v11 feedback

[Maniac]

I kinda like the idea of Morale/Lifecycle I/II/III. As it still keeps SMAC flavour.

Something I'd suggest copying over from FF, if the functionality isn't already here. Effectpromotions. Quite simply, promotions that are entirely invisible.

How does that work? Wouldn't the unit's Spartanness be immediately revealed when attacking it (it has a first strike) or when the unit suddenly reduces base defenses by 5%?

 

[WarKirby]

That is a good point.

Doesn't really seem lke ther'es a way around this. I'd say make hidden nationality lose the spartan promotion.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Some observations from a game with Morgan under the Patch g)-i):

1) National Corporation GP's:
- I assume the lack of executives is intended to keep the per-city-effect?
- The Morgan Mines HQ gets displayed on the main map like if you had founded Buddhism in that city (see screenshot)
- Datalinks say that a Great Tycoon is required to get them - however, you can build them (also?) normally

2) I noticed that a Sporelauncher promoted with City Raider I gets a 20% bonus, when attacking a enemy unit on a tile with an Eden improvement. Is that intended? If yes, it wouldn't be bad to note that in the Datalinks in the Eden entry (and also in the Outpost/Settlement entry, if that should be true for them as well). I have attached a save illustrating this - pick the full-health Sporelauncher in the stack near new Jerusalem and let display the odds vs. the adjacent Believer chopper

3) After attacking and retreating with said Sporelauncher, I runned into another strange issue - at the end of the turn the SL was auto-moved in the tile attacked unsucessfully before (where Miri's chopper was before I killed it in a second attack with my Locust). To reproduce, do exactly the following:
- attack chopper with the full-health SL (don't promote him before)
- attack the with locust, plunder two times
- follow the unit cycle and skip turn/heal every other unit in the stack (not the said SL, but it gets not activated automatically anyway yet)
- move the sub at the other side of the world somewhere...
After that, the unit cycle should be over and much to my surprise the SL made an automatic move into the tile attacked before. I never encountered such behaviour before...

4) The description of the "Spore Cloud" promotion is a bit misleading - "+100% vs. air units" seems to refer to Needlejet Units only, not to Choppers or Locusts. While hat makes sense in terms of the game engine, it might confuse inexperienced players.

Edit: Attachments removed to save space.

 

[Maniac]

1) National Corporation GP's:
- I assume the lack of executives is intended to keep the per-city-effect?
- Datalinks say that a Great Tycoon is required to get them - however, you can build them (also?) normally

Yes.

- The Morgan Mines HQ gets displayed on the main map like if you had founded Buddhism in that city (see screenshot)

I figured it would be better to wait with changing the gamefont until there's a clearer picture what corps there will be in the game.

2) I noticed that a Sporelauncher promoted with City Raider I gets a 20% bonus, when attacking a enemy unit on a tile with an Eden improvement

Are you perhaps confusing with the 20% bonus from being on Highlands, which due to my lack of understanding of a combat-related function I cannot give its own help text?

I noticed btw from your situation that the native life combat modifier isn't displayed when it's the attacker that is native. I've fixed that.

3) After attacking and retreating with said Sporelauncher, I runned into another strange issue - at the end of the turn the SL was auto-moved in the tile attacked unsucessfully before

I can't replicate your situation. With me the spore launcher just keeps its movement point. Regardless, cause is the same and it should be fixed in the next patch.

4) The description of the "Spore Cloud" promotion is a bit misleading - "+100% vs. air units" seems to refer to Needlejet Units only, not to Choppers or Locusts. While hat makes sense in terms of the game engine, it might confuse inexperienced players.

I've changed it to a bonus vs. Needlejets.

Do you have any suggestions re collateral damage strength by the way?

 

[Pfeffersack]

Do you have any suggestions re collateral damage strength by the way?

In regard to special units or in general? I'm currently conquering Lal with the support of a group of Sporelaunchers and they are a blast when attacking a city. The worst case is that the first one or two are in danger to lose, after that you have always odds better then 95%, even if they are wounded themselves. I'm not sure if that just falls under "good strategy" or if it is too powerful, but I'm convinced that CD has to be lowered further, if a change should happen - the thing is that you often do that damage without any risk and the more you cause, the faster that snowball rolls...
That problem exists in Civ4 as well...the Drill Line is just weak to counter that. I haven't tried my luck with ECM in Planetfall yet and I also spotted not many AI units using this, so it is hard to tell if that 50% make a difference.


