Version 1.7 feedback

[Pickly]

Something I've noticed:

Spice worker automation is still a bit goofy, in that if the automation button is pressed while the spice worker is in a city, the worker often seems to just stay in the city. (It has improved significantly, though, as when automation is activated on a spice tile, the automation works great.)

As for fremen and vehicles: Removing thopters (or at least carryalls) seem a bit much to me, unless fremen infantry units are adjusted so that all of them can cross the desert. (Since a lot of the units don't seem to get the promotion that lets them capture worms.) Removing space ports also seems really iffy to me, since spaceports are quite useful for defense, or offensively on larger maps for moving things around quickly.


Otherwise, I've been enjoying the changes, and figuring out how to use them. As usual, the mod's been quite fun.

 

[Pickly]

Something else: In a game I was playing with the state religion as Mahdi, inquisition does not remove the religion from cities without Mahdi. I am not sure if this is how inquisition is supposed to work, if this is a recent bug, or if it is the older bug that got introduced. It does make it harder to spread Mahdi through non-conquered cities, though.

 

[Deliverator]

AHR211
Sandrider should not give double moves in polar desert waste, and the icon should stay normal, not change to the worm-rider icon.
No worms in the pole, too much water.

This will all be fixed in my next patch. I've added a bWormFriendly tag to TerrainInfos to indicate which terrains worms can move in. Wild worms will only enter tiles that are both worm-friendly and have no fresh water nearby. This allows me to prevent wild worms from entering polar desert waste and to switch the Worm Rider art off on polar desert waste.

I've also fixed the spice slowing down Sandrider promotion units. This can be done via XML by adding this to the Sandrider PromotionInfo:

			<FeatureDoubleMoves>
				<FeatureDoubleMove>
					<FeatureType>FEATURE_SPICE</FeatureType>
					<bFeatureDoubleMove>1</bFeatureDoubleMove>
				</FeatureDoubleMove>		
			</FeatureDoubleMoves>

I've also set the additional movement cost of the Spice to 0 from 1. I don't think the Spice should slow anything down. If we need to slow down Harvester creation then we can tweak the build time.

 

[Ahriman]

Great!

However, just to clarify: I think we still want sandrider units to use the worm art and get double moves on desert waste tiles that have fresh water access (near a well or catchbasin/reservoir).

There's no visual indicator of fresh water status, so it would be too confusing otherwise.

It sounds like you still have this?

 

[Deliverator]

However, just to clarify: I think we still want sandrider units to use the worm art and get double moves on desert waste tiles that have fresh water access (near a well or catchbasin/reservoir).

There's no visual indicator of fresh water status, so it would be too confusing otherwise.

It sounds like you still have this?

Yes, sandrider units will still use worm art and get double moves on desert waste even it's near fresh water. It's only that wild worms won't move into tiles near fresh water (which is how things work now).

 

[Deliverator]

What should we do about the Spice Purifier and Water Refinery buildings? These are both a bit odd conceptually.

Perhaps we can reconsider the Refining Techniques tech where both of these are as well.

 

[Ahriman]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Spice purifier is a fine name for a building, but I dislike the effect.

I like the effect of the water refinery (in terms of having a late-game water booster), but the name doesn't make any sense [how do you refine water? You can distill it to desalinate or something, but not really refine it.]

Refining techniques is fine as a tech name, IF it actually was referring to spice refining.

No obvious answers, I'll think about it.

 

[Ahriman]

I just had an idea for the Spice Purifier building; how about it gives 1 free spice resource? So if you build 1 in each of 10 cities, thats 10 free spice.

Simple, flavorful, powerful, balance it using hammer cost.
And somewhat distinct from the spice silo building.

Thoughts?

 

[Ahriman]

Issue: Diamond resource has no early game purpose. Its a strategic resource that does nothing except allow late-game lasgun units.
Its a weak resource, especially compared to nitrates, which are needed for many early game units, AND gives a health bonus.

Proposal Alternative 1: Make Diamond resource required for Quad unit. Reduce quad hammer cost slightly (it is very high atm to prevent too much early-game massing).
Remove health bonus from nitrates.

Proposal alternative 2: Make rocket trooper, missile trooper and rocket launcher require nitrates OR diamonds. Remove health bonus from nitrates.

I am working on a general reworking of Health too.

 

[Jester Fool]

I just had an idea for the Spice Purifier building; how about it gives 1 free spice resource? So if you build 1 in each of 10 cities, thats 10 free spice.

Simple, flavorful, powerful, balance it using hammer cost.
And somewhat distinct from the spice silo building.

