Version 1.7 feedback

[Ahriman]

Well i was able to build reverend mothers after i traded the resource with Bene Ger... so you guys will have to look into that.

Ah, ok. I think this should be Sayyadina only. Or maybe Sayyadina and Sister only, or Sister only?

 

[davidlallen]

Currently RM can be built by any civ which has traded with BG to obtain the Sisterhood Covenant resource. I will investigate what has gone wrong in the save game.

 

[Ahriman]

I *think* that the impassible mesa with the peak graphic is still giving positive value in the AI's city selection algorithm (as a mesa). It should give zero (it has 0 tile yield).

 

[Ahriman]

Traits have been changed (didnt' notice in changelog?).

It was intended that Spritual boost the build speed for the temple and cathedral for Shai Hulad, Mahdi, Quizarate and Tleilaxu Zensuifism, while the Political trait boosted CHOAM and Imperial buildings. Spritual now boosts CHOAM and Imperial, which is not very logical.

[And mechanized boosted Technocracy, which still seems to be there.]

Now Political boosts the library, which was not intended, is probably too strong, and isn't very logical.

Industrious should now probably boost factory, not refinery (which is a gold booster).

Haven't checked the others yet (have to go).

 

[davidlallen]

I agree that the city site selection algorithms (both initial placement and colony placement) have not been updated yet to account for the impassible peak feature.

There have not been any *recent* changes in traits, but perhaps you are just noticing these illogical things. In particular, Political is a rename of Creative, which has always affected the library.

 

[Ahriman]

I am reasonably confident (though not 100%) that at least one earlier point, following my design, Creative/Political doubled the build speed of the CHOAM/Imperial buildings, while Spiritual doubled the other ones.

I wonder if a patch that did this got left out of 1.7 by accident?

In any case, lets add it to the to-do list please.

 

[Yaromir]

Apologies in advance if this has been discussed before, in that case if you could be so kind as to point me in the direction of that discussion.

1. There is a huge jump from Master Guardsman to Heavy trooper (5 -> 10). Why? I find that it becomes very easy to steam-roll AI if you get Heavy Trooper first and build up some numbers.

2. Sayadina's seem hugely unbalanced. I had units jump to 100+ exp very quickly when stacked with one. Maybe they should give some specific promotions, say 2-3 at most?

3. What is the intended difference between Suspensor Combat Craft and Thopters? They seem to function in an identical matter to me.

 

[Ahriman]

1. We're certainly opening to tweaking numbers. But I would say:
a) There are intermediate strength units between, like grenade troopers and hardened bladesmen and a roller.
b) There are other tier2 units much more suited to steamrolling with than the heavy trooper, that can be accessed just as quickly. The Shield Trooper is much better at assaulting cities, missile troopers could successfully defend against massed heavy troopers, and rollers would help out too.

2. Yeah, the Sayyadina is broken, we're working on some fixes.

3. Suspensors get bonus movement on deserts, but not on land. Whereas thopters are constant speed everywhere.
Thopters are good vs melee (but are vulnerable to rocket trooper types), suspensors are good vs thopters.
Suspensors attract worms, thopters don't.

The vulture thopter is currently a little underpowered relative to the suspensor gunship though.

 

[Yaromir]

a) There are intermediate strength units between, like grenade troopers and hardened bladesmen and a roller.

Ah, but those aren't defensive units.

It goes Soldiers=2, Infantry=3, Master Guardsman=5 and then Heavy Trooper=10! Just seems a bit abrupt

Btw, description on Grenade Trooper says it causes collateral damage which I I haven't seen happen.

 

[EnzoLuca]

: Disclaimer : sorry if this has been asked before

The offworld transport is working nicely but i feel the amount units that are available is too little.
When i use the available units with my money they tend to reappear very slowly, probably until i move into the next age.

If the player has vasts amount of money then would you think it to be wise as to make available more units or infinite?

(waiting for the patch eagerly )

 

[Ahriman]

Hi Enzo,

Thanks for the feedback.