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- I wonder if the new Hive special with the 50% chance for Light-promoted units really works...? In my game all of the Hives Infantry- and Flamethrower units seem to get build normally and they have tons of them...

- Would it be possible to display the revolt danger causes by drones/lacking food like it is done for cultural pressure? That information would be both useful for your own bases as well as for exmaing how effective you spy operations are (or is it displayed and you can just counter the impact of 12 drones by 3 or 4 guarding units?)

- Whats the deal with all the "Bankrupt XYZ" projects in the civilopedia? Are they in for technical reasons or should they somehow cause the Morgan projects to go defunct, if such a base is captured? I had that case, when my city with Morgan Mines and Morgan Entertainment got captured by Lal...the projects seem to work again for the new owner after the resistence period is over (see picture)

 

[Maniac]

In regard to special units or in general?

I'm not sure if Spore Launchers need to be weakened (native life is supposed to be strong on direct attack - as a downside they are vulnerable to ranged strikes), but for the rest all other range strike units are up for change. I have not yet touched collateral damage/ranged strikes by the way. I'd like someone to suggest concrete numbers instead of simply saying collateral damage/ranged strikes needs to be weakened.

I wonder if the new Hive special with the 50% chance for Light-promoted units really works...?

It doesn't. This has been fixed for the next patch.

Would it be possible to display the revolt danger causes by drones/lacking food

Might be tricky. Base chance of revolt is 1/30 per nutrient that is lacking. That more or less gets divided by the the number of garrison units (but more advanced units count for more). However if a revolt happens after all despite a large garrison, then the number of Partisans will be somewhat higher as well depending on your garrison size. So I could probably add a revolt percentage, but it wouldn't mention how many Partisans you can expect.

Whats the deal with all the "Bankrupt XYZ" projects in the civilopedia

Should be fixed in next patch.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I'd like someone to suggest concrete numbers instead of simply saying collateral damage/ranged strikes needs to be weakened.

Fully agree. I just wanted to express that I don't have the feeling that CD needs an increase. Not even for the Thermobaric Missiles - I used it vs. a Fungal Tower and mindworm on one tile and it had a remarkable effect on the victory odds of my following attcks with ground units.

Might be tricky. Base chance of revolt is 1/30 per nutrient that is lacking. That more or less gets divided by the the number of garrison units (but more advanced units count for more). However if a revolt happens after all despite a large garrison, then the number of Partisans will be somewhat higher as well depending on your garrison size. So I could probably add a revolt percentage, but it wouldn't mention how many Partisans you can expect.

A percentage was all I though of Some uncertainty in numbers doesn't hurt!

 

[Pfeffersack]

- I found an issue with Locusts - are they supposed to suffer the amphibious penalty, when attacking from sea? If not, the save below shows the bug. If yes, the save shows a problem with the victory odds calculating over distance (not sure if that can be corrected at all) and I also would suggest then to allow the Flagella promotion for them.
To reproduce: Pick one of the Locusts stationated in U.N-Hilfsstation and let the game display the odds vs. the defender in U.N. Humanitätsbasis without moving. Odds are not bad, no amphibious penalty. Then move the Locusts adjacent to U.N. Humanitätsbasis and let display the odds again - now you get the -50% for an amphibious attack.

- The appearence of defense withdrawal would make a Blitz promotion/special ability as a kind of counter even more interesting...

- Is there are reason for allowing Solar Collectors inside jungle? They are forbidden on any free rainy tile because of cloud density, but they can exist in rainy squares with dense vegetation without removing it at least...?

 

[Maniac]

- I found an issue with Locusts - are they supposed to suffer the amphibious penalty, when attacking from sea?

Nope. Will be fixed in next patch.

- The appearence of defense withdrawal would make a Blitz promotion/special ability as a kind of counter even more interesting...

I'll add such a spec ab one day.

- Is there are reason for allowing Solar Collectors inside jungle? They are forbidden on any free rainy tile because of cloud density, but they can exist in rainy squares with dense vegetation without removing it at least...?

Is that a gameplay or roleplay question? If it's roleplay, this map for instance shows insolation is highest in desert areas and to a lesser degree in tropical areas.

http://www.matthewb.id.au/media/world_insolation_map.gif

Civ4 uses the same (Grassland/Rainy) terrain for both tropical and temperate regions. Insolation isn't high in temperate regions, so giving the same solar collector for both temperate and tropical regions wouldn't make sense. As an alternative, Jungles can be considered the closest abstraction of the tropical region.