Thoughts?

I totally agree that the Spice Purifier building is lame. IMO, it doesn't make sense that the building 'as is' just removes unhealthiness caused by buildings. Also, I don't remember ever capturing an enemy city that had a Spice Purifier built. I assume that the AI doesn't consider the building helpful? I like your idea much better. Consider - there would be a synergesic effect with Spice Silos and the likelihood that the AI would build them should be much higher as a result. Just my two cents

 

[Jester Fool]

Issue: Diamond resource has no early game purpose. Its a strategic resource that does nothing except allow late-game lasgun units.
Its a weak resource, especially compared to nitrates, which are needed for many early game units, AND gives a health bonus.

Proposal Alternative 1: Make Diamond resource required for Quad unit. Reduce quad hammer cost slightly (it is very high atm to prevent too much early-game massing).
Remove health bonus from nitrates.

Proposal alternative 2: Make rocket trooper, missile trooper and rocket launcher require nitrates OR diamonds. Remove health bonus from nitrates.

I am working on a general reworking of Health too.

I don't know if it would be a good idea to remove the health benefit from nitrates. Early in the game, health is a major problem, especially if playing on the higher levels. It is absolutely no fun to have cities that are limited to size 2 (or even less) while the AI gets size 4 or greater. Having said that, if health is reworked, then the situation might not be as critical.

 

[Deliverator]

Proposal Alternative 1: Make Diamond resource required for Quad unit. Reduce quad hammer cost slightly (it is very high atm to prevent too much early-game massing).
Remove health bonus from nitrates.

I think I prefer this option of the two.

I am working on a general reworking of Health too.

I should have a fairly substantial patch ready by sometime on the weekend, with quite a long list of stuff, both art and gameplay changes.

This will include the fresh water reworking, melting lens improvement and late game forests. I like the idea of having Grassland terrain and Forest give health bonuses to nearby cities - the opposite of vanilla jungles basically. I've set Grassland to give +0.25 health per tile and Forests to give +0.5 health per tile. Forests can only appear in Sink so there shouldn't be too many. If we make health from buildings and bonus resources harder to come by then this will give Arrakis Paradise a further boost.

I just had an idea for the Spice Purifier building; how about it gives 1 free spice resource? So if you build 1 in each of 10 cities, thats 10 free spice.

Simple, flavorful, powerful, balance it using hammer cost.
And somewhat distinct from the spice silo building.

Thoughts?

Sounds OK. Might make having an existing Spice Bonus a requirement - by that stage in the game most people should have one anyway.

For the Water Refinery we could use the name Qanat seeing as we aren't using that anymore.

 

[Ahriman]

Early in the game, health is a major problem, especially if playing on the higher levels. It is absolutely no fun to have cities that are limited to size 2 (or even less) while the AI gets size 4 or greater. Having said that, if health is reworked, then the situation might not be as critical.

Health should be at least something of an issue. Atm it plays almost no issue.
If your cities are limited to size 2 or less (is that even possible?) then you're building them in sites without sufficient water.
I play regularly on Emperor and sometimes on Immortal, and don't find health that big of a deal.
I think making expansive trait and the trade techs valuable in the early game is also good.

My main goal with a health redesign was to reduce the number of "free" health you got simply from economy buildings (water cache, merchant quarter), and to require health bonuses to actually require an infrastructure investment.

I think I prefer this option of the two.

Me too. Just wanted to give some options.

I should have a fairly substantial patch ready by sometime on the weekend, with quite a long list of stuff, both art and gameplay changes.

Awesome!

the opposite of vanilla jungles basically. I've set Grassland to give +0.25 health per tile and Forests to give +0.5 health per tile

Hmm. The forest health seems good, but I worry that the grassland health is too much. In particular, they'll stack, so a grassland forest gives +0.75 health. So a city with 12 grassland tiles and 4 forests will have 5 health free.

This makes the Golden Path building fairly weak/unnecessary.

I don't think that grasslands really need to give health, they already give a large water bonus (particularly with the +15% multipliers), and health is really just a water bonus. I'd leave it with +0.5 for forests but nothing for grassland. That way the player still has to invest in some kind of health resources to get really large cities growing fast.

Might make having an existing Spice Bonus a requirement - by that stage in the game most people should have one anyway.

We could add it for flavor, but its a late-midgame tech, so the only way a faction would have no spice is if it were really out of the game already, in which case its harmless.

For the Water Refinery we could use the name Qanat

Done.

