Planetfall, the Alpha Centauri total conversion mod for Civ4 BtS

[Maniac]

Patch 16d for Planetfall, the Alpha Centauri total conversion mod for Civ4 BtS, has been released. This patch needs to be applied on top of the main v16 file of Planetfall. Patch d breaks games started under the previous patches.

Some screenshots from my v16d test game:



Changelog:

1. The threshold (initial and increase) for the Believer cultural golden age has been doubled.
2. The Believer's state religion's shrine produces +1 culture per base with the religion (when the shrine is in Believer hands of course).
3. The Believer combat bonus against factions which don't share its state religion has been reduced to +10%.
4. The Bioreactor and Atmospheric Processor now provide a Psych Chaplain slot.
5. Morgan gets two unique buildings: Morgan Entertainment replaces Rec Commons and provides a happiness resource of the same name. Morgan Pharmaceuticals replaces Children's Creche, provides a health resource of the same name and gives a Merchant specialist slot. Both buildings can be hurried with credits without having Nanites.
6. Morgan's -10% to military production has been removed.
7. Morgan gets double income from foreign trade routes, and +50% income from domestic trade routes. Morgan's trade partner also profits +50%.
8. Peace trade modifier limited to +100% instead of +150%.
9. Human players sharing the same state religion will gain a +50% bonus to trade routes between them.
10. The trade route bonus with the AI depends on the AI Attitude: +/-10% for every +/-1 attitude towards the partner.
11. The Chopper unity pod result has been turned into a unique result: only one can be popped.
12. Native Life can now spawn from unity pods.
13. Unity Rovers are no longer immune from bad unity pod results upon popping.
14. Units, with the exception of formers and aquaformers, can no longer be popped from unity pods near your Headquarters.
15. The Marine line of units get +25% defense vs. Isles of the Deep and Sealurks.
16. Removed the +1 Planet from all Headquarters.
17. Non-combat units can't pick the Scavenger special ability.
18. Interface: fixed the Believer cultural golden age string.
19. Interface: "corporations" show correct yield/commerce increase.
20. Bug fix: Unity Library gives free tech correctly in PBEMs.

[Maniac]

PBEM players should make a copy of their Planetfall folder with a different name and install the patch there to.

Some notes from my Believer game:

Assuming 1 mineral = 2 credits, so far I've more or less been getting a quarter of the invested culture back from golden ages. Eg the next golden age caused at the 5000 threshold will result in the equivalent of 1400 credits gained in yield. (My very rough calculation is [# of cities + # of citizens] * 3). This means that pre-Park/Fundy, one culture is worth a quarter of a credit. Or post-Park/Fundy, 2 culture = 1 credit. This doesn't immediately strike me as unbalanced. Eg then the Chaplain specialist provides the equivalent of 2 credits.

Of course this is in a Hybrid game. Perhaps the yield benefit per culture invested will be much higher in a Terraformer game. Additional quantitative data from you guys in the form of how much [# of cities + # of citizens] you had when the golden age of what certain threshold fired is always welcome.

I've had a note on my to-do list (for a couple years now ) to let the settled great psych chaplain provide happiness. Letting it provide +2 and +4 culture instead of +12 culture would make that great person more desirable for everyone (but the Believers in a Hybrid game...), and counter a snowball effect from all those great psych chaplains the believers get.

***

I've added some very basic code to make the AI more likely to sign defensive pacts with other factions with a weak military power. So far however I've been seeing 3 different factions vassalizing themselves voluntarily to the Hive, which happens to be the militarily most powerful faction... If anything, the factions should be signing defensive pacts to counter the Hive. I don't know yet if this is just vanilla vassalization code working, or if my new code isn't working properly. In any case, being surrounded by a Hive-Morgan-Sparta alliance is keeping my game challenging. (Luttinen broke her voluntary vassalization again.)

For now I just copied some Better AI code to determine when a faction has conquest plans. However that code isn't really tuned to the early game, or for the iPower values units in Planetfall have. Having no experience myself in early rushing, I'd appreciate saves of just prior to your first, second, third... early-rush declaration of war.

[Selrahc]

So I decided to run an espionage game. Played Sinder Roze, got one hell of a peach of a capital. Unity Library->Nanominituarization on T27. Started stealing technology from a very close Zakh AI. I'd call it pretty optimal conditions... I wasn't really causing as much of a storm as I would have by just walking around the map with Siege tanks/Genites, but it was quite fun.

Then Zakh researched mobility, and started building rovers. And they just murdered all my Probe Teams. So... It isn't documented but I'm guessing Vanguard units can see Espionage. Which makes espionage utterly useless, since it's really easy to just throw one Vanguard unit into every city and shut down espionage.

Or is there another explanation? I definitely think it should be harder than that to shut down Espionage Economies.

[Maniac]

Probe Teams can be spotted by other probe teams and units with the hunter-seeker algorithms. Does Zak have any of these? When spotted they can be destroyed by any unit.
I guess you know, but just to be sure, the UI tells you in capital green letters if you're currently invisible to everyone.

[Selrahc]

Ah. That makes sense. Zakh does have a probe team. I guess that's less problematic, since Probe team numbers are limited by espionage spending.

[Maniac]

Yep that's the idea. A game of hide and seek between the limited number of probe teams the factions have.

[Sareln]

There's an improvement UI bug where if you mouseover the improvement button with a former in a tile that cannot be worked by one of your bases (but is within your borders) it will return the yield you'd get if you had all the techs and bonuses (including Morgan Corps) rather than the yield you'll actually get.

[spellman]

Tech trading strongly encourages cooperation, but lack of tech trading seems to strongly encourage conflict. My impression is the PBEMs here might as well be Always War games. Is this what you and most other players are looking for? Personally I'd like to play a game in which *both* conflict and cooperation are valid options.

A question by the way: unless in Planetfall you're Transcending of course, only one player can win. Doesn't this mean that cartels can only ever be temporary arrangements, and eventually conflict between the former partners will erupt?

Nope. Most PBEMs actually have very nice agreements when not forced into Public-Only Diplo. Non-Aggression Pacts, city trades, and the like are actually quite common. Heck, one of the FfH PBEMs resulted in one player being sheltered by another and provided a new settlement region in exchange for their permanent aid. But, as you say, eventually things tend to devolve into war since there can only be one winner.

The point isn't that people can/cannot cooperate. It's just that forming two monolithic tech blocks is not fun to most people. Cooperation typically happens not by trading tech but by forming NAP blocks or deciding together to invade someone else. All while paying close attention to when the NAP ends and making sure a dagger isn't positioned in your back. In a tech-trading game, each side is more solidified and only devolves AFTER eliminating the other bloc.

[v8mark]

Just read Pitboss 3; it's one of the most devastating arguments against tech trading that it's possible to make.

[Selrahc]

So I still think Fungicide and Grenade Fruits should be revealed by default. Xenobiology and Soil Enrichment are such core techs that you're not really going to want to delay them whatever happens. I think unrevealed food resources just really futz up starting locations balance too much. And it's just an odd gameplay choice. Every resource in the game starts out revealed... apart from the early food resources that will be critical to deciding where to plant your capital and dotmap your first cities?

I'd highly recommend having them be unveiled from the start.