 

[Pfeffersack]

I'm experiencing a python error when entering the civ page in the debug-mode (Shift+F2):

 

[The_J]

I guess, L_T has put somewhere directly an Umlaut or an ß in the textfile.
It's an typical error for not being able to write a non ASCII sign.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Sealurks don't get a bonus, when attacking a unit in seafungus - is that for balance reasons?

 

[Lord Tirian]

I guess, L_T has put somewhere directly an Umlaut or an ß in the textfile.
It's an typical error for not being able to write a non ASCII sign.

Argh! Yeah, I keep forgetting this - this new version should remedy that, I hope. I also corrected the "Seaschleichen" to "Seeschleichen" (just caught that on your screenshot!). Report whether the new version is helping!

Cheers, LT.

 

[Pfeffersack]

Argh! Yeah, I keep forgetting this - this new version should remedy that, I hope. I also corrected the "Seaschleichen" to "Seeschleichen" (just caught that on your screenshot!). Report whether the new version is helping!

Cheers, LT.

Thanks, your new version fixes the error.

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Another combat odds issue...I specialised/promoted a Helion in Guerilla I and II for a 35% attack bonus on rocky terrain. This however does not seem to be factored in vs. a Mindworm in a Hybrid Forest located on Rocky/Rainy/Highland terrain - I checked it for other terrain features and noticed that it is consistent. I understand that this is probably necessary for balance (many tiles with a straight 100% defense bonus for all native and non-native vs. other non-native units could be probematic), but I think this should be somewhere noted (maybe terrain entry in Planetfall concepts), because people might be used from Civ4 to that a defensive bonus from a hill (= rockyness in PF) and one from a forest e.g. stack - causing them eventually to pick wrong specialities/promotions.

 

[Maniac]

Sealurks don't get a bonus, when attacking a unit in seafungus - is that for balance reasons?

Nope. It's been changed now.

Another combat odds issue...I specialised/promoted a Helion in Guerilla I and II for a 35% attack bonus on rocky terrain. This however does not seem to be factored in vs. a Mindworm in a Hybrid Forest located on Rocky/Rainy/Highland terrain - I checked it for other terrain features and noticed that it is consistent. I understand that this is probably necessary for balance (many tiles with a straight 100% defense bonus for all native and non-native vs. other non-native units could be probematic), but I think this should be somewhere noted (maybe terrain entry in Planetfall concepts), because people might be used from Civ4 to that a defensive bonus from a hill (= rockyness in PF) and one from a forest e.g. stack - causing them eventually to pick wrong specialities/promotions.

That's standard Civ4 behaviour.
I can add the info if you suggest the specific text and place - don't have inspiration for what and where to say it myself.

 

[Deon]

Xcuse me, how do you regain bunker units in cities? I've lost mine (appeared after I've built the perimeter defence) and it's gone.

P.S. Also it requires 2147483647 turns to mutate into a spore tower .

 

[Lord Tirian]

Xcuse me, how do you regain bunker units in cities? I've lost mine (appeared after I've built the perimeter defence) and it's gone.

IIRC, you need to rebuild the perimeter defence - when the bunker is destroyed, it gets destroyed as well.

On patch I & J, I noticed that (on Noble) you occasionally get AI players that lose the game *very* early (turn 1-5ish) - and looking in the world builder, I see that their bases are taken over by native life. Is it possible that the AI doesn't defend the bases properly, especially on easier levels?

But I do like that there are seemingly more native critters around after the start (but I think there are a little to many sporelaunchers compared to mindworms, especially as sporelaunchers seem to attack roaming units more boldly than mindworms).

Cheers, LT.

 

[Deon]

It's just a psionic combat, probably AI doesn't understand that it needs more than 2 units in case 2-3 worms come by, I've got it too. In higher levels it gets a better number of units (and probably a "vs barbarians" bonus so it's ok.

I didn't get the option to rebuild the perimeter defence, I mean it was not destroyed for me.

Also, what's with the unability to create a fungal tower?

 

[Maniac]

I didn't get the option to rebuild the perimeter defence, I mean it was not destroyed for me.

Good catch. The code only checks for Bunker I, not the Bunker II && III units.

Also, what's with the unability to create a fungal tower?

The Spore Launcher has no workrate. I don't know if I want to keep that unit ability.

 

[Deon]

It seems fun, don't throw that away . Just another bunker, but natural. Make it require level 5-6 or something like that, and it's good.