Planetfall, the Alpha Centauri total conversion mod for Civ4 BtS

[Bobchillingworth]

One thing I've noticed is that Sven has a really tough time getting off the ground. His cities generally have very little production, being ocean-based. with the tech for mining platforms taking dozens of turns to research. He also has his cities fall into unhealth after the first population growth, since sea-based health resources are so rare and it takes him a long time to produce bio labs and infirmaries. And it is also very difficult for Sven to expand safely, as none of his boat units defend particularly well against Isles of the Deep, all of Sven's boats take a long time to produce, and he gets swarmed by tons of native life early. Running a pro-planet set up would help, since Empathy Isles are perfect for fighting off anything in the water, but it's very difficult for the Pirates to collect Planet bonuses while having any sort of productive industry, and if you spawn in an area without much seafungus there's really nothing you can do.


Oh, and unlocking Subs really hurts him, since at that point he lacks any sort of cheap garrison unit to protect against sea attacks.


I think he needs more bonuses. +1 or 2 health in every city would help a lot. Getting double production on boat units would be fantastic, since right now it is impossible to fight a cost-effective war vs. the Planet. Maybe even a free Perimeter Defense for every ocean city.

[superjm]

Played a couple games of this. From the perspective of an SP player using the settings recommended by the mod-creatoer, Miriam really is easy mode. It's crazy how ridiculous she is from mid-to-late game if you survive the cramped start. I did planet-happy Miriam and between the eternal golden ages (requiring no more extra work on my park than putting parks and other culture buildings everywhere and running Fundamentalist), the nearly endless stream of great people (including so many transcends one of my main cities was somewhere in the area of 120+ planet happy, and it easily could have been higher), enough planet happy that my production rate couldn't hope to live up to the native life cap, and constantly bulbing late planet techs fast enough that I could trade to maintain tech parity with everyone easily, the only thing to worry about was how many factions I could vassalize before stumbling into a victory condition. Then again, this was on Monarch, but I can't imagine the extra AI bonuses even coming close to matching perma golden ages beyond the initial start even then. It seems with Miriam ICS is the way to go because you want to pump out as much culture as humanly possible.

I was actually aiming for transcendence victory, but my tech rate was so fast (courtesy of golden ages getting refreshed ever 6 turns or so) by late game that it ended up being *too slow* and I just built the gate instead. Speaking of which, it seems like the gate victory is the de facto "finish the tech tree" path, but is it meant to be that easy? The gate costs are negligible by that point in the game and even still, there's a wonder that gives them away for free anyway. The final wonder isn't terribly expensive either, and that's discounting the fact that you can cash rush ALL of the above. With late-game economy, the only bottleneck to winning the game at that point is how quickly you can research Singularity Mechanics.

Lastly, I ran into a bug, although I'm not sure if it was fixed in the past-16 patches since those weren't installed. The game hanged in-between turns forcing me to reload a previous save. After some experimenting I found that it occurred shortly after peacing out/vassaling a then-single-city Lal. Taking him out completely was the only way to avoid the hang. I can give you the save file this occured in if you want, so you can see if it's something that needs to be looked at.

I also played some Zahkarov and echo the sentiments that he's pretty boring to play as. 20% research + brokering abilities is nice I guess.

All that said I do like the mod and hope you're active in making it even better in the future.

[Sareln]

Zakharov has the "Organized" Problem. He may have useful abilities, but except for the ability to broker when others can't all his abilities just make standard play better. You don't have to play to his ability so much as just play and enjoy the passive benefits.

[Bobchillingworth]

To be fair, Zak is also Planetfall's tank-line specialist, for whatever that's worth.



I agree that Miriam is way too good. Playing an Immortal-level game with her, I've been in a continual golden age since turn 80 or so. Fantacism + Edenism + Park (+ Psych Chaplin Specialist from the Park) = tons of culture even in new cities. And since Edenism appears to be the least-favorite AI religion, I'm enjoying significant combat bonuses against everyone. At one point half the world spontaneously declared on me, and I've been killing FFH quantities of units with no sweat.

[Selrahc]

The only really bad thing with Miriam is that she doesn't have much going for her in the pre-religions early game. +1 happy, +25% to former build speed, balanced up against -1 planet.

Brainstorming, I came up with a few ideas to pump up some of the lesser leaders.

Zakharov: Free Network Nodes in every base. Special University Network nodes that allow you to hire scientists instead of librarians.

Lal: I initially thought the "Free Specialist" was something that only Lal got. I think making the UN get 2 free specialists in every base instead of one would be fitting, and a useful synergy with their +100% GPP.

Santiago: Free special ability slot on every unit. This makes Santiago the definite choice for a quality military.

Morgan: BTS style financial. +1 energy on all squares producing 2 or more.

[superjm]

The only really bad thing with Miriam is that she doesn't have much going for her in the pre-religions early game. +1 happy, +25% to former build speed, balanced up against -1 planet.

This is true to an extent. Zakharov clearly outtechs her. Deirdre has early cultural dominance and shrugs off an early fungal start. Yang can conjur up an army out of thin air when other teams are just getting their first few impact troopers out and is defended well against early rushes. Santiago is about on par and Morgan/Lal suck at the start. With everyone starting so close together and culture hard to come by unless you start planet hugging right away, a bad start could derail Miriam before she ever gets going. Unfortunately, the AI isn't nearly smart enough to exploit this and I'm assuming multiplayer games are just going to scatter everyone, which means Miriam will have plenty of breathing room to do her thing.