 

[Praylak]

My main goal with a health redesign was to reduce the number of "free" health you got simply from economy buildings (water cache, merchant quarter), and to require health bonuses to actually require an infrastructure investment.

Just curious as to why your aiming for this. Is it a lore issue, or do you feel the early game moves too fast?

Funny, I always thought Diamonds served a purpose by providing happiness? They don't seem to be very common, so the suggested change will reduce the presence of Quads, meaning we will rely more on thopters and infantry. Nothing wrong with that I suppose. Should give Atreidies and their Vultures an early game edge, which I'm all for.

 

[davidlallen]

It used to be that nitrates provided health, and diamonds provided happiness. There was feedback that happiness was too easy to get; so I removed the happiness bonus from diamonds in 1.7.2.

 

[Ahriman]

Just curious as to why your aiming for this. Is it a lore issue, or do you feel the early game moves too fast?

I feel that health management is a non-issue beyond the early game, because you solve your health issue largely by constructing buildings (like the water cache and merchant quarter) that you were going to build anyway.

And those health sources aren't particularly logical either, they're remnants from 'porting the granary and grocer building from vanilla. This mod was built on a vanilla core, and has assumed its current shape through incremental redesigns over time.

I think there are more interesting strategic tradeoffs when you have to decide which investment to make, and which problems to solve, rather than just getting health fixed free along the way.
Health is also a way, when done right, to make water feel even more scarce.

There was feedback that happiness was too easy to get; so I removed the happiness bonus from diamonds in 1.7.2.

I still think this was a good change.

 

[Ahriman]

Another thought; I think we should remove the Dates from the Palmary building.
I realize the intent was flavorful (and dates are delicious), but I think its bad for gameplay, since it devalues the normal dates resource as a trade good by making massive numbers of dates available (2 per city!).

 

[Jester Fool]

I realize the intent was flavorful (and dates are delicious)

, but I think its bad for gameplay, since it devalues the normal dates resource as a trade good by making massive numbers of dates available (2 per city!).

I tend to agree. Quite excessive. It makes me think 'Date Wars' for some reason.

 

[Deliverator]

Feedback relating to 1.7.3.2:

It looks from your screenshots like this is slightly different, and that moisture in a tile does not even provide irrigation in adjacent tiles.

I think this is because the "has fresh water" check used to look to see if any adjacent tile had fresh water. Now, it only checks is the tile itself has fresh water (aka moisture).

So, best fix is probably to remove (redundant) moisture from windtrap (or keep it, I don't mind), but to return shallow well to range 1.

I think this is the best way forward. I think it would be nice if shallow wells didn't destroy adjacent spice, but since we are using the same fresh water/moisture mechanism to kill spice and boost cottages we can't have it both ways. Just change the iAddsFreshWaterInRadius in ImprovementInfos for Shallow Well from 0 to 1.

I might take a look at the SDK. It is probably possible to hijack the Irrigation check for cottages so that it looks for moisture in adjacent plots. Then Shallow Well can stay at zero tile radius moisture and not destroy any spice. I think this solution would be best of all.

[On Slig Charcutery] I don't feel strongly in any case. Butcher doesn't feel right though. Slaughterhouse... maybe.
Is there a way we could get this building to provide gold for the Tleilaxu player rather than happy? They don't eat the Sligs. Very minor fluff issue though, might be simpler to leave it as is.

The Tleilaxu player can't build the Charcutery so they already cannot get happy from Slig, only gold - the fluff issue was part of the concept. This is why I suggested we change the AITradeWeight to make them trade it away really easily. (Actually, they can still get some happy if they build the Great Banqueting Hall).

 

[Deliverator]

Ran a quick 300 turn autoplay on the new installer version of 1.7.3.2.

1. Harkonnen and Technocracy-following Fremen miles ahead of the pack which is interesting considering previous concerns about their weakness in the hands of the AI. Could be a rogue value I suppose.

2. As Ahriman says, with the change to the way irrigation is working the AI is favouring solar farms everywhere over cottages.

3. The AI seems to build forts on bonus resources outside of cities' BFCs rather than hook them up. You can clearly see that in this screenshot.

Spoiler :

4. Forest emergence is working in Fremen lands. We need to fix the tree-cutting on probably all our improvements, but that is doable.

Spoiler :

5. Melting Lenses being built on Polar Ice:

Spoiler :

6. Semuta Supplier at Ecaz capital had +18 gold from worldwide Semuta Dens.

7. Slig Breeders in Tleilaxu city had zero gold - the are not on good enough terms with anyone to trade it away. AITradeWeight tweak should be tested.

8. The AI is building and deploying Mentats.