v11 feedback

[Maniac]

Random thoughts:
I've noticed that Highlander and Guerilla boni are available for Isles of the Deep. Is it possible to remove these options for non-land native life only?

It's certainly possible, but it would require some SDK lines of code, and considering promotions are all in flux anyway, I don't want to spend time on that yet.

Aquaformers aren't set up to use food in their production. Is this intentional, and if so why?

Why not? *shrug*

I'm not sure the 20% strength bonus for ranged units at higher elevations works quite right. For one thing, when I attack a sea unit with another sea unit sitting in a base on highlands, it gets a 20% bonus (at least based on the combat odds popup). Also, units sitting on highlands seem to get a 20% bonus when defending against lowland units.

I've removed the highland bonus for sea units. It works as intended for land units though. It's for all combat, not just ranged strikes.

 

[slugwalk]

I'm still getting really frustrated by the fact that I can't use Stockpile energy in any of my bases except for the smallest ones. I'd really like to see it work in any base, but not produce any energy beyond the maintenance. If that's not possible, or too difficult, I'd prefer just the regular production to currency conversion of Civ4.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I'm still getting really frustrated by the fact that I can't use Stockpile energy in any of my bases except for the smallest ones. I'd really like to see it work in any base, but not produce any energy beyond the maintenance. If that's not possible, or too difficult, I'd prefer just the regular production to currency conversion of Civ4.

Is the problem that you don't have eough small bases or that you would prefer to have them working on something more important (while the bigger ones run out of tasks and unit building isn't an option) ? I'm just asking, because I never run into that problem I usually can always at least employ 1-2 of my biggest bases with that duty - and that's already a drain for me (because I need them as unit pumps). Maybe it is again an difficulty issue...?

So what could be done - I don't like the idea of allowing it everywhere and risking to run into a kind of waste, when using it. I also like it a lot more then the old currency process (so I don't like the thought of losing it completely) - it just more resonable, if I can use industrial output directly to maintain and repair things with great efficiency then a magic conversation into extra income. It also makes improving terrain and speciliazation more important - you will need some energy producing improvements and if you spezialise city in high-engery-but-low-production, you are probably allowed to use the maintenance process there. And then there is still the research process as another option - it gives you money indirectly because you can lower your research rate for the same speed of research.

I could live with keeping the maintenance process and adding the curreny one (at the old ration) again, but I don't now if that is possible.

 

[slugwalk]

Is the problem that you don't have eough small bases or that you would prefer to have them working on something more important (while the bigger ones run out of tasks and unit building isn't an option) ? I'm just asking, because I never run into that problem I usually can always at least employ 1-2 of my biggest bases with that duty - and that's already a drain for me (because I need them as unit pumps). Maybe it is again an difficulty issue...?

Its mostly an issue in the early game when my biggest bases have too much production to use stockpile, and my other bases wouldn't even make a dent in the total maintenance. Usually I'm trying to build infrastructure (Maintenance bay, etc.) in my small bases. Switching my big base to research and increasing my tax rate would work, except that I then don't get the doubling of the stockpile energy. I think allowing the excess to be wasted at least gives the player the option of using some big bases. I'd rather waste a few production in my base with excess, than prevent multiple small bases from improving their infrastructure.

 

[Maniac]

My reasoning for not allowing Stockpile Energy in bases where you don't get the full benefit, is that I don't want to be forced to do the math myself to see if I get the full benefit of Stockpile Energy in that base.

 

[slugwalk]

Would it be possible to program the game to calculate any excess and put it in the energy popup?
Like (with symbols where appropriate):
+28 (energy) from (production)
3 (production) wasted.
If I'm the only one who ever has this problem, I'll learn to deal with it.

 

[Keeper_GFA]

I have that problem too. I find stockpile energy to be most useful in one or two large cities while the smaller cities build infrastructure.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Some feedback with v11 and v11 Patch a):

1. (v11) It appears that the oil sea ressource can appear on trenches (see 1st picture) - IIRC, trenches were modified not to allow improvments, so ressources would be useless - or is there a special exception for them?

2. (v11) You can demand from an AI running the Terraformed civic and the Eden religion to switch to the VoP (see 1st save, just ask Zhakarov, pay the 415C and end turn). This causes anarchy for that AI in the next turn (because VoP and Terraformed cannot co-exist) and also it can take after that a quite long time until they adopt to a new civic in that column again (12 turns in my caseuntil he chosed Hybrid, after around another dozen of turns he switched to EB)

3. (v11a) Memetics and Homo Superior use again BTS placeholder icons (Divine Right and Islam)

4. (v11a) Runned into a situation, where Lal offered me to adopt Democracy, I accepted, but was send into anarchy the next turn (see 2nd save, just end turn and accept his switch demand)

5. (v11a) The same save also provides an instance of native life on sea appearing on a spot I considered save. Base has no fungal bloom protection yet, PA is at -2 - but there is just no adjacent fungus. Also the native life doesn't wandered in, I checked the world builder (see 2nd screenshot for the questionable (red dot) tile and again the second save, spawn happens after ending the turn). BTW, the exact rules when and where native life and/or new fungus/spawning spots can appear and how you can prevent it (culture, local/overall PA, cleaing out fungus, running Terraformed) would be perhaps worth a condensed help text as well - I often get confused myself, when things like that happen.