[Bobchillingworth]

I don't think that a lot of those advantages even exist though, at least not to the extent you imply.

Zakharov clearly outtechs her.

For the first 60-80 turns, sure. After that, no way. Constant golden age means she's earning high tile yields every turn, and she's getting double great generation. 20% extra science doesn't compare.

Deirdre has early cultural dominance and shrugs off an early fungal start.

Deedee's extra culture is extremely minimal, means very little in practical terms, and it isn't even guaranteed that she'll generate more than everyone else (for example, if Miriam happens to start next to the Ruins). As for Mindworm relations, the Gaians get attacked as much as anyone else. The only difference is that they usually won't have badguys spawn in their territory, but that's an issue easily resolved for the Believers by either beelining the Terraformed civic or following Voice of the Planet.

Yang can conjur up an army out of thin air

Yang can certainly spam troops better than Miriam, at least until her golden age chain begins, no doubt about that. But they are low-quality troops, and once Mirriam gets a religion, she'll cut through Yang's men like a flaming sword through melting butter.

Santiago is about on par

Santiago is a better early rusher, but once Miriam has religion, her troops are better, since Santiago's myriad unit bonuses are all individually weak and combined are still pretty mediocre.

[superjm]

Well I assumed the discussion was about the very start before Miriam gets her religion and goes to town. Obviously once she gets there all those other advantages start to pale in comparison to the Miriam juggernaut.

[Maniac]

So then what you have is instead of incrementing the threshold every time there is a golden age, you want to increment the threshold every-time they gain a base.

That would shoehorn the Believers too much into vertical/tall expansion (few big cities) I think. For most factions I want their traits to still allow them to both follow a Hybrid/horizontal expansion/wide strategy or a Terraformer/vertical expansion/tall strategy.

Your reaction could be "instead of doubling/tripling the threshold when they build their 2nd/3th base, the threshold could increase +15% or +30% per city." I fear such a discussion will end up in something complicated like Civ5 has. I prefer being able to calculate easily in advance what the next threshold will be.

I'll just double the initial threshold and threshold increase for the cultural golden age, and see what gives.

One thing I've noticed is that Sven has a really tough time getting off the ground.

Are you basing these recommendations on personal play experience as the Pirates, or on watching AI performance? I ask because my game as the Pirates in my PBEM is going just fine. (Though that free Naval Fortress-promoted Bunker they get in their HQ has certainly been a life saver.) If it's only an AI problem, then it's only AI code which should be improved.

Speaking of which, it seems like the gate victory is the de facto "finish the tech tree" path, but is it meant to be that easy? The gate costs are negligible by that point in the game and even still, there's a wonder that gives them away for free anyway. The final wonder isn't terribly expensive either, and that's discounting the fact that you can cash rush ALL of the above. With late-game economy, the only bottleneck to winning the game at that point is how quickly you can research Singularity Mechanics.

The endgame, including the cost of that victory condition, got less attention, because I never reached that point of the game - I always had accumulated too many ideas to improve the game and couldn't resist the urge to go back to coding. So suggestions for a changed cost are certainly welcome.

I can give you the save file this occured in if you want, so you can see if it's something that needs to be looked at.

Alas, I'd need a v16c save to be able to debug.

Zakharov: Free Network Nodes in every base. Special University Network nodes that allow you to hire scientists instead of librarians.

Lal: I initially thought the "Free Specialist" was something that only Lal got. I think making the UN get 2 free specialists in every base instead of one would be fitting, and a useful synergy with their +100% GPP.

I fear those boni would make the factions too ICS-friendly. See my comment above about prefering to keep both tall/terraformer and wide/hybrid strategies viable.

Santiago: Free special ability slot on every unit. This makes Santiago the definite choice for a quality military.

Santiago already gets that in an indirect way by having +100% great general production. Great generals allow you to create one of three different academies which provide an extra spec ab slot to some unitcombattypes.

Morgan: BTS style financial. +1 energy on all squares producing 2 or more.[/quote]

Wouldn't that make the Morganites too much "the windmill faction"? Doesn't make thematic sense like the link between financial and towns in vanilla.

I see Morgan as the "gold/credit faction" and the "trade with others faction". Perhaps to strengthen the "trade with others" theme, the Morganites could get two unique buildings, called Morgan Entertainment and Morgan Pharmaceuticals or so, which provides respectively a happiness and health resource of the same name. Thus encouraging peaceful trading for the Morganites, and making Morgan an attractive source of unique resources for the other factions.

What are people's thoughts about a previous post of mine by the way?:

9) People have commented that the Morganic foreign trade bonus and the University tech brokering bonus is actually a penalty in multiplayer. I'm wondering, if the other partner in the deal also got a benefit, be it a smaller one, would humans then be willing to trade with the Morganites and University after all?

For instance, trade routes with the Morganites could get a +25% bonus (+100% for Morgan), and so be more profitable than those with other factions.

For Zakharov, perhaps if techs are traded, both trade partners could get a lump sum of research points added to their current research project?

[superjm]

Wouldn't that make the Morganites too much "the windmill faction"? Doesn't make thematic sense like the link between financial and towns in vanilla.

I can understand the difficulty in reconciling the flavor of the mod with the balance. It's an ongoing problem that what may make sense from a thematic standpoint doesn't when put into a competitive context, and vice versa.

Regarding the last quote, I'm no expert so these are just some of the first suggestions that come to mind.

Morgan: Foreign trade routes are always active, even with closed borders(/war?).
Zakharov: Double prereq/known civ bonuses, while other civs get a higher-than-normal known civ bonus from zak specifically.