The idea of the offworld units is that that are deliberately limited in availability: this is what balances their cheap price, build anywhere, build instantly, and superior strength. It isn't supposed to be an easy way to get units using gold instead of hammers, its supposed to be a narrow tactical tool that adds flavor. Most of your army should still be built using hammers.

The human player is also able to use the offworld units much more effectively than the AI (human knows when/where they're needed), so increasing the availability will tend to punish the AI relative to the human.

 

[EnzoLuca]

Of course, I'm an idiot

That would give the Human player a significant advantage.
Logical and tactical. Thank you for the answer!

 

[Pickly]

Has a mechanic similar to the "ultraponics maintenance" in planetfall (Or some similar name), the mechanic where starving bases pay money instead of loosing population, been considered for this mod? I've noticed in a lot of games that, due to the limited sources of water when not terraforming, that bases often quickly reach their maximum size pretty quickly, and as often as not have odd amounts of water, so can end up in a "gain population, starve it" situation.

It isn't really a big deal for gameplay, but if nothing else, would remove the slight concern seem when bases go red and there's nothing to do about it. It might be called "water importation" or something along those lines.

 

[Ahriman]

Pickly,
That's a very interesting suggestion.

Cities can often end up shrinking a couple of sizes when you build a catchbasin, this would reduce that risk, while still making insufficient water have a major economic cost.

However: I would think that the economic cost would need to depend on the water deficit. So, if you're -1 water, it costs you say ~3 gold per turn, but if you're -6 water then it costs you ~18 gold.
Is that how it works in Planetfall?

The penalties need to be sufficiently harsh to discourage human player exploits, where you deliberately stop worknig water tiles in order to work cottage tiles instead. And to make it so a -1permanent water debt just stops growth (rather than growth/collapse cylces) at mild economic cost but a major water deficit causes significant hardship.

Potential problem though, if you have a well-tile pillaged, you might actually prefer to lose a few population rather than potentially very high gold loss.

* * *

David, are you familiar with this mechanic from Planetfall? How easy would it be to incorporate? I'm guessing it probably requires dll changes.

 

[Pickly]

However: I would think that the economic cost would need to depend on the water deficit. So, if you're -1 water, it costs you say ~3 gold per turn, but if you're -6 water then it costs you ~18 gold.
Is that how it works in Planetfall?

The penalties need to be sufficiently harsh to discourage human player exploits, where you deliberately stop worknig water tiles in order to work cottage tiles instead. And to make it so a -1permanent water debt just stops growth (rather than growth/collapse cylces) at mild economic cost but a major water deficit causes significant hardship.

These ideas do make sense. I'm not sure of the coding, but they do make theoretical sense. I could also see this effect being limited to 1-2 or so water per city, to avoid the exploits you describe. (Admittedly, I didn't think of most of these possibilities when making this suggestion.)


In planetfall, the system works by having the person pay 2 gold per food that needs to be made up, plus a chance of riots (Except under a certain civic). The mechanics if it were used in this game of course could be different, as mentioned above, though I'm not sure how the coding would work.

 

[davidlallen]

In planetfall, the system works by having the person pay 2 gold per food that needs to be made up, plus a chance of riots (Except under a certain civic). The mechanics if it were used in this game of course could be different, as mentioned above, though I'm not sure how the coding would work.

What happens if the player has three cities each with -1 food, and only 2 gold available? Does the system automatically decide which cities starve? Can the user turn this on/off or affect which cities are eligible?

 

[Ahriman]

What happens if the player has three cities each with -1 food, and only 2 gold available? Does the system automatically decide which cities starve?

The same as anything else which causes you to have negative gold.
[The negative gold enters in maintenance costs, not a python routine that subtracts gold, so the game treats it as it does any other maintenance cost.]

The game automatically turns your science/culture/espionage sliders down (increasing your gold slider) to keep you above zero gold.

If the sliders are already at zero (ie 100% gold sliders), it starts disbanding units to reduce your upkeep costs.