I will later post a more detailed AAR on my new game with 11a), as I stepped down to Chieftain difficulty doing a Terrafromer strategy, to see how dangerous native life is on low levels.

 

[GeoModder]

3. (v11a) Memetics and Homo Superior use again BTS placeholder icons (Divine Right and Islam)

Things like that happen when the buttons weren't positioned *just* right in de fonts file.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Things like that happen when the buttons weren't positioned *just* right in de fonts file.

Nope - pre-founding, the triggering tech actually uses a different button than normal (take a look into the Civ4ReligionInfos.xml), so to get the "proper" icon, you need to take the normal tech button and need to paste the religion symbol over it and save it as a separate button (and enter it into the XML).

I guess this hasn't happened, because the Memetics icon isn't the final one (still one of the old icons, not "rubinized"), so Maniac couldn't be bothered to put the religion icon on a temporary tech button.

As comparison, see the Edenism/Terraforming tech - this one looks correctly, because it has the extra entry - and the tech button is in the new style.

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

1. IIRC, trenches were modified not to allow improvments

YRI (You recall incorrectly). It's just windmills, kelp and fungus that's not allowed.

2. (v11) You can demand from an AI running the Terraformed civic and the Eden religion to switch to the VoP (see 1st save, just ask Zhakarov, pay the 415C and end turn). This causes anarchy for that AI in the next turn (because VoP and Terraformed cannot co-exist) and also it can take after that a quite long time until they adopt to a new civic in that column again (12 turns in my caseuntil he chosed Hybrid, after around another dozen of turns he switched to EB)

I don't see a problem here. Makes religious proselytism more worth it.

3. (v11a) Memetics and Homo Superior use again BTS placeholder icons (Divine Right and Islam)

What Lord Tirian said. Make me a Memetics button using the Genetics theme colour, and I'll add the religious icon to it.

4. (v11a) Runned into a situation, where Lal offered me to adopt Democracy, I accepted, but was send into anarchy the next turn (see 2nd save, just end turn and accept his switch demand)

I have not yet coded that accepting civic/religion switching demands doesn't cause anarchy, in case that's causing confusion.

5.

I fiddled a bit with the plot's spawnValues. Should hopefully no longer happen. The spawning was caused by the plot with two aquaformers on it, for the record.

 

[slugwalk]

The mobile infantry could use some changes to the tooltip and datalinks. If I've observed correctly, it has 3 movement, not 1.

 

[slugwalk]

So lately I've been getting my neighbors' fungal blooms . I have positive planet values for my bases, so I know they're not mine. Its on fungus squares in my territory that would be just outside the big fat cross of my opponents' bases. Would it be possible to fix this?

In a separate issue, I noticed that I can't attack sea bases with my naval forces, at least not when there's an infantry unit stationed inside. Was this intentional?

 

[Maniac]

So lately I've been getting my neighbors' fungal blooms . I have positive planet values for my bases, so I know they're not mine. Its on fungus squares in my territory that would be just outside the big fat cross of my opponents' bases. Would it be possible to fix this?

Cross-border ecological issues are intended, not a bug or oversight. If your Psi Potential is high enough to allow native life capture, place three or four Empath Flame/Plasma Throwers near the usual spawning spot and say "Thank you neighbour".
If you can't capture native life, remove the fungus near the borders. If there's still fungus in your neighbour's territory and 'his' fungal bloom spawns streaming in your territory, you could ask him to switch to Terraformed so the fungus gets cleared automatically, or sign open borders to assist in the native life flaming, or place bunkers near the borders, or declare war on him to solve the ecological damage yourself. You have lots of options at your disposal.

In a separate issue, I noticed that I can't attack sea bases with my naval forces, at least not when there's an infantry unit stationed inside. Was this intentional?

Nope. I'll check it out.

 

[slugwalk]

Cross-border ecological issues are intended, not a bug or oversight. If your Psi Potential is high enough to allow native life capture, place three or four Empath Flame/Plasma Throwers near the usual spawning spot and say "Thank you neighbour".
If you can't capture native life, remove the fungus near the borders. If there's still fungus in your neighbour's territory and 'his' fungal bloom spawns streaming in your territory, you could ask him to switch to Terraformed so the fungus gets cleared automatically, or sign open borders to assist in the native life flaming, or place bunkers near the borders, or declare war on him to solve the ecological damage yourself. You have lots of options at your disposal.

