your trade routes should be a top priority. If you have a military unit near each of your frontier cities, you can get experience/veterancy (that most of the AI leaders seem to obsess over now) and possibly culture and science while making expansion easier. Really, Ultrasonic fences themselves seem to be completely useless now but can protect Trade Convoys and Trade Vessels from aliens if you make the correct choice in the quest.

 

[NukeAJS]

Yeah, the fence doesn't actually repel the aliens. They simply don't care if it's there or not.

You'd think "strongly discourages" means that occasionally an alien would come within two tiles of your city and then run away next turn. In practice, I've had a fence up and had 6 aliens either adjacent or within two tiles of a city and they didn't run away for 20+ turns. The obvious way to deal with this is to kill them. However, you can leash them or use military units to do a kind of cattle drive by blocking tiles and then move up when able. This will push them out of your territory so your workers can get busy.