If you have no unit upkeep costs and 100% gold sliders and still have 0 gold and negative gold income... I dunno, I've never seen it happen. Some kind of bankruptcy - buildings start getting destroyed?

Can the user turn this on/off or affect which cities are eligible?

No. Its an automatic effect, with no human intervention.
It always happens: cities can never starve from insufficient food. They only ever provide economic cost.

*If* something like this was implemented, this is the way to do it. Much simpler - and no challenge for the AI. (The AI already knows to avoid negative water in general).

I'm not sure if its worth the complexity, but its worth considering.

* * *

The one other point that this reminds me of: the human player knows how to build catchbasins appropriately. A catchbasin only irrigates non-desert, non-mesa tiles adjacent to the city, and only provide a benefit for those city-adjacent tiles that are not also adjacent to a well.
So the human player knows to build catchbasins where they provide a benefit (eg 3+ extra tiles with fresh water), and only where they provide a benefit (ie don't build them in cities where they give only 0-1 extra tiles with fresh water).

The AI player can't do this. It will tend to either under-build catchbasins (and not get the benefits from terraforming) or over build them (building them in cities where they provide little impact, and aren't worth the -3 water penalty).

There's no obvious solution to this, other than reducing (or somehow shifting elsewhere??) the downside of building a catchbasin.

 

[Opera]

Hey there!

First, I was amazed by the offworld transport window. That stuff blew my head off. Incredible job! I was also thinking that, maybe, it could be adapted to offworld trade, instead of just using a national wonder. At best, you could even give the choice between many planets, each with its own unique stuff, and you could only create a contract with one planet...?

Some things I noticed, on Noble/Epic, is that settlers are too cheap and the teching is too fast. At least it seemed so. Maybe I was just really caught in the game? Anyway, I really found the settlers to be too cheap.

Also, I know that it's based on some lore (just watched the 1984 Dune movie today, never read the books though) and that you try to make each civ different but is there plans for more civs? 9 seems a bit short.

Are you planning to use Revolutions and/or BarbarianCivs? 'Cause it would add some more dynamics, and since it's based on RevDCM...

Ah, another thing... Maybe tech rate is too fast because of trade? It's really easy to get lots of commerce from trade routes. Maybe there should be a penalty (or rather a bonus removed, like the sustained peace one or the oversea one if it still applies).

Perhaps less happiness too? Unhealth is a big issue since water is scarce but I never got any problem with happiness... Perhaps there's too many happy resources?

 

[Ahriman]

First, I was amazed by the offworld transport window. That stuff blew my head off. Incredible job! I was also thinking that, maybe, it could be adapted to offworld trade, instead of just using a national wonder. At best, you could even give the choice between many planets, each with its own unique stuff, and you could only create a contract with one planet...?

The transport window is linked to the offworld trade tech, not the landing stage wonder. No building is needed to import units, just the tech.
The problem with trying to make more of this mechanism is that they AI doesn't do it very well. Yes, the AI can buy units from offworld, and puts them in its capital. But its poor at buying only the units it needs, when it needs them. It doesn't know how to instantly reinforce a threatened city, or buy the counter unit to a unit you want to kill, or to buy a particular specialist unit you don't have the tech for yet, or to *not* buy units yet because you don't need them (and want to be able to buy them in futurE).
So making more of this feature tends to weaken the Ai relative to the human.

Buying units from multiple worlds won't really make much sense either in the Dune universe, since each House really only has a single homeworld that they could be drawing troops from.

Also, I know that it's based on some lore

The mod is based on a *lot* of canon lore. I'd highly recommend reading Dune (some of the best scifi ever written) and its next couple of sequels. Far better than the movie IMO.

but is there plans for more civs? 9 seems a bit short.

There really aren't any obvious other factions we could add, that would have any real feeling of Dune flavor. As it is, Ordos only exists in the computer games (it was invented by Westwood) and Ecaz have very little canon detail about them.
Certainly there are some other houses, but not with the kind of unique feel that they'd really need to make a good faction.