OK, makes a lot of sense. Actually once I realized what was happening, I set it up so I could use it to farm native life. Should the native life always appear on my square of fungus? I thought fungal blooms were supposed to happen next to, not on, existing fungus squares.
On the native life topic, I really like the idea of native life having Psi potential maintenance. However, I think maybe it should be tweaked slightly. Perhaps your maximum native life should be equal to the total PV of all bases minus controlled native units. This way factions can't save up their good behavior. Alternatively, you could make it harder, and set the native life limit at either total positive PV or total PV*turns/100 (100 might be too high in this case), whichever is lower.

 

[Pfeffersack]

On the native life topic, I really like the idea of native life having Psi potential maintenance. However, I think maybe it should be tweaked slightly. Perhaps your maximum native life should be equal to the total PV of all bases minus controlled native units. This way factions can't save up their good behavior. Alternatively, you could make it harder, and set the native life limit at either total positive PV or total PV*turns/100 (100 might be too high in this case), whichever is lower.

I see the idea of reducing tactical gambit and making the Planet react quicker, but I fear that this would be too harsh. The overall and averaged (over the turns) Planet Attitude could work (need to multiply with some factor), but the current PV or current postive PV of all bases is too fluctuating - lose your VoP shrine or capture a polluted Terraformer base and you get in trouble in the next turn.

Also, it would work the opposite way - you could have been a bad terraformer for all your life and given enough formers you could become "clean" in one turn.

It also leaves the question how to deal with "overflow" (= you cannot support your current native life anymore or you try to exceed your limit by building more). After the changes of the last patch, the situation is easily dealt with - exceeding your current PV "income" drowns from the accumulated PSI-potential, limiting further native life capturing (building more hurts you the same way). Total accumulated PSI potential can go negative - which has no negative other impact then going deeper and deeper in debt if I understand correctly, but there is an effect (you can't get easily out of it)

But what does happen when you exceed your current (positive PV) in your proposal? If you take the current (positive) PV, most logically any exceeding would cause further eco-damage and hit your PA, which would feel rather strange for me. Of course something like deserting native units could be used...

Overall, it is a question of how the Planets Mind is interpreted - more focussed on actual behaviour or more unforegiving regarding earlier happenings? I tend to the latter, so I'm rather wary with such a drastic change.

 

[Shakiko]

If it should switch its 'mood' abit faster than now, but not as fast as slugwalk suggested, how about just tweaking the current system abit:
Instead of calculating the positve PV you accumulated in all your turns and divide it by the number of turns (like it is now), just take the Average Planet value for say, the last 300 turns (or insert any number of turns here).
You wouldn't get fast switches that way, but also the first 150 turns would not count anymore when you are at turn 600+ - flavorwise youcould interpret this approach that the planetmind does not forget easily, but it still forgets abit over the span of hundreds of years.

I have no clue if that's codable, though

 

[Lord Tirian]

...flavorwise youcould interpret this approach that the planetmind does not forget easily, but it still forgets abit over the span of hundreds of years.

Flavour-wise, I think it would also fit the background-story told in the interludes. During these interludes, the initial attitude towards Planet is rather ambivalent, but as the flowering culminates, there's a shift (out of desperation, but still) and Planet accepts it. Don't forget: The Planetmind needs humanity to achieve consciousness and transcendence - it's just that it is lashing out instinctively early on. So, from a flavour-POV, it makes sense that Planet offers a chance for redemption, if you make the effort to go green (or pink ), even in the later game.

Simply for story-reasons, I support getting a way to get clean (but it should require you to work for it). Gameplay-wise, it could also be interesting, because of diplomacy and expansion, your choices could change - either way - and it would at least add and it would make keeping Planet on your side a more important manner (as you can't just "live off" your previously accumulated attitude for too long).

Cheers, LT.

 

[Maniac]

Some day I plan to add a 'Centauri Preserve' secret project, available at Psionics and only buildable if your total PV of all bases is in the green, that sets your Planet Attitude at +1 or gives you +1 PA, whichever is most beneficial. So there would be a chance for 'redemption' for one faction, but not for everyone. There should be no way back at a certain point, if you want to have polarized eco-wars in the end game.

 

[Lord Tirian]

Some day I plan to add a 'Centauri Preserve' secret project, available at Psionics and only buildable if your total PV of all bases is in the green, that sets your Planet Attitude at +1 or gives you +1 PA, whichever is most beneficial. So there would be a chance for 'redemption' for one faction, but not for everyone. There should be no way back at a certain point, if you want to have polarized eco-wars in the end game.

Generally, I like the idea (because I want the eco-wars, too), though... I see a little problem with this project (apart from getting the AI to use it correctly): It's way to easy to be snagged away by the ones with a positive planet attitude already (as these are probably the ones, who have Psionics first, as it's part of their tech line).

If such a project gets added, I think it should carry another restriction, that the current planet attitude can't be higher than 0. Of course, this may be a feature and part of the hard work to catch up with the pro-Planets before they take away your chance.

Cheers, LT.