Maybe there should be a penalty (or rather a bonus removed, like the sustained peace one or the oversea one if it still applies).

We've already removed some of the trade bonuses, like the intercontinental trade bonus, and reduced the foreign faction bonus. I don't think trade income is too high now.

I also highly recommend Epic speed for this mod. I play normal for most mods, but the long distances to travel mean that Epic tends to work better here IMO.

Perhaps less happiness too? Unhealth is a big issue since water is scarce but I never got any problem with happiness... Perhaps there's too many happy resources?

We want Water to feel like the binding factor most of the time, to make water really feel rare. If you start reducing happiness access, then water is less important, because you couldn't grow above happy-cap anyway. You can't really have both water *and* happiness be binding constraints.

Also, happiness can be pretty tough to get if you don't use Hereditary rule and do get big terraformed cities.

Do you have any suggestions for particular happiness sources you think should be removed?
I could see the happy from diamond resource disappear, and have that just be tile yield and lasgun strategic resource.

 

[Opera]

The transport window is linked to the offworld trade tech, not the landing stage wonder. No building is needed to import units, just the tech.
The problem with trying to make more of this mechanism is that they AI doesn't do it very well. Yes, the AI can buy units from offworld, and puts them in its capital. But its poor at buying only the units it needs, when it needs them. It doesn't know how to instantly reinforce a threatened city, or buy the counter unit to a unit you want to kill, or to buy a particular specialist unit you don't have the tech for yet, or to *not* buy units yet because you don't need them (and want to be able to buy them in futurE).
So making more of this feature tends to weaken the Ai relative to the human.

That wasn't what I meant.

I meant using the same kind of screen for the "Landing Stage" mechanic. So you'd have a screen kinda similar in which you could create contracts to get resources and such offworld. But a simple system like the Landing Stage one works well too.

What I meant was that, for now, that system is really military only but it could be expanded for trade, for example.

Really, writing some AI code for units buying shouldn't be too hard. You'd need to make calls if a city is in danger to check if there's offworld units available, then a routine to determine which unit to buy.

Buying units from multiple worlds won't really make much sense either in the Dune universe, since each House really only has a single homeworld that they could be drawing troops from.

The mod is based on a *lot* of canon lore. I'd highly recommend reading Dune (some of the best scifi ever written) and its next couple of sequels. Far better than the movie IMO.

Yeah, I didn't meant 'some' as opposed to 'lots'. But that doesn't matter.

To be honest, the movie was a bit crappy, especially the end, the attack is way too long. I'll read the books; I can even say that it's because of your mod

There really aren't any obvious other factions we could add, that would have any real feeling of Dune flavor. As it is, Ordos only exists in the computer games (it was invented by Westwood) and Ecaz have very little canon detail about them.
Certainly there are some other houses, but not with the kind of unique feel that they'd really need to make a good faction.

Yeah, I'd have guessed so. I'd say that you're not ultimately bound to the lore and that it is sometimes something you need to overlook; as you said, Ordos has been created for a game, right? So it has been done before

(At worst I'll take care of that myself )

We've already removed some of the trade bonuses, like the intercontinental trade bonus, and reduced the foreign faction bonus. I don't think trade income is too high now.

You're probably right

I also highly recommend Epic speed for this mod. I play normal for most mods, but the long distances to travel mean that Epic tends to work better here IMO.

I was playing at Epic speed. Still too quick. Standard sized maps too, perhaps large would work best?

We want Water to feel like the binding factor most of the time, to make water really feel rare. If you start reducing happiness access, then water is less important, because you couldn't grow above happy-cap anyway. You can't really have both water *and* happiness be binding constraints.

Also, happiness can be pretty tough to get if you don't use Hereditary rule and do get big terraformed cities.

Ah, that's a pretty good reason then

Do you have any suggestions for particular happiness sources you think should be removed?
I could see the happy from diamond resource disappear, and have that just be tile yield and lasgun strategic resource.

Hmm, I'm not sure. I'd say removing the happy bonus from Diamonds is a good idea; I don't have any other.